| "For those that are uninitiated, anime fans have come to use the word ‘sakuga’ to refer to moments where great looking animation shines through, be it on a TV show, movie or OVA. In Japanese the word ‘sakuga’ simply means ‘animation’ but by virtue of it being used often in discussions of ‘good animation’ the word ‘sakuga’, at least among western fans, has come to take on a new meaning that almost always means ‘good animation’." - https://vanishingtrooper.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/a-look-at-the-sakuga-and-animation-of-2015/ |
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| Among Western fans it has come to refer to quality spikes in which every single frame is drawn (so rather than 12 fps or 8 fps it's a full 24 fps) even if this only lasts for a second or two. Anime with sakuga either have higher budgets or have to go down to 4 fps in other places to recoup the costs. |
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e_hoba said: When I was searching anime topics, I found that "sakuga" is used to describe the moment when the quality of animation remarkably improves. However, that is different from the original definition of the word. When and why did that word come to mean quality shots in English? I guessed that sakuga AMV spread out this usage. Sakuga literally can be translated as drawings. About one and half year ago, I didn't know what this means, and I keep hearing it's about good animation. But now I think Sakuga could refer to the the process behind animation. So it's not only limited to good animation. Good storyboarding, good direction, good background art, can contribute to make good animation, or good anime. The word lately booming right now because of western sakuga fans have start to write blog about it lately, just like https://blog.sakugabooru.com/ or wavemotioncannon.com. They even have patreon right now. But actually sakuga fandom is originally came from Japan (of course), watch the Japanese Drama called Aoi Honoo to understand this. Anime fans in Japan have noticed and take interest in animation since 70s or 80s, the work of people like Yoshinori Kanada, Hayao Miyazaki, Ichiro Itano, Satoru Utsunomiya, Takashi Nakamura, Koji Morimoto, and others have inspired people like Hideaki Anno and younger generation. Maybe the western sakuga fandom starts in 80s or 90s, Post-Akira time. Western fans start buying OVAs, and some of them noticed the style and quality of animation differs from time to time, depend on people who working on it. And then the boom of internet in 2000s spread the discussion of Japanese animation even more. People like Benjamin Ettinger start writing about Japanese animation, carefully analyzing it with pieces of information that he gathered over the years. People start took the same interest as him, even some of them are inspired to be animators (just like Bahi JD, he read Ben's blog a lot when he's in high school, and now he's working in Japan as animator). http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php The forum he created (http://www.pelleas.net/forum/) also attracted more people to discuss Japanese animation, even famous animator like Peter Chung use that forum to discuss animation. Then anime like Gurren Lagann created another wave of western sakuga fandom, people who runs sakugabooru right now are belong to this generation. So does anime like FMA Brotherhood, Yozakura Quartet Hana no Uta, and Space Dandy, each of them created another wave of sakuga fans. www.sakugabooru.com/post I think I'm belong to newer wave, just a little bit before One Punch Man airing. I took interest in certain animators like Yutapon (Yutaka Nakamura), mainly because I love Kekkai Sensen directed by Matsumoto Rie. (partly because I watched the sakuga panel on youtube too). Then my interest grows more and more, though I can't say that I'm an expert or anything like that. I'm still noobs and learning. zombie_pegasus said: Among Western fans it has come to refer to quality spikes in which every single frame is drawn (so rather than 12 fps or 8 fps it's a full 24 fps) even if this only lasts for a second or two. Anime with sakuga either have higher budgets or have to go down to 4 fps in other places to recoup the costs. Actually, Japanese animation aren't drawn in 24fps or full animation. Old Disney Cartoons were using full animation, and maybe some TOEI's animation experiment during their early days, but not modern anime. There's no definite rule on that, but mostly they work on timing 3s or 2s. http://www.pa-works.jp/sakuga/yoshihara/tobi-yoshihara22.htm 3s means 1 drawing used for three frames, 2s means 1 drawing used for two frames, and so on. So technically if there are 24 frames on 1 second, and the animator use 3s timing, they only need to draw 24 frames / 3 = 8 drawings. (But that's just example, no need to stick with 1 second = 24 frames rule. And there's no rule such as that). Meanwhile Old Disney Cartoons use the 1s timing, so if one second has 24 frames, the animator need to draw 24 different drawings. And no, there's no correlation between number of frames with budget. Anime production isn't like school/individual project where they only have limited resources. It's not like the staff have to reduce the number of drawing because they ran out budget. You will see some cases where the animation quality went down, but that's not because they don't have money, it's because they ran out of TIME and resources (animator that available to draw). The production committee always make sure that the budget will be enough, and every staff working will get their pay. Although the pay may differs from one project to another (for example, Toshiyuki Inoue said in his interview with PA Works' president that Ghost In the Shell Stand Alone Complex had high rate of pay per drawings, compared to normal tv anime series). This interview with Toshiyuki Inoue, the so called Charisma Animator by his peer and Perfect Animator by Mamoru Oshii, probably will give you more idea about animator. http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/toshiyuki_inoue_interview http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/toshiyuki_inoue_interview_part_2 |
e_hoba said: That makes sense. So, sakuga shots mostly mean the moments when the number of "koma" changes. Come to think of it, many of good sakuga moments are 1s shots. I didn't understand what kind of difference they're seeing. Thank you all for your reply Yes. For some people, sakuga moment is the moment when the animation suddenly got better. So you're not entirely wrong. But if we think it again, the definition of good animation could differs from one's perspective to other's. Although most of the time sakuga fans could agree if a certain sequence is "sakuga" or not, not everyone can agree if that particular sequence is their favorite. Some may think it's /good/ or /sakuga/ but "not good enough", and some think the otherwise. So I think it's not completely wrong to say sakuga is more like a way to appreciate animation. Each opinions could be different, that's not necessarily a bad thing, a good discussion could start from there. e_hoba said: Come to think of it, many of good sakuga moments are 1s shots. No, no. Even "bad animation" in Japan still use 3 koma or 2 koma. People rarely use 1 koma, that has been long abandoned because it wastes lot of time (and money). If the timing is right, even they use 4 koma, 3 koma or 2 koma, the result will be good. If you want a good example is Mitsuo Iso's work. Once I tried to framestep his work in Evangelion episode 19 (the scene where Unit 1 went berserk and ate the angel), he use 3 koma and 2 koma combination. I heard that he even take this approach to the next level, in End of Evangelion, he made his entire sequence without in-between/douga. I can't explain it well, maybe this interview with Bahi JD will help you understand better. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2014-04-16/the-space-dandy/part-ii-bahi-jd Hmmm, Old Disney stuff is something else differently. They work with 1 koma / 1s. Although I don't watch much of old Disney cartoon nor know much about western animator, I really love Milt Kahl. He's also Toshiyuki Inoue's favorite western animator I think. Another difference between Disney animation and modern Japanese animation is, Japanese animation don't obey the 12 principle of animation like their Western counterpart does. Another difference is the individual style. If I remember correctly Peter Chung or some Western Animation fans said that in Disney's cartoon, the animator shouldn't trying to make a work that really stand out. But in Japanese animation, the style could differs so much. Most of old Disney stuff are realistic, or semi-realistic (realistic but with exaggeration). But its different from realism approach in Okiura, Inoue, and most of Ghibli's works (at least for me). Not to mention people like there are people who have a distinct style that's so different from the rest of their peer, for example Shinya Ohira or Yoshinori Kanada (Just look for their MAD at youtube). |
kyuudereDec 26, 2016 7:47 AM
| @kyuudere For this youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haa7n3UGyDc you don't write the whole address but only the part after = [yt]haa7n3UGyDc[/yt] |
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| @zal: thanks! fixed now. Also, if anyone want to read more stuff about sakuga, I recommend to read AniPages, sakugabooru's blog, or Wave Motion Cannon. But if you're completely clueless about sakuga fandom, this one article by Yuyucow/KViN is always a good place to start. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2015-09-30/the-joy-of-sakuga/.93579 |
| thx girlish number i know dis sakuga lol |
Cross  AngeHey guys check my profile for current airing season anime recommendation (guaranteed best taste) |
| Thread locked Locking as it has already been answered and there is no point in moving + merging it to GA at this time. |
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