A Study of One Piece Animation

[o-chan]

What?

Skypea had only good art. Animation of the whole arc was average. There was no scene worth remembering animation wise, other than Luffy finishing Enel, even that wasn't on the level of what we see now.

Enies Lobby's first half was good, after the re-caps eps, the art and animation went downhill. There was some great ep, but at the same time there was a lot of horrible Naruto-level episodes.

Thriller Bark was the first arc to have some great animators work in it. And the good AD's episodes were very consistent and had great animation. Still, there was lot's of shitty episodes.

Shabondy remains the best animated arc so far, although the art was very inconsistent even in the good AD's eps.

Impel Down had good art overall, and lot's of greatly animated moments, although most of them were not important.

I second ALL of this. Also, Thriller Bark was the first point in the series where if people complained about One Piece's animation I'd point them to the Oars fight in this particular arc. I'm hoping the Marineford arc will trump this.

O-chan

[Sean D. Capitan]

Is Bleach better animated than One Piece?

[o-chan]

Is Bleach better animated than One Piece?

Short answer. Yes.

Long answer. I really don't know why there's this urge to compare and contrast Shonen series with three very unique styles to each other in terms of animation quality. I also don't know why everything is being compared to Naruto at its worst when all three shows have gone through their ups and downs. I think Naruto and Bleach are both superior to One Piece in terms of how the anime artwork looks and the fact that both shows have near movie like budget episodes when it counts. But it's still not fair because that animation style doesn't really thematically fit One Piece.

What fits One Piece is the stuff Movies 4-10 displayed (barring 5 and 8) and the end of Thriller Bark. That is all One Piece on a good animation day.

O-chan

[XMURADX]

I know I'm going off topic, but I had to say something.

Shippuuden was on a long streak of Horrible-Average episodes for a while, Cause the budget went for 166 and 167, which will be on par with movie quality.

Anyway, even though I would love to see a movie quality episode for the WB arc, I still wouldn't want to see the rest of the WB arc in shitty quality, just so 1 or 2 ep will be superb. Cause there are many things I would like to see beautifully animated, even though I know not all of them will be great. But I hope this time they give the good animators to the important scenes.

So yeah, I prefer what Toei is doing with One Piece at the moment by spreading the special animators to do specific scenes with many different supervisors instead of just one or two great supervisors.
Hopefully the amount of special animators will increase soon.

[o-chan]

I know I'm going off topic, but I had to say something.

Shippuuden was on a long streak of Horrible-Average episodes for a while, Cause the budget went for 166 and 167, which will be on par with movie quality.

Anyway, even though I would love to see a movie quality episode for the WB arc, I still wouldn't want to see the rest of the WB arc in shitty quality, just so 1 or 2 ep will be superb. Cause there are many things I would like to see beautifully animated, even though I know not all of them will be great. But I hope this time they give the good animators to the important scenes.

So yeah, I prefer what Toei is doing with One Piece at the moment by spreading the special animators to do specific scenes with many different supervisors instead of just one or two great supervisors.
Hopefully the amount of special animators will increase soon.

On Naruto:
To me fans are stuck on the first arc on Shippuden much like fans are stuck on how Funi has NOT changed since the early DBZ on TV days. In both cases the people learned from their mistakes and improved upon things since then.

On One Piece:
That's why I mainly site the end of Thriller Bark. I want Toei to pull with the Marineford Arc exactly what they pulled there. While not EVERY episode was excellent quality it was a good string of decent to mind blowingly animated episodes where everyone at least tried to be on their A game.

O-chan

[antiravage]

One Piece has its share of memorable movie quality episodes just like naruto. Blueno Vs Luffy was one of them. What I can't forget is what they did to the Zoro Vs Ryuuma fight. I still can't believe they gave that fight to one of the worst animators. It completely failed to meet the expectations. Although it was short, it was one of my favourite fights in the manga.

[Crossword]

Ide isn't the worst of the bunch, he's actually in the middle of the pack. I actually liked that fight. Lots of movement and some neat camera angles. A Thriller Bark fight that I didn't care for that much as Sanji's. It didn't feel very inspired or energetic, and the censorship coupled with the source material's mediocrity didn't help either. I also didn't care for how long the Oars fight was stretched out to.

[XMURADX]

@o-chan, as much as I love TB, I don't want the WB arc to be similar to it. TB had many ugly episodes, that I don't want to see in the WB arc.

One Piece has its share of memorable movie quality episodes just like naruto. Blueno Vs Luffy was one of them.

That was not movie quality, not even close.

The starting of Zoro Vs. Ryuma was horrible, but the second half was good, and the final attack was fantastic, IMO.
Ryou Onishi's scene was below his usual level, but I still loved it.

Worst episode in TB was 371. Since it covered 2 chapters and had lot's fighting, and the animation was SHIT.

[TOEI FTW]

One Piece has its share of memorable movie quality episodes just like naruto. Blueno Vs Luffy was one of them.

Well, not really. There is a difference between an episode having some movie like qualities(such as very fluid animation and realistic movement) and an episode actually having quality comparable to a movie.

[AlphaD]

Im hoping that for the upcoming episodes that they use the animator/s that did Episode 450 Luffy, Mr.3 VS Magellan and Ep 545 Sanji Vs Gay Fella.

Only thing i have against the style is there are to many close ups and not enough of a full body shot but then i think the style only works for close ups.

Does anyone know the name of the animator/s ?

[Unbreakable]

man I hope the next arc is the best animated arc ever, and also I hope it'll be the best art-wise. I care about the art just as much as I do with the animation (sometimes more especially if the art was horrible and the animation is superb)

[Crossword]

Im hoping that for the upcoming episodes that they use the animator/s that did Episode 450 Luffy, Mr.3 VS Magellan and Ep 545 Sanji Vs Gay Fella.

That scene from 450 that you're talking about was key animation by Naotoshi Shida. 454's animation director was newcomer Atsuko Kawamura.

[AlphaD]

That scene from 450 that you're talking about was key animation by Naotoshi Shida. 454's animation director was newcomer Atsuko Kawamura.

Thanks bro, i was also wandering if you knew who would be doing animations on the marineford arc.

Thank again ^^

[antiravage]

That was not movie quality, not even close.

I was talking about the first part of the fight in episode 271. In terms of animation and art that was the best part of the fight, though you can say the most exciting moments of the fight were in episode 273.

[Crossword]

Ehh, that's still not movie quality. Average movie quality footage tends to have much more detailed shading and have more detail overall (like lighting, intricacies, clothing folds, eye detail, etc.) put into the image. Also, slight, subtle movements that you wouldn't see animated otherwise. Like yesterday I watched the second Rebuild of Evangelion movie and there were some pretty neat scenes where the characters were just hanging out talking and their slight gestures and body language was pretty fun to watch as a fan of animation. And that's not even getting into how the mechs looked and moved when they were animated traditionally instead of using CG. 'Course, Khara can afford to do stuff like that, since I'm sure they have a virtual blank check to work with considering how much of a juggernaut that franchise is over there.

I guess in short, if you consider that fight to have movie-quality work, prepare to have your mind blown.

[antiravage]

It's movie quality in the sense that few OP episodes come close to its quality. I'm pretty sure the person who animated episode 271 would have enough quality to work on a movie because his animation is just that good. Overall that episode wasn't mind blowing when compared to an Eva movie, but the person who did it could've matched the quality of Evangelion if he had the chance to work on the episode with the same budget and dedication the evangelion movie got.

[Psycho_Kenshin]

All this talk about "movie quality", I'd just like to point out not all anime movies are well animated, or big budgeted.

I get the point people are going for, but it seems a bit odd to get so specific and say "thats smooth but it's not quite movie quality". Saying something that specific just comes across as funny, since there really is no exact bar for what movie quality is.

Anyways, I'd say some of the best animated episodes of One Piece are certainly movie quality, in that they're better animated than some anime movies I've seen from the past decade.

[o-chan]

All this talk about "movie quality", I'd just like to point out not all anime movies are well animated, or big budgeted.

I get the point people are going for, but it seems a bit odd to get so specific and say "thats smooth but it's not quite movie quality". Saying something that specific just comes across as funny, since there really is no exact bar for what movie quality is.

Anyways, I'd say some of the best animated episodes of One Piece are certainly movie quality, in that they're better animated than some anime movies I've seen from the past decade.

Actually Kenshin let me use your avatar to point to a very good example of "movie quality animation in a TV series" the Saito vs. Kenshin fight is probably one of the best examples of this. Just to go a bit off topic but to also bring this back to One Piece can anyone else site some examples in anime TV series that had movie quality animation (as far as your viewpoint, and back it up as to why!).

Stuff like Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Escaflowne, and Fullmetal Alchemist (both TV series) are good consistent examples.

As far as Shonen Jump series go:
Kenshin vs. Saito
SSJ2 Gohan vs. Cell
Parts of Goku vs. Vegeta and the tail end of Goku vs. Freeza
Straw Hat Crew vs. Oars
The last episode of the Hidden Waves arc/Third Hokage vs. Orochimaru/Any of Rock Lee's fights

All of the above stood out because instead of "typical animation day" we got fluid organic movement, and good use of light and color (Kenshin, One Piece, and Naruto) and usually something that looked at little beyond the average TV budget.

O-chan

[Kaiolino]

SSJ2 Gohan vs. Cell looked terrible until Cell started self-destructing.

[goty]

SSJ2 Gohan vs. Cell looked terrible until Cell started self-destructing.

That was only one episode, 186, done by the worst animation supervisor. 185, 187 and 188 looked really good.

Any of Rock Lee's fights

Rock Lee vs clone Rock Lee? ok, you mean his two canon fights.