The technical aspects of animation.

[I.R Joey]

I was talking to a freind of mine today and we where discussing detailed designs in cartoons (and particularly Jappanesse ones) he said that he prefered to have alot of detail in his shows and he dispises when shows just seem to hedge their bets and cut corners (DBZ was the example he gave.) I told him that animatiors have to draw anywhere from 20-24 drawings per every second on screen time, and that's why alot of times designs come out looking less detailed. IE the more you have to draw the same intricate pattern the more likely you are to screw up ( As Timm's believes, and I've experimented with it finding similar results.) the animation. He cited Ruroni Kenshin for his example of a show that has detail and still keeps it's detail up to par. I cited that Kenshin does sometimes hedge it's bets by using extreme wild takes that seem more reminicent of a 40's Warner Brothers cartoon then a 90's action cartoon. He stated quite rightly that this was just there for the atmosphere, which I totally agreed with because without those we wouldn't really be able to see the duality of Kenshin's nature (Vash the Stampede of Trigun also comes to mind when talking about this) in it's real form. Opinions?

BTW I thought Gundam W had the most detailed personal designs, but it cheated because when you look at it the charecters really don't move that much, and the backgrounds often "wooosh" to create the illusion of motion.

[Dark Spider]

I have this how big list that I printed from some site that told me most anime cliches and cheats that they use to avoid drawing more.

One cheat is when something happens and then we see a still of each character gasping at the thing. This is predominate in DBZ.

But seriously, who doesn't want more detail in thier anime...and cartoons in general. It makes for better looking scenes that can effectively portray the kind of emotions it wants the viewers to have. But no in days, animators are to caught up in deadlines and such and they are too lazy to put any detail in anything.

[I.R Joey]

Yes but don't you think that adding all this "realistic" detail to cartoons kind of makes them loose some of their mystique. I mean they are animated, why not take advantage of the medium?

[GL2k2]

Detail is good, and DBZ is a good example of what could be done wrong with it. But I prefer less lines, it's the only way to go. The clean polished look will always be pleasing on the eyes. Remember, we are looking at a series of fast paced pictures, and let's face it DBZ is still pleasing to look at at times, although their color scheming is somewhat responsible for this reaction. Timm brought the Fleisher-esque style up to par and it is cleaned up and vibrant with color, very pleasing on the eye. Especially when Japanese directors get ahold of it like in STAS "Fun & Games".

[Koggit]

In Japan, their TV seasons go with their yearly seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter). There's 4, 12 episode seasons a year. They're producing 1 episode a week, over twice as much as american animation. If they'd produce any less, it'd take around 10 years to complete an average-lenth manga based anime. The shortcuts are taken because of time restriants, not funding or laziness.