I spend a lot of my time researching live-action anime[0][1], and there's an important thing to learn from Japanese animators: sometimes an animation style may seem technically lacking, but visually stunning.
When animator Ken Arto was on the Trash Taste podcast he mentioned how Disney had the resources to perfect the animation, while in Japan they had to achieve more with less.
This basically shifts the "what is good animation" discussion in ways that are not as clear from looking at the stats.
These kinds of perspectives are often found and parroted in perceived 'elite' circles. It's no wonder the author works in Epic Games, a place in which one would need high technical chops to work there.
It's also no wonder why such people get disconnected from some realities on the ground. Sure on paper people do want higher quality things but they don't even know what those are. Most people have low-brow tastes; they'd take a cheaper and well-marketed thing over a 1% improvement.
Japan didn't need to compete on the same ladder for success, it needed to mix various elements of what they're good at to achieve it's own success.
Exactly right. Sometimes those "higher quality" things may lead to reduced quality, most commonly by reaching the uncanny valley.
Interestingly that does not happen in the opposite direction. When "reducing" certain stats on real footage (which is what live-action anime should do[0]) the uncanny valley is skipped. Maybe it's harder to fall into when going backwards? More research is needed.
We're really good at filling in the blanks with less data. That's why even the best animated scenes may not hit as hard as a page of manga with 6-7 panels dedicated to the scene. we imagine that scene ourselves, guided by the panels. Or why a recreation of a scene in a book can fall short to your imagination.
To contrast the above comment, video games don't let you "skip" steps these days. It's unsurprising to hear the author works at Epic Games because you get a lot less room to be experimental in that 3d real-time realm compared to any other medium like movies. When interactivity is involved, fluidity and responsiveness is key to keeping a player immersed, compared to a movie that could suddenly lower its framerate to create an ironically more engaging fight scene.
When animator Ken Arto was on the Trash Taste podcast he mentioned how Disney had the resources to perfect the animation, while in Japan they had to achieve more with less.
This basically shifts the "what is good animation" discussion in ways that are not as clear from looking at the stats.
[0] https://blog.nestful.app/p/ways-to-use-nestful-outlining-ani...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiyqBHNNSlo