Animation is Too Good Now
I've noticed that the standard for animation has increased significantly among anime fans. Don't get me wrong, I love that animation has improved so much because it means a better viewing experience overall, but I do think fans are being spoiled by this increase in quality.
For starters, I think it's important to consider the context that anime fans nowadays skew young, particularly Gen Z. My issues with the perception of animation is symptomatic of a greater problem with this generation (and others too, for that matter), which is shorter attention spans and "TikTok brain."
But when it comes solely to the anime side of things, it feels like animation has become a major factor in people's enjoyment of anime. Of course, people can enjoy anime however they want, but since when did animation become a primary consideration in picking what show to watch?
The new episode of JJK, for instance, is for all intents and purposes, a "normal" episode, even of an action anime. But the general reception is that it's "pretty good, for a talking episode." So now, any episode of an action anime that doesn't have hyper-stylized fights is considered abnormal. I know this is likely due in a large part to the example set by season 2, but that's no excuse for such a blatant misalignment between expectations and reality.
Animation also enhances existing perceptions of an anime a lot more than it should. For example, One-Punch Man season 3, which was a bad adaptation that even butchered the story to an extent, has been rated as worse than The Promised Neverland season 2, which ruined its story more than I've ever seen a fictional work do, due to its animation.
Also, Sentenced to Be a Hero had a great first episode, but it has been slightly overrated in my opinion because of its stellar animation.
I guess I just wanted to voice some of my discontent with how younger generations seem to be gravitating more and more to mindless slop, and I think it's incredibly sad that magnificent animation serves to increase this detrimental pattern. As a community, I hope we can have more meaningful discussions (I know this sub is better than others because of its slightly older population), even to the extent of discussing how much you like a specific character as opposed to only focusing on the colors on the screen like it's a drug.
Again, I think better animation is obviously a positive thing overall, but right now, I'm feeling that it's "too good" when it comes to the younger brainrotted anime fans. Sorry for the long rant.
For starters, I think it's important to consider the context that anime fans nowadays skew young, particularly Gen Z. My issues with the perception of animation is symptomatic of a greater problem with this generation (and others too, for that matter), which is shorter attention spans and "TikTok brain."
But when it comes solely to the anime side of things, it feels like animation has become a major factor in people's enjoyment of anime. Of course, people can enjoy anime however they want, but since when did animation become a primary consideration in picking what show to watch?
The new episode of JJK, for instance, is for all intents and purposes, a "normal" episode, even of an action anime. But the general reception is that it's "pretty good, for a talking episode." So now, any episode of an action anime that doesn't have hyper-stylized fights is considered abnormal. I know this is likely due in a large part to the example set by season 2, but that's no excuse for such a blatant misalignment between expectations and reality.
Animation also enhances existing perceptions of an anime a lot more than it should. For example, One-Punch Man season 3, which was a bad adaptation that even butchered the story to an extent, has been rated as worse than The Promised Neverland season 2, which ruined its story more than I've ever seen a fictional work do, due to its animation.
Also, Sentenced to Be a Hero had a great first episode, but it has been slightly overrated in my opinion because of its stellar animation.
I guess I just wanted to voice some of my discontent with how younger generations seem to be gravitating more and more to mindless slop, and I think it's incredibly sad that magnificent animation serves to increase this detrimental pattern. As a community, I hope we can have more meaningful discussions (I know this sub is better than others because of its slightly older population), even to the extent of discussing how much you like a specific character as opposed to only focusing on the colors on the screen like it's a drug.
Again, I think better animation is obviously a positive thing overall, but right now, I'm feeling that it's "too good" when it comes to the younger brainrotted anime fans. Sorry for the long rant.
Commentaires
Now doesn’t mean it all falls through the cracks but I do feel the younger fans can’t appreciate a great story with good but not amazing animation like some other groups can. It makes some genres pretty untenable as a result sad to say.
I won't speak to the other examples, but sometimes it's okay for a show to get some criticism for a slow or bad episode. Exposition dumps are sometimes necessary evils. The rest of JJK might be an absolute amazing season, but needed the rules spelled out clearly to understand what the hell is happening. Doesn't mean the exposition wasn't annoying for some people to sit through.
HxH is even less boring for me, and the only parts that were truly tiring to get through were literal recap episodes.
OPM S3 is objectively bad and the animation would still be considered bad 15+ years ago.
Not really sure what the point of this post even is tbh.
it feels like it's part of the whole 'media literacy is dead'
It's easy to say that people should watch something because of its story content, but our eyes are the primary way with which we perceive the world, and thus animation looking good is one of the main reasons that an anime becomes popular - you don't just listen to an anime afterall, you **watch** it. See how many of the most popular anime tend to be those that are incredibly well-animated or are just good to look at. If you had two anime with completely identical premises, but one has amazing animation while the other is bad, people will watch and remember the former rather than the latter. I can assure you that if anime like Apothecary Diaries or Frieren were animated poorly, they wouldn't be nearly as popular as they currently are.
And I am not a young anime fan.
But why would I want to have worse animation?
Obviously I want every show that comes out to have the best possible animation, visual effects etc...
Why wouldn't I?
What benefit does it give me (as a viewer) to watch an anime that looks bad?
I prefer to watch things that look good.
Animation is one of the most important aspects in a visual medium.
Except, to play devil's advocate, I think what this conversation is getting at isn't animation in general. It's specifically modern, overly flashy action sakuga cuts that receive the overwhelming majority of the praise from casual audiences. Meanwhile more subdued great pieces of animation (i.e. a lot of the thoughtful character movements in Hyouka or Liz and the Blue Bird or even certain slower, more methodical fights in the likes of Yu Yu Hakusho) are given less attention from people who don't appreciate the care put into them. Which types of animation are "important" varies on what the onlooker sees and a lot of onlookers consider for example character animation as just second nature rather than an impressive feature in its own right unless it's wildly exaggerated. Someone operating under such a perceived hierarchy of purposes for animation with fights at the top can express it in two ways. Either the non-action anime with great animation are given a "it didn't need to go that hard" reputation or seen as inherently lower effort / easier. Both of those are things I encountered in the wild often enough.
It looks like most of the other shows from its time with tons of panning shots, repeated cuts and individual animated movements.
Seriously never understood what people see in it, it doesn’t look good to me at all.
But, yeah, much like the other scene someone linked to me telling me how good the animation is, I just do not see it.
I wouldn’t say it looks bad, but rather that it looks unremarkable and not like something I would specifically enjoy because it’s well animated
Of course people enjoy looking at good visuals in an audiovisual medium.
That's like saying "listeners to modern music care that music sounds good and that's a problem"
Is it?
The music I listen to is music I think sounds good. That's why I listen to it.
I just wish more people would place more value on the enjoyable stories so many anime offer.
Looking for something visually appealing or exciting is no better or worse than enjoying a good story
It's just different, no value attached to that.
You can think critically about animation as well. Or about visuals, when it comes to live action movies in general, in terms of blocking, colour grading, depth of the image, camera movements etc…
It’s also not instant gratification - not any more instant than a story is.
And finally, no, society is not going to go down just because people appreciate visual spectacle. That just means people enjoy visual spectacle.
Obviously a decline in society is an exaggeration, but with a vastly increased number of people in the new generation behaving this way, it's worth talking about at least.
You just assume that that's what it is.
There are much worse things happening in society that are far more damaging than enjoying good animation.
Exposition episodes with a lot of dialogue don't need to be visually boring. Some anime like shoushimin are 90% people talking with a lot of techniques to mask the lack of movement with creative visuals, but it puts the effort when it counts.
If you have a strong artistic direction and keep the characters on model without any glaring mistakes, your anime will be considered at least visually decent without having to overextend on the animation. Obviously, if you are doing action, you need better animation than on a character drama, but you still have to choose your battles and know what cuts need more work and when to save your time.
Meanwhile I'm over here in my corner bemoaning the decline of storyboards, layouts, backgrounds and compositing in modern anime. All the flashy animation cuts in the world can't make up for the loss of visual cohesion due to the all of the fundamentals surrounding the key animation falling apart. You can chase incredible heights, but what good does it do when the floor is crumbling underneath your feet? Genuinely, the average 2005 TV anime is a much more immersive viewing experience than the average 2025 seasonal anime for me.
> The new episode of JJK, for instance, is for all intents and purposes, a "normal" episode, even of an action anime. But the general reception is that it's "pretty good, for a talking episode."
Sorry, but I don't remember many other action anime where characters stand around in a white void to have exposition delivered to them. The way I see it, it's a bad episode. Not for an action anime, but for an anime period. The anime staff do their best to make it engaging through mixing up the camera angles and placements of the text boxes, yet the material they worked with is so barren that this isn't enough to salvage it. This is not criticism about a lack of action. It's criticism about an episode with incredibly dry substance and an execution that despite its efforts can't salvage it.
when it comes to production, animation is not the only thing that matters. let's show some love for the sound design, voice acting, shot composition, etc.
I’ve never really liked this argument in any medium tbh. It’s like when people say video games are worse now because they have better graphics and animation. Lol no, it’s because some corpos above the development team wanted fast money so they forced them to push out an underdeveloped product.
People behave as if downgrading animation is going to automatically make the quality of something better (in the case of anime that would be **storytelling**). I personally don’t think it has anything to do with that. If the writers and developers want to make a good story, then they should take the time to do so, instead of rushing out a half-baked show (or game).
And I don’t think it’s unreasonable or wrong as a fan to want BOTH good animation and good storytelling (or in the case of video games, “good animation and good gameplay”).