Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[Avok]

I very much preffer the way Naruto is handled, but then again, Pierrot is ten times better than Toei as an animation studio.

[Sodhi]

I was thinking that scripts are already written right, so why not they hire 3 to 4 new supervisors, let them do filler episodes so the regular staff gets much more time to work on the the major arc which would also give them plenty of time in rotation. If not this then they can definitely use long recaps in the episode, or use flashbacks in a smart way. Getting the show off air for 6 months as some people are suggesting would not help anything, animators will just go on to work on something else as toei has many other projects.

[Ajay]

The issue isn't really with supervisors, it's with key animators, and talented ones at that.

There aren't enough to go around, which means that even if a supervisor has 9 weeks between each episode, a key animator might have only just finished a prior episode.

Take a look at Futoshi Higashide's credits. The guy worked on 42, 43, 45, 46, and 48. There's only so much that can be done.

That's where we're coming from. If you keep spreading an animator thin between a number of episodes, he can't deliver the level of quality he could from focusing on a single episode for weeks at a time.

[Sodhi]

The issue isn't really with supervisors, it's with key animators, and talented ones at that.

There aren't enough to go around, which means that even if a supervisor has 9 weeks between each episode, a key animator might have only just finished a prior episode.

Take a look at Futoshi Higashide's credits. The guy worked on 42, 43, 45, 46, and 48. There's only so much that can be done.

That's where we're coming from. If you keep spreading an animator thin between a number of episodes, he can't deliver the level of quality he could from focusing on a single episode for weeks at a time.

Very true about the KA situation. I just hope at this point the series gets some help from Studio wanpack.

[ArchedThunder]

The issue isn't really with supervisors, it's with key animators, and talented ones at that.

There aren't enough to go around, which means that even if a supervisor has 9 weeks between each episode, a key animator might have only just finished a prior episode.

Take a look at Futoshi Higashide's credits. The guy worked on 42, 43, 45, 46, and 48. There's only so much that can be done.

That's where we're coming from. If you keep spreading an animator thin between a number of episodes, he can't deliver the level of quality he could from focusing on a single episode for weeks at a time.

This is why I said they need to continue to try and get more talented animators to work on the show, they only have a few talented guys so of course they're going to use them as much as they can. Their cuts might not turn out being the best thing ever, but it at least raises the average quality of the show. We're starting to see a few new names, so hopefully the series will build up a nice pool of talented animators now that the schedule is seemingly in a better place. I would love it if Toei tried to get some of their One Piece animators to do a few cuts here and there for Super.

[Sodhi]

Inaba Jin might be working on the next episode too. Very few shots looked like his.

[neolux]

Hey guys, I just wanted to show you this drawing I did, I did it because when I watched episode 46 and watched the image on the top, It kinda bugged me, so I wanted to draw my own version, I know it has its flaws and it's far from being perfect but I tried my best I did it on MS Paint though.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

EDIT: I fixed the size of Goku's hand as you pointed out xD at least I believe is a little improvement xD

[kinisking]

Hey guys, I just wanted to show you this drawing I did, I did it because when I watched episode 46 and watched the image on the top, It kinda bugged me, so I wanted to draw my own version, I know it has its flaws and it's far from being perfect but I tried my best I did it on MS Paint though.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Your face and hair are good but everything else looks off. Idk why though, might just be proportions. Good job!

[neolux]

Your face and hair are good but everything else looks off. Idk why though, might just be proportions. Good job!

Thanks mate

[Avok]

Am I the only one that absolutely hates the way Toei colours the SSB hair?
It's too bright and saturated. Looks like ice or candy.

I preffer the way Toriyama did it. Much more natural and refined.

[neolux]

Am I the only one that absolutely hates the way Toei colours the SSB hair?
It's too bright and saturated. Looks like ice or candy.

I preffer the way Toriyama did it. Much more natural and refined.

Definitely! Looks better with that colouring

[GodKaio-Ken]

Hey guys, I just wanted to show you this drawing I did, I did it because when I watched episode 46 and watched the image on the top, It kinda bugged me, so I wanted to draw my own version, I know it has its flaws and it's far from being perfect but I tried my best I did it on MS Paint though.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

You should redraw episode 5 in its entirety

Only thing that bugs me about yours is the baby hands on Goku. Otherwise solid work especially for MS Paint.

[neolux]

You should redraw episode 5 in its entirety

Only thing that bugs me about yours is the baby hands on Goku. Otherwise solid work especially for MS Paint.

xD haha yeah, I noticed that baby hand xD it's really hard for me to draw hands though.

EDIT: I kinda fixed the size of Goku's hand xD

[nite_jay]

Am I the only one that absolutely hates the way Toei colours the SSB hair?
It's too bright and saturated. Looks like ice or candy.

I preffer the way Toriyama did it. Much more natural and refined.

Toei in general seems to be making Toriyama's designs a lot brighter for their productions recently; especially with how they highlight everything.

[Mazingerdestro]

Hello everyone,
I have a question regarding Toei animation's animation in general (I personally care for dragonball but my question can also be applied in one piece) and I hope someone can give me a clear answer.
Many shows that continue for many years and have 1-...lets say 100 episodes have consistent art and I would like to ask.
Why dragonball (and one piece) don't have consistent art? I am not talking about fluid animation I am specifically referring to "drawing characters in model all the time". Why sometimes characters looks smaller, or taller, or with weird faces, or even with big eyes etc?

Episodes such as 5(the corrected edition), 13, Vegetavs Hit, the blue kaioken one, the next one with Goku vs black look pretty much perfect when it comes to art but why isn't every episode like that? Also why Toei since the db/dbz times has so much issue with db models? Can someone please explain me?
Thank you

[Ajay]

Regarding Dragon Ball Super, I put together a concise video a few weeks ago that should give you an idea of why things are the way they are - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hHM-8QtmUE

One Piece is pretty good for the most part. I've always found the comments regarding its animation a little overblown, though I did find the Dress Rosa arc to be one of the more inconsistent arcs in quite a while. I suppose it's down to its sheer length and the number of productions Toei were dealing with over the course of its run. I imagine animators were spread too thin or their talents were busy elsewhere. Either way, it nailed all of its key scenes, and that's what counts the most. The series in general looks pretty damn good though, and has helped grow some incredibly talented animators over the years.

With longrunning shows, you'll always have less than stellar art on occasion. That's unfortunately the nature of the beast and has been that way for years upon years. Even shows like Yu Yu Hakusho or Naruto that are often praised heavily for their animation have several episodes that are less than great. 2011's Hunter x Hunter adaptation is often brought up as an example of a "perfect" long-running show, but there are many episodes -- especially early on -- where the quality drops. It's to a lesser extent thanks to the talents on board and a solid schedule, but it's there.

It's because you usually cannot feasibly afford or find animators capable of producing perfectly on-model art. Sometimes it's a lack of skill, other times it's a case of an animator having their own style and not wanting to adhere to the models. That's not always a bad thing, but it creates a disconnect for some people. Take a look at the likes of Uchiyama and Ebisawa during Z's run; their work was incredibly different to the Hisada and Yamamuro episodes. You have your A teams and your B teams. Not everyone can be perfect -- it's not feasible money-wise, and it's not practical with how few talented animators there are out there compared to demand.

As I mention in the video, Super's biggest issue is time, though lack of talent is definitely there too. Talents seemingly don't have the time to produce work up to the standards they're capable of, and less talented animators' flaws are amplified as there's little time for them to polish their work or for supervisors to provide corrections. It's all a crazy mess.

Sacrifices have to be made though, and that's why you'll often see art taking a nose dive for the sake of just being able to produce actual genuine animation. It's a compromise, but it's better than watching a marginally animated manga!

[Mazingerdestro]

Regarding Dragon Ball Super, I put together a concise video a few weeks ago that should give you an idea of why things are the way they are - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hHM-8QtmUE

One Piece is pretty good for the most part. I've always found the comments regarding its animation a little overblown, though I did find the Dress Rosa arc to be one of the more inconsistent arcs in quite a while. I suppose it's down to its sheer length and the number of productions Toei were dealing with over the course of its run. I imagine animators were spread too thin or their talents were busy elsewhere. Either way, it nailed all of its key scenes, and that's what counts the most. The series in general looks pretty damn good though, and has helped grow some incredibly talented animators over the years.

With longrunning shows, you'll always have less than stellar art on occasion. That's unfortunately the nature of the beast and has been that way for years upon years. Even shows like Yu Yu Hakusho or Naruto that are often praised heavily for their animation have several episodes that are less than great. 2011's Hunter x Hunter adaptation is often brought up as an example of a "perfect" long-running show, but there are many episodes -- especially early on -- where the quality drops. It's to a lesser extent thanks to the talents on board and a solid schedule, but it's there.

It's because you usually cannot feasibly afford or find animators capable of producing perfectly on-model art. Sometimes it's a lack of skill, other times it's a case of an animator having their own style and not wanting to adhere to the models. That's not always a bad thing, but it creates a disconnect for some people. Take a look at the likes of Uchiyama and Ebisawa during Z's run; their work was incredibly different to the Hisada and Yamamuro episodes. You have your A teams and your B teams. Not everyone can be perfect -- it's not feasible money-wise, and it's not practical with how few talented animators there are out there compared to demand.

As I mention in the video, Super's biggest issue is time, though lack of talent is definitely there too. Talents seemingly don't have the time to produce work up to the standards they're capable of, and less talented animators' flaws are amplified as there's little time for them to polish their work or for supervisors to provide corrections. It's all a crazy mess.

Sacrifices have to be made though, and that's why you'll often see art taking a nose dive for the sake of just being able to produce actual genuine animation. It's a compromise, but it's better than watching a marginally animated manga!

Thanks for replying Ajay. I always enjoy your videos on youtube. Still I find it weird to "revive" a series after so many years and still use the excuse "we can't find talents". Seriously? They can't find people to focus on the models? That sounds pretty weird if we consider other studios never had this issue. I don't want to start the argument "madhouse is dah best man give them db" because is laughable but still their work on HxH was pretty much A+. I never even once said "Jesus this would look so much better with good animation!!!" or "look at their faces....these are not my characters...". However, I am one of these people that "enjoy something so much that can actually ignore mistakes". When episode 5 was out I didn't care for the weird art or the errors. I actually cared more for the nonexistent battle choreography.

Also I when I was watching the "copy Vegeta arc" I saw that the first episode had battle of gods' level of character designs. A useless filler that didn't have any fights in it, had the best models so far. Yes even better than Goku vs Hit. Why? Who made that decision? Since you are by far an expert of the field can you please explain me something Ajay. "Why after 50 episodes they can't have certain people working on the models and certain people on animation?" (I am talking about the main and not the filler episode). Again thank you for your quick reply and your work here.

[Ajay]

Part of the animation supervisor's role is to ensure things are consistent within the episode -- this often means ensuring model quality is up to par. They provide corrections that ultimately do exactly what you're asking for.

In Super's case, this doesn't always guarantee on-model episodes for a few reasons. Primarily, there's simply not enough time. We know from animator comments that there's barely enough time to a supervisor to check and approve layouts let alone provide significant corrections. We've seen up to three supervisors per episode in an effort to rectify this situation, but that leads me onto my next point.

Not every supervisor is interested in adhering to Yamamuro's character designs, and not every supervisor is actually any good. For example, the filler arc episode you refer to is by Karasawa, one of the series' most talented supervisors who also draws very on-model, and seems to work very efficiently. At the same time, you have people like Kitano, who handled the second to last filler episode, whose talents are questionable at best.

I bring it back round to the Ebisawa and Uchiyama situation. Not every supervisor can be perfect. While Super utilises a Chief Animation Supervisor role to help bring consistency between episodes, they're under just as much, if not more time pressure. There's only so much they can do.

Toei are trying, they really are. They were put in a sticky situation and are desperately trying to crawl out of it. While it's frustrating as fans and often hard to understand why things are the way they are, there's at least solid reasons that don't boil down to, "Well Toei are shit and lazy".

[Mazingerdestro]

Part of the animation supervisor's role is to ensure things are consistent within the episode -- this often means ensuring model quality is up to par. They provide corrections that ultimately do exactly what you're asking for.

In Super's case, this doesn't always guarantee on-model episodes for a few reasons. Primarily, there's simply not enough time. We know from animator comments that there's barely enough time to a supervisor to check and approve layouts let alone provide significant corrections. We've seen up to three supervisors per episode in an effort to rectify this situation, but that leads me onto my next point.

Not every supervisor is interested in adhering to Yamamuro's character designs, and not every supervisor is actually any good. For example, the filler arc episode you refer to is by Karasawa, one of the series' most talented supervisors who also draws very on-model, and seems to work very efficiently. At the same time, you have people like Kitano, who handled the second to last filler episode, whose talents are questionable at best.

I bring it back round to the Ebisawa and Uchiyama situation. Not every supervisor can be perfect. While Super utilises a Chief Animation Supervisor role to help bring consistency between episodes, they're under just as much, if not more time pressure. There's only so much they can do.

Toei are trying, they really are. They were put in a sticky situation and are desperately trying to crawl out of it. While it's frustrating as fans and often hard to understand why things are the way they are, there's at least solid reasons that don't boil down to, "Well Toei are shit and lazy".

Damn you Ajay and your logical replies. It makes me feel nice that I am one of the few people that actually try to support Toei's work. Most of the people I associate basically hate everything that is not perfect in super and their only reply is "omg Toei...these people don't care. They want money and they don't pay anything." or the classic "wow look that wonderful flash animation... the kid who made is great"..... Even if I wish we had an episode with some love to ssj3 (ssj3 still doesn't have a good drawn battle in super) I have high hopes for the next episode (even if the models remind me of episode 5). Finally I solved some of my answers regarding the inconsistent art. When I watched episode 13 (which is basically in my top 3 for art and choreography alone) I thought that except Yamamuro literally nobody cared for the series. The guy gave us the best episode until Vegeta vs Hit. (of course I am not ignoring that he is working with a team but I only refer to him since he is the main guy I know from that episode). Thanks again.

[JimmyRustam]

I preffer the way Toriyama did it. Much more natural and refined.

True.
(Akira:)


(Toei:)

(Like really, why does his hair look white and grey?)