Kensou X wrote:I can only accurately respond to this now after having taken a few animation classes myself up to this point. I've been watching anime for about 12-13 years now and I used to think that "yeah, it's the same if not better in the realm of quality" but now that I'm watching it with "new eyes" if you will, both new anime and going back to the ones I used to watch, I can definitely point out many, many, many instances where detail and budget was pulled back a bit (by a bit I mean a lot). They just do it in a way so that most peole won't notice....or care. I, too, didn't read the whole article but I'm thinking he means "detail" in more than just the straight character design aspect.
Yeah, I thought that it was reffering to character designs too, not to background and inanimate objects (which are, after all, usually just drawn once). Animation of characters in manga, to me, always desparately lacks details. You often have character speaking, where only his mouth moves while the rest of the face stays still, like paralized, which is to me, irritating. Also, you have dialogue scene, with two characters in a frame, and while one character speaks, the other doesn't move a bit, doesn't even blink, is simply one cell reused all over. Then, when first one finishs talking, he paralizes, and the one that was paralized till then, regains ability to move and starts speaking. And this repeats as many times it's needed. I've seen it in movies with expensive productions, and it's even more irritating in contrast with flashy action scenes and explosions in other parts of the movie. You don't have that kind of slacking in western animated movies, not in those that get released in theatres (in straight-to-video ones and in chiep low-production animated series, however, you do). Fact is, slacking in animation one way or the other, has became a trademark in anime, of course there are movies that don't use it or that use it so well that I never noticed, but such movies are very few - just to show that anime doesn't have to be done that way and that it's not a style, or animation school, but just a manner made by lazyness and corners-cutting.
Design of characters varies, interestint thing I noticed is that Disney production in 90ies and later stick to reduced and more caricatural designs, while studios that try to take over Disney's reign (movies like "King of Egipt" and "Anastasia" come to mind) tried for a style that was almost realistic - a design of characters that failed to impress me, however smoothly animated it was.
And, hm, yeah, I don't think it would be appropriuate to compare either animation or character design of either of those with "Triplets of Bellevile". We gotta leave them some chance.
ANARCHY! ANARCHY! ANARCHY!
