I've got a pretty obvious bias toward
this conclusion but I wholeheartedly
believe that computers are the best
thing to ever happen to the art world as
productivity software becomes more
advanced than the hardware driving it
becomes more affordable it becomes
easier for passionate people with
creative ideas to bring them to life if
you want to sketch something compose
music write a story make a youtube video
or design a game it's now easier and
more accessible than it's ever been and
the same goes for anyone who wants to
make an anime with computers we can
erase drawing mistakes at the press of a
button automate things like particle
effects and motion tweens and digitally
composite complex 3d movement using 2d
images and that's just the tip of the
iceberg when it comes to CG eyes
advantages over traditional ink and
paper animation techniques it now takes
less people less time and less money to
create complicated multi-layered scenes
and shots that would have been next to
impossible back in the day and less
space as well
animation used to require specialized
cameras drawing tables and art materials
all of which needed their own place in
the studio and animation sells backdrops
and film reels all needed physical space
for storage as well with complex filing
systems to keep track of them all now
that can all be stored in a box under
one person's desk or maybe a server rack
in a closet if you've got a bit more
money to spare Makoto Shinkai is perhaps
the most extreme example of what these
advantages can do the dude kick started
his career by making a whole goddamn
movie by himself on his Power Mac g4 a
device with less processing power and
memory than you're probably using to
keep all of your chrome tabs open right
now but every anime studio big and small
has become exponentially more efficient
as a result of these advancements since
this technology took over the industry
around the turn of the century we've
gotten more and more new series to enjoy
which I would say look cleaner and more
polished on the whole than what we were
seeing back in the 90s and while you can
certainly make the argument that the
market is oversaturated with mediocre
and bad anime now there's also a lot
more good
anime out every season and I still think
of these advancements as a net positive
most of my favourite anime are anime
from the digital age help in just the
last year I've fallen in love with
several new series and I think in a lot
of ways anime is better now than it's
ever been but I also think that we've
had to make some compromises to get here
and while it may be another one of those
things that only I really care about I'd
like to talk about one of those
compromises today yahzee and I spent the
last week sitting through an old sunrise
mecha anime from 1996 vision of
escaflowne which if you're interested is
available subtitled in HD on crunchyroll
or with a fantastic English dub on
Funimation now and while I was blown
away by the yoko kanno soundtrack and
the fluidity of the animation because
these were the days when sunrise had
literally all the money what hit me the
hardest was how the show looks it's not
just that the artwork and designs are
beautiful although come on just look at
them it's the way that the medium that
was used to create them shines through
while watching escaflowne I was struck
by how long it's really been since I've
seen an anime that was new to me that
looks like it and considering that my
job is to watch literally all the anime
that says something in its colour
palette and designs it feels almost like
an old fantasy novel come to life and
while plenty of more modern fantasy
anime have borrowed from that style
spice and wolf immediately springs to
mind they don't capture it quite as
accurately and I think that's because of
how they were made escaflowne x'
backgrounds were drawn and painted onto
real paper with real brushes used to
apply real ink and paint to real cells
on top of them spice and Wolf's world
and characters meanwhile are rendered
with digital approximations of those
brushes generating strings of numbers
that tell a computer what color each
pixel on the screen should be at any
time and there's nothing wrong with that
spicen wolf looks goddamn beautiful but
those fantasy covers were also drawn and
painted onto real paper and when you
look at digital art next to a
traditional medium no matter how good
the digital artwork is you can tell the
difference even if you can't quite put
your finger on what it is there's a
certain kind of magic to seeing drawings
on paper brought to life that's not bare
at least not the same kind of magic with
animated pixels in the same way that
stop-motion animation has a certain
charm to it that CGI can never hope to
emulate when you watch a traditional
anime you can see the texture of the
paint and paper beneath it in the
backgrounds the stray specks of dust and
flecks of paint on the cells the small
variations in the lineart caused by tiny
flaws in the drawing surface and the
brushes and pens used on it and the
motor functions of the person doing the
drawing thousands of tiny imperfections
that can't be polished out no matter how
hard the artists try these are minut
insignificant visual details that you're
not going to notice unless you're really
looking for them but they change the
feel of an animes visuals in subtle
subconscious ways and while there have
been many efforts to emulate those
imperfections in digital media the
people trying are fighting a losing
battle you can toss a small drop shadow
under the fake cell layer to create a
sense of depth between the layers or
throw a paper filter on digital
animation but unless you have a new
filter for every frame there's going to
be noticeable repetition that you
wouldn't see with the infinite physical
variations of real paper real paints and
real cellulose acetate computers are
built to reliably produce the same
result from the same inputs every time
you put them in and no matter how many
random variables you throw into the mix
you're not going to come anywhere near
the infinite randomness of the real
world this is the same problem people
have with synthesized music you can
perfectly recreate the wave form of what
an ideal piano note sounds like but
simulating tiny faults and individual
strings the way that reverberations of
other strings affect them and the subtle
differences and how different people hit
the keys is next to impossible even if
you get 99% of the way to perfect
emulation of the real thing that 1%
difference will still give the game away
so why does this matter I mean if I'm
being perfectly honest it kinda doesn't
if losing a bit of the tactile feel of
anime is the price that studios have to
pay to streamline production and room
move the countless headaches that come
with traditional techniques that's a
bargain in my eyes it doesn't really
change the stories they can tell and in
fact it dramatically expands the tools
that they have at their disposal to tell
them but at the same time it matters a
lot there's something about the feeling
of paint on paper that adds a storybook
quality to fantasy stories and a retro
pulp feel to science fiction I'm
enjoying the new legend of the Galactic
Heroes anime a lot and there's no
denying that the CGI adds a great deal
to the scope and scale of the show but
the original just better captures the
feel of the classic sci-fi serial and on
the fantasy side of things likewise I
adore the ancient mages bride from a
writing perspective it's near-perfect
contemporary fantasy and its direction
is often stunning but the CGI buildings
in London and the digitally painted
backdrops elsewhere create an air of
over polished artifice that's ever so
slightly at odds with the earthy
naturalistic tone that gives the show
its charm the same goes for snow white
with the red hair another show that I
love but that I think would benefit from
the softer feel of authentic watercolor
visuals in addition to the soft digital
bloom effects one of my favorite old
gainax series maja romatic serves as a
particularly good example to highlight
this difference in feel the first season
automatic matin was the last series that
Gainax ever made with traditional
techniques and technology while the
second season something more beautiful
was made after they made the transition
to digital and to be frank the shift
while subtle kind of makes that subtitle
a lie it's the same story made by mostly
the same team at the same studio the
only difference is the technology used
to make it but even watching it as a kid
the second season felt noticeably
flatter and more artificial to me
compared to the first Gainax clearly
tried their best to make the difference
feel minimal but swapping out the
beautiful watercolor backgrounds of the
original for digital approximations
never quite works the same way now there
are much much bigger problems that
detract from the second season of
muharram attic especially toward the end
but that little change made the series
feel
off for me long before those cropped up
and again this was not present-day
animation snob hipster Jeff this was 15
year old I just bought this anime to see
some explosions and titties and I'm
feeling very attacked right now Jeff I
didn't know the first thing about
animation at the time I watched this and
it still bothered me it still bothers me
to this day there is a texture and
character to older animation that comes
from the artists at times having to
actively fight the limitations of their
tools and that texture and the lack
thereof in digital anime becomes
increasingly apparent in this age of
blu-ray remasters this is not some
catastrophic monumental loss to the art
form like I said I love newer anime but
it's worth acknowledging the trade-offs
that had to be made in moving into this
new digital age and it's equally worth
while appreciating new shows like mega
lo box that make an effort to bring
those lost qualities back even if you
could argue that it almost overcorrects
with its downscaled footage but I think
that overcorrection is what makes it
work instead of getting to 99 percent
animation of old anime like most modern
anime that try to do the same thing it
overshoots and hits a hundred and ten
percent at times it feels like a bad VHS
transfer more than it does a decent HD
remaster but it definitely captures the
character and charm of the old shows
that it's emulating better than
basically anything else that's tried to
do the same thing it makes me feel the
way that classics like Cowboy Bebop and
try gun maybe feel and I've really
missed that and judging by the
overwhelmingly positive reception that
it's gotten especially for an original
anime I think that a lot of you guys
have missed that too I really hope that
mega lo box's success will inspire more
Studios to follow suit because as much
as I love new anime I love old anime too
and I'd really love to see a new fantasy
anime that makes me feel the same way
that escaflowne or castle in the sky or
Slayers made me feel but what about you
guys do you miss the feel of traditional
animation too are there other qualities
of older anime that you feel are missing
in the modern-day types of shows that
you wish would make a resurgence or do I
just have my nostalgia goggles
too tight let me know in the comments
below and while you're down there make
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I'm Jeff through professional [ __ ]
signing out from my mother's basement