Art Style & Animation!

Let's talk about the art style and animation~. The animation style has changed since the first generation. Back in the day, Pokemon was hand drawn and colored by hand. Around Hoenn, the animation style and art changed slightly, and has been changing pretty much every generation of the anime as time goes on....

Discussions:

Which series did you feel had the best animation?
What about Art style?
How do you feel about the new art style and animation?
What do you think of the animation/art style in general?

XY and XYZ had the best Art Style and Animation by far. However this time around, I think it is just too big of a change.

The animation is the same as XYZ in most cases. I think people are getting those two confused, myself included. Some of the art style is half assed.

Some far away shots look great while others just suck, like Ash walking into the building with Kukui. That art doesn't look like pokemon at all.

Ash face is also very out of place in the anime compared to say Lillie, who looks amazing and I don't understand why that is. I honestly just hope they are finished.

I don't really mind art style much nor animation, however, Sword Art Online Animation and Art Style are by far my favorite.

We're talking about art, so it's ok to have an image heavy post y/n?

While like I said before I haven't had time to watch XY, from all the gifs I've seen I think the animation is pretty up there! A lot of issues I have with pokemon animation is that the character don't move very well or interact with each other much. You'll get a lot of shots of 'three characters walk into the scene from the same direction. One talks with mouth flaps, then the other talks with mouth flaps.' sort of deals where you don't have characters interact as much or show as much nuanced emotions.

Examples being, Ash tilts his hat down, stands still as tears go straight down his face x many.

But in XY we see more nuanced crying, with more small movements and complex expressions.


I like the art style in general, but I don't like when they use too many shadows.


This is touted as 'look at how much better kalos ash is' but I really don't like the top picture?? The point of styles are to create a visual short hand so you are more free to work within those confines. When you start trying to define his cheeks, lip shape, and his muscles with shadows it just gets weird. I don't think it does any favors to the animation because the shapes used as the outlines aren't defined enough to capture the details the shading is trying to provide. The shot is boring too, it's just a straight on view of ash's face. In the newer picture, the angle and tilt of Ash's face and expression tells me more about the roundness of his face more than the shadow on prev Ash's cheek could ever convey.

In general, the pokemon art style is TOO on model at all times.
An example is the show Steven Universe. While they do have general character models, each storyboarder doesn't have a strict set of rules, heights, width they have to follow. It's inconsistent, but it's good.

For those of you just aghast at how 'weird' Ash looks like in the new Sun & Moon style from under 20 seconds of screen time, this is what Pearl looked like in the first few episodes.


I also want to make a note that if shading is used in Steven Universe, it rarely has many levels. If it's used, it's usually for a specific purpose. To create mood. Shading Ash with just local color down to 4 levels is just kind of overkill and doesn't really add anything other than some details. The pokemon anime has never been much more than literal and safe with it's lighting choices.

OK BUT ENOUGH ABOUT STEVEN UNIVERSE

The reaction to the new style for Sun and Moon is that it looks 'weird' or 'bad'. I really don't see it. It looks rounder and more childish and that doesn't mean it's bad. Ash looks different, but he looks like if he were adapted to a different style. I think my major annoyance is that I see similarities to other anime that I really really like. I regard these as very good works of art, and these also use more simplistic line art, fluid movement, less shadows. They are ""simpler"" but express so much more than the typical shonen style can.

Some examples being:



TL;DR

It's too early to tell much about the Sun Moon anime style, but simpler/less detailed or childish animation =/= bad.

Your right. I never really took that into consideration. After seeing examples of what the art is similar to, it kinda makes me like it a lot more. It could focus more on interaction between characters. It might be a good thing.

Now that I think about it more, I think the reason Ash looks so weird to a lot of us, is because we are so used to him being in a similar art style. But we accept the other characters fairly easy because we haven't seen them before. I think that is the key point to make here.

Nina said:

I like the art style in general, but I don't like when they use too many shadows.

Spoiler:

(snip)

An example is the show Steven Universe. While they do have general character models, each storyboarder doesn't have a strict set of rules, heights, width they have to follow. It's inconsistent, but it's good.

Click to expand...

Note: I put most of the quote in a spoiler to keep the size to a minimum. Sorry if this bugs you Nina.

At first glance, I was also like "what, the art style had to be overhauled to bring in viewers?", but just now I did realize before reading the rest of your post that Pokémon's new art style with the rounded corners does remind me a bit of the art style in Steven Universe (so desperately wants to tell Sheep about this). I guess, with the supposedly overhauled story about Ash "going to school", maybe TPTB finally decided that the Pokémon anime as a whole finally needed to be taken in a different direction.

Best looking and best animated: Definitely XY saga... so many sakuga moments I could cry.

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Nina said:

The reaction to the new style for Sun and Moon is that it looks 'weird' or 'bad'. I really don't see it. It looks rounder and more childish and that doesn't mean it's bad. Ash looks different, but he looks like if he were adapted to a different style. I think my major annoyance is that I see similarities to other anime that I really really like. I regard these as very good works of art, and these also use more simplistic line art, fluid movement, less shadows. They are ""simpler"" but express so much more than the typical shonen style can.

Click to expand...

I agree. The simpler art style is definitely better for animation. Just by watching the trailer, the way they animated Ash/Satoshi reactions looks great. Less is more in animation (which is the problem of most Light Novel and Manga adaptations: which look good on the page, but looks terrible when animated: mainly because of the overly complicated character designs.)

It looks like people are just way too shaken up with the art style change. Also some of their preconceptions are being tainted by the people who say that the show looks garbage (Some poketubers, says that the animation looks just as bad as Best wishes, That Ash/Satoshi is a cartoon character placed into an anime world[which is absurd in my opinion], and simply that the Show looks like garbage now and their scared for the future. Also some Amourshipers are losing their minds and saying the shows going to be bad because of the absence of Serena) You always have to keep an open mind when experiencing something new.

Their just basing how bad the "Animation" or "Art Style" solely on the Ash/Satoshi redesign.

Also, I think some of the fans just haven't watched a whole lot of other anime. That's why i think they're reacting the way that they are... Different Animation studio's or departments generally have different art and animation styles. but, fans do tend to over react when their favorite anime looks different (See: log horizon when they changed animation studios).

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In closing: I'm looking forward to the Sun and Moon anime. But, I do dislike Ash/Satoshi redesign(Mainly because I just fell in love with how good Kalos Ash/Satoshi looks) but I hope I grow to love it... also the show looks fine animation wise. Again just keep an open mind so you don't taint the experience for yourself :D

I think most people only have an issue with Ash's design (and apparently meant to be reset to BW levels). I've not seen anyone complain about other characters (I've seen people saying Lillie looks really good) or the quality of the animation. It's simply the mere-exposure effect at work, we've become accustomed to Ash so much that seeing him drawn any other way means it looks weird. Had the Sun/Moon animation been the norm for 20 years, there would be an outcry if he was changed to XY animation.

Cheers for that post Nina. Very informative read.

Frozocrone said:

I think most people only have an issue with Ash's design (and apparently meant to be reset to BW levels). I've not seen anyone complain about other characters (I've seen people saying Lillie looks really good) or the quality of the animation. It's simply the mere-exposure effect at work, we've become accustomed to Ash so much that seeing him drawn any other way means it looks weird. Had the Sun/Moon animation been the norm for 20 years, there would be an outcry if he was changed to XY animation.

Cheers for that post Nina. Very informative read.

Click to expand...

Yep everyone's going insane over the Ash/Satoshi redesign... they even say the "animation" is horrible: even tho it looks just fine. The other characters looks good... Also the new pokemon animation looks amazing (See: when Pikachu was dashing his fur seemed to move with them breaking his outline with speed lines :D)

I just wanted to add a little bit more to my point.

Nina said:

I also want to make a note that if shading is used in Steven Universe, it rarely has many levels. If it's used, it's usually for a specific purpose. To create mood. Shading Ash with just local color down to 4 levels is just kind of overkill and doesn't really add anything other than some details. The pokemon anime has never been much more than literal and safe with it's lighting choices.

Click to expand...

Following the logic than the anime is using a different style that is more fluid and more dramatic, I feel like this image is proof we're gonna get some cool/more interesting scenes.


In addition, with the higher quality teaser released, we can see this scene more. Which is actually really exciting looking, the way the lightening is rendered and the fact that the background becomes desaturated to bring all the focus on to the attack.

I prefer the art style of the indigo/Johto/Hoenn series, but with X/Y's animation because everything is more fluid due to advances in technology.

I have no idea what's happened to Sun/Moon. It's really too early to form a proper opinion, but first impressions aren't great at all, Ash looks terrible but the other characters look ok.