The CG 3D Anime Mystery Misery! Intro I remember this thought quite fondly in my 3D days in the Spring of 2002 or so. At that time, I was modeling my first anime style bishoujo character named Xyni-chan. It was on a dark, stormy, after 4 in the morning kind of day at the film school, and all I had to keep me company was my Maya workstation and enough J-Pop to drive most sane people insane. I really liked J-Pop back then. I was having a little trouble with my model, and for some strange reason, there were these little hooks and wires on the walls used to help hold up the computer desks up, and I kept on thinking of an effective way to hang myself without having one of the desks collapse. Well, I gave that one thought up, and decided to look to the internet for some great giant's shoulders to stand on for my work. I might as well have stood up on top of one of those collapsing desks, because the only thing that I could stand on was porn. Okay, it's the year 2004 now, and the search results aren't getting all that much better. Apart from the movie based on Masamune Shirow's Appleseed* utilizing a good amount of 3D technology and advanced cell shaders, I'm in a pretty big stump to name some prominent, commercial level anime that uses 3D technology for more than just giant robots. This is nifty to think about, because although video games and even western cartoons have taken a very large tilt of the hat to the anime style and have used influences from it in their own 3D works, it seems to be a bubonic plague infested desert with very few fuzzy cool oasis to stick your head in and drown as far as 3D CG anime from Japan is concerned. By all means, Japan isn't remotely dodging the 3D technology when it presents itself, along with video games, it seems to be often used for commercial work, and I have also heard that there is an apparent trend with creating "Virtual Idols" or cute looking anime girls that act in real time with a seiyuu behind to voice or something to that extent. They are by far not ignoring the technology, but I still find it extremely strange that they seem to limit the use of it in film to a bare minimum. This is the main focal point of this Messay, to attempt to reason why Japan seems to produce a minimum of commercially available entirely CG 3D television shows and feature films. I will also try to explain a relevant definition of 3D CG anime, although it is open to interpretation exactly what may fall under the criteria. I've only seen still shots of 3D anime models, and I recall hearing of like, 3 shorts created with the style and technology, but they were so obscure, that on a later search after the fact, I felt like I was searching for a cheese fondue in a big flaming inferno, in other words, I couldn't find them again. For the time being, the only anime that utilize 3D almost entirely or completely that I have heard of are the Appleseed movie, Run=Dim, Galerians: Rion and SD Gundam Force. I would love to mention more 3D anime, but at this time, I am standing in a big gapping hole and have had extreme difficulty in pin pointing some specific examples that are commercially available. In other words, I'm screwed when it comes to finding further references as examples for the time being. Terminology Anime and CG tend to be words that are incredibly flexible.**
Threedime, pronounced like: Three-Di-Mai! There you go, problem solved. 3D anime will just be abbreviated as Threedime from this point in the document so that there is no argument that 3D anime is an oxymoron.** Sure, I could just use 3DA, but that makes just too much sense, and if you are going to read the rest of this, threedime should fit right in with her incoherent literal brothers and sisters. Now onto another super happy pink definition correction. An often misconceived notion is that CG automatically means 3D. Since nobody could ever figure out what the "I" stood for in CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery), every one decided to just abbreviate it as CG***. CG is basically anything that is done on a computer, including stuff that utilizes such common applications as Photoshop, Flash, and Illustrator. It can also mean more elite 3D technology, such as Maya, XSI or even a custom company platform application. Technically, since the "I" is gone now, it can also mean basically any music digitally edited/produced or any document that is created on a computer, as well as pretty much anything that goes through a computer to be created as a final product, but you'll almost always hear it used in visual production context. Anyway, I'm not a stickler for definitions, and I would appreciate it if you don't hold me to the nail on this one and exercise your common sense when you see fit. Technical Issues 1: Difficulty In Modeling One of the factors to take into account when evaluating why a product is not being produced is the difficulty of it to produce, which includes technical problems and talent in the mix. For all good reasons, people who love anime and video games are almost always technologically inclined. Anime has to a degree, become synonymous with the workings of the internet. All you need to do is look for the obligatory anime avatar on the boards that apparently exists everywhere for just about everything. As a result or a coinciding action of this, many anime fans who are gifted in working with 3D often do models of anime characters, mecha and on rare occasions, even try to create their own independent film. You see it all the time in fan work, granted, half of the time it's malformed or a work in progress, it's undeniable that there are people out there who have sufficient interest to at least try it, and there is a sufficient demand to see more of it. So what is it that is going wrong? Ever wonder why you see so many threedime spaceships. cars, gigantic missiles, cars, and giant robots, just about anything other than human models? Well, here's the reason: -Doing semi-realistic and realistic 3D Humans is a nightmare Even if you are a good modeler and you have some humanoid templates set up, it can still be very challenging to have an anime humanoid that looks about right from every angle for film use, not to mention rigged properly and has a believable set of animated blendshapes for facial movement.**** Then there is the animation part where the shoes just fall apart in water, so to speak. Still, I do not think this is the main problem. Professional 2D is a nightmarishly labour intensive task as it already is, and spilling a little blood in the 3D realm shouldn't be too hard by comparison, actually arguably easier and more cost effective in the grand scheme of things. Doing an anime character in 3D can be easier than modeling a fully realistic human, but compared to drawing every single frame of animation realistically, the time invested in post production to turn an abbreviated anime character into a realistic human model is relatively little. I do not think it is because of a lack of talent that Japan does not produce good Threedime, granted all of talent seems to have been attracted to the video game side. Still, I find it important to yak about the nature of 3D work, and why it can be troublesome at times when needed to fit the bill. What is particularly interesting is why we are seeing the two extremes of style in 3D works in the world. On one hand, you got your people working with extremely simple models, a ball with legs and eyes, talking gang of vegetables or toys can make a surprisingly good amount of entertainment in North America. On the other hand, you got virtually photo realistic animation used in games and certain motion pictures often produced in by Asian talent and independents. Technical Issues 2: Realistic and Cartoon Abbreviation A large mystery is why despite all evidence of popular trends, aren't more Threedime shows for film and television not being produced in Japan It is extremely rare to find a midway point between realistic and cartoony with an anime look to it in a 3D film like you see in so many video games. You would think a trend like that would have caught on a long time ago, but it seems that somewhere between aiming the bow and releasing the arrow, someone shot themselves in the eye. Now anime covers a lot of bases, but just because it does, I'm gonna' pull out the ever cute and desirable cliche of the big eyed bishoujo (I use the example so much, I should just abbreviate it as BEB) as an example. Can you name one single 3D commercial animation that features a BEB? If you do, let me know, cause it's a big huge black hole where I'm sitting (Well, my little Xyni-chan is a 3D BEB, but she ain't getting paid just yet), and I'm constantly wondering why. Anyway, to understand why the Japanese don't seem to be all the rage in having full feature films about BEBs and other anime benchmarks, you have to understand the purpose behind the style to begin with. The whole reason why anime, manga, illustrations, comics, cartoons, line drawings, practically anything not photo realistic looks the way that they do was originally done with the intent of avoiding the complicated task of drawing a realistic looking versions of the subjects being portrayed, which takes an enormous amount of effort. If Disney had forced it's animators to do a photorealistic Snow White for every single frame of the entire movie, they'd probably end up dead before finishing the film, either by accident or by choice. With 3D animation's ability to have a very realistic character posed in any possible way and performing any possible action with adequate rigging, the convenience of the abbreviated anime style becomes virtually obsolete. How should I put this... when you got chocolate milk, why bother going back to regular milk? Something among those lines anyway. As stated before, the ultimate result is that threedime becomes a stylistic choice over an efficient t ime and effort saving technique, that is, the only reason to have it is because like the look of 2D anime on a 3D model, not because it's gonna' save you all that much time. To further elaborate this argument, you only needs to look at a film such as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within or Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. You would think given the original of context of Final Fantasy as a Japanese originating RPG, that these two films could be classified easily under full threedime, but that is apparently not the case. The original illustrations for Final Fantasy VII by Tetsuya Nomura could be classified as anime style, definitely when compared to Yoshitaka Amano's uniquely rapid and dream like style (I love long necks and cannot lie! Hahhaah), but in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the characters look much more realistic, taking into account that they were based on a fictional level of character design. From what I have seen so far in the trailers, Advent Children seems to be dynamic, dramatic and on an epic scale, as well as possess a very distinguished cinematic quality that anime is renown for, actually, it probably has everything that could define an anime film, except for the fact that everyone and everything looks realistic, which has the otaku community choking when it comes to labeling it. Of course, you can always say that labeling doesn't matter as long as it's good entertainment, I agree, but you have got to wonder, if it isn't Threedime, then what is it?. The Final Fantasy movies prove that the limiter on animation that has plagued 2D animators for years is officially off, one of the greatest reasons to use the traditional abbreviated anime style is dead. Of course, watching Aki Ross' hair render over months and months is probably as fun as watching paint race in a swimming pool, but the render time is a technical limit that is always being pushed with rapid progress, not a human one. Technical Issues 3: Down Sampling For Style The path between an anime character and a realistic character is surprisingly short in the grand scheme of things, so the question is will people opt for realism over style or the other way around? Realistically, except for the head, hair and idealistic body proportions that are utilized in every visual recreation medium in the entertainment field to some extent or another, the only reason to turn to the anime style is a route to the past or a favoritism for the look of the BEB, which is admittedly not universally loved by everyone. It is almost just as easy to do a realistic human figure as an anime figure in terms of modeling, and sometimes more difficult, so why doesn't something like Toy Story or Shrek use full fledge realistic characters? It is because in essence, they are still "cartoons", endowed with a stylistic simplicity fitting of the story. Also, something like Shrek would just look strange if they made him a hyper realistic character and I think that would have really ruined the film. Anime is all over the map in terms of mature variety, whereas western animation is still primarily kiddy stomping ground, but it seems the people creating the threedime films in Japan are more intent on expressing more serious themes, and perhaps also have an interest or a technological lust to see how far they can push the their limits, which is pretty natural when you think about it. The less serious anime human characters were never designed to be fully modeled and animated in 3D. Anime model kits prove that characters can look good in three dimensions, but many features and functions of current 3D technology highly disagree with the anime style, particularly when animated. For example, the huge wide gapping smilie face on an anime girl that extends beyond the jaw line, the technique of pushing the nose or mouth back or fourth on the centerline of the face for accented effect, all anime symbols, like sweat drops and angry pulses are all limited in 3D. This is simply because of 3D medium's very nature. We have become so accustom to some techniques in 2D anime like the sweat drop, but such effects will naturally look out of place in a 3D environment that is closer to our own reality. If you saw a giant sweat drop appear over someone's head in real life, then you'd be booking your obligatory nap time with a shrink pretty dang soon, as oppose to a cartoon or a storybook where the lack of a third dimension clearly separates fantasy from fact. The fact is, our society has not become accustom to seeing such illustrative effects in a three dimensional environment, this may change with time, but for the time being, many of the traditional anime techniques or clichés are very unusual to see in 3D*****. This is not even taking into account the nightmare that are cell shaders. Technical Issues 4: Cell Shading And Stuff Ah, cell shaders... if you have seen anime that uses them, or video games like Zelda: The Wind Waker, Crimson Tears, Viewtiful Joe and Jet Grind Radio, and you might think these things are as easy to use as slapping on a preset with a price tag as big as a bling whale on it. Cell shaders might work for something like a fuzzy little animal mascot or a nice round nuclear torpedo, but when it comes to fully animated human characters, you're talking about a margin of error as wide as the Grand Canyon. Admittedly, I have only experimented with my own personal works in 3D and am quite limited in knowing exactly what the limits of 3D animation are at the head of the industry, but I know enough to know that it almost never turns out the way you want it to. Many people are trying to get the perfect cell shader technology, and I have faith that in time, it will become an extremely effective tool, perhaps even humbling 2D animation, but I do not believe that the emulation of the old style is the only way to go. Pixar, Dreamworks and other western animation companies have no gripes producing their work in 3D without cell shaders in works like Toy Story, Shrek or Ice Age or 3D television shows such as Reboot, War Planets/Shadow Raiders (Because War and Canada don't mix) and Voltron: The Third Dimension******, and I think the anime world shouldn't be too fussy either. As a matter of fact, I know not of a single commercially designed feature film entirely done in cell shading, except Appleseed as previously mentioned, Japan or otherwise. Cell shaded 3D usually looks like a bloody stump of a thumb repeatedly whacked by one of those gigantic hammers that an anime girl pulls out from under her skirt. This fact is highly evident, made only more obvious when combined with traditional 2D cell animation within the same scene, it simply looks out of place. The 3D animation is often too smooth, running at a fluent frame rate on ones, juxtaposing the limited animation of the hand drawn television animation that runs on twos or even threes. Additionally, the color scheme tends to clash and distort because the lighting source has to be artificially created to match the 2D layout. I find it ironic that fusing live action with 3D CG is actually easier to do with better results than placing 3D cell shaded objects with 2D. That really makes you start to think about if it is a matter of technical priorities. Traditional animation combined with cell shaded 3D has not been as high in demand or utilization for use in production as combining CG 3D with live action has been, as such, less resources and interest have been allocated to it. It may simply be that the logic that flattened cell shaded 3D is a paradox in action. The shader technology could definitely use a lot of work, but these are technical flaws, hardly the only reason why 3D anime films are uncommon as people who say "hen's teeth" in this day and age. 3D anime characters do not have to utilize cell shaders on them to make them look good, although the usual definition blurring will occur of what the heck anime is in the first place. Many are satisfied with their face value 3D models that look like the anime models produced with resin and molds that come in a kit that you assemble and paint. Those things are a Threedime modelers best friend for reference, honest to all that is holy, those things saved my sanity when I was working in 3D, but I digress. For the most part, you're not going to hear people challenge the authenticity of Threedime, there is so little go around to begin with, that even hard core otaku in North America don't seem to be particular fussy with chasing definitions. One very strange thing about 3D anime style, is that while it is still waiting to awaken in a film format, it is alive and well in video games. Industry Comparison Honestly, 3D anime style characters in video games are common, and you aren't going to complain that they aren't popular, Sure, the line of what anime style is might get blurred because in 3D, every one looks closer to being a real human, lacking that whole "Look at me! I'm a cartoon and have big thick black lines around my body!" thing. By definition, you don't need the black line thingie to be classified as "cell shaded", just a limited palette that makes the character look flat, but I'm trying to make a point here without going to "Too much exception to every fricken' rule land", so stick with me here. Characters like Ulala of Space Channel 5 and Yuna of Final Fantasy X and X-2 fame have achieved a very large portion of fame over the video game community, and you don't see them showing off their big thick black lines... okay, in the art books you do, but that's when they are 2D and all that jazz in the spring time. There doesn't seem to be any drop in any fan enthusiasm whether they are 2D or 3D, which make you wonder if anime trying to utilize a cell shader is done for purely sentimental value. Although the old time purists would like to see 2D rule the universe for eternity if possible. 3D anime is definitely in demand, so that factor is out of the question. There may be purists and all that fun stuff, but there is so little 3D animation now, that I have yet to meet a person who is screaming "Butcher!" at the 3D industry for over saturating the anime market with 3D like the 2D purists in North America are doing in the light of the decline of 2D feature films on the feature film front in favor of 3D. 3D animation is more efficient, much cheaper (especially for a series where the same models can be used over and over again), and it can easily override one of conventional television anime's biggest weaknesses, that is, limited animation. With all this going for it, it is hard to understand why very few commercial 3D anime films have been produced. Surely it cannot be the limits of technology alone, video games have proven that at the very least, a crude approximation can be produced. Toy Story didn't have all the cards running for it when it came out, even afte r Pixar experimented with multiple small shorts and video games have proven more than enough that it could be done using any level of technology since 3D was commonly utilized in entertainment. It would have been unthinkable to produce a semi realistic film entirely in CG at the time, but Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, as much as I love tearing that movie apart, did prove that the possibility is definitely there. Video games have by far proven that 3D FMVs with anime like characters can be produced with breath taking results. Many video games have done very nice character modeling and FMVs, especially Xenosaga, Phantasy Star Online, and pretty much any 3D game by Square Enix, and most every single fighting game produced in 3D, especially the Dead or Alive, Soul Caliber, and Virtual Fighter series. It might be ironic to consider that North America has turned to 3D because the 2D animation realm was proving troublesome, an industry that is healthier in Japan than North America in terms of overall acceptance despite it's own problems, but has proven to excel at it as far as the passive entertainment realm is concerned. By all means, Japan has the technological zeal to become proficient in 3D animation for film work, and they have proven to great extents what they are ultimately capable in terms of quality in many different areas, but they seem to lack the flame of failure in the 2D industry to motivate them to try alternatives on a wide scale on the wide screen in the name of quantity. Perhaps that is the main reason, perhaps it is not, there are more things to consider than I could mention in this document without further research, but for the time, I will attempt to deduce the main reason. Conclusion I believe that the primary reason for the lack of 3D anime style is this: The Japanese have seen enough manga and anime style as it is. As broad as it is, they never really pigeon holed it as the big eyed, high to heaven hair, sweat drop invested romp that we in North America do. It is no longer an end all means style to them, heck, they don't even classify it so singularly as the North American otaku do. The huge gapping void that exists between the recognition of anime and the how they are different from cartoons only really exists outside of Japan. Back in the early Saturn and Playstation days, threedime was used in video games for convenience and to lesson polygon count, much like how in 2D, anime and manga were designed to be an abbreviated reality. This was necessary at the time, and works much better in terms of efficiency for game purposes, but these limits are ever expanding, especially in full FMV production. With a feature film, the limits of poly count and other potential limiters that exist in video game creation are blown right open a nd the difference between investing in a full blown realistic 3D model and an anime character are much smaller and are done in the preproduction stages, as opposed to drawing every single frame realistically, which could haunt you for an entire series, which would be extremely nasty. It is my personal belief that the primary reason that there is so little actual 3D anime is because the abbreviated anime style has lost one of it's greatest advantages - it's purpose of lessening the work load, and the Japanese may not hold a particular sentimental attachment to the typical anime style as a American otaku community might, as it is more scarce and still possesses it's novel appeal, as the anime scene in North America is still relatively new. perhaps they are even more motivated to defy it. I wonder what the Japanese anime otaku think about all this. Where as anime has become a well loved style in North America with a certain lasting aesthetic appeal to it, the Japanese probably have seen an over abundance of it in time, and have no general reason not to experiment with something else. The irony seems to be that they lack a sufficient motivation to do a full scale revolution from the actual 2D format, other than simply a sign of the times. Perhaps the problem is also monetary and resource allocated, video game companies might have more talent and equipment outfitted than their passive entertainment counterparts in the 3D field. I imagine it would be very difficult for a traditional 2D studio to switch entirely to 3D. It was a branch off of Square Enix (Just Square at the time of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within) that has worked on the two Final Fantasy movies after all. Square Enix is known to be the most powerful driving force of creating RPGs on console systems, the game genre most often associated with anime enthusias ts, famous for their incredible FMVs. It is no mystery that they branched into the film industry, but I wonder why so few other companies in Japan seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. I personally love my 2D anime the way it is, but the lack of 3D films seems to have an eerie feel to it, I find it most interesting. It was once said that if a lot of the great manga artists in history were given a camera instead of a pen, they would have shot movies instead. I get the feeling that if Japan did start creating 3D CG films, that the majority of them would take on more realistic properties that contrast with their western counterparts. Whether a universally accepted Threedime classification will develop is anyone's guess as of now, but I think it is a great opportunity for expansion, I would like to be a part of it and find it all very exciting myself. Although it is still early in the game for the time, and the world of 3D CG is relatively new, I have extremely high faith that there are some incredible things to come just pass the horizon. Eternal Footnotes of Bottomless Humility *Appleseed was originally a manga by Masamune Shirow and then made in a OAV later on. The new Appleseed movie is credited with being the first fully 3D CG Anime feature film ever to be attempted. Although I was personally impressed by the film at the time I saw it's trailer, many of my colleagues have negative opinions about it. I am still looking to see specifically what they saw. I find it interesting that with this release, there is a possibility that Japan will take on a more cell shaded 3D CG mentality to contrast with the West's cartoony, yet full shaded style, providing yet another generation of animation variety between the two. Of course, I like to keep track on the big guys in between the two as well. **As with all acronyms, CGI and and CG have multiple different interpretations. A lot them very hilarious and very nasty. Of course, anime has a load of different meaning as well that range from the very loose definition of "Mature Cartoons" to the very strict definition of "2D Japanese Animation created for Japanese by Japanese endowed with Japanese characteristics". *** Because anime itself doesn't have a final definition, threedime doesn't either. In other words, something like Shrek could be technically classified as threedime because it parodies the Matrix which is anime inspired at some point. In other words, the definition of threedime falls apart in water. So just use it to mean something along the lines of the 3D version of Anime, like common sense would dictate. Then again, common sense dictates a lot of things. Still, typing a search for "3D Anime" is not exactly the most kid friendly thing you can do, so I think if people ever were to seriously work on some productions, a new word would be very convenient on search engines to duck an onslaught of hentai sites. I was going to originally use "Tridime" but apparently, that's already a word in another language. ****The hardest part about modeling a Threedime character is undoubtedly the face, everything else is child's play compared to it, yes, even the dreaded hands are easier to do in 3D. The worst of the worst right after a fully animated mouth is the nose. In 2D, you can get a cute look by just slapping on a little slanted line or a dot. In 3D, that simply doesn't work, it ruins every thing to just take a vertex and stick it out like you might think would be the logical equivalent in 3D. It is because of this reason that a lot of anime style modelers take an all or nothing approach, that is, they either give a flat face and use texture maps, or they completely deck it out and give it an anatomically correct details and the texture map is just icing on the shoe (The lack of a texture and bump map can often be the only thing that separates the anime character from a realistic one if the proportions are correct). Trying to do the midway point is very difficult, and the first thing that almost always looks wrong in Threedime is the nose and mouth. This is made several times more evident when you animate using blendshapes. Blendshapes are basically key point model templates that can be used in animation to transform one shape into another and are the standard for animating facial movements, they have other names, but I have learned to call them Blendshapes. They can be used for morphs and animation between simple objects like a Dragon Quest slime or a talking meat bun as well. In any case, an abbreviated anime character has no facial muscles per say, as such, something like a wide grin would look unnatural since there are no facial muscles to indicate movement. It's not so horrible if you are doing a hard edge male character, but try doing a soft, delicate bishoujo and welcome to Hell. The balancing act between what details to put in and which to omit for cute effect in 3D can make a grown man cry. It looks okay in 2D because of the lack of detail and a fully shaded gradient, and you can alter it for each individual angle or frame if need be for optimized results, but in 3D, it sticks out like a upside down totem pole in Alaska in the spring time. This is perhaps what makes midway point anime characters so extremely difficult to do. There is a basic rule with 3D films, the more realistic they look, the more mistakes you can find. Then there is the hair, not the hardest part, but enough to give you a migraine or two to decide if you want a realistic look with the most evil rendering times that you can imagine or geometrical hair that is easy to render, but quite extremely painful to animate manually. Mechanical things are significantly easier to do in 3D. 3D is practically designed to do straight, artificial and mechanical things with ease, and easier to animate as well. It can do simple animal mascot characters as well, but modeling a believable humanoid is pretty much as challenging as 3D can get, not to mention texturing, rigging and animating it. You don't have to animate the mouth of a giant robot, and unless you are really going postal on the details, it doesn't have muscles that contract when it's limbs bend. You can also literally copy and paste your way to success using assorted mecha parts that you create based on Gundam modeling kits and catalogs. Honestly, make a catalog of 3D robot parts, you know, of the usual arm, leg, and head variety and you can make a great 3D custom giant robot model in under an hour, perhaps even under a minute if you have programmed a script or created a program to mainstream the process, like in the Armored Core series. You can even change the textures and color scheme for an even bigger selection, and unlike a human, the parts don't have to connect exactly to form a figure. Hey, if Voltron can do it, so can you. Then again, since humans pretty much all look the same as well within a tolerable degree of race and gender, you can pretty much just cut and sew heads on them as well, so making a vast quantity of them isn't a problem. Quality control on the other hand, is a different story all together when it comes to our fellow biped. Since humans exist in real life, even the everyman can tell from direct reference when there's just something not right with a digital interpretation, on the other hand, assorted giant robots of city wide destruction fame don't exactly walk up to your door to deliver pizza everyday, so there is really very little to complain about should you see one on screen. *****A colleague of mine who was far superior to myself in both 2D and 3D (I think my 3D anime girl was cuter than his though, hahaha) tried to do a sweat drop in 3D in his film using blend shapes, I personally think it was one of the main things that ruined the film because it seemed to lack the iconic potency of the 2D version and was a key point in the punchline of the short. when you work with 3D works, do not rely on anime or cartoon icons like pulses, sweat drops and exclamation marks unless they are super imposed on post production, it just seems to look wrong the other way, but it seems to cheapens the film if you do it in post production. ****** I take great interest in the irony of Voltron: The Third Dimension. The original Voltron was originally produced as two separate, but related series in Japan, but later brought to North America and went the way that all anime back then went when it hit our shores - to the editing table. Despite this, it was a cult favorite, and apparently so popular that there were a couple of episodes that were produced exclusively for the North American story line, one of the greatest "You got to be fricken' kidding me" stories in anime importing history. In any case World Events Productions purchased the license for the original series in North America, and I believe that they decided to create Voltron: The Third Dimension independently in 1998, as I could not find any ties to Japan in any way. A lot of people who aren't particularly loyal to the original like it, but it is a cold day in Hell when an American company produces one of the first 3D animation series based off of an anime before Japan even got a swing at the bat. Whether I'd classify it as Threedime or not seems to very difficult in light of this reasoning. That is, it does not look entirely like 2D anime style, but since there were next to no Threedime originating from Japan other than novel experimental films (That probably exist, even though I don't know of any), fan art and video games, a definitive reference point is missing. |
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