Super Animation Catalogue 2.0

[emperior]

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.

I forgot to say that ever since Vegeta's fight with Cabba the animation started to get better and better, and we got very good animation in FT arc most of the times. But art has stayed inconsistent ever since episode 17. There's very good art here and there but when it gets bad, it gets really bad. I remember Goku looking like shit 80% of the time when not transformed in the FT arc (while he looked mostly fine in the tournament arc). They also got Vegeta wrong many times.
I'm also quite annoyed that they forgot how to draw SSJ2 Goku's hair when he was sparring with Trunks, and they also got it wrong in that sequence when he was exchaning punches with Black. It seems like they couldn't bother fixing it for the blu-ray release, which goes to show how lazy they are considering it shouldn't take much to fix it.

Now it seems like Super is improving even more. Let's cross our fingers, I've been liking the last few episodes art and animation (even though we got some bad Goku shots in 77 and 78, I find it amusing how they can't draw the protagonist most of the times)
Now I want to see some good battle damage, I want it to look like it looked in BoG and RoF, which shouldn't be hard to do.

[Alee9977]

Now it seems like Super is improving even more. Let's cross our fingers, I've been liking the last few episodes art and animation (even though we got some bad Goku shots in 77 and 78, I find it amusing how they can't draw the protagonist most of the times)
Now I want to see some good battle damage, I want it to look like it looked in BoG and RoF, which shouldn't be hard to do.

I find it even more amusing how base Goku looks bad majority of times and base Black looks really good all the time.
I first want to see good and consistent episodes first before thinking about battle damage, I mean, every scene looks different and we never get an uniform episode, it's really easy to see when an animator does something and then in the next scene you notice that this is a different animator.
Maybe it has to do with characters designs (Goku's is horrible to me, I with they changed it and made it simpler), but the newest designs we got to see look good to me, except for Kai 8 and Kai 12 which look too cartoonish, I like all the others.

[emperior]

Now it seems like Super is improving even more. Let's cross our fingers, I've been liking the last few episodes art and animation (even though we got some bad Goku shots in 77 and 78, I find it amusing how they can't draw the protagonist most of the times)
Now I want to see some good battle damage, I want it to look like it looked in BoG and RoF, which shouldn't be hard to do.

I find it even more amusing how base Goku looks bad majority of times and base Black looks really good all the time.
I first want to see good and consistent episodes first before thinking about battle damage, I mean, every scene looks different and we never get an uniform episode, it's really easy to see when an animator does something and then in the next scene you notice that this is a different animator.
Maybe it has to do with characters designs (Goku's is horrible to me, I with they changed it and made it simpler), but the newest designs we got to see look good to me, except for Kai 8 and Kai 12 which look too cartoonish, I like all the others.

Yeah Black looked much better than Goku most of the times, and I think it was because of Yamamuro's design for Black being far better than Goku's. Black also has less bangs due to Toriyama's design (which luckily Yamamuro didn't change at all) so he is a little easier to draw.
I'm quite sure that if Toriyama ever decides to provide Toei with new designs for Goku and Vegeta, Yamamuro would have to update them and they would look much better now that Yamamuro has slightly improved.

[desu]

Yeah Black looked much better than Goku most of the times, and I think it was because of Yamamuro's design for Black being far better than Goku's. Black also has less bangs due to Toriyama's design (which luckily Yamamuro didn't change at all) so he is a little easier to draw.
I'm quite sure that if Toriyama ever decides to provide Toei with new designs for Goku and Vegeta, Yamamuro would have to update them and they would look much better now that Yamamuro has slightly improved.

It's also because Goku's eyes are harder to draw in his base form, they're wider and not completely lined like Black or Vegeta's eyes. His hair is weird too in some angles.
But anyways Goku's design looks very stiff too, his old design sheet from z was much better, and now that I think about it, his RoF sheet is more updated than his BOG, thaf might be why he looks better in his base form in the Golden Frieza and U6 Tournament.

[emperior]

I found something quite interesting. Maybe it was already mentioned, but Kid Trunks design for Super has him with blue hair:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

And 18's design too has her with a different hair color (and Marron too):

[spoiler][/spoiler]

These colors are taken straight from Toriyama's designs, but they were later changed for the anime to stay consistent with DBZ. I wonder why they didn't change Future Trunks' hair, maybe it was Toei's mistake and Toriyama actually didn't care whether Trunks' hair was purple or blue? I think that if Toriyama really was so stubborn about Trunks' hair color they would have changed Kid Trunks' hair color too, but that didn't happen.

(By the way seeing Vegeta's BoG design reminds me how much Yamamuro screwed up his hair, which might be one of the reasons why some times animators draw it like shit. RoF Vegeta didn't have this problem with his hair if I remember correctly)

[Psykomatik]

Is King Ryu a reaaaaaly fast writer or what?
There's a bunch of pics from episode 54's storyboard. It looks great, really, and honestly, there's a lot of details on it. Like, too much for an episode of Dragon Ball Super, am i right?

I mean, 7 key animators, 1 animation supervisor, 1 director who is storyboarding his own episode and 1 writer. How the hell did they manage to get this so much on point, with that schedule?!

Any idea, anyone?

[Alee9977]

Is King Ryu a reaaaaaly fast writer or what?
There's a bunch of pics from episode 54's storyboard. It looks great, really, and honestly, there's a lot of details on it. Like, too much for an episode of Dragon Ball Super, am i right?

I mean, 7 key animators, 1 animation supervisor, 1 director who is storyboarding his own episode and 1 writer. How the hell did they manage to get this so much on point, with that schedule?!

Any idea, anyone?

Maybe schedule isn't as shitty as we thought it was.
Would you mind sharing those pics? I'd love to see that.

[Psykomatik]

Is King Ryu a reaaaaaly fast writer or what?
There's a bunch of pics from episode 54's storyboard. It looks great, really, and honestly, there's a lot of details on it. Like, too much for an episode of Dragon Ball Super, am i right?

I mean, 7 key animators, 1 animation supervisor, 1 director who is storyboarding his own episode and 1 writer. How the hell did they manage to get this so much on point, with that schedule?!

Any idea, anyone?

Maybe schedule isn't as shitty as we thought it was.
Would you mind sharing those pics? I'd love to see that.

That's what i was telling months ago, but i've to admit the schedule really sucks. Episode 53 and 55 had 2 animation supervisors, episode 71 had 3 storyboards artists, 1 director, 2 animation supervisor and tons of key animator, and just look at how a mess episodes 79 and 80 were....

Nah, really, the schedule sucks, i have to admit it.

And yes, of course, here's a couple (thanks to @oly_db on twitter for sharing these)

[spoiler]





[/spoiler]

[neolux]

I need your help. I was watching episode 33 ( Goku vs Botamo and Frost vs. Goku) and I noticed these three drawings that popped up there and I believe they are Yamamuro's drawings but if you watch the episode these on model shots just appear these three times and you don't find or see any on model shots like these later on in the episode. So I want to know if these shots are drawn by him and if that's the case is very curious that he just popped up to do those. Or maybe it's Jin Inaba? haha Well, but since I have troubles finding animators traits sometimes I can't tell for sure.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Ajay]

I need your help. I was watching episode 33 ( Goku vs Botamo and Frost vs. Goku) and I noticed these three drawings that popped up there and I believe they are Yamamuro's drawings but if you watch the episode these on model shots just appear these three times and you don't find or see any on model shots like these later on in the episode. So I want to know if these shots are drawn by him and if that's the case is very curious that he just popped up to do those. Or maybe it's Jin Inaba? haha Well, but since I have troubles finding animators traits sometimes I can't tell for sure.

Jin Inaba didn't work on episode 33 and they don't look like Yamamuro to me. Ears and nose are wrong, chest doesn't follow his sheets etc.

It's probably a case where, much like episode 60, one nameless animator from the various studios involved just happened to be pretty talented.

[JazzMazz]

I need your help. I was watching episode 33 ( Goku vs Botamo and Frost vs. Goku) and I noticed these three drawings that popped up there and I believe they are Yamamuro's drawings but if you watch the episode these on model shots just appear these three times and you don't find or see any on model shots like these later on in the episode. So I want to know if these shots are drawn by him and if that's the case is very curious that he just popped up to do those. Or maybe it's Jin Inaba? haha Well, but since I have troubles finding animators traits sometimes I can't tell for sure.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

My guess for those shots judging by the staff list, would probably be Toma drawing on-model, he is the top credited key animator for #33 and he also supervised, so I wouldn't think it's outlandish to say it's him. Also, I believe people also credited him with Goku SS catching not-Frieza's final form punch.

[neolux]

Jin Inaba didn't work on episode 33 and they don't look like Yamamuro to me.

It's probably a case where, much like episode 60, one nameless animator from the various studios involved just happened to be pretty talented.

how do you do to recognize traits or styles? haha I've only get to recognize Tate, Shimanuki and Tsuji's style kind of easy and the pretty bad ones like Kitano and also Yashima who is very noticeable

[MrWalnut4]

Jin Inaba didn't work on episode 33 and they don't look like Yamamuro to me.

It's probably a case where, much like episode 60, one nameless animator from the various studios involved just happened to be pretty talented.

how do you do to recognize traits or styles? haha I've only get to recognize Tate, Shimanuki and Tsuji's style kind of easy and the pretty bad ones like Kitano and also Yashima who is very noticeable

Guess and check pretty much. You have to compare styles across episodes and see which reoccurring names match up with the reoccurring styles. Things like the way an ear or a nose is drawn. The way the animation moves can also give some insight. For example, comparing animation from some of Ishikawa's earlier work to polished Higashide makes it very easy to tell the difference despite both being very on-model. One is very stiff while the other is extremely fluid. Effects can also be a giveaway but I'll admit that I'm not very good at telling the difference between the effects work of one animator to another (except in cases like Shimanuki or Tate where they have very distinct styles).

[Ajay]

My guess for those shots judging by the staff list, would probably be Toma drawing on-model, he is the top credited key animator for #33 and he also supervised, so I wouldn't think it's outlandish to say it's him. Also, I believe people also credited him with Goku SS catching not-Frieza's final form punch.

They're outdated guesses. It's almost certainly not him. Toma's style is incredibly distinct and he's never ever drawn anything close to being on-model. The fact the style is in both halves should also be a big indicator that it's not one of the supervisors.

If it's not the nameless animators as I mentioned in my previous post, it's more likely someone like Hayashi Yasuhiro or another animator in there who's got a decent history, but hasn't worked on Super enough to be picked out.

how do you do to recognize traits or styles? haha I've only get to recognize Tate, Shimanuki and Tsuji's style kind of easy and the pretty bad ones like Kitano and also Yashima who is very noticeable

No different to anyone else, really. Just studying their styles and looking for identifying traits. You look enough times and it starts to become second nature.

[JazzMazz]

Jin Inaba didn't work on episode 33 and they don't look like Yamamuro to me.

It's probably a case where, much like episode 60, one nameless animator from the various studios involved just happened to be pretty talented.

how do you do to recognize traits or styles? haha I've only get to recognize Tate, Shimanuki and Tsuji's style kind of easy and the pretty bad ones like Kitano and also Yashima who is very noticeable

Personally, I'm not very good at picking up styles based on character art, since it may change under supervisors or circumstances. The easiest thing to look for in my opinion would be effects work. Animators all have unique ways they draw debris or air impacts or smoke, its these things that supervisors usually don't go over and it's easily the most consistent thing to look for when searching for an animator. It still requires some time and dedication, but it's definitely a good place to start.

[SaiyanGod117]

What would you guys say is top 3 best storyboarded and directed in Super?

[JazzMazz]

What would you guys say is top 3 best storyboarded and directed in Super?

Eh, I would say episode 6,71 and 75 are probably some of the better storyboarded episodes.

[kinisking]

What would you guys say is top 3 best storyboarded and directed in Super?

Eh, I would say episode 6,71 and 75 are probably some of the better storyboarded episodes.

Episode 6 was a masterpiece. It was the first episode of super that I genuinely enjoyed.

[SaiyanGod117]

Episode 6 was a very good one indeed. The slow motions and close ups were used quite effectively, especially the slow motions. I would like to see Super utilize that kind of cinematography more as it's a common staple in movies and TV shows. It's so simple, yet effective.

Episode 71 was one of my favorites too, the Hit portion of the episode had really good music placement.

[Saikyo no Senshi]

#75 for me. Nakamura Ryouta was on fire. So many great shots. Nice use of lighting, less dialogue and more focus on certain elements to get the point across and the backgrounds were pretty atmospheric and fitting. It was an exceptional episode.