Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[Ajay]

Yeah, I really enjoyed that.

Looking at non-action animation for a second, I loved Monaka's reaction to Vegeta's SSJ Blue transformation:

Spoiler:

Likewise, the referee's opening hand gesture was great:

Spoiler:

There were so many aspects of this episode that were absolutely wonderful.

If I've been overly defensive over the past few days, it's because I genuinely do believe this is the best Super has been.

[Wezenheim]

Yeah, I really enjoyed that.

Looking at non-action animation for a second, I loved Monaka's reaction to Vegeta's SSJ Blue transformation:

Spoiler:

Likewise, the referee's opening hand gesture was great:

Spoiler:

There were so many aspects of this episode that were absolutely wonderful.

If I've been overly defensive over the past few days, it's because I genuinely do believe this is the best Super has been.

Character acting is an underrated aspect of animation and its something Tate does extremely well. Its why Id never be against him getting to work with more downtime episodes.

I think its only natural to be defensive for something you really enjoy. I myself have been a bit. I think Tate did phenomenal and it does bum me out a little to see how some people react to it. People can think how they want though, I suppose. I also think this episode might have featured Super's most interesting animation yet.

[Ajay]

It was definitely the episode with the highest number of impressive cuts.

I don't think he's topped this yet. Bar one or two frames, this is absolutely wonderful, and easily the best Super has had so far. I can't even begin to imagine how much better it could have been on a proper schedule.

There are just so many aspects to that cut that make it so powerful. It really does blow my mind that someone just a few pages back was saying it lacked any power! If anything is preventing his work from looking power, it's the lackluster sound effects. Sure sounds better to me!

It's absolutely gorgeous:

Spoiler:

The faces are so expressive, the smears look wonderful, and I absolutely adore the smoke effect when Freeza blocks Goku's elbow. One of the biggest issues with Resurrection 'F' was its total inability to make this fight feel powerful. Tate absolutely nailed it in this scene.

I really love the camera work in it. It's so dynamic. The way the camera follows the punches, and then pulls back. Also, the little over-exposed moments to emphasise a hit. It's really special.

It's all the little details that put it on the same level as this, but above and beyond something like this. Don't get me wrong, this cut is great thanks to its awesome smoke effects and up and down timing, but it lacks the same creativity and dynamism found in the aforementioned links.

It's quite funny comparing the ratings between those links. I feel validated.

[Draconic]

What I adore about that Tate cut, outside of it being amazing, is the colors. They are neither shiny nor overly bright. Just perfect. It's the scene that feels most old school Dragon Ball to me due to that. I mean, there are parts colored similar to it mostly in that Freeza arc, but that arc it's the low point of the entire series and therefore doesn't feel entirely right.

[Doctor.]

Spoiler:

The ref looks so cute!

[Hit!!]

It was definitely the episode with the highest number of impressive cuts.

I don't think he's topped this yet. Bar one or two frames, this is absolutely wonderful, and easily the best Super has had so far. I can't even begin to imagine how much better it could have been on a proper schedule.

There are just so many aspects to that cut that make it so powerful. It really does blow my mind that someone just a few pages back was saying it lacked any power! If anything is preventing his work from looking power, it's the lackluster sound effects. Sure sounds better to me!

It's absolutely gorgeous:

Spoiler:

The faces are so expressive, the smears look wonderful, and I absolutely adore the smoke effect when Freeza blocks Goku's elbow. One of the biggest issues with Resurrection 'F' was its total inability to make this fight feel powerful. Tate absolutely nailed it in this scene.

I really love the camera work in it. It's so dynamic. The way the camera follows the punches, and then pulls back. Also, the little over-exposed moments to emphasise a hit. It's really special.

It's all the little details that put it on the same level as this, but above and beyond something like this. Don't get me wrong, this cut is great thanks to its awesome smoke effects and up and down timing, but it lacks the same creativity and dynamism found in the aforementioned links.

It's quite funny comparing the ratings between those links. I feel validated.

That scene had great animation, but the art SUCKED ASS!!! It didn't even look like Dragon Ball. I hate it when an episode looks like Dragon Ball, then next episode looks like One Peace and the next one after that looks like Naruto, and the other one after that looks like complete dog shit and THEEEN we get an episode that actually looks and feels like Dragon Ball. Thats how I percieved the ROF Arc. The lack of consistency made it a complete disaster. That scene would've been soo much better if the art didn't look like fucking garbage, because that animation right there is movie tier.

[Ajay]

You can talk about work without resorting to hyperbole and vitriol. "Fucking garbage", "sucked ass", and "dog shit" are the last things that apply to that cut. Reserve that for scenes that actually are bad.

Please explain how the art doesn't look like Dragon Ball? It sure as hell does to me.

Straying from mechanical adherence to Yamamuro's designs doesn't equate to bad.

[Wezenheim]

Spoiler:

The ref looks so cute!

That part reminded me of this: https://sakuga.yshi.org/post/show/20623 ... ries-drago
That was from Tate's last episode, which was 33 I think? Both cuts are really adorable and small attention to details that I really like.

I mostly meant that the latest episode was the best animated overall, but you have a point about the Golden Freeza/Goku cut, Ajay. That was certainly more intense than Goku vs. Hit, but I really loved some of the crazy angles and movements during that sequence. Don't know which I prefer honestly!

I'd weigh in on the Tate debate again, but I'm not at my computer! But yeah, I saw no major problems with the art last episode outside of a few frames. Most of the key frames looked really good to me.

[LSSJGODSSJ4Gogeta]

Man...Vegeta's so much darker in Super then Z. It's like what happened to Goku from -GT. Accept less of a time gap to make sense with.

I kind of prefer Goku and Vegeta to be white then darker skin looking. It's not a skin thing, it's just what I'm used to with them. They don't seam like the tanning type of guys. Super and GT did unnecessary tannings.

[Hit!!]

Both Vegeta and Trunks have always been dark skinned. They only become white when they turn SSJ. In GT they turned things around, they made Goku dark skinned and Vegeta white skinned, but in DBZ it was always the other way around.

[Bansho64]

Yeah Vegeta was probably the darkest around the Cell arc in Z. Him being dark-skinned isn't anything new.

[Wezenheim]

I think that the second Vegeta knock back was mentioned a page or so back, but I also really enjoyed the first one for some reason:

Spoiler:

I think it is mostly because of how the fabric of Vegeta's outfit moves. I don't even think that part of his attire has ever even moved to that degree before, if at all. That even stood out to me the first time I watched the episode while it streamed. Blows my mind that I can even remember something like that.

[Hit!!]

Vegeta's outfit moving like that makes it look like those hip hop/trap rappers of today, that use these longline T shirts that almost look like aprons. Now I can actually imagine Vegeta saying "shit be lit fam".

[PMD]

It was definitely the episode with the highest number of impressive cuts.

I don't think he's topped this yet. Bar one or two frames, this is absolutely wonderful, and easily the best Super has had so far. I can't even begin to imagine how much better it could have been on a proper schedule.

There are just so many aspects to that cut that make it so powerful. It really does blow my mind that someone just a few pages back was saying it lacked any power! If anything is preventing his work from looking power, it's the lackluster sound effects. Sure sounds better to me!

It's absolutely gorgeous:

Spoiler:

The faces are so expressive, the smears look wonderful, and I absolutely adore the smoke effect when Freeza blocks Goku's elbow. One of the biggest issues with Resurrection 'F' was its total inability to make this fight feel powerful. Tate absolutely nailed it in this scene.

I really love the camera work in it. It's so dynamic. The way the camera follows the punches, and then pulls back. Also, the little over-exposed moments to emphasise a hit. It's really special.

It's all the little details that put it on the same level as this, but above and beyond something like this. Don't get me wrong, this cut is great thanks to its awesome smoke effects and up and down timing, but it lacks the same creativity and dynamism found in the aforementioned links.

It's quite funny comparing the ratings between those links. I feel validated.

That scene had great animation, but the art SUCKED ASS!!! It didn't even look like Dragon Ball. I hate it when an episode looks like Dragon Ball, then next episode looks like One Peace and the next one after that looks like Naruto, and the other one after that looks like complete dog shit and THEEEN we get an episode that actually looks and feels like Dragon Ball. Thats how I percieved the ROF Arc. The lack of consistency made it a complete disaster. That scene would've been soo much better if the art didn't look like fucking garbage, because that animation right there is movie tier.

I second this notion. Look at that Freezer being bitten. Just horrid, plain and simple.

I get Ajay likes Tate's work, and his defense of his opinion is solid, but at the end of the day is just very subjective.
Of course Tate delivers the best work in terms of animation, but the art is just not good. It is what it is. It doesn't look like Dragon Ball at all. Sometimes it looks like they're including the work from some random kids who tries to draw Dragon Ball characters. And I'm talking about kids between 3 and 6 years old.

I get you don't like Yamamuro, but DB always looked in a certain way, for years. You're not going to change that just because. Again, I love Tate's work in terms of animation, but at the same time the drawing is just painful to watch. It's inconsistent at least.

That cut from episode 26 is far from being the best of Dragon Ball Super. We just saw the very best they did in the last episode.

[Ajay]

You keep saying it doesn't look like Dragon Ball, but you're not saying how. Hyperbolic nonsense about children's drawings don't hold any water. I'm saying anyone's wrong, but nobody's using sensible descriptions that explain how It's the case.

I'm not saying it does simply because I like Tate. It just looks like Dragon Ball to me; I don't know what else to say.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

It looks like Dragon Ball, but off-model Dragon Ball. Which I assume is their complaint.

I'll agree with them to some extent, too. Tate plays a little too loose with the character models at times. Honestly, I don't mind him going off model during animation if the final result looks nice. If there's a point in one of the cuts that going to spend a decent amount of time on screen without significant motion though, I wish he would tighten it up a bit. It doesn't have to look exactly like Yamamuro's desgins or anything, just spend an extra second or two to better define a shape.

Hands and faces are the worst for him. A lot of the time, it feels like we're either slipping into Oda expressions rather than Toriyama, or we lose a little too much detail. I don't mean that the art has to be super detailed or anything, but certain portions of the body are expected to have general shapes. This last episode, for example, there were more than a few instances of Vegeta suffering from butter/egg face and sausage/flipper fingers during the static portions of the action cuts.

Don't get me wrong. I'm completely grateful for the animation and choreography, but I also wish the characters didn't have to look like a balloon to achieve that.

[Ajay]

That makes a little more sense to me, I suppose. Given his ability to churn out keys like this though, I have to wonder how much of that is a time-related aspect, as opposed to a stylistic one. I've often chalked it up to a personal style for Super, but having spoken to AnimeNewsNetwork writer Kevin Cirugeda, I get the feeling I was wrong.

Here's some snippets of the conversation we had:

DBS Tate sometimes feels less unrestrained by form and more poorly defined, which is obviously happening because the project's very rushed; don't want to blame him personally.

They're a) conceptually more interesting and b) even more visually appealing [than on-model cuts], even though they're 'broken'.

Given his One Piece work, which varied rather nicely between detailed and loose, I suppose it makes more sense. I have to say, I still do find his work, as 'overly-loose' as it can be, to be far more appealing than a huge majority of Super's animation.

For example, Ryo Onishi's great cuts in #14 are very loose and off-model, but they don't appeal to me in the same way that Tate's stuff does. Which I guess brings it back round to personal taste.

[Cipher]

Tate's Goku vs. Freeza cut is probably my favorite in the series as well. It's a shame it's stuck in such a visually unimpressive fight overall, but holy hell is it good.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

His keys are perfectly fine most of the time. It's really only portions of the action cuts that suffers IMO, though I completely understand why with what we know about the production and schedule. So I don't come in here and complain about these types of things very often, because I know it's generally not their fault that the material being released is the quality it is. The animators, Tate included are almost certainly doing they best they can under the circumstances.

But in a perfect world, or at least a better one, he'd be able to tighten up shots reminiscent of the one below (or worse). This one specifically wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be in the episode itself, because it turned out to only be on screen briefly, but it stuck out like a sore thumb in last weeks NEP. The face isn't too terrible, but the hands are prime material to make balloon animals.

[PMD]

That makes a little more sense to me, I suppose. Given his ability to churn out keys like this though, I have to wonder how much of that is a time-related aspect, as opposed to a stylistic one. I've often chalked it up to a personal style for Super, but having spoken to AnimeNewsNetwork writer Kevin Cirugeda, I get the feeling I was wrong.

Here's some snippets of the conversation we had:

DBS Tate sometimes feels less unrestrained by form and more poorly defined, which is obviously happening because the project's very rushed; don't want to blame him personally.

They're a) conceptually more interesting and b) even more visually appealing [than on-model cuts], even though they're 'broken'.

Given his One Piece work, which varied rather nicely between detailed and loose, I suppose it makes more sense. I have to say, I still do find his work, as 'overly-loose' as it can be, to be far more appealing than a huge majority of Super's animation.

For example, Ryo Onishi's great cuts in #14 are very loose and off-model, but they don't appeal to me in the same way that Tate's stuff does. Which I guess brings it back round to personal taste.

Well, that brings more clarity to the case. It seems Tate has some style that everyone knows and and they just let him be. That's ok, I can live with that. And, again, I like his work in terms of animation (and some keys too), but I just found it off style in terms of how Dragon Ball always looked.

I don't want to put 80 examples because I don't have that time, sadly, but I guess you all understand what I mean because, well, you've been watching the anime since your childhood, like me. I don't understand what else you want me to say to explain it. I agree with what TheDevilsCorpse said here:

Tate plays a little too loose with the character models at times. Honestly, I don't mind him going off model during animation if the final result looks nice. If there's a point in one of the cuts that going to spend a decent amount of time on screen without significant motion though, I wish he would tighten it up a bit. It doesn't have to look exactly like Yamamuro's desgins or anything, just spend an extra second or two to better define a shape.

Hands and faces are the worst for him. A lot of the time, it feels like we're either slipping into Oda expressions rather than Toriyama, or we lose a little too much detail. I don't mean that the art has to be super detailed or anything, but certain portions of the body are expected to have general shapes. This last episode, for example, there were more than a few instances of Vegeta suffering from butter/egg face and sausage/flipper fingers during the static portions of the action cuts.

It's a shame, because his cuts are the best of DBS, but at the same time, his episodes have the worst art, in terms of model, perspective (especially for a guy who always like to use the depth of field that much in the fights) and simply just some drawings.

Again, it's a matter of personal taste. It's a very subjective thing. Even though there's some kind of consensus about how Tate episode looks, aside of the animation. There's not many people saying "OMG! Wow, did you see that amazing drawing? WHAT.A.JOB by Tate! Look those noses, legs and out of proportion bodies! Just amazing! Makes me really nostalgic about Dragon Ball." Nope, just nope.