NYT is about as mainstream Western media as you can get, so I thought it was interesting to see their take on the use of CG within anime (and that they even thought it worth their time to write about). I think it is a fair take. From the article:
“Fans often balk at any announcement that a show will be produced in 3-D, especially when it’s from an established franchise,” May said in an interview. “The gap between good and bad C.G. anime is wide, and fans can spot mediocre 3-D animation easily thanks to having seen decades of top-range American 3-D films.”
This lines up with my experience. Often, if the CG is done well and integrated into a consistent visual style, there aren’t any as many complaints. However, bad CG that sticks out is what annoys fans the most and garners the negative connotation.
The article also goes into some of the reasons that we should expect CG to stay and expand in usage going forward:
“I feel like the large insurgence of 3-D anime comes from the dream of an easier production,” said Austin Hardwicke, a 3-D animator who specializes in anime that is heavy on digital effects. In part, that’s because it’s easier to maintain consistent quality. “Thanks to the enormous video game industry, there are hands available across the globe, making it easy to scale a team up or down at will. And it’s famously difficult for veteran 2-D animators to teach junior animators up to their level, but 3-D animation is infinitely easier to teach.”
This lines up with what industry veterans within Japan have been saying; that there is a lack of junior talent being developed to be able to fill senior roles.
Combine this lack of traditional 2D talent with an ever-growing number of productions in any given season and more CG is what we should expect.
I think the money point is a huge part of it. In an unrelated thread, I had mentioned Cowboy Bebop and @mindbleach@sh.itjust.works said the same thing. The early 90’s were the peak of Japan’s economic power before the effects of the Lost Decades settled in for good.
I agree that Ghibli’s model really only works for Ghibli. A smaller, unproven studio would never be able to attract enough investment on a huge gamble of a project like that. The movie has been a huge success with virtually no marketing campaign based solely on the studio/Miyazaki’s reputation. That is something that no other studio could even hope to replicate.