Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[emi_b7]

I think this episode is my favorite so far, the animation was great.
The animators must LOVE Hit, not only is his ability super cool, they also don't have to draw/animate his punches because we can't see them

[PMD]

Holly hell!! I'm so hyped I can't even write right now! This is by far the best episode of DBS in terms of animation. Hit vs Vegeta and Goku fights were UNBELIEVABLE!!!

-----

Ok, I watched again, and to add something to the Tate style discussion, the only think I don't like about his episodes is the use of perspective in some shots, which have some ugly drawings, like these:

Spoiler:

Other than that, Tate always delivers.

[Bullza]

I thought the animation was good but Episode 1 and 2 had movie level animation so they're the best surely?

[ParkerAL]

Thank goodness we finally received an episode in the Champa tournament with truly exceptional animation paired with top-notch camerawork. I enjoyed the workmanlike quality of Cabba's sparring match with Vegeta, but this week's fights were far more interesting to watch. If only the artwork had been a tad neater on average, I could praise Super's 38th inequitably.

As much as I adore the motion and personality in Tate's cuts, I do think he can get carried away with expressive flamboyance from time to time. His deliberate distortions maybe aren't the best fit for Dragon Ball, though I think they can work wonders when used more judiciously. Thankfully, that was mostly the case this week, especially compared to his rather wonky Room of Spirt and Time cut from a few episodes ago.

Did anyone else notice when the episode One-Pieced Vegeta's arms and legs during his fight with Hit? I couldn't help but get distracted whenever that stylistic choice cropped up. Those long limbs don't mesh well with Dragon Ball's aesthetic.

[Ajay]

I thought the animation was good but Episode 1 and 2 had movie level animation so they're the best surely?

What was "movie-level" about episodes one and two? They were on-model, but there wasn't anything noteworthy in them outside of the dinosaur cut.

[PMD]

Did anyone else notice when the episode One-Pieced Vegeta's arms and legs during his fight with Hit? I couldn't help but get distracted whenever that stylistic choice cropped up. Those long limbs don't mesh well with Dragon Ball's aesthetic.

I don't know what are you talking about. Put an image or something.

I rememberg Gohan was in that way in some episode of RoF arc, but in this episode I can't recall.

[Noah]

This episode was good animated, some parts a little bit messed up by Naoki Tate in Vegeta part, but I admit that plenty fluid in Goku part

[Ajay]

Did anyone else notice when the episode One-Pieced Vegeta's arms and legs during his fight with Hit?

I'm not seeing any long limbs in the Vegeta part of the episode.

Though Tate's unique approach to movement was definitely born through working on One Piece, so perhaps that's where you're getting the association?

I'm sure Tate's cut from One Piece #361 will remind a lot of you of the movement featured in Goku's first attempts against Hit.

They're definitely proportionally correct for Dragon Ball, though. Even going frame by frame through the most dynamic of cuts shows correct proportions. Not that animation should really be inspected this way...

[ekrolo2]

Tate's a weird one for me the more I see of him. There's no denying the guy knows how to use motion to make fights look good and for One Piece it works really well but for Dragon Ball? I think it's a bit too.... Loose, I guess? Not bad but there are definitely quite a few shots where the art looks plain bad to me. Specifically the much-lauded cut of his from F, motion wise its great but the art? Yeesh...

[JulieYBM]

Tate's drawings are perfectly fine, they don't match the character designs as much but that's entirely by choice, to say nothing of his drawings being much better than the character designs. At about sixty seconds (plus dialogue scenes) Tate does the highest quantity of good action animation in Dragon Ball Super to date. This episode has been a real victory for the series given everything it has had going against it.

[Blade]

Did anyone else notice when the episode One-Pieced Vegeta's arms and legs during his fight with Hit?

I'm not seeing any long limbs in the Vegeta part of the episode.

Though Tate's unique approach to movement was definitely born through working on One Piece, so perhaps that's where you're getting the association?

I'm sure Tate's cut from One Piece #361 will remind a lot of you of the movement featured in Goku's first attempts against Hit.

They're definitely proportionally correct for Dragon Ball, though. Even going frame by frame through the most dynamic of cuts shows correct proportions. Not that animation should really be inspected this way...

See, that's a good example as to why Tate is so suited to One Piece. The particular fight is a rubber man fighting a shadow man - two physical forms of a volatile nature. In Dragonball, I think Tate could do excellent cuts for a character like Majin Buu - or even just for stuff like blasts and explosions, but I just can't get around how detracting I feel his style is for basic anatomical motion.

I don't think any of the real argument against Tate is artistic or technical, it's all about stylistic suitability and consistency with other animators.

[JulieYBM]

Film isn't about realism. It's about expressing an idea, however you feel like. If we're going to stick with 'realism' then we're going to have to completely disregard many episodes of the first three series (or across the entire Japanese animation industry) where Kanada-style movement is used for battle scenes.

[Blade]

Film isn't about realism. It's about expressing an idea, however you feel like. If we're going to stick with 'realism' then we're going to have to completely disregard many episodes of the first three series (or across the entire Japanese animation industry) where Kanada-style movement is used for battle scenes.

The mandate for a series like Dragonball is consistency. The interjection of Tate's surrealist inklings goes against the grain - just look at the backlash from casual viewers who don't even scrutinise this sort of thing like we do on here. You don't need to be an animation buff to notice the outlying nature of his work, and the very fact that people pick up on it is evidence enough that there's something out of place.

We're not going to go down the whole 'people who criticise Tate's style know nothing about animation, therefore their opinion is invalid' bullshit again. It's a matter of taste, and stylistic suitability is an argument that anyone can weigh into. There's no such thing as a qualified opinion on the matter; deal with it.

[Ajay]

Tate's a weird one for me the more I see of him. There's no denying the guy knows how to use motion to make fights look good and for One Piece it works really well but for Dragon Ball? I think it's a bit too.... Loose, I guess? Not bad but there are definitely quite a few shots where the art looks plain bad to me. Specifically the much-lauded cut of his from F, motion wise its great but the art? Yeesh...

The only part of his F cut (I assume you're talking about #26) that I'd call bad is this. Other than that, the rest is incredible. It was actually included in one of the top Sakuga MADs for 2015. Never in my life did I think something from Dragon Ball Super would be considered good enough to make that. I think that speaks volumes.

And if you'll allow me to speak generally for a moment, using the collective "you" -- the fandom.

I feel like the fandom wants the Mona Lisa, and I can't blame them for that, because Dragon Ball's animation until Battle of Gods was precisely that. It was essentially manga panels with movement. There were ups and downs here and there, but very few parts of the show are particularly impressive, or most importantly, interesting. Of the many hundreds of episodes, the show still only has about 10 entries on the booru -- that is to say, cuts that are genuinely great by both today's standards, and the standards back then. That's not to say the show is badly animated, it's just that it teetered between two levels of quality and never really deviated. Stylistically, it was all quite similar.

Tate's work on Super is like a Jackson Pollock -- a Pollock under a very heavy schedule. It's impossible to outright explain abstract expressionism to people, and even if you could, it's hard to make someone appreciate it. You either get it or you don't -- and that's absolutely 100% fine. I feel like that's the case with Tate. If your taste in art is based around "realism" and you've got no time for extremely expressive works, then I don't think you'll ever get Tate. The aspects of his work that are so wonderful are often subtle -- his smears, his impact frames, the sheer character he injects into the smallest of actions. It all comes together to form such lively cuts. Even if the art can sometimes be unsightly (in a lot of cases due to Super's production), its visual and conceptual appeal totally overrules it.

I just don't just buy into the notion that a series has a specific way of moving. I feel like that argument is thrown at Dragon Ball because it was never a series that had an opportunity do better. We've all grown up with flurries of punches shown as repeated frames, or forced to suspend disbelief while watching very slow movement like the Majin Vegeta vs Goku fight. It's not like Tate's style is particularly new; you had similar stuff as early as 1993. Tate simply brings Dragon Ball up to another level, and gives characters the movement they should have had all along. He exaggerates when necessary, and keeps it grounded when required. Fans wanted animation like One-Punch Man... Well Tate's giving you the closest you're going to get under such a brutal schedule. Where were the complaints when the One-Punch Man team abandoned strict form and went insanely loose? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

I can buy into the idea that characters models should at the very least resemble the show, which is why I took such a big issue with certain cuts in episode 23 and 24. But I don't feel that Tate's work ever crosses that boundary. As I've shown in several gallery links, his keys look like Dragon Ball - they're just not Yamamuro's Dragon Ball. I simply can't accept that a show has to have one defined way of moving. That sounds so horribly restrictive.

It's the same mindset that has caused fans and even professional animators to criticise Yamamuro. It's such a narrow-minded view, and only serves to stifle creativity. Animators want to inject everything they can into a scene; limiting them isn't going to make the show better.

[Bansho64]

I kinda have to say that Tate's cuts do throw me off a bit sometimes. The movement is good but the art is horrid.

[Blade]

Tate's a weird one for me the more I see of him. There's no denying the guy knows how to use motion to make fights look good and for One Piece it works really well but for Dragon Ball? I think it's a bit too.... Loose, I guess? Not bad but there are definitely quite a few shots where the art looks plain bad to me. Specifically the much-lauded cut of his from F, motion wise its great but the art? Yeesh...

The only part of his F cut (I assume you're talking about #26) that I'd call bad is this. Other than that, the rest is incredible. It was actually included in one of the top Sakuga MADs for 2015. Never in my life did I think something from Dragon Ball Super would be considered good enough to make that. I think that speaks volumes.

And if you'll allow me to speak generally for a moment, using the collective "you" -- the fandom.

I feel like the fandom wants the Mona Lisa, and I can't blame them for that, because Dragon Ball's animation until Battle of Gods was precisely that. It was essentially manga panels with movement. There were ups and downs here and there, but very few parts of the show are particularly impressive, or most importantly, interesting. Of the many hundreds of episodes, the show still only has about 10 entries on the booru -- that is to say, cuts that are genuinely great by both today's standards, and the standards back then. That's not to say the show is badly animated, it's just that it teetered between two levels of quality and never really deviated. Stylistically, it was all quite similar.

Tate's work on Super is like a Jackson Pollock -- a Pollock under a very heavy schedule. It's impossible to outright explain abstract expressionism to people, and even if you could, it's hard to make someone appreciate it. You either get it or you don't -- and that's absolutely 100% fine. I feel like that's the case with Tate. If your taste in art is based around "realism" and you've got no time for extremely expressive works, then I don't think you'll ever get Tate. The aspects of his work that are so wonderful are often subtle -- his smears, his impact frames, the sheer character he injects into the smallest of actions. It all comes together to form such lively cuts. Even if the art can sometimes be unsightly (in a lot of cases due to Super's production), its visual and conceptual appeal totally overrules it.

I just don't just buy into the notion that a series has a specific way of moving. I feel like that argument is thrown at Dragon Ball because it was never a series that had an opportunity do better. We've all grown up with flurries of punches shown as repeated frames, or forced to suspend disbelief while watching very slow movement like the Majin Vegeta vs Goku fight. It's not like Tate's style is particularly new; you had similar stuff as early as 1993. Tate simply brings Dragon Ball up to another level, and gives characters the movement they should have had all along. He exaggerates when necessary, and keeps it grounded when required. Fans wanted animation like One-Punch Man... Well Tate's giving you the closest you're going to get under such a brutal schedule. Where were the complaints when the One-Punch Man team abandoned strict form and went insanely loose? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

I can buy into the idea that characters models should at the very least resemble the show, which is why I took such a big issue with certain cuts in episode 23 and 24. But I don't feel that Tate's work ever crosses that boundary. As I've shown in several gallery links, his keys look like Dragon Ball - they're just not Yamamuro's Dragon Ball. I simply can't accept that a show has to have one defined way of moving. That sounds so horribly restrictive.

It's the same mindset that has caused fans and even professional animators to criticise Yamamuro. It's such a narrow-minded view, and only serves to stifle creativity. Animators want to inject everything they can into a scene; limiting them isn't going to make the show better.

I made a similar analogy a page or two ago - I think I used Monet and Picasso.

But to use your analogy, if you went to a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, and when you got there, there was a Jackson Pollock thrown in here and there, it would be non-sequitur - and that's the point I'm trying to make.

Dragonball isn't, and never has been, an exhibitionists gallery. It's an animated adaptation of the work of Akira Toriyama - the modus operandi of the production is consistency and replication of a certain style and feel, and when you establish a certain style and feel for the majority of the production, and one guy comes in and does something surreal, the layman is never going to think 'hooray for artistic expression', they're going to think 'what the heck was up with that?'

[Hit!!]

Everytime I enter this thread, I find someone having a go at Yamamuro. sheesh give the guy a break.

Tate Naoki is getting better and better, his characters are now looking much more on model. Yes, some shots did look kind of weird, but overall the episode looked GOOD. Now I do believe there's room for improvement. He still neglects the art for movement sometimes, but I really did like the movement in this episode. I much prefer this than a totally on model episode but with stiff and bad movement.

[Ajay]

I made a similar analogy a page or two ago - I think I used Monet and Picasso.

But to use your analogy, if you went to a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, and when you got there, there was a Jackson Pollock thrown in here and there, it would be non-sequitur - and that's the point I'm trying to make.

Dragonball isn't, and never has been, an exhibitionists gallery. It's an animated adaptation of the work of Akira Toriyama - the modus operandi of the production is consistency and replication of a certain style and feel, and when you establish a certain style and feel for the majority of the production, and one guy comes in and does something surreal, the layman is never going to think 'hooray for artistic expression', they're going to think 'what the heck was up with that?'

Here's the thing for me, I understand why Tate's work can be disconcerting; I just struggle to relate to that perspective. As I said, I don't understand nor agree with the notion that the show needs to move in a certain way. When I read Toriyama's manga, I'm probably not thinking about the way characters move in the same way that you do, and you probably don't think about it in the same way myself or ekrolo2 does. To me, that's the beauty of manga, and it's why I get excited to see how different animators interpret that. That's what makes animation so beautiful, too.

I just can't subscribe to the idea that something has to move in a particular way. Unless the manga outright goes frame by frame through a sequence like some of Murata's drawings do, I strongly believe it's up to the animator to inject their own personality into the cut.

[Wezenheim]

I'm enjoying this debate, and while I certainly don't have as many tools to argue with, I do think both sides have valid points. On one hand, I can see why Tate's style can be jarring to people who have come to expect an "x" or "y" thing in a Dragon Ball anime. On the other hand, Tate is an incredible animator and I don't think Super's action has ever looked as interesting as it did yesterday.

I don't blame either side for thinking the way they do. Even I don't agree with every single well animated stylistic choice (like certain sections of Naruto vs. Pain, although I definitely think the "poorly animated" comments there are overblown and there's plenty there that I do like). That being said, I also think it is cool when an animator does their own thing from time to time. Masunaga's art style sticks out like a sore thumb in Z and yet I rarely hear complaints about it. In fact, there were a few people in my Favorite non-Toriyama Dragon Ball Artist thread that listed him as their favorite or one of their favorites. Granted, Masunaga's departure from the norm might not be as extreme as Tate's, but it is interesting to think about.

The "manga adaptation" argument holds water for sure, and I even conceded that Nakatsuru is probably my favorite from an art standpoint (although to be fair he has numerous drawings that look like they've actually evolved over time), but the anime isn't the manga, and in the case of Super right now, it isn't adapting anything. It has a manga sure, but it is now behind the anime and they weren't adapting from that anyway. There aren't any movies the show is trying to adapt. Like GT, the anime is the main product. If anything, now is the time to go wild every now and again, as it is purely up to the staff to deliver on something interesting.

I also don't quite understand the off model argument quite as much either, since I didn't see much of anything yesterday that was offensively bad, or even as bad as that notorious frame in the Goku/Golden Freeza fight. Tate's work on One Piece is never that off model. His style might fit the universe better to some, but I also think there's some sense for it in Dragon Ball too, people often fight faster than we are able to see. It makes at least a degree of sense that distortion can work for Dragon Ball if done tastefully, and Tate has been pretty good at that in my opinion.

Like I said, I think both sides bring up interesting points. I think Tate is one of the best things about Super right now, but if you don't like his style, there is nothing wrong with that. At all. Anyway, there was my two cents.

[ekrolo2]

Tate's a weird one for me the more I see of him. There's no denying the guy knows how to use motion to make fights look good and for One Piece it works really well but for Dragon Ball? I think it's a bit too.... Loose, I guess? Not bad but there are definitely quite a few shots where the art looks plain bad to me. Specifically the much-lauded cut of his from F, motion wise its great but the art? Yeesh...

The only part of his F cut (I assume you're talking about #26) that I'd call bad is this. Other than that, the rest is incredible. It was actually included in one of the top Sakuga MADs for 2015. Never in my life did I think something from Dragon Ball Super would be considered good enough to make that. I think that speaks volumes.

And if you'll allow me to speak generally for a moment, using the collective "you" -- the fandom.

I feel like the fandom wants the Mona Lisa, and I can't blame them for that, because Dragon Ball's animation until Battle of Gods was precisely that. It was essentially manga panels with movement. There were ups and downs here and there, but very few parts of the show are particularly impressive, or most importantly, interesting. Of the many hundreds of episodes, the show still only has about 10 entries on the booru -- that is to say, cuts that are genuinely great by both today's standards, and the standards back then. That's not to say the show is badly animated, it's just that it teetered between two levels of quality and never really deviated. Stylistically, it was all quite similar.

Tate's work on Super is like a Jackson Pollock -- a Pollock under a very heavy schedule. It's impossible to outright explain abstract expressionism to people, and even if you could, it's hard to make someone appreciate it. You either get it or you don't -- and that's absolutely 100% fine. I feel like that's the case with Tate. If your taste in art is based around "realism" and you've got no time for extremely expressive works, then I don't think you'll ever get Tate. The aspects of his work that are so wonderful are often subtle -- his smears, his impact frames, the sheer character he injects into the smallest of actions. It all comes together to form such lively cuts. Even if the art can sometimes be unsightly (in a lot of cases due to Super's production), its visual and conceptual appeal totally overrules it.

I just don't just buy into the notion that a series has a specific way of moving. I feel like that argument is thrown at Dragon Ball because it was never a series that had an opportunity do better. We've all grown up with flurries of punches shown as repeated frames, or forced to suspend disbelief while watching very slow movement like the Majin Vegeta vs Goku fight. It's not like Tate's style is particularly new; you had similar stuff as early as 1993. Tate simply brings Dragon Ball up to another level, and gives characters the movement they should have had all along. He exaggerates when necessary, and keeps it grounded when required. Fans wanted animation like One-Punch Man... Well Tate's giving you the closest you're going to get under such a brutal schedule. Where were the complaints when the One-Punch Man team abandoned strict form and went insanely loose? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

I can buy into the idea that characters models should at the very least resemble the show, which is why I took such a big issue with certain cuts in episode 23 and 24. But I don't feel that Tate's work ever crosses that boundary. As I've shown in several gallery links, his keys look like Dragon Ball - they're just not Yamamuro's Dragon Ball. I simply can't accept that a show has to have one defined way of moving. That sounds so horribly restrictive.

It's the same mindset that has caused fans and even professional animators to criticise Yamamuro. It's such a narrow-minded view, and only serves to stifle creativity. Animators want to inject everything they can into a scene; limiting them isn't going to make the show better.

See, I can't agree with the rest of his cut looking incredible. It's not just the distracting art for me, but it's the way he executes attacks. They always feel off to me, like there's no force behind them at all (which isn't helped by the bad sound effects) and when he goes rubber man on us, it takes me out of things. The part where Freeza smacks Goku around some then puts his hand on his chest to blast him at point blank is the perfect example of this for me.

I won't deny he elevates things from the standard repeat punching animations that really have no business existing in a modern DB show in any capacity. Tate's fine here, it's the art in his recent episodes that bothers me. Characters who move at super speeds looking as they do in say the One Punch Man clip you showed doesn't bother me at all. But when I see characters look malformed for lack of a better word when standing perfectly still on top of his rubber man style, it's off-putting to me.

I won't deny the argument that since this anime is the main product, people shouldn't be allowed to go nuts, but if I find a style a particular episodes goes with that doesn't work for me, I'm gonna voice my opinion on it. Just like how when reading comics and I run into an artist I don't like such as Mike Deodato.