Well, you knew I would eventually create this post. Which anime blog wouldn't have a post about CG and its impact in anime. Anybody who knows anything about anime knows that there is an everlasting debate whether CG in anime is any good. If you live under a rock and don't know what CG is (in that case I wonder why you clicked on this post) then simply...it's 3-d animation like Toy Story or any other Pixar movie in fact. I thought it was only right to do my part and add my own post on the subject. This is a great time to write this post because Berserk 2017 is only weeks away and I have things to say! So without any further interruptions, let's begin.
Why Even With CG!?
Before I give you my stance and you either start a flame war or praise me (hoping for praise), let's see why anime even uses CG to begin with. If you don't really care about this part you can scroll down and just see my opinion but if for whatever reason you hunger for knowledge and shit then let me explain the most general reasons why anime, which is 2-D would ever use CG.
Reason #1: Artistic Vision
CG has the ability to be really great and has in fact changed the animation industry for the better. That can be said especially for the west. We here in the USA have animation giants Pixar and Dreamworks who have filled our childhoods with pure happiness and there are plenty more companies that have been quickly rising including Blue Sky, Warner Animation Group, Illumination, and Sony Pictures Animation. Of course all these companies make movies, not series which require 3 to 5 times the content. When you only need to fill out 90 minutes compared to several hours, you have more time to polish your work. I'm getting off track; the point I'm trying to make is that CG can be very beautiful and that could very well be the reason why Japanese animation companies choose to put CG in their anime. They want to create that same beauty that has taken over the 21st century by storm and want to contribute to the still rather new animation medium.
Reason #2: Bitches Got To Save Money
Time for the more pessimistic view of CG in anime. Saving money is always on companies minds when making a product. If you can find a way to save money while more or less keeping the same quality then why wouldn't you use it. CG saves money for traditional animation companies in the long run because the cost of making 2-D animation is high! If you want more detail, I suggest you go to the internet for more in-depth explanation. Some people have this weird belief that CG is more expensive because it's the newer art-form and looks more advanced but compared to 2-D animation, it is a lot cheaper. Entire shows can be made on a small budget thanks to CG (*coughs* Berserk & Ajin) but the idea of CG series is still not all that welcomed yet. Anyway... I can go on about the financial implications of CG animation but this isn't an Economics class so we'll move on.
Reason #3: CG Saves Time!
CG has the great ability to save time because of how reusable it is. Unlike in traditional animation where you have to redraw a lot of things over like character movement, expression and what not; in CG you just have to make the model once and then you can use that same model throughout the show. There isn't any need for redrawing. It's all ready thanks to the advancements of technology. CG is especially useful when you have to animate tons of people and don't feel like drawing them all. We've seen these kinds of things; CG cars or robotic looking civilians walking through a city. We can tell when CG is used to save time and to be honest...those usually don't look all that great. There are examples of good CG to save time. Drifters for example did that at the very beginning of the show with the scene about all the soldiers heading to fight. That looked pretty good but that's just one example and I can't really think of another one right now. Artistic vision, saving money, and saving time are general (don't get on my ass about other reasons; I know there are other reasons) reasons why we have CG in our anime and now the question comes. Is CG any good for anime?
Reason #1: Artistic Vision
CG has the ability to be really great and has in fact changed the animation industry for the better. That can be said especially for the west. We here in the USA have animation giants Pixar and Dreamworks who have filled our childhoods with pure happiness and there are plenty more companies that have been quickly rising including Blue Sky, Warner Animation Group, Illumination, and Sony Pictures Animation. Of course all these companies make movies, not series which require 3 to 5 times the content. When you only need to fill out 90 minutes compared to several hours, you have more time to polish your work. I'm getting off track; the point I'm trying to make is that CG can be very beautiful and that could very well be the reason why Japanese animation companies choose to put CG in their anime. They want to create that same beauty that has taken over the 21st century by storm and want to contribute to the still rather new animation medium.
Reason #2: Bitches Got To Save Money
Time for the more pessimistic view of CG in anime. Saving money is always on companies minds when making a product. If you can find a way to save money while more or less keeping the same quality then why wouldn't you use it. CG saves money for traditional animation companies in the long run because the cost of making 2-D animation is high! If you want more detail, I suggest you go to the internet for more in-depth explanation. Some people have this weird belief that CG is more expensive because it's the newer art-form and looks more advanced but compared to 2-D animation, it is a lot cheaper. Entire shows can be made on a small budget thanks to CG (*coughs* Berserk & Ajin) but the idea of CG series is still not all that welcomed yet. Anyway... I can go on about the financial implications of CG animation but this isn't an Economics class so we'll move on.
Reason #3: CG Saves Time!
CG has the great ability to save time because of how reusable it is. Unlike in traditional animation where you have to redraw a lot of things over like character movement, expression and what not; in CG you just have to make the model once and then you can use that same model throughout the show. There isn't any need for redrawing. It's all ready thanks to the advancements of technology. CG is especially useful when you have to animate tons of people and don't feel like drawing them all. We've seen these kinds of things; CG cars or robotic looking civilians walking through a city. We can tell when CG is used to save time and to be honest...those usually don't look all that great. There are examples of good CG to save time. Drifters for example did that at the very beginning of the show with the scene about all the soldiers heading to fight. That looked pretty good but that's just one example and I can't really think of another one right now. Artistic vision, saving money, and saving time are general (don't get on my ass about other reasons; I know there are other reasons) reasons why we have CG in our anime and now the question comes. Is CG any good for anime?
Do I Hate CG?
Now listen everyone...I DO NOT hate CG itself. I think when CG is executed properly, it can be the most beautiful art medium ever but It just doesn't work for anime. It is very hard for animation companies to make CG look good because they have many restraints that prevent them from polishing it. I understand why sometimes, they're forced to use CG for the sake of making the deadline or complexity but CG can really break our immersion of a show.
Let's use a simple example. I'm pretty sure we all know The Amazing World of Gumball. I can safely say that most people think this show is cool because it mixes different art mediums and integrates them all into one show. That may be cool, but it totally destroys the possible immersion for the show. The Amazing World of Gumball will not immerse you into the world because the animation is too much to take in. You as the viewer can easily differentiate the changes in animation; this leads to you getting subconsciously distracted and not immersing yourself into the world of the show! If CG is noticeably bad or distinguishable in any way, it is possible for your immersion to be shattered.
I'm not saying CG will always break immersion. CG can be just as good at creating immersion as traditional animation. If you have ever seen Ghost in the Shell Innocence, there's a beautiful parade scene that mixes both 2-D and CG animation. We can tell there's CG but it is WAY better than most CG in anime. The two mediums mix really well together and make it a super cool scene. I'll leave that scene down below or leave a link to the video if the video is not playing here on Blogger. (The linked version looks better)
Ghost in the Shell Innocence Parade Scene
This is what the anime industry should strive for. There's beginning to be a norm where we expect CG to bad, average at best but we as viewers should help animation companies understand that we won 't tolerate bad CG. Hopefully, the increase in technology and fast growth of the animation industry will make it easier to bring high quality CG in animated works. There are shows out there now that are trying to turn CG into a more accepted medium; more of a norm so to speak. Let's talk about those and see whether they're helping the CG movement.
If you guys are to learn anything from what I've written, it's that CG still has a way to go to be implemented and accepted by the masses. Just like in any form of media, there a good and bad side. I think it would be best if we support companies that try to integrate CG into mainstream animation and not forget the positives of CG. Right now, CG might not look great in or anime but with time, I'm sure it will develop into the kind of quality we expect from CG animation giants Pixar or Blue Sky. We need this crappy CG in our anime so we can get better CG in the future. So my answer to the question of this post is Yes, CG is good for anime.
I hope you all enjoyed this post. Please feel free to comment down below about whatever you want and follow the blog if you like what I do. Also, it would be awesome if you could check out my YouTube Channel, GiraffePants Anime, for more great content. I'll have a new post up ASAP so stay informed and until next time, later!
Let's use a simple example. I'm pretty sure we all know The Amazing World of Gumball. I can safely say that most people think this show is cool because it mixes different art mediums and integrates them all into one show. That may be cool, but it totally destroys the possible immersion for the show. The Amazing World of Gumball will not immerse you into the world because the animation is too much to take in. You as the viewer can easily differentiate the changes in animation; this leads to you getting subconsciously distracted and not immersing yourself into the world of the show! If CG is noticeably bad or distinguishable in any way, it is possible for your immersion to be shattered.
I'm not saying CG will always break immersion. CG can be just as good at creating immersion as traditional animation. If you have ever seen Ghost in the Shell Innocence, there's a beautiful parade scene that mixes both 2-D and CG animation. We can tell there's CG but it is WAY better than most CG in anime. The two mediums mix really well together and make it a super cool scene. I'll leave that scene down below or leave a link to the video if the video is not playing here on Blogger. (The linked version looks better)
Ghost in the Shell Innocence Parade Scene
This is what the anime industry should strive for. There's beginning to be a norm where we expect CG to bad, average at best but we as viewers should help animation companies understand that we won 't tolerate bad CG. Hopefully, the increase in technology and fast growth of the animation industry will make it easier to bring high quality CG in animated works. There are shows out there now that are trying to turn CG into a more accepted medium; more of a norm so to speak. Let's talk about those and see whether they're helping the CG movement.
Berserk (2016)
Now, I'm not gonna talk about whether the show was any good or anything like that. I'm merely gonna talk about the CG. Berserk attempted to continue its series in a completely different art medium and man...that was not a good decision. There were times that the CG looked acceptable but there were just as many times where it didn't look too great. Characters in the air were there for a frame longer than they should of, face movement seemed mechanical and movement wasn't much better at times. A lot of times, my immersion of the show was broken (we're talking about A LOT of times) and it was hard to concentrate on the show. It didn't make it better that there were 2-D scenes that looked freaking gorgeous followed by the CG. I'd end up saying "Baby come back!" and hoping for another couple of seconds where the show would switch to 2-D again. I ended up enjoying the show though because even though the CG sucked balls, the story made up for it. I'm hoping they polish off the CG with Berserk 2017 in the spring. Overall, the CG in Berserk left me unsatisfied as a viewer and slightly ruined a show I loved (cue in sad violin).
Ajin
Here's another dominantly CG show I recently saw last year. I was hesitant to watch the show because I feared for the CG but the story of Ajin was well done so I stuck with it. Compared to Berserk, Ajin was a lot more fluid. The movements seemed more natural and faces were much more complex. What Ajin lacks that Berserk did a better job was in the detail department. Ajin was a lot less detailed; faces lacked depth and distinguish-ability and backgrounds were much simpler. I liked the show but I can't stop but feel it could have been better in 2-D. It's strange that this phenomenon exists where we see something from Pixar or Dreamworks and we aren't turned off by it but the minute CG is in our anime, we get critical. That may be a bad example since both are quite different. A better example is Jimmy Neutron. That show was full CG but I don't hear anybody complaining about it! That was a show that faces a similar environment like anime but for whatever reason we're more critical about anime than we are western television.
If you guys are to learn anything from what I've written, it's that CG still has a way to go to be implemented and accepted by the masses. Just like in any form of media, there a good and bad side. I think it would be best if we support companies that try to integrate CG into mainstream animation and not forget the positives of CG. Right now, CG might not look great in or anime but with time, I'm sure it will develop into the kind of quality we expect from CG animation giants Pixar or Blue Sky. We need this crappy CG in our anime so we can get better CG in the future. So my answer to the question of this post is Yes, CG is good for anime.
I hope you all enjoyed this post. Please feel free to comment down below about whatever you want and follow the blog if you like what I do. Also, it would be awesome if you could check out my YouTube Channel, GiraffePants Anime, for more great content. I'll have a new post up ASAP so stay informed and until next time, later!
