#honestly I think GoHands is just either cheap or poor or both

[ridiasfangirlings]

Do you know smtg about why the character design for k&7 stories different from K S1, KMK, and K S2? It's so hard to watch it TT. I like the story but at the same time the design make me sad. Somehow it look hilarious. I need the elegant design back.

I feel you anon, the 7 Stories art style makes me sad too -_- I blame GoHands for this one, the more rounded style seems to be the 'house style' that they're going for and honestly I don't think it works at all (I watched Project Scard and the animation had the same issues, I'm told Handshakers was even worse). My general feeling is that GoHands wants to be known for the cool, slick style that the first season of K had...but that's expensive, so they didn't want to do that and thus have been slowly working their way towards basically 'budget K.' You can kinda tell watching the series how even in season one the budget seems to be decreasing a but towards the end but they mostly manage to cover it well enough using tricks that are common in anime – the big battle between S4 and Homra at the school, for example, is largely done via panning still shots of people fighting rather than actual movement, and there's some re-used animation with Fushimi and Yata fighting that was taken from episode 5 but it's not hugely noticeable. Missing Kings as a movie seems to have gotten a bit more budget but there's still some reused animation there, most notably I distinctly remember Yata falling off his skateboard and then doing the breakdance move to get back up which was taken from episode 5. ROK is where they start to go a bit more on the cheap, the look isn't quite as bad as 7S but everyone's eyes I think are a little bigger and their faces a bit rounder, and there's a lot more obvious reused animation to the point that for me it dd occasionally detract from the episode – specifically in episode 12 and the S4 Big Damn Heroes moment, having the alphabet squad rush in with animation that we just saw back in episode one I think really made that moment a little less of a 'hell yeah' than it should have been.

Then in 7S we basically get the final form of unfortunate animation, where everyone has giant anime eyes and the designs look a little flatter and some of the backgrounds look really off. I couldn't get through more than one episode of Handshakers but I've been told that series had a particularly bad habit of having characters standing on computer generated backgrounds where they didn't look quite on the same plane as the places they were supposed to be occupying and while I don't think 7S is terrible on this some of the backgrounds are just mystifying. Fushimi's house in LSW in particular is coming to mind here, there's a shot of Fushimi talking with Kisa and behind them are these absolutely gigantic arching doorways that are like doors for elephants and like I know they're rich but why does it look like they live in a museum (Scard also does this with the weird backgrounds and it's even worse, because it's supposed to take place in this lawless rundown area and the main character is supposed to be scrambling to survive but apparently he lives in an IKEA catalog. The cafe also has these really weird shelves and just a general nonsensical layout that honestly made me appreciate the look of Bar Homra even more). I don't think there was any real intentional change in style in the sense of 'we think this looks better,' I really think the change was just GoHands being cheap and trying to ape the much more successful style of S1 but without any of the budget behind it.

#k project #Talking K #S1 was so good I miss S1 art style #honestly I think GoHands is just either cheap or poor or both #and they're trying to mimic the very successful cool look of K S1 but with none of the care behind it #Scard was so cheap looking I'm sorry people who liked it but it was #it was noticeable immediately to me how every outdoor scene has no people for miles bc GoHands didn't want to animate crowds #and they reused so much K animation it was literally distracting to me #maybe other studios do this but I have never watched another series and gone 'oh I know where you took that from; #and I've watched a lot of anime #please come back S1 style everyone looked the best there