#pragma search rtblog/anime
== Old anime looks different, but sadly I can't tell you exactly why

One of the things I did this year was watch some older anime;
the [[*Crusher Joe* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusher_Joe]]
movie (and one OVA) from 1983, and [[*Iria: Zeiram the Animation*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iria:_Zeiram_the_Animation]] from 1994.
One of the things that struck me about both of these, especially *Iria*,
is how they looked and felt clearly different from modern anime. This is
more than a difference in the look of the art, the style of people's
outfits and hair, and the kind of settings; it was also something
distinctly different in how each work looked in a broader sense.

(*Crusher Joe* is very distinctly an 80s work; consider [[this scene
https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/38973]], for example.)

Some of this is in the use of 'light gleam' effects that
aren't used as much (or in the same way) any more, such as the
bright beam blasts near the start of [[this *Crusher Joe* scene
https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/38963]]. My understanding is that
this classical effect in cell-based animation is done by leaving sections
of the cell either completely transparent or translucent (with coloured
film behind them) and then letting the backlight from the [[rostrum camera
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostrum_camera]] show through the cells.
This gives a vivid glow in a relatively simple to animate way (and it's
a glow that can spread outside the lit up area).

*Crusher Joe* is a film and was clearly well-produced even at the
time. Perhaps as a result, its 'old anime' feel is mostly confined
to how things are drawn; there's an old fashioned feel to both the
foreground and the background rocks along the roadway in [[this segment
https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/38988]] or the hand-drawn digital
display in [[this scene https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/38995]]
at about four seconds in. But even then there's something that
feels distinctly old about how the movie simply rotates the cell
of Alfin in her cockpit starting at four seconds in [[this scene
https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/38997]]. I can see how this would be
an easy effect to do in a cell-based world; you draw the cell a bit larger
and then just rotate the [[rostrum camera]] when you film the frames.

A case with a deeper feel of difference is the opening for *Dirty Pair:
Project Eden* [[here https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/10030]] (or
[[on YouTube with sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE_CewGiHsI]]).
This is from 1986 and undeniably beautiful, but at the same time it
strikes me as something that you wouldn't see today and that looks
definitely old fashioned (it too has a bunch of 'light gleam' effects).
I suspect that a lot of the unusual feel is the use of silhouettes and
of echoed movement (for example at 51 seconds). But I don't know if this
was easier or harder in days of drawn and filmed cell animation.

*Iria: Zeiram the Animation* is an OVA and thus probably
had less production resources that the *Crusher Joe* movie,
which I suspect makes it lean more heavily on things that were
easy to do in the cell animation days. Looking at [[its opening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZuBUw_F68]], I see things that stand out
to me at various points; there are repeated inset frames of animation (at
25 seconds), 'light gleam' streaks (at 29 seconds), rotating cells (33
seconds), distinctly overlaid foreground snow (at 1 minute), echoed frames
of animation (at 1:26), and then it just runs some earlier animation
backward starting at 1:29 or so. Beyond that, there's a lot of scenes
in the actual show that feel to me like they wouldn't be done today.

(For example, it feels like *Iria* uses a lot more held frames and panned
frames than is normal today.)

However, this is where I run into the limits of my ability to analyze
and explain animation this way. All of what I've talked about so far
is basically hand waving and theorizing. I know both *Crusher Joe* and
especially *Iria* feel distinctly different but I can't really tell you
why, with chapter and verse and technical details. All I can do is look
for some obvious things that feel unusual, when really it was a much more
pervasive thing that ran all through my watching of both works and it
didn't feel directly related to the different look of hand painted cell
animation. I'm pretty sure that many shots were composed and designed
differently than they would be today, but I can't tell you how (or why);
at best I can theorize about obvious things, like rotating cells or those
'light gleam' effects and how they give the frames an overall glow.

This frustrates me a bit. I'd like to be able to understand this myself
and be able to explain it, instead of waving my hands and doing what feels
like nit-picking. Instead, it's another limitation I've discovered on
[[my ability to analyze things FlyingWitchAnalysisLimits]].

(This is part of the [[12 Days of Anime for 2017
https://perpetualmorning.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/12-days-of-anime-2017/]].)

=== Sidebar: The other way *Iria* looks different

As an SF show, *Iria* takes place in a different world (a couple of
them, actually). It's clear that the show has worked hard to create a
coherent yet decidedly different cultural feel for its setting, where
the clothes, the buildings, the vehicles, and so on are all pretty
different from what we'd usually see yet also clearly go together. This
is a degree of work and imagination that doesn't seem to come up very
often in modern SF shows, which generally look far more normal and
conventional.