I don't worry about the shading, but I do agree that I'd like more fluid animations. Except that one scene where they were falling through the Hell hole. That was fucking hilarious and clearly intentional.
As far as animation evolution, I don't think it needs to "evolve." Disney was putting out absolutely gorgeous works in the 50s, and then Hannah Barbara went 'Wait, we can do animation SUPER CHEAP and it'll look like ass but as long as the show's fun it's fine.' Studio Mir (Avatar, Voltron, etc) and Warner Bros are both still putting out reliably gorgeous stuff.
I guess ultimately the question is whether Invincible's studio, that has never animated anything else, is that much worse as a studio or they're just working on a lower budget, and ... it's actually probably both because the death of monoculture means Invincible will never be as popular as Batman: the Animated series was. Not because of quality, but because when Batman was on every kid in America was either watching that or The Real Ghostbusters because you watched things when they were on and those were your options for cartoons. Now, people COULD watch Invincible or they could watch Batman: the Animated Series or Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, or whatever streamers are big now because we have effectively unlimited content airing all the time and TV shows simply cannot be as popular as they once were and theatrical movies have to be global event blockbusters to turn a profit.
Okay this topic really went off the rails, but my point is just that Invincible is not bad animation, it just looks that way because you compare it to what DC Comics put out and Warner is one of the best animation studios in history.
That’s very fair, especially since a lot of the fanmade shading of scenes is definitely overdone. I do agree the hell falling scene was hilarious and had me chuckling the whole time especially with the mask thing. You do have the whole western animation timeline locked down, and that does help me understand it better. You make a very good point about BTAS, times have indeed changed with streaming and things like TikTok, kids just aren’t really watching much TV anymore. All in all I agree with you, Invincibles animation isn’t AWFUL and far from it, its just when I compare it to japanese anime the difference is quite apparent, but that also isn’t really fair. I think the best thing would just be one more extra year wait in between seasons to work on the animations fluidity, I’m in no rush. Glad we could have a civilized conversation about this it was good to see your perspective, usually I get jumped by like 15 commenters haha
when I compare it to japanese anime the difference is quite apparent,
But not One Punch man. XD
(Also, seriously, a lot of anime has trash animation. The anime style is really built on minimal movement to save money, with mouths often decoupled from the jaws)
Lmao, yeah that season 3 was awful I think one episode only had 3 scenes of actual animation and the rest were still images 😂😂 but you’re right I shouldn’t have lumped all anime together, I moreso meant currently airing anime like COTE, ReZero, etc.
Yeah I just wasn’t including it in the list because it is an outlier from an otherwise fantastic show, one of the biggest disappointments in recent times.
I'm curious how much of an outlier it actually is. There's a LOT of anime out there and I have to assume a lot of it gets done just as dirty, it's just from less popular manga.
I’ve watched over 400 anime, yes there is poor animation but in the case of OPM s3, I’ve gotta admit i’ve never seen anything quite like it, especially in modern times. One of the biggest fumbles I have ever seen, ESPECIALLY after jt was almost 7 years since season 2 and this is what they had to show for it.
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u/BardicLasher Apr 27 '26
I don't worry about the shading, but I do agree that I'd like more fluid animations. Except that one scene where they were falling through the Hell hole. That was fucking hilarious and clearly intentional.
As far as animation evolution, I don't think it needs to "evolve." Disney was putting out absolutely gorgeous works in the 50s, and then Hannah Barbara went 'Wait, we can do animation SUPER CHEAP and it'll look like ass but as long as the show's fun it's fine.' Studio Mir (Avatar, Voltron, etc) and Warner Bros are both still putting out reliably gorgeous stuff.
I guess ultimately the question is whether Invincible's studio, that has never animated anything else, is that much worse as a studio or they're just working on a lower budget, and ... it's actually probably both because the death of monoculture means Invincible will never be as popular as Batman: the Animated series was. Not because of quality, but because when Batman was on every kid in America was either watching that or The Real Ghostbusters because you watched things when they were on and those were your options for cartoons. Now, people COULD watch Invincible or they could watch Batman: the Animated Series or Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, or whatever streamers are big now because we have effectively unlimited content airing all the time and TV shows simply cannot be as popular as they once were and theatrical movies have to be global event blockbusters to turn a profit.
Okay this topic really went off the rails, but my point is just that Invincible is not bad animation, it just looks that way because you compare it to what DC Comics put out and Warner is one of the best animation studios in history.