Animation technique from Studio Gainax — objects bounce elastically, deform briefly on impact, then snap back. Less physics-accurate, more lively.
If you watch anime from Studio Gainax in the 1980s and 90s, you'll notice something immediately: the movements feel different. Not stiffer than classic limited animation, but not more realistic either. Instead, everything gets a kind of springy vitality — characters bounce off like rubber, their bodies deform for a frame or two before snapping back. That's the Gainax Bounce, and it was less an accident than a deliberate design choice.
The technique works like this: instead of animating a movement linearly or with a smooth ease-in/ease-out, the animator incorporates a brief elastic deformation after an impact or change in direction. A character jumps to the ground — instead of just landing, their body compresses for two or three frames, then shoots back up. A fist hits — the target deforms for a tiny moment. This overshoot-and-return motion feels more alive, almost cartoonish, but it gives scenes energy rather than ridiculousness. On set, we sometimes call it "Bounce-Through": the animator "bounces through" the rigid pose. In editing, you can spot it immediately because movements don't end in a pose but oscillate multiple times.
Why did Gainax develop this? Limited animation required fewer frames — but without life, it looks dead. The bounce solved that problem: maximum expressiveness with minimal additional drawings. You'll recognize it from Hideaki Anno's work on Neon Genesis Evangelion or the early Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann sequences. Modern studios have also adapted it — not always as extreme as Gainax, but the DNA is there.
In digital 3D animation, this can be emulated through keyframe easing and spline curves. The right overshoot value in your motion graphics tool (usually 1.1 to 1.5) creates the same effect. The problem: too much looks silly, too little is ineffective. It's a balance between "lively" and "believable" — and finding it takes experience. On set with real actors, this obviously doesn't work, but when you're post-processing motion capture data, you can write this elastic character into the curves.