In a recent post on deluscar, Kai brings up the fact that video games have become a lot more “realistic” than they used to be, especially in visual terms thanks to advanced technology. But he also argues that even though they’ve taken on this new level of depth, they still can’t display the same level of realism as anime and perhaps other animation can…
Having lived out my childhood in the 90s, I grew up in an age where video games were very different than they are now; there was very little story, if any, in the old Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear games I used to play. Characters didn’t talk other than a few catchphrases, cutscenes were nothing more than character sprites engaging in some short computer-controlled events rather than the stand-alone movies that they are now, and obviously the graphics of old games couldn’t rival those of regular CG animation like new games do nowadays. Compared to the limited, minimalist style of old games, games of the past decade have advanced tremendously not just in terms of graphics, but in story, structure, and overall experience. The old 8-16 bit games were really just “games” and nothing more while newer generation games are not only games but also full-length stories and movies (put together all those cutscenes!)
But despite how much more “real” video games have become, Kai argues that visually video games still can’t portray human emotions as realistically as anime and other forms of 2D animation can, despite how much more human-like characters look compared to the old 8-bit sprites of yesteryear. I have little experience with new video games, but from what I have seen from going to friends’ houses, hanging around the Internet, and from the few I have played, even with the advanced CG technology they have, characters still look rather stilted and…limited in how much human-like emotions and expressions they can portray compared to anime. I’ve heard it said that very emotional expressions are hard to pull off effectively with computer animation compared to 2D animation, and that could be one reason why we don’t see extreme emoting in video games or even computer animated films such as those from Pixar and Dreamworks. Kai uses a few generic but good anime images as examples of this – could any 3D animated character smile like this or cry like this? For that matter, Kai goes further and asks if any real human being could even smile or cry that expressively…
…which leads to another good point in all this. Perhaps the reason anime and other 2D animation can visually express human emotions so clearly than even the more realistic 3D animation can has to do with the limitless-ness of the animation medium I discussed in a previous post. My own personal interpretation is that, because the 3D animation that we see in modern video games and CG films is made to more closely resemble reality, especially in visual terms, it inadvertently also takes on those visual limits. 2D animation on the other hand, rather than trying to mimic the visuals of reality, takes what we see in the real world and characterizes and exaggerates it, leading to the very expressive emotions we see in anime. I’m not saying that 2D animation is better than 3D or vice versa, only that their visual goals are often different.
Going back to video games, other than what I just described about computer animation, I also think that the other reason video games still can’t portray characters with as much emotion and expression as regular animation can is because…they really don’t need to since it’s a video game and the main focus is always gameplay quality above how expressive their characters appear in cutscenes. Giving your cutscenes CG film-level animation and your characters very expressive emoting can greatly enhance your game’s appeal, but I would assume people will always be looking at the actual gameplay value over anything else. Perhaps animation technology will continue to progress and we’ll one day have video games with Pixar-level graphics all throughout, not just in cutscenes. But as usual, everything from 2D to 3D animation and the minimalist style of old video games to the complexity of new games, has its own kind of charm ;)
*Announcement* I’m steadily growing accustomed to my new job and the long hours of work it entails. Since I no longer have the kind of free time I’ve had in the past year, my blogging schedule will now be one new post every 5-7 days as opposed to 3-4 days like it used to be. Blogging once a week instead of every few days sounds like it will better fit my schedule now. As always, I’ll announce on Twitter when I make a new post or if there will be any delays. Hopefully my absence will make your heart grow fonder for new posts when I get them out ^^ Thanks and stay tuned~!
I actually had a conversation along these lines the other day with my design teacher when he saw me translating my copy of A Channel. He mentioned how the eyes were always so off-putting to him and we started talking about how they were used to exaggerate emotion and, like most cartoons and comics, more easily portray reactions so that the viewer doesn’t have to think about what the character is doing.
Now, certain things, like the four-point head vein, are so commonplace we may not even know what they are physically, but always recognize it means anger or annoyance. So sometimes using “realistic” characters in a story that stretches beyond realistic circumstances and requires extreme ranges in emotion can result in unrealistic visuals as we’re accustomed to seeing over-the-top visuals to express these high-key emotions.
Good point about how the large eyes and other things in anime more easily portray what the character is doing or thinking so as to make it more obvious to the viewer; it allows for a different experience than live action, which presents the characters’ emotions in ways we see all the time in real life (not as obvious as in animation).
I actually wrote a post a few years ago about anime “iconography” such as the pop-out veins. In short, sometimes it’s hard for those unaccustomed to anime to know what they mean, but for the most part it’s not too hard to figure out.
If there’s one thing which anime had that movies or 3D games don’t, it’s that since they are 2D, they have the ability to “exaggerate.” To reinforce a particular emotion to the point that even real life wouldn’t managed to. Movies and game characters akin to real life wouldn’t be able to managed to, especially most of the time for game characters, their expressions would be much more stiffer. Anyway, thanks for for your input on this subject too^^
“Exaggeration” in terms of visuals, especially character emotions, is something I think 2D animation will always have over 3D. 3D animation can look more real and physically believable than 2D, but the simplicity of 2D makes it easier to create exaggerated expressions on characters’ faces and what not because there are fewer restrictions in 2D to match the physics of the real world…if that makes sense. But I also think that 3D animation both in animation and games can continue to evolve and I look forward to seeing if a 3D character can ever emote as “raw-ly” as a 2D one.
Anime never really tries to be realistic, does it? It plays its own game of exaggeration and simplification, inventing new ways to convey the subtleties required. Think how expressive anime eyes are. Most of the emotional states anime conveyed through eyes in anime are read from subtleties of facial expression in real life. Anime still aims to convey reality, but does it through a language of symbols. Video games are often much more faithful to reality in this respect, but that does bring its own limitations.
Compared to the Western animation I’ve seen, anime does try to be realistic in terms of giving their characters proper human anatomy and a wide range of emotions, plus their settings are often more realistic (like taking place in modern day Japan). But animation motifs such as the large eyes, giant sweat drops, etc., are used to exaggerate, simplify, and convey subtleties, like you said. It’s that combination of the realistic (character designs, emotions, settings) and unrealistic (large eyes, sweat drops, angry veins, etc.,) that makes anime so enjoyable to watch =) Video games are more about conveying a realistic gaming experience, so trying to make characters emote better in the cutscenes isn’t top priority I would assume.
Anime/manga anatomy, even when it appears realistic at first glance, is actually distinct from human anatomy, as realistic body proportions are traditionally passed over in favor of more aesthetically pleasing ones. This is just one (although fundamental) area which shows realism is quite low on the list of anime priorities compared to other factors. (But the fact almost nobody ever notices/is bothered by this shows it works just fine!)
You have a point there, but what I meant was that compared to a lot of American cartoons I’ve seen (mostly kids cartoons rather than, say, Disney movies), where characters have exaggeratedly misproportioned bodies – like huge heads and hands but small bodies – while the majority of anime characters, even in kids anime, have anatomy that usually resembles real people even if it’s more aesthetically pleasing than a real person’s body could be. Watching cartoon characters on Cartoon Network for example, there’s never any doubt that what I’m watching is meant to be a cartoon, while the designs of anime characters make me feel like I’m watching “fictional people” rather than cartoon characters.
I think we touched a little of this on one of your previous posts. The exaggerations in the display of emotions makes it impossible to replicate anime with real life actors. Anime comes a lot closer to a book when describing emotions or state of mind.
When we see a line in a book that says “Yumeka was paralyzed at the sight of Kal. Her blood froze at the knowledge of the evil he was capable of doing. She cannot take action yet, and had to greet him as if nothing had happened.”. With a real life actor, they will just show a little surprise, and then a smile, and a greeting. With anime, they can freeze time in that frame (even for a few minutes), we’ll then hear the thoughts of the protagonists, or even see a flashback, we’ll see a sweatdrop, blue tinting on the forehead, shaking, struggling… We will understand exactly what is going in because it can be conveyed in an exaggerated manner.
So I guess games that try to be too realistic will suffer from the same “limitations” we have from real-life action. Unless they change the approach and we can hear the protagonists thoughts, we’ll never know what is really going on. The only part I would disagree on, is where old games were too simply. There are some games from the 8-bit era that are still much, much better designed than modern games, even with their technical limitations. Games like “Chrono Trigger” have massive storylines, multiple well developed characters. complex emotions, well designed graphics and music, etc. And they use the “anime-like” approach to displaying emotions, so they are very clear on the state of mind of the characters. They beat modern games like Final Fantasy 13 out of the water, simply because they focus on what is important in an RPG game, other then your hyper-realistic graphics…
Very…creative example of how anime can more easily portray emotions than live-action due to the limitless nature of the medium XD Because games have to account for all the various controls and events a player can trigger, it’s hard to implement the utmost graphics continuously throughout all of gameplay, so it seems like the best graphics are used for cutscenes. But like I said, 3D animation just doesn’t seem to display emotions as “purely” as anime, again because it’s more like live-action and thus takes on those limitations. Sacrificing near endless flexibility for realism I would say.
Video games love to practise realism because a big part of many modern games is immersion. Immersion into an anime simply requires a well-explained world, good characters and a decent plot, but it’s much harder to achieve in games as the player controls what happens and so the developers often try to make the ‘world’ aspect as believable as possible. Although of course, that’s still only in some genres of games, and there are many more games out there that choose to have fantastical and totally non-realistic elements.
As for anime, I don’t think most people watch anime to get a realistic look on things. If they wanted to do that they could much more easily watch a live action show. And perhaps because of the audience expectations, the producers are probably also more likely to exaggerate things.
Great points in your first paragraph there. Anime and games have different goals; games need to create a very believable world since the player is in constant control (for RPGs and adventure games – I would think the goals are different for fighting and other types of games), thus a big part of this believability hinges on realistic graphics. For anime, the creators are the ones in control while the audience just watches rather than plays, so as long as they create an understandable, enjoyable story and characters, that’s their goal. This focus on characters and story over world immersion like in games, is helped by the many exaggerated expressions and animation techniques that anime utilizes.
I know you have already read my editorial about video games and anime several months back, but video games aren’t necessarily realistic. Japanese RPGs are a big example as they take on art forms similarly used in Anime, unless the game is titled “Final Fantasy.” This is because most JRPGs take place in worlds based on fantasy. Of course, this means that they can be more creative opposed to having the characters resemble actual humans in real life. While it’s difficult to display realistic emotions in Anime, it’s still apparent through other means.
On the other topic on hand, realism in video games only started with technical advancements in graphics capabilities in consoles. Real life graphics weren’t possible with earlier 16-bit or consoles like the N64 and Playstation. When Playstation 2 and XBox came along, this is when most people got to see people that resemble actual human beings and allow more realism. Of course, this is possible with the 360, Playstation 3, Vita and 3DS with it’s better graphics capabilities. However, some people might not like realistic games, mostly western games like Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty and prefer something else. Even with higher graphics capabilities, there is a good number of games made in Japan that still use 2D design (or Anime style) aesthetics in a 3D environment rather than make people look like actual people (examples: Tales of… series, Pokemon, Idolmaster, Persona series, Atilier series, etc). Well, at the end of the day, we can’t forget that gameplay and story matters too and graphics/animation shouldn’t always overtake these two important aspects. Once a person throws that out of the window, it’s just an empty shell that looks good.
I tend to prefer the games with anime or more cartoon-style graphics myself, such as Pokemon, Okami, and Sonic the Hedgehog, over the very realistic style. But having anime style characters in 3D still looks a bit odd to me, again because I’m so used to the limitless emoting that 2D animation offers that seeing such characters in 3D seems kind of…contradicting. But like I said, both 3D animation that focuses on realism and 2D animation that focuses on stylized designs, have their own unique charm.
“smile like this or cry like this”
It might be nitpicking, but those are from video games, and look a lot better than any animation.
I wasn’t sure where the characters in those images came from, but the point I was trying to make is that, even if they’re from video games, they’re drawn in 2D and not the 3D of usual video game graphics.
Well sure 2D is easier to emote than 3D because 2D can be exaggerated in very simple ways, but video games do use 2D art (quite a few actually), so I think the title is rather misleading. As per my preference, I play a lot of cartoon-y and anime-esque games, so to me the norm in games is 2D, especially for character cut scenes that use 2D cut ins of characters and actually express emotion very well. (example: Harvest Moon has character cut ins when you talk. You don’t see the ploygon character talking to you, but a character cut in that is drawn in anime style with the cut in changing based on the emotion that character is feeling in response to your input).
But at the core of this is the idea of emotional resonance and I think easier emoting doesn’t equal better emotional resonance. Here I think video games have the advantage because you are actually involved in the story as an active element. This is especially true of games where there are real choices to be made and even if you can’t see the emotions as clearly, the effect is greater because you are actively involved. I mean, you feel a better sense of accomplishment at the conclusion of a video game because you were the one who overcame the obstacle (aka final boss) even if said conclusion is very simple. In an anime or manga? That only occurs if the conclusion was actually good. So what am I trying to get at? Each medium has its pros and cons and what video game lack in portraying emotions in characters, they make up in player engagement. So I think emotional resonance is just as powerful in both mediums. Hell, books have made me cry and feel a sense of accomplishment at the conclusion and they have even less going for them since it is all words. I think emotional resonance is easier to capture in visual-based or choice-based mediums (so anime/manga and video games do have an advantage), but ultimately it is really the skill of the story teller that makes most of the difference. If you can actually make me believe this character is crying a stream of tears, it won’t matter if you cannot properly show those emotions. /two cents
Good point that a lot of games, especially the hand-held consoles, often use 2D animation for the cut scenes and they can be quite expressive. But for fluidly moving animation and emoting, I’m assuming we don’t see that as often (I’m not a big gamer so I wouldn’t know for sure). I have played a few Harvest Moon games so I know the scenes you’re talking about.
Also a good point about how video games have more immersive quality because you’re the one actively controlling what happens instead of passively watching (or reading if we’re talking books). Emotion can be just as impacting in any form, but in terms of the visual (which is what I’m focusing on in the post), it comes down to the 2D and 3D animation we see in anime and games. There’s certainly emotion involved in games, it’s just different than in anime; the emotional satisfaction in games is your own (from accomplishing it) while in anime it depends on the characters and story (and very often their visual prowess).
Ah, I see your point now and in that case, I do agree, partly. I still hold that for certain game, the satisfaction is a combination of accomplishment, story, and characters. Taking a popular example (so that my point comes across best), Final Fantasy X, I feel is a combination of these three aspect. The conclusion feels satisfying not only because you beat up the Big Bad, but also because of the journey you took with the characters through the story. Anyways, I’m probably just nitpicking here. xD
This is a reason I tend to love animation: it can do whatever it pleases. Shaft are especially good with this, doing wonders with little effort. Minimalism at its best, something video games or movies are simply not able to copy, at least not in the same fashion.
Speaking of video games, I am a bit ashamed that there aren’t more experimentations. Yes, there are a few indie games that goes outside the norm, by telling a story or having actual feelings, but that is still far from what you can do with video games as a medium. I wonder if it’s simply too hard to do it?