Is the (current) anime going to far with stock art scenes?

[Tepig in a BBQ]

Best Wishes! uses a lot of stock art. While I didn't have any problem with that in the beginning, they use it now as well for Team Rocket and other stuff.

It makes the anime kind of unwatchable for me, but still.

What do you think?

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

The Pokemon anime has used stock footage for years, but anymore the makers of the anime have seemed to have gotten very lazy, not just in recycling plots, but in recycling animation. I hear that the anime has a very tight schedule, and as a result, everything is recycled, being the animation, the plots, and even the characters themselves. It's like there is no effort put into it anymore.

 

[Winterdaze]

This is by far my biggest gripe with the current series, as overuse of stock footage kills the flow of battles. In less important episodes where battles aren't the focus, I can understand the need to save money in the bigger picture. But when that overuse of stock footage extends into important battles like Gym and League matches it becomes a problem.

Stock footage outside of battles doesn't really bother me, especially in unimportant episodes. Most people don't realise just how expensive animation is, and that the use of stock footage stems from necessity, not laziness.

I'm not sure why so much more stock footage is employed than before, but I suspect it may be due to the greatly increasing extent to which CGI is used (and it's quality) and the associated costs that come with that. As much as I'd rather have less CGI and more original footage, this isn't a change the anime can just backtrack on.

 

[Dogasu]

I don't see a problem with recycling attack animation. Would we *really* get anything out of seeing Pikachu's Electro Ball attack animated five or six different ways?

 

[Winterdaze]

It's not the lack of variation in attack animations in itself that is the problem, but the limitations that puts on what the writers can do with a battle. What makes a battle interesting is when it deviates from the back-and-forth exchanging of attacks that is conducive to the use of stock footage.

You can have a good battle that still uses a lot of stock footage if it is integrated well, but the interesting parts will usually require original animation.

 

[Sweet Veil]

I really really don't care, it's not as if it dictates the whole battle. Seeing Axew spit a Dragon Rage with his typical head turn up isn't gonna kill me. Plus they have several different stocks for the move itself. A lot of moves have only used stock animation once and never again, like Emolga's Volt Switch.

 

[Moe]

The ugliness of the 3D-ised moves is my only issue with the canned animation, they are spending a lot of time repeatedly highlighting what aren't very nice looking animations. Pikachu's Iron Tail was far better when it was just a white glow, constantly showing the same stock footage of that only drives home the point.

If we had more variety in movesets it might help make the stock footage seem less repetitive. Not having every second attack be a ball of energy in a different colour would be nice.

Attempts to add more 3D is one of my biggest fears for the XY anime, it just doesn't work with the rest of the show's look.

 

[Dogasu]

What makes a battle interesting is when it deviates from the back-and-forth exchanging of attacks

This is not a problem unique to Best Wishes! A significant portion of the battles in the previous series suffer from the same issues.

 

[SlimeStack]

It depends on what's being reused.

There's only so many ways Snivy can use Leaf Storm, so reusing it is fine. There's only so many animations you can make for Jessie and James saying their names in their motto, and only so many ways we can watch the three of them fly through the sky.

The issue comes from when footage is very specific. The two motto animations they've made since the start of Episode N have been identical in every episode they were used, which is quite annoying. From pictures I can see that DA01 and DA04 both use a very distinctive smoky blast off. When I see that, I'm not just seeing a regular blast off but specifically DA01's blast off, so it's quite blatant and annoying.

 

[Iteru]

It bothers me a bit. It does make fights seem less interesting, especially when the overall quality of a battle has decreased in BW in my opinion.

It is understandable though. It's a money saving method, in a shit economy, where other anime also seem to be recyling a lot of its footage. An industry change perhaps?

 

[Kb77]

...
It seems to me animators just got lazy in this series, or they have lowered the budget on animations.. Most of the attack animations were recycled for the whole series while they had no background. I don't know if new kids like digital but i don't. How annoying it is for me to see Snivy play his attacking vineweep animation while all she wants to do is to press a button on a pokeball. I also would like to add that Redesign of nurse joy and Jenny was unnecessary and didn't seem right. New Joys look younger to me.
The only attack animation i liked in the whole series was attract's because well it was new and they showed us the cute side of pokemon.
...

I can stand the animations being recycled, But i think i can't stand them because how they were drawn (3D, digital)
I liked the old bubble beam, iron tail etc.

What recycling animations do to me is that they make the current animations even more unbearable for me.

 

[Pokémon Master Ash]

The Pokemon anime has used stock footage for years, but anymore the makers of the anime have seemed to have gotten very lazy, not just in recycling plots, but in recycling animation. I hear that the anime has a very tight schedule, and as a result, everything is recycled, being the animation, the plots, and even the characters themselves. It's like there is no effort put into it anymore.

^Very sad, but I think this is indeed the case.^

I think the saddest part of BW for me is that the English dub hasn't been this good in YEARS, but the show's writing, plot, and characterizations (in terms of depth-- the chemistry exhibited between the BW group is FAR greater than the DP group's, IMHO) have all been recycled or repeated countless times this arc. I suppose that's the saddest part. The English dub was pretty unbearable in BF and DP, IMO, but just when they start getting good and investing some realistic emotion or casting decent voices, the writers stop trying. Period.

 

[Iteru]

Let's get back to the stock art. There are other places to voice disappointment of the show overall.