Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[Saikyo no Senshi]

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.

#26 was awesome cause of this cut from Tate Naoki. It was better than that horrendous movie fight. Best episode of the arc imo.

- Travis

[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.

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.

https://twitter.com/ken_oo/status/713907505806467072 Here's the tweet saying he finished the layout. I could have sworn there was a tweet saying he only had a short time to do the layout but I can't find it.
Doesn't one person do the layout and then when it's done all of the animators can work on the episode? I would find it very weird if a big episode like 39 only had its layout finished 3 weeks before the episode aired, but an episode like 7 would have more than that. If that were the case then the schedule would potentially only be around where it was for episode 7 if Shida's mention of working on a cut for Super 7 and a half weeks before it aired is anything to go by, unless he had already been working on it for a few weeks or he came into the episode after it already had a few weeks of animation done.

[buutenks]

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.

#26 was awesome cause of this cut from Tate Naoki. It was better than that horrendous movie fight. Best episode of the arc imo.

- Travis

Well, with the changes in the blu ray, ep 25 and 26 werent so bad. Tho i absolutely disliked the cgi in the movie. But base Goku vs Freeza, was well done, especially compared to the anime, where it, while was different, was so badly drawn, id prefer to watch the movie fight.

But golden freeza vs ssj blue, i enjoyed the one in the anime more. Tho that one inch punch or w/e its called was cool.

[Ajay]

https://twitter.com/ken_oo/status/713907505806467072 Here's the tweet saying he finished the layout. I could have sworn there was a tweet saying he only had a short time to do the layout but I can't find it.
Doesn't one person do the layout and then when it's done all of the animators can work on the episode? I would find it very weird if a big episode like 39 only had its layout finished 3 weeks before the episode aired, but an episode like 7 would have more than that. If that were the case then the schedule would potentially only be around where it was for episode 7 if Shida's mention of working on a cut for Super 7 and a half weeks before it aired is anything to go by, unless he had already been working on it for a few weeks or he came into the episode after it already had a few weeks of animation done.

No, the storyboard is done by one person in advance, then the cuts are designated to the various animators, who then draw their layouts. There's a non-standard credit called a Layout Animation Director, but Super doesn't have one. The animators do the work themselves which is the norm.

Layouts can take a long time since they have to incorporate backgrounds, description of camera movement, and all that fun stuff. They essentially finalise the storyboard so that the other teams (background artists, for example) know what's required of them. This has to be approved by the supervisor before the animator can begin working on his key frames. How soon that can happen is all on the animator. There's some tense stuff in the Little Witch Academia making-of where some of the KAs were taking a long time with their layouts and the supervisor was getting really antsy.

There are several tweets of Otsuka saying he was busy and was working hard to get things done, but there's a tweet on April 6th saying he has one cut to go, so it seems he delivered well within the time frame. Either way, the point is that this is only a reflection of the individual's performance rather than the production as a whole.

[ArchedThunder]

Now I'm way more confused on the state of Super's production @_@

[Ajay]

Now I'm way more confused on the state of Super's production @_@

You and me, both! I don't think we'll ever know any real specifics, unfortunately.

We'll just keep making broad estimations based on vague tweets, rotation times, and the quality of the episodes. Maybe we'll strike gold one day!

In other news, Kuririn had a nose this week!

[ArchedThunder]

Now I'm way more confused on the state of Super's production @_@

You and me, both! I don't think we'll ever know any real specifics, unfortunately.

We'll just keep making broad estimations based on vague tweets, rotation times, and the quality of the episodes. Maybe we'll strike gold one day!

It was simpler when I was wrong and thought I knew a pretty solid estimate of the timescale for animation =P
Well if the schedule has been getting better (which it really seems like it) then maybe Super is actually closer to a normal schedule than I previously thought and the biggest issue really is one of man power.
Hopefully when Tiger Mask (and Digimon) ends Super is able to grab a few more permanent staff. Shida showing up in 57 and also working on another episode in combination with the NEP for 63 makes me really hopeful that we're going to be seeing some talented people pop up in the next few episodes.

[Sodhi]

They should hire more people like yashima who can solo dialog episodes here and there and put them under Tsuji.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

I was kind of wondering if Super's schedule has been so bad, why is an animator like Tate Naoki who is pretty much the top tier animator in Toei working on it? Not that I want him to leave I'm just curious.

Is he under contract or something? Or is it that he just loves to work on Dragon Ball so much that he doesn't care about the awful schedule?

Last question, is he currently working on any other show?

- Travis

[Amir]

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.

#26 was awesome cause of this cut from Tate Naoki. It was better than that horrendous movie fight. Best episode of the arc imo.

- Travis

The only good thing about it was Goku turning around and elbowing Frieza, the rest was mostly close ups, still frames (like that kick) and bad art. Nowhere near as good as the movie fight, and the movie fight wasn't that good either.

[Lord Beerus]

I was kind of wondering if Super's schedule has been so bad, why is an animator like Tate Naoki who is pretty much the top tier animator in Toei working on it? Not that I want him to leave I'm just curious.

Is he under contract or something? Or is it that he just loves to work on Dragon Ball so much that he doesn't care about the awful schedule?

Last question, is he currently working on any other show?

- Travis

If Toei plan for one of their employed animators to be a regular on the show, they will remain regular on the show until Toei tell them shift their focus on another project. As and far as I know, Tate isn't working on anything else other than Super at the moment.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

The only good thing about it was Goku turning around and elbowing Frieza, the rest was mostly close ups, still frames (like that kick) and bad art. Nowhere near as good as the movie fight, and the movie fight wasn't that good either.

I can sacrifice art for fluid and dynamic movements. The character expressions is something Tate excels at and you can clearly see that in the cut. Besides the art isn't bad, it is loose and done purposely. It's Tate's style which I like a lot. But I can understand why some might not like it.

I disagree completely on the movie fight though. It was not good. It is one of the worst main fights I've ever seen. The camera angles were just not interesting, movements were stiff, horrible cgi and repetitive fight choreography combined with Yamamuro's bad amateurish direction. It irritated and disappointed me to no end.


- Travis

[FortuneSSJ]

-Episode 62-
Don't know if it was Nashizawa Koji, but I really liked Goku's serious faces in the second part:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
I'm curious to see more of this guy.

[ArchedThunder]

Like I said before, Nashizawa Koji definitely seems like someone we should keep an eye on, they might turn out to be a great supervisor(assuming this wasn't a one time thing before they return to just doing key animation). I wonder if we'll see an episode headed by him, maybe in between this arc and the next.

[Alee9977]

If that is Koji, then I hope we can see him more often in DBS, he draws Goku very good.

[Shuby]

Aside from Tate , there is one factor which can make episode 63 even more epic:

[Noah]

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

Was this episode even corrected?

[Saikyo no Senshi]

Was this episode even corrected?

Unfortunately no.

- Travis

[BakaManiaHD]

Did Yukihiro Kitano drew this?

[PMD]

Finished up the entry for this week's episode:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Am I the only one who thinks Nashizawa's (presumed) Goku looks like Uub in GT? Not good at all.



And... for real, I wann kill myself watching this:

[spoiler][/spoiler]