I think it's a real shame what happened to this episode. Because of the overwhelming negative response it received, Atsushi Wakabayashi never directed another episode again. I personally believe that Atsushi Wakabayashi was the best AD to have ever worked on Naruto; and in my opinion, this is one of the top 5 best episodes of the entire franchise.

He's directed a couple episodes of Shingeki no Bahamut but as far as ambition goes, this was his last major one yeah.

He's stated in an interview that he scales his storyboards and direction to the level of what the production can handle so I think it's more of a situation where he wasn't given the opportunity to do anything on this level again and I think that's also easy to understand considering his four Naruto episodes are among the most ambitious to have ever aired on TV,. In many ways they shouldn't exist, we have Hayato Date's unorthodox asset management to thank.

PurpleGeth said:
He's directed a couple episodes of Shingeki no Bahamut but as far as ambition goes, this was his last major one yeah.

He's stated in an interview that he scales his storyboards and direction to the level of what the production can handle so I think it's more of a situation where he wasn't given the opportunity to do anything on this level again and I think that's also easy to understand considering his four Naruto episodes are among the most ambitious to have ever aired on TV,. In many ways they shouldn't exist, we have Hayato Date's unorthodox asset management to thank.

pardon if I barge in, but unorthodox asset management? you mean the process of turning the storyboard into single cuts and assign specific artists to their animation, and that Date has a very personal and unique way of doing it?

No worries about barging in, I'm happy to talk about Naruto lol

The production of the Pain Arc coincided with the production of the 4th Naruto Movie, The Lost Tower. As a result, a lot of the key staff, namely Hiroyuki Yamashita, were instead working on that and unable to contribute much to the arc. Where most long running productions would then distribute the remaining staff evenly throughout the arc to ensure there are no major drops in quality, Date instead organized everything they had into two episodes, 166 and 167 while most of the rest was essentially abandoned to outsourcing.

I'm always reluctant to mention the word budget because it's commonly misused in animation production discourse but in this case it would be appropriate to say a majority of the budget for this arc was spent in having two big directors in Toshiyuki Tsuru and Atsushi Wakabayashi direct back to back episodes, one of which featured Norio Matsumoto animating nearly half of it. An inordinate amount of materials were spent to produce the two, and in most other situations you simply wouldn't have such an uneven distribution of resources.

Ah thanks a lot for the explanation. I sort of suspected something like that, but never knew about the coincidence with a movie production. That must be a major headscratcher for someone who is already into a production of a long running show xD.

Your mention about the budget word made me think of something similar, because getting more interested in anime production, I was thinking if -resources- would be a better term. There is often this myth that the more money you throw into the production of a anime, the higher the quality it will automatically be.
Too bad that this simply doesn't count in that in the end, even if we call it "animation industry", it's rather a artisan work: different creatives have different skill levels, one can't make them surpass their own limits by just throwing more budget at them xD (and mirroring that, some animators can make incredible exploits with McGyver-level resources).

I realize the issue is more complex than how I thought and explained here, but for the same reason the whole "budget" thing always made me a bit dubious, too (oh, of course still counting that the production costs are not a fable, that different instruments, personnel etc have different costs, and nothing is thrown down the chimney by Santa Claus xD)

That was very insightful, thanks again, I had a way more simple picture of the matter in my mind xD (the usual theorem that goes about "long production, limited resources, let's stay economic and put the big effort and big names into the most spectacular and plot-important parts-fights) :P

Only one last thing, still about the Paine fight (and we go in a more personal taste area): what you think about those cuts?
I've always thought some parts, like the here shown "road-runner run", when Paine gets literally nailed in the ground, or when his face goes Picasso, were sort of a misplaced artistic effort. I thought they were to show how the scale of the fight was over the top, and how Paine wasn't human anymore... but I think the thing went too far portraying those concepts and those cuts almost feel parodistic rather than dramatic :| (1000% honest, I couldnt avoid smirking at the Picasso Face xD). I always believed this cause the general quality of the coreography and the animation aren't low. Not at all. In fact they are incredible xD. So I never believed this was other than a willingly choice from the makers.

Ari said:
I think it's a real shame what happened to this episode. Because of the overwhelming negative response it received, Atsushi Wakabayashi never directed another episode again. I personally believe that Atsushi Wakabayashi was the best AD to have ever worked on Naruto; and in my opinion, this is one of the top 5 best episodes of the entire franchise.

It really is a shame since this entire episode may just have some of the most beautiful and breathtaking animation I've ever seen in Naruto and I wish more anime had idiosyncratic animation like this.

gurdim said:
Only one last thing, still about the Paine fight (and we go in a more personal taste area): what you think about those cuts?
I've always thought some parts, like the here shown "road-runner run", when Paine gets literally nailed in the ground, or when his face goes Picasso, were sort of a misplaced artistic effort. I thought they were to show how the scale of the fight was over the top, and how Paine wasn't human anymore... but I think the thing went too far portraying those concepts and those cuts almost feel parodistic rather than dramatic :| (1000% honest, I couldnt avoid smirking at the Picasso Face xD). I always believed this cause the general quality of the coreography and the animation aren't low. Not at all. In fact they are incredible xD. So I never believed this was other than a willingly choice from the makers.

That's a pretty common sentiment, and one that's also fair to have imo.

Personally, I love every second of it and this is not just my favorite episode of Naruto, but also of all anime I've watched (and likely will watch) too.

I think artistic expression tends to be compromised more often than not when it comes to anime, either at the get-go in an effort to make something more marketable/digestible or later on under the strain of a rushed production. What you see with Shingo Yamashita's work on Shippuuden 167 is his entire self on display with no punches pulled. There's so much inexperience and crudeness on display but you can't help but marvel at the effort a 22 year old Yamashita makes in drawing seven straight minutes of intense action animation. His parts turns a lot of people off because so many fundamental concepts, like weight or anatomy, are thrown out the window as he just organically draws in the way that he best knows how. In my opinion that liberated sense of expression is an ideal goal to strive for and I'm very appreciative that this episode turned out to be a platform for exactly that.

As far as some of the actual content itself, yeah the roadrunner and hammer part is quite silly, but I think the nature of the fight lends itself to some lunacy. Those mocking the infamous Pain face for being ugly are sort of missing the point, as it's intended to be ugly in every way- reflecting the ugly hate filled self-righteous god.

I wouldn't change a single thing about how this arc was handled given the opportunity because for all its flaws and especially considering the surrounding context, there never has and never will be anything like 167 again.

Ari said:
I think it's a real shame what happened to this episode. Because of the overwhelming negative response it received, Atsushi Wakabayashi never directed another episode again. I personally believe that Atsushi Wakabayashi was the best AD to have ever worked on Naruto; and in my opinion, this is one of the top 5 best episodes of the entire franchise.

completely agree

Pain esquiando na agua é simplesmente incrível