Having already gained an unhealthy reputation as something of a photoshop anime (some thoughts on this, and plenty of screens), it now seems that 魔法遣いに大切なこと ～夏のソラ～ / Someday’s Dreamers – Summer Skies is intent on shameless plagiarism to boot – it below you can see what is not only a most naked piece of simple photoshop filter application, but also a straight rip of a picture found on a random website, without even attribution, let alone having taken the trouble to go along to Haneda Airport to take some photos themselves.
You can see some more of their photoshop work in this episode here; perhaps they should have just made a drama out of it? They obviously have some talented photographers, or at least blog scrapers… The source.
There’s something I’ve been meaning to mention but I forgot where I read this. What the pictures don’t show is the animation. The plane in the foreground of that particular picture, for example, moves – which is something a mere filtered photo cannot.
This sort of practice is not uncommon in anime….Lucky Star for instance, their backgrounds are virtually traced from well known sites in Japan. Yeah, i know they draw their backgrounds and alter them slightly but using photoshop to alter a image slightly is no different. Just because nearly everybody and their gran know how to use a little photoshop doesn’t mean that there’s no skill and professionalism involved.
I think the issue is less the mere fact of their using a photographic base, which as you point out is hardly abnormal, than simply the extent to which they have taken things; still, the backgrounds are undeniably beautiful, whatever one’s taste is regarding the animation.
Has anyone worked with digital imaging filters? It’s not as simple as you guys seem to imply. Filtering a photo into the backgrounds shown in the show ends up, more often than not, in a mess. Moreso if the the picture they used was one with such a low resolution (such as the airport one shown here).
I don’t know how much they worked on it, but saying that it’s only filtering shows very little knowledge of how digital graphics editing works.
LOL wasn’t it obvious it was all photos?
I hope no one actually thought any of it was drawn.
Thats why this anime sucks
I couldn’t care less if the backgrounds are just Photoshopped. All I care is what they look like. And I think they look great.
But it is still an open question in my mind whether these were just filtered, or actually partially traced and then drawn. I look at roadside grasses in the OP and wonder if there is a filter that could produce that.
Using someone else’s photos without permission should be actionable, especially if they are just Photoshopped and not redrawn. We’ll see if anyone sues anyone. As far as I can see, we have only one example of a photo found elsewhere. We have to wait and see if there are any more.
Of course I agree that the figures stand out from the backgrounds, and that the figures are simplified. I don’t agree that this looks bad, however. And I actually think the oversimplified figures are well animated.
In my opinion, this is so far a very promising anime that looks good and sounds better. Tastes differ.
They were trying to make out they had painstakingly reworked their photographic materials, but this is obviously a shameless lie.
either that, or japanese animators today are being payed sh1t3 wages and their bosses aint doing squat to improve their working conditions…
and sadly, not much new innovations in the industry. Though there are few animation houses that still make original anime, i believe they are too few of them in existence, and this problem might become endemic in the near future. I hope they dont stoop to that path.
Kinda depressing to see the industry like this, but the show must go on…
Guess were going to see much more of these in the near future…. *sigh*
As I’ll tell anyone who will listen, games are the future of anime now.
2D animation can’t compete in the medium term with 3D animation (made to look 2D as appropriate), and if you have 3D animation systems they are only a step away from becoming a game at any time. Just look at how close the likes of Persona and Valkyria Chronicles come to anime…