Stop Blaming Budget For Animation Quality! [Rant]

[@TheRainSnake]

I see you're not using any anime footage. Did you run out of your footage budget? :3

[@TheRainSnake]

***** Yeah there must have been some serious cuts.

[@thefamemonster32]

its lika an animation switch

[@tdfern1]

TheRainSnake Ummm, copyright I guess?

[@mr.mlaststandsite813]

God *why*

[@ThexDynastxQueen]

Everyone at Toei: HOW DARE YOU TRY TO DEBUNK OUR #1 EXCUSE!! (╬ಠ益ಠ)

[@Ruldolphmaker]

+The Dynast Queen Budget is more than just money. budget is also time required, and allocated resorces. take One Piece for instance. One Piece was budgeted a drawing limit of 3000 (average 12 episode anime is 4000 - 4500) One Piece's current budget is 10 mil yen It takes less than 2 months to produce an episode (scripting, story boarding, Layoyt and Design, animatics, key framing, shipping to Toei Philliphenes for Inbetweening, Coloring, Backgroud design, post production and correcting) It looking the way it normally does now makes sense. Now say you have a higher budget, and more freedom with time and resources. Things can get dont at higher quality because now you can pay your animators a bit more, and give them more time to complete their work. This is why i will in fact disagree wih Digibro. Budget can in fact make or break an anime. For some shows you can get away with it.... Shows like Detective conan which consist mostly of stills and very limited movements can get away with it definitely. But in the end you have to remember. Anime is an industry that is designed to push merchandise. Its made on the cheap and on the fly, which is why the majority of it abuses limtied animation (and the reason a lot of older animators dont like it).... Here are examples of long runners with higher budgets Gintama HxH (they could budget this show better) Yugioh Zexal and Arc V The Precure franchise these shows run off a higher priority budget than a show like One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Detective Conan, fairy tail and as such tend to look better.... thats just the way it is if you want better more impressive looking shows i recommend you go watch the 12 episode shows.

[@ThexDynastxQueen]

+Ruldolphmaker You mean to reply to me, amigo? Either way I think you misunderstand Digibro's point. His argument is that budget is important but it isn't the *_single most important asset ever_* that makes a series good and blaming everything on it is shortsighted. Direction, time, management, etc are all needed to effectively utilize a budget or lack there of like any endeavour. Like if you took animation classes I'm sure your professor would not accept shit 2 fps work because _"I didn't have the money"_ as even though they aren't expecting Disney movie tier work they do expect to see quality for your time and effort. Money=/=effort. Same process, different application. Money can't solve incompetence or make up for time just as passion alone can't solve lack of finances for products. Its like thinking more explosions make a better action movie or less so makes it more mature lol. So all Digi is saying is its a balancing act but only money gets focused on as if it creates quality. This is an extreme example but look at Food Fight, no amount of money could save that train wreck.

[@petruciosxdrn5881]

+The Dynast Queen Dot-eyed Beerus disaproves this vide.

[@milosniffer5293]

The Dynast Queen. That isn't their excuse? The reason why most of their shows don't look as good as other shows from other studios is because they have too many shows currently airing and they have to spread the animators out

[@TCovenantUnbeliever]

I think a lot of people kind of missed the point of this rant.. I think the point was rather that two studios with identical budgets can produce vastly different animation quality based on how they schedule and how good they are at bringing in talent. Compare Kyoani and A1 and this becomes incredibly apparent.

[@beloved1840]

but kyoto animation does a great job at both animation and adapting a story... they even turned a shitty manga into a lovable show

[@brry_01]

@@beloved1840 that's the point. KyoAni

[@zenxmizuki]

People in the comment section are definitely misunderstanding the point of this rant... Look at BONES studio for example, they don't make alot of money on their anime compared to kyoani and sunrise does but they manage to maintain their trademark of high quality works. Of course we all know budget matters but what really matters the most is the talent. BONES had some remarkable staff like Yutaka Nakamura or also known as Yutapon which could also be called their trademark animator (See his works, I tell you)... The best example of an anime with high quality animation but relatively average budget would be space dandy. It didn't managed to sell much but watch it from first to last episode, each episode is oozing with quality

[@henlo1910]

Your pic and name ooze with quality.

[@Codeninja676]

+I love Anal It's both Talent and TIME the thing that everyone seems to gloss over is that most anime with crappy animation have really tight schedules to the point that they rush the animation errors be dammed.

[@MrBattlestar10]

Bones is owned by a massive company. They already have a large pile of cash being allocated to them. They don't really need to make money on their anime...because they'll have lots of money none the less.

[@zenxmizuki]

***** wut? As far as I know BONES works as an independent company... care to explain what company supports them and why does that company give them financial support

[@MrBattlestar10]

I love Anal Square Enix. I have no idea.

[@zman2748]

I was not prepared for beard-free digibro. lookin like a damn middle schooler.

[@nachochips8090]

same, I was thinking if this was dubbed over for a minute

[@MapleFried]

Cancerous Weeaboo he has two lol

[@crazysmith01]

This video could be given not just to movies but to many forms of art. Video games, movies, anime, regular cartoons. Great video

[@StarGazer087]

So basically like with most things, when you over simplify you tend to horribly misunderstand the fact of the matter

[@TiagoAMGomes]

IAmTheMikko Digi didn't say that budget has NOTHING to do with quality. In the vid, he said that if you have more money, you can hire better artists. At the end of the day, talent creates quality (and a good budget helps, but not as much as people think).

[@Panory]

***** I think of it as a glass ceiling. More money means better animation, but eventually throwing money at the production does nothing of note anymore.

[@koseanimation118]

+Tiago Gomes there are two things you need for great animation, talented animators, and the money to pay for them to work at their best, talent and money go hand and hand. Digipro does make good points in this vid, but he also makes some very overly simple statements that's don't really make all that much sense. You can't have great animation of yore not going to pay for it. And that's not just in keep animation, that comes with also paying the right amount in betweeners as well. It's not just one simple thing, creating animation is a multi layered process which requires materials,equipment, people and time.

[@massimilianotron7880]

Stargazer 117 Who would have guessed...

[@rickycool6083]

except, money DIRECTLY affects all of those things. Sure you can find a great artist hiding in corner of the city who would work for barely any money if you are set on going on a witch hunt. But if you expect you can assemble a team of great animators who are insanely talented but also extraordinarily cheap then you are dreaming. Good talent is usually pricey, so if you want that you need more cash. Deadline is another point that determines the quality of an anime, which is again is directly manipulated with the budget. Bottom line it's a huge factor and the factor which determines all of the other things of any production of any kind. Also, talent isn't cheap.

[@cyncynshop]

1. People sees the title "Stop Blaming Budget For Animation Quality!" 2. Understand as "Money doesn't matter when making anime" (99.99% generalization of audiences) 3. Comment long paragraphs about "You need money to make anime, duh" (45% generalization of comment section) 4. Wait for it..... 5. CONGRATS! YOU DEPRIVED THE COMMENT SECTION OF GOOD DISCUSSION Reference: The quality of an anime does not equal the the frames in animation alone. It is true that good animators costs more. But Japanese animators are mostly underpaid and overworked that it really comes with the anime studios. It comes with management in hiring enough people to pace the production. It depends how well you use the money given to you and stretch it to your full capacity, aka direct your project well. e.g. some people can use $10 to buy a desk, but if you use the $10 to buy parts of the desk, and assemble the parts into an unique desk.

[@swagsukeuchiha7540]

someones been watching shirobako

[@Knetexh]

He's made a couple of videos about it....

[@sunnydong9069]

swagsuke Uchiha It's never a bad thing to display understanding and respect.PS. Shirobako is awesome.

[@jaykebird2go]

swagsuke Uchiha is that a bad thing? Shirobako actually gives some pretty good insight into the world behind an anime. Of course, watching Shirobako alone won't mean you know everything about anime, there's stuff it doesn't go into as well, but it is nice resource about anime, and done in an anime to boot.

[@123thof]

Jacob Huempfner Shirobako was terrific! It suffered from the KyoAni-style "so beautiful and shiny that it hurts the eyes" syndrome, but it was terrific.

[@jaykebird2go]

Thomas Hofheinz I'm not saying it wasn't terrific. In fact, if anything, I would be more inclined to agree with you.

[@zeadsi]

this was actually interesting, although I always thought this way regarding the people behind the project it's nice to see it articulated out on a video format.

[@lys4984]

Anyone who's about to try and argue with this video: Skip to 18:50, then listen to the end. After that, you may argue.

[@AdobadoFantastico]

As an animator, I have a lot of contentions with the various points here. Animators get shafted all the time. It's basically part of the business. The expectation of how much you're supposed to put in, how much you're supposed to contribute to improve and enhance stuff is *REALLY* high. While your value and retention is very low.. In Japan, it's even worse. I'd love to work on Anime, but would *never* submit myself to the kinds of schedules and pay those guys are expected to deal with. Japan probably has the most unhealthy animation industry as far as the environment for the animators in question. I should pause here to clarify. You're right that the difference between one and the next isn't based on budget. But the general level of quality that exists across the board is very much affected by compensation across the board. People get pushed out of the industry constantly as they age. There is no "talent", it's skill, experience, and time that makes the difference. Producers don't value skill/experience and their main focus is reducing time. They "value" it in the emotional, congratulatory sense, but not with *economic value* of putting their money where their mouth is. Once you have 10 years in, you're considered old and liable for replacement with someone younger who's "good enough" and willing to live in an empty apartment. The falloff for people leaving the industry for a different occupation before retiring is extremely high. I have friends and acquaintances who were at the leading edge of skill and have only been around for a few years before suddenly losing a lot of their motivation. They begin to phone in their work, or they just leave altogether. I know a girl who is an utterly badass concept artist/animator/visdev person and left completely after not even working for 5 years at a large animation studio I won't name. I get that, in part, you're differentiating between aesthetic choices and budget. But there's frankly a lot of crossover in the stuff you're talking about, and the base statement is pretty flawed. All that said, another thing to note is that an increase in budget does not correlate with an increase in compensation or an improved work environment(some of the things that will most drastically effect quality of output). Usually higher budget means higher expenses, more marketing, more compensation for people "running" the show and more money thrown at the well known faces/voices involved in the production. This is another reason for the non linear relationship between budgets and quality of output. A lot of the money disappears long before it reaches the people actually doing the work. Your statements about absent animation also belie an ignorance of the process and business. It's perfectly likely they didn't have the money at the time, and got more funding between airing the show and the dvd release. Money may be mostly from disc sales, but the show's reception still gives them an idea of what to expect. Or decided at that point that it was worth investing some extra into places they cut corners, with the hopes of motivating increased disc sales. Animators only being contracted to certain episodes sometimes *IS* a money issue. If they're tired, they'd extend the schedule....that's money. Shaft fixing animation for the disc IS a budget question. They didn't have the time during production, so they put it off. More money would mean more production time to get it done the first time. If it was the studio outsourcing, that's *ALWAYS* a budget concern. You don't outsource if you're not trying to manage budgets. It's just like day 1 content for video games. That's _weeks_ of extra work time you get to work on that. There are many factors that offset and effect schedules but they *_ALWAYS_* come down to money.

[@doltBmB]

Well budget does influence fluidity. Those inbetweens aren't going to draw themselves.

[@asmallbabby4205]

+doltBmB realistically, in-betweens are inferior to having more keyframes, while you do get more frames, making it "look expensive", the animation will still be robotic because anime tends to use straight linear tweens, they don't really have the time and talent to give it the Disney or classic Warner Bros treatment.

[@yesimstuntdude]

+doltBmB Inbetweens are cheap compared to keyframes. They're quicker to do, and you can usually pay someone less to do them.

[@doltBmB]

A Small Babby every frame can't be a key

[@RedZeshinX]

+doltBmB Sadly, modern anime productions now have access to software that can generate in-betweens, instead of actually hand-drawing them. So in a way, the desperate cost-cutting actually already is moving the medium in the direction of inbetweens drawing themselves.

[@carlosluismendez7392]

Who told you that they don't have talent? It' s hilarious How they were able to animate Disney and warner shows better than their american competition during the 90s. I`m talking about real tv shows, no theatrical shorts and movies passing as american tv. I like the kids running animation in the TV show denno coil much more than the floaty mess that was treasure planet for example. Even Glen keane praised the animation in Spirited away, the issue is schedule more than talent because i'm sure those Disney guys couldn't do shit in 4 weeks for a 25 minutes animation show. There is a fun story of a Disney animator who failed to join an anime studio because he didn't know how to draw a layout and clean their own animation.

[@KetenReviews]

Well said, man. Visuals are not just money being thrown in(Though that is part of it), it's usually more about how much effort, talent and love was put into a production that really determines how good something looks and feels. Granted, liking certain designs can be personal preferences too. I don't particularly like Moe so I don't really see KyoAni as all that amazing but I won't deny the effort and love they put into their series. I lean more towards Masaaki Yuasa and Yoshitoshi Abe works. Who are absolutely amazing.

[@Skapo]

Yeah man so budget plays a lot bigger role than what you think it does. There is only so far that talented people in any creative industry will go without getting paid well for their work. I am a cinematographer by trade and while I definitely work on a lot of passion projects, I don't like taking bullshit from someone who expects a $500k production on a $50k budget. It does not make good sense to work where you aren't able to progress yourself as a person and as a professional. Yes, there are tons of other factors in the show development process and those can effect someone's work ethic just as much as the money that they make, but at the end of the day it is the investors in the show who get to call the shots on almost anything in the show. I have directed branded spots that i had to basically kill the creative concept to meet their re-adjusted timelines and demands. This reflects badly on me because I, as the director, was the face of that spot's production. They controlled the money so they controlled the backend issues that the public never sees. This same concept is true of all entertainment based industries. With the added caveat that if you can prove a financial turnaround on a regular basis you can begin to be more demanding about having flexible timelines and hiring the talent who fits best instead of just who is available at the moment. I say all that just to clarify that while budget isn't the only factor in a production, it absolutely is one of the biggest inhibitors for artists who aren't megahit wonders who can ask for anything and get it. Though not universally true, it is a valid assumption to assume that a rushed looking anime was given a lame budget. Especially if it comes from an otherwise talented crew.

[@Trixiethegoldenwitch]

Skapo A few people have brought this up, but I think this is a good place to respond to it. I'm aware that the overall product is heavily affected by budget--there's a difference between a cheap show and an expensive one. What this video is more meant to criticize is the way people use phrases like "the budget ran out" or "this episode had more budget" and things like that. Not that neither of these are possible scenarios, but as I put it in the video, people act like there's a 1:1 correlation between money spent, and moment-to-moment animation quality. It leaves me wondering some things too, like whether certain good teams would ever touch a show if they didn't have budget assurance. I know that Shinichiro Watanabe shows are known for being expensive, and of everything he's directed, he's always had a huge team of mostly returning collaborators producing consistently gorgeous anime. Certainly, there are guys who know what they're worth and aren't gonna work on a low-budget project, and guys who have to work low-budget because they don't have that kind of clout. The question I want to get people to ask themselves, though, is whether or not that's what happened on the show they watched, or if it's possible that something totally different happened.

[@user-qb7he3mi1j]

***** The problem is that's what they signed up for. If you literally go into a job, knowing that the pay is very bad then why would you do it. If you agree to the pay, then no matter what job it is, you agree to work to the best of your abilities for that wage. It sucks, but if you are gonna work for that price then you can only blame yourself and the CEOs of the company. Also that wouldn't explain why Kyoto animation does so well while having a similar budget to most other animation studios. Budget only decides a part of the animation, at the end of the day, the animators are the ones who can make or break an anime.

[@andrewkful]

True that the better an animator is, the more he's gonna want to get paid. But the actual drawings, movement, anything else that goes into it is up to the motivation and energy of the animator. A good animator could do SHIT on a project because he wasn't into it. Budget has nothing to do with how good an animation is.

[@lorgarspersonalchair]

I pray for a day that the anime fandom can actually use their brains for one fucking second.

[@KudoRedfox]

Don't talk, make action

[@lorgarspersonalchair]

Kraven Blacktail

[@CodeBlazeFate]

Mika Starr Eat bread, make sandwiches! Know what I'm sayin'?

[@Doominator10]

So I guess Unlimited Budget Works is a misnomer :3?

[@RapDog62]

masterofthor But a great pun

[@RaphaelMYT]

masterofthor UBW production started pretty early so they had more time to work with it as compared to other studios

[@roblochon]

masterofthor the way Ufotable is handling UBW is by taking a season to prepare for a 1 cour show. So with their money, they are buying time and preparation to make a better show.

[@BigOnAnime94]

Raphael MYT Though season 2 is screwed. They got in like 3 episodes before episode 1 of S2 started. It's like Fate/Zero 2 all over again where they apparently started to have issues.

[@altera8242]

BigOnAnime94 Issues? Isn't cour 2 generally accepted as better than cour 1?

[@suburiboy]

In economics (I'm a PhD student) we often think of "budget" as being the total allocation of stuff. So certainly time is part of that. It may be ridiculous to say "the walk budget ran out" but if by budget you include time and productive talent, then it kinda isn't so fishy. The same way that people can just waste away their money, you can totally misspend your time and talent. Basically, someone did not budget the resources(money, time, skill, else) well enough to get the scene done. With the Shaft example, it is like they literally need to "spend more time."

[@Trixiethegoldenwitch]

***** That's pretty fair. I guess I'd be okay with people using it that way if I felt like they all understood it that way haha.

[@FireLord2506RS]

Yea, the issue is, your average youtube anime reviewer isn't using "budget" that way. They are using it in a purely monetary context.

[@TheMedicatedArtist]

big budget =/= good product You don't even have to look at anime to figure that out. *E.T. Atari* : video game; $20 - 25 million just for the rights, $125 million budget; 4 million copies made, 3.5 millon returned/unsold *The Good Dinosaur*: film; $175 - 200 budget, $332.2 at the box office Yes, I know E.T. was only made in four months, but that just proves my point; a big budget movie does not automatically mean that it will be successful. Also, a low budget doesn't mean something will automatically fail either. Paranormal Activity was made on a $5 million budget. The original Blair Witch had a budget of $60,000. Off the top of my head, Portal was originally a stocking stuffer; Valve never expected it to be anywhere near as successful as it became.

[@otterbeans]

Watching Shirobako really helped me to better understand how animation works, sort of like how reading Bakuman helpedme better understand how manga works. I wouldn't say they're the BEST references, but realistic enough, and manga/anime fans should check them out!

[@Lumipon]

Kill la Kill had a comparatively tight budget, if I remove correctly, but in spite of that oozes pure and utter love for anime as a craft. When Ryuko unites with Senketsu in the "combining mecha" sequence, the music ramps up and the VAs shout their lines what seems from the bottom of their hearts... I might have been just my imagination, but I felt that everyone involved must love what they do, or at least be skilled enough to fake that emotion to the audience. BUt I'd like to think making Kill la Kill was as rewarding as watching it was for me.

[@kuribo04]

Hve you seen the making ofs? They do have a lot of fun. They work hard too, but they laugh mostly.

[@Lumipon]

kuribo04 No, never though to look for such. I need to correct that! Cheers! :D

[@BelieMyBurial]

kuribo04 where can i find this making of?

[@CornishCreamtea07]

It came with the second volume of the US release.

[@kuribo04]

JoestarKisama​ Lumipon​ Go to a tumblr called nharime and look through the recent posts. ;)

[@ConvincingPeople]

Another problem with Eva is that they had to rewrite the ending because the SEELE plot as it was originally developed had unnerving parallels to the deadly Aum Shinrikyo gas attacks on the Tokyo subway that year. A huge chunk of completed material had to be thrown out entirely, which, combined with the change in time slot, Hideaki Anno's nervous breakdown, *and* their reduced budget for replacing what they had to throw out led to... well, how Eva ends. Incidentally, if you want a good example of what a show made on a shoestring budget actually looks like, look no further than Berserk. The show uses still frames extensively, and the animation itself is fairly limited, but the art itself is amazingly detailed and those still frames are often incorporated to stunning artistic effect. If you want to go even deeper down that rabbit hole, Midori: Shoujo Tsubaki was the product of one man working alone for five years on quite literally no budget to speak of. To say it looks nothing like, say, the sequences in Kill La Kill where Nui spins out of fights like a paper doll is a massive understatement. Strange how those two examples are incredibly violent, dark pieces of work based closely on cult manga. Not sure what that says or means.

[@MrBattlestar10]

Good ole Eva.

[@ilvaens2899]

Another enjoyable video from you. In my opinion almost everything you say is fair for every medium. For example, regardless of what Arakawa Hiromu, Urasawa Naoki or Oda Eiichiro are getting for their work, their manga are consistently great in terms of artistic style and storytelling. The only thing those creators can change with a greater income is a number of their assistants, I guess. Also (if i remember correctly) one of the reasons why Peter Jackson was hired for LoTR movies was his ability to do so much with a budget that nowadays (even taking inflation into account) wouldn't be considered huge for this kind of a film production. Anyway, thank you for this video, this "rant" was great!)))

[@beanplant620]

Animation student talking here and I have to say you are right on some parts and wrong on another. A budget comes into play on the style, and the amount of animation can be done. For example for a whole movie or episode you are going to have a set number of frames and time that is within the budget. Or for TV shows and most Anime it's about limited animation, where inbetweens are cut and the this is the cause to why in most anime scene you would have no movement in the backgroun character, most of the animation is focused on the main character. To be had Japanese Animation is much different then American. But basically it works as a lead animator has a scene assigned to him and his team. He/she will perform the key frames and determine the spacing and timing. From there it is passed to the inbetweeners who add the inbetweens and help the animation run more fluid. This you know. However my point I guess is that budget can have an effect on the animation, but this is usually seen when you have a small company or big company or move or TV animation and when it comes to full animation or limited animation.

[@carlosluismendez7392]

Kyoani budget is still similar to other studios. The reason why their shows are better animated than the rest is decent schedule and the fucking fact that all the animation is done in house, so no need to compete for freelancer when your employees are working only in your shows and they are very good. They are recruiting for 2017 while others studios are in desperate need of animators right now and I mean NOWWWWWW.

[@DraconisMarchVII]

"It's not like you plug more money in--therefore, it gets better looking." Case in point: Madoka Rebellion.

[@FourteenthAngel]

***** CoS is actually a pretty good looking film. It is a not a great film IMO but certainly aesthetically pleasing.

[@therexdragonblade6821]

first reaction to watching this video: OH SHIT, WHERE'S YER BEARD?

[@MineteInc]

Definitely agree this time around. It really annoys me when people say a show is bad because of its low budget. It doesn't matter if the budget was low or not. What matters is how well they handled the budget they were given.

[@CursedAbsol]

I only subbed recently, but man you are a lifesaver. I started an anime blog a little over a year ago, and since then I've had to learn a lot more about this art form I already thought I loved before. Thanks for the knowledge.

[@paulstaker8861]

Well animation quality comes from talent right? What do you hire talents with? Goodwill?

[@lachlanstill4813]

Paul Staker Actually yeah, kind of. Of course a skilled Key animator will demand a higher salary, but it isn't actually that much more, especially when considered in the grand scheme of the episode's budget. Say we take the $500,000 per episode figure, it doesn't impact you that much to pay a guy $18,000 instead of $12,000, and those numbers are just wild guesses; I'm fairly certain the numbers are lower than that. Animators are artists, so the top-tier ones often join on with a project the believe in and/or respect.

[@paulstaker8861]

Lachlan Still "top-tier ones often join on with a project the believe in and/or respect." I'm not sure how accurate this is.

[@lachlanstill4813]

Paul Staker High-level animators won't accept work on just any ecchi romcom. Because they are so skilled they can afford to pick and choose a bit more, because almost any series would be happy to have them helping them.

[@paulstaker8861]

Lachlan Still "Because they are so skilled they can afford to pick and choose a bit more." Yes. And I agree that they'd want to be attached with a decent project. But the thing is, animators are dime a dozen these days in Japan, they gotta make a living so the salary is still among their highest priorities. Bottom line: Of course the quality of a project is decided by many factors, but budget (along with management now that I have working experience) dwarfs staff output in deciding this quality.

[@lachlanstill4813]

Paul Staker You're ignoring an important facet of quality though, direction. The traditional "prettiness" of each frame matters far less than what each frame is, and what sequence of frames it is a part of. The best example of this is Ping Pong the animation, which was obviously made on an incredibly tight budget, but because it was directed by Masaaki Yuasa, it was one of, if not the, most visually impressive series of the year, and certainly the most visually interesting and unique. Another example would be the elevator scene in NGE. It is an *extremely* "low-budget" scene, but it's incredibly meaningful, much more so than a more traditional "high-budget" scene would have been. I will give you this, the budget up to a certain baseline has probably the largest impact on the quality of each given frame (although as I've established that can be worked around with good directing), but once you pass a certain minimum budget everything will look "good" anyway, and at that point it is only the talent of the animators that can make it look really good. TL;DR You need enough money to make something look "nice," but at that point you need the talent to make it stand out as something special. Very few animators can make stuff that looks amazing, they can just make stuff that looks "good" if given enough time and money.

[@jasonwaataja6232]

I've always enjoyed information about anime production and I've always found the process of bringing an idea to a collection of frames interesting. Fully animated videos similar to this one with example footage would be very fun to watch.

[@TyrannyOfObcenity9]

Really good video! Personally one of my favorite videos to come from you! Keep it up!

[@dawnflower123]

The animation director for Gurren Laggan episode 4 was Osamu Kobayashi, the same guy who directed BECK and Paradise Kiss. His style is a lot more focused on realism which doesn't really work on a show as "cartoony" as Gurren Lagann. Not that he isn't talented at what he does, his style just wasn't compatible.

[@dalekusa]

Also, thoughts on Sailor Moon Crystal's animation issues, which many people blame on budget?

[@TiagoAMGomes]

Jacob Smith Or any Toei Animation project, for that matter.

[@totoumisback]

Just to help you out on the start of your research: First the art director of HSI on the backrounds: ultimatemegax.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/hanairo-notebook-2.pdf Interviewer: The backgrounds of Hanasaku Iroha are quite the lovely charm, aren’t they? Art Director: One could certainly be happy to say that, huh? *I think this is due to the earnest work schedule that P.A. Works has as well as the enthusiasm that the staff takes to “produce a good work.”* And then there’s the timing. Hirayangi-san, who assists me in my role as art director, was originally supposed to be it himself. He’s given a lot of special help to us. And then there’s the staff at Easter too who helped push our work higher. It’s like a step up when you’re growing older. *I’ve heard people ask ‘How much money did you spend on the backgrounds of Hanasaku Iroha?!’, but that’s not the issue.* It’s the splendid power and timing from all of the staff. Everyone has to be on the same page in order to produce a good work. And then it also takes time as well. I think P.A. Works has a good way of thinking in order to produce a great product.” This is from a french interview of the kill la kill staff, translated by me: www.manganimation.net/interviews/sushio-shigeto-koyama-takafumi-hori-studio-trigger-connichi-2014 interviewer:If there's one criticism that could be made against the animation of kill la kill is that it alternates between moments of exceptional animation like episode 15 and abuse of limited animation. Shigeto Koyama:The difference of quality in the episodes is due to the varied nature of the staff.*If the episode was well animated it means the staff working on it was good.If not it means that sadly the staff wasn't up to par.* Sushio: It was a deliberate choice to give the animation a very 80s style (...) *Also the producer Matsumoto chose to invest more budget in the most important episodes that have more impact.* *Interviewer: So the show had no planning problems?* *Tatsuru Tatemoto : The show had no planning period.* Also in French, Thomas Romain on satelight's decision to go with CG for the concert scenes of AKB0048 : www.podcast48.com/interview/japan-expo-akb0048-linterview-des-designers.html Interviewer: So this is a deliberate choice because those scenes could not be done just in 2D?It's not just a budget issue? Thomas Romain: No frankly it wasn't doable, it's not to save money.We have a budget and we want to do the best with what we have, in this case this was the best option or else there would have been far fewer scenes, those scenes would have used up all our good animators and the quality of other scenes would have suffered. *We're one studio, with a certain number of talents, we don't have an infinite amount of good animators.We have to use them in the right places for the episode to be the best possible* and since we have a good CG team we wanted to have them work on it so everybody ended up bringing their know how.

[@TheTsugnawmi2010]

In the same way that a poor craftsman blames his tools, a poor animation studio blames its budget. The tool only allows you to do so much regardless of how good it is. It's YOUR skill, effort, competence and creativity that ultimately determines the end product

[@Renyth]

A good team and a patient publisher. Money is basically a variable but not the end all be all. It helps though if you're drawing 24/7 knowing your family isn't starving to death.

[@Feldi]

I wouldn't always even Blame it on the skill of the animation Studio. Tight Deadlines are also a problem. And those who know at least a little bit about animation knows, that even bad inbetweeners can ruin the whole animation. I got a lot of my knowleadge on animation studios I got from the Anime "Shirobako" which also inspired me to start animating. Let's just say that there are a lot of factors effecting the quality of an animation.

[@CodeBlazeFate]

Feldi Well, he did mention that schedule plays a big part in it as well, and mentions in it constantly. It was said in the beginning and as a hypothetical for the Eva example.

[@SiliconChipCookie]

It's about time constraints... I studied animation and had worked as a rotoscope artist. The biggest enemy in any creative industry is always the short deadline that's too much for us to handle, so we go on overtime like every single day... I strongly believe that it's passion that puts up a good result not money. We enjoy what we do, just that people of business have a different idea-make money fast...

[@amrit6252]

This was such an eye opening video about anime production. I hope this helps anime reviewers be a little more nuanced with their critique and this is definitely going to help me to look at occasional hiccups in anime production from a completely different perspective. Great video! :D

[@GabeSweetMan]

As an animator I figure I'll give my two cents for what it's worth. The way you're describing the process of animation makes it extremely clear that you have no actual idea what goes on from start to finish. By how you're describing the process of animating, you make it seem as though animators are drawing perfect line art at a consistent rate and the sole defining factor for the quality of that art being the talent of that artist. While a more talented/experienced animator can certainly animate faster, I can assure you they are NOT creating the final version of the scene in the first go. There was one legendary animator who was known for his incredible draftsmanship and utilized this workflow and his name was Milt Kahl. His impressive ability to draw near perfect drawings on his first attempt was a sight to behold, however the downside was that he would spend several hours (sometimes days!) drawing NOTHING, but instead planning out the entire scene in his head and then drawing the entire scene in a single sitting. So this method DOES EXIST, but it is a very rare skill, and it is still extremely time consuming. If Milt Kahl were working in the anime industry, he would be hired in the morning, asked why we wasn't animating at lunch, and fired in the evening. Most animators however, need to draw the same scene over and over and over again to get it right. First they create thumbnails to figure out the fundamental poses of the characters (dialogue scenes, especially in anime, often skip this step because usually the characters are static in the scene), next they draw roughs which look like absolute garbage but are meant more to time out the broader movements of the characters, next are the tie-downs, which are still fairly rouge however the drawings finally resemble the characters being animated. However, sometimes the animator is dissatisfied with their roughs/tie downs and would prefer to do them again, however limited budgets often leave them little choice but submit their first draft to the inking process. This is why lower budgets result in poorer animation. Yes, a more talented animator will be able to create a more fluid scene in fewer iterations, but more iterations will lead to better results in every instance.

[@Anamizuki]

+TitanAura The thing is, that is the american animation process. Which is far more through. What animators in Japan are dealing with is very different. Even if your lineart looks crappy, it goes to inking because there is hurry to get it all ready. It will be fixed on the DVD release. As Digi said here, these animators are doing their work in such an awful pace, that only pure skill can make anything look good. And often doesn't.

[@yesimstuntdude]

+TitanAura Most of what you said is completely orthogonal to what was said in the video.

[@l34str0]

Very insightful, and interesting. Thanks for posting this. I also share the opinion that budget constraints are not the end all be all reason for poor animation quality, and "budget" has become somewhat of a buzzword. I'd like to put forward, what I believe could be, an interesting fray of discussion on this topic. While anime is indeed an art form, it is also a huge business. Kyoto animation may pursue passion projects and therefore your explanation for their quality sits well. However there are studios like Toei or who will often run anime as promotion for toys or games in which case the actual end goal wouldn't necessarily be making art, it would be the ends to some commercial campaign.In that case animation quality can probably be linked to budget....

[@joshuafalck_]

Time is part of the budget.

[@cherriegetison7948]

Management can be a make-or-break factor, but the majority of the quality of a series rests on the artists, who need to be paid based on their skill and experience. I can cherry-pick talented artists for my production, but I won't expect to pay them the same as anyone without their skills. Many anime artists work huge overtime for little pay, overworked to the point of hospitalization. (If studios as a whole need breaks from shows they were tasked to do, then what does that say about the demands of each artist?) Think of it this way: If a studio tries to push a little extra work on the artist, and that artist works ambitiously through sweat and tears to complete it, that artist has just set a new standard for himself/herself as well as his/her fellow artists at the studio. Even for American animation union artists, where labor laws are stricter, artists who are scared that they might lose their jobs if they don't keep up with their tasks may solve the solution by secretly bringing work home to finish without pay in order to keep up appearances, which then sets a new standard for everyone in the studio. Rinse, repeat. I interned on an animated show with quite a few seasons on it, and I learned that the workload per artist only increased. If a studio is able to make great animation from a modest budget and uniquely ambitious animators, I wouldn't call it a standard. If some productions are able to go out of their way to create great work with little funding, I respect their choices. But I wouldn't shame low budget productions for looking low budget. It doesn't mean that their artists are less talented. It could be that their management had tighter demands. It could be that their management decided that a few derp faces were okay given their constraints. Unless a big name product was given a low budget for purely bottom line reasons, then I usually don't knock a production for slip-ups. Personally, I have a very Western view of animation, in that the designs should be simplified in order to put more effort towards the actual animation. (It's fun to have the chance to really let a character move, not so much fun drawing a character's elaborate hair adornments and knowing that I'd need to stiffen that character up to make the cut.) Personally, I love Evangelion for the fact that it was an unintentional parable to animation hardships. Part 1: Going by the books. Part 2: Trying new things. Part 3: Downfall via overambition. Part 4: Pure madness.

[@iamsaztak]

your passion and wealth of knowledge make for surprisingly interesting shows. Usually people who are this passionate about it can't actually communicate it very well, or they can't get people interested in what they have to say. you do a great job at it, though, and I think it's just your honesty and confidence. it's hard for really passionate people to take a 'stand' against possible criticism, but you seem so natural. I wish I knew someone like you irl lol

[@V2ULTRAKill]

5 years later this still applies Not every studio can have the in house staff of ufo or trigger so not every studio just has access to legends on the regular whenever they want regardless of budget Give Imaishi infinite budget and it would probably look better than if Ikuhara had the same budget because Imaishi puts so much emphasis on visual flow with his direction and can play off the strengths of ALL his animation staff. Similar things go for KyoAni Its about the people on the team J.C. Staff with an infinite budget would probably still look worse than something Bones or MAPPA worked on even with a lower budget

[@felinoel]

I like how he put a note that this is a rant in the title, very informative.

[@felinoel]

Yes, yes it is.

[@caseychoi1663]

felinoel I thought a rant always had to be angry, but I'm glad that the video was just information.

[@Crobemeister]

Well said Digibro. This is why you're one of my favorite channels, keep it up.

[@Beeeplaty]

KyoAni is still my favorite studio. Even if Myriad Colors Phantom World isn't a particularly interesting show, I continue to support them because I appreciate how much love those guys put into their stuff.

[@sinthushan]

The longer the production schedule the more money needed. So even if you have top animators there on time constraint due to the budget so they can't always crank out the best animation.

[@TheJuanTrueKaiser]

It still is limited to how much money they have. Sure can have the most skill animators in the world but if they don't have much of a budget they are indeed limited. And the quality of animation is something that is more objectively judged verses an art style, which is subjective.

[@lancelot2099]

He just explained how Kyoto animation who have an average at best budget, consistently make quality looking series that trump most television series made today. So please explain from this stand point budget influences a project.

[@TheJuanTrueKaiser]

Lancelot Two things, management of budget and skill of the animators. But if they have very little budget at all, even with the best animators and good management of budget, it can many times not be enough. Cause at the end of the day, if they don't have the money they don't have the anime.

[@lancelot2099]

The JuanTrueKaiser Okay, he did make clear that budget is needed to help pay animators, but at the end of the day schedules are far more important. I know this as well after watching idolmaster Cinderella girls. The talent was spot on, but the budget isn't what killed it, as it was serviceable, however the schedule caused the entire thing to plateau. In fact they had seven animation directors, thre directors, and over a dozen outsourced services to other companies that can be fairly evident the finale had a lot of work put into it. Instead of the money killing a project the scheduling hindered it by a lot. Rolling girls is extremely similar the character animation in the later half was just abysmal. Off center, uncoordinated, and screwing the idea of proportions and perspective. The money wasn't the problem, but on Twitter multiple animators and people said that the scheduling was terrible, remember the people animating never once brought up being paid insufficiently, but instead complained about the time constraints that caused an animation that was uncorrected and lazily produced. Kinda how on anitwitter have come up the term WITTed as an abbreviated term for total production collapse. I am not saying a budget isn't important but there a several more factors then money that cause people these hard aches and reducing it down to a by the numbers equation of this equal this, misses the point of the issue. Key animators, and people of various degrees are more important than the monetary amounts they get. Again see Kyo ani.

[@TheJuanTrueKaiser]

Lancelot And what does that all boil down to? Management (budget, time etc.) and skill of the animators. You need both, and a certain amount of money depending on what you are doing or you are not getting anywhere with your project.

[@lancelot2099]

The JuanTrueKaiser Ahh cencoroll was made by one guy and it's clever fight scenes and impressive morphing animation were done by one man. Again money is important to help pay said animators, but the focus should be on the people putting in those hard work, not on the correlation of money to effort. Is it necessary, yes, but not the be all and end all.

[@Henry-fq8fz]

This video could also be applied to pretty much any animation studio in the west too.

[@Henry-fq8fz]

And dude, I have been binge watching your videos all week. I don't spend much time watching anime but your videos have shown me so much about story telling and the importance of visuals and stuff. It is my dream to be an animator someday. Next year I am going to college for it. Your videos have inspired me, and someday I want to make an animation that meets your standard of quality. I do plan on starting a channel with animations sometime before the end of next month, your videos have gotten me really into the fluid style some anime. Thanks for the videos.

[@agonizethis]

It's all about budget. That's why there hasn't been another Vampire Hunter D movie bc the director can't get any investors on board to help finance the $100k initial startup.

[@BaldurPrime]

oye genial el video gracias por subirlo, te lo agradesco mucho, tienes mucho talento espero con ansias ver mas, sigue asi :3

[@LancerDarkWright]

Is that a Garzey's Wing poster on the bottom left?

[@Trixiethegoldenwitch]

+LancerDarkWright - Even better--it's the sleeve for the third laserdisc volume lol

[@LancerDarkWright]

Wow. I didn't think anyone cared enough about Garzey's Wing to buy it, outside of showing it off at conventions for the pure comedy gold that is its dub.

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

+LancerDarkWright "The Room" of anime.

[@black1blade74]

There is a couple of hours sakuga panel from some 2013 con on youtube that gives a bit of insight into how animation has changed over time and how the key animators have influence on the work. Apparently one of the cuts in the asuka vs evas fight was totally hand drawn!

[@carmankay]

I need to forward this to Sailor Moon Crystal, all they do is point "BUDGET! DON'T COMPLAIN."

[@DarkeRaven09]

Your right. Budget is not why something can fail. However, that being said, it is the start of fail. When a studio or animation team begins cutting corners, fixated more on the budget than finding a way to focus on the work with less, that is the start. When you are not focused on making the best product possible, and worried more about making ends meet and surviving to your next fiscal quarter than doing the best work you can do, that's when things fail.

[@sunnydong9069]

DarkeRaven09 I guess that's why passion is a requirement in this line of work. Edit: Reading through the comments, I found many points regarding to how much the staff cared for their production correlates with the quality of the end product. Budget may give limitations, but it's worse when the people working don't care about the project.

[@doomfan12345]

I've always thought this. I'm SO glad you made this vid.

[@tsubasa1988]

I agree whit you almost 90%. But "yes" you need talented people, but a talented experienced key animator will charge much more money than an inexperienced one , the more talented the animation team is the more expensive salaries the studio will have to pay. Same applies to backgrounds, music, color and etc.

[@renanSRSC]

+Elías Muñoz that's pretty much how things are. Talented people charges more but big companies tends to give short deadlines so even if they have the money to hire the best in the market, the work can became shit if it is rushed.

[@packersfan]

Also has to do with scheduling. A studio can work on numerous different shows at the same time. So a lot of the better animators can be split up working on different projects.

[@mrupload4381]

Pretty good rant i hope there will be more in the future

[@doomblackdragon]

It is so true. When stuff sucks. It not a money problem. It a someone fucked up problem. I seen this many times in gaming. Great example of this. Mass Effect 3 ending was bad. Not because of a lack of money. Because Bioware fucked up. Getting rid of their writing staff and let one person finish the story. That is not a money problem. That a management problem. It the same with anything. 90% of problems in things being made is human error. The other 10% can be related to money and other things that does not deal with people. Hell chernobyl meltdown was because of human error. That putting it nice. Lol it was more of Russia stupidity. "Is the safety equipment working?" "No, Sir the anti meltdown equipment is not working." "Good start the meltdown safety test." >.>

[@taijutsugal]

+doomblackdragon Why do you. Put a period. After every few words. You say..

[@doomblackdragon]

Sorry. I think I was asleep when I had wrote this. Lol Wow I was so out of it when I had wrote that. Still you have have a few words as a full sentence.

[@taijutsugal]

doomblackdragon So many sentence fragments ;u; rip

[@alexrogers4510]

fluidity of animation that is not computer generated is entirely dependent on budget. One of the factors that makes a good anime is the decision in which seen to put your budget. If you want to see a series that did this well, i would recommend "One Punch man", this series feels like they budgeted the whole series frame by by frame

[@johncoreyturner9914]

I've always felt that there should be a site or something where people can see exactly what the budget was for any particular anime and after watching this, the site would also list exactly where the budget was spent and on what. Anime is known for having far less budget than the average episode of a Western cartoon episode and I've felt that a site like this would help put into perspective where the money goes in whatever series they happen to be watching. That'd be the only time it'd be appropriate to say "well the budget ran out here! Look at these figures from the website that lists what the budget is and where it went!" And now that I'm thinking of it...budget is a strange word...it just looks strange

[@andrewb.7917]

Nice video and explanation. I will not hide from it. I used to think that budget and time were factors in bad animation (I.e naruto shippuden) but they most likely just outsource, and have to have a new episode every week

[@TheBLBShow]

Is Kill La Kill's Animation Quality considered bad? Because aestheticly it is one of my favourite animes of all time. Same goes with Panty and Stocking. These two always really stood out to me as having a really appealing style. But now I'm starting to think that they might have had a lower budged then other mainstream anime. Is that true? My understanding of animation is very poor.

[@ARandomGuy24]

+TheBLBShow Watch the video on this channel "Visual Breakdown: Tension and Payoff in Kill la Kill's Opening Scene."

[@miguelpereira9859]

I guess anime is just like every other medium, a show with little budget but great aesthetics eventually looks good. I am way more into Gaming than Anime, and in videogames art direction>graphics/budget ALWAYS

[@leomadero562]

Personally i hated it so much that i dropped it after the first episode, but the way they pulled it off was original and wacky

[@staceysmith2787]

Shirobuko is a great example of these kinds of issues. I watched the show and it gave a great insight into what can go wrong throughout the production of an anime.

[@LikaLaruku]

Gintama frequently makes 4th wall jokes about its budget issues. It sells merchandise & it's got almost 300 episodes, but having taken about a thousand screencaps of it by pausing frequently, I could actually see that the animation quality had dropped in the 3ed season; sparsely detailed in-between shots & holding focus on closeups while panning the camera slowly, meaning only the eyes & mouths would move (it's screencap friendly & takes away nothing, probably conserves the budget for fast-paced fight scenes), & rotoscoped backgrounds (actually a very aesthetic looking way to save money). It was still an awesome season.

[@markepson8023]

thanks to your videos i know what i have to really change and keep

[@SarifFice]

It is so nice to have a respectable anime youtuber to watch. Keep up the good work.

[@Red5rainbow]

It's like when people complain that low budget is what causes bad pokémon designs

[@torctorctorc]

Great video. Very interesting. Btw, what's the poster hanging behind you left of Haibane, under the Mushishi?

[@Trixiethegoldenwitch]

fangirl801lost Kamichu!

[@torctorctorc]

thanks

[@oscarzafra7597]

***** im gonna watch it just because you have a mushi-shi (my favorite anime) poster next to it. Better be good. Also, thank you for making this video it's very informative.

[@YokoFujioka]

oscar zafra I wonder about that logic to watch a series....you've probably already started watching at this point, but just to give you a heads up...this is my favorite slice of life anime but it's very slow, at least in terms that it isn't like lucky star or nichijou where it relies entirely on the unbelievably showy characters and quick jokes to make it entertaining. Rather it's very slow and atmospheric with a very good, original plot, but it's honestly just such a relaxing ride just to watch it, if you have the patience I really, really recommend it

[@NET1340]

i guess i always just went with the flow and assumed that it was always a monetary issue. i'm glad i listened to this. opened my eyes.

[@samuraireflection]

this was very informative :) thank you!

[@pondersprocket2274]

You have to be able to *pay* the people putting the animation together. Meaning you need money. You have to be able to buy the necessary materials. Meaning you need money. You have to be able to buy the time of colourists, animators, key animators, story board artists, etc. Meaning you need money. If you want good artwork, you have to have a budget to *pay* the people working on it. It's not entirely based on skill--it's based on how long you've paid them to work on this thing, the less time they have, the more rushed the final result. *As* an artist, people get what they *pay* me for. *As* an animator, the more people we have working on a project, the less thinly I'm stretched and the more I can focus on specific scenes to make them perfect. The less money you spend, the less you get. Even when you state how animation studios will separate the scenes that have to be made and distribute those to different animators, or send those scenes out to other animators or studios directly... *that still needs money.* The less money you have, the less animators you can get your hands on and the more that a single animator will then have on their plate, meaning they're have less time to spend on individual scenes, meaning they'll have to cut corners. You even make note of the fact that they need the budget to send the workload out to different animators, and yet somehow you manage to just tiptoe your way around that. I don't know how you managed to do that, but you did. I'm not saying that skill doesn't come into play here but to say that budget doesn't is outright wrong. Budget plays a huge part in animation, especially if you have a deadline and need more people. If you have *less* animators working on *more* things, you get *lesser* quality because they can't spend as much time on everything. Budget *also* plays into scheduling. Various ways actually. But since I've already covered the animators thing, if you have fewer animators working on a project, they can't work as quickly because they're spread too thinly, meaning the schedule goes off course--this I know from experience as well unfortunately. Additionally, don't people generally look to the budget because the budget is information that a reviewer might have readily at their disposal? No one's going to know the intimate ins and outs of scheduling snafus at every animation studio for every project, nor who was at fault for exactly what mix-ups. A budget is a tangible thing to look at that plays a huge role in how the animation can come out (quality and time-wise). If you can start up a website that intimately tracks every snafu in the industry leading to animation hiccups then fine, but most reviewers have only the budget and whatever small tidbits they can gleam from the sidelines to go on. And, again, a budget is a pretty good thing to go on.

[@davidmiller5824]

Ponder Sprocket exactly

[@pondersprocket2274]

***** I agree entirely that it's not just the animation but (in most cases) more so the story and the characters that determine whether or not an anime will be good. My main gripe was just the insinuation that the budget (in terms of *animation quality*) didn't constitute whether or not the quality would be good, ultimately for superfluous reasons. A higher budget and more leg room means that those working in the *animation* department have more resources, more time and ultimately more potential instances where they can go back and correct animation mistakes. My gripes had nothing to do with budgeting in terms of how the show is written or how the characters are portrayed.

[@johnpaulbouchard5705]

Ponder Sprocket Except, like movies and games, most of the budget goes to producers and advertising instead of paying the artists

[@joeschmoe2843]

Explain runaway successes that make money hand over fist... Yet their animation looks like a 1st years film student's late project?

[@threePwny]

Digi's... not arguing that budget isn't a factor. He knows full damn well that it is. His argument is that there's no infallible linear relationship between animation budget and quality, and making comments about "oh, they ran out of budget here and here, but had really high budget here" is asinine. You say budget is something a reviewer might have ready access to, but only the _total_ budget. You don't see the breakdown of where that money was spent. And without that information, the claim that more money = better animation just has way too many caveats to be particularly useful. Yeah, you expect a show with a substantially higher animation budget to have more polish and look cleaner and sharper than a show with a pittance for a budget. But there's so much else that goes on that you can't really use budget as a useful metric for how good the animation of a show should be compared to how it is. "I expected this show to look better than it does because the budget is X" doesn't help anybody. Hell, I have yet to read a review where I gave a single shit about what was said about budget. It just doesn't mean anything. As for you, Joe, ever seen ONE's original One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100? One's artistic ability is shit (better than mine, but I digress). But the combination of engaging settings, skillful worldbuilding, amusing characters and interactions, and all-round stellar storytelling makes them excellent works with plenty of popularity in their own right. Sure, the Yusuke Murata's professional remake of One Punch Man and the Madhouse and Bones productions of each, respectively, have certainly helped their popularity, but ONE's work is worthy in its own right. Or say, any of Makoto Shinkai's early works, which were rudimentary at best and yet delivered incredibly on the emotional front. That is to say, budget is not all there is to animation quality, and animation quality is not all there is to becoming beloved and making tons of money. Unless you're SAO, in which case you have literally just the pretty animation and people's critical ineptitude keeping them coming back.

[@Talis116]

While I agree that money doesn't directly control it. A bigger budget gives you the freedom to aquire better talent, whether that is project managers or art talent or whatever else. Good talent might come cheap some times either because you hire a junior who is exceptionally good, or you hire some one talented willing to work below their normal pay grade for a multitude of reasons (from passion to life reasons). Beyond just hiring better talent as I say above it gives you the ability to hire just more warm bodies... if you have a show that you know your are "down to the wire" on every episode your staff will be stressed which lowers quality... and if your project manager is new or not very talented they likely wont make needed cuts/edits to get things in on time and keep the quality.

[@kelseyuineilkirkland7942]

that infomation about kyoto animation was really interesting considering how most of the slice of life anime they make is based of real life experiences some of the writers have especially in lucky star where not only did it have otaku culture and western culture but it also talked about everyday events and issues that had happened either in japan or to the viewers

[@bluevolt89]

Speaking of using still animations what are you're thoughts on Studio Trigger's Inferno Cop (that' has 100% still characters moving around) and Ninja Slayer the Animation (that flips between still moving characters to fluid animations)?

[@buu678]

So basically the key to good animation provided a moderate budget is there boils down to four elements: discipline, creativity, passion and consistency.

[@dennisjodin1978]

Damn Digi looks young in this one.

[@MogofWar]

I thought Neon Genesis Eangelion getting fucked up towards the end, was caused by the author going into rehab and the producers having to go off notes in because there was no screenplay or story board for those parts yet. This may have been an urban legend.

[@LimeCultivist]

Awesome Mushishi, Haibane Renmei, and Super Metoid posters. 3 of my favorite things

[@WD_Batora]

The Manabi Line was named like that because it sold 2300something dics and an ufotable producer said on an interview that it barely broke even thanks to those sales. It's very rare to get such a financial piece of info from an insider. So that show's sales became a meme.

[@ForceRoundsPenguin]

Do you happen to know why the final OVA episode for Gainax's Aim for the Top: Gunbuster was in black and white? Was it a deliberate stylistic choice?

[@katezoe8262]

You don't have to have fancy expensive animation programs to make a quality animation!

[@theAlphatron]

Great video and excellent points made. This applies to any medium or genre in entertainment. Big budget does not necessarily equal high quality, nor high returns. There are numerous examples all around us.

[@BlurredVision18]

Ayyy, I just wrote a little scene breakdown on how awesome Tamako Love Story was. It was in a ANN article about KyoAni and no one in the comments mentioned TLS.

[@Lori_P89]

Sorry I'm so late to the party with this discussion ~_~' I agree in that Budget is never the absolute deciding factor in whether a scene in anime looks good or not. but I think there are a few things to keep in mind whenever people do bring it up. From what I understand (and I could be completely wrong about this) animators are paid by the amount of drawings that they do. I know sometimes style is a factor, but I'm pretty sure that if the animator in question isn't getting paid a certain amount, they can only do so much. I don't know where I heard this though so it's quite possible that I'm very misinformed. I also want to mention that while limited animation is definitely a style choice and can give off a certain vibe (like the way Imaishi does it to make everything look fast and spastic and very extreme!) it is also a money-saving technique developed way back when, possibly pioneered by Osamu Tezuka when he was working on Astro Boy? I know that Hanna-Barbara used limited animation a lot in the 60's and 70's, (maybe the 50's?) when they were pumping out a dozen Flintstones, Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear clones. In the Hanna-Barbara case it was definitely a budget-conserving move (or maybe a time/effort conserving move?) to use limited animation. But these guys are also the same people who worked on Tom and Jerry- and the animation still holds up quite well because...well..they were given an MGM-sized budget to work with. (Though as you said it was probably a bunch of factors contributing to all that stuff, not just budget) But anyway, I should get back on topic- the stuff you explained in your video could also explain why Sailor Moon Crystal is like...an anti-thesis to good animation. Sure it's done by Toei (who's known for being cheap anyway) but Toei doesn't even really work on it? They ship it off to a less talented studio full of a bunch of animation newbies (every single animator's previous work has been doing in-betweens and nothing else) and I honestly don't think they manage their time all that well. Even when Sailor Moon Crystal gets shipped off to the "good" studio (like in Episode 5 and some other episode/s) it doesn't even look as good as an episode of Go! Princess Precure. As a Sailor Moon fan, an animation fan, and as someone who dabbled a little bit into Precure, Crystal is insanely frustrating to watch. I KNOW Toei can do better because I've SEEN them do better, but for SMC? They just...don't care :(

[@someonesreviews]

What about the over usage of poorly done CGI? Generally speaking, would you attribute that more to budget allocation or time constraints?

[@Trixiethegoldenwitch]

SomeonesReviews Could be more budgetary, or done to save time (basically the same reason in this case). I think CG is getting better, and that eventually the standards for CG will reach a level where it doesn't feel like using CG is the "cheap" way of doing things. I think most of the big issues with CG use is that not enough teams know how to integrate or use it well.

[@samuelnguyen7354]

Kyoto Ani has definitely released multiple shows per year before, (albeit not many), but never released more than one show per season.

[@TrollsForTots]

This was a very insightful video.

[@Filimotoanimated]

I feel like whilst budget may not impact the visual quality and aesthetic of anime in terms of character design or use of colour, as those are things determined by the artists working on a project. It would be wrong to say that budget doesn't impact the detail and fluidity of 'animation' specifically. Budget determines the amount of animators a company is able to hire. hiring more animators means faster work (animation) output. Time is, i would argue, the main constraint on animation quality, and more animators essentially means more time as it would take one animator 10 weeks to produce the quality of animation it would take 10 animators to produce in one week. But if one week is all you have to work with and you don't have the 'budget' to hire more than one animator, then yeah that animation quality is gonna suffer.

[@DOCTOR.DEADHEAD]

"Money doesn't make the show, the people make the show" PREACH

[@AstrousZeneca]

About budget...how much takes to create one episode, any idea? The only mention i've seen to this, claimed that it could go as high as 300k, but usually lower on 100k'ish mark. Anyone got info on this?

[@AlexBermann]

There generally are two types of anime. First, there is the magnitude of soulless projects which attempt to cash in a fanbase with low standarts. On te other hand, there are projects which are made by people who like their projects. I'd argue that he business logic for he former doesn't work on the other. If you want to make a passion project, you start with a huge problem. You don't want to be cheap in any regard, but you have no certainty if your project will even be successful because you don't base the project on market analysis. Thus, you can't pay significantelly higher wages than the competition. However, you don't need to. Being the member of a good team is a privilege. With a good team, you can be sure that you can not only be proud of your part of the project (which may look rather small if you do animation) but about the end product. Furthermore, you gain fame by partking in the production of good anime. After all, you can be sure that other studies read the credits of good anime annd even take note of who the voice acting post production manager is. However, there is a flaw to this strategy: the more famous your employees get, the harder it is to keep them. This is why you need to choose the prjects based on your existing team. That's why you don't start outsourcing. Once a team is intact and functional, it's your main advantage to keep employees from the competition. Furthermore, the more your team works together, the easier it is to increase the quality of the working conditions since bad conditions often are a result of pats of the oranization not interacting correctly with each other. You can even save money this way... money which could used to pay decent wages.

[@Red5rainbow]

I actually like the way episode 4 of kill la kill looks. It's cute and really comical and really goes well with the comedic writing of that episode. In fact it might even be my favorite episode of kill la kill.

[@pougetguillaume4632]

Absolutely, maybe not THE best but what an incredibly fun episode.

[@sasukeuchiha998]

I have a few questions after watching this video. I am wondering what is the minimum budget to make an episode and hire the talent to make it. I read in the comment that 500k USD is how much an episode can cost a studio. How much of it goes to hiring the staff or talent, and how much of it goes towards getting it to be very fluid? Sorry for asking this and I apologize if I caused anyone grief who tries to answer these questions.

[@GoodwillWright]

+sasukeuchiha998 Don't forget the cost of rent, equipment, bills, etc... And god forbid taxes, GST, marketing, insurance, lincensing, software, etc...

[@keen96]

Where's the beard yo?

[@mgcbkmn]

mamaviviriri RIP beard

[@LordOrlock]

mamaviviriri So im not the only person who thinks he looked better with it?

[@ThexDynastxQueen]

+mamaviviriri Budget cuts