Lance M. Hatami (michio@jps.net)
Sun, 7 Feb 1999 16:02:54 -0700
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Message-ID: <36BE1B99.7B74@jps.net> Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 16:02:54 -0700 From: "Lance M. Hatami" <michio@jps.net> Subject: Re: [ot]Re: In support of Sakura Taisen on Gameboy
> > >Plus, animation in Sakura Taisen 2 was not that great.
>
> Really? It gets my vote for best animation in a game. I mean,
> just look at the opening compared to the Sakura Taisen opening. It's so
> much more fluid, so much more colorful, and the CG + anime blend nicely
> together.
I must agree that the first disc's opening animation for ST2 was
excellent, but a lot of animation choices after that were bad. I have
to say that Sumire looked weird in her animation sequence when Kaede is
introduced and something bugs the hell out of me about Kayama's hand
when he waves to Oogami. To have that repeated every time in one of the
opening sequences just annoys me. Oh yeah, Oogami looks hella ugly in
the last sequences when the Mikasa comes to pick them up. It looks like
one animator was working on him or something. There seemed to be a
greater consistency in the first game's animation. I think some of the
animators from the horrible still animated "Steam Radio Show" were put
to work here.
One more thing about the animation, it seems to have gotten cheaper or
produced faster. The number of colors used to make shadows, etc. seems
to have dropped to the basic minimum. How sad. Even the OAV showed
some better quality (it still is uglier though).
> > >In some places, it was downright ugly (look at Iris' ending and tell me
> > >that her face and hair do not look odd. At one point, the animator drew
>
> > yet, but in the few minutes I've spent with Teigeki Graph, I did feel there
> > was a slight dip in the overall quality of the character designs
> > (non-animated segments). Is this the case with ST2 as well?
>
> Haven't beaten it with Iris yet but that's one thing I always mention.
> That sakura taisen 2 art is different than sakura taisen. I think Reni +
> Orihime look fine. Iris most of the time(freaks the crap outta me with
> those in-your-face shots). I don't believe I liked any pose of Sumire's
> in ST2. They just made her ugly IMO. Sakura looks a little chubbier, and
> sometimes she looks good, other times she doesn't. Kanna and Maria are
> for the most part fine. I believe Teigeki Graph has all the Sakura Taisen
> 2 poses(from the pics I've seen, it doesn't look like they added anything
> from ST2's adventure engine). Not to mention Tsubaki was much cuter in
> ST.
When it comes to art, I'm a hard ass. Most of the still shots were OK
in my opinion. I actually thought Sumire looked good, except that weird
close-up shot where she's mad. But there were shots of Sakura and Iris
that were bad and I cringed every time they popped up. Like the shot of
Sakura whenever she has her hands clasped (used a lot when something
about her father popped up). Something about her eyes being too close
together compared to the other shots. Same thing about Iris' close-up
shot. Then, there's the cheap side poses for Sakura. They just add a
mouth instead of having the whole chin move. I blame Evangelion and
Sailorstars for introducing this method into animation. Yes, it does
save time, cels, and money, but it looks HELLA weird. Oh yes, don't
forget the weird smirk that Oogami has in his. Thank god his screen
time is limited.
I think you can say that Reni and Orihime look fine is because there's
nothing to compare it to (except that weird and ugly picture of Orihime
that pops up on the cover by Fujishima). Sorry to pick on Fujishima.
He used to be a great artist in my opinion, but he's dropping fast.
Oh, I'd like to mention something about Iris. I like Iris as a
character very much, but there's something that I would like to say that
is odd and should have bugged a lot of people. In Sakura Taisen, she
was nine to ten, and in Sakura Taisen 2 she turned 11. Doesn't it
bother anyone that she has the personality of a four or five year old?
I would say that some little girls act like this until maybe eight, but
if she's 11 (a fifth grader or sixth grader) she wouldn't act like this,
especially coming from someone who doesn't want to be treated as a
child. I think Akahori or Ouji haven't spent enough time around young
children and stereotyped it. Otherwise, it might be because of the soft
porn, Lolita Complex image surrounding her. I hate to admit that, but
it's undeniable. After all, what sane person would peek on a young girl
in the bathroom or have one "special" feature of her mini-game be where
you see her changing? If only Iris' age was changed I could like her
better as a character, but even Chibiusa (who was given a younger age)
acts older than Iris. Also, Kasumi from Pocket Monsters, who is age 10
has long lost the baby talk.