AKIRA: The 24 Frames-Per-Second Myth 

R.I.P. Richard Williams

I’m really tired of people trying to “fix” anime scenes by making the 60FPS. If you think making the frame rate higher is improving the animation, you don’t know how to improve animation to begin with.

"Unfortunately for some people Frame rate is everything" PC Gamers: Yes.

When FPS is a stylistic choice. Look at Spiderman into the spiderverse for a modern example. Mixing the frame rates for emphasis.

I feel like i learned more about animation in less than 10 mins than those 25 mins work on a certain film, you sure as hell earned my sub

Thank you for making this! Yes, Akira was animated on Ones, but not ONLY on Ones. It uses a tasteful mix of frame rates as needed by the action on screen.

It is quite annoying for people to spout frames as being the end all be all for quality animation, especially in regards to anime where the films use a mixture of rates to achieve their look. Spriggan rivals Akira in its number of shooting on 1s, funnily from most of the same staff as Akira. But Akira offers good use of timing and spacing in most areas. Saying "some" sounds like selling it short. The areas in which it does "fall short" (IE the few shots, not scenes, where keys are not many and movement is limited) are the exceptional areas and generally symptomatic of Japanese animation techniques common in even the highest grossing anime films of today, rather than any sort of incompetence from the star studded animation crew. They never particularly stood out to me as they at least felt appropriate for the instances which they happened. With the sheer number of cuts the film has, they get lost in the whole. Similar nitpicks regarding sheer technicality can be made for other greats like Thief and The Cobbler, despite the fact it outclasses its contemporaries and still represents a pinnacle of the medium. Yet, I can't think of many anime films that equal Akira in terms of its movement, it really set a new standard for anime films that many don't even _try_ to reach for. Perhaps Redline, Steamboy, Memories, Spriggan, or a handful of Ghibli films. But even those frequently push movement to the backseat in favor of dialogue done via still lip flaps (in some already dialogue heavy films). You will only find some Western films where movement is beyond Akira, though still the content being animated is generally restricted to character acting and the occasional effects work. I think what makes Akira a pillar of animation, especially now, is the abundance of quality aesthetics, animation, and scale that required a good amount of innovation and experimentation to get right for the final picture. The ambition is insane and I say especially now because I see fewer attempts at reaching this pillar compared to the greats of three decades ago. CGI especially being used as a supplement nowadays for what Akira was doing with minimal computer implementation. Most can reach Akira's level of quality, but on a rather small and mundane scale by comparison, like a drama. Good video regardless, clearing up the difference between animation in the West vs the East for the layman.

Richard On twitter once brought this is up that more frames isn't better it's all about capturing a specific pacing and feeling

No way, my jaw actually dropped at 1:03 when you mentioned The Thief and the Cobbler, its one of my favorite movies. I watched it all the time as a kid on VHS, but i never new it was directed by richard williams RIP the goat :(

Fantastic video of explaining how animation works. As a former computer animator, who also had to studied 2 D animation and how it works, it was amazing to see how Akira was animated at different key frame rates during certain scenes. In addition, if you look at Akira credits. You will see that several different studios worked on it, even American animation studios worked on it too. It was something special that took place at that time.

Thank you. I’ve always thought Akira mostly looked like 2’s. I’m glad I’m not going mad. It’s striking that people who’ll talk up the benefits of the higher frame rate can’t tell the difference

I don’t know how I got here but I’m begging you to make more videos on animation. Animation discussion on RU-vid is pretty niche and isn’t as in-depth as I would like, but you seem to have an extremely good grasp on the subject. This video was excellent and you definitely earned a new sub.

6:10 artist is literally on fire. impressive.

The whole problem with social media these days. Repeating things they hear and repeating it without even being sceptic, questioning if it's a fact or not. Just copy paste. And thinking they are journalists too. Well even journalists nowadays are falling for this easy method. All for money and personal fame. Likes likes likes.

Great video, thank you for it. As an animator, i hope more people will understand. I noticed how some people have entire YT channels about animation but now nothing about productions and animation techniques, yet they will commentate and say ignorant things. One doesn't need to have worked on cartoons to commentate about animated movies, but when someone doesn't know some realities and wonders about them, it is better to either do some research first, or simply ask your audience about it. Like when YTbers say things such as "How could they not notice this detail?!" (answer is often: THEY DID. At least one person in the production did, but that retake probably never got scheduled, because of either bad leadership/production pipeline, or lack of time) Nice poke at the 60fps bullsh*t at the end. I hate it so much. Even live action movies should not go 48 or 60fps. It looks awful. The reason we stayed on 24/25fps is the same as why animated features are animated a lot on 2s (12fps) (outside for production cost/time) : because IT WORKS. IT LOOKS WELL. No one thinks "something is lacking" while watching it. And since i'm a CG animator, i still feel surprised to see some shots shown in this video that are animated on 3s: it works so well! Not even looking like a TV anime.

I'm not a weeb at all. I grew up on the typical TV animes but never really went beyond that except for a very few exceptions. But i could watch Akira breakdowns for hours and hours. what a piece of art

"Only far off in monastic isolation does Richard Williams, the Icaresque Rembrandt of animation, whittle away at the best work being done in the field." This line is so great. As a huge fan of his work- Roger Rabbit having shaped my early love of animation, his book teaching me so much, and the convoluted history of the Thief and the Cobbler providing endless inspiration, fascination, and sorrow - I feel like your one line sums up so much of his work so well.

Honoring Richard Williams! The animation and drawings for "The Prologue" are the major expression of animation as an art made of the highest craft and experience. His passing leaves all of his legacy for the future. Thanks for this expose'!

This was actually very educational. I always wondered why some scenes looked smoother and now I understand the mechanical need and the aesthetic direction behind these choices. Well done.

Thank you for mentioning the destruction of 60 frames being applied to works that were originally not, especially Akira!

I'm a filmmaker, not an animator but the 60p fetish in tech and on the internet kills stylistic choice. Most films for example should be shot at 24 it helps create the tone we subconsciously associate with cinema. I know I can tell when someone is shooting at a different frame rate because I spend my whole day in an editing program or on a set outside of youtube. 60 looks great for slowed-down action hell up until about 240p looks great for action(Not sure why you'd need that much but I guess if you do sports yeah). It helps smooth a shot, I use it all the time but I don't use it in my youtube videos because it makes everything look like a soap opera. In tech 60 has become a weird point to put on a box. For example, I'd love to shoot a film on a cellphone. I use a pixel but the pixel line, up till now has dropped 24p in favor of 60p and a weird adaptive frame rate which is fine for the quick social posts but is awful for the creatives they target every year. A technical lead I forget who said "who needs 24p anyway" or something similar like an absolute idiot as if higher frame rate equals better. At least with video games, the 60p makes sense and people claiming otherwise for that medium are excusing flaws. The mediums are each different is what I am saying but the dinguses turning animation 60p with deep learning AI aren't making it smoother nor are they making it "better". there are huge issues with mixing frame rates in NLEs and I doubt an AI can make extra full functioning frames for 60p edits. The tech of it is cool and applications exist, If I can smooth out a clip by using that tech it could save me from a botched shot but animation allows for a great variety of expression and people got to realize that a frame rate says something whether you realize it or not.

I can't stand 60fps edits. Makes everything look like bad cg

through this lecture you probably presented the best demonstration of variable frame rate in animation that I've seen outside instruction. thank you sir

This is a great video. Really puts Akira into perspective with other animated features instead of placing it on a pedestal like every other video regarding the film.

This is so professional ! I'm shocked by the number of views !

The number of cells in a movie also depends on how many cell layers make up each scene, and indeed each frame. If you just have a single background layer and a character layer then it's going to be a order of magnitude less work than some of Disney's best feature-length 2D animations that pioneered the use of the multi-depth parallax camera shots that could often have like 3, 4, 5, 6 and maybe even more layers. Anyway, regardless of the numbers of frames per second or the cells, Akira is just utterly stunning. I mean, seriously, even to this day I still think it is all round one of the most visually accomplished and consistently beautiful in both look and motion 2D feature-length animations ever created--and it has an underlying idea and plot that lives up to the quality of the animation too.

amazing and well informed essay, kept me hooked from start to finish

“Don’t get me wrong Akiras animation is impressive” oh! Well thank you random RU-vidr, glad this marvel of animation has your seal of approval! For if it hadn’t, we’d surely all have never known. You’re not an expert, you’re not anything. Don’t speak with authority, unless you yourself are an animator.

And then there's Red Line who took 7 years of hand drawing to produce.

one of the best youtube video about animation. Woooow

I watched another video on the Akira anime recently which went more in depth to the technical side of things. I still really enjoyed this short video, very well presented.

We need more people like you who take a moment to research, enjoy, and appreciate.

that was a... yes quite a SMOOTH video my guy.

Impressive presentation, as an animator.

Good video, thanks for taking the time to produce it.

Bravo! This is one of the most well stated commentaries on animation I have ever heard. You do the genre justice! I've done stop motion animation with a Super-8 camera as a teen, before I truly understood animation timing. I've mostly done CG animation, but even there, I know how to use more or less betweens to control the flow of a scene. One of my most eye opening experiences was just a few years after the original Star Wars was in theatres. Some toy company made a film viewer and you could buy several cartridges that had very brief clips from Star Wars. One of them was an X-wing firing at a T.I.E. fighter. I was amazed, clicking through that clip one frame at a time, to discover the animated laser blasts were only 3 frames each. It solved the problem I was having (in my stop motion animation film) of laser blasts moving too slow. So once again, I applaud your commentary!

FINALLY someone lays this to rest. I remember when I first read that 24 fps 'factoid' and being highly confused. You sir are doing excellent work and I urge you to keep it up.

I feel like this video is perpetuating some of the very confusions you set out to dispel. True, Akira is not shot all on 1s. But conversely it is untrue that a film needs two’s to avoid “taking on a mechanical nature” as you say. Lively animation can happen on a film that’s shot solely on 1s or 2s or 3s. The slower frame rates only require more smear frames to connect larger increments. See LAIKA’s stop motion work for something on 1s that avoids these pitfalls. The conversation shouldn’t be about frame rate at all, only about good key frames and accurate inbetweens, as you mention. Kudos for getting more in depth though!

It's really refreshing to have a grounded and informed perspective out there. Keep it up. 🤙🏽

WELL PUT! Thank you for making the statement into the most effective and well shaped words. Thank you.

I totally rolled my eyes when nerdwriter1 brought out his napkin math of animating on ones. Before that, i was wondering how he can speak on so many topics. From then on, i knew he was speaking out of his behind and i don't think i ever watched anything of his since.

Thank you for making this video, it makes perfect sense you can't do everything on one's it would be boring. Some movement is better when it's "choppy". Also thanks for the high quality Akira clips

I'm so glad this video exits. Thanks for shining a light on this topic.

I don't know why RU-vid recomended this for me, but it was one of the most entertaining and interesting videos I've ever stumbled upon.

Thank you SO much for that last part calling attention to all the idiots making 60fps versions of sakuga in anime. I hope someday some one makes a dedicated video telling them to STOP!

i was recc'd this immediately after watching a 60 fps edit of various bits of animation. totally agree with all your points, consistent fluidity kills style.

Thank you for making and helping me explore more into animation

Great video essay, very informative. Thanks for this.

Yes, it's all in the timing and spacing! Japanese Sakuga - anime best animation - has lots of detail and poses, but sometimes because of the rapid timing the movement *can* look too fast and slightly choppy. Akira, as an exception, flows more than average anime series. If one would slow down anime frames adding more in-betweens then it would flow more naturally, in my opinion. Another difference is in anime there are few squashes and stretches in characters if any, which also make the animation flow.

This vid needs more views coz it tell about Akira 24-frames per second animation...gud job bro on making this vid 👍

Akira is one of my favorite movies, and as an animator myself I can't state how impressive that film is, however this needed to be said! Thank you so much for making htis video!

What a coincidence that the day I hung up my Akira poster, I saw this. Very informative video!

from what I've heard from live-action people there is a modern drive for 48fps there similarly. however actual film makes tend to use 24fps out of choice but the public complains about it as if it is a cost-saving measure.

Local man tears down Akira to teach you to actually appreciate Akira.

Excellent video. Thanks for making it.

Very awesome video. I remember taking animation in college. It was of course traditional hand drawn work and being blown away on the concept of timing. Having a ton of frames is mundane if you don’t have the timing to give it life.

Hope this gets signal boosted at some point! A great short essay on animation quality!!

thank you, animation community needs to hear this -_-

As an 2d animation student I love seeing videos taking a look into technical stuff like this, and agree with first hand experience that a lot of the time, timing just works better on 2s or heck even 3s. 1s aren't the end all be all golden concept-some actions need their frames to hold for longer to create a more natural flow. In a recent cut I did of someone preparing to jump, I broke them down generally as thus. Down on 2s, hold a few drawings at the lowest point for 3s, initial liftoff on 1s, then 2s as they lost momentum. Slow in, slow out. Timing, spacing, and well placed and chosen keys and inbetweens are what define a motion, not it being exactly on 1s.

Amazing review and animation history! Thanks a lot for sharing!

Can't believe they made AKIRA at 48 fps! And they cut it down to 24 because no one would believe them

when i was a kid, the only Japanese animation i liked to watch was Astro Boy. the others, like Gigantor and Speed Racer,all looked cheap to me. as all Japanese cartoons at the time, Astro Boy was very limited animation -done mostly in "3's". when i was an animation student in college, i saw an Astro Boy episode, and realized the difference - even though the animation was exactly the same, AB had much finer, and way more dynamic drawings. the motion was already in the individual drawings, and read much cleaner in "3's". also, the character design was vastly superior...but that's another story.

Thank you sir for clarifying this whole topic 👌

Thanks for this video. I saw the thumbnail before my most recent viewing, and I recalled it a little later into the movie. Akira definitely has its moments where simple 3s suffice, particularly for moments of less intense dialogue, and while I probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, these moments certainly don’t have the same fluidity of the ride scenes.

5:10 those "choppy animation" is art, it's all about the pacing of motion tween made manually by the artist. Variable frame rate is the way

"Its not like this is something people have said in one or two videos" oddly enough, thats almost exactly how a lot of misconceptions in online discussion start. Someone says one in a video they make on the subject, probably just misinformation that they saw on a forum or something that they didn't actually look into but put into their vid anyway, states it as a fact and then that video gets used in the research on the same topic for another video then it just continues down the pipeline of people regurgitating the "factoid" with no real idea of where it came from and if it's even a real fact or not.

Thank you I am making an animation right now I needed this to remind me how why I am making an animation and not just completing my college task

Thank you for this refreshing video !

Animated films vary their frame rate depending on what is going on, some scenes can be 24fps, or more, or less, and a scene could even involve the different planes of cells having different fps.

Akira having more cuts shot on 1's isn't necessarily due to budget but the talent the studio sought out to work on it. This is true for all anime. Budget ≠ animation quality

24 fps animation is underrated. It’s so beautiful.

Excellent points and super important info.

Just rewatched Akira and that old “160,000 cels!!!1” meme really annoyed me. I would watch a 40+ min version of this essay about all the details of animating on 1s, 2s, 3s, smear techniques, everything that feels so lost in the latest age of rotoscoping, CGI, and motion capture/tracking. It’s why the ice skating in Yuri On Ice bothers me so much while the cartoony faceplants from the first season of Ranma 1/2 feel so superior. Off the top of my head, Spider-Verse and Dragon Ball Super Broly have a variety of styles that feel as close to the current standard of expertise as one can get, but the artistry showcased in Akira and older hand-drawn and hand-assembled films is all but a dead language. Really appreciate the effort here to correct this ahistorical, wikifact level non-appreciation for what actually makes great animation great.

I wasn't sure why I disliked the 60fps conversions, I just knew something was wrong with it, but couldn't put my finger on it. I have known about sakuga and that it wasn't just more detailed but it could increase the frame rate at times. After knowing that, I did notice bursts of higher frame rate on anime on much less important scenes, but this video really told me why that might be done, and now I understand why it looks so wrong to have it stuck at 60fps the entire time.

THANK YOU. Next you Aguilar make a video about Redline and the myth that it’s traditionally inked and painted.

Thank you so much for this!

Why every video about Akira I watch is knocking it down. Does it matter? It was a great film, sure there are flaws but nothing is perfect.

One thing I am trying to get to the bottom of is the aesthetic difference between the Anime of the late 80's and 90's and that of current anime. Some things are obvious, modern anime has a tendency to rely on cheats a little more now as the pressure of more and more content is weighed down on animators, we also have more juvenile character designs today. Also, and most obviously, is the introduction of digital art which seems to make everything bolder, crisper and punchier. But I'm struggling to get to the heart of the difference. 90's anime, like Ghost in the Shell has an animation that feels more...I actually can't put my finger on it. It just has more maturity. Has anyone else felt this? Has anyone been able to explain it?

Yo this was very informative I subscribed good stuff brother

Dynamic data is almost always the best solution. Take variable bit rate MP3 vs constant bit rate or Dolby vision vs. HDR10. So, although I did not know (until now) that this is also used in animation, I'm not surprised. But, ya.... I just keep being amazed at how creative and clever these anime artists are!!!

I sware to god if I see one more of those "60 fps interpolated with an AI" videos I will probably gouge my eyes out.

I don't want to be fucked up, but that initial bit about CGI being a "well oiled machine that's grinding itself into the ground" needs some unpacking. Saying that in terms of what it does for execs and shareholders is where I agree with the statement. Just remember the machine runs on 3d artists, too. They're making heartfelt content, it just isn't delivered or processed the same way. They put their effort and heart into that stuff. Also just wanna be clear; I'm no fan of the live action/CGI moneygrab. I hate that shit.

This is my type of content. 600 subs but professional as hell. Keep it up.

beautiful video, thanks

I have been enlightened, and I shall now go forth and utter "um, Actually..."

This kinda fails to educate more than to bash the people obsessed with higher framerates IN OLD MEDIA. This fails to excuse lower framerates in animations as a subproduct of labor, not real a artistry on the selection of the framerate. And really fails at explaining how true 60fps can only work for pieces built from the ground up and are not only possible but the rules of 1 2 3 can be preserved. Real world 48fps is doable to interpolate less than half of the frames to reach seamless 60.

THanks so much for this video. People are eager to jump on statistics like you said when animation is a medium made ofr expression which is not so focused on number of drawnings. Very well explained!

great essay, super informative. thank you for making this

I was with you until the 60fps comment. It seems like a dig thrown in at the last moment of the video without any time to expand on what you mean. 60fps absolutely makes panning shots look better for example, and you don't even necessarily have to interpolate to 60. You can do 48fps, or simply double whatever is given by the video, turning 2s into 1s, 1s into 0.5s, etc. It still maintains that modulated framerate that you say is so important.

This is why I cant understand why people think they can replicate the anime feel with live action, or smooth subtle movement. Most anime is made to be efficient, focusing on poses instead of the tiny details.

Thank you man. This video is really good.

I was quite annoied by how often I heard this misconception too. Happy to see someone pointed it out. As an animator, you can actually tell just by looking when a film is using 1s or 2s (or fewer), there's a very subtle shift in fluidity. Every time someone said "for the first time" or "never again" talking about this issue on akira, especially when comparing it then to other movies or studios, it felt like they were doing poor research (and kind of insulting, like if no one else is working as hard): just ask someone who knows about this stuff instead of looking on wikipedia.

WTF is this so pervasive!? this is the *third* time I've seen this in a single month: You do realize that "cannot be understated" means that it would be impossible for praise to be _too lackluster,_ implying at best indifference, and at worst contempt for the person you're trying to celebrate. To say what you want to say, we say "Cannot be *overstated."* because that implies that no matter how much praise you heap onto the thing, the praise is deserved, because the quality survives under the weight of the added scrutiny that comes along with it. You probably heard someone say that something "should not be" or "cannot go understated." Which may seem like a subtle distinction, but those two statements suggest _intolerability_ of understatement, not implied preference to it.

Only 284 views? What the hell internet! And yes Akira is impressive, but please learn about Disney's legacy. By comparison Disney is still the reigning champion especially when you look at the production of each frame and animation

First video I've seen on this channel. Subbed. :)

This was an informative viewing experience. Thanks for the clarification and detailed information!! Subscribed :)

The first part of this video are great & then only become rather just another "typical bashing" video with that 60 fps animation rants. There are a differences between animation fundamentals & progressions of the techs itself. interpolation techs is function in helping animation techs & production, especially for 2D drawing & stop motion. It's a very young age technology & dismissing it totally while taking the extreme side is not helping at all when we actually do have problems with how low frame rates ruined animation, especially 2.5 & 3D animation that very much have a different approaches in pacing fundamentals.

clinging on 24 or less fps because "its art" or something is a very cultist viewpoint DAINs can smooth animation to 60 fps making them very fluid and creating nice detailed motion. obviously not every animation benefits from that, but then again the technology is in its very infancy

Very well said. This video is short and to the point, and is something I would recommend to watch for any aspiring animators.

Thank you for nailing it