Now that I've listed almost all of the animation directors work on the show I wanted to move on to the next part of my discussion which is how the animation style changed over the course of the show. A lot of long running animes (YYH, Rurouni Kenshin, Sailor Moon, Dragonball/DBZ/DBGT, Pokemon, Ranma 1/2, etc…) reach a point where the animation style evolves and changes throughout the series. Take any of my above examples: If you compare the first episode to the final episode (or latest episode) you'll notice an A to Z difference in animation. Now many of you could say that 1-195 had one animation style and 196-present had the newer style. But even with those distinct styles there were changes and modifications to the animation over time. So I'm going to point out a few observances of what I noticed:
Luffy's First Voyage-Baratie:
Unlike a lot of present day animes which try to WOW you on the first episode with great animation (RK, Naruto, and Bleach) One Piece took the high road and chose substance over style. In terms of animation what made One Piece interesting was the choreography and use of camera angles to depict action. Still, at this point there was nothing too remarkable about the animation as the animators were still trying to learn their styles and it was hard to discern where any specific animators work.
The Low Point: Gaimon's Island-Mainly because everyone looked more off model than usual.
The High Point: Luffy's Backstory- A lot of the things that would make the series epic started to pop up in this episode.
Arlong Park-Alabasta:
While Baratie was the transition for an animation change it was Arlong Park where it became obvious. Mainly it was how Nami's design changed (following suit from how Oda-sensei did it in the manga as well). In the early episodes Nami had a more youthful and rounder look. Starting with Arlong Park Nami looked like she aged a few years. Her design became sleaker. This is also the arc which featured the "shock pupils". Whenever a female character is shocked in One Piece their pupils dialate and their eye color becomes a shade lighter and given all the Nami angst we see this quite a bit.
Beyond this arc the character designs became much more pleasing to the eye and alot of the characters got leaner looking and more expressive faces. By the time Drum Island came around people could actually tell the different animators styles.
The Low Point: Warship Island-First filler and I think very few of the established good animation directors worked on it.
**The High Point:**Drum Island- It was the one arc where I think all the animation directors were at the top of their game and in many place outdid the manga.
Post Alabasta-Jaya:
Around the end of the Alabasta arc the animation kind of suffered "Shonen Syndrome". This is where there's a set of episodes where the animation is overall not at its peak and you begin to see more flaws than strentghs. By this point (in Japan) One Piece's popularity had been well established and the animation started to go into mediocrity. It picked back up for Jaya, though.
The Low Point: Post-Alabasta Filler (mainly all the B list animators)
The High Point: Jaya (not quite all the A-list animators) but still more pleasing on the eyes.
Skypiea:
Starting in this arc while the animation remained stagnant (neither great nor bad) the color palette underwent a slight change. The colors were brighter and a lot of Skypiea had a kind of pastelish bright feel to it.
The Low Point: Many of Skypiea's episodes had meh to okay animation.
The High Point: The Norland Flashback for some reason had a REALLY good budget and the animation for those episodes where just amazing and the high point for the "classic style".
G8-Enies Lobby:
Starting with this arc the animation underwent another dramatic change and took on the animation style of Movies 4 and 5. What this meant is the characters were shaded more and more color were used. Unfortunately many of the animation directors weren't used to the new style and because of that there are some places where the animation seems a little odd. But this all came together throughout the course of Water 7/Eneis Lobby.
**The Low Point:**Enies Lobby (pre time slot change)/ Davy Backfight Filler- For both of these the series suffered inconsistant designs and coloring schemes and often times it didn't seem like the animators were even trying.
**The High Point:**Luffy vs. Ussop/Going Merry's Funeral,Robin's Flashback, and the entire G8 arc all had A-List animation.
Thiller Bark-Sabaody Archipelago:
After the animators used Water 7 to get their style consistant the result was Thiller Bark. It may possibly because of the darker color scheme but even afterward the color palette returned to a more darker tone. The animation became a lot more consistent (to me) and even a bad animation day was still better than a bad animation day in Eneis Lobby.
The Low Point: Right now I'd say the Ice Hunter filler.
**The High Point:**The Oz Battle in Thrller Bark started to have a lot of moments that made me go (Wow, One Piece's animation is doing some really cool effects and animation!).
One thing in particular I wanted to point out was how a lot of people have been really disappointed with the animation in the latest episodes. To be honest I felt the animation is these episodes are still far easier on the eyes than parts of Enies Lobby where it got so bad I began to worry if the series had lost a bit of its charm. One Piece is not like Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, Haruhi, and Fullmetal Alchemist. It can't always have Inoue, Tate, Hisada animation for every episode and the B and C rank animators have to be used for some episodes. The key here is how the animator balance is.
I'll give some examples on what I mean about this with some other long running anime. Dragonball Z started out with a good animation balance during the Saiyan Saga. All the animators where at the top of there game and even the ones who weren't as good they still did a comendable job on there own episodes BUT THEN shifting into the Namek arc that balance was lost and there were a lot of episodes where the animation was stiff and inconsistent and even the color palette seemed more pasty. Often times the balance changes for many reasons:
1. They're using all the good animators for movie production
2. Budget cuts
3. Saving the better animators for key episodes since it is a long running series that air weekly in Japan with almost no breaks so they HAVE to rotate the animators.
Usually if the show gets decent ratings then the sponsers seem to give the companies a bigger budget to work with for better animation. As a result we have the animation "jumps" that we had with Arlong Park, G8, and Thriller Bark. Using DBZ as an example again that's why the Cell Arc and Buu Arc also faired better.
Keep in mind this is all just theory but just like One Piece I have studied the animation style of other anime shows I like and have noticed similar patterns.
I think a lot of fans forget that in Japan this is aimed at children who don't obsess over the animation changing episode from episode. I'm sure there were shows we all watched as kids and thought had great animation only to see them through adult eyes and think "How did I ever like this crap?".
Right now, in general, One Piece's animation is in a good place and while I think it is fun to pick apart different director's styles it does get a bit frustrating when people get upset that every episode doesn't look like Movies 4, 6, 7, and 9.
Anyway, that's where I stand on the whole matter. Feel free to discuss some more.
O-chan
