Was the only problem with Shibuya the pacing?

Sorry to barge into the conversation but I wanted to give my opinion on this discussion since I also wasn't the biggest fan of the majority of this season's approach in animation.

For me, what makes a fight scene great is multifaceted: story, artwork, pacing, immersiveness and overall storyboarding or direction of the scene. And interestingly, animation plays a big role in all of these aspects.
When it comes to animation quality I think JJK S2 is a massively impressive showcase of the animators' skill in that department.
When I say animation I'm referring to the illusion of movement of the characters and I think is important to keep in mind that, to varying degrees, different series have iconic examples of it and examples of tragically poor animation as well (sometimes even in the biggest of IPs in the Anime Industry).

I do think that, when it comes to animation, you can love it or hate it ultimately boiling it down to what you, as an audience member, are looking for.
In JJK S2 I felt like the gestures, the smear, the squash and stretch is all over the fights in aggressive effect, resulting in scenes filled with a ton of energy, exciting and dynamic; it feels alive and, moreover, not too different to other big action episodes within the season (for the most part), but actually very dissimilar to what I got used to in S1 and the movie.

With that said, I'm a big fan of sakuga and high quality animation and, taking that into consideration, I think that if someone values character art consistency more than animation and movement not only is it perfectly reasonable, but also probably how a lot people (me included) feel too and with good reason: the purpose of animation is to enhance the immersion and the story that's being told through it, and one important way of achieving that desired effect is by suspending the audience's disbelief for them to get invested in the characters and forget that they're actually watching animation.
However, I believe one could very easily make the argument that if animation takes someone out of the immersion and story, and that is what you're there for; then to those people that animation would've failed in living up to it's purpose.
In other words, if in the multiple fights throughout the season you found the animation distracting enough to the point of it taking you out of the immersion, story or fight that was taking place then that animation, despite it being intentionally exaggerated and objectively impressive from a technical standpoint, fails to serve the primary purpose of animation for that person (which is to tell the story in a dramatic fashion keeping the tone of the source material).

When it came to this approach I think there's an insane amount of talent at display when it comes to conveying movement and a sense of energy all throughout S2; timing is nice and one could also be a fan of simple shapes in order to facilitate character movement. So, from a "philosophical" standpoint I appreciate the approach taken this season.
However, there's a TON of moments where I felt like they're pushing this envelope far too far when it comes to some of the simpleness of the approach. Again, this isn't evident of poor animation quality as I believe the animation to be quite good overall; it is, however, a result of not enough time reserved for corrections or perhaps not the right direction for that scene (at least I think so).

While, as mentioned, I appreciate the philosophy behind the approach taken I think it leaned too far into even comedic territory when it comes to some of the choices made, which ultimately took me completely out of the moment that these scenes were trying to deliver for.

In short, I think the artists that worked on these are extremely talented, but I do think that the vast majority wasn't in the realm of what the show has produced before (Mappa's fault). But, I do however think that some of the vision that the team or directors had for multiple fights was perhaps too far outside of what some of us, including me, consider to be within the boundaries of reasonable artistic license.

Watching through the season, I wasn't thinking of how awesome the fight was or about the story; I was instead laughing my ass off to some of the wacky character movement and inconsistent design, I was constantly thinking about the animation and how it didn't match the show's overall approach only to be reminded time and time again of Mappa's mistreatment of their staff, which distracted me from my primary reason for watching anime and took away a lot of the enjoyment from S2.

Most of the fights in S2 are perfect examples of this sort of loose, minimalist animation being used to accommodate both stylistic consistency as well as the tremendous energy in animation that JJK is trying to convey. And so I think that if the staff had some of the cuts corrected for model correctness and character design it wouldn't be as problematic as it is to me personally. Though I know it's not their fault, of course.

Fvck Mappa

Oh yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying.

Maybe because I rambled too much about stylistic approach but I also mentioned not enough time (aka quality drop) in some corrections and direction (which come hand in hand with animation). As you said, time and money do compensate talent so I'd like to think of time as a quality "indicator" for this.

What I'm saying is, I totally agree with you that it's important to call out straight up errors.
Is just that, in a show like JJK it is difficult to do so when you see so much praise and excitement (and pity for the staff) going around, all while you're not having a good time.

I definitely don't see these things as excuses but I do find them interesting as part of the process that ultimately lead to the product we were delivered.

A perfect example of this is what happened with the Sukuna vs Mahoraga fight. I genuinely didn't like it, but seeing so much hype and praise being thrown around left and right, all while not being too familiar with the technical intricacies of animation, kinda puts you (me) in this trance of "maybe I just don't like the approach" mentality to reassure yourself.

If I'm being totally honest, the only fights that did met my expectations in the quality that I was expecting from S2 was the Choso vs Yuuji fight. Some fights in Hidden Inventory were alright for me, and then Sukuna vs Jogo and Mahoraga were also highlights of the season but just OK for me. I was genuinely laughing out loud during some sequences with questionable consistency in the character design during these fights. Again, not knowing the technicalities of animation is difficult to call out actual mistakes and differentiate them from things not to your taste.

I also had a similar experience when watching Hell's Paradise which I'd assume you'd include as one of these "downgraded" Mappa shows 😂.

Anyways, appreciate the conversation.

SnK didn't have top tier animation during the last 2 specials?

30% of their Vision does not mean its bad it means THEY WANTED AND COULD MAKE IT EVEN BETTER
JJK is overhyped, it is good but like I always said it has a lot of flaws and deserves to be criticized especially because of All the hype it gets, but to say its bad because of animation is just dumb when you try to argue that your view is objective. because objectively the animation is not bad, an objectively bad animation is something like Berserk 2016/17 even if jjks is not as good as some other animes it does not make it bad. you can not like the Animation style, say it could have been better (which yes it could have been but you can say that about ANY anime, and if jjks animation is bad you are basically saying most other animes are bad because their animation is not perfect) but if you want to take a Stance on why jjk is bad and you want to act like some objective critic, then at least argue over points that are actually objective, like the plot not having a lot of depth or whatever

badly handled characters?

What plot holes??


What bad animation? Only episode 14 had subpar animation, and episode 8 mid storyboards and bad material. The rest were fantastic.

We got masterpieces like episode 3, 4, 5, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20 and y’all talkin about “bad animation”😭😭

Gotta drop in because you are giving a subjective analysis on something an animator said, to claim that jjk is objectively worse than stampede (in terms of animation).

Just because its 30% of the intended vision, does in no way Mean it is objectively a 3/10 in terms of animation.

They might, for example, use the first 20% of the animation process to make sure it looks like a solid 5/10, and then use the rest to Refine it and make it as good as possible.

30% probably means that they only got to put 30% of the needed time (or effort) to reach their vision into the fight. 3/10 means that the animation is below average.

The two are not the same, and a person saying they only got to put 30% of the needed time into the episode, does in no way (especially not objectively) mean that he thinks they made a 3/10 episode in terms og animation. Hope you get where im coming from with this.

Yea okay i can see how i misintreperted the 30% to be a measurement of time or effort, instead of the intended vision.
Still, your claim that the episodes animation is objectively below average, because an animator has said that the episode didn't live up to the inteded vision is still weird. That same said animator has Even come out afterwards, saying that the numbers (30%) was not what was important in his first statement. instead his intended statement was, that he was sad that the studio did not get to fully realize their vision for the episode.
I dont get how you can take his statement, and say that it means that the episode was objectively, at most, a 3/10 i terms of animation.
He did not mention that he thought that the animation turned out bad, only that it did not turn out as intended, and that he was dissatisfied that he didnt get to put out the intended vision.
Even if he did Mean to say that the animation was below average, one animator coming out and saying that he thought his studio did a bad job, would in no way make the episode objectively bad to everyone else.

Art is subjective, Even to the one making it. You can put something out that you yourself hates, that the majority of the audience loves. A big sum of the bleach fanbase are, at the very least, dissatisfied with the ending of the manga. Still, the author says he ended it exactly as intended. Does that now make alle the readers who disliked it objectively wrong? The author of aot was dissatisfied with the way he wrote themanga ending, but still, some people enjoyed it. Are they then objevtively wrong?
Do you see where im coming from? Even if the animator himself did not like his work, you cannot objectively rate any form of Art.