Anime's legendary techniques

talking about anime , you cannot mention the flair that it deliver in its visual aspects compared to western animation , which form the line that place anime into a category of its own. These types of flair ca  range from incredible colour working to backgrounds, and exaggerated character designs, and of course , the all important "sakuga"- moments when the animation quality excelled tremendously. Within sakuga though, there are also various techniques and methods of delivering this quality, methods that form over years of irritating upon itself and finding new ways to deliver the message of the scene to the audience, all the while staying within the golden triangle of anime : visual communication , style and cost effectiveness, out of which at least 2 should be pleased. These techniques from then on had been so influential that it has more or less integrated into the very core of modern anime animation and serves as useful tools and tricks to deliver style and in many situation ,showcase and advertise the quality of the animation itself, especially for action-heavy scenes :

#1: Yutapon cubes 

This techniques invented and named after Yukata Nakamura, is the process of animating an environment that contains some form of explosion or destruction , within it , the object that is exploding instead of breaking into many irregular shapes that has individual shapes and size, it breaks into cubes shape. The purpose of this at first was for animator to animate more easily and effectively since they didnt have to draw multiple shapes for each scene of animation. However , it ended up creating a very unique style, and since then has been applied into various animations , another proof of laziness creating art !

#2 : Obari punch and Obari pose :

This is one case of the technique being so influential and widely used that if show to an anime fan today , it would just passed of as a regular punch to the screen. The Obari punch,
named after its creator Masami Obari, consists of the character delivering a punch by first pulling their arm back really far ( with very dramatic use of perspective ) , then tilt their head and puff out their chest and then finally letting the punch flies toward the screen , usually with the head follows behind.





This technique make the punch has much more impact as the exaggerated perspective make it seems like the punch travels a much longer distance from start to finished , and has been a standard in modern anime fight scenes

The Obari pose also from the same creator is like it name suggests , a static pose for a character with a weapon of long length ( in most cases ), with the character standing firm , leg spread in the the far back of the scene , with the tip of the weapon aimed toward the screen and occupies most of the frame ( again using very exaggerated perspective ).

  

  



This emphasise the scale of the weapon , and therefore, create a sense that it is epic and powerful, and that it is something to be reckon with. Following that, this coolness would be transferred from the weapon to its user, creating a badass vibe for the character, which is always a nice thing to have as it is an easy way of getting the audience to get engaged with said character. Just from the pictures above , you can see how much this technique has been used and portayed since its creation.

#3 Itano Circus (also called Marcoss Missile Massacre)  :

Developed by Ichiro Itano, this is a technique that involves the character moving rapidly across the screen while being chased by multiple projectiles ( which can include anything from missiles, bullets, lasers,...) . A true bread and butter cut for any action anime, it is a scene that involves A LOT of fast , stylised movement that sometime almost blind the eyes of the audience trying to follow the character. Interestingly enough it started very much like that in a sense that the projectiles are animated to move very fast and really frantic, only forming a trail when they're coming close to hitting their mark. In more modern versions, uses more linear paths and sharp 90 degree turns for the projectile makes it much ore easier to follow, moreover , uses of colour is also taken into consideration , such as making the colour of the project tile really bright on a dark background , or making the the character being chased brighter while the projectiles darker, therefore you can make out the movement of the projectiles just from the movement of the character. Another distinct part of the Itano circus is that the act of being chased by the projectiles almost always move to corners of the screen usually in a anti clock-wise pattern as a good circus is one that leads the eye around the entire screen, much like the rules of composition in painting. It can be said that the Itano circus is usually an cinematic short-hand for narrowly escaping danger, which create a sense of rush and panic that is very fitting a action scene, delivering great style and movements.