Do you think Dragon Ball Super exaggerated the post-production effects?

[taikufuru]

I don't know if I was the only one who was bothered, but I think modern Dragon Ball content, especially Dragon Ball Super, has overused post-production special effects without any need. And the worst part: it's ugly.

The auras of Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, Blue Evolved, Ultra Instinct, Jiren and many others prevent you from seeing the character clearly, and this reached its limit in the climax of the Tournament of Power.

Goku Black and Zamasu always have CG ki swords, even in dialogue scenes. And I have to mention that giant "bird" that the fused Zamasu created for some reason.

Episode 66, as well as episode 130, feature a team of top-notch animators, but in several moments we don't allow ourselves to see the best of their work because of this excessive use of post-production effects.

Trunks with a glowing aura from Super Saiyan Rage, as well as a sword of light energy, faces Zamasu fused with a post-production CG aura, with a glowing sword also in CG.

And, yes, a large part of the production of Japanese animation is done digitally, especially the coloring, the backgrounds and consequently the auras. The question here is not "it's all digital nowadays, I want them to go back to the 100% artisanal process".

Ressurrection 'F' has great attack effects and digitally made auras, for example. Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan has never had such a beautiful aura, as has Golden Frieza.

My point: it's a lot of visual pollution. From the little we've seen of Daima, it looks like it will be something much cleaner.

[Jack Bz]

100%. Definitely a consistent issue I had with the anime, especially on silver haired ultra instinct. It's just absolutely covered head to toe and for sure obfuscates things

[taikufuru]

Yes. That whole section animated by Naotoshi Shida is so cool, but it could be even better with the auras. Only later can we see Goku (Superior Instinct) for the first time without the aura, which is when the form's time ends.

[CashmanX]

Definitely.

I think one of the bigger casualties of this is that weird blurring effect over Naotoshi Shida's cut of SSJ Goku and Beerus fighting in BoG.

Makes it feel like I'm watching the scene horribly interlaced.

[Ajay]

Dragon Ball Super's compositing as a whole was diabolical. Terrible colour design sure didn't help either.

[Rafa Fast]

I personally really liked the UI aura, worked in both black and silver haired versions for me, it's mostly just on the outline of Goku's body.

Now I do agree about the auras in the other forms, the bright is too intense, you have auras with a darker outline color and a insane glow inside, something tells me it was on purpose, to give a "godly" aspect to these transformations? I understand that with Blue, they tried to make a aura with a dark blue outline and a yellow glow inside, probably to show that Blue is SSJG + SSJ, but it just doesn't look good, parts of the character art becomes hard to be seen, and the Rose aura looked even uglier, such a odd artistic choice, fortunately DBS Broly worked these auras much better, Blue Goku's aura is no more Light Yellow inside and Dark Blue outline but dark Violet inside and Light Blue outline (for character's body as well), the glow isn't exaggerated, looked really good for me, the character art can be seen very well as their bodies doesn't get super bright, they get lots of shading instead.

I think one of the bigger casualties of this is that weird blurring effect over Naotoshi Shida's cut of SSJ Goku and Beerus fighting in BoG.

That blur effect is all over the movie actually, you just feel it more in that SSJ Goku vs Beerus sequence due to how fast Shida's animation is, but you can clearly see it in other fights, production team maybe thought that it would add a more "cinematographic" feel to it, but it just ended up making the fights not look very good, which is sad, the Goku vs Beerus fight in the cave have parts that you can barely understand what's going on due to how overused the effect is, and the frames just can't be appreaciated, even SSJ3 Goku vs Beerus or SSJ2 Enraged Vegeta vs Beerus, which are more slow-ish fights, suffered from this, there's a moment where SSJ3 Goku tries to give multiple punches and it's just ridiculous, not only the blurry effect is all over the place, but there's also the shacking camera making it worse.
Fortunately they got rid of this in Fukkatsu no F.

[taikufuru]

Dragon Ball Super's compositing as a whole was diabolical. Terrible colour design sure didn't help either.

Apparently, they recycled the colors from Resurrection 'F', as well as the 3D model of the Earth exploding is very similar. I wish they did the same with the auras of Golden Frieza and Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan.

It's strange, because if you put the film and the TV series side by side, they still look distinct, even if these are shots drawn on the model by Tsuji or Yamamuro with the same colors. Everything seems so flat in the TV series. And it's not as if 'F' is a great example of Japanese animation worthy of being seen in the cinema, like Broly and One Piece: Film Z. Are there any filters lightly applied to the film or are the backgrounds more polished?

[SupremeKai25]

I disagree. The only form that I found truly ugly was SSB Evolved. Just the blue stacked on top of more blue with nothing else to compound it was ugly. Every other form, either it isn't as exaggerated, or there's something more going on to make it more pleasing to look at. (Like, for instance, Rosé isn't just pink stacked on top of more pink, you also got varying shade of purple)

Beyond that, I actually like how complex and elaborated the Super auras look compared to DBZ. I don't see why Super should have the same basic and plain auras as boring old DBZ.

Also, I feel like many people, possibly out of Nostalgia, ignore that DBZ had so many headache-inducing moments. Like at least Super doesn't have any of this nonsense:






Way too dank for me. I find Super much easier to watch than old DBZ.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

On a bad animation day, sure, but obviously the same can be said for Dragon Ball Z.

Yuya Takahashi was a solid all round, including the post production stuff. I'd say my only motivation for revisiting the Tournament of Power was his magnificent work.

Look at the lighting effects here:






We see a similar thing going on for Yuichi Karasawa here but of course Takahashi's influence is prevalent:



During moments like this you just knew shit's getting real.

Then of course we have his Ultra Instinct stuff, which is not overbearing with the auras (I do think this is the case for some episodes Naoki Tate worked on, which I think is an even greater flaw of his style than the maligned episode 5, which was out of his control given the time constraints.

But let's look at the shots of Ultra Instinct Goku.












Nice calming effect here, there's just enough contrast with the light against dark backdrops.

I also love in these shots how much focus is put on Goku's reaction, which is not being sacrificed to show off the aura.





Here's something Takahashi did, which could have been the start of a beam struggle, like the above Z shot, although notice its not an eyesore, and how well paced it is. Gives the action a nice flow and gets straight to the action:

Similarly during Goku snd Beerus' battle in space we have just enough flashing imagery but there's a natural rhythm to it that draws you into the action as the impacts draw you in:



This shot of Gohan also lends itself well to both story and spectacle. The colour scheme works for the light ofvthe Kanehsma Ha and its easy to tell Gohan is getting to business:



Anyone who hasn't watched Super or rewatched to give it another chance I'd say check it out again if you can for Takahashi's stuff. He's the most reminiscent of the old Z style, I'd go as far as to say his best work on Super even rivals what Z had to offer.

Sadly we don't have much of Super Saiyan Blue from Takahashi but if what he's done with Super Saiyan God is any indication we'd be in for a treat:



The colour scheme really works here and the way Goku is at the front of the firey aura makes Super Saiyan God feel like an extension of himself. I haven't seem the other animators work on transfornations doing as well in that regard, in fact I'd say take away from the character's spotlight.

[taikufuru]

In terms of composition and post-production effects, it's the prettiest and "cleanest" Super has ever looked. Unfortunately, this was not the rule and visual pollution was frequent, given the examples I used.

At no point does the aura "overlap" the character, and the lighting is harmonious with the characters and the environment.

[Vegard Aune]

That blur effect is all over the movie actually, you just feel it more in that SSJ Goku vs Beerus sequence due to how fast Shida's animation is, but you can clearly see it in other fights, production team maybe thought that it would add a more "cinematographic" feel to it, but it just ended up making the fights not look very good, which is sad, the Goku vs Beerus fight in the cave have parts that you can barely understand what's going on due to how overused the effect is, and the frames just can't be appreaciated, even SSJ3 Goku vs Beerus or SSJ2 Enraged Vegeta vs Beerus, which are more slow-ish fights, suffered from this, there's a moment where SSJ3 Goku tries to give multiple punches and it's just ridiculous, not only the blurry effect is all over the place, but there's also the shacking camera making it worse.
Fortunately they got rid of this in Fukkatsu no F.

I don't know if this was ever confirmed but the impression I got in Battle of Gods was that they basically were simulating shakycam to try and give this vibe of "These characters are so impossibly powerful that even the camera is trembling!" Because, it really was everywhere when Super Saiyans of any kind were on screen. Mostly I didn't find it a problem, but yeah, the Shida sequence pushed it to the point where it was barely comprehensible. And... yeah it was probably a good thing that they did not use that technique again in later movies. Broly has scenes that are similarly frantic and detailed but they are a lot easier to read.

[Koitsukai]

Yeah, I don't see it. Aside of SSBE and the purposely blinding initial MUI, which I actually liked, I'll disagree.
The other forms are more shiny that Z's transformations, yes, but to me they aren't exaggerated and don't pollute much. KKx20 looks good even though it's quite glowy.
I think SSBE went to town with the effects, it fucking sucks, and that's what gets stuck on people's minds because it's so fucking over the top(no pun intended), if you think about DBS effects you think about hardly seeing Geets under all those effects, but the other examples to me aren't problematic and are nowhere near the SSBE effect.

So, definitely agree on SSBE and initial UI, not really on board in regards of other forms. Maybe SSR Trunks would make me agree.

[taikufuru]

Then, visualize Super Saiyan Blue with Kaioken (two-color aura) launching energy attacks against Kefla and her two-color attack. It's not just about the aura. It's the composition as a whole. Backgrounds, character colors, post-production effects, filters...

[shomangaka]

Yeah most auras looked ugly and worst of all you couldn't see the character art well same thing happened during the BoG movie

[Jord]

I disliked the CG effects in the movies like the spaceships in BoG and Broly. They stuck out like a sore thumb. Considering when they were made there must have been ways to cell shade them better.