Episode 236 – Summer 2014 Anime Impressions Begin!

Most anime has a certain flair to it that makes it the “anime style.” It’s what lets everyone know that the animation they are watching came from Japan and not anywhere else in the world. But, some of these anime have an even more unique style to them.

Textured Fills

• Rather than using flat colors to fill an area – say a skirt – they employ textures (that may or may not move) to fill the space.
  • Gankutsuou – The Count of Monte Cristo
    • This anime takes this style to the extreme. Everything is filled with patterns that seem to “move” by being stationary as the characters shift overtop them.

Water Color/Brush Painting

• Over more traditional hard-inked lines with solid color fills this approach uses often times a more restrained hand creating anime that looks like a watercolor or traditional sumi-e brush painting.
  • The Tale of Princess Kaguya
    • A perfect example of brush painting. This anime film looks more like moving artwork than a traditional “anime.”
  • Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko)
    • This anime utilizes muted tones and backgrounds that seem to “fade” at the edges to give it a watercolor style and feel.
  • My Neighbors the Yamadas
    • Another example of a watercolor style. This is taken to the extreme with very minimal backgrounds and things that seem to evolve out of white space nothing.
  • Mononoke
    • Artistic styling of bright colors and detailed designs

Rotoscoping

• An animation technique in which animators trace over footage,frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films.

• Aku no Hana

Photo Realism

• This is anime that looks exceptionally close to real life. No matter the style it is done in. Especially in backgrounds when given comparison pictures it may be difficult to tell which is real and which is anime.
  • Garden of Words
    • If you google “Garden of Words Comparison” You’ll find out exactly what we mean by this style. Taking directly from life most of Makoto Shinkai’s work has this element of glowing hyper-realism in his backgrounds. Oh, and sub-anime style…. Lens Flare!
  • Beyond the Boundary (Kyoukai no Kanata)
    • Similarly afflicted by Shinkai’s sense of lens flare this anime has traditionally animated characters in hyper-realistic painted backrounds.

Line Thickness

• In the majority of anime line thickness is generally kept fairly consistent throughout the animation of characters and backgrounds. In these anime the line thickness varies at different points.
  • Copellion
    • Done well or not, they make a lot of creative choices when it comes to the line thickness surrounding the characters of this anime. Often times the outer lines of the characters are much thicker, almost like a boarder, than the inner lines of the character.
  • Attack on Titan
    • Slightly different from Copellion but more than your average anime line thickness will vary in a character’s art. Perhaps the folds of a character’s shirt will have heavier lines as the fold is deeper which then tapers to a thinner line.

Limited Animation

• We’ve touched on this before. There’s a spectrum of animation where “total animation” is everything moving and “zero animation” is often times almost completely still images. Limited animation has it’s own place and even it’s own movement. As a result much of the anime that fall under “Limited” animation are older and private projects which likely experienced a lack of funding.
  • Midori
    • Movement is seldom and used only when necessary for emphasis or requirement.
  • Angel’s Egg
    • Very little in this film moves, often times slow-pans of still images overtake the movement.

Flat Color

• Anime in this style will implement block colors often times with limited shading and highlights. This gives the feeling of the show a ‘flatter’ look and more stylized.
  • Kyousougiga
    • With limited shading and creative uses of blocks of color this anime is very good at making certain things “pop” off the screen when desired.
  • Gatchaman Crowds
    • While this anime isn’t only “flat colors” it does utilize the effect a fair bit, especially in the treatment of character’s hair. Rather than a gradient as many anime are using, or placed highlights, this anime uses multiple bands of color as a stylistic choice in how the character’s hair is done.
  • Monogatari Series

CG

• Love it or hate it this trend is still currently ‘unconventional’ even if it is growing in popularity. This style of anime uses computer-rendered graphics, much like a video game, with quality cell shading to give the anime a “look” like traditional animation.
  • Arpeggio of Blue Steel
  • Knights of Sidonia
  • New Sailor Moon Transformation Sequence