Well, while i initially was into the idea of reviewing the animation of each individual segment of the animated Dante's Inferno movie i decided it would make more sense to just do a big post about what i was really wanting to get into which was my thoughts on the current state of the korean animation industry and the studios from there that have really impressed me in recent years. Now i know that a lot of the stuff that we see coming from korea tends to be the animation they produce for other territories which mainly include america, japan and europe but most of those productions don't really tend to look very interesting artistically speaking and examples would be shows like Fairly Odd Parents and Regular show. These kinds of shows i like but they don't really aspire to a greater level of detail and artistry and they don't really need to. I like the styles these shows have but they aren't trying to compete on a global scale as examples of amazing achievement in animation because they rely on strong writing and characters than flashy animation.
Now when you see a production like legend of korra which is such a visually interesting show in terms of the overall look and quality of it's animation one gets to wonder how we got to the point where animation produced in korea looks much better than the majority of animation produced in japan and anywhere else. I know that most of the concept, storyboard and background work is on the american side on that show, you can't deny that the animators at Studio Mir managed to put out the most consistently high quality series i've seen in a while in terms of the animation itself even ignoring everything else about the production. At this point it is perfectly clear that the art of Full-Limited animation pioneered by Tezuka and Mushi Productions has been perfected by most studios that work today each in their own way. Most shows Korean studios animate for western production companies use this cost saving method but since there is generally more money put into western productions than the average Japanese production, there is generally a lot more of a consistent frame rate because you don't see a glut of action shows since most western productions are comedies. The reason for that being action shows are harder to produce and more of an investment than your average comedy series. There is a bare minimum you have to strive to for an action show and you can't bank on every one you produce to hit.
Korean studios have been used to produce western properties for a while now and these days they have become one of the major industries sought to produce animation over even Japan because most Korean studios are able to bring to life whatever style you give them to work with which seems harder and harder for japanese studios in todays climate. An example of this would be what happened with the production of the second season of Legend of Korra. The japanese studio that was used initially may have had trouble adapting to the animation style and this shows from what we've seen of the animation so far. Thats not to say the studio was terrible though, The action sequences didn't seem to be as much trouble but the character art during normal interactions was way more inconsistent than fans of the show became used to after a whole season of amazing work from Studio Mir.
Moving right along, lets talk about a few Korean studios. The first 3 i'll talk about are Dong Woo, Moi Animation and JM Animation by way of their work on The Boondocks. Here's the main video for this post.
As you could see from the video, there was a steady progression in the quality of the animation in the show as studios changed over it's 3 seasons. Season 1's main animation studio was Dong Woo who when the show began set the template for what the show would be and brought the characters to life albeit with some cosmetic changes to the character designs from the comic strip. Dong Woo's work on the show was perfectly fine and since this season was produced in SD that means that they didn't have to put lots of detail into the characters and for what it was, it was fine. There are specific episodes that stand out in terms of the quality and few great fight sequences here and there but overall the season wasn't outstanding in terms of animation. It was good for what it was. The second season of the show, produced by Moi Animation was a significant step up from Dong Woo's work. It builds upon what was done before and in switching the aspect ratio it also makes further changes to the character designs and makes them more detailed and the celebrity cameos look more like themselves on top of that. One of the better directors during this season was Seung Eun Kim. He is an incredibly talented storyboard artist and his work looks great animated by the talented staff at Moi. Moi is a studio that generally produces a lot of action shows with some of their recent work being stuff like Young Justice. It's safe to say that they did a great job on the Action episodes and some great work on the more monologue heavy episodes but the show is still primarily a comedy satire show so the budget isn't as high as a show like YJ. This season had more fights than we saw in the fist season and while not all of them are well animated, they are still fun to watch because of the interesting way the scenes are storyboarded.
For season 3 the animation was done by (in my opinion) the best korean animation studio there was at the time. After their epic run on the beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender series (which they produced alongside Moi in that shows 3rd season), They were put to work on The Boondocks and as Moi before them did, they updated the designs and made them even more detailed as if they weren't enough already. This season of the show is the best animated and most consistent. Every episode is well animated and when a fight is called fore it is done very well. This season did see the return of the more talk heavy episodes as was the case in season 1 and it was overall better for it. More episodes focused on our main lead Huey and with that more of the political satire that i loved in the first season. With that being the case there was a lot more need for quality facial expressions to convey complex emotions and JM did a great job with that. With the need for more single images to convey characters emotions and different kinds of places to show, the whole staff at JM got to show off everything they do well and with everything being in HD it looked better than the previous seasons because it was just clearer as well.
Besides the regular action shows and the like that are mostly animated in Korea, the most famous shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy also transitioned to HD and in the case of the former it could be worse. The change can be seen clearly in the updated opening of the simpsons as the animation studios behind those kinds of shows no longer care about having fluid animation and put all of their effort in keeping characters looking as they do on all the simpsons merchandise which unfortunately means the animation is incredibly stiff which just puts me off to be honest. For shows with budgets of upwards of 2 million per episode i expect more actual "animation." It's especially confusing seeing as the average episode of a Moi, Dong Woo or JM produced show like Avatar or Black Dynamite, even stuff like Regular Show has more motion than a whole season of the simpsons. Well that may be a bit of an exaggeration but you see my point. Heres a the comparison of the old vs the new simpsons intro.
After seeing all the work that JM has produced up to this point i was still fairly sure they were the best animation studio in Korea, that is until Studio Mir was formed. From what i've been able to gather, the studio is made up of former employees of JM, Moi and various other studios in Korea. The head of the studio Yu Jae Myoung has been working with the creators of the Avatar franchise since the pilot and had previously been at JM before he left the studio. With this split there was those who left with Jae Myoung and those who stayed at JM. Most of the major talent left with Jae Myoung but there are still talented people over at JM which means they can still produce quality work but they would probably need to hire more freelancers. What apparently lead to the split was Jae Myoung's desire to work at a studio that could compete at a world stage and also have a more pronounced online presence. The studio has since gone on to post videos of behind the scenes of production and lots of concept art which is new since you don't tend to see Korean studios go out of their way to promote themselves like this and theres also the fact that the staff at mir also have better working conditions than they apparently had at other studios. Thats not to say that conditions at studios like Moi and JM are bad, its just that the working environment is more modern and they even have quite a few animators that are working digitally now as well as a few painters and concept artists. Mir seems to be the face of Korean animation as they strive to get an overall better work environment for their artists and with the artists happy they can produce better work as is evident with the work they did on korra. Another thing that Mir are doing better than some other studios is Frame modulation. There are several instances of full animation and limited animation used strategically in Korra and having this mix is best for that kind of show because you don't want to have a situation like a lot of japanese productions where the only instances of full animation you see are the fight scenes or the occasional emotional scene and everything else looks stiff and lifeless (e.g. Deadman Wonderland). They animate shows using an approach that is very similar to Studio Bones who do the same thing. They animate The fight and emotional scenes well and also most of the scenes in between and for still images they use interesting framing and composition which i can appreciate. These reasons are why i think that more studios in Korea should try to be more like Studio Mir in their general philosophy. If Mir inspires up and coming studios to have their brand of enthusiasm and work ethic then that industry will be better for it.
The only thing that the Korean animation industry then needs to do domestically is to try and get more original production like the one from a while back called Wonderful Days or Sky Blue here in the UK. The writing could have been better but visually that was just a very well put together movie and i would like for more projects like that to succeed and foster a competitor to Japan that would force that animation industry out of the rut its been in for a while. The young animator training project just basically needs to be done for newer studio in Korea as well and supported so they can develop into a larger entity and not just be seen as a cheaper alternative to either domestic production or Japan because they have the potential to be the very best in the field of animation but just need a bit more domestic support to truly be seen as a worthy competitor to other nations overall. Thats it for today. Next time it's gonna be another Animator spotlight and this time on Toshiharu Sugie of Fairy Tail fame. See you then *winks*
Now when you see a production like legend of korra which is such a visually interesting show in terms of the overall look and quality of it's animation one gets to wonder how we got to the point where animation produced in korea looks much better than the majority of animation produced in japan and anywhere else. I know that most of the concept, storyboard and background work is on the american side on that show, you can't deny that the animators at Studio Mir managed to put out the most consistently high quality series i've seen in a while in terms of the animation itself even ignoring everything else about the production. At this point it is perfectly clear that the art of Full-Limited animation pioneered by Tezuka and Mushi Productions has been perfected by most studios that work today each in their own way. Most shows Korean studios animate for western production companies use this cost saving method but since there is generally more money put into western productions than the average Japanese production, there is generally a lot more of a consistent frame rate because you don't see a glut of action shows since most western productions are comedies. The reason for that being action shows are harder to produce and more of an investment than your average comedy series. There is a bare minimum you have to strive to for an action show and you can't bank on every one you produce to hit.
Korean studios have been used to produce western properties for a while now and these days they have become one of the major industries sought to produce animation over even Japan because most Korean studios are able to bring to life whatever style you give them to work with which seems harder and harder for japanese studios in todays climate. An example of this would be what happened with the production of the second season of Legend of Korra. The japanese studio that was used initially may have had trouble adapting to the animation style and this shows from what we've seen of the animation so far. Thats not to say the studio was terrible though, The action sequences didn't seem to be as much trouble but the character art during normal interactions was way more inconsistent than fans of the show became used to after a whole season of amazing work from Studio Mir.
Moving right along, lets talk about a few Korean studios. The first 3 i'll talk about are Dong Woo, Moi Animation and JM Animation by way of their work on The Boondocks. Here's the main video for this post.
As you could see from the video, there was a steady progression in the quality of the animation in the show as studios changed over it's 3 seasons. Season 1's main animation studio was Dong Woo who when the show began set the template for what the show would be and brought the characters to life albeit with some cosmetic changes to the character designs from the comic strip. Dong Woo's work on the show was perfectly fine and since this season was produced in SD that means that they didn't have to put lots of detail into the characters and for what it was, it was fine. There are specific episodes that stand out in terms of the quality and few great fight sequences here and there but overall the season wasn't outstanding in terms of animation. It was good for what it was. The second season of the show, produced by Moi Animation was a significant step up from Dong Woo's work. It builds upon what was done before and in switching the aspect ratio it also makes further changes to the character designs and makes them more detailed and the celebrity cameos look more like themselves on top of that. One of the better directors during this season was Seung Eun Kim. He is an incredibly talented storyboard artist and his work looks great animated by the talented staff at Moi. Moi is a studio that generally produces a lot of action shows with some of their recent work being stuff like Young Justice. It's safe to say that they did a great job on the Action episodes and some great work on the more monologue heavy episodes but the show is still primarily a comedy satire show so the budget isn't as high as a show like YJ. This season had more fights than we saw in the fist season and while not all of them are well animated, they are still fun to watch because of the interesting way the scenes are storyboarded.
For season 3 the animation was done by (in my opinion) the best korean animation studio there was at the time. After their epic run on the beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender series (which they produced alongside Moi in that shows 3rd season), They were put to work on The Boondocks and as Moi before them did, they updated the designs and made them even more detailed as if they weren't enough already. This season of the show is the best animated and most consistent. Every episode is well animated and when a fight is called fore it is done very well. This season did see the return of the more talk heavy episodes as was the case in season 1 and it was overall better for it. More episodes focused on our main lead Huey and with that more of the political satire that i loved in the first season. With that being the case there was a lot more need for quality facial expressions to convey complex emotions and JM did a great job with that. With the need for more single images to convey characters emotions and different kinds of places to show, the whole staff at JM got to show off everything they do well and with everything being in HD it looked better than the previous seasons because it was just clearer as well.
 |
| Truly the best indeed |
After seeing all the work that JM has produced up to this point i was still fairly sure they were the best animation studio in Korea, that is until Studio Mir was formed. From what i've been able to gather, the studio is made up of former employees of JM, Moi and various other studios in Korea. The head of the studio Yu Jae Myoung has been working with the creators of the Avatar franchise since the pilot and had previously been at JM before he left the studio. With this split there was those who left with Jae Myoung and those who stayed at JM. Most of the major talent left with Jae Myoung but there are still talented people over at JM which means they can still produce quality work but they would probably need to hire more freelancers. What apparently lead to the split was Jae Myoung's desire to work at a studio that could compete at a world stage and also have a more pronounced online presence. The studio has since gone on to post videos of behind the scenes of production and lots of concept art which is new since you don't tend to see Korean studios go out of their way to promote themselves like this and theres also the fact that the staff at mir also have better working conditions than they apparently had at other studios. Thats not to say that conditions at studios like Moi and JM are bad, its just that the working environment is more modern and they even have quite a few animators that are working digitally now as well as a few painters and concept artists. Mir seems to be the face of Korean animation as they strive to get an overall better work environment for their artists and with the artists happy they can produce better work as is evident with the work they did on korra. Another thing that Mir are doing better than some other studios is Frame modulation. There are several instances of full animation and limited animation used strategically in Korra and having this mix is best for that kind of show because you don't want to have a situation like a lot of japanese productions where the only instances of full animation you see are the fight scenes or the occasional emotional scene and everything else looks stiff and lifeless (e.g. Deadman Wonderland). They animate shows using an approach that is very similar to Studio Bones who do the same thing. They animate The fight and emotional scenes well and also most of the scenes in between and for still images they use interesting framing and composition which i can appreciate. These reasons are why i think that more studios in Korea should try to be more like Studio Mir in their general philosophy. If Mir inspires up and coming studios to have their brand of enthusiasm and work ethic then that industry will be better for it.
The only thing that the Korean animation industry then needs to do domestically is to try and get more original production like the one from a while back called Wonderful Days or Sky Blue here in the UK. The writing could have been better but visually that was just a very well put together movie and i would like for more projects like that to succeed and foster a competitor to Japan that would force that animation industry out of the rut its been in for a while. The young animator training project just basically needs to be done for newer studio in Korea as well and supported so they can develop into a larger entity and not just be seen as a cheaper alternative to either domestic production or Japan because they have the potential to be the very best in the field of animation but just need a bit more domestic support to truly be seen as a worthy competitor to other nations overall. Thats it for today. Next time it's gonna be another Animator spotlight and this time on Toshiharu Sugie of Fairy Tail fame. See you then *winks*
Hmm, I think studio Meditation With a Pencil (MWP) produces the cleanest and sharpest looking animation coming out of the ROK at the moment.
ReplyDeleteYeah, their English voice overs are a bit crap but they capture a feel that is uniquely South Korean and I appreciate that cultural input.
To me, I sense MWP are inspired by Makoto Shinkai's detailed work- and that's a very good thing.
Oh, i was unaware of that studio when i wrote this but after doing a bit of research it seems they are exactly the type of studio i was talking about. Producing great work for the home market and prospering while doing so. From the bits of their work i've seen i would agree with the Shinkai comparison. The detailed backgrounds also remind me of Mamoru Hosoda's films as well. I hope they continue to put out the work they do cause it looks really quite charming.
DeleteSorry but Korean studios are still pretty bad when it comes to expressiveness, their character animation are stiff and cold. The storyboards and layouts for those shows are still amateurish in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI can give you an example, Heroman chapter 1 is way above of what the Koreans had produced for those shows in animation/storyboard/layouts. It 's not that the Japanese couldn't adapted to that style, the truth is that the best animators in Japan don't give a shit about American shows at all. In the past the best animators in Japan worked in American shows because the domestic industry didn't need that much talent at that time, now you see a lot shows when difficult cuts requires talented animators all the time.
I think Koreans are better than before but Japanese are still more talented and are much more experienced. Even Toei animation is doing a show like Kyousogiga, where the animation is expressive and charming. I never thought that was possible hahaha.
Hello there! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a team of volunteers
ReplyDeleteand starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche.
Your blog provided us valuable information to work on.
You have done a marvellous job!
Look at my web blog aged care answers