Vampire Hunter D Forum

Completely depends on the art style the anime is going for. Crisper it is, the smoother the animations have to be. But something trying to be "artistic" can get away with some animation slack. Plus, so many anime today have either mid-shots or close ups in have the scenes so the animators only have to worry about minimal movement.

I agree totally. For example: I prefer DieBuster infinitely more than GunBuster; due in large part to the animation style and smoothness. I prefer when the creators aren't afraid of splashing a bit of color and craziness into their work. GunBuster was too plain and, dare I say it, old for me. Don't even get me started on how much I hated the artistic style of the last episode. I liked DieBuster because of its much smother animation, and how it allowed itself to look fun no matter what was going on in the story.
 
A lot of older anime turns me off immediately because of the certain art style and animation they all seem to share. There are a few exceptions, such as most if not all of Miyazaki's films, and old Super Robot shows almost need a bad animation style because it adds to their awesome camp factor.

@MercuryCrusader:
You are right that I do not seek out anime older than me. I've become familiar with anime from his decade and while that does limit me from vast reaches of the anime world I am not deterred. I can appreciate the stories and themes that come from the anime of the past but most certainly animation is a big key in what I watch. 
 
If that animation works with the story then that's good for me (at a minimum). Akira is a great movie that is older than me and I love it. I recently watched Metropolis and while it's a more recent movie it has an older styled animation and storyline. Beyond animation only the story decides what I will watch. It might seem, for lack of a better word, odd, that I watch the anime I watch with purpose and not of a whim.

Hollering out from the past is ME!!! Anyway, back in the day we sat through some pretty pukey anime, but one has to remember how hard it was to get a hold of shows that weren't on American TV back then.  
One must also remember how jacked Japan was financially in those days; most of those series were made for about a ha'penny an episode!  
But they just had it all over on most of the Hannah-Barberra schlock that was on US TV then. It didn't even matter if the show had a good story, the point was it HAD a story! Just the fact that it wasn't half-hour-at-a-time unconnected poop churned out as pablum for the sugar-addled braindead was enough for us! 
So, yeah... When you have the context, it's easy to see how animation doesn't matter in the long run. Now go watch Gatchaman!!!

Story comes first for me. Cases in point: FF7 Advent Children, Final Fantasy the movie, Avatar (meh...). All slickly produced and highly predictable.  
Now, Gunsliger Girl Il Teatrino had some crappy animation and crappy music. But it's story was actually quite moving. Not as good as season #1, but damn good. 
Of course, when great production values marry great story, it's always welcome. Cases in point: Black Lagoon, Gunslinger Girl, The Animatrix, Serial Experiments Lain, Darker Than BLACK. Y'all get the picture. 
 
 
I have a similar conversation with Gamers. They'll think I'm crazy for dissing Halo. But Halo's story eats ***. I prefer Time Splitters Future Perfect (Gamecube) - lotsa fun modes, diverse story missions and a very funny story. They'll think I'm crazy for prefering Chrono Trigger or FF6 (FF3 for SNES) to FF13. But FF13 is unbearably linear and run-o-the-mil. CT and FF6 are very diverse and open-ended. All FF13 has going for it are slick production values.