Process and Production - A Brief History of... Anime, quality animation

Anime has always been very subjective over here in the west as, for various reasons. But something that is quite prominent in comparison to western works is how animations worked up until the teens (recently). Before recently anime animations were very minimalistic in their movements when possible, an animation was more like an animatic than an actual animation, with little movement on characters except their mouths which would just fluctuate open and closed with out any movement of the chin. A character was always personified by their back story and the words they disgorged never by their actions which removes you from the characters ploy and fight somewhat as they could pretty much be statues. This would normally come down to budgets, and this was more specific to anime series over anime movies. Anime movies had larger budgets which in turn resulted in better quality animation an example wold be 'Summer wars' which had a lot of movement and life to the characters actions showing each ones individuality compared to something such as, say Dragon Ball where everyone was the same static character yelling for five episodes.

This isn't to say that anime series aren't getting better, in recent years, (id say 2013 to present) series animation is gradually getting better along with the stories. I like to use Death Parade as my example here as (SPOILERS) one of the final scenes is of a character ice skating on what appears to be 24 frames a second which took a much longer period of time than older animations, it isn't just that but also the characters expressions and actions nothing is wasted and its in there for a reason not just because its easier. It does have some still shots these are minimal and get surpassed by the expressions and behaviour of the characters who initially start out very meek and stale showing little to none of their character but this is gradually changed and revealed as their faces contort and stretch to show their conflicting emotions.

(Watch Death Parade its amazing!)