Animation question

[can-of-pringles]

So Toei animation was the studio that animated Rescue At Midnight Castle aka the pilot of the series. It's very obviously anime inspired with the style. But then the rest of the series and the movie have a different style that's lower quality. It's animated by the same studio. I know that the movie was animated in 6 weeks and was rushed so that makes sense. But is it the same problem with the sequel series? AKOM was also involved too but I don't know how much they did. So, what's the deal? Did they not have the same budget? Did the director(s) want them to make the style look more western if I'm saying that right. I've tried Googling why but I can't find a definite answer.

[LadyMoondancer]

Yeah, I'm guessing MLP 'n Friends used the same studios as 80s Transformers:  AKOM, Toei, Sei Young Animation Co, and a mystery studio.

For example, if you watch the part of "The Golden Horseshoes" where the ponies visit the Moochick, the ponies are drawn much differently than they usually are, basically completely off-model.

Did Hasbro also use Toei for Transformers The Movie (1986) and G.I. Joe The Movie?  If so, my guess is those movies were prioritized and MLP was a distant third.  Which fits in with it being rushed through in 6 weeks.  My guess is that the Rescue at Midnight Castle character models took more time and effort to animate, so they dumbed them down.  (Even Escape from Catrina has much blobbier ponies than Rescue At Midnight Castle, so they were already going down that track.)

I don't think Hasbro would've consciously wanted / approved a specific attempt to make the animation look more Western, the Transformers movie that year was REALLY anime looking.

[can-of-pringles]

Hm, ok

[KarentheUnicorn]

 The MLP series wasn't bad animation IMO, if I go back in time and think about what I was watching as a teenager back then, comparably to everything else at the time it was actually fairly good IMO. Taking it out of time and out of context is the wrong way to look at it.

Also the specials were...specials, the rest of the mlp series from the 80's was a series. I'm assuming that the time involved in producing weekly episodes would be different for the original series would be different for a mini movie once a year.

You don't really have to look far for the difference animation quality in G4, just look at the difference in animation used for the TV series and the art style for the movie. :/

Rescue from Midnight Castle was made in what??? 1984, and the Catrina was what the next year 1985 I think? If that's correct then that is one special per year.

The series was hum like, 2 seasons from 86-87 of multiple episodes.

It's not 'bad' animation, it's animation from almost 40 years ago.

[LadyMoondancer]

When I say MLP 'n Friends had bad animation I'm not judging it by modern standards, I'm thinking about the other cartoons of the 80s.

Like Garfield and Friends or Care Bears (the first series) had what I would consider average 80s animation.  And Dungeons & Dragons and ThunderCats had above average animation.

MLP 'n Friends wasn't the worst or anything, but it was on the low end of the scale IMO.

I actually think MLP 'n Friends had better animation than the 1986 movie, though. Probably because it was produced on a regular schedule instead of being rushed.

[Lilja]

The reason Rescue at Midnight Castle looks the way it does is that Hasbro hadn't established a uniform art style for MLP in the beginning. If you look at the earliest commercials and books from 1983-1984 the art style can differ a lot. So I'm guessing the animators for RaMC were more free in how they drew the ponies. Escape from Catrina was also animated by Toei and the animation style is the same as RaMC, but the art style for the ponies is more in line with what Hasbro had established by then.

Toei only animated the witches segments for MLP the Movie, while AKOM animated everything else. The parts that have both witches and ponies were done by AKOM, so you basically never see any of the ponies animated by Toei. This seems intentional, like they didn't want the style to clash for the ponies, but didn't care if it did for the witches.
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Toei also animated most of the commercials, from the first Rainbow Pony commercial, up until they stopped having animated segments around 1989. They certainly have some anime moments. 
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As far as I know Toei didn't animate anything for the MLP n Friends TV series, or at least nothing looks like it to me. Probably a cost saving measure. Quality animation likely wasn't considered important for MLP due to the young target audience and the fact that the toyline was already popular as is. Jem on the other hand has the majority of episodes animated by Toei, while only a few are done by other studios.

[KarentheUnicorn]

When I say MLP 'n Friends had bad animation I'm not judging it by modern standards, I'm thinking about the other cartoons of the 80s.

Like Garfield and Friends or Care Bears (the first series) had what I would consider average 80s animation.  And Dungeons & Dragons and ThunderCats had above average animation.

MLP 'n Friends wasn't the worst or anything, but it was on the low end of the scale IMO.

I actually think MLP 'n Friends had better animation than the 1986 movie, though. Probably because it was produced on a regular schedule instead of being rushed.

I've generally noticed from back in the day there are some episodes that are better and some that are...worse. In most of the series back then. I remember Transformers having some episodes that were not as 'good' animation wise as others. Also in MLP and even in Dungeons and Dragons and Thundercats or GI Joe, or Gummy Bears or Smurfs or WHATEVER, as a kid/teen I tended to remember wondering why does XYZ episode look different or not as nicely done as other episodes.

I don't want to get too technically into the animation stuff because honestly, I really don't care that much about who did what when, what voice actor did what when or what company did this or that.

I'm just saying IN general, remembering watching it back then, I didn't see it as bad as some of the 'kids' now a days make it out to be. :/ Which tends to be cartoon/anime centered fans focusing on what is being done now, and comparing it to what was done 30-40 years ago. I don't think anyone is saying it was the BESTEST ANIMATION EVerrrrrrrr. LOL!

[Taffeta]

I was going to mention Jem, although there are definitely different animation studios working on some of the episodes given the quality (Journey to Shangrila is the one that my sister and I spent a lot of time laughing at because it's so bad xD).

That said, there are a lot of the usual issues we see in other older animation, like characters switching, continuity issues in outfits, etc. Even a couple of moments where the wrong voice artist is speaking, which sounds even more fundamental than an animation problem honestly...more likely a fill in because the right person wasn't around or...I dunno.

What's interesting with Jem is when they expanded Truly Outrageous out to make the first 5 episodes, aside adding in scenes, there are some bits they entirely recolour. I remember one scene which is Pizzazz and Roxy I think in TO but Stormer's in it in the episode...or maybe it's vice versa, but the action is Stormerish, not Roxyish.

...The difference between AKOM and TOEI is interesting for the MLP movie. I never realised they'd done that.

I had to study some of TOEI's stuff when I did my global film unit back for my Japanese Studies MA, but I remember exactly nothing useful about it except that I don't like the romanisation they chose for the name. xD.

[KarentheUnicorn]

The 80's back when this guy was apparently supposed to be a handsome prince...

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[Carrehz]

The "error" (?) that's always puzzled me is how Truly turns into Sundance halfway through "Baby, It's Cold Outside". I could totally understand how they could make that error, since they're physically identical apart from their symbols... Except when it happens, Sundance never talks. Which makes sense since Sundance *doesn't* talk in the series, her movie VA didn't return for the series I guess and for some reason they never recast her. But like... so what happened there, then? If it was an error, i.e. they drew in the wrong symbol, I'd expect Sundance to be speaking with Truly's voice... but since she doesn't talk and thus *acts* like Sundance... it seems to be a writing error? But why?? Why swap one out for the other halfway through. I can see what happened with a lot of the animation errors in the series but that one's just weird.

(I mean, I'm not really sure how they managed to use a different model for the mouse cop in "Bright Lights" in literally every shot he appears in, but at least that's clearly an ANIMATION error)

I think a lot of people ragging on 80s/90s/etc animation also forget how difficult it was to fix this stuff back in the day. Retakes are expensive and complicated even before you factor in the language barrier(s), having to ship film back and forth between countries and hope nothing goes awry... I've heard anecdotes from multiple cartoon peeps explaining "We DID ask for a retake on that, but the fix we got was even worse" and "We tried to put out the best show we could, but sometimes we just had to make do". (My favourite story was the show that somehow received a dead squid inside the box of film. Whole thing had to be sent back.)

I knew Toei had done work on the movie but I didn't realize they'd ONLY done the witches. That's an interesting choice... I know some other shows that used multiple studios did tend to favour certain studios for certain characters or stories... still, very curious. Heh, wouldn't be the last time Toei animated witches. *pokes avatar* She's a Toei witch. :p

[bright rabbit 1]

I’m surprised that Toei did the witches. I noticed the errors in some of the episodes.

I noticed that X Men the animated series had different artists doin the last season, I was like this isn’t the X Men till I heard Beast talked. Same goes for Animals of Farthing Wood series three the designs changed, plus they swapped or removed characters or made them stupid (Friendly).

[kestral_kitsune]

When I say MLP 'n Friends had bad animation I'm not judging it by modern standards, I'm thinking about the other cartoons of the 80s.

Like Garfield and Friends or Care Bears (the first series) had what I would consider average 80s animation.  And Dungeons & Dragons and ThunderCats had above average animation.

MLP 'n Friends wasn't the worst or anything, but it was on the low end of the scale IMO.

I actually think MLP 'n Friends had better animation than the 1986 movie, though. Probably because it was produced on a regular schedule instead of being rushed.

I've generally noticed from back in the day there are some episodes that are better and some that are...worse. In most of the series back then. I remember Transformers having some episodes that were not as 'good' animation wise as others. Also in MLP and even in Dungeons and Dragons and Thundercats or GI Joe, or Gummy Bears or Smurfs or WHATEVER, as a kid/teen I tended to remember wondering why does XYZ episode look different or not as nicely done as other episodes.

I don't want to get too technically into the animation stuff because honestly, I really don't care that much about who did what when, what voice actor did what when or what company did this or that.

I'm just saying IN general, remembering watching it back then, I didn't see it as bad as some of the 'kids' now a days make it out to be. :/ Which tends to be cartoon/anime centered fans focusing on what is being done now, and comparing it to what was done 30-40 years ago. I don't think anyone is saying it was the BESTEST ANIMATION EVerrrrrrrr. LOL!

the transformers one, there were some episodes where you could tell it was them ripping and recoloring and re-editing the Japanese show gobots for short cuts

[LadyMoondancer]

MLP 'n Friends had some animation errors, but nothing compared to Transformers.  Though to be fair, at least the MLPs had different symbols.  Whereas Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp are identical except for their colors.  So there are tons of scenes that have two Starscreams, or Starscream turns into Skywarp midway through, etc.  Or there's one episode where Sideswipe (an Autobot) is just standing next to Megatron at Decepticon base.  Like, how . . . ?  The Autobots and Decepticons also switch badges A LOT.

One of my favorite scenes is when Optimus looks on while Optimus #2 runs past to save the Washington Monument.

Speaking of duplicates, there's a scene in MLP the Movie where two or three Baby Loftys run past.  And I think they're unicorns?

That's really interesting about the different studios within the same movie!  Next time I'll watch for the differences!

RaMC only has one animation error I can think of, when Firefly crashes into the apple barrel they miscolor Medley as Firefly.  So Firefly crashes, and then is rolling on the ground laughing at herself along with Twilight and Ember, then back to a close up of her looking sheepish with the basket on her head. 

I wish they'd staggered the releases of MLP the Movie, TF the Movie, and G.I. Joe the Movie, because I've always been sad we didn't get a movie that was TF the Movie animation quality.  Though unfortunately neither TF the Movie nor MLP the Movie did well in the box office. So maybe they would've just canceled it.  (G.I. Joe the Movie was switched to home video because of this.  They also hastily rewrote the part where Duke dies so that he was "in a coma" due to the backlash at Optimus Prime dying.  But if you look at the animation . . . he clearly died.  Love the ending where a random voice off-camera shouts "Duke came out of his coma, he's going to be fine!", lol.)

[Ponyfan]

Speaking of duplicates, there's a scene in MLP the Movie where two or three Baby Loftys run past.  And I think they're unicorns?

You can see the second Baby Lofty unicorn at the edge of the frame.

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Ponyfan

[Carrehz]

Though to be fair, at least the MLPs had different symbols.

Even those didn't help sometimes - half the time in "Bright Lights" North Star's drawn in place of Lickety-Split, and Baby Half Note turns into Baby Lickety a couple of times (although honestly I can see how they made that mistake - Half Note's the only baby pony in those sequences that doesn't have a matching mother pony nearby, and her and Lickety are pretty similar in colour - I'd bet someone saw those sequences out of context and went "Oh, that can't be right".... then again this is the ep with the mouse cop of many appearances, so who knows).

But that said, I don't remember MLP ever giving the wrong symbol to a pony. Like, you'd have North Star turning into Lickety-Split but I don't think they ever had North Star with ice cream cones for her symbol, for example.