Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[ArchedThunder]

Speaking of Otsuka Ken I REALLY hope he shows up in this block of action episodes. I think he'd work pretty well with Manabe or Karasawa.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

The's not true. The entire last episode was great and miles above the Movie counterpart:
- SSB Vegeta vs Golden Freeza.
- Earth's explosion showing everyone families made it much more dramatic.
- Gohan's and Krillin's reaction to it. In the Movie they barely show any emotion towards the lost of their families.
- Gohan going to hug his family was emotional.
- Conclusion - The party, Kid Trunks reference to FT Trunks, Gohan realizing he got rusty and wants to train again...

I was only speaking in terms of animation. Vegeta beating the crap out of Freeza in the movie was short which is why Takahashi Yuya's cut had more impact. While the TV version drags this and makes it less impactful. It kind of feels fanservicey and the animation itself didn't stand out much.

- Travis

[nite_jay]

Speaking of Otsuka Ken I REALLY hope he shows up in this block of action episodes. I think he'd work pretty well with Manabe or Karasawa.

I would really like for him to show up next week. My expectations for next week though are very low. It's weird to see mostly everyone improve over the schedule but to see Kitano just get worse.

[JulieYBM]

Ootsuka Ken probably doesn't know. After he finishes his storyboard it gets passed off to the enshutsu, who in this case is Iwai Takao, who will set about helping to assign and check cuts. That being said, the sword-posing isn't Shimanuki. He's never had that sense of timing or those effects. The effects alone are enough to say it is Karasawa, simply without his usual character shading, likely due to time.

[ArchedThunder]

Speaking of Otsuka Ken I REALLY hope he shows up in this block of action episodes. I think he'd work pretty well with Manabe or Karasawa.

I would really like for him to show up next week. My expectations for next week though are very low. It's weird to see mostly everyone improve over the schedule but to see Kitano just get worse.

This coming episode will probably be the worst of this block of action, but to be fair to Kitano he only has 6 weeks since his last episode and he did a lot of animation in that one and the roughness of the Trunks stuff in the NEP makes me think he's doing a lot of animation again. I wouldn't be surprised if they are saving their animators for the episodes after Kitano's. Manabe and Karasawa are both getting 8 weeks and Tate has 10, so we'll probably have some nice stuff in those episodes. Ishikawa is only has 6 weeks, but he's paired up with Tate and will probably mainly be doing supervisor work instead of animation.
I imagine 63, 64, 65 and 66 will be the main action for the rest of the arc, so it'd be best to save animators like Otsuka Ken for one of those episodes.

Kitano's looked a lot worse than this as well;
[spoiler][/spoiler]
His art in 24 and 45 were much worse. As long as the art doesn't get much worse than the above then the episode might end up at least looking passable art wise (the art outside of the action in the NEP looked totally fine). The little bit of action in the NEP makes me expectations for the animation pretty much zero, but maybe Higashide will give us a nice bit of action or something.

[FortuneSSJ]

We've come a long way, but I wonder if the day we can say "the production is finally alright" will come, before Super ends.
Wouldn't the best solution be outsourcing an amount of episodes (filler arc) to a third party after this arc, to help Toei improving the schedule for their staff?

[Wezenheim]

You can always ask Otsuka Ken on Twitter if it's Shimanuki, since he was the storyboard artist for that episode.

I just want to warn everyone to not ask Ootsuka questions on Twitter involving his work on Super. I made that mistake a few months ago because I still can't read Japanese yet, but in his bio it says that he's not really allowed to talk about it. I'm sure this also includes speaking about the work of others. Just figured I'd let everyone know!

I have to wonder if Inaba Jin animated the Zamasu/Black hug. Is he the "rotation guy"? Don't quote me on this but Inaba might've done a few of those stills at the end of the episode as well, they don't really look like Karasawa to me. Inaba's the only one on the staff list that I recognize that is usually on-model.

[nite_jay]

Speaking of Otsuka Ken I REALLY hope he shows up in this block of action episodes. I think he'd work pretty well with Manabe or Karasawa.

I would really like for him to show up next week. My expectations for next week though are very low. It's weird to see mostly everyone improve over the schedule but to see Kitano just get worse.

This coming episode will probably be the worst of this block of action, but to be fair to Kitano he only has 6 weeks since his last episode and he did a lot of animation in that one and the roughness of the Trunks stuff in the NEP makes me think he's doing a lot of animation again. I wouldn't be surprised if they are saving their animators for the episodes after Kitano's. Manabe and Karasawa are both getting 8 weeks and Tate has 10, so we'll probably have some nice stuff in those episodes. Ishikawa is only has 6 weeks, but he's paired up with Tate and will probably mainly be doing supervisor work instead of animation.
I imagine 63, 64, 65 and 66 will be the main action for the rest of the arc, so it'd be best to save animators like Otsuka Ken for one of those episodes.

Kitano's looked a lot worse than this as well;
[spoiler][/spoiler]
His art in 24 and 45 were much worse. As long as the art doesn't get much worse than the above then the episode might end up at least looking passable art wise (the art outside of the action in the NEP looked totally fine). The little bit of action in the NEP makes me expectations for the animation pretty much zero, but maybe Higashide will give us a nice bit of action or something.

All of what you said was probably true, but there's just something about rushed Kitano art that just triggers me.

[Ajay]

Who knows? I don't feel as though the cut was corrected by Shimanuki. He has improved his art style since then and I'm sure he wants to be able to do better with action cuts. He, hailed as one of the best action animators in Dragon Ball Z, still can get back to his former self if he sets his mind to it. You can always ask Otsuka Ken on Twitter if it's Shimanuki, since he was the storyboard artist for that episode.

I'd like to think I do. I've been staring at this stuff constantly for the past week. Storyboard artists don't assign cuts, so I'm not convinced Otsuka would know, plus he doesn't like being bugged.

Shimanuki might be able to draw better these days, but he didn't suddenly develop a totally different way of animating and drawing effects. That just doesn't happen like that.

Shimanuki's action is much more rigid. We've seen this across all of his recent work, and even this episode. The timing and effects are consistent here.

[spoiler]

^Disregard the one cut in there that isn't Shimanuki[/spoiler]

You also found this in his One Piece work, which was equally as awkward.

Putting aside that the character proportions during most of the scene don't really match Shimanuki, the effects work in the ki-blade clip is totally different and matches Karasawa, by my eyes:

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

VS.

[spoiler]



[/spoiler]

Shimanuki animates the section where Goku falls to the ground, and you can see the differences between the two scenes most clearly there. The smoke effects wildly change and Goku flops to the ground with Shimanuki's timing.

EDIT: Well, I was beaten by both Jacob and Wes while typing this, but hopefully it illustrates why I think it's Karasawa, at least. I'd love more than anything to be wrong, since Super could do with another good animator, but I'm not convinced.

-

By the way, everyone. It was Yuki Hayashi who animated the Vegeta beatdown in Resurrection 'F', not Yuya Takahashi. I've made the same mistake before!

[ArchedThunder]

What happened to Animator's Corner?

We've come a long way, but I wonder if the day we can say "the production is finally alright" will come, before Super ends.
Wouldn't the best solution be outsourcing an amount of episodes (filler arc) to a third party after this arc, to help Toei improving the schedule for their staff?

Super is likely to continue for years, so it will probably get a totally normal schedule eventually, maybe within the next year or two.
Outsourcing a mini arc wouldn't help unless they outsourced the writing and storyboards as well, and I'm not totally sure they'd want to do that, but who knows. If we go past end of Z after this arc they could redo the end of Z and that would likely be pretty easy on writers and storyboarders.
I'm really hopefully that the reason King Ryu suddenly started writing very few episodes this arc is because his time these past few months has been primarily focused on the next arc. If that's the case that could result in a nice bump to the schedule as well. Also if the next arc has been his focus then the 3 weeks we had off could have had a double boost to the schedule, first improving the schedule immediately for the current arc and also allowing King Ryu more time on the next arc.
Also if we get lucky and have a fair number of breaks spread throughout next year(around 6 would be ideal) then the schedule would pretty much be totally normal by the end of the year (assuming they used those weeks off to improve the schedule like they did with the recent 3), especially if we see an improvement to the schedule at the beginning of the next arc.
Really the speed at which the schedule becomes comparable to something like Pokemon or One Piece depends on multiple factors, some in Toei's control and some not, but I feel pretty confident that it will get there eventually.

[Ajay]

What happened to Animator's Corner?

They're having issues with their host, but you can still access the site by using http://test.animatorscorner.com.

On the topic of issues, I think a lack of (talented) animators is one of the biggest issues we'll continue to face for a while.

Tiger Mask W is planned to be 39 episodes long and it's taking a lot of good staff with it. Means that some Super staff are spread more thinly, or taken away entirely.

For example, Naoki Tate helped animate the opening, Satsuki Aizu was on episode 1, and Miyuki Yokoyama was top credited KA on #2. That's three great Super animators with their attention elsewhere.

Not fun, but eh, that's definitely one thing where I'll totally accept, "Toei, you suck" as a response.

[Sodhi]

Yea Onishi Ryo and Kuroyanagi Kenji seem to be working on tiger mask too. Oh and also Kakudo Hiroyuki . Dang they really did take so much of Super staff.

[ArchedThunder]

What happened to Animator's Corner?

They're having issues with their host, but you can still access the site by using http://test.animatorscorner.com.

On the topic of issues, I think a lack of (talented) animators is one of the biggest issues we'll continue to face for a while.

Tiger Mask W is planned to be 39 episodes long and it's taking a lot of good staff with it. Means that some Super staff are spread more thinly, or taken away entirely.

For example, Naoki Tate helped animate the opening, Satsuki Aizu was on episode 1, and Miyuki Yokoyama was top credited KA on #2. That's three great Super animators with their attention elsewhere.

Not fun, but eh, that's definitely one thing where I'll totally accept, "Toei, you suck" as a response.

Aizu hasn't even worked on Super since episode 44 and Miyuki only does 2nd KA on Super anyways, Tate working on the opening is weird, I didn't know that, but hopefully that will be the end of his involvement with that series. I'm really sad that Hakamada Yuuji is an animation supervisor on the new Digimon series. Do we know how many episodes the new Digimon series is going to be?
Hopefully we start seeing more talent in Super now, I mean we got Shida! I think episodes 63-66 have the best chance for us to see some great talent pop in.
But man, Toei has way too much on their plate AGAIN.

Yea Onishi Ryo and Kuroyanagi Kenji seem to be working on tiger mask too. Oh and also Kakudo Hiroyuki . Dang they really did take so much of Super staff.

Onishi Ryo hasn't worked on an episode of Super since 14, Kuroyanagi Kenji only worked on a single episode of Super and Kakudo Hiroyuki tends to jump around shows and hasn't done a Super episode since 47. The closest to "taking staff from Super" in that list would be Kakudo Hiroyuki.

[FortuneSSJ]

- Lack of talented animators-

Why they don't find better staff? For example, how such a good animators as Karasawa and Futoshi Higashide started to work in Super later?
Were they assigned to do it? Or they wanted to join the staff? Why Toei don't bring more good animators along the road? Is the schedule still scaring a lot of people?!

Shida being a slow animator, could be a reason for he not want to work in Super until now. But he's finally with us now.
Don't know about the others.

[Sodhi]

Yea Onishi Ryo and Kuroyanagi Kenji seem to be working on tiger mask too. Oh and also Kakudo Hiroyuki . Dang they really did take so much of Super staff.

Onishi Ryo hasn't worked on an episode of Super since 14, Kuroyanagi Kenji only worked on a single episode of Super and Kakudo Hiroyuki tends to jump around shows and hasn't done a Super episode since 47. The closest to "taking staff from Super" in that list would be Kakudo Hiroyuki.

Really does not matter. Those people are talented and did work for Super. The fact is that the talent is really thin or going to other shows.

[Ajay]

- Lack of talented animators-

Why they don't find better staff?

They don't really exist. It's an on-going issue with the industry.

[ArchedThunder]

Really does not matter. Those people are talented and did work for Super. The fact is that the talent is really thin or going to other shows.

Onishi Ryo and Kuroyanagi Kenji only worked on one episode of Super each (Onishi Ryo's being in the first arc even, while Kuroyanagi Kenji's work on his episode seemed to be very small), I wouldn't consider them part of the Super staff, they weren't taken from Super and put on Tiger Mask.

They don't really exist. It's an on-going issue with the industry.

That and I'm sure many animators were/are likely avoiding Super because of the schedule.

[Sodhi]

There is a positive to all this though. We got Shida(Yeeeeeee), plus supervisors really are improving with the schedule. Ide takeo is back too. It won't be long until Hatano will be able to find good staff for battle episodes.

[Ajay]

Aizu hasn't even worked on Super since episode 44 and Miyuki only does 2nd KA on Super anyways

Oh, for sure. It's definitely not doom and gloom for Super's existing staff or anything (yet); someone like Higashide hasn't had his attention divided or anything. I just wouldn't underestimate the importance of 2nd KA, especially on Super.

We've seen how much impact they can have as of late. When the supervisors and chief supervisors seem to be doing so much clean-up, it was kinda nice knowing we had 2nd KAs who could do just as good as job, too!

[JulieYBM]

- Lack of talented animators-

Why they don't find better staff? For example, how such a good animators as Karasawa and Futoshi Higashide started to work in Super later?
Were they assigned to do it? Or they wanted to join the staff? Why Toei don't bring more good animators along the road? Is the schedule still scaring a lot of people?!

Shida being a slow animator, could be a reason for he not want to work in Super until now. But he's finally with us now.
Don't know about the others.

Good animators are busy with other commitments or have no interest in Dragon Ball. You can't just force people to work on a series, especially one that offers less than what another series might.