Is W’z Showing us 3D is the Way to Go?
Hello everyone and welcome to our place!
Today I’ll be talking about the first episode of W’z who aired this weekend. If you don’t know what W’z is about, it’s basically an Anime which focus on music, more specifically in djing. However, at some point, these dJs, called handshakers are able to enter in some kind of strange world where they fight… To the dead, I suppose?
The truth is, I could write a post about how random the first episode was. In fact, it’s right there with Boogiepop as the most confusing first episodes I’ve ever seen. But, well, they wanted to introduce us to everything about the world surrounding Yukiya Araki and that’s what they did.
However, I do have to say that the Anime is somewhat artistic. We get a lot of cool perspectives and passages. Basically what I want to say is, I understand what was their idea, but they just weren’t able to make the introduction as smoothly “clear” as they could/should.
Besides the animation, which I will talk right below in more detail. I have to say that everything else is average. The voice acting is not great, the music itself… Well, it’s nice, but I wouldn’t say it would create the excitement that it did on the Anime. But, of course, music taste is debatable… In fact, taste in anything is debatable ahah
When it comes to the story, I like the premise, but the first episode was just too random for me, so we will have to wait in how it’s going to develop in further episodes 😛
W’Z Presents Awesome Animation?
W’z supports itself a lot in 3D/CGI animation. In fact, almost all backgrounds are 3D/CGI which, at one one hand showed us beautiful and breathtaking scenes. However, on the other hand, there were also parts that the animation just not blended well at all.
Nevertheless, the question arises… Is CGI/3D the way to go in the future for Anime in general? W’z may seem a little bit all over the place, but the truth is, not many Anime shows use 3D in almost all scenes. Normally, we get a scene or another which has some parts of CGI (which normally seem out of place).
Using this type of animation ables the creators to have more movement, for example in W’Z we get crowds moving one way or another while at the same time not being as much time-consuming and, therefore less costly doing that kind of movement. However, the thing is, most of the times it just felt out of place. Which if you think for a sec, it makes sense… You are watching 2D characters in front of a 3D background, it does not blend well.
However, when there is no character insight (or cars) the background is actually gorgeous. In fact, the DJ world (?) – I don’t know the name of it, can’t remember if they even gave a name to that world – really seems good and is visually appealing. So, from this, it does seem that this is the way to go.
But then, I think in Irozuku which aired in the Fall Season and how beautiful it was. Yes, it is true they also use some CGI, but not even close as much as W’z. This made everything more blended and, in my honest opinion, even more, beautiful than W’z.
So, in conclusion, I would say that for me, the best way to go is to have CGI, but at some certain extent. Truth is, I love Anime because of the more traditional design. So, if everything just goes 3D it will just feel that it’s not Anime anymore…
What About You?
Did you watch W’z first episode? What were your thoughts about it? What about the use of CGI/3D environments? Are you on board for that evolution or are you a traditionalist like me? Tell me in the comments! 😀
I haven’t watched it, so I can’t really comment in the context of the episode. As a general rule though, I can handle 3D better when the whole thing is CG. The mix of 3D and 2D never looks right to me.
Yeah, that’s basically it! However, W’z is able to do some 2D with 3D that doesn’t seem so bad… But, most of the times it feels off as usual xD
But, I don’t know… 3D in Anime never seems to be as good as what we watch in western media or in games in general…
I’m not a big fan of how this one or Hand Shakers looked (too busy), though that isn’t so much to do with the use of 3D as it is the colour scheme and clutter on the screen. I think in terms of what the future will be, I kind of hope that studios consider what the best medium for telling their story is and use it appropriately. That may mean some anime end up CG or 3D and others will stay in 2D and hopefully we’ll get some really great stories out of it.
Really? I actually liked a lot of the design xP
Yeah I get you! And it’s not like 2D can’t be extremely well done and pretty. Irozuku is an example of that. I would say that for 3D or Cg to work, they still need some improvement. There is still not a complete blend and there’s always things that feel odd, taking me a little out from the immersion of what I’m watching