Naruto

Was it ever officially explained why the fight...... "looked" the way it did?

What were the animators high or something?

I mean, Hideaki Anno was in a dark place when he made Neon Genesis Evangelion, and that's one of the trippiest animes out there.

Maybe the Naruto animators were depressed that they were being forced to work on Naruto for this long and they were only a little bit past the halfway point, and that's excluding all the filler they had to animate.

Maybe they were at their lowest.

edited 27th Nov '17 11:07:03 AM by Soble

I think it was just a really failed attempt at a specific type of animation. Squash and stretch is important for conveying motion, and sometimes going for a really trippy art change at an important moment can enhance it (just look at Yu Yu Hakusho which does this all the time with great success). In this instance though, it just, didn't work.

@Slimcoder:Sakuga~

It was sakuga.

In the words of slimcoder, while the animation itself may have been fluid, the art was simply atrocious.

Sure, you can pause any video you want and find a frame that looks terrible, but if it looks terrible in motion as well? Yeah, that's an issue with art.

Funnily enough, I don't remember them ever animating another Naruto fight in such a manner.....except for maybe Obito vs Kakashi. Which was better animated than Pain/Naruto.

Except you don't have to work hard at all to find tons of frames that look awful, so how could it be all that fluid? Compare the Guy vs. Guy Clone fight as in the video: you can pick out those same repeating stick motions as easily as you can pick out pain's horse face, or specific steps in his Wheel o' Feet, or various stages of Popeye Arms in what's supposed to be the Nine Tails redirecting chakra.

I think blobby V2 Tailed Beast mode looks fine. Everything else doesn't.

Because Thats how in-between frames work. They are used to imitate western animation, and thats why they tend to look bad when freeze framed.

Its also the signature style of the animator who worked on it, Shingo Yamashita, too, as I've pointed out, he did this scene from Birdy The Mighty Decode in the exact same style.

edited 27th Nov '17 8:44:34 PM by Demongodofchaos2

You don't need to freeze frame it to see how shitty it looks, is the problem.

Why are people defending this?

Can't we all agree it was awful, seriously?

must we?

I'll agree that the "my pain is greater than yours" bit is sloppy, certainly.

@slimcoder: Well I'm at least pedantic about it It is great animation even if it doesn't fit tone of the moment at all :D

This video does kinda voice some of my opinion of Boruto

Also there's an irony in a meta sense that Boruto will never surpass Naruto is fame popularity etc.

In my mind the real problem with Boruto is the lack of stakes. The world is pretty much safe now. All the villages are fairly friendly with one another, there's no one plotting to kill loads of people in the name of world peace because we more or less have it now, what nutjobs there are haven't really been a real threat either, and so on. Naruto, on the other hand, started with the Leaf in an extremely weak position, with its Hokage aging and past his prime and his three finest students scattered (or in one case, actively plotting to destroy him and the village).

Yeah, there's Kaguya's family, but they were always the worst part of the OG naruto lore. In addition, there's not really a ladder for Boruto to climb. Naruto had to fight mercenaries (land of waves) compete in a tournament that's been toned down massively in Boruto (Chunin exams) had to beat up a possessed foe (Gaara) and had to deal with Orichimaru's elite guard (Sasuke Retrieval Arc).

Boruto doesn't have any enemies of a weaker stature for him to beat to work his way up.

What are you talking about? Boruto's already fought plenty of weaker enemies.

Yeah criminals, thugs, and ninjas trying to spread mayhem are still happening. Boruto hasnt reached the age where he gets those missions just yet.

His team was tasked with taking out the Mujina Bandits and finding their leader in the first place weren't they?

Maybe "weaker enemies" wasn't the best way to put it... more like Boruto as a series doesn't have the option for the sort of Sorting Scaleof Villain Effectiveness. He needs a ladder to climb to get better.

There's the fodder baddies, and there's Kaguya, and in between there's not a ton of options. There's no Hidden Sound Village/Akatsuki esque thing (yes, there were the "Neo Akatsuki but they were dealt with fairly easily). Anything that's really super dangerous will be the things Naruto and Sasuke are dealing with.

Honestly the series should have caught up to the movie a lot quicker so that the world can go back to being actually dangerous.

Orochimaru is still up to stuff. He was going to use the Wannabe Seven Swordsman to his own advantage till they loss, after which he shrugged it off. Who knows how many other deluded fanboys he has working for him either, since he's done countless experiments and Shin ran off to start a new Akatsuki and met his end.

Also I disagree, the movie and rushing to it is a bad idea.

edited 28th Nov '17 3:21:44 PM by OmegaRadiance

We're still at the fodder villain stage. When Boruto moves past them, we can get villains of more appropriate threat. The manga is introducing 'Kara' which look to be the new Akatsuki (and it really didnt take Naruto long to deal with Jonin and Akatsuki).

Trying to remember how long Naruto was dealing with fodder villains... not counting filler... oh. *never*.

Okay, so maybe not never, but in each arc he was dealing with someone truly dangerous. In the Land of Waves it's Zabuza and Haku. In the Chunin Exams it's friggin Orochimaru and later Gaara, and the next arc it was Itachi. Now, of course Naruto only beats two of the above, and both required help (from Sasuke and then Gamabunta) and a healthy dose of luck, but what they did was provide a sense of danger and threat that moved the arcs along.

Boruto is just fighting chumps who at best are just much weaker versions of some of the previous show's villains, and not only does he occasionally have his dad hanging around he also is significantly stronger than Naruto was for a lot of the first few arcs (sure he's sans ninetails but he's also got the Rasengan, several element natures and the Gentle Fist... somehow...)

And Boruto's been just sort of plodding along for 30 or so episodes. By this time Naruto had gone on a ninja mission that had seriously gone wrong, had to help kill a prodigy assassin and outfox one of the world's greatest swordsmasters, and was about this time fighting a guy on a giant snake who would later turn out to be his village's most hated enemy.

edited 28th Nov '17 3:32:43 PM by Sigilbreaker26

Literally the first antagonist was a fodder villain who used Naruto. You also need to remember times have changed. Ninjas, including ones viewed as fodder are more skilled than they were back in Narutos day, where training and skills were mostly left till after they form into teams. Now they learn that shit in school like they akways should have.

Adults likewise deal with the more dangerous ninja threats and kids are less likely to be sent on dangerous missions.

edited 28th Nov '17 3:39:58 PM by OmegaRadiance

I know that the ninja world has become vastly more safe. That's the problem. Safety means that the stakes are a lot lower, ergo, less exciting. Of course there's a reason for that, but we're stacking facing these weak villains on top of:

A. Boruto being vastly more skilled than Naruto was for almost all of part 1 B. His teammates being exceptionally more dangerous as a whole (mainly because one of them has goddamn Sage Mode for some reason).

So there's never any threat. So what we're seeing right now in Boruto is basically filler hell until it catches up to the movie.

The fact that the stakes are lower isn't necessarily a flaw. It feels quite satisfying to see how much things have improved, and honestly Naruto was always a little too in over his head so it's nice to see Boruto deal with more appropriate challenges.