Yes, it was the most creative episode we'd had so far, and you definitely hit the nail on the head as to why it's so effective. I'd like to expand on and that and also talk a bit about the expressiveness of Toma's work. Sadly, few are willing to look past their initial kneejerk of unfamiliarity to actually judge the quality of the episode.
I spoke about this in Episode 4's discussion thread, but I'll repeat it here. Being on-model isn't a prerequisite for good animation. Some of Z's best looking episodes are the furthest thing from on-model.
Studio Cockpit are constantly praised for their work in the Boo arc, but it looks absolutely nothing like
the character sheets. Nor does it absolutely need to. Animators should be given a degree of freedom to create interesting work. It's painfully tiring to read the same "it's off-model!" responses over and over. It's about as tiring as seeing "budget" thrown around as though it's the only thing that matters.
Hint: it's not.
Seizo Toma's work on Episode 4 should be praised. First, let's take a look at the sheer variety of wonderful expressions featured in just
one scene as an example:
That's genius work. It's cartoon expressiveness down to a T. But it's being ignored because so few will look past their distaste or unfamiliarity with such thick lines. I could go on forever about how well
the teeth were realised throughout the episode. Or the
cutesy faces that many of the characters pulled. There was a level of detail to each character that we hadn't seen in
Super before. You can't even begin to imagine my surprise and frustration upon reading all the negative reactions.
Goku's Kamehameha, though not quite as detailed as its movie counterpart, uses Toma's heavy line weight to accentuate the depth of the scene (something you rightly noted).
Beginning with thicker lines around the jaw, Goku's expression is pushed forwards into the scene. Pulling back, the lines become thinner, with
the arms taking on the weight to bring
them into the scene. Hands are now the forefront of the image,
so they become the thickest. Begin pulling back and
everything starts to shrink down a little. Everything's important in the scene now, so
the image becomes balanced as Goku poses for this medium shot.
Put it all together and you've got one marvelous build up to the attack.
You actually see a similar technique in
this in-between from Episode 5's preview. Speaking of which, that episode looks like it's gonna be a lot better than what we got in the film.
Just look at that glare! Really looking forward to seeing
this properly, too.
I should probably write about the difference between bad character models and bad animation. That's something that's not being separated enough in a lot of the criticism I'm reading. I'm pretty sure most of us hate Yamamuro's designs, but I don't think it's fair to lump all the new animation under 'shit' because of it.
Super has a lot of problems; its narrative is meandering along without focus. I can fully appreciate the criticisms there, and I do agree that Episode 4 is not a touch on the humour we saw in
Battle of Gods. But man, the animation is just not the issue to pick at this week.
