That first cut with the background animation is poorly timed, it completely kills the momentum. Perhaps it would be better to say it completely neglects to begin any sort of momentum, rather.

Was confused as to what you meant at first but i see it now. No sort of ease in to start the action, it just goes and looks a tad off.

SakugaDaichi said:
Was confused as to what you meant at first but i see it now. No sort of ease in to start the action, it just goes and looks a tad off.

Yeah, everything feels very slow and lacks intensity. It's like they're slowly rehearsing for a school play rather than engaging in any sort of passionate battle of wills.

yes it's slow but that's pretty common in American action scenes for animated work. They always lack intensity with the exception of maybe Tarzan.

Not only does it lack intensity, alot of the movement lacks a sense of weight, for example they're flailing the sword around as if it was a piece of paper.

Lack of the creative effort to elaborate on the key drawings

fart said:
http://joethejohnston.tumblr.com/post/85258055208/stevencrewniverse-pearl-vs-pearl-timing

Seeing the stripped down timings in these fight scenes feel more intense than the final product. Either the animators took the timings as literal straight keys or the production company didn't allow any elaboration on the fight scenes perhaps. it is kinda sad seeing things like this happen.

Casshan said:
yes it's slow but that's pretty common in American action scenes for animated work. They always lack intensity with the exception of maybe Tarzan.

I'd say because damn kid shows always don't want to make it intense, and like the other guy, make it seem like some childish school play, instead of an actual fight and such. Boondocks is where its at for American T.V shows.

greenblueclouds said:
Lack of the creative effort to elaborate on the key drawings
Seeing the stripped down timings in these fight scenes feel more intense than the final product. Either the animators took the timings as literal straight keys or the production company didn't allow any elaboration on the fight scenes perhaps. it is kinda sad seeing things like this happen.

I'd like to say it's a mix of both, really.

JacobYBM said:
That first cut with the background animation is poorly timed, it completely kills the momentum. Perhaps it would be better to say it completely neglects to begin any sort of momentum, rather.

I think that's mainly because this sequence was a musical scene in particular and they were fitting it in with the song that was just starting during that sequence, but it's very slow and lacks the exaggeration it needs

I don't get you people. Maybe they could have made the impacts stronger, but other than that I see nothing wrong here.

It's a hard problem to describe. Weight in animation is something you "feel" as you see it happen. I think the specific problem that everyone is trying to get at here is that the timing on most of the motion is pretty flat. Every key frame is taking up the same amount of time to do. That's not what makes animation interesting.

One of the basic principles of animation is "anticipation". Every major motion has a wind up that the character performs before actually going through with the motion. This is how people move, too; in a much more subtle fashion. Here, the motions just kind of move thoughtlessly from one key pose to the next.

After some reevaluation, I am starting to understand the problem, however I do think people are exaggerating, and I don't think it's as problematic as everyone here says, especially since I haven't seen anyone else complain about the fight scenes in steven universe.

I think the reason most who watch Steven Universe (and those that watch cartoons more exclusively in general) aren't complaining about the fight scenes is because most people that do so simply don't care about animation enough, don't have as in depth knowledge about it and haven't seen enough truly great animation to discern the good from the bad.

Kolhel said:
I think the reason most who watch Steven Universe (and those that watch cartoons more exclusively in general) aren't complaining about the fight scenes is because most people that do so simply don't care about animation enough, don't have as in depth knowledge about it and haven't seen enough truly great animation to discern the good from the bad.

Doesn't help that most of the people who do watch Steven Universe are more interested in finding "deeper meaning" and using it to promote their "values". From what I've seen on the internet, that's all the fans care for.

Hell, many of the people I've seen who watched this thinks the animation's terrible (especially beginning with season 3).

Anihunter said:
Doesn't help that most of the people who do watch Steven Universe are more interested in finding "deeper meaning" and using it to promote their "values". From what I've seen on the internet, that's all the fans care for.

Hell, many of the people I've seen who watched this thinks the animation's terrible (especially beginning with season 3).

Well, this is true for anime fandom too. Hell, in other media too! "Fans" don't give a damm about things that make medium special! All they care is a story (more for a raw ambiguity, then actual quality etc). They don't care if this story have no reason at all to exist in this form or if it doesn't use strengths of it medium (they don't even care if it's poorly executed).
If something is great it's because of the story, if something terrible.. well, you guessed it.
How all these anime "fans" watching anime for like 5 years and don't even know what is animation is beyond me (you know all these screens of badly drawn NOT MOVING characters and comment "Anition sucked").

Xmax360 said:
Well, this is true for anime fandom too. Hell, in other media too! "Fans" don't give a damm about things that make medium special! All they care is a story (more for a raw ambiguity, then actual quality etc). They don't care if this story have no reason at all to exist in this form or if it doesn't use strengths of it medium (they don't even care if it's poorly executed).
If something is great it's because of the story, if something terrible.. well, you guessed it.
How all these anime "fans" watching anime for like 5 years and don't even know what is animation is beyond me (you know all these screens of badly drawn NOT MOVING characters and comment "Anition sucked").

And even then they care less for the story, much less the visuals, then they do their ships or their "agendas".

have any of you ever actually watched the show? if so, how much? Because it seems like you're just looking for reasons to complain and boiling down a large group of people into a few black and white stereotypes that you can easily mock.

ihhh said:
have any of you ever actually watched the show? if so, how much? Because it seems like you're just looking for reasons to complain and boiling down a large group of people into a few black and white stereotypes that you can easily mock.

No, I've seen a fair bit of the show, and lurked /co/ and other sites. The animation's gone incredibly downhill and at least one of the storyboarders used the show to further a ship she wanted.

I have to agree. Can y'all keep discussion on topic and not go off on tangents complaining about people you don't like. There's other avenues for that kind of discussion that doesn't clog up the comments page here.

Anihunter said:
No, I've seen a fair bit of the show, and lurked /co/ and other sites. The animation's gone incredibly downhill and at least one of the storyboarders used the show to further a ship she wanted.

From what I remember, the animation in season 1 wasn't much better, and was actually worse in many areas, and I don't know what you're talking about when it comes to shipping, especially since the storyboard artists are the ones in charge of writing the stories and are the ones who decide which characters are in a relationship.

ihhh said:
From what I remember, the animation in season 1 wasn't much better, and was actually worse in many areas, and I don't know what you're talking about when it comes to shipping, especially since the storyboard artists are the ones in charge of writing the stories and are the ones who decide which characters are in a relationship.

Perhaps, but it went down the toilet further and further as the show went on. Hell, Steven can get to heights barely taller than a foot depending on who's boarding the episode.

As for the shipping thing... Just research Lauren Zuke. She tried forcing in a LapisxPeridot thing that even Sugar had to put her foot down over.

Can you explain why you think the animation got worse? And by animation, do you refer to the visuals as a whole, including the background art, cinematography, and effects, or are you just referring to the character animation?

As for Lauren, all I know is that some fans harassed her on twitter for depicting a ship that they disagreed with. I don't know where you are getting your information from, but I sense a ton of bias from you and the rest of this site.

ihhh said:
Can you explain why you think the animation got worse? And by animation, do you refer to the visuals as a whole, including the background art, cinematography, and effects, or are you just referring to the character animation?

As for Lauren, all I know is that some fans harassed her on twitter for depicting a ship that they disagreed with. I don't know where you are getting your information from, but I sense a ton of bias from you and the rest of this site.

1. I'm refering to the animation as a whole, except the background art and character animation (which are par for the course at this point). I already told you the reason being crappy storyboarders. You can see this this with the ever-shrinking sizes of the character models, most notably Peridot.

2. Zuke had a secret Tumblr account that ended up getting revealed at some point exposing her immature behavior to the internet at large, and by the same token, Sugar herself. Zuke's gone on record saying she's only got five episodes she's worked on yet to air. Which indicates that she's been fired from her position.

I thought the storyboard artists mentioned that they don't have proper heights/proportions for the characters so that each artist has more freedom, right? Whether or not it's better or worse is subjective but at the very least it's an intentional decision.

Siliva said:
I thought the storyboard artists mentioned that they don't have proper heights/proportions for the characters so that each artist has more freedom, right? Whether or not it's better or worse is subjective but at the very least it's an intentional decision.

Intentional or not, there's no way they can defend how small Peridot's gotten since her introduction. http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/231/340/cfd.png

Anihunter said:
Intentional or not, there's no way they can defend how small Peridot's gotten since her introduction. http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/231/340/cfd.png

I don't get it

Anihunter said:
Intentional or not, there's no way they can defend how small Peridot's gotten since her introduction. http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/231/340/cfd.png

Lmao the person who made that size pic said they did it as a joke, the first two pics aren't even official, they're fan-edits

ihhh said:
I don't get it

Joke about how Peri's size changes regularly between the boardists.

Inari said:
Lmao the person who made that size pic said they did it as a joke, the first two pics aren't even official, they're fan-edits

Regardless, Sugar should at least have more rein over her boardists and not let them do whatever the hell they want to the extremes they do.

Say what you want about people like John K. But they at least kept their characters' sizes mostly consistent (baring legitimate animation mistakes/dynamic angles)

Anihunter said:
1. I'm refering to the animation as a whole, except the background art and character animation (which are par for the course at this point). I already told you the reason being crappy storyboarders. You can see this this with the ever-shrinking sizes of the character models, most notably Peridot.

2. Zuke had a secret Tumblr account that ended up getting revealed at some point exposing her immature behavior to the internet at large, and by the same token, Sugar herself. Zuke's gone on record saying she's only got five episodes she's worked on yet to air. Which indicates that she's been fired from her position.

do you have a source for this?

DAMN I am so glad that stupid SU discourse is done with. Most everything in the discussion up the is absolutely insufferable, there's like only 2 people with any sense. A lot of people who complain constantly about stuff like that have never animated anything, and have never had to work in the industry, and it shows. Nothing noted about how good the posing is, or the composition of the shots.

Also, getting off topic, complaining that you forced to acknowledge that gay people exist and are animating your cartoons is a great look. /s