"I think Murata is trying to tell us something"
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What's wrong with S2 isn't the animation.
Yes the animation is pretty mediocre. It has its moments, but overall it's pretty poor. Sound effects are bad (over saturated, overused, etc). Music direction is bad. But that's not the problem. The real problem is the pacing, which it's been discussed here in the sub before (I believe) but more importantly, panel importance, which often go hand in hand.
Recently I finished binge-watching S2 in its Blu-Ray version. Last time I watched it was when it was airing, one episode a week so I didn't really notice this. I did notice a lack of proper pacing though but the importance of panels didn't really hit me until I binge-watched it. I'm not an expert in this matter by any means, I've just read many good manga (pretty much only shonen/seinen manga) and what I've found they all have in common is that they know how to **hype** the current events, or following events, through their panels.
This panel importance is determined by 2 factors: the importance the author wants to convey to the reader, and the importance the reader themselves gives to them. Which is often determined by if the reader actually understood the panel how it was meant to be understood. If you don't really understand the meaning behind a panel, you won't really give it any importance, right?
Here lies the problem. JC Staff fails to understand this, which is basic but really critical in battle manga. Yes it's their very first battle manga into anime adaptation they've done (correct me if I'm wrong) but that doesn't or shouldn't mean they don't know how to properly read panels and adapt them into animation. Since they miss this fundamental point, they make the pacing horrible and thus, they also fail to hype the event at hand, and/or following events.
I've gathered a few examples to better explain this.
[This is at the end of S1E8. The music is used perfectly, slowly building the hype for a perfect culmination. The music itself, the feeling of uncertainty and Saitama's determination all hype the viewer. Despite watching this scene several times, it still hypes me up. Every frame stays on screen enough for the viewer to properly digest. The animation is irrelevant.](https://reddit.com/link/1cj67mh/video/i0zuavcdu6yc1/player)
In this sequence of 4 pages of chapter 26, starting from [this one](https://cubari.moe/read/gist/Z2lzdC9mdW5reWhpcHBvLzFkNDBiZDVkYWUxMWUwM2E2YWYyMGU1YTlhMDMwZDgxL3Jhdy9vcG0uanNvbg/26/3/), we see in the third page what we get to watch in the anime in the next episode. So they decided to swap some panels around to hype the viewer so they could give them a little more than a minute of the background song, so it builds up until the end with that serious Saitama panel.
Now that we've seen how good pacing and panel adaptation is done, here a few examples from S2.
​
[Chapter 70. In this page, the first panel shows Suiryu kicking Saitama up in the air. The last panel shows him blurry, to convey speed.](https://preview.redd.it/vmozzf9tu6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=92a7b81637367ab307860fe2b4167bb30988c48c)
​
[First panel shows Suiryu disappearing and appearing suddenly with Saitama noticing this. In the second panel, ONE tries to convey that he was so fast it literally felt like appearing in another place all of a sudden. Despite this, Saitama doesn't lose track of him. You can see this in Saitama's eyes, specifically locked on Suiryu's incoming kick.](https://preview.redd.it/n2j0t6buu6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=94bf19b0d1f8ce1337aa000fe370c1d3b1d4d269)
Now how did JC Staff adapt this into anime?
​
[Horribly. And this is not coming from the animation. Panel importance plays a huge role here. Yes we know Suiryu is fast. That doesn't mean he only needs 1 or 2 frames for his attack. The original intention is completely missed since they didn't give enough frames for his kick for the viewer to appreciate it. He's supposed to appear suddenly, next to Saitama, with a menacing look. He seems he appears from above him and really slowly at that. Also
Yes the animation is pretty mediocre. It has its moments, but overall it's pretty poor. Sound effects are bad (over saturated, overused, etc). Music direction is bad. But that's not the problem. The real problem is the pacing, which it's been discussed here in the sub before (I believe) but more importantly, panel importance, which often go hand in hand.
Recently I finished binge-watching S2 in its Blu-Ray version. Last time I watched it was when it was airing, one episode a week so I didn't really notice this. I did notice a lack of proper pacing though but the importance of panels didn't really hit me until I binge-watched it. I'm not an expert in this matter by any means, I've just read many good manga (pretty much only shonen/seinen manga) and what I've found they all have in common is that they know how to **hype** the current events, or following events, through their panels.
This panel importance is determined by 2 factors: the importance the author wants to convey to the reader, and the importance the reader themselves gives to them. Which is often determined by if the reader actually understood the panel how it was meant to be understood. If you don't really understand the meaning behind a panel, you won't really give it any importance, right?
Here lies the problem. JC Staff fails to understand this, which is basic but really critical in battle manga. Yes it's their very first battle manga into anime adaptation they've done (correct me if I'm wrong) but that doesn't or shouldn't mean they don't know how to properly read panels and adapt them into animation. Since they miss this fundamental point, they make the pacing horrible and thus, they also fail to hype the event at hand, and/or following events.
I've gathered a few examples to better explain this.
[This is at the end of S1E8. The music is used perfectly, slowly building the hype for a perfect culmination. The music itself, the feeling of uncertainty and Saitama's determination all hype the viewer. Despite watching this scene several times, it still hypes me up. Every frame stays on screen enough for the viewer to properly digest. The animation is irrelevant.](https://reddit.com/link/1cj67mh/video/i0zuavcdu6yc1/player)
In this sequence of 4 pages of chapter 26, starting from [this one](https://cubari.moe/read/gist/Z2lzdC9mdW5reWhpcHBvLzFkNDBiZDVkYWUxMWUwM2E2YWYyMGU1YTlhMDMwZDgxL3Jhdy9vcG0uanNvbg/26/3/), we see in the third page what we get to watch in the anime in the next episode. So they decided to swap some panels around to hype the viewer so they could give them a little more than a minute of the background song, so it builds up until the end with that serious Saitama panel.
Now that we've seen how good pacing and panel adaptation is done, here a few examples from S2.
​
[Chapter 70. In this page, the first panel shows Suiryu kicking Saitama up in the air. The last panel shows him blurry, to convey speed.](https://preview.redd.it/vmozzf9tu6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=92a7b81637367ab307860fe2b4167bb30988c48c)
​
[First panel shows Suiryu disappearing and appearing suddenly with Saitama noticing this. In the second panel, ONE tries to convey that he was so fast it literally felt like appearing in another place all of a sudden. Despite this, Saitama doesn't lose track of him. You can see this in Saitama's eyes, specifically locked on Suiryu's incoming kick.](https://preview.redd.it/n2j0t6buu6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=94bf19b0d1f8ce1337aa000fe370c1d3b1d4d269)
Now how did JC Staff adapt this into anime?
​
[Horribly. And this is not coming from the animation. Panel importance plays a huge role here. Yes we know Suiryu is fast. That doesn't mean he only needs 1 or 2 frames for his attack. The original intention is completely missed since they didn't give enough frames for his kick for the viewer to appreciate it. He's supposed to appear suddenly, next to Saitama, with a menacing look. He seems he appears from above him and really slowly at that. Also
completely missing Saitama keeping tabs on him at all times. Animation is bad, yes but once again it's irrelevant. It's the horrible pacing and important panels not being given proper weight that makes the scene bad.](https://reddit.com/link/1cj67mh/video/l3ylpirqv6yc1/player)
Another quick example from this same fight:
​
[In this whole page panel from Chapter 71, Suiryu splits the ring in half.](https://preview.redd.it/sosq6446y6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=a4cf73f219374aaa8606ed7e03891d547afaf769)
​
[Now he starts to torn his side of the ring to pieces, doing so several times more in the next pages.](https://preview.redd.it/avrj8ph9y6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=3860bbac4f4b6146e6d0d9d0a4732c5cef3bac19)
​
[Despite Suiryu shattering his side of the ring with all of his attacks, Saitama makes a hell of a lot more damage to his side of the ring with only his butt attack. That's the joke, that's what ONE wants the reader to see. Double page panel dedicated to it.](https://preview.redd.it/rw4qnokky6yc1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8a7efb473154125d2055c915686cb89f60785bd)
Now for JC Staff turn:
[They voiced over the panels where the announcer says the ring has been split in two and when he says Suiryu has cracked the ring. They're giving importance to it, that's good. But then what happens? When Saitama completely destroys his side of the ring, they literally \\"show\\" it for 1 still frame, for a total of 4 frames where 3 of those are in movement. They don't even show it enough for the viewer to see it! And also...](https://reddit.com/link/1cj67mh/video/kewje87jx6yc1/player)
Looking at the frame in question...
​
[ They completely missed the joke! Saitama's side of the ring doesn't even look more destroyed than Suiryu's!](https://preview.redd.it/mdhfc0u207yc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8950c78cbd9470ff860e8bcbf40e815116a370b)
Now one last example of this (I had several more but I believe the point has already came across). I wanted to show this one as well because even though it also shows JC Staff failing at panel importance, it's a little different.
​
[Chapter 77. The joke is that Watchdog Man, being the good dog that he is, will always give you the paw. That's it. He's perfectly parrying each one of Garou's attacks by giving him the paw \(or \\"shaking hands\\"\). This is shown as flashbacks, by the way, just before Garou gets humbled by King's wrath.](https://preview.redd.it/5ol70q9n17yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=64851edd5641231ce7fba6a5afefda13eb69ac59)
JC Staff did it a bit differently. Instead of showing it as flashbacks like in the manga, they put it in between Suiryu and Gouketsu's fight. Suiryu gets knocked down by Gouketsu, they show the Garou/Watchdog Man scene, then back to the Suiryu Gouketsu fight. Not necessarily a wrong directing decision, but weird nonetheless.
[They show Watchdog Man giving the paw. Garou says this. But they're not giving it the importance ONE gave it in his panel. It's literally THE joke of the fight. This time JC Staff got the joke, but didn't gave it the importance it deserved. Zooming in, showing WDM's paws on top of Garou's hand more slowly, giving it more frames \(not just repeating the same 3 or 4 frames over and over like they did\).](https://reddit.com/link/1cj67mh/video/grwmowd227yc1/player)
So, to sum it up, sadly, unless JC Staff learnt quite a lot after these years and/or they have a different director now and also different sound fx/music directors, I don't think much is gonna change for Season 3. Once again, animation is not at issue here. If you can properly translate what the author of the original source intended to convey, you don't need good animation. Music is a different topic because even though they had all of this incredibly exceptional soundtrack at their disposal, since they don't know how to pace and hype while adapting the panels, it's now wonder they also don't know how to do that with music (they did know how to overuse Genos theme
Another quick example from this same fight:
​
[In this whole page panel from Chapter 71, Suiryu splits the ring in half.](https://preview.redd.it/sosq6446y6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=a4cf73f219374aaa8606ed7e03891d547afaf769)
​
[Now he starts to torn his side of the ring to pieces, doing so several times more in the next pages.](https://preview.redd.it/avrj8ph9y6yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=3860bbac4f4b6146e6d0d9d0a4732c5cef3bac19)
​
[Despite Suiryu shattering his side of the ring with all of his attacks, Saitama makes a hell of a lot more damage to his side of the ring with only his butt attack. That's the joke, that's what ONE wants the reader to see. Double page panel dedicated to it.](https://preview.redd.it/rw4qnokky6yc1.png?width=1600&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8a7efb473154125d2055c915686cb89f60785bd)
Now for JC Staff turn:
[They voiced over the panels where the announcer says the ring has been split in two and when he says Suiryu has cracked the ring. They're giving importance to it, that's good. But then what happens? When Saitama completely destroys his side of the ring, they literally \\"show\\" it for 1 still frame, for a total of 4 frames where 3 of those are in movement. They don't even show it enough for the viewer to see it! And also...](https://reddit.com/link/1cj67mh/video/kewje87jx6yc1/player)
Looking at the frame in question...
​
[ They completely missed the joke! Saitama's side of the ring doesn't even look more destroyed than Suiryu's!](https://preview.redd.it/mdhfc0u207yc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8950c78cbd9470ff860e8bcbf40e815116a370b)
Now one last example of this (I had several more but I believe the point has already came across). I wanted to show this one as well because even though it also shows JC Staff failing at panel importance, it's a little different.
​
[Chapter 77. The joke is that Watchdog Man, being the good dog that he is, will always give you the paw. That's it. He's perfectly parrying each one of Garou's attacks by giving him the paw \(or \\"shaking hands\\"\). This is shown as flashbacks, by the way, just before Garou gets humbled by King's wrath.](https://preview.redd.it/5ol70q9n17yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=64851edd5641231ce7fba6a5afefda13eb69ac59)
JC Staff did it a bit differently. Instead of showing it as flashbacks like in the manga, they put it in between Suiryu and Gouketsu's fight. Suiryu gets knocked down by Gouketsu, they show the Garou/Watchdog Man scene, then back to the Suiryu Gouketsu fight. Not necessarily a wrong directing decision, but weird nonetheless.
[They show Watchdog Man giving the paw. Garou says this. But they're not giving it the importance ONE gave it in his panel. It's literally THE joke of the fight. This time JC Staff got the joke, but didn't gave it the importance it deserved. Zooming in, showing WDM's paws on top of Garou's hand more slowly, giving it more frames \(not just repeating the same 3 or 4 frames over and over like they did\).](https://reddit.com/link/1cj67mh/video/grwmowd227yc1/player)
So, to sum it up, sadly, unless JC Staff learnt quite a lot after these years and/or they have a different director now and also different sound fx/music directors, I don't think much is gonna change for Season 3. Once again, animation is not at issue here. If you can properly translate what the author of the original source intended to convey, you don't need good animation. Music is a different topic because even though they had all of this incredibly exceptional soundtrack at their disposal, since they don't know how to pace and hype while adapting the panels, it's now wonder they also don't know how to do that with music (they did know how to overuse Genos theme