Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)

[Zephray]

You’re nitpicking. It’s fine.

[Blake Bakes Cakes]

No I'm not really? I mean I guess technically I'm talking about minor details but I don't think its anything less than "fine". I said before that I understand it somewhat, Caesar is kind of unqiue affilation wise. I don't neccesarily blame anyone for this? Like I understand it more or less, Caesar just really doesn't have a flag to associate with him. If theres any way to improve it I'd say use different colors and/or different Caesar art cuz how it is it just looks a tad too similar to the world government symbol. Who knows though toei might be very specific about what art they're allowed to use and create, which wouldn't surprise me. I remember infamously a dragon ball super DB had a wonky shot from the broadcast version which was corrected to be more on model on the BD that everyone lambasted funi for when it was really a toei mistake lol.

[Zephray]

Man, whoever worked on animating episode 665’s second half did a good job. Love the Soldier fight animations. Do we know who voices him yet? He does a good job. Rebecca’s tears also look great this episode.

Anyone have set-to-episode predictions? Will Law’s flashback all be on one set? Only two sets away now. We’re getting close.

Everyone generally agrees that the animation quality (or should I say “amount”?) jumps drastically around WCI, right? I’m getting real tired of static panning shots, and I don’t remember the animation quality improving before Wano. But my memory isn’t reliable for WCI outside of that Katakuri fight stunner.

[Blake Bakes Cakes]

Uh, Ivan Jasso? We've known that since episode of sabo, unless you mean someone else. As for Laws backstory, it'll be voyage 6. Even if for whatever reason they stopped distributing it evenly it would be voyage 6.

[Elektrik Dynomite]

Everyone generally agrees that the animation quality (or should I say “amount”?) jumps drastically around WCI, right? I’m getting real tired of static panning shots, and I don’t remember the animation quality improving before Wano. But my memory isn’t reliable for WCI outside of that Katakuri fight stunner.

It starts to get better in Zou, but WCI is when there was a change up in the actual staff, if I remember correctly. When WCI started they brought in an additional character designer or director or something, and more animators in general I think.

[Skippy]

It starts to get better in Zou, but WCI is when there was a change up in the actual staff, if I remember correctly. When WCI started they brought in an additional character designer or director or something, and more animators in general I think.

Staring in WCI Keiichi Ichikawa became the Chief Animation Supervisor instead of the at the time series character designer Kazuya Hisada, who had held the role from Punk Hazard up til that point. Katsumi Ishizuka came back during the arc as well and Tu Yong-ce joined the team after Dragon Ball Super ended, but the only series director and character designer changes happened with Wano as we all know.

[Zephray]

Staring in WCI Keiichi Ichikawa became the Chief Animation Supervisor instead of the at the time series character designer Kazuya Hisada, who had held the role from Punk Hazard up til that point. Katsumi Ishizuka came back during the arc as well and Tu Yong-ce joined the team after Dragon Ball Super ended, but the only series director and character designer changes happened with Wano as we all know.

What position is responsible for keeping characters on model? That improved dramatically when the Wano shuffle came. Watching these DR episodes, someone is off model every episode.

Well, yet another reason to look forward to Zou.

[Skippy]

What position is responsible for keeping characters on model? That improved dramatically when the Wano shuffle came. Watching these DR episodes, someone is off model every episode.

Well, yet another reason to look forward to Zou.

Keiichi Ichikawa is still the Chief Animation Supervisor in Wano too but new character designer Midori Matsuda acts as a supplemental Chief Animation Supervisor even though she mostly only corrects Zoro because he's her favorite lol. Also, Takeshi Nishino is responsible for those Kyros/Toy Soldier scenes in #665

[Zephray]

Keiichi Ichikawa is still the Chief Animation Supervisor in Wano too but new character designer Midori Matsuda acts as a supplemental Chief Animation Supervisor even though she mostly only corrects Zoro because he's her favorite lol. Also, Takeshi Nishino is responsible for those Kyros/Toy Soldier scenes in #665

So we’re clear on why the character models and art improved, but if the animation lead stayed the same, why do we get great sakuga moments so much more consistently? Watching these dubbed episodes, we get a nice moment of animation every ten or so episodes. In Wano, it seems like every episode or at least every few. Was the amount of good animation around the same in WCI and I’m just forgetting? Boiled down, this question is: why do we get more sakuga moments in Wano?

[Blake Bakes Cakes]

I may not be as knowledgable about it as skippy but its largely better scheduling and such. one pieces team has always been really talented, producing a weekly anime is just an almost impossible task and an absurd work load.

[LostTimeLord]

It's odd that both Voyages of Season Eleven only have stereo audio listed for the dub on Funi's site instead of the usual 5.1 upmix. Hopefully that's just a typo, but otherwise the details seem correct and the listing's detailed enough to say which codec they've used.

[Zephray]

It's odd that both Voyages of Season Eleven only have stereo audio listed for the dub on Funi's site instead of the usual 5.1 upmix. Hopefully that's just a typo, but otherwise the details seem correct and the listing's detailed enough to say which codec they've used.

Somewhat unrelated, but I recently started watching Eccentric Family on bluray and the quality is slightly worse than the rips I'd watched years ago. Bluray, I'm learning, doesn't automatically mean better; it depends on how they transfer the files onto the bluray (which compressions and video codecs used).

[Skippy]

So we’re clear on why the character models and art improved, but if the animation lead stayed the same, why do we get great sakuga moments so much more consistently? Watching these dubbed episodes, we get a nice moment of animation every ten or so episodes. In Wano, it seems like every episode or at least every few. Was the amount of good animation around the same in WCI and I’m just forgetting? Boiled down, this question is: why do we get more sakuga moments in Wano?

The CAS doesn't have any bearing on the amount of sakuga, they just concern themselves with the art quality overall. The reason Wano has been more stacked is because as Blake has said the schedule as a whole is better, and of course Tatsuya Nagamine wants certain moments to look as good as can be so he decides what to hone in on visually with the production manager Tetsuji Akahori, who then assigns the main staff and certain animators to certain episodes and he and even his production assistants go out of their way to hire great talent on their own through Twitter like Vincent Chansard or hire those within Japan like Bahi JD, which production assistant Hayato Tokita does a lot of. We got a lot of cool animation in WCI, but now that the production managers and assistants (and even some of the show's other staff with some getting their friends on the show) are reaching out and hiring animators outside of Toei to participate which they very rarely did before, there's a lot more consistency on that front since we've got the inhouse staff like Tu, Nireki and Ishizuka doing their stuff, while also having those other freelancers participate too.

[SniperKing(Sogeking)]

So I’m finally convinced that Funimation is going to stick with this consistent schedule through season 11. Bases on that, Im predicting that the new set will be released either March 16th or 23rd. Is anybody else convinced yet?

[Zephray]

So I’m finally convinced that Funimation is going to stick with this consistent schedule through season 11. Bases on that, Im predicting that the new set will be released either March 16th or 23rd. Is anybody else convinced yet?

Oh, yeah. But I have no idea if the schedule is three or four weeks. I think the 23rd would be five weeks, so I'm hoping for the 16th. That's how I've rationed it out, anyway.

[Blake Bakes Cakes]

It hasn't exclusively been 4 weeks, it was just that a few times in a row. The schedule just seems to generally be 3-5.

[Zephray]

Weirdly, both the partial face Sabo and the full face Sabo themes are on this most recent set.

[LostTimeLord]

So all the variations of "Wake Up" are featured, but they show up on the wrong episodes? And they go v1, v3, v2, v3? I suppose hopping back a version would happen if they corrected the error between releases.

[Zephray]

Yeah. I’m not going to go through each of the episodes, but I specifically remember one with his face covered and one without.

--- Update From New Post Merge ---

Some related news:

https://twitter.com/wtk/status/1364646340303667207?s=21

Pretty sure Tubi is a free service, so it’ll be great for folks to have free access to the specials.

[Blake Bakes Cakes]

They released a voyage 2 trailer... not late at all. At first I thought it was a trailer for the BD since its 30 seconds as apposed to the minute these usually are, but nope. Trailer itself is just a random barrage of clips that dont even remotely convey whats actually happening https://twitter.com/OnePieceAnime/st...57048139915264