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WTF has happened to anime?

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I wish these guys would make something different. They're probably one of the best studios around when in comes to animation. But every show they make is some slice of life or romance moe tripe

Did you even watch the show that .gif is from or Hyouka

For every shitty thing KyoAni makes like Chuu2 or KNK they seem to make something good. Of course it's not like Euphonium isn't SoL-y but it's not a negative moniker.
 
HD generation means higher costs and more details, there are cheaper alternatives nowadays too traditional animation, like CGI, the accessibility of the internet means profits from ads and licencing might be leaking because of the illegal streaming services, more competition is merchandise and series.

All this is just speculation on my part, but bottom line is that its just more expensive to make so their profits are lower, so they put out lower quality animation for less.
 

HOLY FUCK. Dead. 10/10.

Will we ever see anything like this again?

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Anime films that look as beautiful and intricately drawn? Sure, yeah. Ones that have that hand-drawn, 2D look? I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say Akira and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust are gems of their eras and we'll probably never get a major release with that level of care and detail without digital stuff happening. God the machines, look AMAZING in Akira.

KuguyaHime is the only exception I guess when it comes to new features that still look hand-drawn. Love that movie to pieces.

I really like haikyuus style
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This looks neat. Hadn't heard of it. Will check it out.

Also, yeah that gif of that KyoAni show looks stunning. Will definitely give that a whirl as well.
 
If people want to see an example of what the top animators of today are capable of, there's some good shorts from the Animator Expo to check out. Hammerhead, for instance, has very strong animation.

Wouldn't Redline count? I haven't watched it recently, but that shit took years to make. Like a decade if I recall.

Redline would come close, yes.

The big Ghibli stuff from Miyazaki especially definitely rivals Akira in terms of pure animation production values. Clearly very different styles and types of scenes though, so less comparable for people who want to see "shit like that".

That's possible; I would need to rewatch these films to make able to comfortably make a comparison of their animation quality. I suspect details such as the lipsync in Akira would probably make it ultimately the technically superior product, though big Ghibli films obviously sit at the height of how polished Japanese animation gets.
 
Yeah, AoT at its best is one of the best animated tv series out there, ever really. My jaw was on the floor at some of their segments, even if they had to use still pictures to save money at times.. especially towards the first half of season 1.

I would say it depends on the studios a lot of the time, and sometimes the project they work on as well. Some studios which I won't name, seem like they don't care as much and have ruined some really great series with bad animation and horrible pacing to the point that I no longer watch their animes. So bad I only stick to the manga now, which is a shame because I believe anime should be better than the manga if done very well. -_-
 
If people want to see an example of what the top animators of today are capable of, there's some good shorts from the Animator Expo to check out. Hammerhead, for instance, has very strong animation.

Yes, many Animator Expos shorts show there are a bunch of talented and passionate animators and directors out there. Hammerhead is a really good one to watch, excellent animation.
 
Did you even watch the show that .gif is from or Hyouka

For every shitty thing KyoAni makes like Chuu2 or KNK they seem to make something good. Of course it's not like Euphonium isn't SoL-y but it's not a negative moniker.

I tried, but I was bored out of my mind within 5 minutes. Characters are so dull and settings are, well, they're high school anime's for christ sake.

I liked Nichijou because it was so over the top insane. But most of what they make is so goddamn dull and generic.

but what about MadHouse??????

Redline is the best piece of animation I've ever watched. And they make much more diverse and interesting stuff than Kyoto does. So I like that studio
 
Redline, any of the Satoshi Kon movies, studio Ghibli's stuff, Sword of the Stranger, the new Evangelion movies, etc.
I wouldn't call most of those recent. Sword of the Stranger is nowhere near Akira level. And Ghibli's stuff hasn't matched their older output after Spirited Away. Heck, even Porco Rosso blows most films released this decade away.
 
A lot of the good looking OVA's, films and series were released during the Bubble Economy which was around 1986 and 1991. The Bubble Economy itself was a time within Japan where the economy was massively inflated, with the stock market prices and the price of land and such was exaggerated as precedence was placed on stock investment rather than an increase in capitol and productivity. Obviously with that came the inevitable burst which lead to a time which was known as the ‘Lost Decade’, a 10 year stretch of setbacks for Japan which Japan is still affected by to this day. I think after the burst there was some visible resentment from creators in the industry like Miyazaki in regards to how Japan was bulldozing over land during this period and this could be seen in a lot of Ghibli films of that era which may go to explain why those films focused on the events that they chose to is clear when you look at where Japan was at that time. During the lost decade, Japan fell behind everyone else and a lot of vision was lost.

I'd go as far as to say that the Bubble Economy itself is largely accountable for why so many cult series and films like Angels Egg and Akira were released during that era, because a lot more people had disposable income to spend on tapes and such and why after the burst this declined as people become more conscious of both spending money in regards to consumers as well as funding from the film-making side of things.
 
It really depends on what studios you're looking at. Those who work on TV shows, tend to rely on quick and dirty edits.

While movie companies like Ufotable tend to produce some damn good quality visuals.

 
It would be hard for me to choose the best looking movie but it's either Angel's Egg from 1985, Akira from 1988, Jin-Roh from 1999 or Redline from 2009.

They are all different as to why they are so mindblowing though.

I wouldn't call most of those recent. Sword of the Stranger is nowhere near Akira level. And Ghibli's stuff hasn't matched their older output after Spirited Away. Heck, even Porco Rosso blows most films released this decade away.

What counts as recent then? Paprika was 2006, Redline was 2009, the last Rebuild was 2013...
 
I wouldn't call most of those recent. Sword of the Stranger is nowhere near Akira level. And Ghibli's stuff hasn't matched their older output after Spirited Away. Heck, even Porco Rosso blows most films released this decade away.

Ponyo has really really amazing animation. It gets a bad rep because it's a super kiddy film and the story isn't really memorable by any means, but the technical quality of the animation is superb. Animating water by hand is really hard, and the entire film is filled with great large scale set pieces using liquid effects and lots of details.
 
Those animated Attack on Titan shots are absolute ass. The coloring is gross, especially on the characters. It's all plastic looking, and the second one has that ugly green chromatic aberration looking filter. I hate it. I hate the digital-looking, plastic coloring. The actual animation is great, but ruined by the coloring. The last anime tv series that came out that I felt looked truly incredible was Fullmetal Alchemist 04, but Brotherhood had such crap plastic shading and inconsistent faces. So many modern anime I've tried to watch have had this problem, and sometimes I just have to bear with it. Actually, Denno Coil looked fairly good, as did Flowers of Evil. If Attack on Titan were colored differently I might like it more, but it hurts my eyes.
 
I wouldn't call most of those recent. Sword of the Stranger is nowhere near Akira level. And Ghibli's stuff hasn't matched their older output after Spirited Away. Heck, even Porco Rosso blows most films released this decade away.

What is your definition of recent then? Redline was 2009. Princess Kaguya was last year.
 
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Depends there are some animes with obviously high production cost but I think it's mostly a cost cutting measure. People are trying to save money while continuing to produce a massive amount of content(mostly bad content)
 
I tried, but I was bored out of my mind within 5 minutes. Characters are so dull and settings are, well, they're high school anime's for christ sake.

I liked Nichijou because it was so over the top insane. But most of what they make is so goddamn dull and generic.

I implore you to reconsider watching Hyouka again.

If you're a fan of mystery novels/movies, and are even remotely interested in say Sherlock Holmes, it's worth a watch as characters and relationships are directly inspired from Sherlock Holmes.

But yes if you don't like Hyouka chances are you won't like any of their other stuff, except for maybe Fullmetal Panic.
 
You still see a lot of good and imaginative anime today like Space Dandy and such but I almost always prefer the anime style and hand drawn animation of yester-years. So much better.
 
It's not just anime. Cartoons in general were better in the eighties, also the western ones. Stuff like the Inhumanoids, GI Joe, Mask, Bravestarr, there were a lot of interesting cartoons. Probably the market was bigger. Now you have Disney live action shows and computer animated stuff. I can imagine that Japan finds itself with less competition and starts winging it.
 
It's funny the turn around Madhouse has had, before HxH '11 they got shat on all the time. Which is kind of deserved, HxH looked really good for a 148 long show

They were??? Before HxH they had stuff like Black Lagoon, Death Note, The first season of LOGH, Ippo, Monster, and Texhnolyze. They were always mostly ace when it came to animation in my book.
 
Those Attack on Titan shots are absolute ass. The coloring is gross, especially on the characters. It's all plastic looking, and the second one has that ugly green chromatic aberration looking filter. I hate it. I hate the digital-looking, plastic coloring. The last anime tv series that came out that I felt looked truly incredible was Fullmetal Alchemist 04, but Brotherhood had such crap plastic shading and inconsistent faces. So many modern anime I've tried to watch have had this problem, and sometimes I just have to bear with it. Actually, Denno Coil looked fairly good, as did Flowers of Evil. If Attack on Titan were colored differently I might like it more, but it hurts my eyes.

In terms of high action sequences, Gurren Lagann did a fantastic job - but you can't really post .gifs of it because it's ALL spoilers
 
It's funny the turn around Madhouse has had, before HxH '11 they got shat on all the time. Which is kind of deserved, HxH looked really good for a 148 long show

really? I didn't know that. With Redline, Summer Wars, and Paprika (granted, all of these are movies), I've liked them for quite a while now.

Hunter x Hunter 2011 is really what sealed the deal on them being my current favorite japanese animation studio. They really did the manga justice (even in the Ant Arc IMO).

They were??? Before HxH they had stuff like Black Lagoon, Death Note, The first season of LOGH, Ippo, Monster, and Texhnolyze. They were always mostly ace when it came to animation in my book.

oh yeah, all of this stuff too, I forgot they did Death Note, Black Lagoon, and Monster.

They did Birdy the Mighty as well, which was a series I enjoyed.


edit: I know this is after/during HxH, but they also animated Parasyte, which looked great

double edit: oops, Madhouse did the Birdy OVA, not the series. A-1 did that.
 
They were??? Before HxH they had stuff like Black Lagoon, Death Note, The first season of LOGH, Ippo, Monster, and Texhnolyze. They were always mostly ace when it came to animation in my book.

It was mostly "lol Madhouse is gonna die" sometime around when they were bought by Nihon TV because of financial issues.
 
Yep. Thats like saying music was better in the 60's or the 80's was the best decade for film. In hindsight once you can cheery pick all the good examples and forget the bad ones of course it would seem that way. I just think we have access to more stuff these days.
Difference being I can barely find *anything* to pick over the last 7 or 8 years. At least from TV.

Most of what was produced before then doesn't appeal to me either, but there was definitely more than now and even if the show sucked the art was good some of the time.
 
Ponyo has really really amazing animation. It gets a bad rep because it's a super kiddy film and the story isn't really memorable by any means, but the technical quality of the animation is superb. Animating water by hand is really hard, and the entire film is filled with great large scale set pieces using liquid effects and lots of details.
True. Howl's Moving Castle has amazing art direction too. Too bad it gets a bad rep too for being a bad adaption.
 
So yeah, as plenty of people have pointed out... nothing happened. There's a lot of quality stuff now, and a lot of shit just like before.

There are of course style/coloring preferences, but they're just that, preferences.
 
I tried, but I was bored out of my mind within 5 minutes. Characters are so dull and settings are, well, they're high school anime's for christ sake.

I liked Nichijou because it was so over the top insane. But most of what they make is so goddamn dull and generic.

That's alright, I feel the same way about Ufotable. Talented people (who love filters too much) stuck making porn VN and bad game adaptations
 
It's not just anime. Cartoons in general were better in the eighties, also the western ones. Stuff like the Inhumanoids, GI Joe, Mask, Bravestarr, there were a lot of interesting cartoons. Probably the market was bigger. Now you have Disney live action shows and computer animated stuff. I can imagine that Japan finds itself with less competition and starts winging it.
I'm sorry, are you joking?

The 80s were a terrible time for American cartoons. Tons of shitty toy licensed cartoons.
 
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