How much CG is too much CG?

[Caramel]

Eh, I really don't mind, as long as it meshes into the show well, which is very rare. CG sticks out way too much, so its up to the animator to fit it in just right. Really breaks the immersion though, if done badly, which is why were it up to me I'd just remove it altogether. I'd rather see quality artistic animation than crappy CG effects.

[Daio Kaji]

Initial D pulls it off pretty good

too bad their non-cg moments look horrid
i enjoy watching that show (my friends say religiously.... probably because i'm good at the arcade game too... maybe)

especially in the first series, if they DIDN'T have CG, i probably would not have enjoyed the series anywhere near as much, the CG here is so much more fluid, in this case, it helped the series a lot

later on, they integrate the CG to have a cel-shaded look that looks more like traditional animation so as to not have such a dramatic distinction, which would be considered better CG usage

as for GITS2
very clunky story-wise, kinda seemed to over-complicate things at times
but i suppose that's a defining trait of the franchise, lots of deep story, then lots of pretty scorching action scenes

as far as Major Kusanagi's role in the movie though, i didn't like how she just kinda drops in... she seemed more like a cameo character just there to appease the audience and wasn't really necessary for the story-telling, her role was only to let ppl know that she's still alive and that she'll be playing a bigger role in the next possible GITS movie

[Jayn_Newell]

later on, they integrate the CG to have a cel-shaded look that looks more like traditional animation so as to not have such a dramatic distinction, which would be considered better CG usage

Depends on how it's used. I'm not a huge fan of cell-shading for characters--it's one thing I feel SAC did very much right, and one of my big issues with the new Appleseed movie. Fully 3d characters tend to have a weightless quality to their motions, and I find it jarring with toon shading because it looks like traditional animation, but it doesn't move like traditional animation (another area where Appleseed bugs me--the movements were provided by actors so you get tons of subtle movements that just look weird--are you going realistic or cartoony, make up your mind). It doesn't bother me so much with the more realistic CGI.

Spoiler response

Spoiler :

Maybe. However the first movie is extremely ambiguous about what happened to her, so it's nice as a viewer to get some sort of closure there. And given Batou's obvious caring for her--maybe even love--I think plot-wise he needed that closure himself.

[AtheistPreacher]

Spoiler :

Maybe. However the first movie is extremely ambiguous about what happened to her, so it's nice as a viewer to get some sort of closure there. And given Batou's obvious caring for her--maybe even love--I think plot-wise he needed that closure himself.

Spoiler :

But the open-endedness of the first is what made it so great. The main message of GITS 1 was that we are an evolving species, and that the universe is an evolving universe... and no one knows what we will be tomorrow. It was one of those movies that didn't need a sequel, but they did one anyway... like Terminator 3. Yuck.

[Mirrinus]

Last Exile had some of the best CG scenes I've seen in TV anime, IMHO. Airships are just that cool.

[blaku92]

Well, I think CG is used a bit too often in anime today, but in some cases I think it's alright. I really prefer that most animes have that genuine hand-drawn type animation (without too much use of limited animation) cuz it just looks amazing! Whenever that happens, I'm like: "NO WAY" cuz it doesn't look like something someone could just draw you know? *TALENT* When 3D CG is placed in a 2D anime Environment -- that sucks for the most part. Although 3D on a 2D setting looks dumb to me sometimes, I did like the way CG was used in Karas. The CG in it looked different -- it had a different style to it that fit pretty well with the rest of the misc-en-scene. CG could be used and then hand drawn over by the artists -- that looks cool, but it is kind of a way to cheat. Overall I'd say CG is too popular these days -- hell, even American Disney films don't create hand drawn animated movies anymore.

[Otohiko]

Overall I'd say CG is too popular these days -- hell, even American Disney films don't create hand drawn animated movies anymore.

I think one thing to be kept in mind is that CG is not used because of its popularity so much as its cost-effectiveness.

CG certainly has allowed animators to do lots and lots of new things that we see, but it has really won out because of how much easier it makes to produce high-grade visuals (and thus cheaper). In some instances CG is used as the lazy way out (where drawing a similar scene would be far harder and more expensive), and this I don't like. In other cases however I think CG has allowed a lot of innovation and interesting things artistically, my favorite example of it being Gankutsuou (which does also use 3D, but what I really mean there is their use of 2D graphics for the highly unusual coloring).