Animation Above All

    I’ve been on an animated show roll as of late. I know with the rise of CGI that animating movies and shows by hand isn’t as desired but, damn, the amount that can be done when there are no real people constraints. 
Avatar: The Last Airbender for example is a beautifully animated masterpiece. It deals with the four elements in a martial art setting that can really only work in 2D. The movements of characters and the elements are seamless and graceful and natural looking in the animated world. Another example is Arcane, it’s drawn in a way where people are realistically proportioned and even the style is gritty and detailed. Because of the way it’s animated though, you almost forget you’re not watching real people. This is enhanced by the fantastic backgrounds, transitions, and fight scenes because they’re gorgeous and otherwise impossible to capture in a live action version. 
Not only is there a lovely charm about watching something drawn, but there are no limits with physics or safety. Magic in animated movies and shows always looks better because it blends well since our minds comprehend that everything is fake. The whole thing is drawn, so anything unnatural doesn’t harshly stand out. When live action movies have magic, unless their budget is godly, the supernatural can come off as awkward and clunky. Animated action sequences don’t need seventy-two shots for three moves because there are no stunt doubles to switch with actors. Instead you get satisfying one shot battles that showcase impossible close ups, overhead shots, and angles. 
Facial expressions are another wonderful thing in animation because the amount of exaggeration that can be done is remarkable. I cackled countless times watching Avatar solely from the faces characters pulled. Second-long clips of some expressions were sprinkled throughout the show and when I finally managed to pause at the right time, I would lose my mind at the detail that went in, all for a split moment. People can only do so much with their face and that’s where animation comes in to perfectly encapsulate an entire emotion with an unattainable facial expression. 
I find the worlds in animated shows and movies to be far more full, as it were. The details are endless, and there’s no need for filming on location or using a greenscreen so anything in the imagination can be done. I always get so sucked into the lands that are shown when they’re drawn well. I want to live in these nonexistent places, eat the perfect looking food, lay on the soft looking grass, swim in the clear streams and lakes. Studio Ghibli is a great example of spectacular world building. How they draw fields and cities and bodies of water always made me envy that I couldn’t simply jump into my TV and escape to those places.
I suppose, since I grew up in the late nineties and early aughts, I have a soft spot for the animated things because most of Disney’s children’s movies at the time were hand drawn. I would rewatch Mulan countless times on VHS and Fox and the Hound anytime I felt like crying. I kept the Cinderella III DVD for a single scene that is hilarious and only possible through animation. The Lion King I have seen in both forms, the old and the new and the original one just has something more to it that makes it so much better. 
In the end too, the really wild thing is that the geniuses behind these shows and movies make it so that voice actors match perfectly to their characters, sound effects match the noises that would naturally occur. Even the lighting and shadows that go into making everything look alive and realistic is insane. A bunch of real people make a bunch of fake people seem so real that we viewers feel for them just as much as we would for anybody around us. We fall in love with fictional 2D characters and the worlds they live in because the animated magic around it all pulls us in and steals our hearts in the best way. I only chose to write about this after procrastinating because I was busy fangirling with a friend over the final season of Castlevania. I can’t wait till she gets to the second to last episode because there is a fight scene in it that is phenomenal and I love it and it would never translate well as a live action, but that’s what makes animation so precious. CGI isn’t everything and I do hope we will always have artists around to grace us with their masterful skills in storytelling forevermore. ​