"Correcting" Style

[JulieYBM]

There are chief animation supervisors, of course, which are meant to unify the regular animation supervisors, but I'm not sure how effective that will be given time constraints and the large number of animators working on the series. It's hard to say much right now.

[Metalwario64]

I definitely agree with this. I'm not particularly biased towards any style (I like the Maeda era Saiyan arc art style about as much as I love Yamamuro's Cell era artwork for instance), but I loved the development of the style throughout the series. Each look captures the era it was drawn in. That's why I'm glad Kai wasn't reanimated from scratch, because chances are it would have just followed Yamamuro's current style throughout, and Kai using Z's footage meant that it kept the original styles throughout the series.

Ideally, if Kai were to have been "reanimated" I would have preferred an entirely traced series, with the worse animation (Ebisawa and Uchiyama's later work) "corrected" to fit their contemporary styles.

[JulieYBM]

Tracing or trying too hard to replicate the character models from the first two series would've made for a soulless project. The idea isn't to copy something else, it's to organically depict the key animators' thoughts and feelings towards the characters and story through their animation.

[Attitudefan]

Tracing or trying too hard to replicate the character models from the first two series would've made for a soulless project. The idea isn't to copy something else, it's to organically depict the key animators' thoughts and feelings towards the characters and story through their animation.

If they ever reanimate it, they should do what they did with Jojo, and stay true to the manga, and true to the art style to each part of the manga. You can see it in the Jojo anime how it replicates nearly perfectly the styles of each arc, with the subtle changes. You can really tell how they changed style with the end of Battle Tendency where Joseph is drawn like he was in the manga at that point whereas in part 3, Joseph undergoes an extreme design change, especially in the face and beard, to replicate the style shift that happened in the manga. But there are even slightly other details that are not there in Part 1, which are there in Part 3 of Jojo, just like the manga, such as the way the head, face, eyes, and ears are drawn.

A DB reanimation should not follow Yamamuro, but the manga. If Jojo can do it, DB can too.

[DisapprovingOwl]

Totally agree that there's no "correct" style - the gradual art style shift throughout the manga/anime is one of the things I love, and happens to some degree in any long-running series as the artist develops and experiments! My personal favourite iteration of the art style is from the 23rd Tenkaichi Budoukai through the Saiyan Arc - lots of lovely curves and detailed shading. Delicous! = D

One of the things I worry about if they ever decide to retell the Dragon Ball manga through a new animated series would be that they'd try to 'standardise' the art style to match the more modern stuff - it's one of the things which bothered me with the intros/eyecatches in Kai, as instead of trying to match how things actually looked in the episodes they just Yamamuro-fied all the characters regardless.

In my opinion, the art style seems to shift to better convey the intended tone of the series at the time, and the sharper, more squared designs of nowadays have no place in early Dragon Ball with its generally lighter tone!

[shinmaru]

The shiny new stuff seems to take shortcuts in shading and line/stroke depth. To me, that takes character away from the art itself. Combine that with my opinion that some of today's artists (including ones that have been around for a long time and are still doing it!) can't seem to hit the right perspectives and angles and proportions... and yeah, I disagree with your premise.

The examples he posted? Yeah sure. Any trailer for DB Heroes or any recent special? Them too. But if we're talking about the most recent "shiny new stuff", as in Dragon Ball Super? I disagree, not so much. The line thickness if very varied and the shading is usually well done in the two episodes we've received so far. The animation itself may be not up to par to the movies, but it looks a lot more professional in terms of artwork.

I'm good with the Super animation but still think it looks too cartoonish like One Piece.
I was hoping for this new animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL5ff_yQHZw, but I'm happy that we have a new series

[Tatakae!!Ramenman]

who was the animator in charge of the shonen jump 2008 special? because that looked very true to the style at the end of the series and I know yamamuro has been in charge of the last 2 movies, which haven't been animated as well.

[Attitudefan]

Yeah, talking about being consistent when you have Yamamuro looking characters in the eye catches and the opening when the actual Kai episodes look nothing like the new animated scenes. That's not really consistent at all.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

who was the animator in charge of the shonen jump 2008 special? because that looked very true to the style at the end of the series and I know yamamuro has been in charge of the last 2 movies, which haven't been animated as well.

Tadayoshi Yamamuro was the animation supervisor and character designer for 2008 special.

[JulieYBM]

Tracing or trying too hard to replicate the character models from the first two series would've made for a soulless project. The idea isn't to copy something else, it's to organically depict the key animators' thoughts and feelings towards the characters and story through their animation.

If they ever reanimate it, they should do what they did with Jojo, and stay true to the manga, and true to the art style to each part of the manga. You can see it in the Jojo anime how it replicates nearly perfectly the styles of each arc, with the subtle changes. You can really tell how they changed style with the end of Battle Tendency where Joseph is drawn like he was in the manga at that point whereas in part 3, Joseph undergoes an extreme design change, especially in the face and beard, to replicate the style shift that happened in the manga. But there are even slightly other details that are not there in Part 1, which are there in Part 3 of Jojo, just like the manga, such as the way the head, face, eyes, and ears are drawn.

A DB reanimation should not follow Yamamuro, but the manga. If Jojo can do it, DB can too.

JoJo looks like shit, though. Why copy when you can do better? The old OVAs knew that and the 1990s Hunter x Hunter knew it, too. All the best adapted series know when to leave the comic behind. The Wakayabashi Atsushi episodes of Yuu Yuu Hakusho, all of the ace-animator episodes of Naruto, Shida's work in One Piece #590, so on and so forth. The problem isn't "it doesn't look like the comic" the problem is "it doesn't look good", something Yamamuro has had trouble with as of late. Hell, even during his prime he wasn't that good, either.

who was the animator in charge of the shonen jump 2008 special? because that looked very true to the style at the end of the series and I know yamamuro has been in charge of the last 2 movies, which haven't been animated as well.

Tadayoshi Yamamuro was the animation supervisor and character designer for 2008 special.

Some of Assistant Animation Supervisor Tate Naoki's influence is apparent in a few shots, though.


Random aside: I just noticed that Shida Naotoshi was the animation supervisor for Idainaru Son Gokuu Densetsu, Ultimate Battle 22, and Final Bout. It's too bad he hasn't had any inclination to be an animation supervisor since then.

[Attitudefan]

The old Jojo OVA from the 90s has terrible direction. It has nice animated segments, but strung together, it is TERRIBLE. It feels cheap, and the direction is lackluster at best. It feels so mediocre. I hear Satoshi Kon worked on it, and to that, I'm shocked. There's no feeling in the Jojo OVAs.

The Jojo anime has awesome directing, with perfect cuts and amazing timing between and during shots (something the OVAs never did well). The anime sets tension up perfectly! The animation is also fine, it animates overall better than most new DB content on a much tighter budget. I think you're too nostalgic for the OVAs. Yes, the character art is nice, but as an animation, it lacks good direction and pacing. The tension is just awful. Compare how the anime did The World over the OVA. In the anime, The World is built up with so much tension surrounding it, so when it is finally used, the sound direction, the pacing of the shots, and the cuts were performed to perfection. It's as deadly as it was built up to be. The pay off is paid off, so to speak.

The OVA is just, meh. Plus, they butchered an excellent story for an average interpretation (Including butchering the art style of the manga, for the animators preferred looks, which is my complaint with what they are doing with DB today). Dio looks so lame in the OVA. The sound direction is almost non-existent. The settings feel lifeless and empty in the OVA.

Nice drawings=/=good animation; and you're usually the one to say that (claiming Maeda's episodes lacked good cuts despite well animated shots, which I disagree with completely in terms of poor storyboarding and cuts).

Just watch this scene of The World. It just speaks of epic. Sure it isn't Red Line or Akira, but man the animation is great for Jojo's genre. It FITS.

Here's the OVA. It is so dull.

[Metalwario64]

I've recalled how the anime payed homage to Cha-La's opening animation with Goku powering up for the fight with Cell, and I decided to compare that shot with the actual shot from the intro:

Cha-La Head Cha-La:


Cell arc:


I know someone will say that it's a poor comparison, because they were done by two different animation studios. I know the Cell arc shot was animated by Last House, and considering the time frame, I imagine it was done by Uchiyama himself. I'm not sure who animated the intro though. I can't find anything on the site.

I know that this is comparing two different artists' work, but that's not the point, and I'm not judging the quality of the drawings themselves, but rather the overall style, and I think that the Last House shot has enough qualities from its era, and fits well enough with Yamamuro's character models. In the intro, you can see the huge, expressive mouth, which was characteristic of Maeda's direction, and in the shot from Uchiyama, it has the smaller mouth, more angular eyes and the completely different nose, and the clavicle is basically gone, which happened around the Freeza arc. Of course, these changes were derived from Toriyama's evolving style, which is a fact I'm not ignorant to.

I'm not saying I like either look more than the other, I just thought it was an interesting comparison. The later Z stuff definitely lost an amount of expression compared to the late Dragon Ball and early Z era, but I also like its style for other reasons as well.

[Attitudefan]

You should edit the post to also include the shot from Yo! Son Goku and Friends, where it is still using Yamamuro's designs.

But yes, your observations are correct and I think it is a fair comparison (which has many of my complaints of Yamamuro's designs in that screenshot). One thing is how the Yamamuro designs are missing the clavicle bone structure, replacing it with the huge pectoral muscles. However, this did happen in the manga. I think Toriyama has since changed his designs where the chest isn't so boob like in his BoG material. Another thing that I miss is the expressive faces. The older designs had not only more expressive faces, but more variety, especially in the eyes and the cheek/eye details (such as with Piccolo).

One thing about the Yamamuro era/Cell-Buu arc Toriyama is that the muscles are more exaggerated but not as realistic. I find that the old designs not only had more realistic details (see: clavicle and adam's apple details on Maeda era DB) but also had hair that didn't look thick and plastic. By the Cell arc already, the hair looked detailed, but stiff.

This is an interesting comparison though, since I believe certain details of Maeda era DB (including Toriyama's designs) had more realistic elements outside the face, such as with the color of the clothing, the details of the muscles, the inclusion of the adams apple, the neck muscles had more accurate placement, and the characters actually had collar bones. Yet, the face, the ears, and the hair were more expressive and playful; larger than life in some cases, but it is gold to have fun with and animate because of its expressive designs. The Yamamuro era designs have very detailed muscles, though innaccurate, and very stiff hair and serious looking facial features.

But should that (Cell arc/Buu arc Toriyama/1990's and beyond Yamamuro) be considered THE default look of Dragonball? I'd love to see more playful looking DBZ era designs for sure!

I'm not saying I like either look more than the other, I just thought it was an interesting comparison. The later Z stuff definitely lost an amount of expression compared to the late Dragon Ball and early Z era, but I also like its style for other reasons as well.

This is a point I REALLY want to highlight, and in hopes of changing the minds of Dragonball artists everywhere. DB does not have to look like the Yamamuro POV of designs. I think certain artists in any medium of Dragonball miss out on having a bit of fun with the relative style of Dragonball (meaning art that doesn't look outside of Toriyama's to an extent; so I'm not talking about DB characters in a Disney style, but in Toriyama's style).

Just throwing it out there but I really do miss the shorter shirt collars on Goku's gi.

Also, I think the intro was keyframed by Maeda. It looks identical to the corrected keyframes in the Dead Zone film, and looks a lot like the poster for that film. Plus, it would make sense for the head animator and character designer to do the intro as the opening is supposed to have some of the best animation considering that would be the first impression for first time viewers. Plus, if Dead Zone was overseen and corrected by Maeda, then I'd wager the opening was too, as they were done in the same relative time period.

[Metalwario64]

You should edit the post to also include the shot from Yo! Son Goku and Friends, where it is still using Yamamuro's designs.

I've... never actually seen it before, so I was unaware of that. Now I feel like it kind of voided part of that post.

I looked on YouTube, and I could only find a really shitty quality video:


It actually looks... really weird. That late Toriyama/Yamamuro style didn't (and still doesn't) have mouths that big. It's like they were following the original shot too closely. It's certainly interesting though, seeing the later, angular style with some of the exaggeration of the earlier Maeda era stuff.

I expected it to look liked this:

Also, I think the intro was keyframed by Maeda. It looks identical to the corrected keyframes in the Dead Zone film, and looks a lot like the poster for that film. Plus, it would make sense for the head animator and character designer to do the intro as the opening is supposed to have some of the best animation considering that would be the first impression for first time viewers. Plus, if Dead Zone was overseen and corrected by Maeda, then I'd wager the opening was too, as they were done in the same relative time period.

I was thinking that, but I didn't want to make a fool of myself by being wrong.

[Captain Space]

So interestingly enough, the episode 4 preview of Dragon Ball Super looks like it has quite a different art style to the first three.

Then again, I'm far from expert on these things so I could be wrong, but...it's entirely possible that there'll be that variety some people have been craving soon.

[shinmaru]

So interestingly enough, the episode 4 preview of Dragon Ball Super looks like it has quite a different art style to the first three.

Then again, I'm far from expert on these things so I could be wrong, but...it's entirely possible that there'll be that variety some people have been craving soon.

I'm no fan of that style reminds me of this Oh well, at least the fat outline style goes well with Pilaf Gang

[Kuwabara]

The fourth episode preview reminds me of shitty Newgrounds animation from 2001.