Blue Lock season 2 animator reveals the reason behind alleged poor animation quality

Modified Oct 27, 2024 07:19 GMT

Blue Lock season 2 animator reveals the reason behind poor animation quality (Image via 8bit)

Blue Lock season 2 has been criticized as a disaster, with viewers calling it a "PowerPoint presentation." While the reasons for its alleged poor production were unclear, an animator from the series recently revealed the harsh realities of the Japanese animation industry, highlighting how financial issues impact quality.

Martin Reyes, an animator for Blue Lock season 2, shared in a TikTok video that he was assigned to work on five episodes at a time for minimum wage and with very little time. This led to the show's subpar animation quality. He left the project after animating only one episode.

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Blue Lock season 2 animator sheds light on the truth behind the sequel series' alleged disastrous production

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Martin Reyes, an animator who worked on Blue Lock season 2's episode 2, took to his TikTok account and addressed the issue about the sequel series' horrid animation. According to the animator, he started working on the sequel series about a month ago and was to work on 5 episodes. Martin started working on episode 2 in which he was to manage 20 cuts.

Here was when the problem started, as Martin stated that the animators were offered minimum wage and a negligible time to do their work. Despite this, Martin and the other animators associated with the series did their best.

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Martin Reyes revealed that the final results of his work were altered, with movements from his cuts removed, leaving what should have been a motion picture looking like a still image in the episode. He didn't blame the production team or animation studio but criticized the broader issues within the Japanese animation industry.

Citing the controversy from Jujutsu Kaisen season 2, Martin noted that production teams take on new projects solely for profit, disregarding the poor conditions faced by animators.

Martin ended the video stating that he was to work on more episodes, as he stated before he offered to work on 5 episodes, but after witnessing his efforts rescued to still panels, he left the anime sequel series because it wasn't something he was proud to show the world.

Final thoughts

A glitchy panel of Shidou as seen in the anime (Image via 8bit)

With the fresh memory of the Uzumaki anime adaptation that took almost 5 years and was similar to Blue Lock season 2, the Japanese animation industry might be destined for a downfall. Fortunately, Blue Lock season 2 could still be saved but, as mentioned already, the industry is now too thirsty for money that they wouldn't consider paying someone more than the minimum wage for a project.

The MAPPA incident with Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 seems to be hitting again and again with more series neglecting the health of animators. This all goes back to the words of Masao Maruyama, the founder of MAPPA studios and one of the industry veterans, who pretty boldly stated that China will overtake Japan.

This was because China invested its capital in the animators whereas this tradition is slowly vanishing in the home country of anime. The words of Yoshiyuki Tomino, the pioneer of the Gundam series, also resonate with the current condition, who stated that Japan would lose its status as the leader of animation if it didn't stop thinking about anime from a 'money' perspective.

Amidst all this, the question the fandom should be asking the industry is what would be left behind if the animators stop doing what they do best. Unlike the rest of the world where 'strikes' are normal whenever the requirements of the masses aren't met, Japan's culture doesn't have such a tradition due to which the downfall of the Japanese anime industry might be sudden and irredeemable.

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Edited by Divya Singh