Last night I watched Karas: The Prophecy, an animated OVA. The story is a bit slow and confusing, but the animation and visuals are easily one of the best I have seen in long time. The show uses a combination of 2D and 3D, but takes a much different approach than other animations. Much of the animation is originally 3D-animated, but then drastically altered using 2D techniques to finally achieve the final composition. Wikipedia has a good section on the production of the show, which summarizes the various 2D and 3D techniques used.

This DVD comprises the first half of the full story, which is concluded in Karas: The Revelation. It was actually a six episode OVA, but the U.S. release combined them into two movies. This first DVD is less than an hour and a half long, so they kept the pace moving pretty quickly.  If you want to see some amazing animations and fight scenes, add it to your Netflix queue (or try to find it at your local Blockbuster, if you’re still doing things the old way).

There is also an interesting extra feature, which shows several shots in different phases of production, including the initial bone animations (“bones” control a character and his movements), wireframes, render output, and then the final shot after post-processing. I was very surprised by how different the render output and final shot looked; the production team drastically re-worked some of the scenes to create the final look and feel of the movie, which is definitely unique.