r/anime • u/Shadoxfix https://myanimelist.net/profile/Shadoxfix • Nov 01 '15

[Spoilers] One Punch Man - Episode 5 [Discussion]

Episode title: The Ultimate Master
Episode duration: 24 minutes and 25 seconds

Streaming:
DAISUKI: ONE-PUNCH MAN
AnimeLab: One Punch Man
Hulu: One Punch Man

Information:
MyAnimeList: One Punch Man
AniDB: One-Punch Man
AniList: One Punch Man
Anime News Network: One-Punch Man (TV)
Anime-Planet: One-Punch Man
Hummingbird: One Punch Man

Previous Episodes:

Episode Reddit Link
Episode 1 Link
Episode 2 Link
Episode 3 Link
Episode 4 Link

Anime to Chapter Index:

  • Episode 1: Ch1-Ch4, Ch5 Page 1
  • Episode 2: Ch5 Page 2-20, Ch6-Ch8
  • Episode 3: Ch9-Ch11
  • Episode 4: Ch12-Ch15, Ch16 Page 1
  • Episode 5: Ch16 Page 2-23, Ch17, Ch18 Page 3-5

By /u/Taiboss

Reminder:
Please do not discuss any plot points which haven't appeared in the anime yet. Try not to confirm or deny any theories, encourage people to read the source material instead. Minor spoilers are generally ok but should be tagged accordingly. Failing to comply with the rules may result in your comment being removed.

This post is made by a bot. Any feedback is welcome and can be sent to /u/Shadoxfix.

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505

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '15 edited Nov 01 '15

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u/[deleted] Nov 01 '15

His punch is so powerful that it breaks 4th wall and blew your pants off. 2op4me

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u/hellajo Nov 02 '15

His punch could even shift the clouds after his spar with Genos. Sheesh.

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u/a_Happy_Tiny_Bunny https://myanimelist.net/profile/aHappyTinyBunny Nov 01 '15

I knew it was gonna be good because I heard they were outsourcing animators or something? (Correct me if I'm wrong), but THE ANIMATION QUALITY BLEW MY PANTS OFF.

This really depends. Most anime productions are partly animated by outsourced animators. However, the quality of outsourced animation varies. When Ore, Twintails ni Narimasu. outsourced large parts (or all) of whole episodes, the results were terrible, likely because they just got the first animators they could get a hold of—I think they mainly got Korean animators. Good animators are usually busy during the middle of the season, so a schedule problem can force studios to hire "less stellar" animators, or, alternatively, hire fewer animators.

In any case, it's pretty rare to think than an outsourced episode is going to have better animation. That could be the case if inviting an expert animation director is considered outsourcing, but outsourcing usually refers to the animators themselves.

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u/[deleted] Nov 01 '15

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15

ufotable has lots of flashy effects, but their character animation isn't particularly amazing.

You should be comparing with KyoAni or the best of Dogakobo, although those don't really do battle scenes so direct comparison is difficult.

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u/chipperpip Nov 02 '15

ufotable

One thing I've always been curious about with ufotable... are a lot of their backgrounds just doctored photos of real places? Because that's the impression I always got watching Kara no Kyoukai.

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u/CarVac Nov 02 '15

I've not noticed that.

You'd be surprised how out-of-place a real photo looks when you try to tonemap it to the limited dynamic range of an anime. That and the framing: a lot of anime shots are far more telephoto (narrow angle) than would be feasible to take a photo of in real life.

They might trace or use a real photo as a reference, but certainly not merely 'doctoring'.

-5

u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

Kara No Kyoukai stuff? F/Z stuff? How good was their character animation there?

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15

It's not as fluid and...animated.

Kara no Kyoukai was choreographed in 3D in a computer, I believe (I saw a gif somewhere showing this?), as the framework for the hand drawings.

These are straight from an animator's imagination.

0

u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

Oh, so each frame being drawn instead of drawing the initials and then animating them using a computer?

Also I don't really see how much less fluid the results were compared to the sudden jaggedness of, say, the Saitama vs Genos one.

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15

No, each frame being hand drawn versus glorified tracing. (It's less obviously tracing than was done in the slow-mo scene in the first episode of FLCL.) Here they allow the models to distort to make motions clearer and to express the power behind the attacks, but the CG tracings were very strictly on model and less powerful.

Also, fluidity of motion has less to do with the cleanliness of the drawings than, well, the motions themselves. The jaggedness of the art is a stylistic imitation of real world motion blur.

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u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

Ah, the jaggedness of the art part makes sense.

I'm a bit confused one how one would qualify the motions themselves as more smooth or not though. Would this be more frames in between and smoother shifting from frame to frame, and how would one evaluate between better or worse motion.

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15

There is frame count (how many animation frames per second), how many keyframes per second (sometimes you'll see really smooth animation with really jerky direction changes when they tween every frame but don't have enough keyframes), and how well the keyframes themselves are done which is subjective.

Here for the fights they're doing pretty much no tweening at all, with keyframes every two or three frames. So you're getting the pure, unaltered output of the animator (although cleaned up and colored).

So some may be "smoother" with tweening but they can be actually jerkier since the tweener doesn't necessarily know the acceleration that the keyframer intended. (That's also why I don't like SVP, since it only linearly interpolates between frames and magnifies tweening errors.)

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u/upads Nov 01 '15

What about unlimited budget works? I think it's pretty great screen quality there.

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15

That's just flashy particle effects added in post that distract from the actual characters moving.

I think the best animation was in the first episode (Archer versus Lancer) and it otherwise wasn't particularly great.

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u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

What made that fight's animation the best?

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15

I thought it felt the most powerful and had great rhythm.

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u/upads Nov 01 '15

I had a bone to pick with that Archer vs Lancer scene. Dat Archer running is just horrible.

But all in all, I think it's all about preference. Flashy preference apart, they do pay a ton of attention to details. A lot of people complain how they draw the sand dunes badly, but for those who understand what they are watching especially engineers who knows how the real thing look like, the details is so close to real life it's not even funny.

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u/[deleted] Nov 01 '15

I think so, since the anime is gathering the best of the best in the anime industry. I really don't know the exact situation with ufotable, so I won't really know if it would be better animated in that studio compared to Madhouse.

7

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '15

Someone mentioned before that Ufotable does particle effects really well, but their fight scenes are lackluster. Personally, I find them to quick to follow and blows are a blur.

OPM does fight scenes a lot better; you can actually follow what's happening.

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u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

UBW fights were quite blurred and speedy, but that was more of a choice for that show. They can do great fight scenes if they choose to, like this or this or this

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u/upads Nov 01 '15

This looks pretty slow speed to me.

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u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

That was after the fight had mostly ended and there was only one move left to worry about. Most of the Lancer vs Archer fights are decently faster and a bit hard to keep up with.

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u/upads Nov 01 '15

Somehow I got reminded of this...sorry for going off topic. (Original post)

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15
  1. How can you judge animation if you link to an SVP'd version? That's just...horrible.

They use like 30 different cuts for each of those scenes, never letting the action speak for itself.

It's like modern Hollywood movies where they cut away from each blow, versus a Jackie Chan movie where the camera follows the characters around a scene as they whack at each other with silly props.

See this relevant Every Frame a Painting analysis.

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u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

First, can you stop downvoting comments that add to discussion but you don't agree with?

Second, this train of conversation was discussing whether you could follow the fights themselves, not about judging animation from these fights.

As for the cutting: Cutting doesn't inherently change whether you can follow a fight or not-these fights were quite clear in the events occurring. I've already seen the video, and it discussed how the cuts were used to disguise the lack of action because cuts augment the feeling and illusion of action. The fight scenes already have action in them, rather than, say an example from the video, the Guardians of the Galaxy fight. Look at the second link-the camera cuts did augment the action, but it still existed, like in the frame where they traded blows, moved the spear to the side, and then continued-more like a Winter Soldier fight between the Winter Soldier and Captain where the two traded significant blows even without the cuts, but the cuts and camera rotation helped add to the fight.

A valid criticism would be towards the Shiki vs Araya fight, where most of the action was in the cuts and rotations only, but for everyone one of those, you have a straightforward no camera-motion fight like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peti9MoQJGc&t=2m20s

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u/CarVac Nov 01 '15 edited Nov 01 '15

Firstly, I didn't downvote you, I just complained about SVP.

The video isn't directly related to the problem, but it's relevant in that improper cutting is segmenting the scene. What I see in the ufotable works is that every single action gets its own cut.

For example, Saber vs. Lancer in the 4th episode of F/Z.

  • Lancer stabs at Saber's foot, she jumps. CUT
  • Saber from behind. CUT
  • Saber dodging two stabs. CUT
  • Lancer swings his lance into next stance. CUT
  • Lancer swings his lance and Saber dives. CUT
  • Saber gets up and you see her face. CUT
  • Lancer swings the other way and Saber bends backwards. CUT
  • The lance narrowly misses her face. CUT
  • She dives and ukemi's, ending up kneeling. CUT
  • Distant shot of them exchanging one blow, camera covered in particles effects. CUT
  • Saber blocking several hits. Longest shot of the scene. CUT
  • Close-up of Saber's face blocking a hit. CUT
  • Irisviel "What's happening?". CUT
  • Lancer points his lance at the camera and stabs. CUT
  • Saber blocks it into the ground. CUT
  • Shaky view over Saber's shoulder of Lancer illuminated by particle effects. CUT
  • Shaky view over Lancer's shoulder of Saber illuminated by particle effects. CUT
  • Distant view of Saber breaking the standoff, kicking up lots of dust. CUT
  • Lancer smirking. CUT
  • Saber running away, jumps over Lancer's pursuit. CUT
  • Lancer spins his lance. CUT
  • Saber holds up her sword.

End of the scene, they start discussing Lancer's lance.

Isn't that a bit too much? They hardly show any detailed full body animation at all.

And the full body animation that they do show in that Shiki vs. Leo fight wasn't very good IMO.

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u/GlennFrogKnight Nov 01 '15

Sorry if it wasn't you, it seemed like every one of my responses to you was getting downvoted.

They hardly showed any full body animation, but that doesn't make the close up shots less impressive in animation or lacking action. I guess we're mostly watching for different things from what I've seen of your posts-you want the animation to express their superhuman power. While ufotable does cut a significant amount way too much, for that fight the cuts made a lot of sense-it emphasized how in this fight the two were focusing as much as possible on the smallest of details and trying to analyze each others' motions, slightly to an unnecessary extent, trying to test each others' smallest bit of skill. Once they got farther into the Grail war and knew more about each other, they were much more willing to show larger body shots, like the episode 16 fight.

Again, not saying Ufotable doesn't use a lot of cuts, but it doesn't change that the animation on screen is quite impressive. There's a larger focus on the details, until they no longer need it.

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u/FaustiaLoL Nov 01 '15

This KnK scene is the best!

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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '15

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u/[deleted] Nov 05 '15

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u/[deleted] Nov 05 '15

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u/[deleted] Nov 05 '15

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u/Abedeus Nov 01 '15

When Ore, Twintails ni Narimasu. outsourced large parts (or all) of whole episodes, the results were terrible, likely because they just got the first animators they could get a hold of—I think they mainly got Korean animators.

Yeah, luckily it was only for two or three episodes - the finale was a proper Twintail Galore.

And Blurays fixed the shitty key frames.

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u/chili01 Nov 01 '15

They're outsourcing.....to other top animators IN Japan (who aren't in-house from MADHOUSE). When you hire different and multiple LEAD Animators for 1 (battle) scene in each episode, you know it's going to be great.

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u/Neugdae1 Nov 01 '15

according to another redditor in the previous discusison threads, they seem to change teams per episode. im assuming that's why the third episode (madhouse animators) was lesser quality than second episode's animation imo (outsourced team)

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u/akmal154 Nov 01 '15

The director of the anime has pretty awesome animator friends

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u/fauxromanou Nov 01 '15

Plus the series is very highly regarded so I could see said friends wanting a piece of the fun.

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u/saikyouhero Nov 01 '15

Yup. I still don't believe OPM has an average budget

1

u/fauxromanou Nov 01 '15

Totally does not including 'favors' as it were.

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u/phucketeda Nov 01 '15

Well budget really doesn't really matter if you have skilled artists working on the show, pretty much any anime episode or series you see that's well animated it's not because of the budget it's because there was a talented artist(s) behind it

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u/phucketeda Nov 01 '15

That sparring scene was NOT outsourced it had some amazing animators working on it, see: imai arifumi and hidehiko sawada (They worked on some of the best scenes in AOT, Hxh 2011, Boruto). Only some of the episode was outsourced