| Recently I was watching a short animated movie, and, it occurred to me that, rarely do I see any human expression from anime characters, especially those subtle expressions that give us a feel of how and what the other person is thinking and feeling. When I look back in time, from all the shows that I have seen, only a few rely on body language without the need to use inner dialogue so the viewer can understand what or how they may feel. So, when a character is more expressive, it's far more easier to us, as the viewer to relate to their emotions, because we use these same expressions unconsciously in our day-to-day lives, thusly we read their body language and understand what they're feeling without the need of inner dialogue. A couple of examples: Vimeo link: Paperman Vimeo link: Borrowed Time So, what do you think, should animators focus on giving characters more human expressions, and, would it have an impact on your likability of the characters if the they're given more gestures? If you have the time, please take a look at these videos, as they are touching on the point that I'm trying to make. |
ourielOct 26, 2016 1:16 PM
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| i blame inaho worst character in the history of animer |
Cross  AngeHey guys check my profile for current airing season anime recommendation (guaranteed best taste) |
On_the_Lam said: I mean, if they didn't slack off their work and animated the episodes just a bit earlier than a week before airing, then maybe they'd have time to put more effort into animating proper facial expressions. Or if they had a decent budget. Comparing a 1h 40 min film with a budget over 150 million to 12-24 episodic anime is also a bit unfair. I'm not talking just about shows, but movies as well, The Garden of Sinners, as well as the new GITS movies all lack these expressions, even Hosodas' latest movie, The Boy and the Beast fails to deliver on that aspect, whereas Wolf Children had these subtle moments. |
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| Hmmm. Animating a face is hard, and people prefer either badass silent characters with a trench coat, white hair and a grey morality, or expressionless dolls. I swear I want to die everytime I get a poker face bishonen villain I'm supposed to take seriously. |
Prophetess of the Golden Era  |
| Some characters are designed that way, other times just budget restrictions. But honestly, most of the time it depends on the character. |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
Who needs emotions when you can have this? |
The most expressive anime character that I've seen is Paul von Oberstein, he shows so many emotions throughout the series. :O |
| Only high profile studios are able to do such details though. But the big issue are Loyalty towards the scource, lack of time and above all lack af talent. |
| I feel the exactly opposite way, rarely i find on tv people who can express real emotions, on the contrary anime has drawn characters so the result will be a perfect expression for every situations |
| Not realy, some shows just do it better than others... |
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| must have watched anime trying to mirror cool dudes and dudettes |
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| It certainly could've been done better in a lot of anime. |
on Dog-Person said: I'd say the opposite is a bigger problem from what I've seen. Too many times have I seen a perfectly good anime ruined by a mc who spends the whole time crying and feeling sorry for himself. I'm looking at you mirai nikki This is what happens when a expressive Guy is done wrong. The Funny thing is that techniques and such nowadays are more in favor of Woman than Men. |
I kind of like anime because of the over the top facial expressions, not the realistic subtle ones.  |
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JoJo captures expressions best. I mean, look at this guy! |
I would hardly say this is expressionless |
SomeEdgeLord said: I WILL report you from this forum if this continues. In real life, I am one of the coldest, unsympathetic, people you'll ever know, who's grown up in an even colder household, you really don't want me to break my persona, I know how to make people feel bad. YearnsforAttention said: hm who has 1656 friends on MAL that's right me bye bye YearnsforAttention said: I don't want your approval how many damn times do I need to say it I enjoy irritating you I am gonna do things MY way |
| Bones and Gainax/Trigger have always been great at flexible and expressive faces, so it's not an issue that pervades through ALL anime. Just a lot of anime. |
 This glorious signature image was created by @Mayumi! I am the Arbiter of Absolute Truth, and here is my wisdom: "Anime was always influenced by the West. This is not news. Shoujo is the superior genre primarily aimed at young people. Harem/isekai are lazy genres that refuse any meaningful innovation. There is no 'Golden Age.' There will always be top-shelf anime. You should be watching Carole & Tuesday." |
Can you say that again after seeing this? |
 Kickstarter for Rokujouma is fully funded. Good work everyone. Lets wait for the result of our hard work together. |
| Man, based JoJo never fails to deliver. |
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| This is why I like Isao Takahata. His attention to detail when it comes to animating (or rather, directing) those subtle facial expressions and body language, brings the characters in his movies and tv shows to life in a way that I rarely ever see in most anime. |
| what emotion does this face express ? ? ? |
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| Texhnolyze got great detail in expressions |
"Oh shit, I gotta shit a thousand bricks, but there's no public bathroom anywhere nearby!" |
This glorious signature image was created by @Mayumi! I am the Arbiter of Absolute Truth, and here is my wisdom: "Anime was always influenced by the West. This is not news. Shoujo is the superior genre primarily aimed at young people. Harem/isekai are lazy genres that refuse any meaningful innovation. There is no 'Golden Age.' There will always be top-shelf anime. You should be watching Carole & Tuesday." |
OP how do you explain this? ? ? 2cute4me  |
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ouriel said: On_the_Lam said: I mean, if they didn't slack off their work and animated the episodes just a bit earlier than a week before airing, then maybe they'd have time to put more effort into animating proper facial expressions. Or if they had a decent budget. Comparing a 1h 40 min film with a budget over 150 million to 12-24 episodic anime is also a bit unfair. I'm not talking just about shows, but movies as well, The Garden of Sinners, as well as the new GITS movies all lack these expressions, even Hosodas' latest movie, The Boy and the Beast fails to deliver on that aspect, whereas Wolf Children had these subtle moments. Here's a masterpiece:  It takes much skill and emotional understanding in order to produce such a work of art. |
| As I said, I think this is from author to author each has its own characteristic to make characters. |
| "There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths." ― Friedrich Nietzsche |
| I finally got some time to reply. Guys/gals, I'm not talking just about facial expressions, but body gestures as well, the way you move your hands when you're talking or explaining something, the way your body moves when you're nervous or when you're close to someone you like and so forth. Or just some little things that aren't so overt, so noticeable that even a toddler can get the meaning behind the expression. Someone in the posts said, but Ghibli movies, most, if not all pay attention to this little detail that adds flavor to the characters. For example, the shoe tying that Chihiro did in Spirited Away; in Inside Out, when Riley is drinking Slushy and gets a brain freeze, the way her hand is animated; in Paperman, the way the male character uses his fingers to accentuate nervousness and other small details that give life to the characters. I'm not talking about over-the-top expressions, which are in abundance, but about subtle details. @NeoAnkara Remove the blush lines(because we get what she's feeling, so there's no need for the blushing), smooth the frames, and you have a nice body language and an interesting touch with the book. |
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| one of purpuse why animation art got simplified was to make easier to draw and identified expression... it's hard you know... |
 "If taking responsibility for a mistake that cannot be undone means death, it's not that hard to die. At least, not as hard as to live on." |
martiooo said: I think anime has some of the most detailed expressions of any animated media, perhaps even greater than live-action. Perhaps you're interpreting the emotions wrong? OP means variation in expressions, subtle shifts in mouths or eye for example. |
ouriel said: I finally got some time to reply. Guys/gals, I'm not talking just about facial expressions, but body gestures as well, the way you move your hands when you're talking or explaining something, the way your body moves when you're nervous or when you're close to someone you like and so forth. Or just some little things that aren't so overt, so noticeable that even a toddler can get the meaning behind the expression. Someone in the posts said, but Ghibli movies, most, if not all pay attention to this little detail that adds flavor to the characters. For example, the shoe tying that Chihiro did in Spirited Away; in Inside Out, when Riley is drinking Slushy and gets a brain freeze, the way her hand is animated; in Paperman, the way the male character uses his fingers to accentuate nervousness and other small details that give life to the characters. I'm not talking about over-the-top expressions, which are in abundance, but about subtle details. @NeoAnkara Remove the blush lines(because we get what she's feeling, so there's no need for the blushing), smooth the frames, and you have a nice body language and an interesting touch with the book. That stuff's easier to do in 3D than 2D, and anime doesn't do subtle shifts in expressions unless its comedy for budget reasons. Lots of animators have been experimenting with it though. If you watch Occultic;Nine and Kekkai Sensen you'll see lots of variations in expressions. Most KyoAni stuff puts in the effort to animate mundane tasks too so it could just be that your standard CGDCT don't do it and your standard action shounen are saving their time and effort for the fights. |
So how can you explain this expression? |
 ◐ ~ Life sucks ~ ◑ |
| @TitanAnteus Can't talk about Occult;Nine or Kekkai Sensen because I haven't seen them, tho, I'm not sure about KyoAni, since I've probably seen only Clannad, and it's been a long time since I saw that, the last thing I saw from KyoAni, that I want to watch in the future is K-on, and it's only been 3 or 4 episode and haven't paid attention to it. A bit contradicting to what I've posted. @thepwningpotato I'm not talking just about facial expression, but hand gestures and body postures, something that's subtle, not exaggerated, for example, tapping your finger on something can mean that you're bored, slightly leaning forward with your chest/torso can mean that you want to be closer to someone and other unconscious gestures that we're using. @_Luche Again, that picture shows nothing subtle, it's exaggerated and is easy to see the meaning behind it. The pinky finger, is subtle and it's a nice addition to deliver the information. Edit; Skip to 0:33, because MAL doesn't let the video start at the 0:33 mark and watch the hand gesture. And, if you're interesting in something more, maybe take a look at this article. http://blog.animationmentor.com/10-advanced-acting-performance-tips-for-animators/ For some reason, the @ is not working now.... -.- |
ourielOct 26, 2016 11:36 AM
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| There are some that are not, but some yes. |
GangsterCat said: i blame inaho worst character in the history of animer he also manages to be the biggest gary stu in anime and end any possibility of aldnoah being remotely enjoyable |
nina was misssing her favorite table too much in this moment so this is a perfectly normal expression |
| The thing is that most shows cut down on such animation mostly due to stress and time. The examples you showed are from big name studios who take time to animate it all. But still it is the little movements that count. |
RaieJimenez said: I think it's because of the medium itself. Anime doesn't aim to be photo realistic animation. It does this on purpose and that's okay. Other mediums or other animation try to be as real as possible. So they spend a ton of time and money on the details. Like the small facial expressions you mentioned. By giving up a bit on the quality you get quantity. More anime shows without photo realistic animation. Instead of less anime shows but photo realistic animation. Then you have Quantity over quality and that must never happen. Sure Human emotion expression is something that is often better handled in other media. Howdver, the reason why Anime's kind of expression is not realistic is because it aims for something that only animation can make, a over the top reaction face. However, other media do genuine expressions better |
Bourmegar said: The thing is that most shows cut down on such animation mostly due to stress and time. The examples you showed are from big name studios who take time to animate it all. But still it is the little movements that count. Yeah, those are from big studios who have a lot of money on their disposal, but the points that they're making still touch on this subject, and all refer to paying attention to how humans behave and how we act based on our emotion, so the character is made more believable and relatable; even Miyazaki and Ed Hooks say that animators should observe the way humans behave and act, even Beck at the end of his video says how he was researching kids, so that he'll have the knowledge to make the characters more interesting and believable. Gestures, such as in the video that Beck was explaining about animation, the kid with the thumb in her mouth, is a subtle gesture, it's not very noticeable, but gives life to a character. That's why I started this thread, because these subtle gesture(facial, hand, torso, legs etc.) give life, dynamic, vividness to a character, and oft are ignored even in movies, especially movies that are not coming out of Ghibli. To quote Miyazaki(I think it was from the documentary, „The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness“, I'm not sure): Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it. For some reason, I can't find the video that has that and I know that I've seen it somewhere. Around the 12:14 mark, an animator explains what's their faviourite thing to animate. I know that for shows there are budget constraints, but movies have higher budget and should be able to pull this off. |
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