criticizinganimation:

on that note, i’m gonna make a post about something that has perplexed me for a long, long time

why the hell do most cartoons look great in the pilot, but the actual show’s animation quality is objectively inferior???? granted a LOT of these are just personal taste but i wanna see if people agree. why does this happen??

examples including but not limited to:

hi hi puffy ami yumi:

(pilot, it was traditionally animated too)

(main show, cheap flash)

steven universe:

(pilot)

(main show)

bee and puppycat:

(pilot)

(main show)

oh and my favorite example: ok ko

(they made an entire episode of the characters just watching the pilot lol). where the girl main character (enid) had normal legs and anatomy

(main series)

(pilot)

are u. serious. pilots don’t have strict deadlines and artists tend to go overboard making it look good above anything else. the actual shows are made under deadlines, so designs need to be significantly simplified. if you’re drawing every single frame, then each line on each character is an investment to have to repeat that same line a hundred thousand times a week. time and budget means to have a show look ‘pilot good’, you’ll get an episode once a year if you’re lucky. animated pilots sometimes take a lot longer.

if your complaint about animation is that it has to be simplified then u need to blog about something else tbh