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Holy shit, Knights of Sidonia may have the best production values of an anime ever

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Peterthumpa

Peterthumpa

Member
I mean, this was totally off radar to me but in my weekend boredom was browsing Netflix and decided to give it a try.

Holy mother of God. This is Attack on Titan in space but with an stratospheric budget. Sometimes I can't even discern what's CG from traditional anime, and the animation itself is top, top notch. Story is a bit cliché but at least it doesn't require a PhD to understand like Evangelion.

For those looking for an awesome sci fi, mecha anime to watch, look no further. GAF's take on it?
 
A

Askherserenity

Member
I've been watching it and it is pretty good. I think the best part about it is the fantastic sound design.

Also, though the story might not be that fresh, the anime does have some very interesting concepts overall. I'm really enjoying it so far.

Only reason why I think it's not getting much hype around the internets is because of the whole Netflix thing. People should give it a shot though. Really well made and pretty interesting so far.
 
D

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
I Was really interested in this but couldn't make it more than ten minutes due to the horrible frame rate of the cg characters. Does that get better later on?
 
N

Narag

Member
Going to sit down with it sometime soon but the weird framerate on the CG was really offputting in what little I'd seen.
 
T

TC McQueen

Member
Some really interesting ideas, but it suffers from a poor framerate in non-combat scenes (since the Japanese producers were too cheap to pay for a server farm so Polygon could render the stuff properly), characters that are barely human in characterization, and really haphazard worldbuilding that makes everyone on Sidonia look nearly Darwin Awards level stupid.
 
arnoldocastillo2003

arnoldocastillo2003

Member
I liked the series a lot. For me it was a warm fresh for the way it was animated I liked it very much. It remind me a lot of Appleseed movies and series.

OP if you liked knights of sidonia you should give a try to "blassreiter" it has some resemblances on the way it was animated and the story is good as well.
 
D

DiscoShark

Banned
OStBkEJ.gif


Just stunning.

The background art really is phenomenal though, it's a shame that the actual character animation is so off-putting.
 
W

Wensih

Member
Attack on Titan in Space? So nothing interesting happens for 10 episodes and then after 5 minutes of excitement and reveals nothing interesting happens for another 10 episodes?
 
A

Aureon

Please do not let me serve on a jury. I am actually a crazy person.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually expensive.
Everything that isn't a human character is godlike++, but humans are animated terribly.
We're still a long way from viable anime CG characters, both Sidonia and that other battleship-are-little-girls thing demonstrated that.
 
C

Chariot

Member
I am a big fan of Ars Nova, but I couldn't keep watching Sidonia. It was just too ugly. The outer shot of Sidonia itself killed me. Seriously, it looks really really bad and really nothing like traditional animation.

Time to make some Ars Nova webm's. The show was a bit janky already when it came to the cg, but not nearly as bad as Sidonia.
Aureon said:
I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually expensive.
Everything that isn't a human character is godlike++, but humans are animated terribly.
We're still a long way from viable anime CG characters, both Sidonia and that other battleship-are-little-girls thing demonstrated that.
Click to expand...
Personally I thought that Ars Nova showed that we made a few steps in the last years.
 
C

Curiocity

Member
I thought the weird cg framerate was to emulate the framerate of the hand drawn stuff. Personally I don't care for the show, though I love the look of the manga, but I appreciate the way the cg is because nothing but NOTHING is uglier than mismatched cg and hand animation to me. So damn distracting.

Also the Netflix thing is cool. Would love more partnerships like that, could have interesting potential.
 
Peterthumpa

Peterthumpa

Member
Wait, so it's all CG?

And about the framerate, really doesn't bother me that much. I guess the goal is to mimic traditional anime animation.
 
C

CBTech

Member
I watched the first episode, but I switched to reading the manga due to the CGI. I really like Tsutomu Nihei, but the CGI doesn't due his work justice. Haven't finished it yet, but I'm liking it. Also enjoy the allusions to his previous series: the main character looks like Killy and Kanoe, Toha Heavy Industries, the talking bear, etc.
 
B

Booker Dewitt

Member
Seen like five episodes, most of the animation is pretty rough since the fps seems to regularly dropped to single digits and IMO, it's harder to fake smoothness with CGI than it is with traditional animation. Some elements of the world are pretty interesting, but a lead character that is completely nothing so far and a romantic interest that I really don't think they have brave to go with is a bummer.

Also,Tsutomu Nihei really likes bears for some reason.
1190713-bears_with_guns.jpg
Click to expand...
 
B

Basileus777

Member
Chariot said:
You seriously didn't see that?

I guess it's terrible. Really, you should watch Ars Nova, it's the better full CG-anime show.

I am sounding angry and pushy, don't I? I am not angry. Just pushy.
Click to expand...

Ars Nova isn't really better, the CG there is worse if anything.
 
F

fertygo

Member
Its certainly not perfect, but you can see the effort for the lighting(this aspect actually deserve getting praise, does a lot for masking the cg), its also provide some nice shot here and there.

ibxxTlFyya0DTo.jpg
i2472gJoP5ZBg.jpg
Click to expand...
If just they not using the choppy framerate..
 
A

Aureon

Please do not let me serve on a jury. I am actually a crazy person.
Chariot said:
I am a big fan of Ars Nova, but I couldn't keep watching Sidonia. It was just too ugly. The outer shot of Sidonia itself killed me. Seriously, it looks really really bad and really nothing like traditional animation.

Time to make some Ars Nova webm's. The show was a bit janky already when it came to the cg, but not nearly as bad as Sidonia.Personally I thought that Ars Nova showed that we made a few steps in the last years.
Click to expand...

Oh, we've made incredible progress.
But we're not there yet - Still a few years, imho.
 
Peterthumpa

Peterthumpa

Member
Chariot said:
You seriously didn't see that?

I guess it's terrible. Really, you should watch Ars Nova, it's the better full CG-anime show.

I am sounding angry and pushy, don't I? I am not angry. Just pushy.
Click to expand...
Nah, opinions, I respect them.

But no, I really thought it was a hybrid of CG and traditional animation. Makes me appreciate it even more.

Will check out Ars Nova later.
 
F

fertygo

Member
Chariot said:
You seriously didn't see that?

I guess it's terrible. Really, you should watch Ars Nova, it's the better full CG-anime show.

I am sounding angry and pushy, don't I? I am not angry. Just pushy.
Click to expand...

Ars Nova is too colorful to pull it off atm IMO

Sidonia's rather pale aesthetic helping the integration better.
 
T

teruterubozu

Member
Finished it last night. It's alright. The art style is pleasant but nothing memorable. The constant blushing was a little ridiculous.
 
S

Sykotik

Member
I watched what's on Netflix.

I went through all episodes, and it never really got interesting for me. I was expecting some sort of break-through or revelation but it never happened. Over-all I didn't find the characters to be interesting. Having clones of one character came off as extremely lazy. The choppy CG animation was a big issue for me.

I rated the season 2/5.
 
C

Chariot

Member
http://a.pomf.se/iekuyv.webm

Here's a Ars Nova webm for your please. Taken from the last episode, but it really is spoilering nothing important.

Aureon said:
Oh, we've made incredible progress.
But we're not there yet - Still a few years, imho.
Click to expand...
That's for sure. Just wanted to point out, that Ars Nova really surprised me. I was never a fan of cg and I dreaded a show that is full cg. While it was far away from perfect, especially with everything human (ships and shipbattles looked very decent), it was surprisingly easy to watch.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
I tried to watch it cause it was on Netflix and there's so little these days left for me to watch to justify my subscription, but it was pretty bad.

The most gorgeous anime I've ever seen was "Garden of Words." I don't know what the production values are, but man I can't stop watching it for the art

bpvz0s3bfj55.gif

endrqpqs2kgi.gif

rain_by_matoko_shinkazqj9n.gif
 
T

TC McQueen

Member
Aureon said:
I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually expensive.
Everything that isn't a human character is godlike++, but humans are animated terribly.
We're still a long way from viable anime CG characters, both Sidonia and that other battleship-are-little-girls thing demonstrated that.
Click to expand...
The problem isn't the tech, because that's been available for years, but a mixture of the CG guys not knowing the best techniques for handling the textures and shading on human characters, not enough money for the animation studios to actually buy/maintain their own render farms, and this weird thing Japanese animation has with trying to make CG match the low framerates they put in 2D animation.

The thing is that CG emulating 2D has been done successfully in the west in the form of Storm Hawks, which was nearly a decade ago, while Japanese CG on the TV side has been stagnate for that period.
 
Peterthumpa

Peterthumpa

Member
Chariot said:
http://a.pomf.se/iekuyv.webm

Here's a Ars Nova webm for your please. Taken from the last episode, but it really is spoilering nothing important.

That's for sure. Just wanted to point out, that Ars Nova really surprised me. I was never a fan of cg and I dreaded a show that is full cg. While it was far away from perfect, especially with everything human (ships and shipbattles looked very decent), it was surprisingly easy to watch.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that looks pretty great. Going to watch it today.
 
C

Chariot

Member
felipepl said:
Thanks, that looks pretty great. Going to watch it today.
Click to expand...
Good to hear. Please don't be too shocked by the first episode, it's an exposition dumb without much action. The show get better by episode 2, though.
When you watch it, give us your impressions in AnimeGAF, I'd love to read them.
 
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