A scene that leaves animators in awe! Even seasoned Japanese animation directors attest to the hellishly difficult drawing, yet outsiders can’t see where it’s difficult!

In various industries, there are always challenges that can only be understood by seasoned professionals. Recently, a segment from the 1978 Japanese animation “The Story of Xiao Ying” has sparked heated discussions among industry insiders. Whether it is veteran animation director Watanabe Takashi or other animators, they all exclaimed that the difficulty of rendering this scene is akin to “hell level”.

However, many ordinary netizens who do not understand animation production cannot see why this scene is so difficult to draw. Next, let us dive into the high difficulty mystery behind this scene~~

Takashi Watanabe lamented: “This scene is simply hellishly difficult. An animation work from the 1970s can demand animators to depict such scenes mercilessly. I can’t even accomplish it myself, let alone asking others to draw it.”

He shared a scene from the 1978 animation “Xiaoying’s Story” on the X platform, which immediately sparked enthusiastic reactions in the industry.

Many internet users who are not familiar with animation production are curious about this and are asking, what exactly is difficult about this scene?

Takashi Watanabe and other industry professionals explained that the challenge of this scene lies in the multiple constantly moving elements involved: the jumping characters, the flowing dresses, the donkey, the dog, and the horse-drawn carriage. These elements operate independently while functioning simultaneously. Even in modern times, where 3D technology can simplify the creation process, drawing such a scene is still quite challenging. Moreover, in the 1970s, animators completely relied on hand-drawn original frames, manually coloring them one by one. It is hard to imagine how animators back then accurately mastered the motion trajectories of each object in every frame!

 The reactions from industry insiders are as follows:

The 3D animator Kamairuka stated: “Just looking at this static image, you might think there’s nothing special. However, in reality, each element such as the baron (the dog), Xiao Ying, the donkey Berlikar, and the carriage has its own timing for movement, and to make them move together in the scene is truly a hellish difficulty. I really want to see how the original drawing and the timeline were achieved.”

The animator Vivi Wang said: “Little Ying needs to coordinate with the Baron and Berlicarl according to their respective timing. If I receive such an instruction, I would definitely collapse…”

Voice actor Ichida Kazuya exclaimed: “This, this is really amazing! Moreover, it was still during the cel animation era at that time…”

The animation photographer Taki recalled: “When I first watched the opening theme of this work, I didn’t think much about it, but it was only after entering this field that I realized the high difficulty of several shots.”

In recent years, with the advancement of 3D technology, scenes featuring horses or carriages in animations are mostly created using 3D technology. However, this also indirectly reflects the challenges faced by animators in the past when there was no 3D technology support and the astonishing creativity they displayed.