anime is what we call a loanword in the
same way that we borrow the Japanese
words for sushi and futon instead of
coming up with our own Japan has
borrowed and shortened the English
animation we then borrowed that word
back in order to classify animated works
made with Japanese techniques and
principles and now while there's some
discrepancy in where we draw the line on
what it describes when I say the word
anime you generally know what I mean you
also probably know most of the words
etymology since everything I just
described his recent history but I
wanted to make sure everyone watching is
on the same page before I deliver this
videos thesis given that animation is
literally right there in the name you
would think that animation quality would
be a primary factor in deciding how much
anime fans enjoy the anime they watch
but when you look at what's actually
successful in the anime market it
quickly becomes clear that that's not
always the case as you can probably
guess if you even have to since future
me probably plastered it all over the
thumbnail and title of this video what
got me thinking about this is the new
season of one punch man which as many of
us predicted when the last trailer
dropped isn't great I've already made a
video talking about the behind the
scenes issues plaguing this new season
so you can watch that if you want the
full story but the drop in quality
resulting from those changes has been
precipitous most of the character
animation is either overly stiff or
unnaturally slippery as though the
animations with higher frame counts were
timed correctly a lot of keyframes and
even still images of characters are
noticeably off-model more than half the
time crowd scenes are filled with stock
CGI characters that don't even remotely
match the style of the show and every
directing choice seems to have been made
with the intent to minimize the impact
of these problems rather than to
visually tell a story
those directing shortcuts are sadly felt
the hardest and the choppy incoherent
action scenes which rely way too heavily
on fast cuts and close-ups over actually
good animation one punch man was once
the standard bearer for great fight
sakuga and anime but at its best this
second season barely even qualifies as
Sokka there are only eight shots from
the four episodes that have aired so far
on sakuga Beru compared to the 140
something from the first season and
almost all of them were animated by the
same guy it's not all bad whatever
outsourcing studio handled the cgi
centipedes in Episode four did a bang-up
job of it the lighting effects and
compositing are pretty impressive at
times and I'm sure a future episode will
give me a third thing but most of it is
bad and as I anticipated in my video
about the trailer most people watching
it don't seem to care one punch man
season 2 is currently sitting at an
average rating of 8.08 from the over
400,000 people who say that they're
watching it on mal which is by the way
twice as many as they're watching the
new season of attack on Titan new
episodes are routinely among the top
voted threads each week on our anime and
I'm really failing at the whole rule of
three thing with this script but I think
you get the idea it seems like the
production committee's gamble in
switching Studios and directors has paid
off the general public is happy to have
more one punch man now as opposed to a
better one punch man later and to be
clear in spite of my many criticisms of
this season and the business decisions
behind it I'm happy that people are
happy with it the point of this video is
not to grumpily say hey you normies stop
ruining art by liking things that aren't
up to my arbitrary standards
plenty of other youtubers have that
angle covered and besides that if I'm
being perfectly honest I kinda like one
punch man season 2 I don't love it and I
wouldn't recommend it over any of the
shows on my spring 2019 list or over
reading the manga and I'm still very
disappointed with it but I still had a
decent 6 out of 10 time watching it and
that time went by pretty quickly and
easily and that is the point of this
video I want to isolate the aspects of
one punch man to that do work and more
broadly to figure out what factors are
important in determining an anime
success if animation isn't one of them
to answer that second query I think it
makes sense to look at the one punch man
production committees rationale in
choosing to trade out Shingo Natsume in
madhouse for Chicana Sakurai and
j.c.staff
to make a long story that I've already
covered short Natsume was too busy with
other
Jax to work on the show for 2019 and
rather than wait another year for a
follow-up which would have put the show
in attack on Titan Season 2 territory
the producers decided to hire someone
else the fear with waiting too long to
follow up a popular show is that the
fans might lose interest and while you
might say I love one punch man I'd watch
a new season no matter when it drops as
long as it's good that's not true for
everyone and the show doesn't exist in a
vacuum
the other big superhero anime my hero
academia has been gaining ground on one
punch man with each successive season
and a new one is due out this year on
top of that mob psycho 100 which is
owned by a competing publisher had its
second season slated for 2019 and while
it didn't steal one punch man's thunder
it could have and I'd argue it deserves
to I can see the logic behind the
decision to rush a new season out to
meet those competitors even if I don't
agree with it there's certainly a lot of
precedent behind it it's not exactly
unheard of in the anime industry to
sacrifice production values for
timeliness and generally speaking it's a
pretty successful strategy Studios
Pierrot toet and OLM have built their
entire business models around creating
long-running series based on existing
high-profile intellectual properties by
necessity the animation in those shows
produced on tight deadlines sometimes
just weeks behind the material they're
adapting is rarely great sometimes awful
and mostly just passable but it's
delivered weekly with almost no breaks
in the ongoing story even if they run
out of ongoing story to adapt which
means that fans almost always have new
content to enjoy and new reminders to
buy [ __ ] many of the anime produced
using this model pokemon digimon ukyo
yokai watch beyblade Sailor Moon
one-piece Detective Conan Dragonball Z
II Dragon Ball super boruto burritos
Dada burritos Dada Shippuden bleach
Fairy Tail black clover Gintama Pretty
Cure the last two seasons of Jojo are so
ubiquitous in the conversation around
anime that I'm willing to bet you
recognized every single franchise on
that list instantaneously even if you
haven't seen it and if you didn't that
might be because you know Pretty Cure as
glitter force thanks Netflix that
widespread brand recognized
goes hand in hand with absurd
merchandise and home media profits which
are kind of sort of the only metrics of
your enjoyment that the companies making
these things actually give a crap about
almost all of those properties ranked
among the most profitable media
franchises in existence according to
Wikipedia there is only one relatively
high quality single season anime on that
list Neon Genesis Evangelion and if not
for pachinko licensing it would barely
make the four billion dollar cut it's
clear that ongoing series especially as
part of a broader marketing push have a
major financial edge over seasonal fare
the secret to these show's success I
believe lies in their consistency for
the most part these shows are
consistently just ok but they are
consistent and that I believe is the
secret to their success
you can reliably anticipate a new
episode of one piece or boruto or black
clover every week and that matters a lot
to people in general and to you even if
you think it doesn't human beings are
creatures of habit we like to have
routines and watching a new episode of
our favorite shows every week is an easy
and satisfying one to fall into it might
take some doing to get in to save one
piece or jo-jo but once you're into it
you're into it you have something to do
for half an hour every week as long as
it's airing something to talk about with
your friends and or social media circles
something to look forward to next week
you never have to wait too long to find
out what will happen next and there's
zero chance that you'll forget what
happened last time before you do in some
ways once you're watching these shows it
can be easier to keep watching that it
is to stop that kind of consistency is
the cornerstone of this very channel I
try to balance things out so that my
videos are always at least good with
some great ones mixed in and I'll delay
them if I feel they're not up to snuff
but I try to upload every Saturday
because of that at least some of you
guys anticipate a new video when the
weekend rolls around and through both
word of mouth and just reminding YouTube
that I exist by watching those of you
who know a videos coming and show up in
the first few hours to watch and comment
help me reach other viewers and that's
worked for me pretty well maybe too well
since a lot of you missed the full
mental
most PSA I uploaded this Tuesday it does
have a different style of thumbnail so I
won't hold that against you but maybe
you should go watch it after this I
think it's a pretty darn good video and
a lot of folk are saying that it's one
of their favorites that I've ever made
sorry what was I talking about again
right good seasonal anime has a lot of
advantages over the ongoing stuff it's
generally more impressive to look at
though there are exceptions on both
sides and the storytelling can be
tighter by virtue of being planned out
well in advance without need for filler
but no matter how good it is no matter
how much attention it grabs on release
seasonal anime has to keep reminding
people that it exists every time a new
season rolls around inevitably that
message will be missed by some existing
viewers and over time the show's
audience is bound to dwindle the way to
mitigate that at least in theory is with
consistency on a different scale regular
planned seasonal releases that come
close enough together for each new
season to be part of fans annual
routines rather than their weekly ones
my hero academia attack on Titan and now
the promise Neverland are all taking
that approach and while I don't know
what the production committee behind it
is thinking I'd wager that's what one
punch man is moving toward as well with
one having started up the webcomic again
after a two-year hiatus new merchant
production and a one-punch man mobile
game on the horizon it sure seems like
this new anime is part of a larger
marketing plan and while that's a pretty
cynical way to look at art especially
something so well and widely loved that
it would probably do just as well on a
we'll release it when it's ready
schedule the reality of the world we
live in is that for the people who
actually get to make these decisions
reliable profit margins will almost
always trump artistic ambition still
even the best content strategy in the
world won't amount to much if the
content it's based around is a steaming
dog turd one punch man season two had to
be at least good enough for general
audiences even if it couldn't be
exceptional there are two kinds of
animation that you see in most TV anime
sakuga a word that you've heard me use
quite a few times in this video is
another loan word that we use to refer
to the important scenes and shots that
are given the highest priority in an
animes production schedule animators can
spend a lot of time really crafting and
polishing these sequences for maximum
impact and often they'll inject their
personal style and flair into them if
part of an anime really impresses you or
stands out is more dynamic or exciting
or stylistically striking than the rest
of the show it's probably sakuga the
rest of the time anime is made with
limited animation that is animation
designed to minimize the number of new
drawings needed to convey motion that
means shots we're only part of a
character like their mouth or arm will
actually move and sequences with very
low frame rates typically eight frames
per second that can suggest more complex
movement without fully fleshing it out
often the drawings used to create these
sequences are reused later on in order
to save more time and money one punch
man 2 is comprised almost entirely of
limited animation but then so are the
vast majority of popular Western
cartoons like the Simpsons Scooby Doo
and gravity falls limited animation is
what allows cartoons to exist on TV at
all since producing enough drawings to
fill a 5 to 10 our season with film
great animation in under a year is
basically impossible and limited
animation is not inherently bad
animation isolating certain motions are
dropping the framerate at the right time
can be a powerful artistic and comedic
tool but even when it's used mainly out
of necessity the results can be very
entertaining JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is
almost all flapping lips and static
poses even if they are some damn good
poses and it's one of my favorite shows
of all time I love me some good sakuga
but I don't need it to enjoy anime and I
don't think most anime fans do limited
animation executed well can be very
enjoyable especially when other aspects
of the production make up for its
shortcomings and that's what one punch
man too is shooting for now Chuck Jones
one of the greatest animators to ever
live said that he thinks of shows
produced in this way not as animation
but as Illustrated radio and that sounds
like a mean dig from a bitter gatekeeper
but it doesn't seem like it really was
in the same interviews Jones expressed a
great deal of respect for shows made
with limited animation like Rocky and
Bullwinkle and The Simpsons and he
understood that making a season of
animated TV is a very different beast
from making short films it's just that
he also saw a great deal of difference
between his work where the visuals were
the
primary vehicle for storytelling in
humor and there's where clever dialogue
and strong voice work filled that role
you can watch a Chuck Jones cartoon with
the sound off and understand almost
everything that's going on perfectly the
same cannot be said for the Simpsons or
most hanna-barbera cartoons
hence illustrated radio not a lesser art
form but a different one with different
requirements now I don't know if you've
ever tried watching it with the subs off
but most anime falls into that camp
especially outside of fight scenes where
static heads with flapping lips are the
default way of presenting dialogue anime
does straddle the line more than a lot
of Western shows the whole point of
sakuga is to inject a bit of film
quality animation spice into the
inherently limited palette of televised
cartoons but shows like space dandy and
mob cycle 100 that can be largely
understood from visuals alone are few
and far between and even they have their
share of totally static scenes in light
of that I think the concept of
illustrated radio provides a useful
framework for examining and appreciating
the other things that make anime work
because when you look at it through that
lens a lot of things start to make more
sense like the fact that dialogue is
often recorded after lip flaps are
animated without much care given to how
they actually sync up it's more
important that the actor be able to give
their best performance in the animation
be done on time than it is for you to
believe that the character on screen is
actually talking say you arguably do the
bulk of the work in bringing many anime
characters to life conveying their
emotions and personality even when the
animation can only suggest it the
flapping lips are really just there to
aid your imagination in a lot of cases
and when you look at anime in this way
it becomes clear that just like with
radio plays a compelling soundscape can
make all the difference it certainly
does with one punch man the fight scenes
in the new season are poorly animated
but a lot of people don't seem to mind
and I've even seen comments defiantly
insisting that the fights are actually
good and you know by the standards of
illustrated radio they are at least
decent they still feel pretty satisfying
and impactful to watch because they
sound satisfying and impactful every
important motion
comes with a dramatic anime woosh or it
sells it even when the animation falls
short
Yoshikazu even ami who took over from
Shingo Natsume is go to sound director
Shoji hata is pretty good at making
anime sounds like anime he's got plenty
of experience from working on the likes
of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fate planet
with killa kill Panty and Stocking Sao
baka no you know I'm just gonna let his
mal page scroll by while I talk his
style doesn't work for everything it was
a bit much for the darker more serious
setting a berserk for example and it
doesn't sound the best through movie
theater speakers on the movies that he's
worked on but his penchant for using
crunchy bassy sound effects is a perfect
fit for the purposefully over-the-top
one punch man and that coupled with
strong vocal performances from the
returning cast a strong script from
returning writer Tomohiro Suzuki and
still great music from series composer
Makoto Miyazaki makes one punch man
season 2 pretty dang watchable or should
I say listenable in spite of its
shortcomings personally I still prefer
reading the manga but I do think those
aspects of the new season add a lot of
value where the animation lacks it and I
can see why somebody would want to watch
the anime instead I touched on this when
discussing Masafumi memo's work on
initial deed but the more I look into
anime sound directing the more I realize
just how vital it is to my enjoyment of
the show's I watch just as an example
sound director jin a cat the god is the
lone common denominator between like
half of all my favorite anime from
AnoHana it's a rezero and that's not a
coincidence in spite of this video's
title none of this is to say that
animation isn't a vitally important part
of anime or that it can't make the
difference between an anime being great
or good or bad just that it's only one
part and depending on the show
maybe not the most important part if you
reflect on it I think most of you
watching this can name at least one show
that you love to pieces that's lacking
in the animation Department and those
shows probably grabbed your attention by
excelling in some other area that might
not be as immediately noticeable off the
top of my head planet with had pretty
underwhelming visuals but it blew me
away with its script and became one of
my favorite shows of last
year also norio wakamoto plays a talking
dog why haven't you watched it yet at
the end of all this I'd just like to
reiterate and expand upon what I said at
the end of what's happening to one punch
man you should take time to learn about
and appreciate the animators and actors
who bring your favorite characters
worlds and moments to life but also look
beyond them every anime you watch every
film you see every game you play is the
result of the collective effort of many
talented individuals from dozens of
artistic disciplines working in concert
to make a single cohesive and compelling
work of art sound directors character
and color designers compositors editors
storyboard artists production assistants
whether you notice it or not all of them
need to play their parts for the work as
a whole to really resonate or even come
together at all and if they play their
parts well enough they can pick up the
slack where others don't or can't
these artists all deserve more
recognition and I can all but guarantee
that in looking into them you will find
some interesting connections between
your favorite anime and perhaps stumble
onto some new favorites in your hunt if
you do decide to dive into that bit of
research homework share some of the most
surprising connections you've found in
the comments below and if you don't I'd
love to hear your honest thoughts about
one punch man season 2 whether you love
it hate it or fall somewhere in the
middle and while you're down there
please like the video if you liked it
and hit subscribe if you want to see
more
I'm Jeff do professional shitbags
signing out from my mother's basement