One Piece Animation and Budget?

Varus said:
I see very often One Piece watchers complain about the low quality Animation. So why is the Animation bad? Is it because of the budget? But isn't One Piece the most popular Anime in Japan? Making millions in merchandise and sales? You'd think they would Animate the series better with such success. I'm confused.

Josl said:
So the answer to your question is that because it is one piece and everyone knows about it, they can treat it like shit without losing any money.

Josl said:


The goal for any company is it to make the most amount of money with the least amount of investment.
I will give you an example. Let’s say a One Piece Episode costs 100k to produce. Now they increase the budget for an Episode to 150k. This is an increase of 2.5 Million in the yearly budget. So this means they have to generate 2.5 Million more revenue through merchandise and other revenue streams. The question is will better animation sell more toys or get more people to watch it Sunday mornings at 9. The answer is most likely no.
So the answer to your question is that because it is one piece and everyone knows about it, they can treat it like shit without losing any money.

Josl said:
So the answer to your question is that because it is one piece and everyone knows about it and probably watching it for more than the animation, they can treat the animation like shit without losing any money.

Josl said:


The goal for any company is it to make the most amount of money with the least amount of investment.
I will give you an example. Let’s say a One Piece Episode costs 100k to produce. Now they increase the budget for an Episode to 150k. This is an increase of 2.5 Million in the yearly budget. So this means they have to generate 2.5 Million more revenue through merchandise and other revenue streams. The question is will better animation sell more toys or get more people to watch it Sunday mornings at 9. The answer is most likely no.
So the answer to your question is that because it is one piece and everyone knows about it, they can treat it like shit without losing any money.

Mikasa said:



And that's why Toei is a sellout and has no work ethic. It's like Ubisoft releasing unfinished games.

Journey_95 said:


its not only the animation though
scenes are drawn out, the pacing is abysmal etc.

a great manga such as One Piece deserves more than this trash adaption
shame the japanese don't care

Sakata_Kintoki said:
I think this kind of question will never be solved or be cleared.

First,you can't blame the studio, because making Anime is not EASY or CHEAP as you think.

second,you can't expect them to making a GODLY animation quality like Ufotable,when they have been making One Piece every week for the PAST 16 YEARS.
if they want a better Animation they might as well watch One Piece as 1 or 2 cour show,to give the staff a time to improved the quality.
SWITCHING the studio is not the answer here you know.

third,IT IS true that One Piece is one of VERY POPULAR ANIME in everywhere,selling like a hot cake.SO we need to ACCEPT that THEY DID MAKING IT FOR MONEY,or else WHY WOULD THEY WORK THEIR ASSES EVERY WEEK FOR?

If people still saying "they should put more effort"or something like that,you simply answer "why don't you DO IT yourself then?"

Finally as for me who don't really support One Piece in legal way(by buying DVD and stufff).
I don't have the right to complain about their work.

RedRoseFring said:


"Scenes are drawn out" and "pacing" relate to the same thing. So you can just add it in there with animation as one of the things the audience doesn't care about very much.

tsudecimo said:
If One Piece was adapted by Madhouse, it wouldn't have been still running lol.

Journey_95 said:


the audience has VERY low standards it seems
they are blind because its one piece

this adaption is trash

Journey_95 said:


yeah probably and I wouldn't mind
I imagine most others (at least here in the west and the sensible one's)) wouldn't either if it means better pacing and animation

I would rather have One Piece every few years but done like HxH instead of the pathetic excuse of an adaption we got

Journey_95 said:


yeah probably and I wouldn't mind
I imagine most others (at least here in the west and the sensible one's)) wouldn't either if it means better pacing and animation

I would rather have One Piece every few years but done like HxH instead of the pathetic excuse of an adaption we got

8animet said:
The anime has been pretty shitty since the time skip that much is true

bigivelfhq said:

Return to Sabaody Arquipelago and fishman Island:
Sakuga
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-vwsteZVcZNY3E1bzRfR2xTRWc/view?usp=sharing

Normal parts
(Return to Sabaody)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWCUGdN_nuE

(Fishman Island)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAi3RHgdHdw



Punk Hazard:
Sakuga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ATSIq-yzY

Normal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcnFw63bmW4


People love to complain and exaggerate on what they say about those complains. Also before and after time-skip the animation and budget is basically the same. They just got a lot of care in the Marineford War(that people also love to say is budget. Well, maybe it is) because it was such a pivotal and action packed part of the series.

8animet said:


Not sure what you are trying to prove, the animation and pacing already began to go to shit during the Marineford War

No way the anime still has the budget from Water 7/Enies Lobby
Hell Sabaody (first part) had some good fluid animation too, see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpUYxB95EYQ


Compare this to the shitfest that is Dressrosa
And compare this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yzGba31ces
with the lame fights these days

The animation and pacing is just terrible these days, no wonder though since the DBZ director took over during Thriller Bark (as far as I have heard) and Toei got greedier and greedier (those fucks)

The pacing being bad is to be expected since they refuse to do real filler or take breaks, so they have to stretch a half chapter throughout an episode

Thankfully the manga is still great, the anime though is medicore at best

bigivelfhq said:


This hate mentality is totally stupid. Though the one that suffers is you, because you will not enjoy the good things of the series.

What I tried to prove is very simple. The standard animation of One Piece is the exact same and the Sakuga is also the same as always.
What can be said that changed through the time is art-style(including coloring) and animation style(old animatiors changing theirs and new animators with new ones), but that is mostly seen in Sakuga.
So basically it is in fact the same with little differences.

Go watch Water 7/Enies Lobbby again and watch its normal animation. The quality is the exact same as right now(It could even be argued that now is better).

You say that Water 7, Enies Lobby and Sabaody had some good fluid animation. Obviously they have because its Sakuga, but all arcs have Sakuga, and so they all have some good fluid animation.
Dressrossa is not an exception:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r31H00tvHdo&feature=youtu.be&t=55s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdP5m1XhryM
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2dY3epxzjc
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_u7NpVfKjk
...

About being greedier. That is just your idea of their state of mind. Because you're hating is obvious your opinion is pretty biased.
In reality being greedier makes no sense in this situation.

Let's see:
One Piece is a show for kids and family. Its objective is to be long and turn into a habit by people. Stopping isn't an option at all. We're not talking of night-time shows or a the new Evening specialized slots(like the Haikyuu!! and Nanatsu no Taizai slot). Breaks just bring casual viewers, the meat of their audience, off to look at other things. So a break 99.9% of times just means end of the series.
Do you really want for One Piece anime to be like Hajime no Ippo anime adaptation?

Fillers. Fillers isn't a good idea either. They are really limited in what they can show, so they normally aren't that good. This sends away a lot of the core audience(casuals) over time. So you don't want long fillers, nor a big frequency of them. Note that the series is made to be watched regularly in Television, not in the internet where people go away when is filler and than return when is canon.
The decision of still going for Fillers or not, knowing its bad points, is something that isn't taken lightly.
Do you really want for One Piece anime to be like Bleach anime adaptation?

Pacing. One Piece manga chapters have around 2 to 3 more content than a normal chapter in other weekly mangas. So I would say that a 1,5 chapters adapted in one episode is enough.
If the original content is well planned and scenes of the story well played out, it can easily be used 1 to 0.5 chapters in an episode. Toei is doing just that, and is doing a pretty good job at it.
Do you really want for One Piece anime to be like Tokyo Ghoul anime adaptation?

In the end the series handling is not perfect, but we aren't in a perfect world either, but is pretty good.
In a world where most anime with breaks don't adapt a source to completion(nor anywhere near it), where majority of anime have a pretty rushed adaptation pacing. A slow and steady, and with the objective of completion(for now) adaptation is a good one.

In a perfect world, Oda would be able to do 2 to 3 chapters per week, and Toei animation would be able to do an episode per week where each one of them has a studio Ghibli quality animation. Things don't work like that at all, and fortunately the target audience of One Piece can't care less for those things.

8animet said:

Rewatch Water 7/Enies Lobby and compare it to Dressrosa or Fishman Island, if you won't notice the difference and how much inferior the latter is (not talking about story and characters even) I'm not sure what to say

I just wait for the "big" scenes these days and there are still some moments of greatness

8animet said:
I just think its a shame that Toei gives no fucks and puts zero effort into the anime anymore

8animet said:
I just wait for the "big" scenes these days and there are still some moments of greatness

8animet said:
But since the target audience are kids (probably why they tone down the violence in the anime) in japan they really don't need to since they will keep watching anyway

bigivelfhq said:


Just recently I re-watched all of the series again. I made my mother start to watch the series, and episode 698(before the current one) was the first we watched together weekly.
We took around 5 to 6 months to watch everything, and no there is no such difference at all. Everything is totally made up from your mind. The animation quality is exactly the same, as it always was!
Toei didn't change, in any significantly manner, how it handles the series from pre to pos time-skip(In the TV anime there was not even a break between Time-skip.)

Everything is basically the same. I totally don't see where this theory that the quality decreased comes.
In reality I see it. As soon has there is any kind of official division, like a time-skip or an arc, people jump into drastic opinions. Is like the division is a check-point where they can point when talking of something.




Or they are putting no effort into the anime now or they are putting some. You can't have both worlds!
You're totally contradicting yourself.

Also did you watched at the Sakuga videos I put in my other post? That totally shows you that they aren't putting Zero effort.



One Piece is one of the only anime(probably only with Dragon Ball) where the target audience is the general public, from kids of 6 years to adults of 50. Obviously it started as a kids show, going from kids of 6 years to 15 years, but with the growing popularity and widespread of audiences it changed naturally.

Toei Animation Audience titles:
One Piece -> General
Dragon Ball -> General
Precure -> Girls from 6 to 12
World Trigger -> Boys from 6 to 12
Sailor Moon crystal -> Older Girl fans(20 to 30?)
Saint Seiya Soul of Gold -> Older Boy fans(20 to 30?)
Robot Girls Z plus-> Otaku?(Is a renovation of a title from the 70s using Moefication)
---
Digimon Tri -> Older Boy fans(20 to 30?)

Because the animation didn't significantly changed from before, people that were watching are still watching. That is just normal!

In 2013, 3 years into the Time-skip, One Piece Unoffical went to Japan and made a documentary about One Piece. In that documentary there is an interview with an Animation Director and Key animator in One Piece, Shigefumi SHINGAKI.
He is the Animation Director and Character Designer of One Piece Strong World episode 0.
Go to 1 hour and 12 minutes of the Documentary and watch what he says about One Piece anime: http://oppjapan.com/2014/10/03/the-one-piece-podcast-goes-to-japan-the-movie/

8animet said:

I will say this you are definitely putting a lot of effort to prove that nothing changed

8animet said:

I guess me and tons of other fans (there is a lot of justified hate for the OP anime) are all just "imagining things" and its just a theory lol

8animet said:

It does feel VERY dragged out though and medicore (the long ass recaps, extra fanservice, stretched out scenes with reaction shots, the filler scenes, lazy animation at certain points etc.)

8animet said:

All that I didn't notice much before the time skip (not saying it was perfect)

8animet said:

The pacing is just terrible, whats your argument for that?
Maybe you like to watch it all at once and not weekly? Then I imagine it wouldn't be that bad

8animet said:

I wanted to rewatch the series anway (only pre time skip though) so I guess I will see for myself, either the OP anime was always bad (if nothing's changed) or it was good and went downhill after Thriller Bark (probably where it began to decrease in quality but it was still solid until the time skip)

8animet said:

There are still some good scenes, they don't seem to put much effort for 80% of the anime but there are still some well done scenes, nothing contradicting about it

8animet said:

Also do you even read the manga? Only after reading it did I realize how much better it is compared to the anime (switched to it during Punk Hazard)

bigivelfhq said:


Just saying that anything is way worse now is something that a lot people love to do. Even when is definitely not the case.
Just because a lot of people spout vague comments about its quality being worse doesn't make it true.



I'm not saying the hate is not justified(Though I don't agree) and just imagination. What I'm saying is that things were the exact same thing way before. Its downgrade after the time-skip doesn't exist.

If the hate is justified now, than the same hate was also justified earlier. I don't agree with the hate now, nor did I agreed with the hate before.



What majority of people call dragged episodes(here I also most times disagree with) started in Skypiea, but this was mainly only seen in the beginning of the arc. Then it went into Water 7 and Ennies Lobby, but sprinkled throughout the arcs. In Thriller Bark it started being standard. This is like 4 years before the Time-skip.

A funny thing is that some people at the time were complaining a lot about it(One of the main complains about Skypiea arc!), and kept the same complain all throughout the rest of the arcs before time-skip. After time-skip this also continued, but somewhere during the time-skip people started talking like it was something that only started in the time-skip and before it was so much different.

Long Recaps, Extra Fan-service and fillers scenes have nothing to do with animation quality and budget!
In reality I would argue that extra Fanservice and Fillers cost more budget.

Let's talk a little about those:

Extra Fanservice
- What are you talking here? The characters designs? If is that, note that this is Oda character design and the anime always liked to exaggerate them(if you understand what I mean).
This has nothing to do with animation. Unless you're talking of things like boob jiggle animation and explosions, but in that case the animation would be better if they in fact added those things.

Fillers
- You here probably talking of Original content(filler is a derogatory term about content that only objective is stalling. This also normally only talks of full episodes and arcs).
Original content is something that Toei always did, even in Orange Town(Buggy arc) where they adapted 3 to 4 chapters per episode of the manga.
Yep, Less chapters adapted per episode, normally means more original content. This goes even earlier than Skypiea.
Though this in any way means worse animation or budget. Just content that wasn't in the manga really.
Take for example Zoro vs Hody. In the manga it was just one big panel of Zoro cutting Hody. In the anime you have a pretty huge fighting sequence really well animated. This certainly meant bigger animation and more budget spent than if only just the scene of Zoro cutting Hody.

Long Recaps
- As the chapter per episode got shorter the recaps also got longer. Though not as long as you might think. In average right now in Dressrosa each recap takes 1:50 minutes.
They vary from episode to episode though and sometimes, but rarely, we get some extra long recaps that can go as long as 3 minutes. We also rarely get short recaps of 30-40 seconds.
Note that in One Piece the ending merged with the opening and now we have 2:45 minutes of opening instead of the 1:30 minutes standard.
One Piece also has a story introduction that takes every time 45 seconds.

Comparison of start of Thriller Bark(episode 337) and New Opening of Dressrosa(episode 689):

Opening:
Thriller Bark -> 2:30 minutes
Dressrosa -> 2:45 minutes

Story Introduction:
Thriller Bark -> 37 seconds
Dressrosa -> 45 seconds

Recap:
Thriller Bark -> No Recap, but 1:30 minutes of original content/filler
Dressrosa -> 1:58 minutes

If I remember correctly during Thriller Bark the average recap length was around 1:20 minutes. Depending what part of the story it was the recaps increase or decrease(even right now in Dressrosa is the same thing) So they are highly variable.

Dressrosa takes in average 53 seconds more than in Thriller Bark to start new content. Rounded is 1 more minute.
To note that Dressrossa is the arc that the Animation team had to "stall" for more time given the bad health Oda had this last 2 years. Oda only made 3 volumes last year, instead of the normal 4 volumes. this is basically 10 less chapters than normal. Because there is no stop in One Piece production, this was felt with some episodes with just 2/3 of a chapter and 2 episodes just adapting 1/2. Though, this situation already returned to normal.


Now talking about things that indeed can affect animation

stretched out scenes with reaction shots
- Not only they didn't appear after the time-skip, but they and flashbacks are common devices used by Toei, since way back.
Their use is highly variable, and no, they didn't increased in any significant way, or at least not that much, after the time-skip.

Lazy animation at certain points
- What you call lazy animation at certain point are the lows in animation in the series. They existed way way before the time-skip. And they will keep existing.
Now, if you're talking of the standard animation quality right now, I don't understand how you can say before was OK and now is Lazy, when they are practically the same.


Now talking about all of the above

It can be argued that Dressrossa at some given point indeed increased every aspect of those things above(except the increase of Lazy animation), but Dressrosa isn't the start of the Time-skip(it started 4 years after the time-skip).
And is still to be seen if the rest of the arc(that already returned to normal form) and later arcs will keep that interval of Dressrossa as a standard to follow.




I'm not talking of perfection either.

And you only noticing after time skip doesn't mean that it wasn't there. It can exist a ton of reasons why you didn't noticed before time-skip.



I watch the anime weekly since the end of Ennies Lobby arc(when Ussop asked to return to the crew).

For me what I think about the pacing? Is OK. I really like it most of the time.
What I'm arguing with you now is not about what I think of the current situation of One Piece(for that just watch my posts above with links), but the fact that the Time-skip isn't the point where things changed or worse.




What are you calling by quality here?
And are you saying that you watched 516 episodes(or 180 from Thriller Bark) of bad anime without even noticing? Maybe you should revise your current ability to qualify things, instead.



Do you know what zero means? Because you said zero, not me. Not putting 80% of effort means that they are putting 20% of effort. 20% =/= 0%, one is nothing the other is 1/5 of maximum effort.

So you were totally contradicting yourself.



I read the manga since I caught up with the anime, during the end of Ennies Lobby arc, somewhere in 2007.
I've been reading it weekly after catching up with the manga. If I remember well, I caught up during Zoro and Ryuuma fight in the Roof.

Well I don't think the manga is better than the anime. They both have their big good points.
Also the fact that the anime adds new really good content to the manga is a big plus to me.

I'm an avid manga reader and anime viewer and I love them both immensely.