Spring Season 2024

[Ryllharu]

What I'll concede for now is that you're probably partly right when you say "I liked these anime better, therefore you mistake it for better animation". That might be true: anime had better stories back then and knew how to present them better with the level of animation available. I mean, just look at a show like Chiyuu, the healer isekai. It looks like trash animation-wise. But MAL has it at a shockingly high 7.46-score and there are actual fans of this anime. Or what's this other hyped series, about elite classes fighting each other, hero name being Ayanokouchi, the animation is absolutely generic. You'd think action-anime would be different, but honestly, even something like Ishura is only slightly better than the rest. So where I can't agree with you is when you say "the overall floor has been raised".

You're mistaking "character design" for "animation". They're different and the former has very little important compared to the latter.

Character design trends come and go. The 80s and 90s were generally normally proportioned compared to the late 90s and early 2000s dinner plate eyes before drifting back to something more normal. Female characters went from ultra skinny to ultra top-heavy and now have leveled off again like the 80s but with less hips. Male characters went from top-heavy to rectangular and stayed there. You call it generic, I call it balanced.

But the animation has fundamentally improved on the average despite the quantity of series per season doubling or quadrupling (if you count Winter/Summer no longer being the "off seasons"). The lines are sharper, the backgrounds are more detailed when the stylistic choice isn't watercolor-esque. Think visible forests versus green smears with some lines in them to give the impression of trees.

There's cuts in all the sequences today. They don't pan and scan. They don't frame it so they can reuse the backgrounds. They'll frame dialogues in Reverse Angle shots now.

Most of all, characters move during dialogue. They didn't used to nearly as much, just mouth flaps and jerking abrupt movements.

A good example of all these newer techniques is in Kanojo mo Kanojo. Very simple character designs. Very simple "animation" at first glance. But the cuts are constant and rapid, there's always something moving in frame beside the character mouths, and there's simply rapid motion constantly, which reinforced the frenetic pace of the series. That didn't happen before. Many series were methodically slow (e.g. Chobits), and there are still some like that today, but the art is still crisper, even within CLAMP series.

That's why I picked Rizelmine as an example. A then and currently still prominent studio, using techniques to cut costs widely spread by JC Staff and Gainax's 2nd rate offerings. Stuff Madhouse didn't do before or after that particular series. There's more motion reference key frames nowadays, characters were always stiff and still before. The majority of the rapid "animation" movement in Rizelmine is zooms and pans on a wider frame to simulate what animators are doing now natively within frame.

Or look at the fluidity of Urusei Yatsura's remake compared to the original. Same scenes, huge differences in the techniques employed. Both very well-funded series for their respective times.

Classroom of the Elite is trash though, I'll concede that. It's had progressive downgrades since 2017, and it was of average character design then. LN fans are displeased at the direction and adaptation. I wouldn't say the series is hyped after Season 2 lost the majority of its previous fans, including me.

The healer iseaki is novel in concept and execution. The protagonist isn't whiny, has to actually work and train at his rare talent, and while it is simple in plot, it is well executed. The rare talent doesn't make him invincible; the mentor is clear to point that out. The character design is average and certainly a bit nostalgic to me. You're just butthurt it isn't more of Redo of Healer.

And 7.5 is at best "average-good" for the notoriously skewed MAL ratings. MAL is just like video game review scores. 'Anything less than a 7.0 is dogshit.' MAL's entire range is 5.5 to 9.2 (whatever FMA:B is at or needs to be pushed to over a series that temporarily dethrones it). You have to go to 4200 to get below 7.0
I'd be surprised if anyone knew of the series that are below 6.4, a quick glance seemed to be mostly very old minor shows and single episode specials that have their own entry for some stupid reason. It is highly amusing that FBA:B has 1.2 million more reviewers than any series near it in the rankings, all sockpuppet accounts of the cult.