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Fantastic so far so it's a shame.

Very ironic how ep3 was called Break Ti[M]e

For COVID? So they produce episodes like weekly/monthly? Why didn't they make all the episodes in advance?

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Is both. They make 2 or 3 episodes in advance at the same time. They start months ahead. But they end the last one one month / weeks ahead of the end of the series.

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They were probably busy with other anime.

People that have been following this project since the beginning said they've been having problems with the production. At first I didn't believe them, but episode 3 was quite clunky so I'm getting worried about the future of this anime (the game was one of my absolute favorites).

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Can you explain what was wrong with it without spoiling the game? I wanna finish the game before I watch this, but I'm curious as to what was wrong with Episode 3.

This does not usually happen with Anime productions due to the terrible scheduling that production committees force on the studios. There are times when some episodes are finished hours before the broadcast in Japan. Usually studios hope to be 2-3 episodes ahead.

According to insiders the production for Nier has been a shitshow, Covid is a mild impact and not in Japan for animators, the problem is due to the bad production they have outsourced a lot to china, which has been hit hard by Covid.

Even Mappa with Chainsaw Man were offering double in order to get Chinese animators to work on it to get it across the finish line, which is sad because it was supposed to be Mappa's new studio and new method which ended up not having a great schedule, which is why fight animation continued to struggle.

Very few studios get to usually command enough time to properly make episodes such as KyoAni or Ufotable.

I thought it was something related to ongoing long series, I guess they have a really strict schedule. Maybe they should really rethink the whole system and just give more time to the studios. Anyway, for me Chainsaw Man has one of the best animation of last year, I didn't see any struggle. Some issues in the rhythm maybe, that could have been solved with few more episodes but that's fine.

As for me, there is a very major scene in episode 3 (that was also hinted at the end of episode 2) that didn't quite hit like it did in the game. When I played that part I felt somewhat shaken by what was happening, but in the anime it felt too rushed, I didn't feel many emotions in it.

The whole episode had a weird pacing, as it presents two different locations (the refuge and the desert) of the game without spending enough time with either of them. Especially the part in the desert deserved more weight and a slower pacing to create a stronger sense of immersion imo. And even in terms of animations it felt too much unpolished to me, as if they were doing the bare minimum to release the episode.

Anyway, it's a very difficult game to adapt: it's dense, there is a lot of hidden lore, it's very introspective and has a peculiar narrative structure, so I don't blame them. I'm still hoping that the following episodes will do it justice since the author of the game is part of the team.

This is what killed Uncle From Another World.

I didn't see any struggle in Chainsaw man at all.

You can see from them relying on straight CG more often in later fights in addition to going from 1 ADs to multiple ADs per episode.

The choreography was much worse compared to shows like Demon Slayer, Bleach or even JJK from Mappa and the fights simply didn't have that level of hype you would expect from such a show.

Mainly due to Mappa not extending any of the fights and struggling to convey how Fujimoto used manga pages in fights to the anime medium and the simple lack of 2D at times.

Aki v Katana Man Link (watch from here to 1:18)

Honestly, a fan managed to convey the speed and feel of the fight in this cut better (keep in mind, it's 1 fan vs a team of animators + cg + music and voice): Link

It’s all a part of Yoko Taros plan.

From experience, all anime adaptations have pacing issues because they cover multiple manga chapters in a single episode. I haven't seen any anime adaptation yet that didn't have this problem.

What is an AD?

Animation Director. They are basically in charge of making corrections and ensuring that the animation is on model and consistent throughout the episode. Typically you would expect 1-2 per episode but when all of a sudden that number jumps up it can be a sign that the production is struggling and they are having to bring in additional people just to keep up with the schedule.

Anime in general as an industry has been struggling with brain drain, burnout, terrible pay, employee exploitation and generally just unfathomable amounts of bad management. For every one studio that runs "well," there's five more that are constantly on the brink of disaster.

Still mad, I was so excited now that they got past the stupid long viewing of his adventure.

so they can stay meta and insert pop culture references

Idk Vinland omitted a little bit, but having read and watched both, as far as season one goes it’s as close to 1:1 as an anime is gonna get.

I don't think adaptions from a manga (especially if compared to video games and novels) are actually that difficult when the animation studio has the time and money to do a good job. Some adaptations are nearly identical to the manga (an example: Monster). But with videogames it's different, since a completely faithful adaptation is almost impossible due to the nature of the media itself. Imagine what a nightmare it would be to adapt Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and Nier Automata isn't much easier.

Fair enough if you think that. For me, anime doesn't work so well as the manga mostly because the pacing's off because the animation staff are so slavishly following the panels instead of trying to rework the story into animated form.

I will say it’s episodic and maybe 2% of the manga wasn’t included, but I’d say even more 1:1 was Mushishi and the pacing was hit with perfect stride. Some JoJo stands work better in animation than they do in the manga as well imo, but the opposite exists.

I've heard of rare cases where anime episodes are delivered to networks only hours before airing

It should not work that way...

People should watch Animation Runner Kuromi.

I've found a lot of anime adaptations for games end up feeling more fast-paced and like a promo anime instead of a proper series. Going off The World Ends With You & Scarlet Nexus anime adaptations.