Episode 11 quality issues

Onimai ofc. Everything wrong with this season can be blamed on Onimai and the directorial change
i think time is a better metric that's proportional to production quality, as budget doesn't really change anything without a proper schedule. in fact one punch man S1 had a pretty low budget iirc, and it had a healthy production time. Time is more important than budget in the anime industry.
Might not believe me when I say 'high budget' shows like chainsaw man and Jujutsu Kaisen were animated within a span of 8-10 months or even less. Those shows would've looked better with half the budget and twice the production time

uh depends i guess? Do you like insanely well animated loli anime?

(just for anyone who is curious)

Hiroki Hirano (Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation assistant director) is replacing Manabu Okamoto as the director at Studio Bind. Toshiya Ono (86, Gatchaman Crowds, Land of the Lustrous, The Promised Neverland is also replacing Okamoto as the series script supervisor. Sanae Shimada (Photo Kano, UTOPA) is the new character designer.

Masakazu Miyake returns as the sole art director listed, and Makiko Doi returns as the sole color key artist listed. The returning staff also includes compositing director of photography Shinji Tonsho, editor Akinori Mishima, sound director Jin Aketagawa, sound effects artist Tsutomu Ueno, and musical composer Yoshiaki Fujisawa. EGG FIRM is producing.

Source:
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-03-25/mushoku-tensei-jobless-reincarnation-season-ii-video-announces-updated-staff-july-debut/.196434
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-07-07/mushoku-tensei-jobless-reincarnation-season-2-anime-2nd-half-to-debut-in-april-2024/.200063

@ejleon I will go ahead and respond to each of your points.

1. No, I understood the point you were making, which was complaining that I was critiquing something. I cannot handle anyone disagreeing with me? Yet I am responding to you and everyone else. I can handle it just fine and I welcome the discourse. What I DO NOT like is people who go with the argument of "Stop complaining" and "The animators are doing their best". Yes, I know the animators are doing their best, but that does not mean I cannot criticize their work, especially since I am paying to view this media. People need constructive criticism in order to improve, not a bunch of "yes men" who always just tell them how good they are.

2. You clearly want to defend this show, even if we are looking at a glaring problem, while also telling others to stop complaining about things. So yes, you do fit into this fan base.

3. Sure, perhaps I do not look at it that way, but, as someone else pointed out to me, this does not seem to be a budget issue and was a "rookie mistake" with how they put the background characters in focus. Do the scene differently and you will not have this problem. And if you wish to make this your main point, then make that clear in your post without going into the "Stop complaining" territory.

4. That is not how I saw the scene, so I cannot say much to this. Just because you saw it this way does not mean I saw it this way. I tend to look at everything, including the backgrounds, because I want to fully experience the show. I also really like seeing and appreciating the animation they do and the cinematography. This season has had some fine ones (The action scene where Rudy used his mud(?) abilities against the bear things(?) was amazingly done) but it also had some issues.

5. If I buy a video game and that game has bugs, am I allowed to criticize it? I pay for my streaming services in order to view this piece of media, as well as buying some merchandise here and there in order to support the industry the best I can. Animators, while overworked and underpaid, are doing this for money. They are not doing this for free and if they were, I would not say anything about it and just enjoy what they created. I like to watch fan animation projects on YouTube and they are amazingly done. I provide some feedback on it but, for the most part, I just talk about the things I liked because they are free and created by amateurs. This, Mushoku Tensei, on the other hand, is something I pay for. By your logic, no one should complain or criticize anything ever because people put time into it. Everyone should get a "Good Job" award and be patted on the back. Is what they made still amazing? Yeah, it is pretty good but nothing is without flaws and nothing is without criticism nor should it be. The gaming industry is a good example of this. In recent years (Last decade or so), AAA titles have become filled with microtransactions, game-breaking glitches, and poor work. Not criticizing these products, and companies, as well as giving them money despite them doing a poor job is what led to games like Cyberpunk (I am talking about when it launched, not current), ACs having microtransactions in them, the butchering of the Saints Row series, and much more. We still have some great games, but triple-A has gone downhill for these reasons; the consumers are allowing it to happen with this mentality of "Well, they tried and we should just be grateful."


Overall, the show is still pretty good, though there are still problems it has with the story being slow (This is on the writer, not the studio that did the anime) and quality issues like the one above. I still like the show and I still like the series. In fact, it is the first series for me to watch (Well, second actually now that I think about it) where I watched the episodes as they came out, and this was after binge-watching the first season because ei could not get enough of it..I actually got sad when I had to wait for more episodes and another season. This is also why I am so disappointed in this season as I had high hopes in it carrying the series forward more, but I actually skipped certain parts I'm this season just because of how cringe it was (The panty scene and some parts with the beast girls) or just how uninteresting it was to me. I did like the parts where Rudy was in the small town, not so much the school. Anyway, I do not expect you to read all of this fully and this may be my last reply to you because, well, your arguments are annoying and trite.

They're called background characters for a reason chief

@ErogakiPatches

1. “I understood the point you were making“ [ no you did not ] “which was complaining that I was critiquing something” [ not my point ] “go with the argument of ‘Stop complaining’ and ‘The animators are doing their best’ [ also not my point ] “that does not mean I cannot criticize their work” [ never said you couldn’t ] “especially since I am paying to view this media” [ the creators don’t read your forum comments, we do ] “People need constructive criticism in order to improve” [ true, so why don’t you do that instead, and not just a personal grievances? ] “not a bunch of "yes men" who always just tell them how good they are.” [ never said that ] — You might respond to everyone, but for some reason you did not get my point, could be my fault, could be yours, could be both, I don’t know. But this paragraph shows you still don’t understand.

2. “You clearly want to defend this show” [ I addressed a single scene, not the entire show, because you brought up a personal grievance ] “even if we are looking at a glaring problem” [ you mean, that you think it’s a glaring problem, the creators of the anime and I don’t ] “while also telling others to stop complaining about things” [ I never said those words to anyone, not even implied ] “So yes, you do fit into this fan base.” [ I disagreed with you, so you tried to label me to make me look bad, but you just look silly for even suggesting this about me ]

3. Perhaps they could have forgotten to blur the background characters to give the scene depth of field or contrast, but as is, I still think it was not a problem. I did make this my main point, you just don’t listen and you put a ton of words in my mouth.

4. I gave my own personal opinion on the scene, so I understand, you can see the scene differently. I look at everything as well and I saw that there was no motion on the background characters, I didn’t think I it mattered, but you obviously did. I watched the (about 29, give or take, second) scene again to try to understand this from your perspective, but even then, I did not think it took away anything significant from the scene, hence why I stated it is irrelevant. I think it would have been too much motion and distracting for everyone to be moving and more sound added to fit that. I generally agree with you on the animation this season.

5. I never said you can’t complain, but this is not a “bug”, it is your own personal grievance, the show was made to be this way. And you keep mentioning money, if you paying for the show and you not being satisfied with the quality of the project, shouldn’t your complaint be sent to the creators of the anime, not posted on a forum that none of them will see or read? By my logical points, people would give genuine constructive criticism that improves the show, not personal grievances that are irreverent to the show. I have not babied you and I don’t baby them, you’re not following my point, you’re building a straw man argument. If you actually gave an important criticism and not just a personal grievance, then I would have stop to consider it more, but that is not what happen. Again, I never said you couldn’t say anything or that you should say “thank you” and shut up, keeping on pushing this is pathetically lame and failing. Whether an anime or games, if it is a genuine complaint or criticism I’m fine with it, if you complain the background is not moving on a single scene that doesn’t need to move, I am going say the same thing, it is irrelevant.

I understand your points about the writing and rhythm of the show this season. The first season drew you in and kept you wanting more with its balance and rhythm. I watched every episode of this season, but I was also disappointed, it only started getting back on track in episode 9, except a few sections, the rest could be summed up in addressing ED, “lust reliogion”, Rudeus playing cupid.

@ejleon

Seems you do not listen, tis a shame.

@ErogakiPatches You are the one not listening and lying

fair enough, but as a whole, this season goes a lot more in depth into the characters than the ova did for cliff or the appearance of zanoba in season one ever did. I dont want to spoil, but the characters i mentioned in particular have their own arcs later in the story, plus the whole thing with sylphy and him finally realizing that she is slphy, not fitz, which is character devolopment for rudeus as well. I get it if you dont like the way they handled the school setting, but imo, thats an issue with the anime, the LN handles it better although it is still slow around this part, but due to that, it fleshes out the characters and introduces multiple characters in a way that doesn't feel forced, which imo is a problem with a lot of fantasy/isekai anime i watch, where they just find a character randomly and they immediately become a main character out of nowhere, MT is a lot more subtle in that regard. If you havent already read the LN, i would definetly reccomend it, its better than the anime in the aspect of actually fleshing things out more and explaining why things went the way they did, the badigadi fight for example, its implied in the anime that the reason for him asking rudeus to use one attack is because it damaged orsted, but in the LN, i'm fairly certain he says to use the attack that damaged orsted. thats just one example, but it happens a lot in this season where they cut things out that add more depth to the story to keep the plot moving. But anyway, i respect your opinion, i just dont fully agree. i think it would have been better if they didnt skip the details on things, but screen time becomes an issue at that point, which is already an issue with the seemingly not very generous budget based on some scenes

No they didn't get new animators. They got mostly less experienced animators working with a tighter schedule than S1 with a new inexperienced director
it's actually a miracle that we got multiple high priority episodes this cour

Eh, that really is not the point I mean when I say that I did not sigh up for this. Also, most of those characters were already introduced in earlier seasons or in the OVA. Some school settings can be fine, such as in Code Grass or Neon Genesis Evangelion. It is the irritating high school drama that exists in here and dumb scenarios, such as the panty scene or the whole waiting around for Fitz to hurry up and tell Rudy. And I did not care for the demon guy or the entire episode where Rudy has to fight other beast people for the two beast girls. I like slower paced shows and character driven ones are ones that I adore (Now and Then, Here and There as well as Neon Genesis Evangelion are two of my favorite series and they are both very slow and character focused), but when I cannot like the characters (Seriously, I do not like the demon lord dude) or what drama they are in, then it becomes a problem for me.

By the by, I have not watched any Jujutsu Kaisen and only watched a few episodes of the first season of AOT. Fast paced action series are not my cup of tea, but neither is school drama or annoying romance tropes. And if it was any longer, then I would likely have skipped a lot of it or dropped the season to wait until Rudeus left the school. And, before I forget, I did like some parts of it such as a lot of the parts with the beast girls, the Japanese girl scene, Slyphie and Rudy finally getting together, as well as the parts with Zanoba. Other parts were just boring or uninteresting, especially with the first season in mind where Rudy was learning a lot about the world and exploring it. My disappointment is immeasurable for this season and my day is ruined.

@HatTrkPatrk
The characters are not out of focus at all, the girl that's is taking the bread to her mouth is static the whole time while Sylphie notices Rudeus and moves out of the frame.
As I said before, the production level of this season was already mediocre, but this episode was a freaking disaster. Even subtle details like the footprints behind Sylphie when they find the cave were wrong. They made a background for the scene with footprints drawn up to their position, but when Sylphie walks out of the frame they forgot to draw the new ones, so we are left with footprints that reach their original position and then a whole lot of snow with 0 footprints, only to find the snow full of footprints in the next cut. These are small detalis, but they pile until you are left thinking if the staff were even willing to do stuff correctly, and this episode is full of these instances.

The difference between a healthy and unhealthy production is the difference in priority for scenes/episodes. A healthy production has a pretty small priority gradient, which means it has consistent quality. Great examples would be Heavenly Delusions, One Punch Man Season 1, Spy X Family, Mob Psycho Season 1 to 3, Mushoku Tensei S1 cour 1, etc etc etc.

Unhealthy productions have ever expanding priority gradients, which means two episodes have vastly different production quality, which is either done as a measure to allocate budget towards high priority scenes or just because there's a lack of staff/time.
Great examples would be Jigokuraku, Attack On Titan S3, Vinland Saga S1, A whole lot of long running shows like One piece, Naruto, Black Clover etc.
(For long running shows it's a side effect of their airing pattern. You are forced to prioritise certain episodes by sacrificing production quality of low priority ones with shows like One Piece. Black Clover on the other hand had a TERRIBLE production, iirc there wasn't even an animation producer for the show for a while it was just Tatsuya Yoshihara solo carrying the series with his connections)

What we're seeing here is an unhealthy production unlike Season 1. There simply aren't enough animators working on the show to meet the quality requirements of Season 1, and therefore the first 3 episodes looked like it was a whole different show and certain 'priority' episodes had a serious quality bump.

Hopefully they get more animators on board for Cour 2, and it upkeeps its animation quality throughout its duration.

@ErogakiPatches I'm starting you just don't like the slice of life genre.... cus this was favourite my third favourite arc of the entire series and I'm saying that as someone who's well read ahead of the anime

@rolopolo78 I don't know. I rated Non Non Biyori a 10 out of 10 for most of its seasons and the film, Akembi's Sailor Uniform was an 8 for me, A Place Further Than the Universe was a 10, I am loving Monogatari which has a lot of slow moments all centered on characters, I quite enjoyed Hyouka and gave it a 10, I really enjoyed Kaliedo Star, Kodacha is still one of my favorite manga/anime, and I enjoyed Yuru Camp, among others. So I cannot say that I dislike the SoL genre, but maybe all those do not count to you.

The difference between a healthy and unhealthy production is the difference in priority for scenes/episodes. A healthy production has a pretty small priority gradient, which means it has consistent quality. Great examples would be Heavenly Delusions, One Punch Man Season 1, Spy X Family, Mob Psycho Season 1 to 3, Mushoku Tensei S1 cour 1, etc etc etc.

Unhealthy productions have ever expanding priority gradients, which means two episodes have vastly different production quality, which is either done as a measure to allocate budget towards high priority scenes or just because there's a lack of staff/time.
Great examples would be Jigokuraku, Attack On Titan S3, Vinland Saga S1, A whole lot of long running shows like One piece, Naruto, Black Clover etc.
(For long running shows it's a side effect of their airing pattern. You are forced to prioritise certain episodes by sacrificing production quality of low priority ones with shows like One Piece. Black Clover on the other hand had a TERRIBLE production, iirc there wasn't even an animation producer for the show for a while it was just Tatsuya Yoshihara solo carrying the series with his connections)

What we're seeing here is an unhealthy production unlike Season 1. There simply aren't enough animators working on the show to meet the quality requirements of Season 1, and therefore the first 3 episodes looked like it was a whole different show and certain 'priority' episodes had a serious quality bump.

Hopefully they get more animators on board for Cour 2, and it upkeeps its animation quality throughout its duration.

and you are not the definition of the general audience. Just because you're fine with something doesn't mean everyone should be fine with it. If it's being released in the form of a visual medium it needs to upkeep a high quality. Nitpicking is when people complain about Chainsaw Man, JJK or One Punch Man animation quality, or even Mushoku Tensei Season 1. With this season however it definitely isn't nitpicking, as there's a genuine quality drop

this arc is not worth a high budget, you can see as it has very less fight sceans and even use of big magics or bg. in season one they were showing a adventure with different different bg and a lot of fighting sceans. just wait for 1-2 more episodes then the next arc will start and it will be back with its quality level. and compare to other animes, this arcs quality level is not that very bad

@CreepHazard First I was saying that the guy who I originally replied to was describing something really nitpicky and that you have to really look at specifically just to notice it(and AINTNOWAY the "general audience" are gonna notice it) and second " Nitpicking is when people complain about Chainsaw Man, JJK or One Punch Man animation quality, or even Mushoku Tensei Season 1 "what? huh? Nitpicking is when you point very minor faults in a pedantic way for any show/thing in existence doesn't have to be these exact shows, it can be any show including MTS2 so it is actually nitpicking.