~DovSherman

An observation: In the anime series "Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou", there are a couple fo recap episodes in which they just show clips from previous episodes with narrative voiceover. The interesting thing was that, at the beginning of each episode recap, they showed some statistics for each episode. On average, it seemed that most episodes contained around 300 cuts and 2000 drawings. So a full half-hour episode only required 2000 drawings.

This is one of the key differences between Japanese animation and western animation - the degree of animation. While some people often to point to this difference as a reason to hold western animation in higher esteem, it does point out a very successful approach to efficiency and productivity. By careful reduction of animation, efficient reuse of base drawings and cycles, lots of pans and still frames, Japanese animators are able to produce much more footage in less time.

It would be interesting to try applying this technique to my own work.