Episode 372: "The Battle for Superiority Starts! Luffy vs. Luffy"

[Kaizoku Mele]

Heh, looks like we'll be finishing this whole thing up pretty quickly. I'm betting before 376.

[goty]

I heard that this was the worst animation team, but it hasn't been too bad so far.

Indeed, this episode was definitely a pleasant surprise. You can notice by the art that this isn't one of the best teams, but the animation was great, same for the pacing. I dare to say everything was more dramatic - and bloody - than in manga.
Next week looks better though.

[jmbjr]

I already asked that in the last thread: Where do you get information on which animation team is doing which episode? Btw from what I have seen our worst animation team must have had a pretty good day.

Crossbones over at KF posts in their episode discussion thread, and recently started to post which animation director was in charge of each episode. For this episode, the director was known for doing pretty bad episodes animation-wise, so he's called the worst director at KF. Like you said, though, they didn't do too bad this episode, and I actually liked it overall.

Next week is going to be sweet!

[Geg]

Yeah from what I could see from the crappy stream, the animation wasn't great but it certainly wasn't bad either.

[Crossword]

I'll throw up the four main animation directors if you want to know who's who:

Eisaku Inoue: He's the head animator. Out of all the directors, he comes the closest to Oda's style. Things to look out for are detailed shading, well-endowed women, Zoro having puny thin arms, and genral awesome action. Some of his stuff: episodes 2, 119, 126, 312, 336, 367, Movies 2,7,8.

Katsumi Ishizuka: His work can be spotted from a mile away by the characters' really thick nose shadows. His episodes are usually very sharp, and detailed, with A-grade action sequences. Some of his stuff: episodes 290, 298, 309, 353.

Naoki Tate: Art style is radically different from the others, as it's similar to Movie 6, though not quite as refined. Expect expressive character designs, fluid action sequences, and generally very solid episodes. Some of his stuff: episodes 233, 289, 304, 311, 369, Movie 9.

Kazuya Hisada: His art style is similar to Ishizuka's, right down to the thick nose shadows. His art generally tends to fluctuate between good and fair, and he's prone to having odd looking faces when displaying them at an angle. Some of his stuff: ALL the openings since at least Kokoro no Chizu; same with the endings, as well as all of the new eyecatches, episodes 338, 348, 356, 366.

[Strongbad456]

I thought the animation was just fine. And the pacing was good. The episode covered 2 chapters(478 and 479). There should only be a few episodes left:

Spoiler:

There's just 4 chapters left to cover. Odz is defeated in 480. Nightmare Moria appears in 481 and is defeated in 482. Then Kuma appears in 483. Assuming next week and after covers 1 and 1/2 chapters or 2 chapters, there should be only 2-3 episodes left. Then there's 2 chapters of Kuma fight which could become 1 or 2 episodes. And finally they'll get to Brook's flashback.

[jmbjr]

I thought it was rather impressive that they managed to fit an entire chapter in 5 minutes, and I'm glad they did so - It would suck to have the fight dragged that much. Still, though, shorter than Zoro vs Ryuuma? That's what I call good pacing!

[Geg]

Something to add about Kazuya Hisada is that he did the animation direction for the very first episode.

Hisada and Inoue have both been around since the very beginning. Tate joined during Alabasta but didn't start evolving his own style until later on. Ishizuka joined around Water 7.

[goty]

Katsumi Ishizuka: His work can be spotted from a mile away by the characters' really thick nose shadows. His episodes are usually very sharp, and detailed, with A-grade action sequences. Some of his stuff: episodes 290, 298, 309, 353, Movies 3 and 4.

Movies 3 and 4 (and 5) were done by Noboru Koizumi actually..he's MIA since 295, which is sad, the man delivered some great episodes in the past. My personal guess is that maybe he's working on movie 10.

[Crossword]

Great, now there're three guys that use really thick nose shadows... I better fix that... I wonder what happened to him in Movie 5 then. The art was weaker than in 4...

[goty]

I wonder what happened to him in Movie 5 then. The art was weaker than in 4...

Yeah, probably a lower budget...it happened to Inoue's style in movie 8 too..

[Crossword]

Oh man, Movie 8... Its art was so bipolar. One minute something would look really awesome, and literally the very next second, like crap. In fact, the only characters who were somewhat consistently drawn were the Alabasta ones; the Straw Hats mostly looked like crap.

I really should try to get as familiar with the One Piece animators as I am with the Rockman ones. I can spot the differences between the near-identical Masayuki Nomoto and Yasuo Shimizu, spot subtle simularities between Nao Chikaoka work in Ryuusei and Gurren-Lagann, and Akira Takahashi's work in Rockman and Code Geass, yet I can't tell Ishizaka and Koizumi apart. I need to step it up.

[goty]

Besides OP, i think i only could spot different art styles with precision in DB and maybe Saint Seiya...the bad thing about paying too much attention to this is how you feel disappointed by a bad team choice even before an episode airs. Well, at least sometimes they can surprise you like in this one.

[Crossword]

Heh, I know what you mean. Going back to the Rockman anime, Masayuki Nomoto, who worked on the show for three years, was infamous for being very artistically weak; and he did a ton of episodes. I'm talking weird looking faces, slideshow battles, stiff movements, the works. Then we was MIA for a bit, and when he came back he shocked everyone because not only did his art slighty improve, in lieu of slideshow battles, we had fast paced, fluid stuff that superficially resembled Tate's action pieces. Why it took him nearly 150 episodes to improve, I dunno, but at least he did.

If you really want a challenge, try spotting an animation director's art quirks in two different shows. It's not easy, I'll tell you that.

[Quexinos]

Oh I can't wait for the raw.

Spoiler:

How was thunderstorm everyone?

[Crossword]

Judging from crossbones's caps, kinda lame.

Spoiler:

[IMG]file:///C:/Users/DYLANB%7E1/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-13.jpg[/IMG]

[Quexinos]

yeah that doesn't look so hot... at all. In fact it looks terrible, but I need to see it animated first. Maybe he just caught a bad frame or something.

EDIT:
Episode's on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jqUmlWZLzA&fmt=18
THe raw must be out somewhere

[King Kobra]

The episode was okay, but whoever was in charge really went lazy with the multiple punches. I mean, they just cut them off on the scenes with Moria getting a beating.


At least the next episode seems to have more effort put on it's animation.

[Quexinos]

Yeah Storm looked a lot more powerful in the manga but it's not the first time I've felt that way (jet gatling)

[goty]

That raw on youtube is pretty awful. It's impossible to judge based on a distorted full screen skipping frames everywhere.
It seems ripped straight from TVUPlayer or something.