It’s not automatically bad just because it’s in 3D.
Summary:
3D CGI has been a thing since forever, but people criticize full CGI anime a lot.
CGI can look good.
Even when it doesn’t, the anime may still be worth watching.
Japan has been experimenting with 3D in anime since the 80s. Initially mostly used for mechanisms, alien creatures, or experimental projects, 3D CGI gradually became more and more common. Nowadays, it’s used in most anime to some extent, for example to animate large crowds. There, however, are full anime made using this technology — and they often get criticized for it, sometimes unfairly.
Good-looking 3D anime exist
Yeah, we get it. This is now how you expect your anime to look. However, sometimes there’s more to it than that. Sometimes 3D is a stylistic choice, and it looks gorgeous: a good example of that is Land of the Lustrous (Houseki no Kuni). Another example would be Kengan Ashura, which often uses very complicated camera shots during fights that would be incredibly hard to animate using traditional 2D animation. Even when it doesn’t necessarily serve a stylistic purpose, 3D can be good — take the recently released Trigun: Stampede as an example. Of course, you also can get things like Berserk’s 2016 adaptation, or Ex-Arm, but there’s more issues with those than just having poor 3D. Overall, CGI animation can look good, you have to just get used to seeing it.
Sometimes, you should focus on the story
Besides, even if a 3D show doesn’t look very good, it can still be worth watching regardless. Of course, we’re not talking about hurting-your-eyes levels of not looking good, but there are many shows made using CGI that are worth watching regardless of their looks. Arpeggio of Blue Steel (Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova) was released a decade ago, and, obviously, the technology behind 3D CGI wasn’t as refined as it is now. The battle sequences look good, but outside of those, the show can occasionally look weird and wonky — but that only detracts a little. The story is still absolutely worth experiencing. Sometimes lower-quality 3D even adds a certain charm to the series, like in the case of Kemono Friends.
CGI is not inherently bad
In the end, yeah, on average, 3D anime would look weird to an average viewer, and that weirdness would often detract from the experience. However, there are outliers that undoubtedly look great. And even the shows that don’t look so great are often worth trying regardless, as they can offer things other than the animation itself. After all, you probably see 3D in anime way more than you think: popular series like Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) and Vinland Saga already utilize the technology a lot, and are loved by many fans all around the world. It’s all about the execution.
It’s not automatically bad just because it’s in 3D.
Summary:
3D CGI has been a thing since forever, but people criticize full CGI anime a lot.
CGI can look good.
Even when it doesn’t, the anime may still be worth watching.
Japan has been experimenting with 3D in anime since the 80s. Initially mostly used for mechanisms, alien creatures, or experimental projects, 3D CGI gradually became more and more common. Nowadays, it’s used in most anime to some extent, for example to animate large crowds. There, however, are full anime made using this technology — and they often get criticized for it, sometimes unfairly.
Good-looking 3D anime exist
Yeah, we get it. This is now how you expect your anime to look. However, sometimes there’s more to it than that. Sometimes 3D is a stylistic choice, and it looks gorgeous: a good example of that is Land of the Lustrous (Houseki no Kuni). Another example would be Kengan Ashura, which often uses very complicated camera shots during fights that would be incredibly hard to animate using traditional 2D animation. Even when it doesn’t necessarily serve a stylistic purpose, 3D can be good — take the recently released Trigun: Stampede as an example. Of course, you also can get things like Berserk’s 2016 adaptation, or Ex-Arm, but there’s more issues with those than just having poor 3D. Overall, CGI animation can look good, you have to just get used to seeing it.
Sometimes, you should focus on the story
Besides, even if a 3D show doesn’t look very good, it can still be worth watching regardless. Of course, we’re not talking about hurting-your-eyes levels of not looking good, but there are many shows made using CGI that are worth watching regardless of their looks. Arpeggio of Blue Steel (Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova) was released a decade ago, and, obviously, the technology behind 3D CGI wasn’t as refined as it is now. The battle sequences look good, but outside of those, the show can occasionally look weird and wonky — but that only detracts a little. The story is still absolutely worth experiencing. Sometimes lower-quality 3D even adds a certain charm to the series, like in the case of Kemono Friends.
CGI is not inherently bad
In the end, yeah, on average, 3D anime would look weird to an average viewer, and that weirdness would often detract from the experience. However, there are outliers that undoubtedly look great. And even the shows that don’t look so great are often worth trying regardless, as they can offer things other than the animation itself. After all, you probably see 3D in anime way more than you think: popular series like Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) and Vinland Saga already utilize the technology a lot, and are loved by many fans all around the world. It’s all about the execution.
