Now onto the great parts of this Attack on Titan, the animation. It takes guts animate something with such perverse cinematic movement and high action animation. luckily the amount of ambition that the production staff at I.G's subsidiary Wit Studio payed off big time as an enormous blockbuster success. led by head director Tetsuro Araki, whose responsible for other extremely successful productions acting as director for I.G & Madhouse with series such as Guilty Crown & Death Note. Masahi Koizuka also made his directing debut in Attack on Titan S2 given more on the ground responsibility than Tetsuro Araki, being that he oversaw general matters as chief director, in piecing together how to translate Attack on Titan's Manga to an animation format. Though definitely not the most experienced director we've seen, Attack on Titan is the creme of it's crop regarding fast paced, snappy, and fluid action scenes that preserve the high octane thrill along the way. From the fearless mid air acrobatic tracking shots and swish pans, Attack on Titan remains unprecedented in how daring character animations as well as camera movement can get within an anime.
Cinematography
Attack on Titan always makes for an exciting visual fiesta with closely framed action, that closely follows daring aerial stunts, framing transient action scenes that dare to quickly get up close and personal to the lens, whilst not being afraid to transition between OS movement (Off Screen) and quickly onscreen for the crazy 3D maneuvering that takes place while characters such as Mikasa are operating their ODM gear (Omni Directional Gear). Tetsuro Araki & the rest of the storyboaridng department is always closely framing the action with immensely gory detail and intimate close up reaction shots for a gloriously fantastic action montage. Every second is filled with consistent frame by frame fluidity and sakuga & I found it a treat to dissect some of the more paramount high action scenes frame by frame & shot by shot to get some really interesting screen shots & footage along the way. The point of interest or the subject framing the action is often framed from the left of the given subject. |
| Tetsuro Araki |
Often showing a tendency to shoot on off level low angle or somewhat high angle shots. Tetsuro Araki, like many other directors who formerly worked for Madhouse commonly make use of panning motion for low action scenes & occasional freeze frames to kind of immortalize particular moments in time. Which are often intensively rendered pictorially to make for some of the more paramount moments within attack on Titan. Since Tetsuro Araki often condenses the story temporally to make it more compact, the use of dissolves and fade transitions often takes precedent, almost just as much as the given cut does. The Cinematography generally abides by the 180 degree rule (Exept in high action tracking shots), so often times the line of action is only broken/transitioned on the "look" or perhaps depth of field transitions for group dialogue scenarios and such - So you'll find plenty of text book shot/reverse shot compositions spliced with close up reactions, along with lateral or horizontal panning motion.
In these situations, more confrontational scenes are met with things such as oblique lighting & low angle shots, as well as non diegetic dialogue and sequenced segments within the OST (Original Sound Track). Attack on Titan's ally is the use of speed, in how to emphasize and portray such with perverse cinematic motion, & with the use of swish panning and the 3D maneuvering regarding crane tracking action scenes are always up close, intimate and intense - I mean without it, where would we be? Action scenes would be far less gripping and would demand less attention if the shot composition and tracking choreography wasn't as intimately combative as it stands to be, especially with use of slow motion photography as well. Distance transitions are also used quite well to emphasize more thought provoking segments and displaying atmosphere and scenic awareness. Also utilizing panoramic fish eye lenses for more atmospheric and oblique establishing shots.
Masashi Koizuka's made a pretty awesome debut in the second season of Attack on Titan. His selection and sense of shot flow was more solemn and grounded, whereas Tetsuro Araki's was more combative and dynamic - Especially since S1 is filled with a ludicrous amount of confrontational high action animation scenes. I do think high action animations scenes under the helm of Masashi was slightly underwhelming compared to Tetsuro Araki's, where depiction of speed and velocity was paramount, with his daring 3D camera maneuvering and character animations. From a consistency standpoint, this also remains true, as frame by frame on model consistency I feel had dropped somewhat, as the first season had truly riveting character animations. Though I like Tetsuro Araki's work, being that I feel his shot composition and selection was more down to earth in personally telling more character driven sub stories within Attack on Titan, such as in Sasha Blouse's mini arc. I feel Masashi emphasized a sense of ambiguity by isolating characters more often, nicely playing into Attack on Titan's sense of mystery and conspiracy regarding the Titans. |
| Masashi Koizuka |
"He started out as an animator, so he's very good at drawing. And since there are many excellent animators on Attack on Titan, he can relate to them as someone who knows how to live in their shoes. And that has led to a greater feeling of teamwork"
The second season was more diffused and solemn - leaving more headroom for thought, as well as more space for the visual department to experiment. The sense of space was quite a bit wider and grounded I feel, regarding distance selections for shot angles. Masashi's work in more played down moments is Textbook cinematography - Consciously abiding by the 180 degree rule, the golden ratio and how to transition to the next line of action or point of interest even more so than Tetsuro Araki and used wonderfully they are. In that sense, despite being a bit more by the book and conservative than Tetsuro Araki, I feel Masahi's work was much more clever regarding the use of more angularly oblique framings, and his more grounded sense of shot flow and continuity, with more out of the box thinking and less of a deliberate expository means of both visual and aural sense of storytelling. Making Attack on Titan more oblique and curious, as well as more matured and developed of a story.
Masashi Koizuka on his Directing Debut in S2 - "Mr. Araki will also be on site as the general director. But I'll be the director role wise, and that means I've taken over Mr. Araki's position & section as director "
Though it goes without saying that Tetsuro Araki's work regarding high action scenes were definitely more exciting and action packed with the ridiculous amount of 3D maneuverer that took place, but I dislike the way he tended to frame characters in a simplistic manner, never really alluding to much else regarding the complexity of his characters, where I feel Masashi excels quite a bit more at - Being that his framings are more simplistically frontal and are almost always medium to close up shots, who has more tendency to play with a shots vertical level than his distance transitions, horizontal angles and the space within a 16:9 Frame. Whereas Masashi is quite a bit better in utilizing the space within the frame to better set up oppositions and confrontation. Also utilizing the angularity and distance selections for scenes to be more atmospherically aware of what's happening in the background, as opposed to what's only happening on the fore and middle ground.
I think Attack on Titan excels at being a combative and action oriented series, though due to Tetsuo Araki's work I feel a bit is missing regarding the more intimate and played down part of soldiers life as well. I feel with the inclusion of segments that are slowed down, and more grounded in reality would allow us to soak in some of the atmosphere and mood a little before we move on the next thing ever so quickly. The theoretical mobility of the pacing and cinematography of the series doesn't really allow you to stop and think for your self, being that your constantly fed a stream of visual and auditory information. I think the tendency to escalate and mobilize the series plot takes away from creative opportunities to make more subliminal moments, where both the viewer and the given character can soak up some of the more resonant tones this series has to offer. The sensory input that's taken away and omitted can emphasize the sensory input of what's actually given - sometimes silence & simplicity is all you need and sometimes less is more. What's happening diegetically in the Moment can emphasize the atmosphere as well as the visual competent - Because if a picture can paint a thousand words, if film is 24 frames per second, how many more words can be told in comparison? Show Don't Tell - More transference in a more cinematic fashion.
Tetsuro Araki on S2 - " I didn't have to decide to do everything. It had become an environment where I could trust a lot of it to the staff."
In then end Tetsuro Araki's work is exciting and confrontational, though somewhat overly simplistic as Masashi's work is far more clever and out of the box when framing characters, whilst his high action animation scenes are definitely not as combatively exciting as is Tetsuro Araki's work in S1, as I feel Masahi's work is perhaps a bit too textbook at times and occasionally to gloomy. I feel both of the respective directors can learn from one another, being that Masashi's work can use some of the fun and vibrant scenes Tetsuro work has, and he need's to be a bit more creative and competent in how to frame his characters, and how much to include a scene and how much to leave out. Though please keep in mind general director Araki was still involved contributing to S2, as it was more of a collaborative effort with director Koizuka, though he didn't have to make all the decisions anymore, being that could defer his workload - Most of my observations are more circumstantial evidence, as I don't have the privilege of being on the ground level and seeing how things take place.
Animation & Art direction
In order to have such sprawling camera work and character animations, the implementation of 3DCG backgrounds was an absolutely critical task in making Attack on Titan actually work, without out it, I have no doubt that the Attack on Titan project would've failed entirely. Luckily having an industry veteran Shuhei Yabuta involved as 3D CG director in many other White Fox, Madhouse and I.G productions was no mistake. Such as in OLM's spending vast amounts of research, time. money and effort into implementing entire 3DCG backgrounds into their Pokemon anime franchaise. |
| Shuhei Yabuta |
[Check out my Tangent on - "What I Feel about 3D CG in Animation" Below]
Along with the high octane action animation and perverse camera movement, the Attack on Titan production is also supported by vast visuals, archaic germanic architecture and subliminal scenic backgrounds. At the helm of the visual department is art director Shunichiro Yoshihara - Responsible as art director for series such as Jojo's Bizarre Adventures & Black Lagoon, and also reprising roles as a background artist for many series such as Ghost in the Shell S.A.C & the Neon Genesis Evangelion Films. Along with that Attack on Titan's Visuals are grounded by Ken Hashimoto on colour design. Who generally favours warm mid tones and is often analogous in his colour schemes, with a broad sense of lighting - Being responsible for series such as Madhouse's Chihayafuru and Death Note, along with many other recent projects such as One Punch Man, ACCA & Kabaneri of The Iron Fortrress.
I'm quite familiar with his work as I've witnessed Ken Hashimoto's involvement in many other Anime series as well. In Attack on Titan blue skies, vast greenery brown hues and warm sunlight take precedent here. Thanks to aforementioned leaders within the visual department, despite the use of 3D CG, spaces are always textured and rendered with a good amount of detail and nicely intricate design and principle drawing - Great job implementing 3DCG backgrounds with 2D components. S1 had vast blue skies as we rode on horse back on lush plains of grass, while S2 was seemingly more gloomily cloudy, often times having more scenes at night time for more darker and cooler colour compositions. In S1 we were also given more settings within the city walls, so more light brown hue's took precedent. Though being that both season's colour designs are led chiefly by Ken Hasimoto, there's not too much of a difference between the two seasons. Though I will say that due to S2 being rendered more spaciously, on the macro level, positive space is rendered with more colour and lighting detail, being that there's less negative space (Partly due to setting changes) and while lighting is still characteristic of Ken Hasimoto's broad sense of analogous lighting , over the years both him and the rest of the visual department surely seen some development so lighting within S2 is somewhat more complex, rendered and defined with more detail.
Architectural design has always been great, being derivative of Germanic design, as many other principle design aspects are as well. In S2 the negative space common within the Germanic architecture is rendered with more pigmentation and texture, adding to the already great principle design that the more traditional architecture has. Always having an acute sense of linearity, right angles and negative space that's often patterned with various intensities of the same hue, often being toped off with either rounder or triangular rooftops or sections. As well as being series director in S2, Masashi Koizuka is also responsible for prop designs, as well as sub character designs in S1, working off of Hajime Isayama's original designs within the manga. Kinda interesting seeing military units carry around knife blocks with disposable blades for their over sized dual box cutters, with compressed gas and dual piston shot grapple hooks to maneuver around like the Spiderman. Pretty intuitively created and well rendered within the anime adaptation as their ODM gear is actually quite dandy and well designed.
Another immensely important figure within the fold in Attack on Titan's production team is Chief Animation Director as well as character designer Kyoji Asano. It's somewhat a standard practice to have the character designer be the Chief AD as well (Animation Director) like Akio Watanabe is for the Monogatari series being that, it's a character designers job to be aware of the limitations of their designs and how well they transition from high action animation scenes, to simpler low action cuts. You always want your designs to be attractive, but at the same time they have to be appropriate enough so they can be drawn consistently and efficiently enough for deadlines to be met in a timely manner. Kyoji Asano, despite there being other chief animation directors such as Satoshi Kadowaki, Kyoji Asano plays probably the most important role in making sure the animation didn't simply fall apart, being that he was the character designer working off of Hajime Isayaam's originals, in a addition to being Chief AD.
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| Kyoji Asaano |
Design wise, Kyoji Asano made a staple out of his thicker character outlines, with thicker facial features that are slick yet simple. Often utilizing more full bodied pigments for skin colour and such, as I've always found the character designs to be clunky in a way that was somewhat charming. I love the more oblique and serious facial expressions when a character is stopped in their tracks, or perhaps is about to ensue on a rampage, nicely complimented intricate line work associated with shading, to compliment the thicker, ink like outlines. My obvious favourites would be Mikasa, Erwin, Levi, Ymir & Annie. I also continue to like Caroline and Petra's designs, though they seemingly will never get anymore screen time than they already have. Of course, Eren's designs are pretty great too, especially when transitioning into more high action scenes. Overall a great improvement over Hajime Isayama's originals, being that he's still somewhat of an amateur illustrator as is.S1 had the most solid animation, with Kyoji Asano being the main Chief AD, animation was usually always pristine and bold, in this regard I think S2 falls somewhat short of the precedent S1 had established, being that AD responsibilities were deferred to perhaps less experienced AD's such as introducing Ayumi Yamada who previously was responsible as a sub character designer in S1, reprising a role as an AD. Though with both Kyoji Asano & Satoshi Kadowaki equally responsible for relatively the same amount of episodes, S2 still has spectacular high octane action, though perhaps not as consistent S1 initially was.
However S2 works in more texture and intricate liner work regarding facial animations despite this, whereas while S1 was more consistent, principle drawing was kept simpler. In S1 character animations were kept more consistently on model and proportionate at long distances and in high action animation scenes, however S2 was quite consistently somewhat off model when characters where drawn at distance, were highly choreographed or when camera movement was drastic. I found this odd since S1 under Tetsuro Araki, camera movement and high action scenes were not only more numerous, 3D maneuvering and choreography was quite a bit more daring and perverse, whereas Masashi's work in S2 has quite a bit less action scenes and isn't as ambitious when it comes to high action animation scenes. For this reason, the drop in consistency isn't as big of an issue in S2's action sequences since their are indeed fewer of them, as the animation team was still able to nail establishing scenes and more played down day to day scenes and character moments. Though while S1 & S2 both have their trade offs, they're perhaps somewhat moderate and small, the reasons behind these issues are suited for their respective season, so it really comes down to you either preferring less action but better rendered detail and texture work - or perhaps simpler rendering, but more on model animation consistency at longer distances, high action animation scenes and with perverse camera movement.What I Feel about 3D CG in Animation - Tangent
Costs build up, from licensing and dubbing, from PR to animation, 3D CG gives studio's the freedom to be able to have far more daring camera work and Atack on Titan is no exception. You see, the trick here is to implement 3D CG well enough so that it's hard to distinguish between regular 2D backgrounds and models, in that this has always been a long standing problem that many both within the industry and without industry - Conflicts over the politics of replacing people's jobs and skill traits with CGI experts & whether or not 3D CG looks bad pictorially speaking. Being an avid gamer and film junkie, I'll say here and now that it's utter BS that 3D CG can't look as good if not better than their regular static 2D counterparts. Here's the thing, bad 3DCG looks really bad , but just like any other creative medium the quality is only limited to the skill and creativity to the person crafting them and how such models are actually utilized.
Japan's animation culture is deeply rooted in Japan's manga culture, it's clear as day the lineage that anime is derived from, being that most animations now a day's are adaptations of a given manga series. I'm a huge fan of that culture, and people generally like traditional frame by frame animation, most of my favourite animations speak to that love. Though I recognize that, their is also a time and place for when 3DCG can be vital for an animation company success for projects to stay afloat. 3DCG isn't the problem here, it's our reluctance to change an age long format and industrialized process, because that's exactly how Japan forged it's unbreakable identity within the animation world of film and television - That shouldn't change. However most notably in the west, US animation giants such as Disney, DreamWorks and Pixar have handily proven how viable the alternative can be. 3DCG animation can still be beautiful and is it's own thing. Not to mention how paramount 3DCG has been for gaming studio's for the last 2 or three decades. Video games now a days such as Dragon Age: Inquisition, World of Warcraft and perhaps Far Cry 4 look and feel absolutely immense, as the gaming world inches closer and closer to graphics indistinguishable from reality. Pick any modern triple A title from today's gaming studio's and you'll see that 3D CG is only limited to one's own imagination. 3D CG also gives the visual department far more flexibility to play around with shot selection and composition, being that if preproduction on storyboards doesn't pan out in production, they can always salvage and reuse models and backgrounds, whereas with 2D animation methods, often times, large mistakes will lead to scrapping entire cuts or segments since unlike 3DCG, traditional animation is often times not entirely digital but analogue.
What am I saying here though? I'm not saying that all Japanese animation companies should just abandon their analog methods for shiny computers and CGI. Though I'm saying that for high action stories for things such as battle and shonen manga and perhaps other experimental entities that seek perverse tracking shots and cinematic movement 3D CG is paramount - in Efficiency & Costs . I'm really thankful that a studio such as Polygon has begun producing anime series entirely consisting of 3D CG animation, Knights of Sidonia a fantastic mecha anime (Ajin is also a good example) that would not have been possible for a newly found start up studio for them to animate the series traditionally with a project with such a large scope and ambitious camera movement and tracking - They would either have to get major producers on board or water down the entire scope and premise of the series to do so. I hope people within and without Japan's animation industry begun to realize that including 3D CG doesn't necessarily mean throwing away Japan's identity within the animation world - in fact Knights of Sidonia and Ajin look indistinguishably Japanese.
Shaft and Ufotable have also been on the forefront for this new evolution of anime. Being that, despite still having the ever cherished tradition key and tweening animation, with series such as The Tales of Zestiria X & the Kizumonogatari Film Trilogy, both studio's prove that traditional animation can be integrated with the use of 3D CG while not abandoning their identities as Japanese animation studio's by a long shot. I like this middle ground that's being created and Attack on Titan is no exception. I believe more and more people are proving and beginning to realize that the world of 3D CG has a very bright future in Japan's animation industry that can perhaps help provide the revolution and change people within the industry have been asking for. People always coin the term Sakuga in the anime world, praising studio's such as Kyoto animation and the like, but people don't realize that 3D CG can virtually have an infinite amount of Sakuga on a more consistent basis - in fact the only real limitations are broadcasting and technological standards in that not everybody has a 240hz gaming monitor at their disposal.3D CG with motion capture technology is now capable of rendering far more life like movement, body language, facial expressions and frame by frame resolution more efficiently and with more consistency. Here's the reality, Japan doesn't need to change immediately, as there's little reason to change what people view and enjoy as a good thing.
However, if Japan limit's themselves by not adopting the ever advancing realm of 3DCGI, the animation industry in Japan as we know will cease to exist and fall apart due to other concerns such as incredibly poor wages, the shrinking bubble economy, Japan's shrinking work force, the low annual birth rate, the high % of people quitting the animation industry and the incredibly toil heavy labour - Japan's animation industry must find a way to more fairly distribute the profits to reward their staff in order to foster more talent and keep existing talents within the animation industry. If something doesn't change within the next 10 years the animation industry will inevitably fall apart, regardless of how big budgets get or how much money you throw at it - the animation industry needs to keep evolving and revolutionizing the way they tell stories, and discontinue neglecting their animators in order to maintain their global market share within the overseas T.v series market that anime currently dominates as the #1 exporter of gross international trade of T.v series for the foreseeable future. Japan needs to continue to create ambitious and inspired stories, that are high fantasy and ground breaking, and I feel that 3D CG will be paramount in the way the animation industry has already begun to revolutionize itself.
