A Study of One Piece Animation

CupidKirby

Well Dragonball GT suffers from the same inconsistency as Dragonball or Dragonball Z in that some episodes are godly and some are complete crap. Toei is generally pretty bad at keeping up a certain level of quality and coherence. It also didn't help that the overall styling and coloration in GT was pretty freaking hideous, but that's more my opinion.

Really? I've always found the range between a bad animation day and a god-like one to be a lot smaller in GT. In terms of color, they bother me slightly in that they're either too dark or too bold (Pan's shirt, anyone?).

The Dragon Ball Z/GT series are actually pretty consistent in comparison to some other series. You guys don't even want to lay eyes on Powerpuff Girls Z.

antiravage

It's incredible how dragon ball z, despite its age, has episodes that put many of today's animes to shame in terms of both art and animation. And at the time toei did most of the episodes, if not all, using still cels, putting them together one by one in order to form a sequence. Today things are easier for the animation companies thanks to computers and technology.

goty

@antiravage:

It's incredible how dragon ball z, despite its age, has episodes that put many of today's animes to shame in terms of both art and animation. And at the time toei did most of the episodes, if not all, using still cels, putting them together one by one in order to form a sequence. Today things are easier for the animation companies thanks to computers and technology.

I agree, actually i was thinking the same while i watched a Kai episode these days. I don't know if any other 80/early 90's anime series aged so nicely.

Bamind

458~461:

Takagi

Yokoyama

Deguchi

Nakatani

o-chan

@goty:

I agree, actually i was thinking the same while i watched a Kai episode these days. I don't know if any other 80/early 90's anime series aged so nicely.

Uruesi Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, City Hunter, Kimagure Orange Road, Yawara, Sailor Moon, Megazone 23, Nadia, Yu Yu Hakusho.

O-chan

goty

I didn't say "anime that can be enjoyed these days", but anime series that don't look old.
I don't think stuff like Yawara and Urusei Yatsura aged as well as Dragonball Z, not to mention that Toriyama's art style is pretty much timeless, unlike most of those you've listed.

@Bamind:

458~461:

Yokoyama

Deguchi

Well, at least the shit will be out of the way quickly.

XMURADX

@goty:

Well, at least the shit will be out of the way quickly.

Yeah, this.

Now we know the starting of the action will look good.

Bamind

The "episode director" of Episode 459 is the current series director of One Piece anime, Hiroaki MIYAMOTO. I'm really looking forward to watching it.

XMURADX

@Bamind:

The "episode director" of Episode 459 is the current series director of One Piece anime, Hiroaki MIYAMOTO. I'm really looking forward to watching it.

Yeah, good Episode directors can change the overall feel of the episode.
I also believe that the Better the ED = the Better the Animation

Miyamoto is a normal director, only as of late he started to improve, IMO.
I thought he have done a good job on 405, and 436.

My favorite Episode Director is Makoto Sonoda, This guy's directing is very good. Most of the episodes he worked on are my favorites:
**[457, 447, 404, 394, 383, 378, 369, 360, 319, 309, 304[/B]]

They usually give him the best animators for his episodes. And he usually works with Tate.
Explains why Tate's episode 448 sucked in directing…Sadly he was wasted on 457 along with Katsumi.

Gou Koga, is another good ED, although he only worked on 4 ep so far.
[336, 412, 420, 455]

I'm very excited for Nakatani's episode. I love the chapter she is covering. And I think the episode will have really good animation since she haven't done an episode since 442 . Even though she did some key animation in the last Tate episode.**

TLC

@goty:

Well, at least the shit will be out of the way quickly.

Hey now, Deguci did an episode quite well in the Impel Down arc.

o-chan

Since I'm sampling a bunch of anime series today I'll have to review some of these episodes before bed to see what XmuradX is talking about.

O-chan

vic1337

@XMURADX:

Shippuuden was on a long streak of Horrible-Average episodes for a while, Cause the budget went for 166 and 167, which will be on par with movie quality.

167 movie quality? whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? 166 was EPIC the animation was amazing but 167 was one of the WORST ANIMATED EPISODES I SAW.

I hope naoki tate work in episodes 553-554, those 2 chapters need to be one in anime.

XMURADX

@vic1337:

167 movie quality? whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? 166 was EPIC the animation was amazing but 167 was one of the WORST ANIMATED EPISODES I SAW.

I hope naoki tate work in episodes 553-554, those 2 chapters need to be one in anime.

Seriously, 166 was nothing compared to 167. Do you even know who worked in the ep?

If you think 167 is one of the worst animated episodes then I'm not going to even bother arguing with you.

vic1337

@XMURADX:

Do you even know who worked in the ep? If you think 167 is one of the worst animated episodes then I'm not going to even bother arguing with you.

I don't care who worked in that episode i care what i and ALL THE PEOPLE saw and in naruto was one of the worst animed episodes i saw, ok the animation was fluently and ok but the art and some scenes made my eyes suffer.

Here are a lot of examples

!

in conclusion

XMURADX

That's why I said I'm not gonna bother arguing with you, cause I knew you were going to use the same examples everyone used to call the episode bad.

Sigh….....

While some scenes were over the top, like the MY PAIN IS GREATER THAN YOURS scene. The animation in the actual scenes was fantastic. I don't know why and I don't care why the animator choose to draw Pain in this way, but I'm pretty sure not because he can't draw properly, or not because he was a bad animator. The same animator (Shingo Yamashita) did the first 7 minutes.

Other than the first pic, everything else was fantastic, I don't see anything wrong with them. The animation looks fluid and and very dynamic.
Even Pain's expressions were the best he had in this series.

And don't judge the animation by some still shots of some in-between animation. And if you like Tate, then you should know exactly what I'm talking about.

And again, you are talking about 5% of the episode. I'm wondering, did you think the rest of the episode had bad animation?

CupidKirby

@vic1337:

167 movie quality? whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? 166 was EPIC the animation was amazing but 167 was one of the WORST ANIMATED EPISODES I SAW.

If you've watched Naruto or any anime all that much, you'd know that distorted inbetween frames are what they use all the time; and it works. Art and especially animation isn't measured by how 'ugly' something looks.

o-chan

@XMURADX:

That's why I said I'm not gonna bother arguing with you, cause I knew you were going to use the same examples everyone used to call the episode bad.

Sigh….....

While some scenes were over the top, like the MY PAIN IS GREATER THAN YOURS scene. The animation in the actual scenes was fantastic. I don't know why and I don't care why the animator choose to draw Pain in this way, but I'm pretty sure not because he can't draw properly, or not because he was a bad animator. The same animator (Shingo Yamashita) did the first 7 minutes.

Other than the first pic, everything else was fantastic, I don't see anything wrong with them. The animation looks fluid and and very dynamic.
Even Pain's expressions were the best he had in this series.

And don't judge the animation by some still shots of some in-between animation. And if you like Tate, then you should know exactly what I'm talking about.

And again, you are talking about 5% of the episode. I'm wondering, did you think the rest of the episode had bad animation?

FINALLY! Someone in this thread got what I mentioned posts ago (BTW, I currently catching up with Shippuden and watching episode 159 as I type this.) Thank you XmuradX!

O-chan

XMURADX

Very well said, CupidKirby.

@o-chan:

FINALLY! Someone in this thread got what I mentioned posts ago (BTW, I currently catching up with Shippuden and watching episode 159 as I type this.) Thank you XmuradX!

O-chan

no problem…btw, which post in particular?

lol, 159. Great in-betweening, but shitty key animation. That's one of the weird ep that you either love or hate.

Kaze

Noboru is the best of the best, I mean just watch episode 202 and tell me it doesn't look like a movie.

XMURADX

@Kaze:

Noboru is the best of the best, I mean just watch episode 202 and tell me it doesn't look like a movie.

Well…Art wise, it was fantastic. Animation wise, it was good, but nothing special.

o-chan

@XMURADX:

Very well said, CupidKirby.

no problem…btw, which post in particular?

lol, 159. Great in-betweening, but shitty key animation. That's one of the weird ep that you either love or hate.

The original reply to the poster of the Naruto clip where I said something on the lines of "one clip from the more expressive animators does not make a good example of Naruto animation especially when you have quite a few of those in One Piece too" I should have probably worded a few things different but you got to the point that supported my statement. Naruto tends to have a more fluid and occasionally experimental animation style (the type I think you sometimes wish One Piece had instead of investing it in their magical girl properties) so it's easy to pick a random clip of weird in-betweening or action and call it "shit animation" but it doesn't always reflect the overall animation in the series which, for Shippuden, has evolved into some very good to fantastic artwork.

Episode 159 was an action episode and the movements where very engaging to watch and it gave that episode an edge over the manga version.

Alright, I have my One Piece episodes hooked up to my computer so I'm going to reference those episodes you mentioned earlier to see if I can get a grasp of the different episode directors.

O-chan

XMURADX

@o-chan:

The original reply to the poster of the Naruto clip where I said something on the lines of "one clip from the more expressive animators does not make a good example of Naruto animation especially when you have quite a few of those in One Piece too" I should have probably worded a few things different but you got to the point that supported my statement. Naruto tends to have a more fluid and occasionally experimental animation style (the type I think you sometimes wish One Piece had instead of investing it in their magical girl properties) so it's easy to pick a random clip of weird in-betweening or action and call it "shit animation" but it doesn't always reflect the overall animation in the series which, for Shippuden, has evolved into some very good to fantastic artwork.

Oh, I remember this.

Yeah, exactly.

I really hope Toei hired some professional animators, This arc should surpass Shabondy Animation wise.

@o-chan:

Episode 159 was an action episode and the movements where very engaging to watch and it gave that episode an edge over the manga version.

Yeah, Anime > manga.

goty

@vic1337:

I don't care who worked in that episode i care what i and ALL THE PEOPLE saw and in naruto was one of the worst animed episodes i saw,

You know what, i think sometimes people are too attached to the name behind the curtains and not the work itself, so they watch the thing inclined to love/hate it beforehand. I know this very well 'cause i could include myself too.

The problem with Naruto 167 is that the horrible, distorted frames were too much evident. You didn't have to pause and look for bad shots, they were blatant, not to mention that in a lot of scenes the frame rate was obviously lower than it should be for such ambitious animation.
It's almost feels like they tried to make it movie quality but lacked the skills, time or budget to properly do so.

antiravage

@goty:

It's almost feels like they tried to make it movie quality but lacked the skills, time or budget to properly do so.

Only big names who regularly work on anime movies were involved. If there is one thing they do not lack, it is skill. Okay, there were some frames that looked bad when you paused, but that was how they chose to do the episode. Some loved it, others hated it. But in the end, it's up to the japanese to dictate whether the episode is a sucess or not. And it seems like they love those types of episodes.

CupidKirby

@goty:

You know what, i think sometimes people are too attached to the name behind the curtains and not the work itself, so they watch the thing inclined to love/hate it beforehand. I know this very well 'cause i could include myself too.

The problem with Naruto 167 is that the horrible, distorted frames were too much evident. You didn't have to pause and look for bad shots, they were blatant, not to mention that in a lot of scenes the frame rate was obviously lower than it should be for such ambitious animation.
It's almost feels like they tried to make it movie quality but lacked the skills, time or budget to properly do so.

I think I've said this in another thread, but it's all a matter of taste in style. It's Naruto's art and animation style to occasionally use distorted frames in order to make the animation more fluid. Saying that this method automatically makes the animation a pile of rotten bananas is the same as hating One Piece because the art style is 'bad'.

Yes, the ending product is more important than the big name behind the scenes, but the thing is that we can watch an episode knowing that whoever worked on it knows what they're doing. In other words, if a character looks like crap for more than a couple seconds, then it's safe to assume that the animators did it on purpose and with intent in mind considering how long they're forced to stare at one frame at any given time.

Kaze

@XMURADX:

Well…Art wise, it was fantastic. Animation wise, it was good, but nothing special.

too each his own I suppose but I still consider that one of the best animated eps imo.

Crossword

Just to start things off, looking at some rather blurry screenshots I can make out Hisada, Nakatani, Tate, and someone who's first name is (I think) Hitoshi credited in OP Animation for One Day.

On the episode front, looks like Yokoyama and Deguchi got just the help they needed to produce something great.

XMURADX

For the first time the big animator Yuki Hayashi works on One Piece other than the movies. My guess that he did the scene starting from smoker until Akainu.

Naotoshi Shida did the scene starting from Sentoumaru until Hancock.

Naoki Tate scene started from Crocodile until Ivankov.

Still, not sure who did the WB pirates part.

Hisada did most of Luffy walking shots. And mainly the beginning.

I liked the art in this opening. Hisada was probably the AD of this opening. That's what he have doing lately.

Too bad, Tomita and Ryou didn't work here. Hopefully they are working on some epic scenes in the other episodes.

Kraker2k

Its nice to see Yuki Hayashi working on OP, perhaps he can entice his some of his other big animator friends to come work on OP .

XMURADX

@Kraker2k:

Its nice to see Yuki Hayashi working on OP, perhaps he can entice his some of his other big animator friends to come work on OP .

I hope so. I just watched strong world, and Yuki's scenes were Epic.

He did Zoro's Asura and the beginning of the Movie where the animals fight each other and Gear 3rd.

BTW, More great animators worked in the opening. (I'll include the others)
舘直樹 = Naoki Tate
志田直俊 = Naotoshi Shida
大塚健 = Ken Ootsuka
佐藤雅将 = Masayuki Sato (Movie 10 - Chara Designer & Animation Director)
原田大基 = Daiki Harada
林祐己 = Yuki Hayashi

Seriously, I haven't seen a list like this for an opening for One Piece before. So many big names. :w00t:

Crossword

佐藤雅将 = Masayuki Sato (Movie 10 - Chara Designer & Animation Director)

Nice. I hope he starts doing work for the regular series at some point, since part of the reason he was chosen to be the animation director for Movie 10 was his ability to replicate Oda's own style.

goty

@XMURADX:

I hope so. I just watched strong world, and Yuki's scenes were Epic.

He did Zoro's Asura and the beginning of the Movie where the animals fight each other and Gear 3rd.

BTW, More great animators worked in the opening. (I'll include the others)
舘直樹 = Naoki Tate
志田直俊 = Naotoshi Shida
大塚健 = Ken Ootsuka
佐藤雅将 = Masayuki Sato (Movie 10 - Chara Designer & Animation Director)
原田大基 = Daiki Harada
林祐己 = Yuki Hayashi

Seriously, I haven't seen a list like this for an opening for One Piece before. So many big names. :w00t:

That's great.
Did Yuki work in the whole Asura sequence? The animation style of Dr. Indigo "exploding" surely reminded me of Akainu in the new opening.

XMURADX

Yeah, I hope he does an ep or two later on. Along with the same animators he worked with on Strong World like Hayashi and Ryou. That would be Epic.

@Goty…Yep the whole scene until the conclusion.

Gotta say, Ryou Onishi's scene in SW, made my jaw drop...

! It was the scene where Luffy's gang are fighting shiki at the sunset. The scene starts after Luffy saves Sanji from Shiki(The part where the sand lions appear), and ends up to the point when everyone is defeated.
! I think he did the first Marineford scene as well.
! Man, I hope he comes back.

Crossword

I skimmed through a few bits of Movie 10, and I must say, everyone was firing on all four cylinders. Action and general animation looks great (aside from a few cases where the inbetweening could've been a bit more smooth during the talking scenes) and you could see Oda's fingerprints all over the designs and some of the other aspects like the team effort during the first Shiki fight. Everyone looks pretty good, especially Luffy, Nami, Robin, and Sanji. Though, it is kind of weird to see Robin with brown eyes and her, Zoro, and Usopp (yet oddly enough not Luffy or Franky) with lighter skin than usually depicted in the anime. It would be a real waste if Sato isn't brought on board in some capacity for the regular anime team.

Gotta say, the Float Float Fruit is pretty darn broken. The stuff Shiki was pulling off with it was on a scale that surpassed most of the Logias we've seen in the series so far. I'd definitely put it up there with the Paw Paw Fruit and the Quake Quake Fruit as one of the strongest Paramecias.

TLC

How did Shiki lose again?:/ I'd hate to think Oda pulled it out of his ass. He's usually much better than that.

Crossword

Basically, what happens is…

! First, Nami (with assistance from Usopp and Chopper) force Shiki's weathermen to steer the island into a giant storm cloud, then Usopp uses an attack called Tenryuuboshi (basically an electric version of his fire moves) to charge up the clouds, then Luffy uses an electric-charged Gear Third move called Gigant Thor Axe on Shiki, who kind of goes all ''deer in the headlights'', makes an attempt to block it that's pathetic compared to his earlier displays of power (not ot mention that since he can fly, all he has to do is move out of the way), gets hit, is sent plummetting down towards the sea, and isn't seen again.
! It was a really cool sequence, but I thought it could've been handled better, since Shiki didn't even appear winded at that point, and was still laughing away at Luffy up until that point.

o-chan

Speaking of Robin's lighter skin I always found it strange they decided to lighten her up in the more recent episodes. I wonder if the movie had any influence on that?

O-chan

CupidKirby

As long as they don't start giving Nami pink eyes for real, then I'm good.

Crossword

Speaking of Robin's lighter skin I always found it strange they decided to lighten her up in the more recent episodes. I wonder if the movie had any influence on that?

I dunno, it may be a quirk unique to the opening, since during her ''The Crew's Whereabouts'' episode it looked as it usually does, though that could be due to the lighting. I don't remember it being that different in the Movie 10 tie-ins, but then again, she was barely in them. I guess we'll be waiting for a while until the Straw Hats reunite.

Still, I admit that it does feel kind of wrong to see her paler than Luffy, when she used to be the darkest of them all.

As long as they don't start giving Nami pink eyes for real, then I'm good.

When did they do that? They've always been brown.

Maron

@o-chan:

Speaking of Robin's lighter skin I always found it strange they decided to lighten her up in the more recent episodes. I wonder if the movie had any influence on that?

O-chan

I didn't find it any stranger than Toei starting to color Luffy's hat properly in late Impel Down and Opening 13.

CupidKirby

@Crossword:

When did they do that? They've always been brown.

They were pink in the tenth movie, at least from what I've seen of it.

goty

!
!
!

It's brown, like Robin's.

CupidKirby

Strange, they look pink to me…

dan2026

@goty:

It's brown, like Robin's.

Yes, I too was looking at Robin's eyes….

Crossword

Ehhh, looking at that screen shot from the film's end I guess I can kinda see where CupidKirby is coming from with the pink. Kind of. Though I'd go for peach over pink.

Speaking of screen shots, I've had the caps for Kawamura's Sanji and Chopper sitting around on my laptop for weeks and I still haven't uploaded them. I need to get on that. I think I'll do a post for Sato too once the real Movie 10 rip comes out.

shinpanman

About the whole skin color thing. I always like when they add slight differences to skin tone in anime, it looks more natural and makes scenes less homogeneous. In fact it kind of bothers me that they changed the colors to match Oda's more closely considering his choices are more a matter of the limited palette of Copic markers rather than a conscious decision to give everyone the exact same skin tone. On another level, it also bothers me because in Japan women with lighter skin tones are generally considered more attractive and it is made obvious in a lot of other anime. I had hoped One Piece wouldn't become a victim of that sort of thing…

The eye color change for Robin is fine, both look fitting.

Crossword

I remember Ms. Monday having bronze skin on the Vol. 13 cover. I think that was the only time he's darkened someone's skin. I guess maybe he decided that it didn't look that great (which I can kind of agree with, since I'm not a fan of the coloring for that cover). But otherwise, I agree completely. It's kind of weird seeing Mr. 1 on Vol. 21 and 56 having white skin when his character design is clearly meant to be black.

Joe

@CupidKirby:

Strange, they look pink to me…

you may need glasses then.

! First, Nami (with assistance from Usopp and Chopper) force Shiki's weathermen to steer the island into a giant storm cloud, then Usopp uses an attack called Tenryuuboshi (basically an electric version of his fire moves) to charge up the clouds, then Luffy uses an electric-charged Gear Third move called Gigant Thor Axe on Shiki, who kind of goes all ''deer in the headlights'', makes an attempt to block it that's pathetic compared to his earlier displays of power (not ot mention that since he can fly, all he has to do is move out of the way), gets hit, is sent plummetting down towards the sea, and isn't seen again.
! It was a really cool sequence, but I thought it could've been handled better, since Shiki didn't even appear winded at that point, and was still laughing away at Luffy up until that point.

yeah, i didn't like that either. I thought we'd see more franky and robin action too. I felt Robin was so underused in the movie.

CupidKirby

@Joe:

I thought we'd see more franky and robin action too. I felt Robin was so underused in the movie.

What else is new.

Well, I suppose it isn't an obnoxious pink in the movie either. I don't know why but the scans of Nami just made them seem brighter.

Everyone's skin color pre-Alabasta was pretty dark. Except Luffy's, I'm kind of confused on whether he's meant to be tanner or almost as pale as Nami.

Mr. 1 was shaded in the panels, so I don't understand that either.

Spah

I've always wondered why Croco-boys skin is grey in the anime? How does that make sense.