Ask John: What Makes Good Animation Good?

Question:
Recently I have heard a lot about animation quality as one of the qualities when it comes to determining whether an anime is good or bad. But I actually have no idea how one should define good animation quality in anime. Is it detailed colorful frames? Does it have to do with more frames per second equal fluid movement? And finally how does budget affect the quality of an anime?

Answer:
Countless anime fans tend to define their affection for anime with broad terms and generalize reaction with critique. Such exuberance is certainly welcome in the otaku community, but at the same time it can also be irritating because it’s not always technically accurate. Countless fans thoughtlessly say “good animation” when they’re actually referring to visual appearance: character design, color design and contrast, background design. Strictly speaking, “animation” doesn’t refer to how an anime looks; it refers to how an anime moves, literally how well it’s animated.

Film is projected at 24 frames per second while NTSC television is aired at 30 frames per second. In other words, for a Japanese anime movie, each image on the film reel appears on screen for 1/24th of a second. In order to create the image of movement, conventional hand drawn animation has traditionally been produced with twelve drawings photographed to create each second of film. Each drawing appears on two frames of film; when strung together, the images create the impression of movement. This practice of drawing enough art to allow each step in a motion to consist of two frames is called “twos.” Traditionally, in order to save money and time, Japanese animation has relied upon “twos” or even “threes” or “fours” to reduce the number of hand-drawn illustrations necessary to create animation. Reportedly vintage Disney movies frequently used 18, rather than 12, drawings per second to create slightly smoother, more fluid animation. The best traditional animation is animated on “ones,” meaning that a single second of on-screen footage, which consists of 24 or 30 frames of film, was actually created with 24 or 30 separate hand-drawn illustrations. Naturally, drawing, coloring, and photographing that many separate images is time consuming and more costly. For an ideal example of the effect that different animation frame rates make, sample episodes of the 2005 Mushishi anime television series. While standard character movements were animated in typical “twos,” the movements of the ethereal, ghost-like mushi were animated in “ones.” The visual effect is that the fluid, lifelike movement of the mushi appears to be CG rendered when, in fact, it’s all hand-drawn traditional animation.

In practical terms, especially fluid animation stands out. Especially when viewers are used to conventional Japanese animation that uses “limited animation,” animation that takes shortcuts like using “twos, threes,” or “fours” instead of animating every single frame, the visual impact of highly fluid animation is almost jarring. Although the eye can’t distinguish frame count, the mind will unconsciously notice when movement is more fluid. Particularly in the 1980s, when Japan was flush with money and animators had the luxury of indulging their animator’s desires, many anime productions had especially intricate, fluid animation because there was more money available to pay animators to drawn more frames of animation. These days, however, with tighter budgets and schedules, especially well animated anime is far less common. However, occasionally stand-outs like Mushishi do appear. Contemporary anime like Gunslinger Girl, Manabi Straight, Denno Coil, RD Sennou Choushashitsu, and Kamichu have unusually fluid animation. Feature films like Welcome to the Space Show, the Kara no Kyokai movies, and Redline also feature more animation than usually included in anime films, and more fluid, smooth motion animation than usually present in anime features.

Animation quality is certainly an interesting component of anime, and it can certainly advance the quality of an anime. But animation quality alone doesn’t define the quality of an anime and shouldn’t be the foremost criteria that an observer or critic looks at. Shows like History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Toriko, and Fairy Tail, for example, have rather poor animation quality yet are still very popular. Anime like Manabi Straight and especially the Crayon Shin-chan movies have excellent animation quality yet aren’t popular among American viewers at all. Appreciating frame rates and technical artistry are intriguing aspects of anime fandom, but examining the trees while missing the forest isn’t the point.