Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[Nejishiki]

Also I've made my version of SSJB aura, what do you think?
[spoiler]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYVE9AuKZ_k[/spoiler]

It's technically well-made, but I don't think it's appropriate. Super Saiyan Blue should have a calmer sound, especially with its crackled electricity. That intensity matches Super Saiyan 2 instead.

[Ajay]

Finished up the entry for this week's episode:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Sorry that took so long. It was a mixture of unenthusiasm towards the episode and wanting to look into Nashizawa a little more before committing to a presumption.

[ArchedThunder]

I do like what is presumably Koji Nashizawa, there are some nice organic curves with his style.
Also I didn't even catch that first Kitano shot in your image, I actually like that one.
Also Black has some JoJo looking fingers there in that second shot, lol.

[nite_jay]

I think Kitano is probably by far the worst supervisor. Even though he does serve a purpose in a show like Super, his art bothers me more than Yashima, especially when the characters have the weird slanty eye-big nose thing.

[Sodhi]

That is very rough work. He can do much better just like in #1 if the schedule was in right place. Plus he did not have good KA working with him in this episode either. However yea imo his rough work is worse than yashima.

[Ajay]

That is very rough work. He can do much better just like in #1 if the schedule was in right place. Plus he did not have good KA working with him in this episode either. However yea imo his rough work is worse than yashima.

To be fair, he didn't actually provide any credited key animation in episode 1. It was also a pretty stacked staff list, so he didn't need to do very much.

I think episode 7 remains the most indicative of Kitano's output when he's not under pressure. Episode 1 was done way in advance, of course, so outside of a little work on episode 4, he could pour his time into his upcoming episode.

I just don't really get his role on Super. Since the very beginning he's teetered between doing dialogue episodes and sharing huge episodes with other supervisors where he's almost unnoticeable (13, 39, and 57, for example). It's odd.

I suppose what I mean is that he doesn't really have a voice in the way that other animators do. I may not like Yashima, but I get what he's about. I think that's where my primary issues with Kitano lie, outside of his animation, at least.

[ArchedThunder]

What were Kitano's Disk Wars episodes like?
Also I just realize that there were no 2nd Key Animators on this episode, that might have been a mistake, but they could be focused on the upcoming episodes like the animators likely are so I guess it makes sense.

I think episode 7 remains the most indicative of Kitano's output when he's not under pressure. Episode 1 was done way in advance, of course, so outside of a little work on episode 4, he could pour his time into his upcoming episode.

With how awful the schedule must have been at that time (based on how bad it was by episode 39) I don't think he had much time to work on episode 7. I don't see how it would have been possible for him to have any more than 3 weeks at best for episode 7, unless somehow the schedule got worse before the Champa arc.

[RealtreeByGod]

Did the animators and artists forget that DB Earth is not the same as real Earth?

Had another shot today with actual continents.

[Hit!!]

Did the animators and artists forget that DB Earth is not the same as real Earth?

Had another shot today with actual continents.

Glad to see I'm not the only one bothered by this.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

I feel like the series has been very hit and miss. It's a miracle that the Black arc has been very consistent, compared to the Champa and Resurrection F arcs, when the schedule was bad to begin with.

If I had to guess why the first three episode of the series looked good, it's because they were done in the advance, but my guts tell me that the collapse of Episode 5 for whatever reason is the domino effect for the rest of the series because they might had to use up all the resources to get it to air barely on time, thus causing all animators to be shuffled up. I wonder if had they not screw up on Episode 5 the series would have been a bit better.

Either that or they didn't have any pre-production schedule or combination of both.

[Ajay]

With how awful the schedule must have been at that time (based on how bad it was by episode 39) I don't think he had much time to work on episode 7. I don't see how it would have been possible for him to have any more than 3 weeks at best for episode 7, unless somehow the schedule got worse before the Champa arc.

I think I see how you came to that number, so hopefully this post clears things up. It's after 3AM here and trying to write this post coherently has been difficult! Sorry if I miss your point.

Episodes 1-4 were at least partly done before Super even began since since scenes from all of these episodes showed up in the trailers -- that, and well, you can't start a series with only one episode done, of course.

I'm pretty sure that the first three episodes were done or least nearing done before the series began. It was only from episode 4 onward that we started seeing incomplete work in some of the NEPs.

I think it's important to address episode 5: Episode 5 collapsed because they likely began working on it as episode 1 aired, or shortly after. It certainly wasn't done by the time the NEP popped up. Tate was on for several cuts in episode 2, and was also scheduled to supervise episode 5. That's an absurd amount of work to try and cram into such a short time frame. There's no way someone can manage that many cuts while simultaneously supervising another episode. That certainly feeds into my theory that production on 5 didn't begin until just as Super hit the air.

On the other hand, Kitano didn't do that many cuts in episode 4, so there's no reason to believe he wasn't working on his own episode (#7) at the same time. Likewise, the rest of the animators on his episode weren't tied up with anything past episode 4. It's not as though episodes are worked on sequentially. Many things are going on at one time. With how much time he had, he could probably afford to help out on episode 4 and still ensure episode 7 was wrapped up just in time. We've seen similar things in this arc like Karasawa popping up here and there to help out.

Either way, Super's schedule did get worse after Battle of Gods. It tanked during the Resurrection 'F' arc. You had Kitano doing key animation in 18, a near-solo episode for episode 19, and then a huge action episode in episode 24. Shimanuki was the top-credited key animator in episode 17, but was expected to supervise episode 20, too. Tate did a number of cuts in episode 23, but then soloed the first half of episode 26 (presumably just to get it done). Everything was horribly wrong. It's why there are quite a large number of episodes with a bunch of external studios attached. They must have been struggling to get things finished.

I guess they just wanted to finish up that arc as soon as possible and figure out a way to fix their schedule. That's when we started seeing multiple supervisors popping up almost constantly, and also the addition of new supervisors. I guess they were fighting to grab all of the time back as best they could. It just about paid off though by the end of the arc, it seems. We certainly aren't in the clear, but the show definitely feels in a comfortable rhythm where it's mostly in control. You still have instances like episode 50, but it seems mostly okay.

I do think it's a shame that we have episodes like this week where an animator is forced to take on huge chunk of work so as not to take resources away from the important episodes, but at least it's actually working, and not reeking of total desperation like it did previously.

Hope that helps/makes sense/wasn't just a sleep-deprived ramble.

[ArchedThunder]

But what I'm talking about is that we know episode 39 only had 3 weeks of animation because Ken Otsuka was tweeting when he was doing and completed the layout check. Most of the issues in the F arc compared to the BoG arc seemed to be because they just outright didn't have the animators they needed, not that they had storyboards and layouts done later than in the BoG arc. With episode 39 only having its layout finished 3 weeks before it aired I just don't see how the layout for episode 7 would have been done in a more timely manner than the layout for 39.

[SaiyanGod117]

Is it true that the next 3 episodes will have the top supervisors animating them?

[Baggie_Saiyan]

God the action stuff was absolutely dreadful to look at this episode. Glad there wasn't much of it. But it did kind of ruin the hype from last episode. If it carried on any longer it would have been worse then 26 and we don't need that in this arc!

[Saikyo no Senshi]

If it carried on any longer it would have been worse then 26 and we don't need that in this arc!

You mean #24 right?

- Travis

[Baggie_Saiyan]

If it carried on any longer it would have been worse then 26 and we don't need that in this arc!

You mean #24 right?

- Travis

Whichever the one Kitano did in that arc yeah lol. (I'm not that great with episode numbers !)

[Shuby]

If it carried on any longer it would have been worse then 26 and we don't need that in this arc!

You mean #24 right?

- Travis

Whichever the one Kitano did in that arc yeah lol. (I'm not that great with episode numbers !)

I seriously got episode 24 vibe in this episode. I surely have said multiple times how Super is just not as the level as Z was but i must commend their hard work. Just looking back to The Resurrection Of F arc and to where we are right now, there is a clear significance boost in art and animation.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

Whichever the one Kitano did in that arc yeah lol. (I'm not that great with episode numbers !)

Oh no problem and yeah Kitano did #24.

- Travis

[Ajay]

But what I'm talking about is that we know episode 39 only had 3 weeks of animation because Ken Otsuka was tweeting when he was doing and completed the layout check. Most of the issues in the F arc compared to the BoG arc seemed to be because they just outright didn't have the animators they needed, not that they had storyboards and layouts done later than in the BoG arc. With episode 39 only having its layout finished 3 weeks before it aired I just don't see how the layout for episode 7 would have been done in a more timely manner than the layout for 39.

The storyboarders work on a pretty different schedule to the supervisor and key animators. They're either working well in advance on an off-set from the supervisors, or they're working on multiple boards at once. They board has to be done so that animators aren't sat around twiddling their thumbs. That doesn't always happen, of course, but I'm not seeing any definitive evidence that that's occurring with Super on the regular.

Animators do their own layouts based on the storyboard, so if Otsuka's tweeting about struggling for time there, that's more than likely a reflection on him. I very much doubt an animator at Toei is going to publicly moan about other staff members falling behind. One animator struggling for time doesn't necessarily mean everyone's having the same issues.

If you can track down the tweet so I can take a proper look, that'd be great. I don't remember it ever getting a proper translation -- just stuff inferred from Google Translate. Before I had Otsuka's tweet about episode 5 properly translated, we thought he said the episode collapsed. Turned out it was just Google very literally translating "bad drawing" as "picture collapse", and that he was just speculating about the "various circumstances" that lead to that. I wonder if there's something being misunderstood here, too.

I'm away now for a week, but I should be able to check in to grab the tweet, get it translated, and follow up.

[buutenks]

Eh, while it wasnt perfect, the fight had some nice shots. Tho i enjoyed how Trunks' hair remained consistently long.

But ye, ep 24 was pretty bad. I wonder how did they mess up the final fight animation of the ROF arc, when previous episodes were better. Very odd, did something happen after ep 23?. Tho ep 27 had nice animation.