Why the different animation styles for the TV series?

[Saiyajin no Tatsujin]

My apologies if this topic has already been brought up in the past. But, I've always wondered about this. Maybe the knowledgeable enthusiasts, here, can help me understand.

We're all aware that our beloved anime has some shitty-looking episodes here and there. But why was it like this?

Why couldn't there have been just one, or even just two, animation artist(s) that worked on the DB and DBZ series' (even DBGT)??

Seems like there were maybe 5 or 6 different artists in total. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Craddle]

We're all aware that our beloved anime has some shitty-looking episodes here and there. But why was it like this?

Are you referring to the different animation styles of each animator? (Just want to be sure before responding.)

[Pokewhiz7]

Why couldn't there have been just one, or even just two, animation artist(s) that worked on the DB and DBZ series' (even DBGT)??

Seems like there were maybe 5 or 6 different artists in total. Correct me if I'm wrong.

There's a lot more than 5 or 6. And it's not just artists, it's entire studios. Why it couldn't have been just two, I'm going to assume because that way it would take forever to get to places. Here, you just assign each studio a few episodes and it gets done faster. Everything had to be done on a weekly basis, which is also why it tends to look like ass.

[Craddle]

Why couldn't there have been just one, or even just two, animation artist(s) that worked on the DB and DBZ series' (even DBGT)??

Seems like there were maybe 5 or 6 different artists in total. Correct me if I'm wrong.

There's a lot more than 5 or 6.

I didn't bother to count, but it may be in the thousands.

http://www.kanzentai.com/production.php

If you go to the bottom of that page and click the credits for each section and add each of them up, I bet it's close.

They were very vague in their OP.

[Saiyajin no Tatsujin]

I've been watching my Dragon Boxes, and it just frustrates me to watch some great looking animation, but then the next episode will look horrible compared to it. Know what I mean?

[Saiyajin no Tatsujin]

We're all aware that our beloved anime has some shitty-looking episodes here and there. But why was it like this?

Are you referring to the different animation styles of each animator? (Just want to be sure before responding.)

Whatever. I just want to know why all the episode couldn't look the same, animation-wise. That's all.

[Pokewhiz7]

I've been watching my Dragon Boxes, and it just frustrates me to watch some great looking animation, but then the next episode will look horrible compared to it. Know what I mean?

It's even worse in Kai when you have good animation and then bad animation literally a second later.

[Kiddo626]

I've been watching my Dragon Boxes, and it just frustrates me to watch some great looking animation, but then the next episode will look horrible compared to it. Know what I mean?

That's common in most long-running series. I've seen the same thing in a lot of shows: Naruto, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. It's not just a DBZ thing; it's more of a cost-cutting, time-saving measure than anything, especially since there are no season breaks in Japan as there are here in America.

[Saiyajin no Tatsujin]

I've been watching my Dragon Boxes, and it just frustrates me to watch some great looking animation, but then the next episode will look horrible compared to it. Know what I mean?

That's common in most long-running series. I've seen the same thing in a lot of shows: Naruto, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. It's not just a DBZ thing; it's more of a cost-cutting, time-saving measure than anything, especially since there are no season breaks in Japan as there are here in America.

Yeah. You have a good point there. I'm not into anime that much where I've seen a lot of other series'. So, I wasn't aware that it wasn't just a DBZ thing. Makes sense.

[kidglov3s]

Does anyone know the deal with the super saiyan hair inconsistencies? Like sometimes it's gold and shadowed, and I think that looks great and has a wonderful sense of depth and dimension. Then other times it's white and flat, and I think that it looks really awful. I think it's one of the biggest reasons why I don't like the middle hundred or so episodes as much as the first (saiyans-Freeza) or third (Buu). Everyone was super saiyan all the time and it was this white hair and I found it unappealing.

[Perfect]

The hair's gold when there's some sort of an aura around them and white when there's not. The depth of the hair depends entirely on the animation studio.

[Gaffer Tape]

I've been watching my Dragon Boxes, and it just frustrates me to watch some great looking animation, but then the next episode will look horrible compared to it. Know what I mean?

That's common in most long-running series. I've seen the same thing in a lot of shows: Naruto, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. It's not just a DBZ thing; it's more of a cost-cutting, time-saving measure than anything, especially since there are no season breaks in Japan as there are here in America.

Yeah. You have a good point there. I'm not into anime that much where I've seen a lot of other series'. So, I wasn't aware that it wasn't just a DBZ thing. Makes sense.

It's not even just an anime thing. It's standard practice in American cartoons as well. It's just not something one tends to notice all that much as a child. But now that I'm an adult, I look back at cartoons I saw as a kid and can't believe I couldn't tell how different the animation looked from episode to episode of, say, Batman The Animated Series. It's just what you have to do to meet deadlines.

[dbboxkaifan]

The animation of some early Namek episodes (Vegeta) did look odd, but more did on GT and DBZ EoB, which I wasn't very happy about.

[jjgp1112]

The series was being produced on a limited budget, and aired on a weekly basis with no seasonal breaks. 1 or 2 studios wouldn't be able to handle that load, so they distribute it among multiple studios, and to save money, they hire a few that are subpar.

[Attitudefan]

Get rid of Last House studio and the series would look fine. The triangle crap episodes usually look good in Dragonball, not so much in Z.

[NitroEX]

I think we've all noticed it especially now that we're older. There are episodes that are just beautiful to watch like the one where Freeza get's sliced in half or when 17 get's absorbed. Other times it just looks like poorly drawn fan art.

[Saiyajin no Tatsujin]

Yeah. I guess it's just me paying more attention to detail now that I'm going back and watching the Z series all over again with the DBoxes, where as when I was younger, and watching these episodes for the first time, I was more interested in knowing what was going to happen next.

I don't mean to nitpick at my most favorite anime/cartoon like this. I just had to know why.

Thanks for all your replies, guys.

[Bejiita]

It's all down to time and money. The episodes with lower quality animation that look cheap are just that itself, cheap. You can see how 'important' episodes are usually done by the better studios, and episodes which have a lot of stills and talking rather than fighting/action are done by the shit studios. Since the manga was always there for the artists to copy, there's parts which even the worst studio still made ok-ish, but when a bad studio does filler the crap-ness really shows. Note, the episode where they're inside Buu's body, Goku and Vegeta touching cheeks, yeah that episode had some really badly drawn art, and there are many others.

[Saiyajin no Tatsujin]

I know what you mean, Bejita. I was kind of assuming that before I made this topic (time and money).

Ain't it crazy, though, how some of the ok'ish looking episodes had some of the craziest action sequences in them (i.e the fight between Piccolo and No. 17)?

[Attitudefan]

I know what you mean, Bejita. I was kind of assuming that before I made this topic (time and money).

Ain't it crazy, though, how some of the ok'ish looking episodes had some of the craziest action sequences in them (i.e the fight between Piccolo and No. 17)?

King Piccolo's fight got the low quality episodes while his minion's Tambourine and Drum got the highest quality studios to do the work. That's an odd choice.