As the overseas reception and popularity of 'Fate/Zero' continued to rise day by day, Kamiyā Yuu no longer had the luxury of paying attention to it. Not long after completing the preparations for the 'Throne of Heroes' project, he threw himself headfirst back into the enormous undertaking of anime production.
The production of 'Fate/Zero' remained three episodes ahead of its broadcast schedule. While Episode 8 had just aired, production had already reached the first major climax of the Holy Grail War—the "Holy Grail Debate," also known as the "Banquet of the Four Kings."
There was no need to emphasize how important these episodes were.
Based on the original work, Kamiyā Yuu expanded the Holy Grail Debate into two full episodes, significantly rewriting the original's rather weak exchanges. The ideological clashes between the Heroic Spirits and their verbal confrontations became much more intense, while additional action scenes reinforced the persuasiveness of their arguments.
These two episodes would likely become the greatest challenge Yosuganosora Animation Studio had faced since its establishment.
First came Iskandar, the King of Conquerors, unleashing 'Ionioi Hetairoi' to massacre the Assassins.
Immediately afterward came the awe-inspiring spectacle of Lancer Zhao Yun standing alone against an army of hundreds of thousands.
The complexity of animating scenes like these far exceeded the narrow definition of ordinary television animation.
Kamiyā Yuu had no intention of cutting corners the way the original adaptation had.
To properly convey the overwhelming scale of 'Ionioi Hetairoi', he mobilized the full strength of Yosuganosora Animation Studio.
The key animation department, animation department, compositing department, and even freelance key animators willing to accept outside commissions were all called into action.
Now possessing the resources of a large-scale animation company, Yosuganosora Animation Studio was operating at full capacity, and nearly every employee could feel the mounting pressure.
...
Conference room.
The entire senior staff of Yosuganosora Animation Studio had gathered.
Animation director Gogyo Ruri flipped through the storyboard and key animation layouts Kamiyā Yuu had drawn.
The demanding requirements made her unconsciously furrow her brows.
"This section is extremely complicated, and it's also quite long. I think it'd be better to animate it on threes. Our production schedule isn't looking good. We can't afford to delay progress just to preserve quality."
The "on threes" Gogyo Ruri referred to was the animation industry's way of describing frame timing.
Generally speaking, animation reached a level where the human eye perceived movement as smooth at twenty-four frames per second.
Animating on ones meant twenty-four unique drawings every second—full animation at 24 fps.
Nowadays, that standard mostly exists only in Disney productions or extremely early Japanese animation created before Osamu Tezuka revolutionized the industry.
Animating on twos meant dividing those twenty-four frames by two, resulting in twelve drawings per second.
This was the standard for theatrical anime.
Most of Hayao Miyazaki's films were animated in twos, and Yosuganosora Animation Studio generally followed the same standard.
That was one of the reasons anime fans praised the studio for its consistently high production values.
Animating on threes meant dividing twenty-four frames by three, producing eight drawings per second.
This was the standard for ordinary commercial television anime.
It was also the technique pioneered by Osamu Tezuka in 'Astro Boy'.
Before 'Astro Boy', Japanese studios generally believed animation had to be produced on one.
At the time, many studios considered animating on three, nothing more than cutting corners and an insult to the medium, convinced that audiences would never accept it.
Instead, after 'Astro Boy' aired, it became a phenomenal success, achieving an average nationwide television rating of thirty percent.
Once studios realized viewers did not care nearly as much about frame smoothness as they had expected, the entire industry embraced animation on threes.
This dramatically lowered production costs and difficulty, allowing the anime industry to flourish.
That was why Osamu Tezuka was honored as the father of Japanese animation.
He was not the first person to create animation, but his adoption of animation on three fundamental levels transformed the industry.
Naturally, animation on fours also existed.
However, because using only six drawings per second resulted in noticeably choppy motion, it was generally reserved for unimportant scenes or transitional shots.
No anime was produced entirely on twos or entirely on threes.
Studios typically mixed different frame timings.
Theatrical films mainly used animation on twos, occasionally switching to threes for less important scenes.
Commercial television anime primarily used threes, with occasional cuts animated on twos.
Those higher-frame cuts were often described by fans as "burning the budget" or "mysteriously high frame rates."
The complexity of producing animation could roughly be summarized with the following equation:
Animation frame rate × Drawing quality = Production complexity (or, in other words, whether it looks like the studio is "burning the budget.")
If both the artwork quality and frame rate were high, then there was no question—the production was burning through its budget.
Sitting nearby, Morishita Aoi rubbed her forehead helplessly.
"This time, I agree with Ruri. Production management has already contacted every freelance key animator we could reach. Most of them already have work scheduled, and the time available isn't enough for them to meet either our quantity or quality requirements. Even when we offered higher rates, quite a few freelancers simply turned us down after seeing how complicated these cuts were."
"But animating these scenes entirely on threes won't work."
Yūki Chinatsu patted her chest confidently before offering her own suggestion.
"The character movements would end up too stiff and choppy compared to our usual standards. Smooth action scenes have already become one of our studio's trademarks, and Yuu doesn't seem like the type to compromise on that. So at the very least, we should animate them in twos and keep them fully animated. That'll be enough to bring out the impact of these cuts."
After speaking, she glanced expectantly at Kamiyā Yuu, hoping for his approval.
The "full animation" Yūki Chinatsu referred to did not mean animation on ones.
Rather, it referred to full character animation.
For example, in ordinary television anime, when a character speaks, often only the mouth moves while the facial expression, body, and even the background remain completely static.
This is known as limited animation.
Full animation, by contrast, means that while a character is speaking, their facial expressions change naturally, their body moves subtly, and when necessary, even the background shifts dynamically.
In limited animation, only the mouth needs to be redrawn while everything else remains unchanged.
With full animation, the background, the character's body, and their facial expressions all require fresh drawings.
The workload between the two approaches differs enormously, and so does the final visual quality.
Full animation is generally considered part of the overall drawing quality.
Incidentally, most Disney films and Hayao Miyazaki's works are fully animated.
By contrast, commercial television anime—including productions famous for "burning the budget" such as 'Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works' and 'Fate/Zero'—are still primarily examples of limited animation.
At present, the battle scenes in 'RWBY', 'Magical Girl Nanoha', and 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica' are all fully animated, providing audiences with spectacular visual experiences.
In fact, part of what made the opening episode of the original 'Magical Girl Nanoha' feel so different was precisely its use of full animation.
Even so, its frame timing itself still remained at the level of animation on twos or threes.