Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[emperior]

About battle damage in Super, why is it so bad? Sometimes characters get punched and shit and they have no sign of damage, and sometimes battle damage is there, but it's drawn very badly.Just look at episode 27, and some of episode 63 too.
There's also the moment in which Vegeta is punching the shit out of Black and headbutting him too and next thing you see is Black looking fresh, with three/four lines of damage at best.
Is that just me or the battle damage lines do indeed look bad? I think drawing damage is the easiest thing to do, how come animators get it so wrong? At the moment I can't recall a single time in Super where battle damage is good looking, then I look at BoG, RoF and RoF extended scenes and battle damage is incredibly good there, with red lines too.

I'm quite sure the show would look a lot better if battle damage was drawn better.

[Noah]

About battle damage in Super, why is it so bad? Sometimes characters get punched and shit and they have no sign of damage...

Oh don't even remember me about how Bergamo was after that Kaioken + SSJB Kamehameha, it was like he was just tired, no scratches, no blood, nothing. I mean after a attack like that you would expect Bergamo to be roasted, much like Piccolo was after tanking that Nappa blast in the Saiyan arc.

[Ajay]

About battle damage in Super, why is it so bad?

Here's a crackpot theory I had back during the Future Trunks arc. It's not based on much so I never mentioned it, but since you've brought it up, I guess I'll throw it out there.

I actually had a feeling the minor damage in some cases (not all) was done by a different person than the key animator. In so many scenes, the damage just looks totally separate from the original key.

Sometimes it's in places that make zero sense, sometimes it's crossing lines that it shouldn't, and in a few occasions, it totally overlaps areas. It's strange.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

It's like someone came along afterwards and scribbled lines in there to make things look a little worn. It seems to have no regard for the original drawing.

Could be rushed work, could be nothing. I just noticed it enough at the time that I came up with that.

Either way, I agree with you.

[aaronWgamer]

Oh don't even remember me about how Bergamo was after that Kaioken + SSJB Kamehameha, it was like he was just tired, no scratches, no blood, nothing. I mean after a attack like that you would expect Bergamo to be roasted, much like Piccolo was after tanking that Nappa blast in the Saiyan arc.

That was so bad. That should have been a moment to display Goku's power and all it did was reverse a technique that was boring in the first place. It let Shimanuki's beam struggle down.

[ArchedThunder]

If Yamamuro was a regular I think he would have improved a lot by now as opossed to the slow improvement he's shown. That's most frustrating thing regarding him, as Ajay pointed out some of the designs are recycled and he didn't even design Vegetto Blue so what the heck is he doing that's keeping him away from working on Super?

They're likely recycling a lot of designs because he doesn't have the time to do new designs for everything.

Just to clear up any confusion about Nagamine's involvement in this One Piece business since I did a horrendous job of reporting on it when it first broke. I should have waited for all of the information, really. Lesson learned.

Satoshi Ito is the main director. He's directing and storyboarding the first and last episode of this mini arc (#780 & #782).

However, Nagamine is essentially the chief director of the mini-arc. The producer's comment reads, "All these young staff are supported by Nagamine, the director of Film Z."

He's pretty much playing mini-series director for this short story, so it's a little more significant than I initially thought.

It won't necessarily affect Super much, but he's doing a little more than just popping across for an episode!

I still bet that if Nagamine didn't come to Super that Satoshi Ito wouldn't be there on this mini arc and it'd be Nagamine doing those two episodes instead. I'm sticking with my theory that Nagamine's role on that One Piece filler is actually minor and he's credited more because he did the early work on it before coming to Super.

[perucho1990]

About battle damage in Super, why is it so bad? Sometimes characters get punched and shit and they have no sign of damage, and sometimes battle damage is there, but it's drawn very badly.Just look at episode 27, and some of episode 63 too.
There's also the moment in which Vegeta is punching the shit out of Black and headbutting him too and next thing you see is Black looking fresh, with three/four lines of damage at best.
Is that just me or the battle damage lines do indeed look bad? I think drawing damage is the easiest thing to do, how come animators get it so wrong? At the moment I can't recall a single time in Super where battle damage is good looking, then I look at BoG, RoF and RoF extended scenes and battle damage is incredibly good there, with red lines too.

I'm quite sure the show would look a lot better if battle damage was drawn better.

In Blacks case is because he could regenerate with every zenkai he got

But I agree the battle dmg overall is very inconsistent. I'm not defending Bergamo but in his case it could be that he is actually a tank? Because the dmg on Basil and even Lavenda looked decent.

BTW if they are recycling old designs, why not recycle old designs from characters that deserved better? For example, Ledgic and Nova Shenron?

[KameNinja45]

Any reason why they don't use impact frames as much anymore? They added so much impact and pop to each attack.

[ArchedThunder]

BTW if they are recycling old designs, why not recycle old designs from characters that deserved better? For example, Ledgic and Nova Shenron?

They are recycling designs for the Z characters, not new characters. Goku is still using his Battle of Gods design sheet and Kaioshin is using his Z sheet for example.

[JazzMazz]

Any reason why they don't use impact frames as much anymore? They added so much impact and pop to each attack.

They are definitely used by some animators who work on Super, for example, what we can only assume was Jin Inaba's work on the OP used impact frames really well. As for them actually being used within the series, the only animators that actively use them would be Naoki Tate and Yuichi Karasawa(Karasawa less so). I'm presumed there aren't used as much due to directing, or lack of time and skill.

[SaiyanGod117]

How would you all rate Dragon Ball Super's core staff ? I would say it's extremely lackluster for a franchise of this caliber. You could just put that all on the schedule, however in-comparison to DBZ's staff there not as efficient or talented. Just my opinion of course.

[ArchedThunder]

How would you all rate Dragon Ball Super's core staff ? I would say it's extremely lackluster for a franchise of this caliber. You could just put that all on the schedule, however in-comparison to DBZ's staff there not as efficient or talented. Just my opinion of course.

I don't think you realize how much the state for Super's production has effected the show. It not only massively negatively effects the staff, but it also hurts the show's ability to get highly talented staff.

[JustinWBL]

Hi guys, sorry for going off topic but in Ajay's post on Shimanuki's latest episode, it said that "Shimanuki corrects the art, however, which does result in some trademark stiffness making its way into Higashide's animation." I would just like to ask, how does correcting someone's work result in stiffer animation? If the animator was talented enough wouldn't the animation be fluid?

[SaiyanGod117]

How would you all rate Dragon Ball Super's core staff ? I would say it's extremely lackluster for a franchise of this caliber. You could just put that all on the schedule, however in-comparison to DBZ's staff there not as efficient or talented. Just my opinion of course.

I don't think you realize how much the state for Super's production has effected the show. It not only massively negatively effects the staff, but it also hurts the show's ability to get highly talented staff.

I know that a better schedule would dramatically improve the look of the show and the effects the schedule has on the production as a whole. However outside of Naoki Tate, Higashide, Karasawa, and maybe Ishikawa they don't seem all that good to me. Also correct me if I'm wrong, an sufficient amount of the DBZ were not only good animators, but supervisors as well. Another problem I have with Super is how jarring the art can look, it's very distracting.

[Ajay]

Hi guys, sorry for going off topic but in Ajay's post on Shimanuki's latest episode, it said that "Shimanuki corrects the art, however, which does result in some trademark stiffness making its way into Higashide's animation." I would just like to ask, how does correcting someone's work result in stiffer animation? If the animator was talented enough wouldn't the animation be fluid?

This is really hard to answer through text, but I'll try!

The fluidity of animation doesn't soley come from the number of frames within a cut, it's also to do with your key poses. For example, the use of smears, the posture of the character, and the general timing of the work is a huge factor in determining fluidity.

When you're correcting someone's work, you're overdrawing the original key frames. If your key animator is using a lot of loose drawings and the supervisor changes those drawings to be angular and more mechanical, then you're losing a big component of the original work.

This is almost certainly what's happened with Shimanuki's corrections of Higashide's keys. Higashide very typically uses quite lose and dynamic poses in his action. Here's an example from episode 80:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Shimanuki, on the other hand, is very much about harsh angles and very stiff poses. By throwing those traits into Higashide's work, he's created this rather robotic type of movement. Here's a corrected key from #81 to compare with the above:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

It's significantly stiffer and unnatural. So instead of having work like this:

You have this very stiff type of work:

It's unfortunately a very poor correction from Shimanuki. We've certainly seen corrections where he hasn't mangled the fluidity of cuts, so I suppose this might be a result of rough Higashide keys needing to be fully redrawn -- not too surprisingly considering the volume of work he did on #80. Thankfully, the sections that follow this feature better corrections.

Hope that helps!

[JustinWBL]

Okay, I understand now. Thank you for the informative reply! I was scared that I would sound stupid because you guys know so much... Anyways, thanks again for your answer

[kinisking]

I wish that Gohan versus Lavender cut was a bit slower. So much interesting stuff that I miss out on because it goes so fast.

[Gashif Aldi]

How would you all rate Dragon Ball Super's core staff ? I would say it's extremely lackluster for a franchise of this caliber. You could just put that all on the schedule, however in-comparison to DBZ's staff there not as efficient or talented. Just my opinion of course.

I don't think you realize how much the state for Super's production has effected the show. It not only massively negatively effects the staff, but it also hurts the show's ability to get highly talented staff.

I know that a better schedule would dramatically improve the look of the show and the effects the schedule has on the production as a whole. However outside of Naoki Tate, Higashide, Karasawa, and maybe Ishikawa they don't seem all that good to me. Also correct me if I'm wrong, an sufficient amount of the DBZ were not only good animators, but supervisors as well. Another problem I have with Super is how jarring the art can look, it's very distracting.

Well, in the first episodes of Super we get some talented staff helping like Seizo Toma, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, the animator that did the Vegeta's training scene, Jin Inaba, Yuki Hayashi, Ken Otsuka and Yuya Takahasi. Even Shuichi iseki's team are there.
(Maybe Yammamuro too)

But, probably most of them are gone just because of the schedule. If the schedule is way better, I assume we can get animators from freelancers and a good studio.
Like Hideki Yamazaki appearing in episode 80.

And, actually PreCure has more staff than Super. More talented staff. Just because these animators want to choose a good project to work in.

[JazzMazz]

Okay, I understand now. Thank you for the informative reply! I was scared that I would sound stupid because you guys know so much... Anyways, thanks again for your answer

Don't be worried about asking something even if you think it sounds dumb. The vast majority of people here are also here to learn stuff, so asking questions is something that no one will judge you for. Welcome to the forum and continue to ask away.

[emperior]

I don't think you realize how much the state for Super's production has effected the show. It not only massively negatively effects the staff, but it also hurts the show's ability to get highly talented staff.

I know that a better schedule would dramatically improve the look of the show and the effects the schedule has on the production as a whole. However outside of Naoki Tate, Higashide, Karasawa, and maybe Ishikawa they don't seem all that good to me. Also correct me if I'm wrong, an sufficient amount of the DBZ were not only good animators, but supervisors as well. Another problem I have with Super is how jarring the art can look, it's very distracting.

Well, in the first episodes of Super we get some talented staff helping like Seizo Toma, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, the animator that did the Vegeta's training scene, Jin Inaba, Yuki Hayashi, Ken Otsuka and Yuya Takahasi. Even Shuichi iseki's team are there.
(Maybe Yammamuro too)

But, probably most of them are gone just because of the schedule. If the schedule is way better, I assume we can get animators from freelancers and a good studio.
Like Hideki Yamazaki appearing in episode 80.

And, actually PreCure has more staff than Super. More talented staff. Just because these animators want to choose a good project to work in.

The first 14 episodes looked very good, except for episode 5 which got fixed, and the SSG ritual episode. Until episode 23 the show looked good, then something happened and it started to look bad and the animation got worse and worse. Did these episodes look better because of those people, and when they left it got worse?

[Ajay]

The first 14 episodes looked very good, except for episode 5 which got fixed, and the SSG ritual episode. Until episode 23 the show looked good, then something happened and it started to look bad and the animation got worse and worse. Did these episodes look better because of those people, and when they left it got worse?

The common complaint back then (and a very valid one, in my opinion) wasn't that the episodes' art was melting every week -- though in a few cases that was certainly true -- it was that there were almost no good fights. Everything was very poorly conceptualised and executed, likely due to rushed storyboards, directors directing unfamiliar boards, and little time to execute what was there well.

With a few small exceptions, I don't think there's anything in those arcs that's better than the best episodes we have now. We've still got Inaba and Otsuka, but we've also got Shida, Higashide, Manabe (he came out of his shell, so I'm counting him), and even Miuma.

The core supervising staff of Super aren't the strongest, so I will agree there to an extent, but I do think the schedule is a very important factor to keep in mind. Even with our best supervisors who have proven themselves both in and out of Super, it can be hard to predict the quality of their episodes. There are too many variables with Super's production.