ANIMATION DISCOURSE S2

[u/CryptographerLost825]

So it seems like since the last episode dropped, there’s been a lot of discourse around the animation for Season 2 overall. I’m going to try to give my most level-headed thoughts on this. As a passionate fan of the comic, after seeing how they adapted the fight on Thraxa, in my opinion the fight lacked and underdelivered on the sheer visceral gore and ferocity in the comic. This is one of the first few times I think that the show paled in comparison to the comic in terms of the scale, spectacle and amount of detail that was put into the comic. The issue is less about the blood and gore being shown in the episode, it’s more about the level of detail of the gore, battle damage and destruction. I think there’s nothing wrong in constructively levying criticism to a property I’ve immensely loved and only want to see thrive and constantly improve. In season 1 a lot of the focal moments like Guardians massacre, Machine head fight, Omni Man/Invincible showdown and by extension the Atom Eve special episode were massively improved and the elevated in grandiosity, scope and brutality, which is what I was expecting for the Thraxa fight but unfortunately its came off a bit weaker for me than the source material. Now overall I do think that S2 has stepped up the animation in terms of the character models, lighting and lack of CG models in the background, but it hasn’t made the animation really count where it matters most like in S1.

I think a lot of the fans that have concerns about how certain moments will be adapted in terms of the animation are valid. The comics only get crazier in blood, gore and spectacle from the Thraxa arc and if this animation we got for Thraxa is emblematic of how future moments will get translated, I think it’s alright to be mildly concerned. Now is it possible that they repurposed most of the budget towards the second half and namely the finale, where we’ll see the animation shine and pop off, sure. Until then I can only judge off of what we have so far. What do you guys think?

[u/Da_reason_Macron_won]

I mean, yeah. The animation is just not that good. What makes it weird is that Invincible seems to be quite a pop culture phenomenon so you would expect the budget to be there if people asked for it.

People will shit on it comparing it with anime, but even if you compare it with other US action show with much less of a cultural impact (see: Young Justice or the Powerhouse Animation stuff) it still doesn't look that good. It's not bad animation, but it's not up to the quality you would expect for Amazon's flagship animated series.

[u/Whiskey_623 → u/Da_reason_Macron_won]

It's the lack of shading/art style I think. Idk why but it reminds me of that 2017 Spider-Man show that lacked any shading

[u/Fresh_Cauliflower176 → u/Whiskey_623]

Yeah, the lack of shading is definitely noticeable. I was hoping season 2 and onwards would look like the season 2 diner teaser where there was much more shading and generally more fluid animation. I get that that was a 2 minute teaser but I thought with the 2+ year wait and the popularity the show gained from season 1, that we would get higher quality animation. That doesn’t seem to be the case, at least so far. Hopefully it improves soon.

[u/zuesthedoggo → u/Fresh_Cauliflower176]

The teaser wasn't really meant to be emblematic of the artstyle in the show, it was just a trailer made by derpixon and not the main team working on invincible

[u/imscrapaman → u/zuesthedoggo]

It wasn't made by derpixion

[u/Garchompula → u/zuesthedoggo]

At the same time, that teaser outright said "oh we're taking so long because of the animation." They never outright said it wouldn't look like that, but it was 100% misingenuous to get a separate team to create a different animation style purely to drum up hype.

[u/JimmyAndKim → u/Whiskey_623]

The biggest problem is by far the movement. It never looks convincing

[u/Not_a_real_asian777 → u/JimmyAndKim]

There's a lot of scenes in Invincible where it kinda just looks like the characters are being slid into place rather than actually drawn in motion. The scene where Donald is watching that security video of Omni-Man, Omni-Man just sort of slides forward like a 2005 flash animation. It honestly kind of reminds me of the really low budget Boruto episodes.

[u/Eem2wavy34 → u/Not_a_real_asian777]

This reminded me of the scene of omni man flying into outer space https://youtu.be/Y7Pv9_qLJFI?si=6GV3jM3kCriq2oZf

The exact same frame throughout, looked so lazy it deadass took me out of the emotional context of the moment

[u/Traditional_Shirt106 → u/Eem2wavy34]

Plus his ass is jutted way out, like he looks like a skinny 19 year old woman. I understand that exaggeration is important in animation, but when you hold the same exact frame across multiple backgrounds it’s gonna look dumb.

[u/Karkava → u/Whiskey_623]

I really hated that series. Why the hell is the animation so dull? This is about a bright and colorful vigilante fighting colorful villains! The animation should be bright and dynamic! Bonus points if they model the backgrounds after real-life places in New York, like an anime!