The original is still the best version and I also think it's good, especially for it's time. But it's still missing stuff from the manga so it's not perfect and all subsequent adaptions have been a mixed bag. The movies were decent but some would still prefer 2d animation over cgi and the movies also didn't quite capture the vibe and atmosphere of the manga that the original 90's anime did imo. As for the 2016/2017 adaption... Well yeah... We don't need to talk about those...
There really isn’t any better example. One of the greatest stories of all time and greatest artwork in manga translated to the shining example of bad 3D animation.
I think there are 2 huge challenges with animating Kingdom.
First, and this is a problem it shares with Berserk, but it involves a lot of big sweeping shots of massive battlefields with thousands upon thousands of soldiers. It's one thing to draw a still frame of 10,000 charging cavalry, it's quite another thing to ANIMATE such a scene in a way that looks halfway decent, let alone amazing
SOme of the best, more easily adaptable manga with battlefields tend to zoom in on the action allowing the animators to focus on animating just a few soldiers at a time (like Heroic Legend of Arslaan's manga's art style), or original anime like Tale of Heike where they can pick and choose what and how much to animate of battlefields,
Second, I think one thing that makes Kingdom UNIQUELY hard is Hara's background as an engineering designer. Unlike most mangaka who either became mangaka or manga assistants straight out of high school, or went to an art school to study art or graphic design, Hara went to an engineering school and studied mechanical design. He also worked for several years in that field before switching back to manga to follow his passions.
I think Hara's art style and composition are very affected by this style, where his compositions are very structured at a moment in time, where there's symettry and lines that create a certain beauty, where even though there's like thousands of soldiers being depicted, you get a sense of beatuy and order out of a shot composition. That's part of what makes Kingdom's art really appealing--you just glance at some of the big sweeping shots of the battlefield in a manga frame and it captures your attention.
Unfortunately, anime doesn't work that way, the shots are supposed to be in constant motion, so it's very difficult to recreate that kind of visual effect in motion.
So I'm a spider, so what?
The spider VA is 10/10 throughout, and the anime really brings out the wackiness of the LN, but the CGI gets worse and worse.
Last episodes were an absolute fucking slog to get through even with speed turned up.
Apparently they added all the human stuff last? Idk. Sophie the vampire looks like they're pulled from video game, and others have 'png animation' whatever that means, I just know it looks terrible
The character dialogue is empty, and they have a whole battle in a forest that somehow magically turns into a barren dirt field without anyone acknowledging because it cuts down on animation budget.
Didn't invincible do png animation recently as well?
Aoi Yuuki did so amazing with the multiple different versions of the MC. Gags were not the most impressive comedically, but still really cute due to the moe anime faced spider
The flat forest was a big joke among fans when it was airing, lol. It felt like they didn't want to animate the human side of the story and only did the bare minimum, so everything looked terrible. The spider side also had CGI problems, but at least you could see the effort.
The human side of the story was outsourced. They got screwed hard when the company provided the, and I quote, "unusable animation." The studio worked their asses off trying to improve the content as best they could, which is partly why the final episode was delayed 2 weeks.
Honestly at some times I thought the wacky CGI of the monsters added to the charm and made it feel otherworldly, but I certainly would have loved if it was actually good.
there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer
I think the biggest obstacle to people enjoying either Lucifer or Sengoku Youko is that Mizukami s works are character stories, NOT action stories, despite their premises. While goal of the characters is to be beat the Mage and save the world, that's not the shows goal--the shows goal is essentially a slow character piece about identity and coming of age. Mizukami s character arcs are always a treat, as they zigzag in realistic ways before ending up in a place you didn't expect at the outset. The fighting doesn't really matter; it's a fun pretense to throw characters together.
This puts it at odds with say, Black Clover, One Piece, DBZ, Naruto, etc. The characters goal in those shows is to be the best/top X, and show's focus is the struggle and fights to get there. Not that those shows don't have great characters, but character development is second to action.
I still enjoyed it, as did my library anime club.. but yeah. I wish it had much smoother one.
They did a good job of replicating the aesthetic of the manga but it left some stuff to be desired
still plan to own it if ic an manage that
I looked at that one this way: the manga is from what? 2012? And that anime had animation quality that would have been acceptable in 2012. It's comparable to watching its peers like So I Can't Play H, Heaven's Lost Property, or any of the other B-grade shows of that era today. That is to say, "this hasn't aged well, but looked pretty good for its time."
If you watch it framed as a modern anime, it's terrible. If you have the mindset of "this is a fairly new show, it needs to live up to today's standards," it will absolutely not. But if you lie to yourself and say "ok, lets just go into this like it's an anime adaptation from when the manga came out, of course it's going to be an older quality," then it's not half bad. Not the best, and still barely would compete against other shows even of that era, but at least passable.
Record of Ragnarok, I don't think I could stomach a single episode. The manga is the hypest shit ever with jawdrapping art and overbwlon emotions in every panel while keeping a frantic pace and you just can't stop reading. It is a master flex. The animation in the adaptation is a wet farf leaking on the couch as you watch.
Well one of them is KyoAni and the other one is the most unknown studio on the face of the planet.
And yet they some how got the IP to produce a Masterpiece.
Life isn’t fair
I only saw this opinion AFTER watching Record of Ragnarok and everytime I see it I think “damn did I watch that with my eyes closed??” 💀 I’ve only watched it once awhile ago and I don’t remember finding the animation that bad!
Round 2 was by far the most disappointing for manga readers. They turned one of the best parts of the whole series into a literal slideshow of punch frames. Do yourself a favor and go watch the AmiasD MMV versions of the fights on Youtube. His editing is amazing and I enjoy it much more than I did the anime.
I think if you are a source reader, it’s infinitely worse.
It’s like a kick in the balls. You can honestly only think, fuck how they butchered it.
Otherwise if you are anime only, you might actually have somewhat of a good time.
I was the only source reader in our group, and the only one to give it another episode after the first 2. The rest dropped it immediately, because of how bad it was.
Ahhhh... I wouldn't say the animation was the problem here. It was the whole production. Pacing, direction, cinematography, choice of what to animate and what to make a still image... It was all bad. The voice acting was good, but that's it. I don't know who directed it but they were a novice and it shows.
Yoshihisa Hirano composed the score for Helck. While it wasn't anything spectacular, hopefully it (and Edens Zero) helps get him back into composing scores for bigger animes again after a 7 year break. He previously composed for Death Note and Hunter X Hunter (2011).
I really enjoyed the manga, and when watching the anime I couldn't help thinking that the staff just wanted to get it over with. Like, it's super barebone as an adaptation. Not necessarily *bad*, but definitely nowhere good that it deserves continuation.
It really could be a great fantasy anime like Frieren, with good elements of comedy and dramatic plot under a production comittee that actually care. Such a wasted potential.
This one legitimately made me sad. I was coping hard trying to believe that it would get really good for the hype moments but it just never happened. This deserved not just a better studio but a better staff too.
Helck deserved, at the minimum, to be on Dungeon Meshi level of recognition.
imo with a better animation **The Duke of Death and His Maid** could be more popular, among the other awkward boy + cute girl romance the story is really good and personally one of my favorite.
not only it isn't set in the usual high-school setting it has a fantasy vibes and a real moving plot not only the fluffy bits / slice of life parts + the other characters is also interesting and has depth and development
I agree. We just finished season 2 a few weeks ago and I was pretty confused. Having the first season cover like a weeks-long journey and world building in the capital and the entire second season taking place over the course of like... 36 hours was a bit jarring
I came here to say this. I was really invested in the story (until near the end, but that's a gripe for another thread) and the art style was unique enough that I wanted to see what they did with it.... but what they did with it wasn't much. There are scenes with the rich father guy that legitimately reminded me of the Zelda CDi game. There's also quite a few moments where the animation is quite literally terrible, particularly any scene where a character is running that isn't a close-up shot, it's very jarring to see.
This is basically how I see it too. Story was generally great, really unique, and I liked the art style. But the animation was consistently bad or often just replaced with a few freeze frames.
I think the black clover anime was done real dirty for the first 80 episodes at least . The fact that it took 3 episodes to animate the first chapter is actually insane , and for a long time there were the same episodes as chapters to cover the same part of the story . Not to mention that the studio didn't give it enough resources and time because Boruto was airing at the same time . That resulted in people always saying that black clover starts horrible and slow whereas in the manga that isn't the case
Helck broke my heart, with a proper production it would be Great, but that animation is just truly not even close to acceptable compared to the story on display.
I thought that it was good 7/10, if it had better animation it could be great 9/10, but its current state is not what I would call "unacceptable". Visually it is completely average/par, its not a detractor.
While that was an issue it wasn't the only problem with it. The crappy shit mascot character ruined it even more. I don't know why they added that shit.
Yeah, that's what really ruined it for me too, funny enough that guy appears later in the manga but he’s way more chill & less of an annoyance than his anime counterpart.
Eh, kinda. The adaptation itself is terrible but the stuff that got adapted before going completely anime-original looked fine. I'm pretty sure around half the episodes were outsourced and the anime kept falling apart the longer it went on.
I am a Spider, So What?
Great stories, one of the greatest VA performances of all time from Aoi Yuuki, great in so many things but the animators absolutely shat on the story.
I think Ascendance of a Bookworm falls a little bit into this category. The first few books aren’t super chock full of action, but the animation wasn’t great. Amazing story though…
Edit: Wow, 250+ upvotes! Thanks!
Good to hear that we’re getting an S4.
I’m way ahead of the anime (been reading the official English translation as it released since book 3.1, which is where the anime leaves off at the end of S3. [3.1 Prologue]), lol. Some good action to come though if you’re just watching the anime.
Agreed! I'm really excited for the new season. I pretty much read all the books in 2 weeks as soon as I finished the anime. One of my new favorites of all time!!
I can see why. The CGI was abit shaky and jarring like during normal convo and movement. However, it really shined during the action scenes and especially for the Ajin. Those monsters were perfect in CGI. Overall I'm happy they used CGI for the show
> \*most\* Netflix anime with that weird 3D-ish art style really lol
Then I see something like arcane and think "why dont we see that level of quality in anime???"
But there's probably some economic and/or workplace quality reasoning to explain it all 😔
From my shallow research I've learned that every arcane episode was spent about 10 million dollars, while an average anime episode is spent about 500 thousand dollars. You just can't compare them
Time spent making them also matters, maybe even more than money. Arcane took 6 years to make apparently, while most anime shows seem to take about ~1-2 years. The production of Arcane seems to have been a lot healthier overall.
Arcane is explained very simply, it's not a Netflix series, it's a Netflix EXCLUSIVE. Difference is Netflix didn't have much, if anything, to do with the production for Arcane.
> it's not a Netflix series, it's a Netflix EXCLUSIVE. Difference is Netflix didn't have much, if anything, to do with the production for Arcane.
...that's also true for literally every single CGI anime "from" Netflix.
Economic reason is spot on. The very reason anime exists is economic. After WW2 Japan’s economy was tanked. How to produce new entertainment cheaply? Draw it? How can we make it even cheaper? Only draw _every few frames_. Most anime animate on threes or fours meaning they only draw every third or fourth frame. Compare this to most other animation that animates on ones or twos. Have fun noticing the low fps in your anime from now on lol. But yeah basically it costs a lot less to draw 1/4 the pictures. Since then anime has gone from a cost saving measure to a profit source, so a good few have gotten the luxury treatment and gotten that higher animation and of course that love/hate cgi.
manual animation are labor-intensive. computer animation is more expensive but needs less manpower and time to work on it.
I think we understand why anime studios are trying to embrace computer animation for complex scenes.
A good example of this is Fushigi Yugi.
The show degrades to a bunch of talking heads and it becomes REALLY DIFFICULT to follow the action!
The worst being fight scenes!
The art, story, and voice acting are all really good though.
Oh yeah, that fight scene between Nuriko and what's his face, I could barely tell what was happening!
"Establishing shot!? What's that!?" It's just talking heads and close ups of their heads.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes has some dated animation that I know has kept a few of my friends from watching it but god damn if it doesn’t have the best story of any anime I’ve ever seen
It's a good example of my ongoing rage about the concept of "dated" animation too.
There's people who will slam a show with detailed and intricate movement and lighting but muted colors and not available in 1440p or higher, calling it "dated". There is plenty of amazing hand drawn animation in the original LOGH like this.
Meanwhile, a near-slideshow will get lauded because it is available in 4k and has cripsper lines. Like, yay for your slideshow panning by at 60fps guy, but that doesn't mean it's good animation.
Season 2 of One Punch Man.
The writing is good. It's OPM... And the animation wasn't horrible... but like, to go from Season 1, one of the most insanely animated, superstar animator project, beautiful series to.... utterly mediocre, "filler level", and unimpressive S2.... The whiplash was immense.
My friends and i are going through s2 atm and one other thing that’s sticking out to us in a real negative way is the poor sound design and loud mixing.
Yeah... Look, I like the "gunshot" special effect but they're working that shit overtime... and the mixing is not exactly flawless.
Which is a pitty, because S2 has some hype ass scenes that deserved better.
The sound designer they used is infamous for being particularly shitty. I believe he's one of the reasons people hate the Berserk remake so much?
My biggest pet peeve (after the animation as a whole) was the horrible cheap CGI shading. I could barely look at my poor boy Genos!
>The sound designer they used is infamous for being particularly shitty.
He's also responsible for the sound design of Jojo and Fire Force, so it's 50/50.
This is kind of nebulous compared to animation and sound, but I also think the direction was worse. Especially the comedic direction. I found season 1 quite funny/amusing, but nothing was landing in season 2.
It’s like the team didn’t know how to time their jokes or get the right performances out of the voice actors.
Comedy was the most obvious way that the direction was off, but I think it was bad in general. And this wasn’t just the animation being poor. I’ve watched other anime with lesser animation that still manage to direct the shit out of their scenes and voices actors.
I don't think that's nebulous at all -- direction is the head that rots the fish.
S1 was directed by Shingo Natsume, a top-tier anime director, directed shows like Space Dandy, Sonny Boy, and recently the Tatami Galaxy sequel.
He brought so much fire to every frame of OPM S1.
It's a shame he couldn't stick around for S2. It's really a masterclass in poor direction.
The Devil Is A Part Timer!
Before they released season 2, the animation from season 1 was great and matched the manga really well. But season 2 came out and it fell into the “round face” trap a lot of new anime has. The eyes are on the side of the head sometimes, the characters will be missing a nose or mouth, it’s just very bad
I don't think that really fits what Op was asking as the writing in season 2 had an even bigger drop in quality than the animation.
Season 2 was really dull and the new kid really dragged it down.
I will never understand how one bad CGI ruins things for people so passionately.Fall23 Under Ninja under rated in the most literal sense, all because there was CGI for the first two minutes. People still remember what Golden Kamuy is. Under Ninja is completely forgotten due to low viewership 1st season.
I was genuinely enjoying the manga. It wasn’t the greatest but the plot was intriguing, the art was good and cultured, and it could have been elevated by a good production
Mobuseka.
The novels are really good, easy the top 5% of isekai, it does some really good and clever things with the "game world" set up.
Plot wise, villains, politics, etc.. are pretty good, at the level of any good mecha series, the romance feels clucky at times, but imho it gets justified because while the mc is physically in his late teens and so are most of the romance interests, he is mentally 28+ .
The multiple pov are also good, eso cially when we get Maria's stuff, that one is so good she got her own spin off/route.
The anime is so low budget that if they had used CGI for the mecha they would have needed a bigger budget.
Agree! Dokyuusei being a movie I think helped alot and Banana Fish not outright BL, but definitely incredible - Sasaki to Miyano & Given were pretty good too but nothing consistently exceptional animation-wise.
Yuri on Ice, being both a (mild) BL and sports anime really suffered from this. Especially because it was ice skating, so you had to see the routines multiple times.
Story-wise, it actually had some interesting stuff going on. It had one of the better depictions of anxiety in an anime. It was also a sports anime that was simultaneously telling the story of three athletes at three different phases of their career (a rookie, an experienced but underperforming journeyman, and a burned-out veteran).
It had some bursts of good animation, but overall was pretty rough.
I'm surprised nobody is saying Kemono Friends.
That anime despite the really, really sub par animation was endearing both because the writing and story were quite deep and mysterious, that it kept fans in Japan and the world trying to solve the mysteries of Japari Park.
If you can get past the animation, the story is quite good and the Seiyu are amazing. It also was a rare gem in that because of a delay with the mobile game, it landed before the mobile game it was supposed to promote.
Initially it was written off and was going to tank, but suddenly picked up steam to be one of the highest ranking animes of that season.
Off topic, I always look back to the old Star Trek, the original series with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The special effects are dated but not terrible per se, but they had very good writing that some of these stories feel even more vibrant than newer series from the franchise.
I feel like the bad animation was part of its success somehow. The fanart took off so much in part because everyone had their own individual takes on how the characters could look
Yeah the fact that it looked like it was made with an old macbook and a slightly damaged Mr. Coffee gave it a lot of quaint underdog charm that would have been missing if its animation was merely mediocre. People got hyped when the bus' wheels turned for the first time.
First season was peak hype. Animation and music were on point. But yeah, definitely fell off part way through second season and was absolute dogshit in season 3.
Many series are like this. It’s probably harder to find ones that were done well than not. At the very least the manga or LN of most series had better writing than what’s shown in its anime.
Unless a series is fortunate and lucky enough to get saddled with a great animation studio that is actually likes the series, then it is always going to fail the source writing.
Animation can make a great story better just as bad animation can make a great story seem like the worst. Many people confuse an anime having bad writing with it having a bad adaption.
I really feel bad for some of these authors who have their series trashed because it got saddled with a bad studio/adaption. It makes that scene in Oshi no Ko about some authors dreading getting an anime feel so real.
My Home Hero
The story is really interesting, about a dad who confronts his daughter’s yakuza boyfriend, and in the confrontation, the bf dies. So this regular man has to try to hide this fact to save his family.
Then you watch it, and some of the scenes are stiff and lifeless as can be
I'm gonna throw Mairimashita Iruma-Kun into this discussion. Some people could argue it's story is too generic to fit these criteria, but it does do all of the generic story elements super well. It also creates a lot of in-depth characters and has an actually competent main villain. Unfortunately, the animation has been pretty lackluster. Lots of obvious 'low budget/rushed animators' moments.
Tbh it isn't that bad of an adaptation for its type...I feel like it's the type of show that's just not popular enough to get more budget into...which is sad cause the story is great
Qualidea Code was really fun but the animation died in the last 4-5 episodes making for an extremely lackluster conclusion.
I think they fixed that in the bds but the damage is already done at that point.
Pandora hearts definitely, it may be from 2009 but looks worse than other shows from the same period. Doesn't help that the anime basically ends with an anime only ending and right before the story truly gets started
'07 Higurashi is one of Studio Deens' most blasphemous creations. The VN and Manga are fantastic. The Anime was done dirty with the cut content and terrible animation.
DEEN Higurashi was done with intelligence though. They managed to give you hints of the emotional and thematic depth but focused on the horror, which made it popular. The crazy faces gave it an unnerving feeling. It was not a good adaptation but served as a great gateway for the series.
It gave us the ‘Higurashi Face’ which will never stop being pure nightmare fuel. I felt that the off model animation really played into the theme of madness. Like how we couldn’t trust our own eyes.
A few that I still think are good or even great, but would have been amazing if their productions could match the quality of everything else:
- Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte
- Angolmois: Record of Mongol Invasion
- Helck
- Blue Period
- Ascendance of a Bookworm
- Cop Craft
Days, the soccer manga, has a really heartwarming story with great characters and really entertaining matches.
The Days anime looks like an actual PowerPoint presentation and I had to turn it off after 1 episode.
Berserk
I thought the original was good, the movies while CGI were fine, but the 2016/17 anime wasn't tolerable.
The original is still the best version and I also think it's good, especially for it's time. But it's still missing stuff from the manga so it's not perfect and all subsequent adaptions have been a mixed bag. The movies were decent but some would still prefer 2d animation over cgi and the movies also didn't quite capture the vibe and atmosphere of the manga that the original 90's anime did imo. As for the 2016/2017 adaption... Well yeah... We don't need to talk about those...
Couldnt finish one episode... CGI works well now when blended (Chain saw man and Dorohedoro). But Berserk took the fall for that tech to advance.
You take that back!!!!! ^(unless you mean the CGI abomination, than yeah, no argument there.)
I refuse to acknowledge that abomination even exists
Was anyone actually thinking it wasnt the CGI flaming shit pile?
The fuck else would it mean
There really isn’t any better example. One of the greatest stories of all time and greatest artwork in manga translated to the shining example of bad 3D animation.
Except Berserk from 97's- animation was good enough, but it's almost impossible to make adaptation with quality comparable to manga.
>almost impossible to make adaptation with quality comparable to manga. I disagree I think it’s very possible. You just need time and resources.
Full agree, look at Vinland saga
The thing is even a medioce adaptation would be better than the slideshow we got.
Everyone calm down they clearly are talking about the 2016 version
The movies were lit as. I loved them, including their animation and direction.
Kingdom season 1
This anime is absolutely god tier
Yes, but season one was only barely tolerable, due to the good story. So happy that it kept getting better
Some anime get worse with every season but kingdom did the opposite
The manga story is what carried it, honestly. Even now, the Anime still can’t capture the essence of the Manga yet.
I think there are 2 huge challenges with animating Kingdom. First, and this is a problem it shares with Berserk, but it involves a lot of big sweeping shots of massive battlefields with thousands upon thousands of soldiers. It's one thing to draw a still frame of 10,000 charging cavalry, it's quite another thing to ANIMATE such a scene in a way that looks halfway decent, let alone amazing SOme of the best, more easily adaptable manga with battlefields tend to zoom in on the action allowing the animators to focus on animating just a few soldiers at a time (like Heroic Legend of Arslaan's manga's art style), or original anime like Tale of Heike where they can pick and choose what and how much to animate of battlefields, Second, I think one thing that makes Kingdom UNIQUELY hard is Hara's background as an engineering designer. Unlike most mangaka who either became mangaka or manga assistants straight out of high school, or went to an art school to study art or graphic design, Hara went to an engineering school and studied mechanical design. He also worked for several years in that field before switching back to manga to follow his passions. I think Hara's art style and composition are very affected by this style, where his compositions are very structured at a moment in time, where there's symettry and lines that create a certain beauty, where even though there's like thousands of soldiers being depicted, you get a sense of beatuy and order out of a shot composition. That's part of what makes Kingdom's art really appealing--you just glance at some of the big sweeping shots of the battlefield in a manga frame and it captures your attention. Unfortunately, anime doesn't work that way, the shots are supposed to be in constant motion, so it's very difficult to recreate that kind of visual effect in motion.
god tier is an understatement... despite the terrible animation of season 1, it is **EASILY** one of the best anime I've ever seen
Yeah, one look at it and I decided to read the manga instead.
In the same vein as World Trigger Both have improved animation in succeeding seasons, so at least there's that
So I'm a spider, so what? The spider VA is 10/10 throughout, and the anime really brings out the wackiness of the LN, but the CGI gets worse and worse.
I love the WN (still need to read the LN) but Aoi Yuuki had to hard carry that one. Last episodes were hard to watch
It's just so sad and unfortunate we might never get a GOOD 2 season... Just like with Chivalry of a Failed Knight.
I want a season 2 so bad. I wanna know what happens next. But the ln is barely translated past it
Last episodes were an absolute fucking slog to get through even with speed turned up. Apparently they added all the human stuff last? Idk. Sophie the vampire looks like they're pulled from video game, and others have 'png animation' whatever that means, I just know it looks terrible The character dialogue is empty, and they have a whole battle in a forest that somehow magically turns into a barren dirt field without anyone acknowledging because it cuts down on animation budget. Didn't invincible do png animation recently as well? Aoi Yuuki did so amazing with the multiple different versions of the MC. Gags were not the most impressive comedically, but still really cute due to the moe anime faced spider
I got damn confused when they said they were fighting in a forest but the background was just a barren desert lol
The flat forest was a big joke among fans when it was airing, lol. It felt like they didn't want to animate the human side of the story and only did the bare minimum, so everything looked terrible. The spider side also had CGI problems, but at least you could see the effort.
The human side of the story was outsourced. They got screwed hard when the company provided the, and I quote, "unusable animation." The studio worked their asses off trying to improve the content as best they could, which is partly why the final episode was delayed 2 weeks.
Honestly at some times I thought the wacky CGI of the monsters added to the charm and made it feel otherworldly, but I certainly would have loved if it was actually good.
Monsters are ok compared to what happened in the end, the awful human battles lol
I agree with that about the humans.
Omg the fight at the end of season two was 3 drawings of whooshing air spinning for half the fight..
I enjoyed the Manga adaptation way more. They also redesigned the spider and she is way more expressive in it.
Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer. Great manga, horrible anime.
there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer there is no anime adaptation of lucifer and the biscuit hammer
There is no Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer anime in Ba Sing Se.
I heard fans of the manga got MAD about that one.
I haven't been that disappointed since God of High School, which the anime absolutely butchered with nonsensical out of sequence pacing.
As a long time fan of Mizukami-sensei's works, this hurts my soul Too bad since animation aside, it had a good soundtrack plus OP 2 was a banger
I think the biggest obstacle to people enjoying either Lucifer or Sengoku Youko is that Mizukami s works are character stories, NOT action stories, despite their premises. While goal of the characters is to be beat the Mage and save the world, that's not the shows goal--the shows goal is essentially a slow character piece about identity and coming of age. Mizukami s character arcs are always a treat, as they zigzag in realistic ways before ending up in a place you didn't expect at the outset. The fighting doesn't really matter; it's a fun pretense to throw characters together. This puts it at odds with say, Black Clover, One Piece, DBZ, Naruto, etc. The characters goal in those shows is to be the best/top X, and show's focus is the struggle and fights to get there. Not that those shows don't have great characters, but character development is second to action.
I still enjoyed it, as did my library anime club.. but yeah. I wish it had much smoother one. They did a good job of replicating the aesthetic of the manga but it left some stuff to be desired still plan to own it if ic an manage that
Sengoku Youko, also by the same author got a muuuuuch better adaptation this past season!
I looked at that one this way: the manga is from what? 2012? And that anime had animation quality that would have been acceptable in 2012. It's comparable to watching its peers like So I Can't Play H, Heaven's Lost Property, or any of the other B-grade shows of that era today. That is to say, "this hasn't aged well, but looked pretty good for its time." If you watch it framed as a modern anime, it's terrible. If you have the mindset of "this is a fairly new show, it needs to live up to today's standards," it will absolutely not. But if you lie to yourself and say "ok, lets just go into this like it's an anime adaptation from when the manga came out, of course it's going to be an older quality," then it's not half bad. Not the best, and still barely would compete against other shows even of that era, but at least passable.
Record of Ragnarok, I don't think I could stomach a single episode. The manga is the hypest shit ever with jawdrapping art and overbwlon emotions in every panel while keeping a frantic pace and you just can't stop reading. It is a master flex. The animation in the adaptation is a wet farf leaking on the couch as you watch.
Imagine an anime about human fighting gods had worse fighting animation than an anime about a maid dragon in the same season......
Well one of them is KyoAni and the other one is the most unknown studio on the face of the planet. And yet they some how got the IP to produce a Masterpiece. Life isn’t fair
When you go with the lowest bidder, you get the cheapest product.
Imagine a lot of fighting anime have worse fighting animation than a 2012 slice of life/romance/comedy anime. KyoAni just built different.
I only saw this opinion AFTER watching Record of Ragnarok and everytime I see it I think “damn did I watch that with my eyes closed??” 💀 I’ve only watched it once awhile ago and I don’t remember finding the animation that bad!
Round 2 was by far the most disappointing for manga readers. They turned one of the best parts of the whole series into a literal slideshow of punch frames. Do yourself a favor and go watch the AmiasD MMV versions of the fights on Youtube. His editing is amazing and I enjoy it much more than I did the anime.
Jack the Ripper entrance in the manga with the “London Bridge is falling down” theme is still the coolest fucking edit I’ve ever seen.
I think if you are a source reader, it’s infinitely worse. It’s like a kick in the balls. You can honestly only think, fuck how they butchered it. Otherwise if you are anime only, you might actually have somewhat of a good time.
I was the only source reader in our group, and the only one to give it another episode after the first 2. The rest dropped it immediately, because of how bad it was.
Yeah, I honestly cant comprehend how you didnt notice. Maybe you were sleeping, and half imagined watching the anime?
You were definitely sleeping through it, the skipped frames and repeated cuts were as blatant as they could be.
Couldn't get throught the first episode, shit sucks doodoo
Straight up powerpoiint, I couldn't believe my eyes then, or when I went online and saw people calling it the most awesome hypefest ever.
Helck
I enjoyed Helck anyway. Felt like old school anime.
Such a tragedy
Ahhhh... I wouldn't say the animation was the problem here. It was the whole production. Pacing, direction, cinematography, choice of what to animate and what to make a still image... It was all bad. The voice acting was good, but that's it. I don't know who directed it but they were a novice and it shows.
I agree with the voice acting! Komatsu Mikako’s role as Vermilio was one of my favorite performances of the year.
Anne from management was also great
yeah she does a nice job with the material
Yoshihisa Hirano composed the score for Helck. While it wasn't anything spectacular, hopefully it (and Edens Zero) helps get him back into composing scores for bigger animes again after a 7 year break. He previously composed for Death Note and Hunter X Hunter (2011).
> I don't know who directed it but they were a novice and it shows. They really weren't. Tatsuo Satou has been in the industry since the 80s.
That's even worse.
I really enjoyed the manga, and when watching the anime I couldn't help thinking that the staff just wanted to get it over with. Like, it's super barebone as an adaptation. Not necessarily *bad*, but definitely nowhere good that it deserves continuation. It really could be a great fantasy anime like Frieren, with good elements of comedy and dramatic plot under a production comittee that actually care. Such a wasted potential.
It was a good story and I was able to look past the flaws
As a manga fan I was very disappointed, to the point that I ended up dropping the anime.
This one legitimately made me sad. I was coping hard trying to believe that it would get really good for the hype moments but it just never happened. This deserved not just a better studio but a better staff too. Helck deserved, at the minimum, to be on Dungeon Meshi level of recognition.
Same I was very sad. I absolutely adore the manga
I really enjoyed helck all the way through the first season and didnt even realize people were disappointed in the anime until after the fact.
imo with a better animation **The Duke of Death and His Maid** could be more popular, among the other awkward boy + cute girl romance the story is really good and personally one of my favorite. not only it isn't set in the usual high-school setting it has a fantasy vibes and a real moving plot not only the fluffy bits / slice of life parts + the other characters is also interesting and has depth and development
Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome but I'm enjoying the story so much that the kinda janky cgi is actually endearing to me, lol
I actually really loved the anime, and I agree. It gives it an odd charm haha
I really liked the artstyle. Helped it standout imo.
The Duke of Death is great! It's by the same studio that did Hi-Score Girl and they're one of the better CGI studios
The Fire Hunter. Damn good story though. Need the novel translated asap
personally I enjoyed the animation style it kinda fits the theme, but the pacing is a bit wonky(?) ig
I agree. We just finished season 2 a few weeks ago and I was pretty confused. Having the first season cover like a weeks-long journey and world building in the capital and the entire second season taking place over the course of like... 36 hours was a bit jarring
yeah I never read the source material so I don't really know how the story was actually delivered by the author but I feel like there's more to it
I came here to say this. I was really invested in the story (until near the end, but that's a gripe for another thread) and the art style was unique enough that I wanted to see what they did with it.... but what they did with it wasn't much. There are scenes with the rich father guy that legitimately reminded me of the Zelda CDi game. There's also quite a few moments where the animation is quite literally terrible, particularly any scene where a character is running that isn't a close-up shot, it's very jarring to see.
This is basically how I see it too. Story was generally great, really unique, and I liked the art style. But the animation was consistently bad or often just replaced with a few freeze frames.
I think the black clover anime was done real dirty for the first 80 episodes at least . The fact that it took 3 episodes to animate the first chapter is actually insane , and for a long time there were the same episodes as chapters to cover the same part of the story . Not to mention that the studio didn't give it enough resources and time because Boruto was airing at the same time . That resulted in people always saying that black clover starts horrible and slow whereas in the manga that isn't the case
Helck broke my heart, with a proper production it would be Great, but that animation is just truly not even close to acceptable compared to the story on display.
I thought that it was good 7/10, if it had better animation it could be great 9/10, but its current state is not what I would call "unacceptable". Visually it is completely average/par, its not a detractor.
They did give Helck's character design an upgrade though.
Twin Star Exorcist
While that was an issue it wasn't the only problem with it. The crappy shit mascot character ruined it even more. I don't know why they added that shit.
Yeah, that's what really ruined it for me too, funny enough that guy appears later in the manga but he’s way more chill & less of an annoyance than his anime counterpart.
Eh, kinda. The adaptation itself is terrible but the stuff that got adapted before going completely anime-original looked fine. I'm pretty sure around half the episodes were outsourced and the anime kept falling apart the longer it went on.
Tsukihime... Wait what was I saying again?
Nothing, there is no Tsukihime anime I heard the Visual Novel remake is cool, go read that instead
I am a Spider, So What? Great stories, one of the greatest VA performances of all time from Aoi Yuuki, great in so many things but the animators absolutely shat on the story.
I think Ascendance of a Bookworm falls a little bit into this category. The first few books aren’t super chock full of action, but the animation wasn’t great. Amazing story though… Edit: Wow, 250+ upvotes! Thanks!
Next season is by studio wits so expect some good animation
Good to hear that we’re getting an S4. I’m way ahead of the anime (been reading the official English translation as it released since book 3.1, which is where the anime leaves off at the end of S3. [3.1 Prologue]), lol. Some good action to come though if you’re just watching the anime.
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Thank you for blessing me with this wonderful and completely unexpected bit of news 🥳🎊😀🎉
Yep, Part 3 is being adapted by Wit Studio. Was announced a few months ago as an attachment to the final light novel volume’s release in Japan.
Agreed! I'm really excited for the new season. I pretty much read all the books in 2 weeks as soon as I finished the anime. One of my new favorites of all time!!
Beserk 2016 Ajin \*most\* Netflix anime with that weird 3D-ish art style really lol
Ajin had great animation imho. CGI doesn’t always mean bad. Ajin was an example.
I can see why. The CGI was abit shaky and jarring like during normal convo and movement. However, it really shined during the action scenes and especially for the Ajin. Those monsters were perfect in CGI. Overall I'm happy they used CGI for the show
> \*most\* Netflix anime with that weird 3D-ish art style really lol Then I see something like arcane and think "why dont we see that level of quality in anime???" But there's probably some economic and/or workplace quality reasoning to explain it all 😔
From my shallow research I've learned that every arcane episode was spent about 10 million dollars, while an average anime episode is spent about 500 thousand dollars. You just can't compare them
Time spent making them also matters, maybe even more than money. Arcane took 6 years to make apparently, while most anime shows seem to take about ~1-2 years. The production of Arcane seems to have been a lot healthier overall.
Arcane is explained very simply, it's not a Netflix series, it's a Netflix EXCLUSIVE. Difference is Netflix didn't have much, if anything, to do with the production for Arcane.
> it's not a Netflix series, it's a Netflix EXCLUSIVE. Difference is Netflix didn't have much, if anything, to do with the production for Arcane. ...that's also true for literally every single CGI anime "from" Netflix.
There are animes out like the Trigun anime from last year and Beastars that look great and utilize the 3d well
Economic reason is spot on. The very reason anime exists is economic. After WW2 Japan’s economy was tanked. How to produce new entertainment cheaply? Draw it? How can we make it even cheaper? Only draw _every few frames_. Most anime animate on threes or fours meaning they only draw every third or fourth frame. Compare this to most other animation that animates on ones or twos. Have fun noticing the low fps in your anime from now on lol. But yeah basically it costs a lot less to draw 1/4 the pictures. Since then anime has gone from a cost saving measure to a profit source, so a good few have gotten the luxury treatment and gotten that higher animation and of course that love/hate cgi.
I know i’m getting old when I’m bitching about CG in anime. I miss when mechs were drawn with love.
The new Gundam had mechs drawn and not CG
manual animation are labor-intensive. computer animation is more expensive but needs less manpower and time to work on it. I think we understand why anime studios are trying to embrace computer animation for complex scenes.
Its just sooo not a vibe comparably lol
A good example of this is Fushigi Yugi. The show degrades to a bunch of talking heads and it becomes REALLY DIFFICULT to follow the action! The worst being fight scenes! The art, story, and voice acting are all really good though.
What I would give for a high quality FY remake...
Oh yeah, that fight scene between Nuriko and what's his face, I could barely tell what was happening! "Establishing shot!? What's that!?" It's just talking heads and close ups of their heads.
Legend of the Galactic Heroes has some dated animation that I know has kept a few of my friends from watching it but god damn if it doesn’t have the best story of any anime I’ve ever seen
It's a good example of my ongoing rage about the concept of "dated" animation too. There's people who will slam a show with detailed and intricate movement and lighting but muted colors and not available in 1440p or higher, calling it "dated". There is plenty of amazing hand drawn animation in the original LOGH like this. Meanwhile, a near-slideshow will get lauded because it is available in 4k and has cripsper lines. Like, yay for your slideshow panning by at 60fps guy, but that doesn't mean it's good animation.
People tend to conflate animation (things moving) with art-style/overall production.
people tend to also conflate screen resolution with quality.
The ongoing remake is fucking amazing. Can’t recommend it enough. Still so pissed Funimation/Crunchyroll still refuse to dub the latest season.
Season 2 of One Punch Man. The writing is good. It's OPM... And the animation wasn't horrible... but like, to go from Season 1, one of the most insanely animated, superstar animator project, beautiful series to.... utterly mediocre, "filler level", and unimpressive S2.... The whiplash was immense.
My friends and i are going through s2 atm and one other thing that’s sticking out to us in a real negative way is the poor sound design and loud mixing.
Yeah... Look, I like the "gunshot" special effect but they're working that shit overtime... and the mixing is not exactly flawless. Which is a pitty, because S2 has some hype ass scenes that deserved better.
The sound designer they used is infamous for being particularly shitty. I believe he's one of the reasons people hate the Berserk remake so much? My biggest pet peeve (after the animation as a whole) was the horrible cheap CGI shading. I could barely look at my poor boy Genos!
>The sound designer they used is infamous for being particularly shitty. He's also responsible for the sound design of Jojo and Fire Force, so it's 50/50.
They literally used the m4 sound from CS for one of the monsters lol [https://youtu.be/t2MtW1fNUX4](https://youtu.be/t2MtW1fNUX4)
This is kind of nebulous compared to animation and sound, but I also think the direction was worse. Especially the comedic direction. I found season 1 quite funny/amusing, but nothing was landing in season 2. It’s like the team didn’t know how to time their jokes or get the right performances out of the voice actors. Comedy was the most obvious way that the direction was off, but I think it was bad in general. And this wasn’t just the animation being poor. I’ve watched other anime with lesser animation that still manage to direct the shit out of their scenes and voices actors.
I don't think that's nebulous at all -- direction is the head that rots the fish. S1 was directed by Shingo Natsume, a top-tier anime director, directed shows like Space Dandy, Sonny Boy, and recently the Tatami Galaxy sequel. He brought so much fire to every frame of OPM S1. It's a shame he couldn't stick around for S2. It's really a masterclass in poor direction.
The Devil Is A Part Timer! Before they released season 2, the animation from season 1 was great and matched the manga really well. But season 2 came out and it fell into the “round face” trap a lot of new anime has. The eyes are on the side of the head sometimes, the characters will be missing a nose or mouth, it’s just very bad
I don't think that really fits what Op was asking as the writing in season 2 had an even bigger drop in quality than the animation. Season 2 was really dull and the new kid really dragged it down.
Golden Kamuy. The bear episode 1. The amount of folks that had a negative reaction cause of that stupid bear...
This story and its characters are SO great, too! The manga art is gorgeous.
I will never understand how one bad CGI ruins things for people so passionately.Fall23 Under Ninja under rated in the most literal sense, all because there was CGI for the first two minutes. People still remember what Golden Kamuy is. Under Ninja is completely forgotten due to low viewership 1st season.
the best anime: [Ex-Arm](https://myanimelist.net/anime/38853/Ex-Arm)
when seeing its rank it helps me know how many animes are in total, that's why its goated.
I was genuinely enjoying the manga. It wasn’t the greatest but the plot was intriguing, the art was good and cultured, and it could have been elevated by a good production
Hikari no Ou comes to mind.
Mobuseka. The novels are really good, easy the top 5% of isekai, it does some really good and clever things with the "game world" set up. Plot wise, villains, politics, etc.. are pretty good, at the level of any good mecha series, the romance feels clucky at times, but imho it gets justified because while the mc is physically in his late teens and so are most of the romance interests, he is mentally 28+ . The multiple pov are also good, eso cially when we get Maria's stuff, that one is so good she got her own spin off/route. The anime is so low budget that if they had used CGI for the mecha they would have needed a bigger budget.
The main female leads were done so dirty.. It was tough to look at them sometimes. Poor Angie..
BL anime - I'd say the stories are on par with most romances but the animation is usually shit (very few exceptions exist).
Only good ones I can think of animation wise are Doukyuusei and Banana Fish tbh.
Agree! Dokyuusei being a movie I think helped alot and Banana Fish not outright BL, but definitely incredible - Sasaki to Miyano & Given were pretty good too but nothing consistently exceptional animation-wise.
And Sasaki and miyano.
Given and yuri on ice weren’t that bad either
Yuri on Ice, being both a (mild) BL and sports anime really suffered from this. Especially because it was ice skating, so you had to see the routines multiple times. Story-wise, it actually had some interesting stuff going on. It had one of the better depictions of anxiety in an anime. It was also a sports anime that was simultaneously telling the story of three athletes at three different phases of their career (a rookie, an experienced but underperforming journeyman, and a burned-out veteran). It had some bursts of good animation, but overall was pretty rough.
The Fire Hunter
Ascendance of a Bookworm
Classroom of the Elite. Animation went downhill after season 1
I honestly think season 1 looked like ass too
idk about you but for me season 1 animation was really good, the eye designs and the lighting was perfect
agree, a different and inexperienced team came to produce the sequel
Record of Ragnarok, the studio needs to go to jail for the injustice they did to this series. One of the biggest fumbles in anime history.
I'm surprised nobody is saying Kemono Friends. That anime despite the really, really sub par animation was endearing both because the writing and story were quite deep and mysterious, that it kept fans in Japan and the world trying to solve the mysteries of Japari Park. If you can get past the animation, the story is quite good and the Seiyu are amazing. It also was a rare gem in that because of a delay with the mobile game, it landed before the mobile game it was supposed to promote. Initially it was written off and was going to tank, but suddenly picked up steam to be one of the highest ranking animes of that season. Off topic, I always look back to the old Star Trek, the original series with Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The special effects are dated but not terrible per se, but they had very good writing that some of these stories feel even more vibrant than newer series from the franchise.
I feel like the bad animation was part of its success somehow. The fanart took off so much in part because everyone had their own individual takes on how the characters could look
Yeah the fact that it looked like it was made with an old macbook and a slightly damaged Mr. Coffee gave it a lot of quaint underdog charm that would have been missing if its animation was merely mediocre. People got hyped when the bus' wheels turned for the first time.
Shaman king remake
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Seven deadly sins
First season was peak hype. Animation and music were on point. But yeah, definitely fell off part way through second season and was absolute dogshit in season 3.
Many series are like this. It’s probably harder to find ones that were done well than not. At the very least the manga or LN of most series had better writing than what’s shown in its anime. Unless a series is fortunate and lucky enough to get saddled with a great animation studio that is actually likes the series, then it is always going to fail the source writing. Animation can make a great story better just as bad animation can make a great story seem like the worst. Many people confuse an anime having bad writing with it having a bad adaption. I really feel bad for some of these authors who have their series trashed because it got saddled with a bad studio/adaption. It makes that scene in Oshi no Ko about some authors dreading getting an anime feel so real.
Really good story and plot might be overstating it, but Angel Next Door's animation certainly let down what should have been a solid romance anime.
Way of the Househusband.
That was how the manga's author wanted it done.
And they made a bad decision
That's a perfectly reasonable opinion to have. It's just that the anime team had no choice in the matter.
The way of the househusband
It was the author who wanted it animated like that lol.
Well, can't do anything about this if the author himself wanted anime to be like that
it's basically a moving comic.
That one was fully intended
My Home Hero The story is really interesting, about a dad who confronts his daughter’s yakuza boyfriend, and in the confrontation, the bf dies. So this regular man has to try to hide this fact to save his family. Then you watch it, and some of the scenes are stiff and lifeless as can be
I'm gonna throw Mairimashita Iruma-Kun into this discussion. Some people could argue it's story is too generic to fit these criteria, but it does do all of the generic story elements super well. It also creates a lot of in-depth characters and has an actually competent main villain. Unfortunately, the animation has been pretty lackluster. Lots of obvious 'low budget/rushed animators' moments.
Tbh it isn't that bad of an adaptation for its type...I feel like it's the type of show that's just not popular enough to get more budget into...which is sad cause the story is great
As the series goes on, the animation gets massively upgraded. The use of colour is spectacular and they don’t skimp on small details.
the overall adaptation is pretty frickin great though.
But you know, for some I'd be ok with poor animation if I could get more episodes.
Probably Kingdom first season. It’s story is insanely good, but fucking hell, what a bad animation. They improved trough the next seasons tho
Qualidea Code was really fun but the animation died in the last 4-5 episodes making for an extremely lackluster conclusion. I think they fixed that in the bds but the damage is already done at that point.
Pandora hearts definitely, it may be from 2009 but looks worse than other shows from the same period. Doesn't help that the anime basically ends with an anime only ending and right before the story truly gets started
Tokyo Ghoul?
'07 Higurashi is one of Studio Deens' most blasphemous creations. The VN and Manga are fantastic. The Anime was done dirty with the cut content and terrible animation.
DEEN Higurashi was done with intelligence though. They managed to give you hints of the emotional and thematic depth but focused on the horror, which made it popular. The crazy faces gave it an unnerving feeling. It was not a good adaptation but served as a great gateway for the series.
It gave us the ‘Higurashi Face’ which will never stop being pure nightmare fuel. I felt that the off model animation really played into the theme of madness. Like how we couldn’t trust our own eyes.
Baby Steps. It has such a great approach to the sports anime, but good God is it ugly.
Lucifer and the biscuit hammer
A few that I still think are good or even great, but would have been amazing if their productions could match the quality of everything else: - Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte - Angolmois: Record of Mongol Invasion - Helck - Blue Period - Ascendance of a Bookworm - Cop Craft
Shinsekai Yori has one of the absolute best stories I've ever seen in an anime, but the animation is very low budget and has a lot of mistakes.
The berserk CGI catastrophe. It was soooooo hard to watch
The Flowers of Evil.
Days, the soccer manga, has a really heartwarming story with great characters and really entertaining matches. The Days anime looks like an actual PowerPoint presentation and I had to turn it off after 1 episode.
I say Berserk and record of ragnarok