Birdy The Mighty: Decode Animation Analysis Part 4: Tomoyuki Niho

Onto The final part of my Birdy The Mighty: Decode Animation Analysis series.

Oh Tomoyuki Niho, what an interesting style you've got there. Niho's work is some of the stuff that the people that aren't fans of the animation in the final episodes of Birdy hated. The hate for his style isn't justified but i can see where they are coming from. If it didn't clearly show how low a frame-rate he was working with i wouldn't have as much of a problem with it. Other animators who unsurprisingly are more experienced (like Norio Matsumoto) know how to make the low frame rate unnoticeable. I am somewhat ashamed to admit as a supposed analyzer of animation to admit i only just recently learned of the concept of animating on 2's and 3's and so on. Disney movies are animated at 24 frames per second because they obviously have the budget but most anime is generally either animated on 2's (12 frames per second) or 3's(8 frames per second). As soon as i realized this, i watched lots of sakuga on YouTube and realized that the best animators are good at hiding this. Limited animation is an amazing thing when done right. Mitsuo Iso is one of my favorite animators because he makes his work look very high frame rate when it is in fact not.

Hitman Reborn Animation Analysis Part 1

Artland is a studio that has always confused me. They don't really specialize in a specific style like a studio such as Bones does. They are more of a work for hire studio. Seeing as Katekyo Hitman Reborn was the first shonen anime series i followed week to week after i fell off the Naruto and Bleach bandwagon, I felt a need to support and be behind the studio 100% and then Demon King Daimao happened. They have produced classics such as Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Mushishi and yet to keep the lights on they need to dabble in the harem romance which i understand. I use to think of them as a Bones-lite but seeing as most of the shows they produced since Mushishi suffer from poor direction (Hitman Reborn included) i can't really call them that their lowest point so far has been Demon King Daimao (Though Milky Holmes Season 2 ins't far behind) which had such a cool premise but within the first 5 minutes the show basically fell off a cliff story-wise  There were a couple of promising episodes after that but they focused too much on the Tits and Ass and had no time left to tell a proper story so it just fell flat in the end. Its too bad really because the animation stayed consistently above average and the main character got a massive dragon called Peterhausen to command in a rather amusing turn of events.

Mass Effect: Paragon Lost Review

First of all sorry that i didn't manage to get some more posts done quicker but university started back up again with an essay project so that was a top priority so anyway heres my thoughts on Mass Effect: Paragon Lost.

Unlike the other movie that came out of Bioware's co-productions with Funimation, this project is primarily 2D. There's some CG here and there but overall its a 2D effort from Production 1.G. and TO entertainment. The plot of this movie really feels like one of the better episodes of the current "Clone Wars" cartoon and seeing as they share the same writer, that is understandable. It's a pretty simple plot that generally follows one of the most hated characters from Mass Effect 3, James Vega. To be honest, he's not a very interesting character with the only personality he has being because Freddy Prinze Jr. voices him and quite well i might add. He's almost unrecognizable as Vega but back to the topic at hand. The supporting cast represent a cross section of character types we've all seen before and they are all quite fun to watch with the exception of the tech guy who just comes off flat overall. Todd Haberkorn and Eric Vale's characters in particular added a bit of humor that made the whole thing less serious and that was a wise decision otherwise i think i would have fallen asleep if it was serious the whole way through. If you know nothing about the Mass Effect universe this will still be a fun watch but not as much as it would be for someone that's played the games and notices the little details like the guns the characters are using and the like. The ending is something to behold as well because it definitely wouldn't have happened if it was a big budget live action movie because they hate leaving viewers feeling dissatisfied. It's a good thing they decided to end it that way because looking at it from a logical point of view, the direction it took made actual sense. Overall the story was neat but nothing too ambitious. Now lets get on to the animation.