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← darkroom
Should good Animation matter?
I have noticed with some anime fans poor to subpar animation gets a pass. This bothers me because anything from western animated films and cartoons that looks like shit will be rip by animation fans here. Not the same for anime fans. Why is that? Why do we accept mediocre work when we know anime can do better? I just finish watching Hanebado and FLCL Progressive. Why can't we get animation like that every season? Not every other year, but every season.
Nowdays there is quantity over quality aproach, sadly :/. Although the tecnology and techique keep progressing, its more lucrative to put out 5 mediocre shows than one FLCL. But it stems from people just eating it up.
I guess nowdays most watchers just want something to pass the time instead something memorable leaving an impact
Well if you are a anime fan, at this point you kind of have to accept that anime doesn't have the same size budgets and time investment that they used to. Basically, anime fans have accepted that most anime will have subpar visuals because it is like a crack cocaine addiction. If you want to watch anime with good visuals, I would suggest watching anything KyoAni or Trigger touched, and there is also the option of watching older series. Shaft and Madhouse sometimes delivers with animation as well, but they are also prone to taking shortcuts.
Some people (well, me at the very least) can't care less about animation. Different people have different priorities.
But you should because it is what makes a show even watchable. If Incredbiles 2 came out and looked like Back Street girls people would be making memes and ripping Pixar a new asshole.
What makes the show watchable for me is the plot, the characters, and the setting. I don't see any difference in animation between shows, nor do I pay any attention to it. The only reason why I know that the Hanebado thing had good animation is that I've read about it, I didn't see any difference between it and any other show. Also watchable is highly subjective.
Compare the animation of Hanebado and All Out and tell me there is "No differences". I look for plot, characters, and setting too but in the relam of animation you have to look at least decent to me. What is EVA/Ghost in Shell without spot on art and animation? What is Toy Story without, at the time, groundbreaking animation?
I just told you that I see no difference in animation. I didn't say that there is no difference. Some people are color blind and don't see colors properly, I don't see the animation properly.
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Okay, but I think you're blinding yourself from what is in front of you.
The plot, setting and characters can be found in a novel and manga too. Animation in anime is as critical as grasp on language is when writing a novel.
It's perfectly fine to not care about animation but an anime with good story and bad animation just has a good story, it's not a good anime as a whole.Of course, they can be found elsewhere, the difference being enjoying and not enjoying certain types of media and how those components are projected.
As I said before, the animation quality makes no difference to me and I don't think it is as important as other parts, which is my opinion and it's ok if you feel differently. I see shows with bad animation (according to other people) and a good story as a good anime. I find shows with good animation and bad story (Hanebado) as bad anime.
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Lazy people shouldn't comment when they don't know the difference between good or bad aniamtion. kek.
I think there's usually at least one anime that stands out in the animation department, last season that was Hisone to Maso-tan for me.
I didn't see that one. I'll check it out.
I know we like to think of Anime as overwhelmingly the art, but it's not.
It serves a purpose in production for the director/studios intent and just like a cinematographer asking for a different camera, sometimes they can't accommodate the resource, the director doesn't want to change the tone of the media, or they just genuinely aren't a good cinematographer.
Combine that with often original source art (manga) and an expectation to enhance the original work, not necessarily over shadow it or do something different, and you get the picture.
But as I said, most works just don't need better/original animation to achieve their desired outcome.
It doesn't help animes are just promotions to get you to buy something.
Yep, it certainly doesn't.
And most times we can't get it unless you pay a shitton.
Well you guys are kind of proving why the opposite is true. They're trying to sell a product, and that's why in a lot of cases they will prioritize good animation for the sake of making something that will catch the eyes of viewers, and you see this most in the cases of a lot of the more popular shows on the market even if you wouldn't think they would need it to capture the interest of general fans who you'd think wouldn't care.
Dragon Ball Super is probably the most telling recent example of this, where despite its dodgy and inconsistent art throughout the series, for the introduction of Ultra Instinct it pulled out all the stops and ended up making some of the best looking episodes in the franchise. Shit was hype, and even people who don't care about animation noticed. And because they noticed, they'll remember, it'll stick out to them, and their opinion of a new Dragon Ball X will rise and they'll be more receptive to touching more of the content.
On the flip-side there's Kyoto Animation which basically prides itself on its animation. I can pretty much guarantee that most of its shows would have just been another fish in the barrel if they were done by other companies. But these shows sell because of the care that they give them, and this is important to note because the shows that they create are made from manga about as often as they're made from books and light novels. That reputation is itself marketable, after all.
Well I bring this up as pretty much everything leans on merch sells. look at Re:Zero once it got an anime. Look at what AOT got after just one season of its anime.
I interpreted this as why most productions don't reach a level of consistent/original quality as the examples in the OP.
E.g. why Violet Evergarden looks like this: 
And then Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid looks like this: 
Not that Kyoto Animation didn't give effort towards the latter or that it's bad, just that the priority of each were not the same and for good reason. Because they had different intentions for the viewer.
Just contrast the trailers, one slaps up big text over its art, the other tries to subtly integrate it into the experience.
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That's true, but they're different tones and styles and I don't think that should be confused with good or bad animation.
Honestly even looking at the trailer for that I don't see anything wrong with it. Violet Evergarden is a show that uses meticulous details to pull the viewer in while Dragon Maid pretty much depends on its faster pacing to make its comedy work while using its longer lingering scenes to denote cuteness or emotion, usually. Different intentions, as you said.
But that's not to say one has worse animation than the other, not on that basis anyway. Esp since Violet tends to be less consistent in terms of quality than Dragon Maid- which makes sense considering the schedule around this show was hell supposedly, took a hell of a long time to make, too.
continue this thread →Ok, ordinarily, I wouldn't get involved in a conversation of this type, but your choice of examples is wildly offensive, so I'm afraid I gotta cut in here... Let's look at the REAL reason Violet Evergarden looks like that, and Miss Kobayashi's Dragon looks like it does...
We'll start with Miss Kobayashi's Dragon, because I'm very much a fan of the series. As is generally the practice, when an anime adaptation of a manga is done, every effort is make to 'clean up', or make more consistent (read: easier to animate), while preserving the general feel and look of the original characters. Let's see how they did for Miss Kobayashi's Dragon:
This is a full color plate from the original manga (gotten from an English translated scanlation site):
That looks pretty darn close to how the anime turned out. I'd say that was definitely an excellent anime adaptation of a funny manga, and the art as originally drawn by the mangaka.
Now lets look at an example of Violet Evergarden (also taken from an English translated site):
Wow. That's pretty impressive. I mean, the original was lines and lines of japanese text (here depicted in English), and they ended up with that beautiful art style. Oh, wait. THERE WERE NO GRAPHICS CAUSE IT'S A LIGHT NOVEL!!! Holy crap! How did I miss that?!? Oh yeah... I didn't. But apparently YOU did.
Well ok... There ARE some images for reference, right? Like the cover of the novel...?
Ah! There we go! Huh. It turns out that if you're writing a NOVEL, you really don't have to draw a lot of pictures (or have them drawn), so you can go as crazy with the detail, and emotional impact with your images as you want... Hmm.
You don't suppose you should stick with comparing series that are comparable, do you? Like 'Series from manga' against 'Series from manga' and maybe 'Series from light novels' with 'Series from light novels'?
Or maybe pass (implied) judgement (I like how you denied you were actually bashing Kobayashi's right after obviously bashing it) on the quality of a given anime versus it's original artwork? Nah. Let's just bash series compared to each other completely raw, and just cherry pick whatever we happen to dislike the artistic style of vs the ones we think are beautifully artistic anime, then act like ALL anime should look like the ones we like, and not at ALL like the source material it came from looked...
Listen, if all anime looked like Violet Evergarden, anime would die. People watch anime for their own tastes, and preferred entertainment. Yes, it can EASILY be said that anime is to sell manga, but there are a LOT of us that watch anime, and DO NOT read manga. The product ACTUALLY being sold? The Anime. Whether buying on Blu-ray, or paid streaming source, all the studios and distributors actually WANT you to buy is the ANIME. The publishers HOPE it makes you want to buy the manga or light novels, but the animation studios? They don't give a rat's fart in a windstorm for that stuff. They want you to BUY THE ANIME.
So please, for everyone's sake, get off your artistic high horse. Recognize that unless an anime adaptation BUTCHERS the original source material, either by hashing the story, or by making the art a joke, it is likely quite close (at least in intent) to the source material. So if it's 'bad' it's usually because the source material is 'bad' (which is relative, anyway)
Sometimes an anime actually has 'bad' art even compared to the manga. This most commonly happens in a single episode when an animation house (often in China, South Korea and the Philippines) has to animate an episode when something catastrophic has occurred (like the key frames being lost in shipping), or when too much of a series' budget has been spent on earlier episodes, so they have to cut corners (but this usually just brings about 'flashback' episodes, or 'fanservice' episodes that use a lot of still images).
I'm just asking you to stick with comparing like materials to like. Manga adaptations to each other, Light Novel adaptions to each other. And please also make sure you actually compare the original art against the anime, cause sometimes the art looks like crap cause that's how the mangaka DREW it. (I'm looking at YOU Crayon Shin-chan)
'Nuff said.
I used to think western animation was bad as a child too, but now I'd say it's on par with your average seasonal anime. Sometimes anime even can look much worse.
Lack of budget and having to pump out show after show is the main culprit. It's just the state of the industry now. If Japan gets a economic boom like the 80's then it will reflect on the anime industry too.Nah, more money won't make a difference. As much as people like the "budget" meme it's rarely the reason that a show's animation is bad. Scheduling, time restraints, and staff coordination (as well as the staff itself) are generally much bigger contributors. Anime is expensive but budget rarely ever correlates to the animation quality.
And just a lot of shortcuts.
Oh, of course, but I feel like being an animator and not taking shortcuts'd make things a hell of a lot more stressful. People'd probably die if they had to do 100% all the time and work conditions are already terrible in the anime industry.
There are ways to use shortcuts and not make it look shit but eh.
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That's what I'm getting at, I agree with you. It's not shitty to use shortcuts because animation takes a lot of time and effort, time you might not have. Shortcuts prevent having to make bigger sacrifices.
For me at least, as long as the animation is good enough to get the story and emotions across, I'm good. If it's an action anime, I'd expect some solid animation where it's needed, but slice of life, comedies, etc. don't necessarily need it. Not to mention the better the animation, the more expensive it'll be.
That's not to say I don't appreciate it, I seriously love some of the animation work put into shows when they can afford it, and it definitely adds to the show, but it's not a requirement for me to enjoy it.
Comedy series it depends on what they're doing. I'm solid as some of my favorite comedies look amazing.(Haruhi, Lucky Star, and Azumanga daioh.). Also, I want to make clear good animation doesn't mean a show is good. A few that stand out to me are Yuri on Ice, Kakegurui, and Flip Flappers.
Absolutely, great animation does not make a show good, but it can definitely add something to an already solid show. I'll agree that good animation does matter, but other things matter more; story, characters, writing etc. are what make a show enjoyable for me.
For the record, YOI isn't a bad show. It's average. Kakegurui and Flip flappers on the other hand god...fuck those shows. Either way, you're right. Sorry for the late response.
I dont think shit animation can make your experience that enjoyable. It's about having a balance of everything.
Well if it looks ugly you won't want to focus on anything else. You need everything but there is a reason a show like Ren and Stimpy is still remember as a classic and not something like Problem Sloverz or Secret mountain Force Awesome. (And yes that is a real show title.)
Source: https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2017/02/27/sakuqa-anime-industry-and-production-questions-3/
The problem is that production studios are not given enough time.
There's a large misconception in the community that budget = good animation. This is not the case. What matters is the staff working on the project, they are the ones who give life to the production. Money obviously won’t make talent magically grow! On top of that, they need time to actually produce a satisfying product. Even the most talented people cannot complete a large scale production if they're not given enough time.
High profile TV productions are often accompanied by some sort of multimedia campaign, and cross promotion with big releases in other formats is quite the big deal. That's why anime tend to air at the same time as a big event in the same franchise (a game release, or the manga ending, or something similar), as it tends to boost sales.
There tends to be impatient committee members that want the fruits of their investment as soon as possible. Since studios themselves are often not in the committee and very rarely rank high within it, the people who care the most about the animation production environment don’t have much of a say even when a project could afford to pay the creators for a longer time.
The industry moves ridiculously fast so titles have small windows of relevance, and they don’t want to risk having to wait more seasons for them to air. I guess in their eyes: What's the point of working on something for so long if people will forget and not watch it? What's the point in spending more time on one project when you can start another one sooner, and make more money?
It's an unpleasant train of thought, but most people (that aren't actually involved in the production of a product) don't actually care about what they make, simply of how much they will make from it.
That said, the idea that budget doesn’t matter at all is also not true. Projects with a higher production budget do fare better, assuming you’re comparing under similar circumstances. The effects tend to relate to fields that fans don't perceive, that's all.
The only studio that properly handles itself is Kyoto Animation, but they're an exception.
I mean a show like Pop Team Epic is on Toonami right now and it is a cheap show but its use of limited animation and very wacky writing made it a hit among fans. Granted, most western fans as Pop Team Epic is like an anime Ren and Stimpy with no toilet humor.
For me i care for animation more in types of shows were i think animation is important, for example in fighting anime and sports anime. In other shows like comedy shows, drama etc i don't expect and necessarily care for the animation to be good because i'd rather good writing and then nice animation is a bonus.
Obviously a show can be great with or without good animation, an example of a great show with bad animation is baby steps, everyone can agree it doesn't look that good and the animation is pretty bad, but the rest of the shows elements make up for this bad animation and artstyle.
I think people, or at least me, should be grateful when watching anime, since I don't think I've contributed enough to the industry to be in a position to complain.
To be honest, every producers (I mean people who actually involve in the production, not the rich people in the committee) would like to work on a comfortable schedule and big budget. But they have their own situation (business decisions behind them), limitations and struggles, so I can't really blame them. I actually feel bad for anime that cannot offer better animation, because they need to be better in every other aspect to make up for it.
As long as I can see their effort in making up for the quality, there is no way I don't give them a pass. I really respect directors who can work with what they have. And I sometimes feel otaku-targeted comedy anime with lesser budgets works quite good, because there is a "close to home" feeling. (I'm talking about Silver Link.)
Some of my favourite anime are clearly work on limited time budget and manpower, and I love them for being so.
You can have good aniamtion on a limited budget. Look at Pop Team Epic.
Well, as long as the story is good I'm fine. But if it sucks AND the animation sucks too, nobody would want it. Also anime's animation doesn't need to look "good" all the time, as long as its passable I think lots of people are okay with it.
It depends for me. I love Pop Team Epic, but it's a limited animation overload of awesomenesss but then something like Handshakers or Back Street girls exist and I'm questioning my sainity.
I imagine I'd be fine with most animation as long as the story is good enough. But then again, I haven't actually seen much anime so I'm only using my common sense.
To be fair, there are shows with good animation that fucking suck.
Just an opinion of mine and i could be wrong entirely :)
The general aesthetic is something that can keep me interested. If its unappealing to look at but the story is good it's possible to look passed it.
Many animators are underpaid/overworked and amateurs leading to poor quality.
A historic example is Dragon Ball Super in the beginning episodes.
It's ridiculously expensive to do what they do. And I wish them the best since they are pouring their heart into itI know the people working on it love anime. That's great to hear. Either way, I respect your opinion.
Hey Rufio... Just one thing: Your opinion has exactly ZERO chance of being wrong at ALL, much less entirely. Your opinion is absolutely, 1000%, totally correct. For you. NEVER let someone even imply that your opinion has no value or is wrong. They may not AGREE with your opinion, but that's just THEIR opinion, and it has no greater value than yours. Except that for YOU, their opinion is totally wrong. Period.
So many times people try to say that someone's opinion is wrong, and that just shows their extreme egoism. You may have an unpopular opinion. You may have an opinion that is in total disagreement with known facts (note that I did not say 'truth', that's different), but your opinion is always right for YOU.
The only problem comes when people decide that THEIR opinion is SO right, that it's not just for themselves, but is right for EVERYONE. And THAT opinion is wrong, unless they keep it to themselves.
So stick to your opinion, and make it clear that it IS your opinion, and it will NEVER be wrong. Just don't try to express it as FACT. Cause that WOULD be wrong. =P
I just agreed with him. This wall of text is pointless.
In some cases, all you need is good animation to make something good.
one of the best examples would be:
Its really all bout how each person views it, and its all over the place. I mean, look at Disney. It made an effort to make its animation more modern but now there are people who hate it, wanting the older art. "ahem" Wreck it Ralph "ahem"
For me, I don't care bout animation if its a good story. But at the same time, if the story is terrible, I wouldn't watch it even if it has beautiful art. Does good art even matter if the story is terrible with a high drop rate? Put it simply: "Better art attracts more viewers". Bad art keeps people away even if the show is good.
However, there are times where a good anime makes its odd animation unique to me. Pingpong's animation is terrible but the story makes it seem unique. I used to hate 3d art(thanks Berserk), but after Land of the Lustrous, I began watching shows I used to keep away from like Ajin and Knights of Sidonia and now love it.
It also boils down to production costs( try making anime yourself, its a lot of money). And for the people who prefer older art: studios aren't gonna accept a minority preference over a majority preference of modern art. Maybe only a few would listen, like Megalo Box.Disney is a little different as Frozen showed them they could use CGI and make bank. No need to make traditional 2D animation if you can save time by using CGI.
Wanting older art isn't a bad thing, but what I love about older art is mroe studios willing taking their time will yield better results. look at how good My Hero Academia looks. The team behind it pretty much runs the show like it was a western animation production. Like working on episodes ahead of time taking production breaks after you finish a set of episodes. It's fucking good to see a Japanese animation studio take a page from the Western playbook.
Why do we accept medicore work when we know anime can do better?
I don't want to be rude but I honestly don't understand why there are so many threads like this.
If I compare the animation quality of a decent Anime from 10-20 years ago with one of these days... then all I can say is, the overall animation quality got a lot better. And yes I'm using decent on purpose because comparing outstandingly animated Anime with each other makes no sense.
Maybe the diference between the animation quality of decent Anime and 10/10 Anime got bigger, maybe, but even then the animation quality of Anime overall improved a lot. So why complain about that? ^^'>
Why can't we get animation like that every season? Not every other year, but every season.
Be happy it's not like that because otherwise Anime such as Hanebado and FLCL Progressive wouldn't have left such a big impression on you =)
Well I do think that complaining about it is fine, really. Anime studios really don't have to make good looking artwork or animation if they think the consumer just doesn't care.
Obviously there are directors/animators out there that would do their best regardless but if it comes down to being something well received regardless of that quality, animation studios will take that to heart and start valuing speed over quality. Expecting smooth, silky animation with gorgeous character acting and no lip flaps all the time is unrealistic, of course, but there definitely needs to be a baseline and an expectation that we're vocal about so that anime can continue to grow and evolve.
Anime studios really don't have to make good looking artwork or animation if they think the consumer just doesn't care.
After reading my own comment again I can see how easily one can misunderstand it. Sorry, and let me try to get my point across again.
What I basically wanted to say is, we are on a good way right now. The animation quality overall gets better and better and I don't understand why people complain about that. I never intended to make it look like I don't care about the animation quality.
but there definitely needs to be a baseline and an expectation that we're vocal about so that anime can continue to grow and evolve.
Personally I believe it is more important to appreciate and to praise Anime with really good animation quality (smth the Anime community is doing, thankfully) in order to let Anime grow and evolve. This way such Anime will be talked about a lot, they will get more popular, more people are interested in it, more profit for the studio, and so studios in general are "forced" to improve the animation quality steadily in order to stay competitive. Hell, that's how we even reached today's standard of animation quality in Anime. Praise the competition xD
Anyway, I'm probably a bit salty (not sure if that's the right word to use here) because over the last 5 years so many of these threads popped up and by now I just can't help it to get slightly annoyed by them since once again, if I compare Anime from now with Anime from 10 years ago... my lord has it evolved a lot, and fast xD
tl;dr: I'm a salty old man.
The thing is pretty drawn a lot of shit back in the days while a lot of work is done digital. You can still do good work with the magic of computers. I jsut wish more effort goes into making a show look appeal. For example, I like Angels of Death right now but it lacks the good art and aniamtion from something that is suppose to be horror.
Movies, series, TV shows and anime have always been about the story for me. If it has a great story and compelling characters, then I don't mind even if the animation is a little on the bad side.
I like story too, but let's not talk about that now as the writing aspect has gotten bad here too.
Fair enough. I don't know. I wouldn't go as far as to say I'd enjoy something with Disney or CN style animations - those put me off - but in anime-styled animations even something on the worse side isn't too bad.
Funny you bring that up sicne OK KO and Steven Universe take nods from anime.
Well I can't speak for newer Disney/CN stuff as I haven't watched that many. My impression is mostly based on what I watched back in the day as a kid.
OHHH okay.
Glad to see I am getting actual discussion for the msot part. I wish people wouldn't be dicks with what I'm taking to say or just being flat ignorant. But call me immature because I'm telling you are factual wrong. We need to stop using opinion as a shield to say incorrect bullshit. Opinions allow for free thinking, not to say thigns that are that are far from the truth.
Because as long as the story is great then the animation shouldnt matter. the best example of this being the Ping pong anime. It looked horrible, but it was probably one of the best sports anime in terms of story telling (excluding HaneBado because that just started)
I still need to see that anime. From what I seen, it doesn't look bad as they are using very nartual motions.
well its rotoscoped from what I believe is actual video, and it made it look like everyone watching was tripping on lsd from the characters designs throughout the show. It was extremely distracting but the story made up for it.
LOL wow, really?
if the story is well written the animation can be shitty and can still be a good anime.
good example is
Kino no Tabi The Beautiful World
from an unknown studio with no money. yet the current, better budgeted version out now is worse because the plot and storyline is lacking in comparison.However; a good story with good animation is still the best.
That animation was far from bad though. LOL! I seen a little of this and I really love it.
Personally I do prefer good animation, howver I wont say things like No game no life had better animation than Sailor Moon Season 1 because they came out at very different times and animation in general has improvved over time, so instead Id compare it to other anime of the time of its release
Those are different styles too.
it depends on its genre, but in most cases, sadly, it does
I think you should try and look good all the times.
Two reasons, one related to the shows themselves and other to the fans.
The first one is that not every show has the same requirements to work. FLCL is all about its animation and experimental style (I guess Progressive is the same), Hanebado has to sell the movement and the action in the sport it depicts because its narrative depends on it. Not every show has the same focus on expression and movement, not every show needs the same amount of focus and they can instead focus on other aspects of their production that fit their purposes better. Animation is not the end goal of any show, it serves a purpose.
The second is that we are a diverse community and not everybody values animation and visual expression the same. Everyone has a personal scale for that, which also depends on the show we are watching and the expectations we build around it. Hence why there are differences of opinion and poor to subpar animation can get a pass; not to mention that how good an animation is or how well it executes its visual language has at the very least a variable degree of personal interpretation.
Good post!
For starters, you don't need to look liek those shows to be great. Look at Pop Team Epic and Megalo Box for example. One show is limited as it is cel aniamtion while the other uses limited animation. There is no show every show should try to look like. But a currently airing show like Angels of Death could really use more shading and more darker imagery to really pull you into the horror theme it is selling you.
Story is the most important thing, for any visual art, if the story is crap, you just get easily forgettable visual porn. Reason why I watch anime is because of the story, that can go anywhere. It is how European comics have different feel from American ones.
I feel some people overvalue story sometimes. There is not much of a story to Pop Team Epic and that show works wonders. People who use Story as the main selling point forget the number of the shows that have gotten popular for not having much of a story. It also doesn't help some of the most popular titles in anime have had questionable stories. We're talking the big boys here. Not the legit OG hits like Kino's journey and when They Cry. the Japanese market has shown more times than I can count that story isn't their main thing they're looking for.
Edit: This pains me to say this as I love writing and I'm a writer.
Popular doesn´t mean good. There is so much utter shittnes spreading through the media that is just what it is, a popular shit. And yes, there is decline in quality in story and animation in anime in last 5 years, especially since everything has been considered as product for American market. For example now I filter anime to watch based on my 3 minutes rule, if in first 3 minutes of the episode you have close up of big boobs character or fan service or any ecchi comedy, I drop that anime, because I know that if the author/production used those scenes early on, they will use it whenever. Story is of the essence for good art. For popular, you just need to target right group and do good marketing.
@Muha Good point.
@oliviamrow That show is more f a skecth comedy.
Mm, I think the way we use 'story' here, it means something a bit more broad than just a longer narrative. Pop Team Epic has great stories, they're just short little bits, rather than the more traditional season-long narrative (or even episode-long, thinking more about western media).
Animation dont matter if the writing sucks. If the writing is good but animation is ok or average, then it really depands on the anime. In general i think animation font matter wther the story is good or bad. I only judge a show based on presentation and stuff relating to writing. Of course art can affect to a degree how i feel anout a character, but i would like to think animation is not that big of a deal to me.
If you look at the pass 10 years for this medium, we have learned writing doesn't matter. I mean I can many big shows with a lot of narrative flaws. One of the big shows right now in the West is a skecth comedy show in Pop Team Epic. The one with more story going is My Hero Academia, but that show is just doing tropes and clichés well with just avoiding some typical pitfalls shows usual fall into. For example, everyone hates the main character at the start but suddenly rides his dick mid to the end of it of the story. My Hero Academia has avoided this thankfully.
Edit: Also, I think cultural differences kick in as in the West we value a good story more. That is why we hold movies like Toy Story and Incredbiles really high.
Good animation always matters. Maybe not as much as the story-line, but stills does create varying effects on its viewers. Sadly the animation budgets for anime is growing smaller, and the number of anime released every year seem to increase, leading to bad animation. FLCL progressive is only 6 episodes, meaning studios would put in the budget required for 12+ episodes into half of the amount, meaning better animation.
Doesn't help they didn't have the OG staff working on it. So, it's a bunch of new guys trying to copy something again. They nearly pulled it off. I was very impress.
