The history of animation is the history of how art and technology are combined to create visual experiences for viewers. Various technological innovations have been introduced into the field over the years, for example Snow White’s introduction of multiple moving cels to create a deeper field for the characters to inhabit, the rise of digital coloring which ended the era of hand-painted cels, and the first uses of CG rendered cars to make the racing scenes in Initial D (and certain eroge, ahem) extra exciting. While some changes the animation industry makes may be unavoidable — the rise of sponsorship and product placement would be one example — other changes are harder to get used to. I’m currently watching Sidonia no Kishi (The Knights of Sidonia), a fascinating story about a colony of humans fleeing an enemy called the Gauna. Life inside the Sidonia is very different from ours, a society based on cloning, human photosynthesis and human/animal mutations. While the show’s universe is fascinating, there’s one small distraction: like a certain moe submarine anime, Knights of Sidonia is entirely animated using computer graphics, including the characters. While I’m resigned to CG-based mecha battles (though why can’t they manage to get the frame rate up to something that looks more natural to the eye?), having the humans animated using the same system takes some getting used to, as it just doesn’t feel quite…moe enough. Sidonia no Kishi is innovative in another area too: the show features the first neutral gender character seen in anime…well, since Ikari Shinji anyway.
