Dragon Ball franchise has given anime fandom one of the most successful Shonen series of the last two decades. Although most of the time they have had great plots that were executed perfectly by the animation team but Dragon Ball Super was an exception. The fans were disappointed by the animation of the series. Most fans believe that it happened because of shortcuts taken by the studio responsible for the animation. But was that the right reason for the poor animation? Was the animation that bad?
According to most fans of the series, the animation of the Dragon Ball Super series took a nosedive from the beginning. Since the Dragon Ball franchise has a worldwide fanbase that has only grown in the last two decades, it makes sense that the creators want to capitalize on the opportunity and create as many series as they can to benefit monetarily. But the franchise’s popularity alone isn’t enough to make fans watch the whole series. The creators have to at least put in the effort to create a good plot and back it up with decent animation. Unfortunately for Dragon Ball Super that has not been the case.
When compared with other series of the franchise one can see the difference in animation. Forget details, in some cases, it seems as if the camera has been moved over two still images just to create an illusion of movement which is disappointing since Dragon Ball became popular because of its action scenes.
There are several reports online that try to explain the reason for bad animation. One of those points out several instances when the animation of Dragon Ball Z was below average. However, another more logical reason points to the bad scheduling of the series for the poor animation. According to the report, some of the episodes were not even completed two days before airing. Outsourcing of the animation is also one of many reasons that might have been responsible for the poor quality.
However, there is one more important thing to notice in this controversy. Although it is true that the animation took a nosedive in the series but some of the screenshots that are being shared online are taken mid-action that might make characters look funny because of stretching and squishing. It is crucial to keep in mind that action scenes will seem bad when they are taken out of context. It is therefore important to criticize only those aspects of the show that can be improved instead of taking things out of context to create an unnecessary controversy.
With time there has been an upturn in the animation quality of the series. It seems that the animators now have a much better idea of how things will look from the viewer’s perspective. Although there is still scope for a lot of improvement at least the fans have a good reason to expect more from the show. The creators need to work on the time constraints as well and schedule the telecast properly so that animators have ample time to work on each episode.
Despite terrible animation, there are still reasons to believe that Dragon Ball Super will get better with time. There is some misinformation online that should be overlooked. Dragon Ball has been a successful franchise for too long now even if there have been reasons to be disappointed one needs to have faith in them to fix the problems and provide quality content in coming years.
