Animation Bump / Anime

Examples of Animation Bump in Anime.

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By studio:

• Studio comparison: compare any of Studio Pierrot's animations to The Twelve Kingdoms. Any. It's visible that they tried to apply as much detail as they could, and not spoil the whole animation, as its Off-Model frames are practically non-existent.
• Anime produced by Studio Shaft frequently have this, in particular with its eyecatches. Opening and ending themes are purely artistic and usually have nothing to do with the plot. Some scenes are animated to imitate reference shows. Studio Shaft often inserts real life photographs as objects (ie. ramen cup, onigiri) or inserted with no particular purpose (eg. the head of the manga artist's assistant that frequently appears in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei)
• Any sequence in the Toei Animation films from the late 1960's to early 1970's that were animated by Hayao Miyazaki, one notable instance is the chase scene between Ali Baba and the goofy pink genie in "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1971)'' which otherwise had very simplistic and cartoony animation.

By work:

• Though Attack on Titan has pretty great animation in general, certain action scenes involving 3D Maneuver Gear and other bits are given amazing, and sometimes very realistic animation and detail.
• Berserk (1997) is pretty static early on, with only occasional animation bumps to add emphasis to Guts' feats of arms. Episode 17 has a small bump in line art quality, but is held back by flat coloring until Episode 18 comes around and brings with it a massive leap in quality, suitable for the incredible importance of that episode's developments. The remainder of the episodes don't quite approach 18 and can be pretty uneven, but all are still significantly better done than the early episodes.
• The second season of Black Butler has noticeably higher quality animation than the first. This is most likely because the second season was made two years later (at which point the technology was better) and because it's only half the length of the first season, meaning they could put more money into the individual episodes.
• Black Clover is perhaps the most jarring example of any modern anime. The show is frequently criticized for its mediocre to non-existent animation in most episodes. But then every dozen episodes or so, an episode featuring a major climatic fight will occur and animation quality will skyrocket to a level many anime films struggle to reach.
• This happens in Bleach as well. One of the most impressive examples being episode 219, which was Hisagi's battle against Findor, one of Barragan's Fraccion. The whole episode was animated beautifully.
  • Played most straight with the pilot episode and few other early episodes that seem to have considerably more detailed backgrounds and smoother animation than others. Later animaton bumbs tended to happen in most anticipated combat scenes (Grand Fisher, Renji and the fights on Sokyoku Hill).
  • Also noticeable in the latter half of episode 226, where Ichigo is struggling against Ulquiorra.
    • One scene in this fight is actually traced from the previously mentioned Hisagi vs Findor episode.
  • Episode 319. The overall details of things such as lighting and coloring are much greater and more vibrant than a lot of the animation in the series, a lot of the angles used are more dramatic, and even when they decided to resort to pans of still images instead of actual animation they are very well done. What stands out most, though, is that, although this particular episode is part of a Filler Arc, it could be said that the fights scenes depicted in it (i.e. Ichigo's fight with Kageroza) are more detailed and fluidly animated than a lot of fights in the actual canon parts of the series.
  • Episode 342 was pure Rukia porn. Her character in several scenes is drawn even better than movie quality.
  • This happens between movies as well - each subsequent Bleach movie is better animated and more detailed than the last. Hell Verse was also one of the most anticipated parts of the series' mythology, possibly contributing to a better budget.
  • After ten years, the Thousand Year Blood War arc is finally being animated. From the trailers alone, you might think it's being made into a movie.
• Parodied in the first Tiger Dojo segment on Carnival Phantasm, as Taiga notices her segment is finally animated. She wastes a large chunk of the animation budget on a few awesome poses, and appears as a line drawing in the next episode because of this.
• The second season of Cat's Eye has much better animation than the first, accompanied by a change in character designs that while less detailed, worked better for animation.
• CLANNAD's Illusionary World sequences are redrawn every frame, leading to hand-animation so uncharacteristically fluid it almost seems like something else.
• Cowboy Bebop was always a very well-animated series, but "Pierrot le Fou" has much more fluid and complex animation, most noticeable in the CGI beginning and the fight scenes between Pierrot and Spike. Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door also has very fluid animation, with the train scene being particularly famous.
• Not that Death Note wasn't gorgeously animated throughout, but episodes 1, 2, 24, 25, 36 and 37 still got a whole lot of attention by comparison. Episode 25 took it to another level of gratuitousness, with details such as Light's face being half-refracted through a glass table for no reason.
• Digimon:
  • The first season had a very standard (and unimpressive, to be fair) animation over the episodes... but does anyone remember episode 21 ("Home Away from Home")? It had a huge animation bump, with all the characters looking much more realistic (in a certain form), with more detailed backgrounds and much, much more movement. That happened because that episode (and only that episode, due to creative differences between his style and the style of the series as a whole) was directed by Mamoru Hosoda, who also directed the first two movies of the anime (and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time). Since the episode was pretty much a Shout-Out (and Continuity Nod) to the first movie, they wanted to have the same art style and, even with a smaller budget, Hosoda did an amazing job with it.
  • Digimon Adventure 02 had several episodes that were noticeably better animation quality, mostly centered around fluffier, more detailed hair and more expressive eyes. This was an especially good thing for Kid Samurai Cody. On bad animation days, his bowl cut looked like someone stretched a bit of pantyhose over his head and he frowned a lot. On good animation days, his hair might actually, y'know, move, and he can be seen grinning maniacally as he whacks around a Roachmon with a giant teaspoon.
  • While it had some Off-Model days, Digimon Data Squad also had a couple episodes where the art and animation is stunningly gorgeous. Similar to 02, everyone had fluffier hair, brighter colors, and, if you were a female character, tighter clothes and bigger boobs.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Dragon Ball Z Kai is rather stunning in that the animation is virtually identical to Dragon Ball Z (which, for an anime from the late 80s that ran for nearly 300 episodes, was high-quality and had mostly consistent animation from episode to episode), but includes just enough bumps and digital cleanups in that the viewer gets a wonderfully animated trip down memory lane that is sleeker and more fluid, especially during the fighting sequences. The only things that have truly changed are the opening and ending sequences, which are crisper and more modern.
  • In addition, certain episodes of Dragon Ball Z were supervised by top-notch animation supervisors, which made the battles look AMAZING. It was always a thrill watching episodes supervised by Naoki Tate, Kazuya Hisada, and Mashiro Shimanuki, just to name a few. Kanzenshuu.com has an impressive animation styles guide that highlight these excellent supervisors... and some that aren't so great.
  • Averted in several episodes, such as the battle between Goku and Ginyu, where it becomes Off-Model. Son Goku versus Captain Ginyu took place during a transitional period. Episode #68 was Shimanuki Masahiro's first episode as animation supervisor. Tate Naoki was promoted to key animator with this episode and in general there is a feeling that Shimanuki was still adjusting to his new role. Take'uchi Tomekichi, the animation supervisor of all Seigasha episodes up to this point and the studio's founder, is credited at the top of the key animator list, indicating he still contributed the most key animation drawings. Hisada Kazuya focused on action cuts during this period, noteably Ginyuu's flashy, Kanada Yoshinari-inspired arrival on the scene. Episode #69 was shipped out to Shindou Pro, another regular studio for the series. Shindou Mitsuo's animation corrections tended to give characters sharper looks. Yamamuro Tadayoshi would take over supervising duties beginning with episode #122, substantially improving the love of Shindou Pro episodes. Yamamuro soon became a Character Designer alongside Nakatsuru Katsuyoshi and has held such a position even on 2013's Battle of Gods. Episode #70 is supervised by series character designer Maeda Minoru, thus providing very on-model characters.
  • Animation bumps are especially prevalient in the episodes done by Keisuke Masunaga and his team at Studio Cockpit, due in no small part to him and Masaaki Iwane being responsible for some of the show's most notable sequences during the Cell and Buu sagas.
  • In a making-of episode of Dragon Ball Z Abridged, it's revealed that Team Four Star were doing their own animation bumps, not just to heighten the comedy, but to make fight scenes run smoother and to fix animation errors in the source material; they were also doing color correction.
  • Dragon Ball Super although suffering from a strained schedule, can shift animators around to make sure climactic episodes will have more time and talented animators put into them. Episode 66, the final battle of the Future Trunks arc features nearly all Super's regulars and most notably Naotoshi Shida, delivering an even lenthier scene than he did in episode 57. Similarly, as the series directors have said in an interview, such a maneouver was performed for 109-110 two episode special. In the first half it featured a very unexpected appearance of Ryo Onishi, someone who hasn't contributed in any way to the series since Battle of Gods arc and a small bit of opening of Ressurrection F arc, now animating a lengthy and beautiful fight scene between Goku and Ribrianne. In the second half, the first appearance of Ultra Instinct is given just about as much spotlight as it was humanly possible, opening up with a wonderfully fluid scene from Naoki Tate, later including an amazing rotation of Goku and Jiren facing off by Yuya Takahashi and ending with a a very fierce punch by Naotoshi Shida, though his work here didn't include much in terms of movement. Nothing however could prepare fans for the glory that was episode 130, filled to brim with great animators, with the likes of Tate, Higashide, Kenji Miuma, Atsushi Nikaido delivering spectacular scenes, topped off with yet another scene from Naotoshi Shida, far surpassing all of his previous contributions to the series. It was without a doubt the best animated anime episode in the history of Dragon Ball franchise.
  • Or it was so without a doubt until the next episode, 131. Although it's short, the climatic final battle between U7's Goku, Frieza and 17 vs. U11's Jiren is gorgeous both in art and animation. Featuring incredibly fluid animation, a strong sense of weight and desperation behind every movement and blow, the final fight is near if not cinematic quality.
• The final fight in Elemental Gelade is drawn far, far more meticulously than the series had been up to that point. To put it simply, the rest of the series is generic shounen, but that last scene has animation quality to match Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
• Fairy Tail episode 26, during the fight against Jose, and Gajeel torturing Lucy, were given top-notch animation.
  • Natsu and Gajeel vs Laxus near the end of the Battle of Fairy Tail arc was perhaps THE best animated fight throughout the entire anime series at the time. The reason being that this fight was to be the very last serious fight of the anime before ending its 48-episode run having the anime go out with a bang. Obviously, the producers decided to go beyond it at some point in development, and a major drop in animation quality showed throughout the series afterwards.
  • Erza and Jellal's scene in the latter half of episode 154 is one of the most gorgeously animated moments in the series. The rest of the episode was fairly average.
• The 2006 Fate/stay night anime by Studio DEEN received quite a bump in quality for its final two episodes. Compare the fluidity of Saber's fight against Gilgamesh to the fights against Rider or Berserker, as well as the detail and intensity of her facial expressions.
• The animation quality of Final Fantasy: Unlimited varied heavily based on which animation group was handling each episode. Some of the best-handled episodes visually were 1, 3, 9, 13, and 18, but special mention goes to the final episode; nearly every frame looked like they could serve as one of the most beautiful pieces of the series' lush promotional artwork.
• Happens in both adaptations of Fullmetal Alchemist. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood has excellent animation as one of its trademarks, but generally the fight scenes, openings, and endings were more fluid and of higher quality line art than usual, especially towards the end of the show. In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), although it is considered to have quality animation as well, the scenes during the final confrontation are noticeably more detailed, as well as the Ed vs. Greed fight.
• Gintama has the impressively animated fight scenes like the Benizakura storyline, or very stylish ones like Gintoki vs. Jiraia. The same show also has long sequences where all the viewer sees is a still shot of the outside of Yorozuya-Ginchan while the characters talk.
  • Talk about how cheap it is to use a still frame like that, even.
  • And then, there's one entire chapter when they reused intact pieces of animation from past chapters, pasted them together and put on the character's voices commenting the hoax and even dubbing the other's part... Anyway, it was funny as hell.
• While it's never been much of an animation marvel, Hetalia: Axis Powers had some very impressive scenes scattered throughout The Movie, some highlights being the ridiculously shiny and colorful effect the Picto create and the various militaries of different countries in action, especially the American air force sequence.
• Every single animated version of Higurashi: When They Cry gets a bump from the last. The transition between the first and second season is very noticeable, but between the second season and the Rei OVA can be jarring as well, and so is the bump between Rei and Kira. The bumps are especially noticeable if you're watching them all straight through.
• Episode 7 of Honey and Clover received a textbook animation bump, the characters in this episode, unlike others, rarely simply stand around, there's even a shot of Hagu's eyes welling up with tears which shows spots of her eyes shimmering in greater than usual detail.
• The Idolmaster: The majority of the dance numbers flow quite nicely. Especially in Episode 13 and 25.
• In the Infinite Stratos anime, the titular Powered Armor are noticeably more fluid than everything else, leading to gorgeous fight scenes.
• All of the Inuyasha movies have considerably better animation than the rest of the series, which causes the characters to be drawn in extreme amounts of detail... but the shift is so extreme and so far removed from Takahashi's art style that the characters just end up looking Off-Model instead.
• The Dancing Theme ending from episode 3 of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has incredibly fluid Rotoscoped animation, to the point that many people initially confused it for being CGI. It helps that the person who animated it was a former Kyoto Animation staffer.
• Kill la Kill is produced by the same guys who did Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which shows in their animation philosophy being exaggerated even further thanks to their current smaller budget to the point it's practically an art form. At points the characters will literally just be animated by swiveling their limbs or bobbing their frames like paper dolls, just so the animators can save their money for the fight scenes that last two thirds of an episode.
• Kirby: Right Back at Ya!:
  • Parodied in one episode when Dedede gets his kingdom to make an anime for him. Since the citizens don't have any experience in animation, the whole thing looks uneven and amateurish, but during one scene with Dedede and Escargoon, the animation shifts to a very realistic, Death Note-esque style that has them drawn in full, realistic detail.
  • Generally played straight in the series itself, however, particularly during the Monster of the Week fights, which tend to have much smoother animation than the relatively low-stakes Slice of Life plots. The show is fond of blending cel-shaded 3D models into the 2D animation to save time and money. Dedede and Escargoon in particular switch endlessly between cel to CGI from shot to shot, while Kirby is near perpetually CGI animated. Near the end of the series, Dedede and Escargoon are more consistently drawn in cel animation and only show up in 3D during reused footage, making this an example as well.
• Knight Hunters has drastically varying animation, sometimes within the very same episode.
• Love Hina had about three or four episodes in which characters sang. In episode 11, where Naru became a pop idol, it looked fluid and believable. The other times? Not so much.
• The Lupin III animated series has been around a long time, but most of the animation has remained in one place: TMS Entertainment. However, the wide range of directors and designers who have handled the series over the years have meant drastic changes in animation, from the Ghibli-esque (The Castle of Cagliostro and a few second series episodes) to cartoony and goofy (Legend of the Gold of Babylon) to downright crude (some episodes of the second and third series). Lampshaded beautifully in the anniversary OVA Green vs. Red which had hundred of Lupins, drawn in dozens of varying styles.
• Macross:
  • The beginning and ending of Macross Frontier are of a different standard than the middle, which is wildly variable, only meeting the standard of the rest of the series for the action scenes.
  • Super Dimension Fortress Macross itself was all over the map, depending on which of the five different studios was in charge of a particular episode. Studio Nue, Artmic, Artland and Studio Gainax^note Then known as Daicon Film turned out relatively stunning (given the budget) animation, but then their episodes would routinely be bookended by episodes from Tatsunoko Production feeder animation studios Star Pro and AnimeFriend (known in Macross fandom as "Star Poo" and "AnimeFiend" respectively), which were apparently chosen mostly because they were inexpensive. And. It. Showed.
  • Macross Plus is this for the entire franchise. From the SHADING to perfectly on-model character animation to strategic and smart uses of CGI, Plus is to this day held in high regard as the standard all mecha anime should strive for.
• In one bizarre scene in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the animation suddenly got much more detailed and fluid. The scene wasn't particularly important; it was just Nanoha and her family having dinner. The jump was so extreme that the whole scene looked Off-Model, despite being better in quality. It's quite telling that The Movie, despite having much higher animation quality overall, actually reduced the framerate and detail for this particular scene.
• The animation quality of Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse is widely variable, often going from mediocre to excellent not from episode to episode or even scene to scene, but shot to shot.
• The first episode of Naruto Shippuden begins with a Flash Forward to Sasuke's first post-Time Skip appearance that's animated with the kind of detail and care not usually seen outside of movies. The rest of the episode uses more standard TV animation, and, in fact, when this scene is recreated in a later episode, it uses notably lower quality animation.
  • Additionally, both Shippuden and the original Naruto have a handful of episodes with much, much more fluid animation than normal, usually during major battles. Some examples include Rock Lee vs. Gaara, Naruto vs. Sasuke, typically once per Akatsuki battle, and Obito vs Kakashi. This is generally the work of a specific team which is very skilled at fast-paced action sequences and not much else.
    • Shippuden episode 167 takes this to the extreme, where sequences animated by Norio Matsumoto and Shingo Yamashita use extremely fast-paced, fluid animation with equally loose physics and facial anatomy.
    • Episode 375, with its incredibly-animated Obito vs Kakashi fight, is one of the largest disparities of inter-episode animation quality. Obito's absorption of the Juubi is animated with similar quality to the fight, yet the subsequent episode plays the same scene through (from a different view) with the commonly-used sub-par budget animation.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion:
  • Especially for the fights involving the actual Eva in both the original series and Rebuild movies. Infamously, all the budget had to be conserved for the fights later in the series, so many of the "character talking" scenes would just be stills or long pans and then suddenly you'd get beautifully rendered Eva fights. On the off chance that you actually saw a character during dialogue, they would almost universally have their back to the audience, be holding something to cover their mouths, or be on-screen for two frames of animation before it cut to a reverse shot of their conversation partner's expression. For better or for worse, this also started a trend in modern anime to "conserve" animation budget by focusing on character interaction, plot exposition, or "art shots". Whether or not they're well done or enjoyable is left to the viewer.
  • Episode 17 of NGE features a sudden shift in drawing styles; the characters look like they're all babies. With the notable exception of Misato. Thankfully, by the next episode, everything is back to normal.
  • A somewhat similar change also appeared in episode 11. Wherein the characters looked like they came from a Hayao Miyazaki film. Of course, a quick glance does reveal that Studio Ghibli did work on that particular episode.
• One of the final episodes of Ojamajo Doremi had this. Compared to the rest of the episode (and the rest of the show's run), it was very fluid and highly detailed. Bonus points for this same show being notorious for being Off-Model some of the time.
• One Piece seems to be getting this treatment more and more ever since the show first went HD. For certain scenes, such as unimportant or relatively minor fights, you would get standard (and sometimes below-standard) animation, but for other, more important fights, you'd get well-constructed, fluid, almost-movie-quality animation.
  • The G8 arc was one of the high points for the early episodes. Particularly episode 199 which was directed and storyboarded by the well-acclaimed Mamoru Hosoda. This may have been a sort of "test run" as he directed the 6th movie and worked along side many other "top tier" artists and animators for this film.
  • The middle to end of the Thriller Bark arc signaled this very well as it was the first time that the One Piece TV anime received such a high number of great animators to do it justice.
  • The Sabaody Archipelago arc can be considered the best animated story arc so far. The art consistency did drop a lot, but there was hardly an episode with poor animation during this 21-episode arc. Many of the episodes (including those headed by the well known "average" animation directors) got treated with lots of fluid, "expressive", and just generally better animation in comparison to the norm.
  • An odd example of this is how the art and animation of the average episode went up during the post-war arc. Although the "war of the best" had a lot of short but sweet animation, the average episodes fell short of the post-war arc's in terms of the art and animation (this was despite the fact that the post-war arc hardly had any "great" animation).
  • Sadly, we have the highly erratic animation of the New World Saga. The animation changes quite often throughout the episodes of the Return to Sabody and the Fishmen Island Arcs. The animation always seems to be either ridiculously top notch and smooth, poor, or very poor, depending on the situation. For example, all of Luffy's fights in the Fishmen Island arc were given the best of the best animation; particularly impressive was Luffy's kick against Hody, Gum Gum Red Hawk, and Elephant Gatling. But, the animation of the crew's fights were noticeably sub-par, using many sudden still shots and slow, almost frame-by-frame animation. And by far the worst animation was during the flashback arc; the frames were practically crawling in the Jinbe vs. Arlong fight along with unusually cartoonish yellow "pow stickers" whenever Jinbe punched Arlong.
  • Starting with the Wano Arc, however, a HUGE bump in overall quality and consistency occured and the episodes are all given polish. Some episodes in particular, directed by Megumi Ishitani and animated by a crew of different animators, are given extra effort and look nothing short of incredible.
• Episode 21 of Outlaw Star has a noticeably more fluid animation than any of the previous episodes.
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt's episodes seemed like they were each animated by a different studio. Some episodes, like "The Stripping", had consistent, on-model animation whereas others, like the OVA, had extremely cartoony, off-model and lazy animation.
• In Penguindrum, episodes 9 and 20 are beautifully animated. It's also worth nothicing that both are centered on the same character: Himari Takakura.
  • Episode 1 is gorgeous as well.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Quite a few instances in this long running series have had this, normally during important battles or when the animators just want to show off. The movies are also noticeably better animated.
  • This especially applies to episodes (and two of the movies) animated by Masaaki Iwane. The very first episode he directed the animation on? CHARIZARD VS. MAGMAR.
  • However, on average, Akihiro Tamagawa's works are the absolute best. Episodes like Journey to the Unown (the scene of Dawn climbing up the stairs with Piplup and Aipom comes to mind), Bagged Then Tagged (especially Monferno delivering the finishing punch to Croconaw. The episode notably introduced battle animation that was reused later on) and the special Mewtwo Returns are some of the finest in the series. The only downsides are that he's rarely involved in the series and seems to animate less and less episodes as the show progresses.
  • It's especially noticeable in Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, where May's death scene (which, of course, turned into a Disney Death later on) was so incredibly well animated, that it actually made her look about 5 years more mature than usual.
  • Speaking of Lucario, another one fought under Maylene against Ash's Buizel in A Triple Fighting Chance!. Likely for being the final battle in the match, it received a boost in fluidity as soon as the Gym's roof got destroyed and the rain kicked in. The music used during the scene made it look even more impressive.
  • The Ash vs Tucker battle in Tactics Theatrics, which is probably the smoothest-looking fight in the entire series.
  • Pokémon the Series: XY: XY's animation is notably different from the previous anime incarnations, and for a good reason; The people who animated Pokémon Origins took over the animation work of the main series anime. This is welcome news to a lot of people.
  • The Pokémon the Series: Sun & Moon series takes this a whole other step, along with having several character redesigns, the animation is far more frenetic and expressive than previous series, with the art style being more streamlined or made Off-Model as a necessity to allow a much greater amount of characters and movement per shot.
  • Journeys mostly keeps a mildly altered version of the artstyle employed in Sun and Moon to the same result, although certain key scenes are given improved and more defined quality. In particular, the last leg of the Final Battle between Ash and Leon has significantly improved animation, standing out over just about any non-movie project in the franchise.
• Pretty Cure:
  • Heart Catch Pretty Cure made use and abuse of this trope, ESPECIALLY during important plot episodes that focus on Ensemble Dark Horse Cure Moonlight and/or Dark Pretty Cure.
  • Go! Princess Pretty Cure Although the series is already quite pretty and well-animated most of the time, the animation is of noticeably higher production during the hand-to-hand fight scenes, especially in the more important episodes such as the introduction arc (ep. 1-5), Episode 11, Episode 22, etc.
    • Episode 30 in particular has some of the best animation in franchise to date, better than even some of the movies.
    • Episode 39, particularly when Haruka has her She's Back moment manages to surpass Episode 30. That really speaks for itself.
    • Episode 50, particularly the final fight with Close looks better then any other scene in the whole show.
  • Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure had a couple of episodes where the animation quality took a significant boost as well, specifically during the Climax Boss fights in Episode 29 and Episode 45.
• A notable example in Reborn! (2004) is episode 123. The fight between Yamamoto and Genkishi had truly impressive animation, especially compared to the so-so quality the series usually has.
• The Record of Lodoss War OVA series is the poster child for this among anime. Most of the series has laughably static "animation" dependent largely on still images, but the first episode would measure up favorably against just about any other direct-to-video series you can name. Likewise, the opening credits of the TV anime series, Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, practically seems to have consumed half the budget considering how much better it looks than the show proper.
• In R.O.D the TV, there is a small number of brief flashbacks to scenes from Read or Die (an OVA). The sudden jump in frames per second and then back down again is very noticeable when it happens (and there are differences in animation style and detail as well).
• Rurouni Kenshin is a relatively well-done series, but one scene in particular benefits from an animation bump: when Kenshin leaves at the end of the first story arc, his farewell with Kaoru is drawn far, far better than anything else in the entire run of the series. The scene is the subject of frequent callbacks afterwards, and any time it's shown, it makes the normal animation look a lot worse than it actually is. The Darker and Edgier Kyoto arc, which is also the series biggest story arc, is also much better animated as a whole than the previous arcs and later anime original arcs. Coincidentally, the Kyoto arc starts after the scene above. The fight between Kenshin and Saito is also much more fluidly animated, as are most fights at the end of the Kyoto arc.
• Sailor Moon had fairly standard, if a bit on the cheap side, animation for its time in the first three series. However there is a definite quality increase for climactic episodes like Sailor Senshi introductions, villain showdowns, big revelations and episodes involving major character death.
  • To cite a specific example, you would be hardpressed to find someone who doesn't consider the sequence in episode 125, where Sailor Moon transforms into Super Sailor Moon after the destruction of the Holy Grail, to be absolutely gorgeous, perhaps even the pinnacle of animation of the entire series.
• The animation quality of Saint Seiya Omega usually ranges from Off-Model to Quite Good for a Sunday morning anime aimed at kids, but the episodes directed by Yoshihiko Umakoshi are visually stunning. The first season's finale is particularly notable.
• The animation of Astaroth's music video shown at the end of episodes 5 of Seven Mortal Sins is much more dynamic and fluid than any other scene in the episode.
• Shakugan no Shana: The more serious and depressing first season of the anime is notably better animated than the Love Triangle centered first half of the second season. Except for Kazumi's breasts.
• Sherlock Hound, a Funny Animal detective series, had the distinction of having six early episodes directed by world-famous animator, Hayao Miyazaki. While there are a few tiny clues giving away these episodes (a minor character is colored differently in Miyazaki's version), the most obvious clue is that the main characters become more detailed, and the animation quality shoots up roughly tenfold, into territory usually reserved for movies. Notably, all of the footage from the opening is taken from Miyazaki's episodes.
• Sket Dance had a large animation bump done to its second opening - up to and including episode 18, there was a lack of shading, and many of the character models rather simplistic and disproportional in comparison to the rest of the show's animation. In episode 19, the opening had many revisions, showing obvious signs of improvement (Himeko's swimsuit and hair got some proper shadows, Switch no longer looked like he was surprised while drumming, Bossun's arms were no longer toothpicks, etc.)
• The animation for the Slayers anime is rather standard, if a bit cheap, but the animation for just about any fight involving a lot of magic moves more naturally. This usually occurs during the last several episodes. It's mostly due to a bigger budget and better technology overall, but the animation for the fourth and fifth seasons (which came out 11 years after the third, mind) utilizes smoother movement for characters in action. There's actually a quick, throwaway scene that illustrates this: episode 10 of the fifth season involves Zelgadis slamming a fireball spell into the ground to blindside his allies; the fluidity is in the motion of his arm.
• The earliest episodes of Sonic X were crisper and even referenced Western Animation style frequently with much more "squash and stretch" than conventional anime. The budget seemed to decrease more and more as the series continued.
• Exaggerated in Space Patrol Luluco when Over Justice (who normally only has a single frame of animation) has a Let's Get Dangerous! moment and basically has a frame-for-frame recreation of the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
• Symphogear started its first season with perfectly adequate animation with a few highlight scenes, but the quality of animation improved with each successive season until by the 5th and final season, it was pretty close to movie quality.
• The last few episodes of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's 27-episode run consumed 40% of the animation budget. This caused any discussion on /a/ and /m/ of it during that time to exclaim 40%! And the most fluidly animated scene in the series is a throwaway scene near the end of Episode 13 that's just Yoko and Simon looking at each other. The fluidity of the animation can be seen in their hair blowing in the wind.
• The entire run of Togainu no Chi. The animation is so insanely bad sometimes the main response after the new episodes is "IS THE ANIMATION BETTER YET OR AM I JUST GETTING USED TO IT?" Notable examples include Shiki's coat and any fight scene.
• Toriko has this during the important battles, but episodes 33 and 34 are by far the best animations the series has produced so far.
• Unicron Trilogy:
  • In the Transformers: Armada episode "Alliance", Unicron's transformation is done in noticeably higher quality than the entire rest of the episode.
    • True to the trope's guidelines, it also happened in the last episode. This is signified by Optimus suddenly gaining some degree of facial expression without relying on the Kubrick Stare, and an extended fistfight with fluid animation and a lack of motion tweening.
  • Transformers: Energon: Due to the inability of the Cybertronians being unable to really emote or move properly in CG, the show occasionally switched to traditional 2D animation for them.
    • Given a Stealth Lampshade in the final battle between Prime and Galvatron: As their size and power increased, their animation grew less and less technological, going from Cel-shading to traditional CGI, and then to 2-D animation. One theory states that if they got any bigger, they'd turn into pencil tests!
  • Transformers: Cybertron: Most of the time, the Transformers are noticeably lacking in the facial animations department and can only really open and close their mouths to express themselves. The episode "Ambush" grants them more defined facial expressions, increases the fluidity of their mouth movements (with one scene having incredibly precise lip-synching), and makes Thunderblast's breasts jiggle when she runs.
• The quality of the animation and coloring jumps considerably higher for the final episode of ∀ Gundam.
• The last episode of the Vampire Princess Miyu TV series had higher quality and flashier animation than the rest of the series. Given that the final episode is the final installment of a two part story arc and starts off right in the middle of where things left off last episode this is even more noticeable and jarring than normal.
• Most of the important episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh!/Yu-Gi-Oh! GX/Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds are usually done with an art style which is usually quite superior to the rest of the episodes, whilst in some cases the Opening/Closing sequences are often done in a better animation style. Other than the climaxes, the animators go through a regular cycle of episode production—some are good, some bad. In the case of Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's, some of the more important duels will either have one episode of the battle's run with high quality animation, and at the same time the high quality animation episodes seem to be fairly prominent in the last episode of a story arc (Episodes 26 and 64 are good examples)
  • Also present in the Pyramid Of Light movie.
  • The entire Darkside of Dimensions anniversary movie has probably the most gorgeous animation of any of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! run, which a notable few frames animated by Kazuki Takahashi himself.
• YuYu Hakusho does this sometimes in a similar way to Naruto, which is made by the same studio.

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