I’ve heard you’re an animator, is there a difference in techniques between western animation and Anime? Even in Ghibli films there’s a different feeling about the animation itself, so its probably not because its cheap, and I don’t think its just the artstyle. I’m unable to find articles on this.
Yes. I’ve read a few good articles on this. The east and west have extremely different and separate traditions of animation.
The west is more about character animation. Historically, they’d hand control over a certain character to a specific animator, and ask them to basically direct the character. The analogy you’d commonly hear for animators is, “actors with a pencil”. Animators in the west have been trained in acting, and their animation is like giving a performance.
In contrast, animators in Japan were typically handed control of an entire scene, and different animators would pass off scenes to one another. (and of course, in both east and west, inbetweeners fill in frames within scenes.)
This lead to western animation having more of a focus on the performance the character gives, and eastern animation having more of a focus on the cinematography overall. In the west, the animator is the actor. In the east, the animator is the director of the scene.
This is one of the best articles I’ve ever read on the topic:
Why over sixty years of animation history still remains obscure
And here’s another article on how western animators look down on japanese animation for a lack of character animation:
Japanese animation is also typically drawn with less frames than western animation, so this lead to a stronger emphasis on strong key-poses instead of consistently good animation throughout. They can’t match the framerate, so they make what little they can put in count for more.
Here’s some more articles:
https://www.tofugu.com/japan/anime-vs-cartoons/
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2015-11-11/the-secret-of-one-punch-man-success/.95251
http://www.tested.com/art/movies/442545-2d-animation-digital-era-interview-japanese-director-makoto-shinkai/
https://www.thoughtco.com/sakuga-animation-in-anime-144807
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/1998-07-09
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9534852
I also recommend looking up Sakuga, a term used by western fans of japanese animation. Sakuga fans are known for focusing on specific scenes, and following the animators who produced those high quality scenes, in a way replicating the production process.
https://sakugabooru.com/post?tags=animated+order%3Ascore
https://www.sakugabooru.com/forum/show/15
Celia Alexis Wagar's CritPoints 