@Yuugi's:
I'm rewatching early Water 7 episodes. I miss Koizumi. The show looked almost Ghibli-ish at times back in the day.
By today's standards Koizumi's primary style is very outdated. His designs were very round and cartoony. While that was fine for everything up thru Water Seven the way Oda's designs changed I always felt Tate and Inoue stayed more modernized and back then they were the exceptions in the animation team. Also the anime producers still promoted Inoue's and Tate's style in all the movies after the 5th and before Strong World.
If there was anytime the anime seemed Ghibli-ish it was most likely Movie 6, or an episode where Tate or Inoue was acting as animation director. Otherwise, I don't see that association.
@Crossword:
Hm, maybe it's because I wasn't watching HD sources back in the day, but I don't remember Water 7 looking all that special in comparison to the rest of the post-HD show. Except for the lighting during Luffy and Usopp's argument on the Merry, that was pretty different.
And yes, I meant that Hisada was chief as of this very episode. He was credited as both chief animation director and character designer simultaneously, rather than separately as a one-off thing like in 575.
Water Seven looks special in hindsight. Back then we all just like the animation upgrade because there was more shading and the colors were stronger and with the Water Seven DVDs just now coming out in America those of us still watching the series are noticing a stark contrast in terms of animation consistency and direction. To sum it up, Water Seven holds up much better than the current episodes airing in Japan because of the decline in quality in the main series.
I do think I'm putting too much emphasis on Tate and Inoue but all I'm saying that up through Impel Down the animation team knew what they were doing. Strong World's popularity and Toei's ego seems to have negatively affected how the animation production is being handled. There are some people saying not to make a big deal about it but here's my sticking point, if One Piece is so decently animated why is it that the current episodes have less consistency than episodes that came out half a decade ago when the popularity was far more sound? It's even more embarrassing when even other Shonen show out there, despite being less popular, seems to have a better grasp of how to utilize their animation teams. Then coming from the SAME studio Precure, Digimon (actually Hunters fell into the same problem), and Saint Seiya look godly compared to One Piece.
I don''t think the animation is awful but it could definitely try to bet a little more "crisp".
O-chan