From new Q&A:
>Q. There’s a lot of movement in Ghost in the Shell, and I get the feeling it’s fairly lavishly done. Does it use a lot of animation cels?
>A. Actually, it’s toward the low end. Oshii’s works have a mix of movement and stillness compared with other films. They can look lavishly done as a result, but the reality is that it takes a lower number of cels. We had budget conditions that prevented us from doing anything wasteful. Oshii also strictly adheres to deadlines, so he tends to take pre-editing cuts from the animation director’s rack. Of course, he picks among them, but still. That generates pressure to work with haste, since even cuts you might want to edit a little bit can be taken without time for editing and put into the film.
>Q. Your own work as a director has received strong reviews, such as with Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and A Letter to Momo. Do you want to direct again sometime?
>A. My work didn’t sell at all, though. (Laughter) There’s a fun side to directing, still, so I’d love to if I get a chance again. It’s just that if it came to directing while also drawing my own artwork for it… That’s rough, physically, so I’d have to think about how to go about it. And also, the director has to make objective decisions on the film. For example, they have to question whether it’s worth fixing issues and errors based on their impact on the film as a whole, considering the budget and deadlines. But if you’re invested in the title, then that makes it hard to be objective. At the same time, there’s a chance of improving the overall quality of a work by focusing on details that might seem irrelevant from the outside, so there’s a very difficult balance to strike.
https://theghostintheshell.jp/en/news/hiroyuki-okiura-interview

>>281253245 (OP)
>Q. Over the last 10 years, 3D CG animation has made massive leaps forward. Do you ever want to take on that challenge?
>A. I’m not sure if you could say I want to, but I often think about it. When I first began animation work, Don Bluth had split off from Disney animations and had a lot of momentum, so that was my goal. But there were insurmountable differences between us. I’m sure it’s something about our ability to focus on goals or how we make technical improvements. I always felt like we were like amateurs next to them, when I think of it in terms of fundamental animation techniques. And that sense never really diminished until Disney left 2D animation.
>Q. Do you think that same difference might be present in 3D CG circles, too?
>A. I do somewhat suspect so. At least, in the Japanese anime industry, I can’t really see what people aspire to when making CG titles, or who’s in the lead in that space. But Disney and Pixar continue to focus on quality group-wide, rather than through individual efforts.
That said, I’m sure new techniques and expressive styles have been invented in the Japanese film space, too, so there’s also potential for a uniquely Japanese way to emerge… And that’s the hope I want to hold on to.

>>281253245 (OP)
>>281253245 (OP)
>Q. Over the last 10 years, 3D CG animation has made massive leaps forward. Do you ever want to take on that challenge?
>A. I’m not sure if you could say I want to, but I often think about it. When I first began animation work, Don Bluth had split off from Disney animations and had a lot of momentum, so that was my goal. But there were insurmountable differences between us. I’m sure it’s something about our ability to focus on goals or how we make technical improvements. I always felt like we were like amateurs next to them, when I think of it in terms of fundamental animation techniques. And that sense never really diminished until Disney left 2D animation.
>Q. Do you think that same difference might be present in 3D CG circles, too?
>A. I do somewhat suspect so. At least, in the Japanese anime industry, I can’t really see what people aspire to when making CG titles, or who’s in the lead in that space. But Disney and Pixar continue to focus on quality group-wide, rather than through individual efforts. That said, I’m sure new techniques and expressive styles have been invented in the Japanese film space, too, so there’s also potential for a uniquely Japanese way to emerge… And that’s the hope I want to hold on to.

>>281253245 (OP)
>>281253351
Intredasting. Thanks for sharing.

> But Disney and Pixar continue to focus on quality group-wide, rather than through individual efforts.

I find it a bit ironic that the japanese collectivistic society produced the manga industry, which relies mainly on individual talents, whereas one of the most individualistic society jn the world produced comics and 3D animation movies, both of which relies on group effort rather than single talents.

>>281253245 (OP)
Even rushed old anime is better than thoroughly produced new anime.

>>281253245 (OP)
>this is the last thing he animated
>3 years ago
what is bro even working on at this point?

>>281255321
He is the main key animator for Makoto Shinkai's next sci-fi film.

>>281253351
>he's a Don Bluth fag
neat

>>281254890
sharing it

>>281255039
its irony

>>281253245 (OP)
saw this coming

>>281255321
nu-Gundam was a mistake, literally every single one is shit

>>281255321
3 years is not that long in this industry.

>>281255101
facts

Ask the team behind ANY anime and they'll almost always say they had to rush and cut corners. It's par for the course.

>>281253245 (OP)
>We had budget conditions that prevented us from doing anything wasteful.
This is often how masterpieces are made, not by throwing endless amounts of money at big names, but by talented individuals being forced to get creative to work around their limitations.

nothing from gits 3? I remember oshii mentioned they have that idea in mind

>>281255039
Hollywood used to operate more like the manga industry funding all kinds of projects, but then over time it consolidated into these mega blockbusters. I get the impression they don't know how to go back even if they wanted to.

>>281260817
the seasonal garbage experience

>>281261358
I don't think they were ever seriously considering it, other than some vague ideas of what it could be here and there.

>>281261873
it's not that they don't know how, it's that they are beholden to the shareholders and not the public interest, and if they tried the shareholders would have those responsible fired and replaced

>>281253245 (OP)
>>281253351
This is just proof positive for me that making good animays are becoming some kind of lost art/forbidden technique. If they were able to squeeze out some of the best art and animation this world has ever seen on a fucking shoestring budget, it begs the question: what the fuck happened?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARTLckN9e7I

Look at this shit bros. Fucking look at it! You see how the reflections in the buildings and the water ripple? How the rain drops subtlety wash out the background? And speaking of background, it looks like they had a crack team of artists who's sole job was to draw every background with fine toothed combs to make it look not just good, but totally consistent?

I'm sure this is what dark age Europeans felt when they unearthed a Roman bathhouse with multiple wings and chambers, beautiful frescos adorning the walls, and marbled floors that literally breathed and kept your feet warm because there were teams of slaves in the basement heating the floors with giant furnaces to ensure your patrician feet aren't cold. I know this is probably the most millennial/hipster shit I could say, but it's true: can you even imagine this being made today, in 2025? No, it's not possible, it's like the techniques and technologies needed to craft it were lost to us, and now a paltry imitation is all we have left.

I don't necessarily name moe/Shonenslop, but I mean yeah I kinda do. Studios figured out long ago that ghost in the shell style quality sells the same or even worse as the same rehashed seasonal bullshit we get nowadays. And you can't blame them for trying to make money. But it's sad that we might never ever get anything as sick as this again. And it's also too bad zoomcels probably won't like/watch/demand more ghost in the shell-esque quality because they don't like any media made before they were born, fr fr on god.

>>281262224
Disney was public in 1940

>>281262369
the blockbuster hadn't been invented yet back then

The whole 10 month production schedule of GITS is pretty well known, and in some circles is part of the lightning in a bottle narrative surrounding the film.
Not to shit on the magic or anything but GITS basically exists because of all the time and money dumped into Patlabor 2. That's the lavish big budget prestige movie. GITS is a subset of people (because who could afford them all again) reusing things like the studio and what they learned on that film to make what was supposed to just be a studio hack job.

>>281262345
There's severe diminishing returns for having these lavishly animated backgrounds. Yeah it's really nice, but you can't expect TV anime to look like that. Do you think Ghibli movies look inferior, or are you just saying nobody uses this artstyle?

>>281253245 (OP)
no wonder the film was just a slow nothing burger that feels more like a pilot a show that never got made.

>>281262345
Well, there are anime nowadays that are more detailed and have better background consistency. They're just digital. The thing with background art is that the projects with the most detailed backgrounds are usually tied to a background art house studio like CoMix Wave or Studio Bihou (CoMix Wave now owns Studio Bihou). That's why Shinkai films look a class apart from everything else when it comes to that. Also some Chinese productions like Lord of Mysteries recently, also tied to another background art factory, background art and texture work is so much better than pretty much everything in Japanese TV.

>>281263828
Backgrounds are an endangered species relegated to niche specialists trotted out for the odd prestige piece.
You want to talk about how the average cel animation has gotten better over the years I'm with you. The skill floor in animation is higher than ever. But specializing so much in animation comes at a cost, and the cost is anime's other traditional strengths, like blocking out a scene, have atrophied.
I mean it's an Okiura thread. A lot of his credits are for layouts. That's a credit you don't even see anymore in modern anime.