What in the World is “Sakuga?”

The term sakuga, written with the kanji for drawing pictures (作画) is used to refer to an anime's key animation, especially key animation which is rich in fluid and natural movement, or movement which is portrayed extremely expressively. While this may not seem like anything special to those of us raised on high-budget American cartoons, in anime, which is often low-budget and draws from a library of visual shortcuts to get by, witnessing the rare sakuga scene can be a truly spectacular thing.  So why does sakuga so often get mistaken for something that's the result of poor quality control?

Because sakuga animation is so closely linked to the key animator doing the job, it's an area where the focus isn't necessarily having the characters stay on-model or be proportionally-accurate.  Style and movement is the name of the game here, so even if the characters look a bit different or the linework is sketchier than usual, it doesn't necessarily mean that the animation is bad.  Unfortunately there is a mindset that anime should look a particular way and so an episode might feature some spectacular animation, yet the American fandom might pan it anyway (the 10th episode of Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is a recent example that comes to mind, but there are others).  Add to that the fact that even some mediocre-to-bad series might have some awesomely-animated episodes, and the whole thing becomes very confusing.

I'm nowhere near the level of some fans, who can watch a scene and have a reasonably good guess of who animated it, but I do like to think that I can appreciate such scenes when they appear, and know that there are certain studios who consistently provide high-tier animation (BONES and Production I.G. are two examples). But sakuga is pretty difficult for me to define verbally, so I'll provide a few examples:

Scenes animated by Hisashi Mori.  I included this video because there are a couple of clips from the bath house episode of Samurai 7 which was almost universally-panned by my friends as being badly-animated.  Looking at it, it's really not.  Here's a longer clip of a scene from that episode (the sound is off a bit but it doesn't really matter).  There's a lot of energy in the destruction of objects, and a lot of the same bodily distortion that can also be seen in Kemonozume.

A hand-to-hand combat scene from Real Drive episode 16, by Norio Matsumoto.  The choreography in this scene is spectacular and there are a some dynamic and daring camera angles.

Some scenes by Ryo-Timo, who I'm mostly aware of because of Noein (see some insane keyframe work from that series here).  So many frames!

Some scenes by Mitsuo Iso, who went on to create my favorite anime, Dennou Coil.  There's something very... loose about the way he portrays character movement.  There's a lot of counter-movement in the characters' arms, a detail which you don't often see.  It's mesmerizing to me. Just for good measure, here is another cool Dennou Coil animation-related video.

And that stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.  Like I said, I'm no expert and can't usually tell who animated on whatever series, but I do know of a few episodes and series that are worth watching for this type of animation.  Here are a few recommendations:

Anything by Masaaki Yuasa - Kemonozume immediately springs to mind, but Kaiba and the currently-airing Tatami Galaxy are both good examples of a bunch of animators getting together and being awesome.

Michiko to Hatchin episode 19 - There are multiple episodes of this series that could fit here, but the second half of episode 19 has a strikingly-different look than the rest of the series.  I wish I knew who was in charge of animating this part, because it continues to impress me even when I go back and watch it.

Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou episode 10 - Not only is this episode important in terms of character development (it's a great little stand-alone episode that helps to flesh out both Takashi and Reiko), it's got some great creature animation and some impressive animation of Takashi running through the house.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann - Pretty much the entire series.  Despite how anyone might feel about the story and how it's conveyed, this series features some of the most energy-filled animation of any series in recent memory.

Dennou Coil - Yes, pretty much all of it.  It's got lots of excellent character movement to appreciate, including a lot of subtle differences in how the characters carry themselves.  There's plenty of action, also (episode 4 is a good example of this). 

There are many more than this, obviously, and some great animation really does end up in otherwise forgettable series, so it's worth keeping an eye out for the seasonal sakuga compilations that get put together on youtube by various people.