Absolute Anime

Obviously there have been some amazing advances in production/development technology over the past decade or so and we are now seeing more and more anime being produced in 3d or a 2d/3d hybrid style.

I'm talking about Final Fantasy: Advent Children, Blood the Last Vampire, Ghost in the Shell, the Animatrix.. and on and on. 3d is starting to become more and more prevalent.

And then we have the classics such as Akira.. 100% hand drawn magnificence.

What do you guys think about the gradual introduction of 3d into what used to be a strictly hand drawn arena? Does it lessen the artform? Does it turn anime into a cheap gimick of technology, or does it pioneer some new frontiers for us?

This could be an interesting debate.

Hmm... Well, pretty much all modern anime series use heavy amounts of computer-aided editing to improve picture quality, add lighting/shading effects, and occasionally add 3D objects and such. The end result is usually a considerable improvement in overall visual appeal, and personally I think it usually looks much better than strictly hand-drawn animation - with some exceptions, of course.

A mix of the two, in which hand-drawn characters/objects are thrown in with objects that have obviously been rendered in 3D, can end up looking rather imbalanced and awkward (e.g., the animated version of Xenosaga). Some series manage to pull this off well, though, like Last Exile and the Ghost in the Shell movies (the art direction in the TV series was decent, but not nearly as sophisticated).

Purely 3D movies with an anime-esque visual style (found in many video game FMVs) usually doesn't work too well, in my opinion; since typical anime physical traits are so exaggerated, it usually ends up looking rather ridiculous on an otherwise realistic-looking 3D-rendered body. Advent Children managed to accomplish it rather well, though, since it didn't just plaster gigantic eyes and absurd hairstyles on their characters, but made slight stylistic changes to normal-looking characters to make them look like (almost) real-world counterparts to their cartoonier representations in FFVII. Cloud's hair still has an inexplicable defiance of basic laws of physics, but it definitely looks much more believable.

I generally don't mind it, providing it's done right. With some anime it fits the series, like GiTS. Other anime, like say Inuyasha, it would feel out of place no matter how well done.

I do have to admit that 3-D anime is a new medium... but it also offers newer insights in realism. I myself own the Appleseed movie, and it's fantastic.