by At first, it was fine.
The anime we watch every day is made possible thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the production team and voice actors. However, some works have problems with the animation, making us feel that the production conditions were difficult.
For example, many people know the anime version of the popular light novel “Lost Universe” (written by Kamisaka Hajime and illustrated by Yoshinaka Shoko) as a work famous for its broken animation. The series, which began airing in 1998, tells the story of the protagonist “Kane,” a skilled trouble contractor who overcomes the troubles rampant in the galaxy with the help of the control computers “Canal” and “Millie.”
The opening scene is where the series’ broken animation is noticeable. Due to the tight schedule, there was not enough time for production, so scenes such as “Currently under construction” and “UNDER CONSTRUCTION” were inserted, and the opening was broadcast unfinished.
The animation failure also extended to the main story, and episode 4 (episode 12 on video streaming sites), “Slaughtering Coconut Crab,” became famous for the characters’ jerky movements and sloppy expressions. Another episode that should not be missed is “Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil” (broadcast in 2014), where the animation failure was particularly noticeable in episode 11 out of the total 12 episodes.
The story is set in a world where humans and magicians coexist. It tells the story of the friends surrounding the protagonist, Sudo Cecil, a Benmashi who defends the accused magicians.
Umetsu Yasuomi, known for “Galilei Donna,” handled the original concept, direction, and character design. This anime work attracted attention because of its originality. Although the powerful battle scenes were well-received at the beginning of the broadcast, viewers were surprised.
Episode 11 was problematic because it frequently used still images, in which the same character was shown in a single shot, reused frames, and had poor animation in places. Viewers commented, “The first episode was well done, but the animation gradually blurred.
I was shocked by episode 11: “It’s a shame that the animation has collapsed, as it has a good setting and character design.” Another anime that has become a hot topic due to its poor animation is “My Little Sister is Not My Little Sister,” which was adapted into an anime in 2018 (original story by Ebisu Seiji, illustrations by Gintaro).
The story is about a high school student named Nagami Yu who aspires to be a light novel writer but always fails the first round of selections. He works as a writer named Towa no Chikai in place of his younger sister, Suzuka, whose work won the grand prize after he casually submitted it. The roughness of the drawings becomes noticeable in the second episode, when the characters’ facial touches change from scene to scene, resulting in a series of unstable depictions.
Furthermore, at the end of the fourth episode, just before Suzuka starts to speak, a terrifying scene occurs in which another mouth is shown floating in the air in addition to her mouth. Incidentally, this scene can still be viewed on video streaming services.
The drawings of this work are legendary, with comments on the Internet such as “I’ll never forget the scene where Yu’s eyebrows suddenly went up” and “There were many parts of Suzuka where it was hard to tell who she was.”
