Sakuga Animation

In Japanese, “Sakuga,” simply means “animation.” The word has been used in different ways but many enthusiasts like myself use it when meaning “impressive motion.” Most anime studios cannot afford to pay the higher financial cost to produce sakuga animation so they reserve sakuga for specific moments. For example, Shonen anime often limits sakuga for important action scenes. While a series that is completely sakuga is preferred, you might appreciate it more if you could compare it to more stiff animation that may have happened the episode before.

It’s now more common for an entire season to be sakuga. As a result, anime series like Gurren Lagann, Little Witch Academia, and Space Dandy are well animated, whereas, older series like Dragon Ball Z, Bleach, and Naruto were more selective with which episode and sometimes a specific scene were sakuga. Finding information on sakuga animation can unfortunately be difficult but I have managed to find some info that might help you better understand sakuga.

Sakuga – is the creation of Anime. We define anime as in hand drawn frame by frame 2D Cel animation which follows the anime production pipeline: traditional, digital, or hybrid, with a mixture of supplemental techniques such as 3DCG and 2DFX. – Sakuga Wiki

Sakuga information (Sources/Further Reading)

Readings:

• The Joy of Sakuga
• Anime Production – Detailed Guide to How Anime is Made and the Talent Behind it!
• A look at the ‘sakuga’ and animation of 2015

Blogs:

• Sakugablog
• Sakugabooru
• The Art of Making Anime Sakuga

Twitter:

• @liborek3
• @sakugaclips
• @SakugaBlog

YouTube:

• Hobbes Sakuga
• Sakuga: The Animation of Anime (2013 presentation)
• Hip-Hop Sakuga