Meaning of 作画?

Japanese Language Questions
1

My question is about the word 作画さくが and the way it’s used in English versus Japanese. In anime discussions I’ve heard of this word being used to describe really fluid looking or quality animation as distinct from the normal quality of animation. The sections where it’s obvious that more effort has gone into animating something specific. But in Japanese this seems to be a word that just means drawing, and it can mean drawing for the purpose of animation. But it looks like this is a loanword English picked up for anime discussion and the meaning seems to have changed some. I ask because I was recently listening to an anime podcast in Japanese that discussed the animation for a show and they would say “作画は良い” so I’m wondering if this refers to the key frames or animation in general. How is this word actually used?

Thanks

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2

Dunno if it helps, but I found an anime jargon wiki and its definition of 作画 is

■作画
(1)
通常、アニメの絵作りの中で、線によって構成される要素をまとめて作画と呼ぶ。

(2)
絵を描くこと。作画の作業を行うこと。

(3)
主に昔のアニメで、スタッフ表記に原画と動画を区別せず「作画」とまとめて表記されることがある。表記順にはじめの方が原画、後の方が動画ということが多い。

(誤用)
「作画＝絵柄の要素」で使うのは、混乱を招くので推奨しない。絵柄は作画に含まれる一要素に過ぎない。

My interpretation of this is that it’s the animation in general (encompassing both the art and the motion), not just the keyframes (原画) or just the inbetween frames (動画) but the overall process of producing all the images that go into the final output (it does not include 絵コンテ (storyboards)). So it can be good, or bad, or indifferent.

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