Animating Walks: Japanese vs Western Walk Cycles

Let's take a look at the way different countries animate walk cycles.

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[Dirkoin]

when i was learning animation, it was never mentioned there are different styles of animation between countries. We would always just look at Disney and or other American productions for references

[ilsognoastratto]

As a beginner animator, I found this really interesting: sometimes the differences between western and japanese animation, apart from the drawing style, can be found in small, but crucial details

[lilyl]

the Japanese walk looks more spritely, 'spirited', and the US one seems more heavy footed and 'cool' swagger, which is interesting. I thought it was a cultural aesthetic choice, but it's also something technical? fascinating!

[misterprickly]

Though I find the Japanese WC to be a faster one to do, I like the western version for it's smoothness and beauty.
Personally, I would go with the style that works best with the character.
Kind of like, the way Toy Story had Woody animated using inverse kinematics, to move more like a rag doll and Buzz was animated using forward kinematics, to move more like an action figure.

[sebbychou]

Problem is you're not animating the "western walk" with the follow through delay between the hip/arms and head that the extra drawing(s) allow you to do, that you can't do with just one up/down. The way you did it you were left with just the in-between without your extreme position key, destroying the dynamism of the walk. A similar problem happens when 2D animators go from 12fps 2D animation to 30fps (or 60fps) 3D animation where you end with the extremes at the wrong place and the movements looks... off.

[darkwraithcovenantindustries]

Japanese animators have a lot of experience becoming as efficient as possible with little hacks to boost productivity that may seem small on their own, but when combined they have a big impact. The walk cycle difference is a good example of this. This has been honed like a blade over the years, since animation exploded as an artform in the 70s into the 90s and beyond. This is because there is just so much more animated and drawn content that comes from Japan compared to the West, there is such an increased demand. When you have tight deadlines, you better be efficient, or you are going to burn out. A lot of mangakas experience burnout in Japan, which is a darker side of the manga and animation industry. Western animation is more influenced by film, so it's much much more fluid, at the expense of being much more time consuming, we also don't have the same often extreme overwork culture in the West. It's so interesting to see how all of this has given Japanese animation such a unique feel, while still managing to convey so much. Great video, I learned so much from this one!

[fluffyboi]

A little history lesson to add some context; When Disney and Warner Bros were starting out and animating their respective films and cartoons, animators had a lot more leeway with their walk cycles, allowing them to essentially "create" new patterns of walking that don't actually exist. This combined with their weekly quotas put the animators in a spot where they did what fit better into their work quotas.
The reason there was a problem with animating on threes was that it always had a chance of not meshing well with another layer (usually another character or object) that was being animated on twos. and if it did mesh well, the cadence of the exposures would suddenly be slowed, sped up to ones, then back to twos.
when they wanted to make everything smooth, the animators would simply boost everything onto ones, and switch back to twos as needed.

Unfortunately what animation that has been grandfathered in is not what it used to be here in the west.

[KaneyoriHK]

It all should boil down to preference. I prefer the smoothness of the Western Walk Cycle, but like the ease of the Japanese Walk Cycle. So I would change up which I'm using depending on the scene. If there's more emphasis on a character walking in, I'd choose more frames, but for general walking I'll stick to more simplicity.

[deddrz]

After looking at the western one made me realize why the walks I originally did were either much faster or slower than these walks. I would do the key poses that people think of(the one that is used in the Japanese) then create one in-between for each of the in-between poses, so when it was finished it would total either 8 frames on ones, or 16 on twos, rather than being 12 frames like how the western and Japanese animation is paced. Overall, at least in this example, while the keyframes are a bit less iconic, I feel like the down and up pose not being as strong of poses actually makes it feel a bit more natural to me.

[TheAttmaster]

Man I've had The Animator's Survival Kit on my shelf for years at this point, these videos are making me want to finally give that thing a proper read.

[angeldude]

I can definitely say that the lower framerate of the Japanese-style was very noticeable, and even a little distracting next to the much more smooth western-style with its higher framerate.

[kuprukuula]

The Japanese version is more stylized. The western version is more alive. If on ones I think it would start to create that illusion of a living, breathing creature moving on paper, which is what the western animation tried to achieve.

[qmulus_yt]

the western method is smoother while the japanese method is more fluid. the japanese method is also more practical when it comes to animated tv shows since those have more budget restraints than theatrical releases

[권순재-jf]

Hmm... On what basis do you distinguish between the Japanese and Western versions?
I was trained in the U.S. by Pixar animators, but I was taught in the contact-down-passing-up style, and that's how it's taught in Survival Kit too, which is a popular book for American animators.

[Sangor-SH]

I've learned a lot from this underrated channel, i even watched your videos again and again, and learned even more. I hope you'll reach the subs that deserves you. You're one of the best anime animation teacher.

[kieguy]

The quick summary...this video is really about the different frames per second of film/animation standards of different countries and how that affects drawing out walk cycles, not that people in different cultures walk differently or instinctively depict people walking differently.

Of course different people can and do walk different... And that's what I was expecting this video was going to be about...am I wrong here?

[Andre_Shelf]

Thanks for the insight! The way i was taught when i started was that the contact and passing poses were "fixed", but you can put the down position on either 3 or 5 and the up position on either 9 or 11 (depending on your own creative decision on how you want the walk to look)

[Mechaghostman]

I prefer the look of the western one because it looks smoother. It feels more alive.

[roccobot]

The Japanese version is definitely less smooth, and definitely better to my eyes. A great demonstration of the fact that smoother ≠ better

[khunagueroagnis]

Dude, your awesome! I think the Japanese one looks more "choppy" and pretty 🤩