A Study of One Piece Animation

TheGreatCaptainUsopp

For those who want to see a filter before and after the timeskip, please be aware it's dithered because it's a gif, but you get the idea.

http://imgur.com/a/mFkFK

Do they only use the filter for pre-timeskip footage or do they apply it to all post-TS stuff?

dropper

@TheGreatCaptainUsopp:

Do they only use the filter for pre-timeskip footage or do they apply it to all post-TS stuff?

Not used pre-ts, the filter is applied from 517 onward. The gif I've shown is the best example you'll see of the filter.
(EDIT: There is one more slight difference. Those flashbacks scenes have their width decreased by a fraction of a percent, which means the flashback scenes contained in 789 contain a fraction more of image.)

Of course the main difference people will notice between pre-ts and post-ts episodes is the color palette change.

On another note does anyone remember flashback during an episode or special where they changed Robin's skin color from tan to pale to match post-ts? The rest of the Straw Hats kept their original palette, can't remember where it was from.

TheGreatCaptainUsopp

@dropper:

Not used pre-ts, the filter is applied from 517 onward. The gif I've shown is the best example you'll see of the filter.
(EDIT: There is one more slight difference. Those flashbacks scenes have their width decreased by a fraction of a percent, which means the flashback scenes contained in 789 contain a fraction more of image.)

Of course the main difference people will notice between pre-ts and post-ts episodes is the color palette change.

On another note does anyone remember flashback during an episode or special where they changed Robin's skin color from tan to pale to match post-ts? The rest of the Straw Hats kept their original palette, can't remember where it was from.

It was either Episode of Merry or the recap episode before Zou

dropper

@TheGreatCaptainUsopp:

It was either Episode of Merry or the recap episode before Zou

Wasn't Episode of Merry, it was all new animation. I don't recall any recaps before Zou but I might be wrong.

TheGreatCaptainUsopp

@dropper:

Wasn't Episode of Merry, it was all new animation. I don't recall any recaps before Zou but I might be wrong.

Episode 751: Curtain-up on a New Adventure! Arriving at the Phantom Island, Zou!

dropper

@TheGreatCaptainUsopp:

Episode 751: Curtain-up on a New Adventure! Arriving at the Phantom Island, Zou!

http://i.imgur.com/LcT2H3o.png

http://i.imgur.com/f92OLYL.png

My bad, thank you!

TheGreatCaptainUsopp

@dropper:

My bad, thank you!

No problem, I remember thinking how odd it was that they even did it in the first place when the episode first aired

dropper

@TheGreatCaptainUsopp:

No problem, I remember thinking how odd it was that they even did it in the first place when the episode first aired

Strange that they didn't put a filter over any of the flashback scenes of 751 (other than the ones re-drawn/edited), unlike the latest episode where 789 which they did.

Jakisuaki

@dropper:

Strange that they didn't put a filter over any of the flashback scenes of 751 (other than the ones re-drawn/edited), unlike the latest episode where 789 which they did.

Can't help but wonder why they added the filter in the first place. It looks terrible.

TheGreatCaptainUsopp

I like the filter that was used in Heart of Gold and the one that was used in 3D2Y even though it's possible that there's no filter there and the thick line art just makes it look like a filter

dropper

Is it possible that the show is animated in 720p, and the one of the filters makes it look better upscaled to 1080p similar to a blur effect?
There was a switch over somewhere between Thriller Bark and Marineford where the sharpness of the outline is reduced somewhat. I believe that's why none of the outlines looks sharp anymore. (This is different than the filter used from the timeskip onward.) You can really see the difference when 751 switches between modified and unmodified animation from Enies Lobby.

So to recap, from all the 1080p steam episodes (best quality out there):

A switch somewhere between Thriller Bark and Marineford where the sharpness is reduced or image is blurred (possibly for better upscaling).
A color palette switch - timeskip onward.
A filter of some sort that alters the contrast - timeskip onward.
Possible color palette switch -Whole Cake Island onward?

XMURADX

Sabaody Sakuga MAD.

The good days with Tate and Onishi.

Ocelot

@XMURADX:

Sabaody Sakuga MAD.

The good days with Tate and Onishi.

I loved it! nice job, onishi is such an excellent animator
I kinda hope to see him doing

! sanji vs luffy
Do you think thats a realistic expectation?

Jakisuaki

@Ocelot:

I loved it! nice job, onishi is such an excellent animator
I kinda hope to see him doing

! sanji vs luffy
Do you think thats a realistic expectation?

He's been MIA since Sabaody, unfortunately. He did some work in the Nebulandia Special / Film Z / Episode of Sabo and has been working on Tiger Mask W lately (Which ends this summer). Fingers crossed that he'll be back to One Piece after TMW ends, but I highly doubt it :(

Crossword

Honestly, I think the only upcoming scene we can call being handled by X animator accurately is Tomita drawing

! Nami and Carrot's bath scene.
On Onishi, I have to say that my favorite piece by him I've seen is the battle between Z and Kizaru. By itself it's incredible, but it's also so far beyond anything else I've seen from him before or since, on One Piece or otherwise. In fact, I would go so far as to say that that sequence can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Yutaka Nakamura.

Jakisuaki

@Crossword:

Honestly, I think the only upcoming scene we can call being handled by X animator accurately is Tomita drawing

! Nami and Carrot's bath scene.
On Onishi, I have to say that my favorite piece by him I've seen is the battle between Z and Kizaru. By itself it's incredible, but it's also so far beyond anything else I've seen from him before or since, on One Piece or otherwise. In fact, I would go so far as to say that that sequence can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Yutaka Nakamura.

Shida is probably doing

! Luffy blowing Cracker into the wholecake chateau

XMURADX

@Ocelot:

I loved it! nice job, onishi is such an excellent animator
I kinda hope to see him doing

! sanji vs luffy
Do you think thats a realistic expectation?

Well, Tiger Mask is ending soon. It is possible, I will keep my fingers crossed. I expect Shida or Ito for that scene.

Ocelot

@XMURADX:

Well, Tiger Mask is ending soon. It is possible, I will keep my fingers crossed. I expect Shida or Ito for that scene.

Tbh I wouldn't really want Shida for that scene.. his really fluid style is really cool and hes one of my favorite animators, but for such a serious moment it just won't work imo..
Just imagine episode 405 with Shida animating everything. Would be kinda off, although I may be wrong. Never actually seen him do an emotionally serious scene

Jakisuaki

@Ocelot:

Tbh I wouldn't really want Shida for that scene.. his really fluid style is really cool and hes one of my favorite animators, but for such a serious moment it just won't work imo..
Just imagine episode 405 with Shida animating everything. Would be kinda off, although I may be wrong. Never actually seen him do an emotionally serious scene

I agree. Shida isn't very good at action sequences. He rocks at explosions and elemental effects such as water or fire, but I always felt his style was too flashy for One Piece.

Brainyz

! Well, the problem with Shida doing a sad scene is that his style will immediately break our immersion. It's cool when it's an action scene, because when a fight animation is super different we get excited, but when it's a heartbreaking scene comes, we need a balanced animation and direction that gets us immersed.
If you want to see how Shida animates people crying, try searching for Romance Dawn 3DS intro, his style still complements the song, and doesn't stand out for being weird or anything. But the situation demands for someone else, because if we want his style to not stand out we need him to animate the whole episode, or only get people with detailed style, which is practically not possible.

dropper

I completely agree. Dynamic off-model wavy looped animation with increased frames and no sense of weight. It's just like you said, it completely breaks the immersion. The animation in One Piece is generally quite slow, then he cranks it up to 400% and it doesn't feel right.

It looks flashy and unique but his sense of weight, timing and shape is completely off.

!

Brainyz

@dropper:

It looks flashy and unique but his sense of weight, timing and shape is completely off.

Animating on 1s does not equal bad timing, his timing is in no way bad, we're just used to seeing him animating fast action where characters get back up as soon as the attack connects instead of finisher attacks where a character is punching the other really hard to knock him out. The Sai vs Lao G cuts he did showed impact pretty well (he also likes to use impact frames), his rough/rushed work on episode 725 showed what people think of as proper timing.
I'm sorry I just had to talk about it since this misconception gets on my nerves.

dropper

@Brainyz:

Animating on 1s does not equal bad timing, his timing is in no way bad, we're just used to seeing him animating fast action where characters get back up as soon as the attack connects instead of finisher attacks where a character is punching the other really hard to knock him out. The Sai vs Lao G cuts he did showed impact pretty well (he also likes to use impact frames), his rough/rushed work on episode 725 showed what people think of as proper timing.
I'm sorry I just had to talk about it since this misconception gets on my nerves.

No matter how much impact is used the characters still just appear weightless and floaty (wobble wobble, slow down, wobble wobble), there are plenty of scenes I love of Shida when used right, Sai vs Lao G felt like a waste because they were kinda secondary characters. Best scene by far, Kizaru vs Rayleigh.

Specifically what's really irritating about Shida are specific parts that just don't slow down or start looping for no good reason, like Luffy's whole freaking head when he says Fourth

Ocelot

@XMURADX:

Well, Tiger Mask is ending soon. It is possible, I will keep my fingers crossed. I expect Shida or Ito for that scene.

By the way, what song did you use for the Zou Sakuga video?

BroBro

@XMURADX:

Sabaody Sakuga MAD.

The good days with Tate and Onishi.

Why did Naoki Tate stop doing OP?

JulieYBM

@BroBro:

Why did Naoki Tate stop doing OP?

Tate Naoki's tenure with One Piece peaked with Movie #9, where he was the character designer and animation supervisor. After that, it was decided that Satou Masayuki would be in charge of Movie #10, which had heavy involvement from the Original Comic Creator Oda Ei'ichirou. Oda has gone on record stating that Satou draws the closest to his style and with Strong World being such a big financial success it was decided to keep that formula going for the next two hand drawn films. Tate Naoki, of course, doesn't draw like Oda (he draws a hell of a lot better, but that's a talk for another time). Tate can't go any higher on One Piece, so he probably decided to leave for that very reason. Now he pokes around various other Toei Animation titles, mostly Dragon Ball Super, but will provide animation for important cuts where needed.

o-chan

@Yuugi's:

Tate Naoki's tenure with One Piece peaked with Movie #9, where he was the character designer and animation supervisor. After that, it was decided that Satou Masayuki would be in charge of Movie #10, which had heavy involvement from the Original Comic Creator Oda Ei'ichirou. Oda has gone on record stating that Satou draws the closest to his style and with Strong World being such a big financial success it was decided to keep that formula going for the next two hand drawn films. Tate Naoki, of course, doesn't draw like Oda (he draws a hell of a lot better, but that's a talk for another time). Tate can't go any higher on One Piece, so he probably decided to leave for that very reason. Now he pokes around various other Toei Animation titles, mostly Dragon Ball Super, but will provide animation for important cuts where needed.

Actually I always personally felt Tate's drawing style was a LOT closer to Oda's along with Inoue's style. When they first started on the show their styles were very similar until Tate's animation style became more prevalent after Skypiea. But overall they both lacked the "roundness" of Koizumi's designs for a more sharper and fluid look that seemed to actually enhance the original manga designs.

The thing is I felt the new Movie 10 standard took the foundation that Inoue, Tate and Hisada had laid and gave it a big budget flourish that the TV anime has grown to emulate since then.

JulieYBM

Tate took a lot of influence from Sushio's designs for Movie #6, which is where I think the divergence really began. Pairing Tate with Inoue worked so much because they both didn't quite draw on model with where Koizumi was at the time and by having them work together Tate could focus on action while Inoue could focus on the still cuts.

Shakidna_

I've been mistaking a lot of Onishi's cuts for Tate's. Was Onishi around during Enies Lobby?

Come to think of it, how do you tell the difference between them?

Jakisuaki

@Shakidna_:

I've been mistaking a lot of Onishi's cuts for Tate's. Was Onishi around during Enies Lobby?

Come to think of it, how do you tell the difference between them?

In my opinion, Tate's shading is a lot more simplistic. Onishi creates very lifelike character movement, where Tate focuses more on facial expressions. Tate's art also appears more "distorted".

Brainyz

@dropper:

No matter how much impact is used the characters still just appear weightless and floaty (wobble wobble, slow down, wobble wobble), there are plenty of scenes I love of Shida when used right, Sai vs Lao G felt like a waste because they were kinda secondary characters. Best scene by far, Kizaru vs Rayleigh.

Specifically what's really irritating about Shida are specific parts that just don't slow down or start looping for no good reason, like Luffy's whole freaking head when he says Fourth

While weightlessness is something Japanese animation is criticized of, I believe the reason characters feel weightless is because characters move after completely stopping in mid-air and then gain momentum again as the fall down, which is something caused by his storyboards (I think he storyboards his cuts). I think Shida likes to use wobbly animation to help the flow of the cut, admittedly looped animation irritates me too.

@Yuugi's:

Tate Naoki's tenure with One Piece peaked with Movie #9, where he was the character designer and animation supervisor. After that, it was decided that Satou Masayuki would be in charge of Movie #10, which had heavy involvement from the Original Comic Creator Oda Ei'ichirou. Oda has gone on record stating that Satou draws the closest to his style and with Strong World being such a big financial success it was decided to keep that formula going for the next two hand drawn films. Tate Naoki, of course, doesn't draw like Oda (he draws a hell of a lot better, but that's a talk for another time). Tate can't go any higher on One Piece, so he probably decided to leave for that very reason. Now he pokes around various other Toei Animation titles, mostly Dragon Ball Super, but will provide animation for important cuts where needed.

I believe it's just a case of the studio requesting him to work on something else, and he agreed. It doesn't need to be something else to make more sense. And it's not like he's the character designer on Dragon Ball Super anyway.

@Shakidna_:

I've been mistaking a lot of Onishi's cuts for Tate's. Was Onishi around during Enies Lobby?

Come to think of it, how do you tell the difference between them?

Tate likes to stretch and squish characters, and also uses exaggerated expressions. These traits of Tate were always there, they just became more apparent when he became minimalist when it comes to shading.
As Jakisuaki said, Onishi nails realistic animation, it almost looks rotoscoped, the characters also move freely as if they exist in their own 3D medium.

dropper

Anybody else notice an increase in the amount of shots using a variation of outline thickness? Seems like they've slightly changed the desired style and software techniques used, similar to DBSuper. It's hard to tell if this began at Zou or Whole Cake Island.

Jakisuaki

@dropper:

Anybody else notice an increase in the amount of shots using a variation of outline thickness? Seems like they've slightly changed the desired style and software techniques used, similar to DBSuper. It's hard to tell if this began at Zou or Whole Cake Island.

Got any examples?

Ocelot

@dropper:

Anybody else notice an increase in the amount of shots using a variation of outline thickness? Seems like they've slightly changed the desired style and software techniques used, similar to DBSuper. It's hard to tell if this began at Zou or Whole Cake Island.

I really like it, by the way. I think it's because of Ichikawa

dropper

@Jakisuaki:

Got any examples?

http://imgur.com/a/2yWYO
http://imgur.com/a/JfGvG
http://imgur.com/a/rzYfU

halfaxa9

@dropper:

http://imgur.com/a/2yWYO
http://imgur.com/a/JfGvG
http://imgur.com/a/rzYfU

I love it, makes it look more high quality imo

Jakisuaki

@dropper:

http://imgur.com/a/2yWYO
http://imgur.com/a/JfGvG
http://imgur.com/a/rzYfU

Those are definetely ichikawa's touches.

dropper

I really hope the anime continues in this direction. The still shots are so much more pleasing now. It seems like it would take a lot more work to do these thicker lines? Unless there are helpful software tools.

Ocelot

Speaking of higher quality, is it just me or(in crunchyroll at least) the quality itself is much better in earlier arcs than now? everything looked much sharper..
Here is an example:
Water 7:https://prnt.sc/fd6vjc
Zou:https://prnt.sc/fd6vsk

It's like in the newer episodes they kinda smooth it out.. which I honestly don't really like xD..
I remember back when rewatching one piece I noticed that everything is so sharp you can literally see the pixels in the drawing. I liked that.

Jakisuaki

The general crispy and clear style of the Water Seven/Enies Lobby days that we all adore started to get phased out as Kazuya Hisada took over as Character Designer at the end of Sabaody. This was taken a step further after the timeskip, where a lot characters underwent palette changes. Dropper has recently done a lot of posts about applied filters that appear after the timeskip, which causes everything to appear smeared out. (We never see hard blacks after the timeskip unfortunately).

Try taking any screenshot from the anime; lower its brightness and increase its contrast ever so slightly. Suddenly it looks a lot closer to pre-timeskip.

!

dropper

Can anyone confirm if the anime ever switched from 720 to 1080p for animation? When did the frame rate switch from 24fps to 30fps? It was before the timeskip that's for sure.

Shakidna_

First episode of Marineford was when they switched to 30fps. For whatever reason, the initial HD raws from Crunchyroll and Funimation are incorrectly encoded at 24 fps. It wasn't until the end of Marineford that they (Toei?) realized their mistake, so the only acceptable HD raws for those episodes are from TV broadcast.

Galaxy 9000

The anime has since switched back to 23 fps (except for in the OP). It happened in the middle of Dressrosa (Episode 687, I believe).

And unless they've fixed the problem, I believe Crunchyroll is 23 fps from Marineford to Episode 616ish (when Crunchyroll originally picked up OP). It's why scenes look so choppy in those episodes.

dropper

Thanks for the info Shakidna and Galaxy! I always wondered why those episodes looked particular choppy.

Looking further into it, my theory is that 453 was the first episode they changed the anti-aliasing filter. This means that we stop seeing jagged lines when lines/objects are upscaled or drawn at a lower resolution than 1080p. However this means that the black outlines that we are used to seeing most of the time can appear blurry and not as bold.
Here's an example from 452: http://i.imgur.com/N2IWYtL.jpg

Jakisuaki

Random question: Does it annoy anyone else when a large majority of the community (Not necessarily Arlong Park) overpraise Naotoshi Shida as an animation guru and disregard everybody else? It's a growing trend I'm noticing more and more, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't bug me :(

MasterKingJC

I've seen comments from people who've called cuts from Tate, Onishi, Tomita, etc. "bad animation". The OP community at large has a poor misconception of what counts as good animation.

Ocelot

@Jakisuaki:

Random question: Does it annoy anyone else when a large majority of the community (Not necessarily Arlong Park) overpraise Naotoshi Shida as an animation guru and disregard everybody else? It's a growing trend I'm noticing more and more, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't bug me :(

I animate as a hobby for about 3 years now, I know quite alot about animation so I guess that fact will make my point a lil' stronger.
And to be honest, you're kinda right lol. Most of his animations feel weightless, and he makes limbs ridiculously bendy even if it isn't luffy, as well as random quirks that feel kinda out of place, like his absolutely ridiculous seizure-mouth(a nickname for him between my friends who can't remember japanese names) and zooming into eyes(this one is actually insane, it's like he can't finish an animation without at least 1 eye zoom even if its 3 frames)
HOWEVER!
Wont you agree his animation are really, REALLY fun to look at? it's just smooth goodness and amazing artstyle for the most part. Not gonna lie, I also enjoy his seizure-mouths and eye-zooms, it's kinda funny. I don't like them when its a serious moment though, like when he animated luffy vs doffy scene the seizure-mouth after that really threw me off.
He is overpraised because he is really unique and easy to spot for people, and he also appears very occasionaly unlike onishi and tate or whatever.
My top 5 are
1. Onishi
2. Akihiro Ota
3. Kenji Kuroyanagi
4. Takeshi Nishino
5. Shida

Jakisuaki

Oh he's definitely a flashy animator, I'll give him that, and I enjoy looking at some of his earlier scenes. (Sanji kicking Oars remains one of my favourite scenes to this day). The seizure mouth throws me off a lot, as well as how weightless his action scenes feel due to how fast paced they are.

If I were to give a Top 5 working (Or having worked) on One Piece, I'd say:

1. Onishi
2. Naoki Tate (Key Animation & AD)
3. Katsumi Ishizuka (Key Animation & AD)
4. Kenji Kuroyanagi
5. Naohiro Shintani

Honorable Mentions go to Tomita, Shida, Tekeshi Nishino & Akihiro Ota

It's too bad 4 of those don't work on the show currently :(

On the topic of that, what do you guys reckon the chances are of Onishi/Kuroyanagi returning to One piece in the near future? I know they're currently working on Tiger Mask, which is airing its final episode in just 6 weeks, but Onishi in particular hasn't worked on the show for 8 years if you exclude Film Z.

Do you think its more likely they'll be allocated to other Toei shows just as DBS, Precure or some of the upcoming movies/shows?

Chibi JFZ

11/06 792 「マムの刺客ルフィと誘惑の森！」
Mom's Assassin - Luffy and The Seducing Woods !

conan___e

@Jakisuaki:

Random question: Does it annoy anyone else when a large majority of the community (Not necessarily Arlong Park) overpraise Naotoshi Shida as an animation guru and disregard everybody else? It's a growing trend I'm noticing more and more, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't bug me :(

it always happen, people will attract to the flashiest(which not a bad thing, its just a visual narrative tool), so many character animators got underappreciated, it's so common.

@Jakisuaki:

Oh he's definitely a flashy animator, I'll give him that, and I enjoy looking at some of his earlier scenes. (Sanji kicking Oars remains one of my favourite scenes to this day). The seizure mouth throws me off a lot, as well as how weightless his action scenes feel due to how fast paced they are.

If I were to give a Top 5 working (Or having worked) on One Piece, I'd say:

1. Onishi
2. Naoki Tate (Key Animation & AD)
3. Katsumi Ishizuka (Key Animation & AD)
4. Kenji Kuroyanagi
5. Naohiro Shintani

Honorable Mentions go to Tomita, Shida, Tekeshi Nishino & Akihiro Ota

It's too bad 4 of those don't work on the show currently :(

On the topic of that, what do you guys reckon the chances are of Onishi/Kuroyanagi returning to One piece in the near future? I know they're currently working on Tiger Mask, which is airing its final episode in just 6 weeks, but Onishi in particular hasn't worked on the show for 8 years if you exclude Film Z.

Do you think its more likely they'll be allocated to other Toei shows just as DBS, Precure or some of the upcoming movies/shows?

Kenji Kuroyanagi was jumping between toei shows before tiger mask, so not sure if he like it this way or he will try to stick to a project after TMW, Onishi on other hand barely touch TV series, and regarding Onishi, he actually worked on Foxy SP and Sabo SP in 2015, so he still on touch with the franchise but not with TV series itself.

and regarding Tiger Mask, I think maybe One Piece will have Akihiro Ota after it done.