Well... I'll start this article by saying that I was betting on the anime EX-ARM. This is based on some reports I'll be sharing from the ANN .
During Anime Expo Lite in July, Crunchyroll announced three new titles under the company's "Originals" label. Among them was the anime EX-ARM. At the time, all we knew about the EX-ARM anime was that it was an adaptation of a cyberpunk , a genre that always fascinates me, whether in films or TV series.
But things got stranger with this work.
At the end of August, the names of the director, writer, musical composer, and animation studio were revealed. They are:
- Director: Yoshikatsu Kimura
- Author: Tommy Morton
- Music: Sō Kimura
- Animation Studio: Visual Flight
According to an article published on the ANN related to the team, none of them had ever worked in anime before.
Yoshikatsu Kimura made his name writing and directing live television programs. Tommy Morton is likely a pseudonym. Sō Kimura is a guitar teacher who works as a DJ at night. Later, the name of the action director was announced: Takahiro Ouchi. And like the others, he has no experience in animation, with his closest ties to anime being his stunt work in the first two live-action Rurouni Kenshin films.
Well then! This brings us to the Visual Flight . The only anime-type project they've been a part of was creating a bizarre dance demo in Unity. And their credits seem to only include modeling work for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Returning to the Crunchyroll Expo event, director Kimura and voice actor Sōma Saitō appeared on a panel to give fans a chance to learn more about the upcoming series, including why no one on the staff had worked on anime before.
According to Kimura, he was invited to direct the series because the team felt that a live-action director would be better able to understand the 3D space. And instead of working with an anime studio, he chose to create EX-ARM as if it were one of his own live-action projects. The focus would be on staging scenes with actors in motion capture suits and then applying that to the character models. In this way, Kimura stated that the work would be "extremely realistic" and that fans could expect action scenes never before seen in anime.
Check out the trailer for yourself:
EX-ARM'S ANIMATION IS BAD:
EX-ARM is bad. That is, it's shamefully criticized for its animation quality, serving as a case study of what not to do in a 3D animation process.
Despite being well aware that live-action directors rarely direct anime, director Yoshikatsu Kimura stated, "I have experience as a director, so I decided to give it a try.".
OPINIONS FROM OTHER EXPERIENCED DIRECTORS:
The original article Katsuyuki Motohiro . However, in this case, he was assisted by co-director Naoyoshi Shiotani, a veteran lead animator. This is because, to be an anime director, you need to have an understanding of animation, but Kimura had little interest in the artistic capabilities of the medium, instead choosing to focus on camera and motion capture work.
BEASTARS director Shinichi Matsumi said, “Motion capture is the first step. And we adjust the movement to look more like anime.” This is one way to capture realistic timing and basic movement, but it needs additional keyframe animation work to make those elements work and look appealing in anime. At Square Enix Visual Works, they warn against using motion capture as a crutch, and EX-ARM’s awkward movement is proof. While the show’s creative team is perfectly capable of directing actors in a motion capture studio, they clearly had no idea what to do once those movements were mapped onto 3D models.
GRAVITY OF EX-ARM:
The gravity-defying action he refers to as a merit of the medium is perhaps the worst part of this trailer; everything feels silly and weightless. In EX-ARM, Alma is an emotionless android, but this seems to be a result of the team not bothering to move her face. The same seems to be true for the maid she fights. Her hair rarely seems to move properly: it changes when she runs, but when she turns upside down, it looks static – certainly not the “extremely realistic” animation we were promised.
And, unlike most 3D anime, the entire trailer is full of motion blur, despite Kimura stating that "every frame is important.".
Ultimately, it's difficult to criticize the Visual Flight animation team because they were asked to handle something outside their forte. But somehow, neither the Crunchyroll producers nor the director himself seem to have noticed their mistake so far.
The lessons from EX-ARM are clear and obvious: Anime is best produced by those who understand and respect animation. And if you, the reader, have already understood this, then congratulations. You would have been a better director for EX-ARM.
Text translated and retrieved from the ANN .
