Ask John: Why Does Anime Use CG?

Question:
The other day I was enjoying your run of the mill, average budget anime “Tokko” & out of the blue something caught my eye, the police car was done with CG, it was ugly, it broke the immersion & I hated it, then I started thinking, why do so many anime nowadays use CG weather it’s a random object or a car or a character, is it because it’s cheaper to produce, is it a style thing that I’m not getting, what anime started this trend & how did it become so popular, how does Japanese fans & critics feel about it, it’s not just cheap anime that use CG, even high profile films like GITS & EVA use it.

Answer:
The images above demonstrating early fascination with CG animation come from the pages of This Is Animation Volume 1, published in 1982.

Contemporary anime typically incorporates CG to save time and money, not necessarily for stylistic effect. In the early days of practical computing, computer rendered visual effects were incorporated into 70’s anime like Game Center Arashi & Tekkaman, and full computer animation integrated into anime like the Lensman and Golgo 13 movies for its novelty impact. In the early 1980s CG animation was new and fascinating, suggesting a future possibilities for animation. Animators at the time were excited to experiment with new digital technology and eager to show off new, high-tech animation to audiences. Of course, these days the CG in the climax of the 1983 Golgo 13 movie looks laughably primitive. But time and technology hasn’t really changed that much because a lot of CG rendered objects and animation in contemporary anime still look jarringly unnatural.

In the DVD supplemental “making of” the Armitage III: Dual Matrix movie, director Katsuhito Akiyama points out and praises the film’s car chase, explaining that the extensive use of CG rendered cars created a sense of realistic speed and momentum practically impossible to evoke with traditional 2D animation. Unfortunately, Akiyama seems so enthused with the technical accomplishment that he overlooks the superficial fact that the scene just looks ugly. Initial D serves as a similar but better example. Initial D rendered its racing cars in CG, using the advantages of CG to create a thrilling sense of motion, speed, and momentum. The contemporary eX-Driver anime illustrated its racing cars with traditional animation. While the effort is commendable, eX-Driver doesn’t exude anywhere near the sensation of realistic momentum that the CG in Initial D accomplishes. In effect, CG in anime is sometimes a stylistic choice, and sometimes even a good, effective choice. However, most of the time the incorporation of CG is a necessity rather than a stylistic choice.

Anime, after all, is a commercial product that has to be produced quickly and within budget. Furthermore, a lot of supplemental animation work for Japanese anime is now contracted to Korean and Chinese studios rather than produced within Japan. In traditional 2D animation, everything must be drawn by hand. A car driving along a road is naturally seen from different perspectives. An airplane shifts and tilts as it moves. In traditional animation each of those shifts in perspective have to be separately hand-drawn. These days, animation producers don’t frequently have the luxury of time and animators free to hand-draw multiple shots of a single vehicle in motion. When the supplemental animators are overseas, the animation director doesn’t even have the ability to look and ensure that the animators are skilled at drawing sequential frames consistently. CG eliminates these obstacles. When a vehicle or mecha is rendered in CG once, it never needs to be re-drawn. It can be immediately inserted into anime from any angle or perspective. CG is most often used for mecha, from daily utility machines like automobiles, to giant robots and flying ships. The reasoning should be fairly obvious. Cold, artificial looking CG may be deemed appropriate for inanimate objects, giving them a more metallic, constructed look. CG is less often used for characters, with the exception of all-CG animation, because animators do realize that CG still doesn’t have the ability to look as natural and soothing as traditional 2D illustration. But the anime industry is trying to address even that conflict. Studio 4C’s Berserk movie trilogy is breaking ground in technical animation production by integrating 2D and 3D animation in a way never done before. The Berserk movies merge hand-drawn human faces with CG rendered hair and clothing. The visual effect is a bit distracting and jarring, just as the incorporation of CG in the Golgo 13 movie was thirty years ago. But hopefully the first step taken by the Berserk movies will quicken into a jog that results in other future anime being able to affordably and efficiently depict & animate elaborate costume and clothing designs and even new, previously impossible or impractical character types in routine anime.

All contemporary Japanese animators utilize and rely on some degree of supplemental CG animation these days by necessity. Madhouse’s 2009 film Redline eschewed all CG assistance and, as a result, required seven years to animate. Typical anime can’t afford that much time for animators to draw literally everything by hand. Certain directors, notably Mamoru Oshii and Shoujo Kawamori among them, seem particularly fond of experimenting with and utilizing CG animation. Most animators and viewers realize that the incorporation of CG elements and animation in contemporary anime is simply a practical necessity.