I’m not dead! I’ll be slowing down, though; I was on a manga binge when I started this blog, doing a post every three days, so I’ll be cutting back significantly with two posts a month—still better than dead, right?

Ookubo Atsushi‘s Soul Eater is one of my favorite manga, but it’s no secret that it’s gone downhill since entering the third major arc. Anime Kritik theorized that Ookubo had generally stopped caring about his story, and before he could take another breath, Soul Eater Not! had been announced.

This new story stars a young Japanese girl whom I promise will be voiced by Hanazawa Kana in the anime adaption, freshly moved to America to attend DWMA. Right out of the gate, Maka Albarn shows up to cheer on our new protagonista, and the cameos don’t stop there.

Kilik is seen on this billboard as a “sponsored” meister, which is interesting because Kilik was introduced later into the original manga, whereas now we see his influence on the early part of the narrative. Soul Eater Not! apparently starts around the same time as the original manga, as first evidenced by Sid-sensei still being alive (whereas he’s already dead in his first appearance during Soul Eater chapter 4).

Sid also makes a reference to calling “nurse Medusa” later in the chapter. Anyway, Tsugumi, whom I’m only likely to remember as “Halberd,” is so-far a boring protagonista—I’ve seen too many characters like her to care, unless she shows some spectacular quality. Sadly, nothing about Soul Eater Not! is spectacular as of the first chapter.

Copying Maka's hairstyle to give her confidence was the funnest moment of her character so far.

Soul Eater’s strong point has always been its unique, stylish, and detailed artwork. None of those adjectives describes Soul Eater Not!. The art is simple, not stylish at all, and not particularly attractive. Whereas Soul Eater boasts some of the most memorable and cool character designs around, Not’s characters are utterly forgettable. It feels awkward that this work is being made after Soul Eater, when it clearly doesn’t live up to it. I understand that it may be difficult for Ookubo to do this chapter while also working on Soul Eater, but then why bother?

I think I found my favorite character.

Not! isn’t bereft of potential. It seems like Ookubo wants to treat it as a magical girl/shoujo-ai version of Soul Eater. Maka always felt like a shoujo protagonista to me, so maybe Ookubo wants to tap back into that feeling. Halberd’s relationship with the other two girls will clearly be a focus here, and will likely lead to some buddy-comedy trappings. I’m a fan of that genre, so I don’t hate the idea, but what I’d really like is for Ookubo to focus on making Soul Eater good again instead of worrying about this.

Halberds are my favorite weapons, so I do love their inclusion here.

Honestly, I can’t get my hopes up about Soul Eater Not!. It’d be a different story if Soul Eater was going great and this chapter was released; it’d be a different story if Soul Eater was in the state it is, but Not! had a strong start. With Soul Eater being weak and Not! starting weak, it’s hard to have faith in Ookubo.

At least it ended on this wonderful note.

(Images taken from Mangastream & Bintopia‘s scanslation.)

</bait title>. The answer is Kanbe Mamoru, who directed Elfen Lied and was an episode director and storyboarder on 14 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura. I’ve got a number of posts planned regarding Kanbe because his career fascinates me, but for now I want to talk about his influence on those episodes.

Kanbe worked as episode director on episodes 5, 9, 12, 16, 19, 21, 25, 28, 30, 33, 37, 41, 44, and 48, and he storyboarded all of those except for forty-eight. He performed those two jobs on more episodes than any of the other episode directors (of which there are 24) or storyboarders (of which there are 23) across the 70-episode series.

I can’t say for sure how much influence Kanbe had on the episodes he did, nor how important he was to the show in general, because I don’t have the means to find out. Kanbe’s work, while somewhat prolific, lacks enough consistency (and I lack enough experience with it) for me to easily say what things might be his doing. However, within the context of the series, I can look at what things were similar between the episodes he worked on—in fact, I got the idea for this post after noticing those trends in his episodes.

Thing is, most of these aspects aren’t unique to Kanbe’s episodes. There may be one or two other episodes in the series that contain any of these qualities. These are just ones that happened to occur in multiple episodes that he worked on.

First, allow me to give brief summaries of the episodes he worked on (copied from Wikipedia, edited by me for style. I apologize that some of these were written by idiots, some of whom apparently watched the dub). You do not need to read these to understand this post, so skip to the end if you just want the point:

Episode Five: Sakura, a Panda, and a Cute Shop - On the way to school, Sakura meets Matsumoto Maki, who’s opening a stuffed doll shop called Twin Bells. Sakura and her friends visit the shop after school to find most of the merchandise unpacked, so they offer to help put it on display. Mihara Chiharu, who has a fondness for stuffed animals, buys a stuffed panda, but it disappears shortly after she takes it home. Sakura discovers the panda back in Twin Bells and Maki explain the reason for moving her shop to this town—her business has been plagued by mysterious happenings that almost forced her to close down. While Tomoyo distracts Maki in the back room, Sakura and Kero search the shop to find The Jump, which escapes with all the stuffed dolls. At Penguin Park, The Jump grows into a kaiju by absorbing the stuffed dolls, but it knocks itself out after it trips and falls, allowing Sakura to capture it.

Episode Nine: Sakura and the Mysterious Brooch - Sakura, usually cheerful, is forlorn by Shaoran’s confidence and obviously superior skill. Rika and Tomoyo take Sakura to a shop to try to cheer her up. The three each buy a brooch and return to Sakura’s house for tea and pudding. When Rika puts on her brooch, which turns out to be The Sword, it takes control of her and attacks Sakura with a sword. Shaoran saves Sakura who refuses to attack Rika and stops him from attacking her as well. Using The Illusion to distract Rika, Sakura is given the chance to capture Sword. The next day, Shaoran is dismayed when he sees Sakura offer a gift of chocolate to Yukito and quickly gives sweets of his own. Tomoyo has to explain to Sakura that Shaoran is “interested” in Yukito just like Sakura is.

Episode Twelve: Sakura’s Never-Ending Day - Fujitaka is invited to Sakura’s school to talk about his occupation and discuss archeology. Shaoran is entranced and becomes an instant fan until he discovers that Fujitaka is Sakura’s father. The next day, Sakura has a recorder test, but fails to hit a couple of notes. She falls asleep disappointed but is awakened by the elementary school’s clock tower bell at midnight. Sakura is confused the next day when everything from the previous day happens again. This time, she’s approached by Shaoran who explains it might be the work of a card. After a failed attempt to capture the card and repeating the same day once again, Sakura manages to chase the Time card out of the tower and into Shaoran’s thunder ward trap. Since it was Shaoran who changed the card into its original shape, the Clow Card belongs to him.

Episode Sixteen: Sakura and the Rainbow of Memories - Sakura’s family and Yukito take a vacation to the countryside. Sakura meets the old owner of a country mansion near their rented cottage. He invites her over for tea and tennis, and they become good friends. He shows her the room of his granddaughter, now deceased, and gives Sakura clothes that once belonged to her. The next day, Fujitaka gives Sakura cookies to give to the old man. When she brings them out to eat, the old man asks her about her father. On the last day of her vacation, Sakura asks the old man to stand in the balcony of his granddaughter’s room. From a distance, Sakura uses the Rain card to give the old man a rainbow as a goodbye gift. Sonomi comes out of hiding to speak with the old man to reveal the he’s the grandfather of both Sonomi and Nadeshiko, and Sakura’s great-grandfather.

Episode Nineteen: Sakura and the Summer Holiday Homework - The summer holidays are coming to an end and Sakura still has a lot of homework to do. Making a deal with her brother and Kero to help her, Sakura is left with only a book report to do and meets with Tomoyo at the library. There, they meet Shaoran who refuses to share a library cubicle with them because his fortune predicted bad luck with women. The book Sakura needs for her report is missing, so Sakura and Tomoyo search the library, but notice the book disappearing and reappearing in different places. The book eventually appears outside the library where they meet Shaoran, who’s also after it. Kero reveals it’s the work of the Move card and for the first time, thanks to Move’s unpredictable actions, Sakura is forced to rely solely upon her magical senses to catch a card. Sakura is rewarded with the book and a new card, but accidentally plunges into the river, taking Shaoran with her. Shaoran invites the girls over to his place so Sakura can change into dry clothes, but to everybody’s surprise, a Chinese girl enters the apartment and leaps on Shaoran with a hug.

Episode Twenty-One: Sakura’s Long Marathon Race - During a school race, Meiling is determined to win with Shaoran in the usual “One-Two Finish” they were known for in their previous school. During the race, both Shaoran and Sakura take off at top speed after seeing that Yukito is watching. As they run, the Loop card traps Sakura and Shaoran, causing them to unknowingly run in circles. After they realize what’s happened, Sakura is able to use the Sword card to cut the loop. Shaoran carries Meiling, who hurt her ankle, the rest of the way to the finish line, joined by Sakura.

Episode Twenty-Five: Sakura and Another Sakura - Many people have seen Sakura causing problems along the streets, but Sakura says that she has nothing to do with it. Later, it’s revealed that a card is impersonating Sakura and that it’s after her brother. The Mirror card leads Touya into the woods, asking him to help her find something. Touya falls off of a cliff and is briefly knocked unconscious. He reveals that he knew she wasn’t the real Sakura and the card is sorrowful. Sakura finds the Mirror card with the help of Shaoran’s Lasin Board. She changes it to its true form by speaking its name after thinking back to when Kero used the cards to show her the three cards Mirror was most like. Before it’s sealed away, Mirror apologizes to Touya.

Episode Twenty-Eight: Sakura and the Enchanted Cards - One of Sakura’s friends makes a jump and passes a P.E. test, but she and her other friends all think it was because she made a wish on the “Jump” card. Sakura becomes worried and asks to see it. She’s relieved to see that it’s not the real Jump card and goes to Twin Bells to make sure the other cards they sell aren’t real. After seeing that one card is missing, she asks who bought it and what it was. When she discovers that it’s a real Clow Card she goes looking for whoever bought it. After running into Shaoran, he and Sakura find Meiling. She refuses at first to give the card back, but when she releases the Shot card’s power accidentally and Shaoran is hurt, Sakura comes up with a plan to capture it and does so.

Episode Thirty: Sakura and the Injured Card - When an attempt at capturing the Dash card fails, Sakura’s upperclassman Rei, a girl from the track club, finds it and takes it home. After the Dash enchants Rei to become faster as thanks for her kindness, Sakura has a hard time capturing it because she feels bad, but Shaoran doesn’t and one day he finds and lures it to the woods. After Kero and Shaoran tell her that it’d be worse if Rei won her races through “cheating,” Sakura captures it. However, it goes to Shaoran, since he weakened it. During an upcoming tournament, Rei is sad upon the loss of her friend, but Shaoran casts an illusion of the Dash card at the race fields; encouraged, Rei wins without the power of magic.

Episode Thirty-Three: Sakura’s Ice-Cold Ice-Skating - Sakura’s class takes a trip to the town’s ice skating rink. There, the students begin to notice freezing temperatures due to the Freeze card. Eventually, the Freeze card freezes everyone by covering them with ice, except those with magical powers, which include Sakura, Shaoran, and Mizuki-sensei, who was hiding near the back of the rink during Freeze’s appearance. With the help of Shaoran’s distractions, Sakura is able to capture the Freeze card into a Clow Card and ultimately, Shaoran became the master of the Freeze card due to his idea of getting Freeze to appear out of the ice rink.

Episode Thirty-Seven: Sakura and Tomoyo’s Lost Voice - Sakura and her friends are at a picnic with a portable karaoke device Tomoyo got from her mother’s company. The next day at school, Sakura and Tomoyo talk about the song that Tomoyo will sing in choir. At cheerleading practice, Sakura, Chiharu, and Naoko talk about Tomoyo’s singing and decide to go listen after practice. However, Tomoyo’s voice is stolen by a Clow Card. Later that night at Sakura’s house, Kero tells Sakura that the Voice card caused this. Sakura and Shaoran go to Tomoyo’s house to try to seal away the card. After a comment by Sakura about the Song card, Shaoran comes up with the idea of using the Song card to sing with Tomoyo’s voice to draw out the Voice card. It works and the Voice card comes into Tomoyo’s house. Syaoran seals the exits so that it can’t escape and Sakura seals it. Tomoyo’s voice is returned, and she’s able to sing in the choir. Sakura and her friends go to the concert.

Episode Forty-One: Sakura, Shaoran, and the Sea of Sand - Mizuki-sensei announces that the class will by doing a play for the school arts festival. Sakura realizes that the woman she sees in her recurring dream is Mizuki-sensei. Roles are assigned by amida drawing and Sakura gets the role of the prince, while Shaoran is the princess. The two have lunch with Yukito, who asks about the play. Sakura and Shaoran are too embarrassed to tell him what roles they’re playing. They agree to practice their lines together in the morning at school. They practice outside and almost get to the kissing scene, when the Sand card forms a vortex around them. They get away using Fly, but Shaoran gets caught in the vortex again. Sakura uses Watery and Shaoran uses Freeze to turn the mud into ice. Sakura seals the card and it comes to both of them, but she lets Shaoran have it.

Episode Forty-Four: Sakura, Kero, and the Mysterious Teacher - Sakura once again has the dream in which she’s facing the Tokyo Tower. She clearly sees Mizuki-sensei, but this time Mizuki is accompanied by another figure with long hair and wings. She wakes up early to see Yukito compete in an archery competition, where she meets up with Shaoran and Tomoyo. Mizuki-sensei is one of the challengers and ends up in the finals alongside Yukito. During the fierce match, Kero pokes his head out of Sakura’s bag upon sensing tremendous magical power, shooting a piercing glare at Mizuki-sensei. Sensing his gaze, Mizuki-sensei loses her focus and the tournament. Later, Sakura discovers that Kero is missing from her bag, and finds him in the middle of a private conversation with Mizuki-sensei. Afterward there’s an earthquake, likely caused by the final Clow Card.

Episode Forty-Eight: Sakura and the Awakened Star Key - As the mysterious downpour continues over Tomoeda, Shaoran becomes jealous when Eriol makes advances on Sakura, while Nakuru begins interrupting Touya every time he tries to tell Yukito something important. Kero consults with Yue about the freak weather, explaining that he’s felt a familiar presence. While investigating again with Kero, Yue, and Tomoyo, Sakura is once again unable to summon the Star Wand or use the Clow Cards, and the four are imprisoned in torrents of water. Sakura creates a new incantation based on her power of the stars, not only allowing her to use her wand, but also transforming the Fiery card and amplifying its power. Sakura frees herself and her friends, though the entire experience causes her to collapse from fatigue.

[That took way more editing than it should've. There were such brilliant statements as "Shaoran sealed the exits with seals." Jesus.]

Art by Kinomoto Sakura

So, let’s look at the trends now.

1. All of Kanbe’s episodes are paced very slowly and carefully. This I am nearly positive is part of his influence because it’s so true for all of his episodes.

2. Ookawa Nanase of CLAMP wrote fifty-three of the seventy episodes. Yet, of the fourteen episodes Kanbe worked on, eight were not written by her. (5, 12, 19, 21, 25, 28, 30, and 33). Accordingly, those episodes have the least bearing on the overall plot of the series, and also have the most in common with each-other stylistically.

3. Most of Kanbe’s episodes contain at least one visually/directorially interesting segment, which I tried to represent in my screenshot selection. The cropped shots from episode five aren’t used in any other episode, for instance. Episode twelve has one of the most fun moments in the show, when Sakura and Kero first get pushed through time and everything slows down, their voices included, to hilarious effects.

4. Kanbe worked on almost all of the most intense and dangerous fight scenes in the series. Most notable among these are episode nine’s The Sword and episode twenty-eight’s The Shot, them representing the two primary forms of weaponry. Episode five’s nuigurumi-kaiju, episode thirty-three’s ice rink fight, and episode forty-one’s giant sand pool were among the most destructive monsters in the series, with the ice rink fight having been particularly deadly. In episode twenty-five, the mirror-Sakura nearly leads Touya to his death after dropping him from a cliff-side. Episode forty-eight had possibly the most frightening battle scene in the series, wherein Yue, Kerberos, and Tomoyo spend several minutes visibly drowning in giant typhoons.

5. Several of his episodes deal with the Clow Cards directly effecting Sakura’s friends. In episode nine, Rika is possessed by The Sword. In episode thirty, The Dash tries to help Rei win a race by powering her up. In episode thirty-seven, Tomoyo’s voice is stolen by The Voice.

6. Several episodes also deal with the nature and feelings of the Clow Cards themselves. Episodes twenty-five and thirty deal with the two most emotional cards, The Mirror and The Dash, respectively. Episode twenty-eight deals with possible fake Clow Cards. Episode forty-eight features the emergence of the Sakura Cards (if I’m not mistaken).

7. Both episodes twelve and twenty-one deal with spacial repetition, first in the form of The Time resetting the same day over and over, and then in the form of The Loop causing Sakura, Shaoran, and Meiling to run through the same area over and over again.

8. Episodes five, nine, and twenty-eight all deal with the shopping habits of Sakura and her friends. Five and twenty-eight revolve around the Twin Bells store, and nine features an unnamed brooch shop. Other episodes feature the girls shopping, but if I’m not mistaken, these are the only three wherein the things they buy are important to the episode’s plot.

9. On that note, most of Kanbe’s episodes heavily involve all of Sakura’s friends. This is true for enough other episodes that I don’t really see the need to attribute it to him, but it also happens in enough of his episodes to be noteworthy.

What does all of this mean? How much am I completely overthinking? I don’t know and don’t know how to find out, so for now, these are just my speculative theories as a creator-observer with an interest in Kanbe Mamoru.

Now, an aside. I found episode sixteen to be totally unsettling and creepy up until its mushy, heartwarming end. During that episode, Sakura seemed to act more childish and cute than ever, and was given dresses that made her look particularly young. The whole episode was measured with a brutally slow pace and very strange foreshadowing surrounding the old man. I had a strong suspicion that he was either a ghost (it sounds less insane when you see the weird-ass foreshadowing) or one of Sakura’s relatives, but they couldn’t possibly have crammed more pedophilia clichés into this episode. Creepy old guy in the middle of nowhere, says how cute the little girl is and invites her literally to “play with him,” takes her to a perfectly preserved kid’s room in his house and tells her literally to “play in there” all she wants, and even gets her to dress up for him. Look, I know this is my fault. My mind is poisoned. At my age, it’s amazing that I have the lack of cynicism it takes to enjoy this series. But that episode was just plain creepy.

And now, another aside, related to another creator. Matsuo Kou, who directed and wrote Kure-nai and Red Garden (and directed other shows that I don’t care about and aren’t as good), storyboarded episode sixty-three. It didn’t particularly “feel” like him, since I best know his writing style over his storyboarding style, but it did have a lot of visually interesting moments and was a great episode, so that was cool.

All images in this post come courtesy of Cheerio!, a CCS fansite with over 56,000 images related to the series, all of which superbly organized.

Okay! Back in business! I hope you can still remember enough about 2010 anime to enjoy it!

Today, my good friend Schneider of Continuing World will be presenting the award for Best Mecha Design. While I decided on the nominees for this category, Schneider decided to write about all of the nominees himself and choose the winner, so really, this is Schneider’s Acadime Award for Best Mecha Design!

Sinanju (Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn)

If I were to describe Sinanju in one word, it would be perfection. Veteran designer Hajime Katoki pulled no punches in designing this red robot, a slimmer and sexier update to the aging Sazabi design. Its weapon loadout combines both form and function: a variable-output beam rifle (with scope!), beam axes that combine into a naginata, and the standard beam sabers and vulcans. The tail binders do well to justify its extreme maneuverability, without giving the Sinanju a case of Backpack Syndrome. However, it doesn’t really capture my heart. It might be a damn well-designed mobile suit, but it doesn’t really break any new ground.

Tauburn (Star Driver)

Tauburn is a very unique design from Shigeto Koyama. Its long limbs, heels and plume give the impression of a dueling aristocrat. And boy, it’s a design that lends well to graceful movement. But while Tauburn is a beautiful mech, it’s more of an extension of its Star Driver’s body than anything. Because of that, I have difficulty treating it as a machine. But that is all owing to the style of the show, which has fights that are closer to human sword duels than conventional robot combat. It has some neat skirt funnels, though.

Delphine (Break Blade)

Delphine is a product of the “giant armored knight” concept that fantasy mecha shows employ. But unlike the grandaddy of them, Escaflowne, the Golems of Broken Blade aren’t equipped with flowing capes or huge broadswords. What they have instead are more practical weapons: stapler guns shooting bolts and pile bunkers. Delphine, being an advanced prototype unit from a distant technological Golden Age, looks markedly different from its production-model counterparts. It has a worn look, its armor plates are irrevocably weathered, and the horn crest on its head is broken. It is unassuming yet special.

Mazinkaiser (Mazinkaiser SKL)

Mazinkaiser SKL reminds me of the 90′s X-TREME aesthetic of ramping everying up to 11. The pilder is a flying skull thing that looks a tad too big for the head slot. It has two separate fighting modes (one for each pilot): it uses a huge-ass serrated sword in one, and two bladed pistols in the other. I won’t lie, it took me a while to like it. Mazinkaiser is one of those mechs that look underwhelming in lineart, but look absolutely fantastic in action. It moves lithely despite its mass, but its movements still belie a sense of weight befitting a super robot. WE ARE HELL!

It was a long and hard-fought battle, but Delphine stands firm after the cloud of dust has settled. As the protagonist’s mech in its show, the Delphine is a powerful prototype in the tradition of real robot anime. However, it is in fact ancient, developed during a different age of unprecedented technology. There’s a notable difference in aesthetics when you compare the Delphine to the modern, current-generation Golems.

While the conventional Golem is powered by its pilot’s magical power, the Delphine runs on an engine with limited operational time. It doesn’t come with any weapons, but the Kingdom of Krisna is kind enough to outfit it with some nice looking weapons—a big-ass sword, and a spear-blade thing. Later on it’s fitted with a detachable external armor that virtually turns it into a mechanical bulldozer.

Why did I pick this mech? Because fantasy mecha are long overdue for a return. We have seen quite a few of them throughout the years, but The Vision of Escaflowne was one anime that really did them well. Broken Blade takes the romantic giant knight concept and militarizes it, giving birth to Golems—magic-powered metal soldiers.

It’s a refreshing concept, having a mech that is truly mechanical, yet faithful to its fantasy roots. And Delphine is at the forefront of it.

But wait! We have an Honorable Mention!

Takemikazuchi (Sora no Woto)

The Takemikazuchi, or Spider Tank, is in a rather poor position. Those who usually watch Sora no Woto won’t be primed to appreciate it, and those who would won’t be watching the show in the first place. And it’s a shame, since the Spider Tank is a lovely piece of engineering.

It’s got four legs. Quadrupeds are sexy and practical–if not for our innate bias for the human form, they’d be a lot more popular. It’s also a tank, has a nice Engrish-y HUD interface, and a swell sound system. It’s also designed by Junya Ishigaki, which gives it some serious mecha cred.

I didn’t pit it in the field with the others, however, mainly because it’s in a show that mecha fans wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole (not that it’s a bad thing), and it’s even debatable if it’s a true mech, or just a tank with legs. But I think it’s good enough to be featured here.

I love this show! Thoroughly fascinating episode. A lot of the new characters seem really great and I continue to love the dialog and directorial style.

What caught my attention more than anything in this episode was the wealth of subliminal imagery. There was at least one subliminal image per scene, generally consisting of a single frame that had some kind of photoshop filter over it. For example:

An altered frame.

What the rest of the sequence looked like. (This is the next frame)

It’s a very subtle difference, but highly noticeably when it flickers by during the episode.

This was the most easily identified altered frame in the ep.

I counted at least twenty of these, increasing in frequency as the episode went on, particularly during the scene wherein Hyououin realized the disappearance of John Titor information.

Only one subliminal image that I spotted wasn’t a discolored frame, and I think it may have been a couple of frames. It comes during a scene transition early in the episode and seems totally out of place.

I have no idea what these blurry red mountains are about.

What’s the meaning of these images? My theory is that they’re there to help give the feeling of a fractured, inconsistent reality. That, at least, was how it made me feel—like this world was constantly lapsing in and out of its own reality.

Subliminal imagery has fascinated me ever since TV became pausable and frame-skippable and I started finding it in the oddest places. It’s always fun to speculate on what the purpose of those images are, be they a message or someone’s random prank.

This one's my favorite since those omelets were awesome already.

I don’t have much else to say about this episode, since the show is still in its introductory phase, but these things definitely caught my attention!

Even the ED had 2 of them!

Besides that, some other stuff I feel the need to mention…

All of the new characters were love

I completely understand this idea.

Of course, there’s always the chance that these things were unintentional or the result of some strange crunchyroll encoding issue (aside from the red mountains). I’m sure one way or another someone will let me know in the comments!

Related: Awesome subliminal prank in an episode of The Colbert Report (sadly no image)

Until I’ve passed the anime’s plot, I won’t be able to read Ushiki Yoshitaka‘s Yumekui Merry without thinking about its adaption. The anime disappointed me quite a bit, to the point that I ragequit near the end (I do plan to finish it sometime, though). The manga makes me happy and sad because it doesn’t suffer the same problems as the anime, which means it also shows how the anime could’ve been better.

The anime had a few major weaknesses. First and foremost was Yumeji, a boring and shitty protagonist. He was portrayed as one of those “Yuuji Everylead” guys, with a boring look and even more boring dialog. One of the first things I noticed about the manga is that Yumeji isn’t the same.

Yumeji in the manga is actually portrayed as a pretty cool guy, getting in as many stylish and fun poses as Merry…

but more importantly, he’s really hot-blooded and full of constant energy.

He reminds me of a traditional shounen manga protagonist (sorta funny since this is a seinen manga).

Yumeji was never this fun in the anime, and a lot of it is because of his seiyuu. Okamoto Nobuhiko gave a totally bland performance as Yumeji. Can you imagine how different (and how much better) things would’ve been if Miyano Mamoru played Yumeji? It’d change the whole dynamic from a show that you watch “because you like the main girl” to a show that you watch “because you like the characters.”

Transition image~

The second problem isn’t all problem. I like the style of directing and visuals in the anime, without which the trippy dream worlds would’ve had way less impact. The trouble, however, is that the show’s style made the story always feel mysterious and dramatic, yet the events in the plot could never live up to that feeling.

Otou-san noted the way the show tried to get serious but wasn’t very good at it, and I think it’s because the series’ nature isn’t very serious. Rather, the anime failed to properly convey the non-serious nature of the story, resulting in a confusingly mixed bag.

That face~

GLORIOUS UNDERBOOB!

The final issue of the adaption was, of course, being based on a still-running manga that isn’t very long yet (though fwiw there was more than enough for a 12-ep show). I’ve heard that the manga and anime differ, but as I’m only on chapter three so far, I’ve yet to see how. What I do know is that the manga moves *much* faster than the anime, which at times was painfully fucking slow and not well enough covered up by the atmosphere.

All in all, I’m enjoying the manga a good bit. I don’t resent the anime’s existence, because it’s not like it was a bad show, and it gave some great visuals and truly awesome fights (below), but I think I’m going to enjoy the manga a lot more.

(Images taken from Bakayarou‘s scanslation.)

Bonus: One of many reasons that Hironori Tanaka is my favorite animator.

As a database animal with an eye for details, Sacred Seven is playing hard in my court and letting me believe that it’ll continue doing so. Ghostlightning, a “mecha database animal,” feels the same way, and wrote a post highlighting the show’s appeals to his database instinct. Amazingly, while his coverage was quite extensive, his mental database is different enough from mine—and the show makes enough appeals to both of ours—that I feel I have the material for a companion post.

This post will mostly consist of screenshots. I won’t be covering the ridiculously great sakuga animation because there’s not much to say that you can’t get from watching the ep.

Ruri’s Outfits

Episode one managed to get the delicious Nakajima Megumi-voiced Aiba Ruri into two different outfits, even though I’m pretty sure she wore both on the same day. Ruri seems to have a thing for see-through fabric, featuring it heavily on her first outfit and working it into the bottom of her second one. Maybe it’s spring in the show, though even with that thin fabric, her first outfit looks uncomfortably warm.

Great Character Moments

This face is just amazing. It’s a face Lelouch would make whenever he was having really rough times in Code Geass, but for Alma, that’s just his normal face. This guy seethes with angst to such an extreme that I find it entertaining. It’s sort of like Kamille from Zeta Gundam—he was a little punk at first, but I couldn’t help but love him because he took his incredible teen rage so far. Alma is so fucking angsty that if he burst into tears at any given moment, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. [Someone cut this guy's wrists and black his eyes so he can fall asleep tonight... or die.]

It seems rare for a character like this to be important in a show like this, though I could be overstating it. Still, it’s really delightful to have Itou Kanae playing a role like this in any show. I don’t even know how to define this kind of character except as an “Itou Kanae character.” (Other examples include: Hinamori Amu in Shugo Chara, Saten Ruiko in To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, and Matsumae Ohana in Hanasaku Iroha.) I love her by default.

This guy reminds me of how my brother is half the time. He’s so perpetually angsty that he must declare the suckiness of any sucky day (which is a good third or fourth of all days).

Can a nameless extra have a great character moment? When she makes a face like that, she can! (Click for full version, better effect.)

Very cool shot of Ruri nearly activating her powers as the jaws of death prepare to grip her. In the very next shot, Alma is glowing red the same way, telling us that her powers are similar to his, and now we can see that like his, hers can be activated without her will under situations of intense emotion.

Nothing says “batshit berserker” like a horribly twisted neck (worse in other shots) and talon-like hands. It’s worth mention that there was a lot of detailed hand posing in this episode, which is something I loved from Lelouch in Code Geass.

This is one of the best treatments of a flashback that I’ve ever seen. We get the point without being taken out of the scene whatsoever both because the characters remain in the same positions and the road setting looks very similar to the road being fought on in the present. Genius directing here.

This is about as heroic a shot as you can get, and it harkens back to a similar important moment of heroism from FLCL episode 2 (which then proceeds into a similar asskicking).

Fun Details

Sure, Alma could’ve worn a plain red helmet, but this show lets him have more style than that.

When packaging is this ridiculously detailed, it means the drink is a sponsor. Sadly I can’t read anything on the carton to say what it is. By the way, Alma was storing this milk with the mouth open like a fucking dumbass. Enjoy your spoiled milk.

That throw was serious fucking business. By the way, they could’ve easily gotten away with not detailing, say, Alma’s zipper and belt buckle in this frame, but that’s just how crazy thorough this show is. (Though FWIW the watch isn’t detailed.)

A few things of note here. I *love* the outfits on all three of these girls, especially the one on the far left. All the lace and stuff is a nice touch. I also like how meganekko-chan is ready with a camera for the trip. But fucking god, the girl in the middle has on some atrocious footwear.

There are probably twenty to thirty maids shown in this episode, and every single one of them has a design worthy of a major character. I’ll be having a lot of fun throughout the show learning to memorize each of the maids. Currently, my favorite are the twins who part their hair on opposite sides.

After the mech’s arm gets broken and head melted, the broken pieces are then ejected from the robot to be out of the way. I’ve seen this before on mecha and I always love it.

Hellbrick’s floating rock emoticons that dissolve after use are genius, but the best part is that they’ve got their own sound effect.

Wakana has an assload of rocks strapped to her phone. The thing must be heavy as fuck, but she’s exactly the type not to care.

Extreme Details (images may require expanding)

This is on-screen for less than a second.

That's one stylish megaphone.

That about does it for Digi-chan Check~! I love the deliciously Sunrise note this episode ends on with Ruri buying Alma’s school and all of the important characters ending up in the same club. Let the hijinks ensue!

It’s been said before that Haruhi raised the bar for moe anime, being as it was an ultra high-budget, far-reaching, excellent TV series that was probably the first thing to be all at once so thoroughly moe-centric, so well-produced, and so successful. Haruhi came out in 2006, and since then, there have been many well-produced moe series, especially from the likes of Kyoto Animation, A-1 Pictures, and J.C. Staff (not that everything they do looks as good as Raildex or Toradora). But this post isn’t about how moe anime have gotten all nice-looking and big—it’s about how moe anime are becoming the best-looking stuff on TV, period.

I watch a lot of monthly sakuga AMVs—that is, collections of all the awesome animation tidbits from each month of currently-airing anime. Usually, sakuga AMVs are pretty dominated by shows from studio BONES, which hasn’t been true this season as their only show, No. 6, contains minimal sakuga moments.

So, what shows are putting up the strongest sakuga showings this season? The Idolm@ster (A-1 Pictures), Nichijou (Kyoto Animation), and Hana-saku Iroha (P.A. Works), all moe-heavy shows. The only action show putting up a lot of great sakuga moments is Sacred Seven (Sunrise), which is right up there with The Idolm@ster in quantity of sakuga scenes. But when you watch the videos for July and August, there’s definitely more moe shows with awesome sakuga scenes than anything else. Not to mention all those Usagi Drop scenes of Rin doing cute shit… those count, right?

A couple of years ago I posted my “top 10 unskippable EDs”—titled that way because I used to skip EDs a lot of the time. Now I don’t do that unless it’s really bad. Anyway, all the embedded videos are broken in the old post and I watched a *lot* of anime in the past two years, so here’s a new list of memorable EDs.

TO BE ON THIS LIST I had to like the ED as a whole, meaning song and video both. There are some ED songs that I liked where the video is unmemorable (think Mawaru Penguindrum’s “Dear Future”—amazing song, boring vid). Some also might be awesomely bad.

These videos are alphabetized by the shows they came from. And no, I have absolutely nothing better to do, and yes, I’m very tired right now.

Akagi — “Akagi” by Maximum the Hormone

Right off the bat I’m biased as fuck and ignoring the awesome video rule. I adore Maximum the Hormone even when their song is oddly cut and put to weird bouncing static images. This video qualifies as awesomely bad because of its hilarious attempt at making mahjong and bland character art look INTENSE. Also I can’t get over that thing at the end where Akagi’s head keeps reappearing to the music. This is unbelievably stupid, what the hell Madhouse.

Arakawa Under the Bridge X Bridge — “Akai Coat” by Suneohair

I wonder if this is what inspired them to do a live-action show of Arakawa. This video is awesome because it’s not just a live-action gimmick, but a genuinely great video, from directing and editing to feeling. It really feels like some indie flick, which is perfect for the song. The best part is Hoshi playing guitar on stage which is only as hilarious as it is soulful. This video is pretty much perfect, so I wasn’t happy about the it changing, but some people seem to like the other one more.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu — “Baka Go Home!” by Milktub

This song is much cooler than the show it comes from (I’m not a BakaTest fan), a perfect loser punk song that celebrates idiots and saying fuck school, which is a message I can get behind (coughcollegedropoutNEET). The video lets the leads look pretty cool, but the real magic is when it fuses with the second ED later in the show. Don’t be surprised if this video goes down immediately—I’ve always had a hard time getting it thanks to Funimation’s collective jackass.

Bakemonogatari — “Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” by ryo/supercell

Finally, something we can all agree on. This video is Fucking Astounding. Ueda Hajime is a superb artist with the style I most wish to emulate of any artist, and this ED features IMO his best illustrations. In true Shinbo fashion, the video combines a touching song and riveting style with stunning sexuality. No series quite captures the libido of moe light novel adaption like Bakemonogatari does and flaunts it like a middle finger to anyone who bitches about fanservice. You’ll note that I chose the Nadeko version of the ED because it has a lot more illustrations than Senjougahara, and importantly, more of them feature Shinobu. I chose it over the Tsubasa one because are you kidding me Nadeko is way hotter.

Berserk — “Waiting So Long” by Silver Fins

I love the song, which, like the op, somehow fits Berserk in this sideways way. I would ordinarily disclude this because the video isn’t very interesting, but it’s strangely enchanting. The rustic appearance strengthens the medieval feel of the show, and goes along with whatever that ancient-sounding instrument they play at the beginning is. Casca’s picture is adorable, too.

(Aside: As I go through MAL, there are a lot of really weird EDs that stand out by sheer weirdness, like Betterman and Black Lagoon. I am not including these because they aren’t awesome.)

CLANNAD — “Dango Daikazoku” by Chata

Yes, you may cry now over this ultimate adorable tear-porn. This video is a children’s storybook that would probably win some kind of award. But I’m incapable of hearing that opening melody and not expecting to hear Busta Rhymes. Afraid of us, you know this ain’t a game to us, you strange to us, that’s why we gettin’ dangerous, c’mon. I’m in no way joking when I say that remix is one of my top 5 favorite songs ever.

Cowboy Bebop — “The Real Folk Blues” by The Seatbelts

The fucking all-time. As soon as I hear those horns and see that rose, it just washes over me. Back when I was in middle school, this song was my personal national anthem that I sang every day (true story). This my friends is some badass noir shit. I also extend a shout-out to Blue which, if counted as an ED, would be overkill.

Dantalian no Shoka — “Yes, prisoner” by MaRIONetTe

This one’s fresh off the shelf. Everything about it screams “Sound Horizon inspired,” from the creepy low budget dark-fantasy live-action video to the song that goes from gothic-sounding melody into heavy guitars, and even the use of the word “rakuen” in the first lyric. Sure enough, the full song is a 7-minute suite. All of it’s quite lovely. Unlike the Arakawa one that succeeds in trying to look cool, this one relishes in looking like a film student’s bizarre short. I love the use of sound effects (again very Sound Horizon) and those visual filters.

Eureka Seven — “Fly Away” by Asami Izawa

This video significantly enhances my appreciation for the ray=out sky-surfing culture that plays a subtly major role in the series and really gives it its stylistic edge. I love that the scene of the LFOs surfing doesn’t involve any crazy stunts or action, but just them cruising along being chill. Throw in awesome art (and awesome word art) and set it all to this ultra-lively funky-ass song and I can spin this shit all day long, all night strong.

FLCL — “Ride On Shooting Star” by The Pillows

It’s probably cheating to keep including these live-action-driven GAINAX EDs, and double cheating to have one from an OVA that can get away with putting the entire damn song in the ED. I can’t forget all the gorgeous and hilarious Haruko art in here, but I almost do because of this for some reason adorable stop-motion vespa. I remember someone once commenting that “the vespa is totally flirting with that girl!” and that there is something special. I wonder how many yellow vespas this video sold.

Gankutsuou — “You Won’t See Me Coming” by Jean-Jacquez Burnel

Generator Gawl — “Kore wo Koi to Iemashou ka” by Yoshimba

Holy fucking shit this takes me back. This ED is pure cute fun with a dryness that makes it great. Gawl fucking sleeps and eats through the whole thing and the chick just stares at him pissed off, nonetheless shoveling more rice into his bowl, defeated. And everyone else is just enjoying themselves. This video probably has more personality than the actual comedy portions of the show.

Gintama — “Mr. Raindrop” by Amplified

Couldn’t find a better upload. Gintama is chock full of cool EDs, but this is the unforgettable one. First the pop song with the weird lyrics sung in perfect English by a Chinese band that’s only popular in Japan. Then, the whole fucking thing is dedicated to Elizabeth, which at this early point in the show just tells you how fast Gintama became extremely meta and how the fanbase eats it the hell up. I mean, who doesn’t want an ED for Elizabeth? …or rather, several?

Hidamari Sketch — “Mebae Drive” by Marble

I throw around the word “stylish” a lot without getting into the bones of it, so let me do so now. Hidamari Sketch’s style consists of a really light color scheme that somehow always feels subdued in spite of so many single-color frames and backgrounds. The style is striking, but it doesn’t strike out. This ED captures the “style” of Hidamari Sketch perfectly. The OPs are fun with their zany upbeat songs and highly animated videos, but this ED contains the soul of Hidamari Sketch.

K-On!! — “NO, thank You” by Houkago Tea Time

Don’t Say Lazy was great and all when it happened. Listen!!, whatever. This is the best ED ever. For me to do it justice I’d have to break it down shot by shot—so I did (coming soon).

Kuuchuu Buranko — “Shangri-la” by Denki Groove

Again I’m ignoring the cool video rule, but for good reason. This ED is the cherry on top of each episode of Kuuchuu Burnako. Right at the height of each feel-good ending, the violin piece (not heard in video) cuts in, and then this ultra-sexy song drives the feeling home. The show couldn’t have achieved that level of feeling without this song.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki — “Boku wa Koushin Saremashita” by Hirohashi Ryou

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki was notable for having like six or seven ending videos that would be different depending on what channel you watched the show on. All are good, but this one is great for Hirohashi Ryou’s adorably addictive vocals and the melancholy-cute video that suddenly starts looking like the game Rez about halfway through. I remember having this video on repeat for like 3 hours once around when the show started.

Lucky Star — “Ore no Wasuremono” by Shiraishi Minoru

Everyone has a favorite Lucky Star ED, be it one of the love-remembering karaoke songs or the love-gone-horribly-wrong Shiraishi Minoru ones. For me, the ultimate is this utterly fucking bizarre video of Shiraishi serenading annoyed picnickers with a live song that combines a meme from Haruhi and the opening song of Ashita no Joe. How in the hell did this happen? And this culminates into the album (album!) Shiraishi Minoru no Otoko no Lullaby, which features a heavy metal version of Koi no Minoru Densetsu. Mind fuck-blowing. His rendition of the show’s OP is a close second for my favorite.

Mnemosyne (NSFW) — “Cause Disarray” by Galneryus

For one thing, I can’t argue with Galneryus. Also, this ED captures exactly why I like Mnemosyne—naked immortal lesbians getting tortured and fighting. What more could I want out of life than this? (The next ED.)

NEEDLESS (NSFW) — “Aggressive Zone” by Needless Girls+

Oh. My. Fucking. God. Lolis kissing. Lolis making out. Did that loli just kiss that loli’s ass? Lolis in barely anything. Lolis in nothing at all. Under a blanket together. Stuck together. And there’s a loose narrative—at the start, the kissing is on cheeks, and blue-haired loli refuses a kiss on the lips. However, after a lot more kissing and other bonding, there’s a really emotional kiss between her and blonde girl, and then they start making out like crazy. At the end, using the same quick cuts as the beginning, all the kissing is happening on the lips. I’m totally not making an excuse to like this for reasons other than FFFFUUUUUUCJKJKJLLJSHFLDJH.

Paradise Kiss — “Do You Want To” by Franz Ferdinand

Holy shit, Franz Ferdinand! Holy shit, Imaishi Hiroyuki animation! Holy shit, adorable dancing on par with the second xxxholic ED! This is such a great video—a perfect fit for the show’s fashion focus and fun even without ever having heard of the show (as I hadn’t when I first saw the video).

[note: I couldn't find a video of Rock the LMC from Red Garden with working sound. It's amazing. Watch the show.]

Revolutionary Girl Utena — “Virtual Star Hasseigaku” by Kamiya Maki

Somewhere in the middle of Utena, one Be-Papas guy must’ve said to another, “the show doesn’t quite seem perfect yet,” and another guy responded, “then we’ll have to make a fucking badass ED.” And the angels cried. Elevators, sillhouettes, naked lesbians—I’m becoming impressed by how many naked lesbians I’ve found in anime EDs, and I’m not even listing like Sengoku Otome and shit. This song is the pinnacle of the chorus rock style invented by J.A. Seazer for this show and never duplicated, and the full version features a badass extended guitar solo.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei — “Zessei Bijin” by Zetsubou Shoujo-tachi

No way could I leave this out when I had the iconic shot of crying-masked Kafuka as my 16th birthday cake. This video and song are pure sex in the most gruesome way. Chiri over all those bodies on the subway haunts my nightmares. Compare with Hidamari Sketch in how it represents the soul of the show—now dark colors, faceless characters, comic violence and utter despair, all wrapped up in the choking hands of beautiful women. See that noose there at the end? That noose is for you.

Seikon no Qwaser — “Passionate Squall” by Qwaser Shoujo-tachi

If No Thank You didn’t exist, this would be my un-contested favorite ED ever. Instead, it’s my contested favorite ED ever. My co-blogger Thoughtcannon wrote a huge thesis about it for the failed acadime awards series, and I haven’t posted it yet because I also want to write a thesis about it. Long story short, this video lavishes in stylistic and sexual decadence. The girls are all blase, even as they get dragged to their demise by an evil bathtub from hell. The greatest bathtub in anime by far, which may not be saying much, but is important to me! The money shot beyond all is, after all this slick attitude and deathly treatment of the girls, when it shows them in towels and Mafuyu blow-drying her hair. That shot kills me every time.

Shakugan no Shana — “Yowake Umare Kuru Shoujo” by Takahashi Yoko

OMG SHANA GET OUT OF MY LIFE!! Okay, this song pretty much turns the ending of an episode of Shana from “I can’t believe I just sat through that shit” to “YOOOWAKE!” which might be how I managed to get through the show in the past (though god knows how I did when the ED changed). I think it was Thoughtcannon who pointed out that this song is basically Cruel Angel Thesis for a girl rather than a boy. The video isn’t amazing, but I don’t mind it because the design work is incredible, as evidenced in my having given this show both a second and a third glance. Too bad the show itself looks like SHIT.

Soul Eater — “I Wanna Be” by Stance Punks

My #1 on the list from two years ago. The art in this video is superb. The opening shot is this soulfully lonely image with this soulfully lonely song that suddenly explodes into punk, gratified by motherfucking explosions. There’s fighting and coolness, but still this pervading sense of somberness in both the song and the video. I Wanna Be is a weird song and I think it fits beautifully with the show.

Spice and Wolf — “Ringo Biyori ~ The Wolf Whistling Song” by Rocky Chack

Lots of moe girls have a token food that they always eat and which becomes an excuse for the show to make self-memes. Leave it to hipster-moe anime Spice and Wolf to find a way to make it all clever and indie and shit. This video is enchanting right from “seven apples on the witch’s tree, with seven seeds to plant inside of me.” Yet again, it’s a video whose visual style might have even more personality than the show itself.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann — “Underground” by High Voltage and “Minna no Peace” by Afromania

Both of these songs are really, really cool in a way that’s pretty different from the show itself, especially Underground. I love that the first one has a really dank, deep sound, living up to the title Underground along with the white-on-black backgrounds, while the second one is totally upbeat and sunny, so the video inverts the colors. Both videos are Simon walking with Boota, once as a child and again as an adult. Aside: Underground would feel at home on a Queens of the Stone Age album. I’m gonna let Minna no Peace stand in for the Birdy Decode ED as well.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni — “La Divina Tragendia” by Jimang

The video could be cooler but I love it anyway. Awesome use of photoshop filters and cool-looking CG chess sets, much more successfully intense than the mahjong in the Akagi ED. But seriously, we all love this ED for one real reason: YAMI O KIRISAKU, OH DESIRE! Jimang is the man. I want to be him when I grow up (he’s not even that old, he just sings that way). Studio DEEN has this weird tendency to end episodes of their shows in random places, and in Umineko, sometimes the episode cut to this so suddenly that I thought the show got cut off. And then I was like “SACRIFICE SHEEP TO GOD!!!”

Welcome to the NHK — “Odoru Akachan Ningen” by Ootsuki Kenji/Kinniku Shoujo Tai

“What the fuck just happened,” is the proper reaction to seeing this video for the first time. I love that it starts with really sexy images against a sweeping piano, and then the whole thing rapidly spirals into hell and chaos. Those little creature things are the right mix of creepy and hilarious, and don’t forget oh so dirty. Ootsuki Kenji is the man, having done a lot of my favorite anime songs between this show and Zetsubou Sensei. The ED is depraved and I love the insane, terrified scream at the end, like a man watching the lid close over his coffin.

xXxHolic — “Kagerou” by Buck-Tick

You know, I bet this video actually happens. I can totally imagine a couple of young goth girls air-guitaring to Buck-Tick. Anyway this video has cute girls air-guitaring and the best part is how much fun they seem to be having. No, the best part is really how they set cute girls dancing to a genuine, excellent rock song. I could use more like this.

That does it for my list. I probably forgot a lot of good stuff, but the fact that I forgot about it makes me feel better about not including it. I feel like I should do an honorable mentions or list of songs I liked as well, but whatever. Look forward to more bloggers covering their favorite EDs in the near future.

Have I listed any of your favorites?

More EDs! These ones missed the first list for one or more of these reasons: I forgot about them; I didn’t want to include two from the same show; I counted it as not awesome enough because I was being a lazy dick; I haven’t actually seen the anime it comes from but know the ED by reputation.

TO MAKE THIS LIST, if I can actually think of how the song or video goes, it’s got a good bet.

.hack//SIGN — “Yasashii Yoake” by See-Saw

I may hate Bee Train and find this show utterly boring, but the OP and ED are good, and I don’t just mean the songs. Bee Train can pat themselves on the back for those (and then immediately commit seppuku for being such failures at all other times).

Air Master — “Rolling1000toon” by Maximum the Hormone

Clearly, this is not the video. The video doesn’t exist on youtube except in the background of this karaoke video, which I find hilarious so I posted it anyway. If you want the effect of the video without the actual video, there’s a bunch of parodies available, such as this one using Vocaloid characters which is pretty spot-on. (There’s also a Touhou one, which is kind of terrible.) The video itself is pretty WTF, the best scene by far being the skipping loli’s facial expression. I’m a big Maximum the Hormone fan too, which is why I’m going so far to include this lol.

Anyamaru Tantei Kiruminzoo — “Clap Your Sunday!” by Neko Jump

Kiruminzoo’s addicting, bizarre Thai OP overshadows its slightly less addicting, equally bizarre Thai ED, but both are good songs. Note that above is the Japanese version of the song, which is the second ED, because I like this version more, unlike the OP. The video is cute of course, like everything else in the show. Be warned: this shit will be stuck in your head.

Ao no Exorcist — “Wired Life” by Meisa Kuroki

I literally just found out about this ED. I’d found the first ED disappointing because it spent way more time on lame CG driving than it did on potentially awesome dudes dancing, but this is much better. Really digging the color scheme and geometric shapes, and I wouldn’t mind getting the full version of this song.

Bamboo Blade — “STAR RISE” by Bamboo Blade girls

“I’M CALLING THE STAR RISE!” The chorus of this song holds a lot of significance for me because it kicks off the Nico Nico Douga Ryuuseigun, which I used to watch like every god damn day when I was into Nico Nico Douga. It’s a very cool, smooth song, and the video is quite well done, with tasteful use of CG and some truly stellar character art. This video might have been on the first list had I seen Bamboo Blade in the past three years.

Beelzebub — “Tsuyogari” by Shoko Nakagawa and “Nanairo Namida” by Tomato n’ Pine

I don’t watch this show, but I saw part of an episode when I was staying with ghostlightning and I got to see the second ED, which floored me. The animation in this video is off the chain. The third ED is also gorgeous and has a great song to boot. After watching these, I went and looked up all of the key animators that ANN lists for each to try and find animator videos—sadly the best I could do was finding Tanaka Takahiro in like 2 seconds of this 11-minute Sword of the Stranger sakuga expose (watch this fucking shit). Ah well, just have to rewatch these again and again.

Betterman — “Chin ~Requiem~” by Mai

This video has the WTF factor in spades with the spinning pink-haired loli. The song and video are dark in a really goofy way that reminds me of Ootsuki Kenji. I like the song even though its composition makes no sense.

Bleach — “Thank You” by Home Made Kazoku

Cheating: I saw this song live. I don’t watch Bleach, but I count myself as a fan of the manga, and I think the anime has a lot of great OPs and EDs. I just don’t want to go through them all because there are literally twenty-eight fucking EDs. Let’s stick with the one I saw live. The video’s not really good or bad, but the song is nice.

Durarara!! — “Trust Me” by Matsushita Yuya

The illustration that makes up this video is legendary and spawned endless parodies with the cast of everything you can think of. I think the image gets boring after a while because I’ve seen it so many damn times now, but the song is still very hip and cool.

Excel Saga — “Menchi Aishou no Bolero” by Excel Girls

I’ve seen other joke EDs that went for comically-sobering, and of course a great many comedy EDs that just go for wacky hijinks and laughs, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It’s simply a hilarious idea that works. I laugh my ass off at this, but it gets old pretty fast.

FullMetal Alchemist — “Kesenai Tsumi” by Nana Kitade and “Tobira no Mukou e” by YeLLOW Generation

Both of these are great songs that I was always mad about not hearing all of when the show played on Adult Swim. Kesenai Tsumi has a cool video, helped a lot by my strange fascination with junkyards and moonlight. There’s also a pretty cool fight, as typical of Bones OPs and EDs. Tobira no Mukou e was most notable to me for the way it cut in at the end of each episode with that first line. I like the animation of Ed’s hair at the end—I swear between the two shows’ OPs and EDs, they found every way for Ed’s hair to move.

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood — “Uso” by SID and “Tsunai Da Te” by Lil’B

I don’t particularly care for either of these songs, which is why I don’t list them as top-tier EDs, but the videos are excellent. Uso obviously for the cute, blocky animation that pushes the style to the fullest by looking amazing. The fight also seems like a callback to the one from Kesenai Tsumi above. Tsunai Da Te is pure Winry fanservice that makes ghostlightning’s nuttbladder explode. Excellent stuff.

Gintama — “Speed of Flow” by The Rodeo Carburattor

Not only is this video about Elizabeth, but it successfully makes him look badass with an awesome trenchcoat and motorcycle against the sunset. The song is really cool, too, like most Gintama songs. I have a really hard time keeping up with all of them because there are so many, but this and Mr. Raindrop are definite favorites from the pack.

Hajime no Ippo — “Endless Loop” by Saber Tiger

Simply put, this is probably the manliest ED of all time. And the full version is a nine-minute opus that plays through the final fight—legendary.

Hanamaru Youchien — “Kigurumi Wakusei” by Takagaki Ayahi

Totally forgot about this! So great. I feel like for the past two years, GAINAX has been proving that they can do whatever the hell they want and it will be awesome and full of remembering love. All of the Hanamaru EDs are pretty great, but there are twelve of them, so no way am I listing them all. If you have time, check them all out.

Hidamari Sketch x 365 — “Ryusei Record” by Marble

Another season of Hidamari, another relaxing Marble song. This one’s video is a lot more on the artfag side, which in no way reduces its reflection of the soul of Hidamari Sketch lol. I prefer Mebae Drive, but this is nice. I particularly enjoy the use of the four emblems that represent each of the girls.

Inuyasha — “Fukai Mori” by Do As Infinity and “Every Heart – Minna no Kimochi” by Boa

Holy fucking nostalgia! Inuyasha sure had some great EDs, which Otakon karaoke makes sure to reminds me once a year. I remember loving Fukai Mori because I was a total Sesshoumaru fag back in the day. Every Heart I remember for having a sick beat that I’ve probably beatboxed more than any other. EDs 5 and 7 are great too, but I remember them less (well, I never actually saw 7 in the show, I just know it from fucking karaoke).

K-On! — “Don’t Say Lazy” by Houkago Tea Time

It was cruel of me to leave this off the first list. Without a doubt, this is one of the coolest EDs of all time, and it’s only because one this good existed that it had to be topped in the second season, if not by Listen, than by No Thank You. It’s still a triumph of animation and directing with an addicting song that I’m only sick of because I’ve listened to it five thousand times.

K-On!! — “Listen!!” by Houkago Tea Time

It would also be wrong to forget about Listen!! which even if it’s not as great as the other two is still one of the best EDs out there, and since that doesn’t seem like sufficient competition for the K-On EDs, I’d call them in the top percentage of OPs and EDs combined. My favorite part of this video is the line “Listen” and the hand gesture Mio makes before the lights go down. Class.

Kaiji — “Makeinu-tachi no Requiem” by Hakuryuu

This is music to make men weep. It’s neither a song of defeat nor of victory—it’s a song of survival, and Kaiji is the ultimate survivor. That vague sense of hope is the beautiful irony in the depth of despair at which you can only smile. I’m cracking a beer to this right now. It tastes like my tears.

Kamichu! — “Ice Candy” by Mako

Oh god, my poor nutbladder. I could probably watch Yurie playing those maracas all day with a big dumb grin on my face. Mako’s singing voice is surprisingly nice and this is a great song.

Kare Kano — “Yume no Naka e” by Enomoto Atsuko and Suzuki Chihiro

I should’ve put this on the first list. I didn’t because the videos, while interesting, aren’t very exciting—but whatever. The song is amazing in every iteration, and much has been said about its emotional gravity in conjunction with the show. Very much a classic.

King of Bandit: Jing — “Sha la la” by Scudelia Electro

Lovely winding-down song. The video is just character art, but it’s really damn good art. Jing is sexy enough for the ladies and cool enough for the guys. (Not that I don’t appreciate his sexiness.)

Kodomo no Jikan (NSFW) — “Hanamaru Sensation” by Little Non

Kojikan is a show that’s extremely up-front about being unashamed loli fanservice, and this ED shows how it constantly jumps over the line from “aw, cute,” into, “uh… am I allowed to watch this?” Like the Bamboo Blade ED, I know this song best for its place in the Nico Nico Douga Ryuuseigun.

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? — Kizuite Zombie-sama by Yamaguchi Rie with manzo

A few things make this ED stand out that I really enjoy. First, the song is unexpectedly a duet with a male singer. Second, both the song and video accomplish simultaneously being exciting and fun while also being relaxing and ED-like. The perplexing changes from a regular-sounding song to an 8-bit one sort of reflect the bipolar nature of the show. Also, the nipple fake-out moment gets me every time.

Level-E — “Yume~Mugen no Kanata” by ViViD

(could only find a video on this russian youtube variant: http://rutube.ru/tracks/3974725.html?v=9f9afcb3aae3616e61b5fb4dcdc33dc6)

I’m not gonna lie—the whole great part of this video is the prince saying “are you ready” at the start. I fuckin’ melt. This show always knows how to bring out the gay in me. Anyway, the song is pretty good too. The video makes UFO spotting feel even more intense than Maximum the Hormone-driven mahjong.

Lucky Star — “Motteke! Sailor Fuku” by Shiraishi Minoru

I couldn’t not post another Lucky Star ED. The best parts of this are when he starts making up his own lyrics and then when the whole thing suddenly starts fast-forwarding at the end. And WTF is with the scene where it looks like he’s chasing two of the seiyuu in a horse-drawn carriage?

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica — “Magia” by Kalafina

This ED utterly terrified me and brought me to the verge of tears when I first saw it after episode three. It’s definitely the darkest, most hopeless ED I know of. It’s the show dragging you down to hell and making sure you don’t forget the terrible feeling that the episode has left you with. This is brutal.

Neon Genesis Evangelion — “Fly Me to the Moon” by Eva Girls

Is it just that Fly Me to the Moon is a great song? Is it that there’s a different version for each episode, sung by the voice actresses? Or is it that weird image of Rei spinning upside-down? A combination of all three is what makes this ED memorable. And that I got to sing it in karaoke with a room full of drunk Filipino aime bloggers lol.

Overman King Gainer — “Can You Feel My Soul” by Overman King Gainer

Though to nowhere near the extent of the infamous OP, this video is quite strange and trippy. The song, however, is straight-up kick-ass. It sounds like a combination between the Needless and Trigun opening songs.

Rurouni Kenshin — “Tactics” by The Yellow Monkey, “Heart of Sword – Yoake Mae” by T. M. Revolution, “It’s Gonna Rain” by Bonnie Pink

This is serious cheating: I’ve owned the Rurouni Kenshin Best Theme Collection for some eight years now, so I know these songs better than any other EDs. All of them would’ve been on the first list if it weren’t for the fact that the videos are pretty much lame. This in no way means that I ever skip them, though.

Saki — “Netsuretsu Kangei Wonderland” by Saki girls

Wai Wai! For some reason this ED feels really old-school to me. The song and video are cute, but more importantly, they tell a story. And the story is about Yuuki being a lovably adorable brat. That the “wai wai!” actually functions in the story of the ED makes me very happy. The second ED is great too, but this one has a better song. Makes me wanna rewatch the show~

Samurai Champloo — “Shiki no Uta” by Nujabes ft. MINMI

I felt bad about leaving this out of the first post for the fact that the video isn’t very exciting. The song is fuckmazing—Nujabes’ music track is excellent enough on its own (it appears on one of his other albums), but the R&B/rap vocals just kick it up another notch. The song makes the video worth watching.

s-CRY-ed — “Drastic My Soul” by Sakai Mikio

I BELIEVE IN DRASTIC MY SOUL!!! My favorite part of the video is Kaname laying on that log looking adorable. Besides that this song is unforgettable to me because TheBigN named his blog after it.

Seikon no Qwaser II (NSFW) — “Metaphor” by Shoujo Byou

Passionate Squall was a very naughty ending video. Metaphor is a dirty one. The title is funny because this ED is really out with the metaphors and more about straight-up porn. That it’s by Shoujo Byou (Girl’s Disease) is more fitting. I think the video well reflects the change between seasons of Qwaser from lots of fanservice to lots of porn.

Serial Experiments Lain — “Tooi Sakebi” — Nakaido “Chabo” Reiichi

I simply love this song, and Nakaido Reiichi’s stuff in general. The video is just a single panning shot, but it’s of Lain naked, so I’m not complaining at all.

Suite Precure — “Woderful Powerful Music” by Ikeda Aya

No idea how I forgot this in the last post—I even remember thinking about how I needed to include it. Anyway, this ED is my favorite dancing-girls ED because OMG look at those moves! Now that’s a dance that’s worth learning! I love the light funkiness of the song and how good the dance is for it.

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu — “Hare Hare Yukai” by Haruhi girls

Speaking of dancing girls videos that I left out of the first post—this one I consciously left out, which was wrong of me. Yeah, I’ve gotten tired of the same old song and dance after four years, but when I actually sit and watch the video, it’s still a damn good dance and a spectacle of animation.

Tetsuwan Birdy Decode — “Let’s Go Together” by Afromania

Afromania is like the ultimate feel-good-song band, and what says feel-good more than bright colors, skipping, and high-fives? Watching this makes me want to go skipping while playing this on my ipod.

Toradora! — “Vanilla Salt” by Horie Yui

Every time I hear this song I feel like it’s 2009 and I’m a gigantic Toradora fag again. I like the colors of the video and the umbrella theme. Even though I love this song, I still have nightmares about the time that I watched the official video for it.

Trigun — “Kaze wa Mirai ni fuku” by Akima and Neos

An excellent desert theme with a hell of a bassline and percussions. The imagery is simple, but effectively conveys that earthy desert feeling.

Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei — “Romance Romanesque” and “Omamori” by Zetsubou Shoujo-tachi

Romanesque: These illustrations are… striking! My favorite is the one of Komori Kiri. The visual effect at use here is outstanding, as well as the insane asylum setting. Omamori: The gorgeous ultra-gothic visuals harken back to The SoulTaker, and there’s even a direct reference to it in the form of a blood-crying virgin Mary statue. This video represents my favorite things about Shinbo’s style.

I’ve probably still forgotten something. I regret nothing.

“Anime is dying!
Everything is killing anime!”
- the anime sphere

No, that’s not really what the anime sphere is saying. That’s what a small handful of ragefags are saying, and half of them are just trolling. But every time I read it, it gets me thinking: what was the best year for anime?

It was the year when this shit happened.

To me, it’s obvious that the not-so-new millennium has been the best time for anime—and it gets better every year. I base that on the fact that there’s always a greater quantity of anime coming out, which means more chances for that anime to be good. I think that the percentage of anime that’s been good at any given time is about the same, so more shows is more better. Additionally, I think anime has expanded so much in time, it can do way more now than it could before—and frankly, every year anime gets closer to touching something I refer to as my “core interest.” (Kara no Kyoukai rubs its crotch against it.)

But what, I wonder, would public opinion consider the best year of anime? The year that had the most to offer to the broadest range of fans? There’s no way of definitely knowing because I lack the resources to poll every anime fan, but how about we narrow it down to… the userbases of My Anime List and Anime News Network? MAL to me represents the (non-Japanese) fandom as a whole, with a slight leaning towards the internet-watching fansub culture, whereas ANN represents the (non-Japanese) fandom with a slight leaning towards the TV-watching dub culture. Combining their statistics isn’t just good for that reason, though: ANN helps fill in the memory gaps of MAL, which hasn’t been around as long.

Now, let’s see a chart which lists every single anime that has a score of 8.0 or higher on MAL and ANN, grouped by year. (Click to enlarge.)

Wow, that’s a lot of shows! 2010 has the most to its name, but those percentages next to it aren’t a good thing. There are several problems with using scores to decide what’s good.

1. The Law of Sequel Scoring. Unless it’s not very good, a sequel will usually receive a higher score than the show which came before it. That’s because fewer and fewer people will come back for each installation, and the ones who do will be those who liked the previous installations; so the people rating the show will increasingly be fans of it. Sequels can quickly unbalance a list like this, especially sequels in large franchises with diehard fanbases. Take Major, which has six seasons and two OVAs all on this list. Major is a pretty niche series all the way through, with the OVAs even falling into the Obscurity Ghetto I’ll talk about momentarily. Any year with a season of Major is getting boosted by a show, even though it’s a show very few people will have watched—and that’s not very effective. Now look at the 2010 shows: 51.51% of them are direct sequels to other shows. Ouch!

2. The Obscurity Ghetto. There are some shows that barely anyone has seen, but that all those who saw it liked it. That’s because anyone who actually found it was probably going to like it. Obscure shows are usually exceedingly old or niche, and the only people who’re even going to bother are the ones who’d probably like it anyway. Since obscurity isn’t easy to quantify, I specifically counted anything that appears on less than 3,000 MAL lists to be obscure. Fairly, some of the things that strattled above that line were pretty obscure, but I didn’t want to start making exceptions. A progression of sequels is a walk into the obscurity ghetto.

3. Recency Bias. Rarely do people have consistent MAL scoring tendencies, and rarely do their opinions remain static. Shows that have been recently popular will rocket up the Top Anime list as people give it their 10/10 Best Show Evar and it sweeps through the sphere. Only after the hype wave and a hundred million unimpressed hypeboarders crash against the shore does the score start to settle into its permanent position.

The recency bias can’t be helped, but we can clearly see where obscurity and sequels play into the number of shows rated >8.0 per year.

WTF Merry climb back in your doughnut box, you're not needed till 2011!

According to the chart, the number of sequels to achieve favorable scores in the past four years is staggering. Most likely, that’s because 2006–07 is the real takeoff point both for speedsub culture and for MAL, and the following years had a lot of sequels to shows from those years. The speedsub boom coupled with the ever-increasing number of shows coming out accounts for the spike in number of shows per year as well, while the availability of those shows accounts for so few of them being totally obscure.

With 63 shows and only 17.56% of them being direct sequels, 2007 looks like a clear winner for the best year on this chart, if it’s to be trusted at all.

Another thing: take note of the “% Carried Over” column. For the most part, it remains quite consistent, averaging in the range of 25–30% a year. This means a good number of the well-liked shows are long-runners that crossed several years. We’ll see this again.

Now, when I look at that chart by rating, I see a whole lot of shows that have no business being on a chart to determine the best year of anime, so here’s a different chart. This one was made by combining the lists of the 250 most popular anime on MAL and ANN (the former determined by number of lists they appear on, the latter by the number of votes the show has). (Click to enlarge.)

The problem with this chart should be immediately evident: it begins at 1984 and does not contain either of ghostlightning’s two favorite shows—nor, for that matter, any Macross anime before 2008, nor any universal century Gundam anime whatsoever. Shock!

But besides that, this list is way better. Nothing on the list strikes me as unbelonging. Some of you are probably raising an eyebrow now and saying, “Naruto? Naruto Movies??” Hey, like I said, I’m looking for the average anime fan here. (Plenty of your favorite shows are probably on there, anyway.) I know that I could show this list to most average fans, and it would contain every anime they’ve ever heard of, much less all of their favorites. The list can’t please everyone, or else it wouldn’t be a judge of public opinion to begin with.

The increase of shows over the years on this list is a lot more smooth and gradual, with the bulk of shows spread more evenly across the last decade. You can thank the lack of recency bias and the long memory of ANN for that. 2011 looks much smaller, both because the year isn’t over yet, and because far fewer people have gotten around to watching the new shows. There are way fewer sequels all around, proving the earlier “walking into sequel ghetto” theory. You’ll notice that the percentage of carried over shows is consistently around 30%, just like it was on the first chart.

According to this chart, not only does 2007 have the highest number of shows, but still has the lowest percentage of sequels, so again it claims the prize as the best year. I’m okay with this.

I... uh... (art by hayapi)

You probably shouldn’t be, and that’s fine. Because seriously, fuck this list. You notice how Revolutionary Girl Utena isn’t on it? I tried so hard to get that show on both lists. I hadn’t intended to use nearly such a large pool of shows, but I wanted to get Utena in there or else it just felt wrong. Utena has just above an 8.0 on MAL, and not even that on ANN, so I played limbo to get it on the first list. I thought I’d be able to do the same with 250 shows by popularity, but no dice. On ANN, it clocks in at just under 300, and on MAL, it’s all the way in the 500s. I have no idea why or how it’s possible that Utena is both overlooked and underrated, but I assume it has something to do with the godawful dub.

Still, I’m totally okay with 2007 for the best year of anime. Going by my latest ridiculous favorites list, two of my top three shows aired that year (Baccano and Lucky Star), and a shitload of other shows I like, so it’s pretty nigh untouchable. (2006, 2010, and 1998 are also good years for me.) By the way, did looking at 1988 on the first chart make anyone else cream their panties? Holy fucking fuck.

Anyway, if you care to research what years all of your favorite shows aired in, or just have disgustingly accurate knowledge of these things like I do, then please let me know what your best anime year was in the comments. And if it’s in the past five years, then you are expressly forbidden to bemoan the declining quality of anime until it is no longer in the past five years.

(I wish I could end this post with “going to bed now” but I have to do a live show in like… 6 hours… which will be 4 hours ago when you read this…)

Link: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x285uq6_an-examination-of-shot-composition-in-psycho-pass-1-2_shortfilms

Text version: Shot composition is the most important thing in film and animation that never gets talked about. It’s not easy to describe what good composition looks like without providing a frame-by-frame analysis, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do in this video. I’ll be comparing the first episodes of Psycho-Pass seasons one and two, and showing how the drastic differences in shot composition and art quality cause one to look stunning, while the other looks mediocre. Technically there will be Psycho-Pass spoilers, but I’ll try to keep them as vague and meaningless as possible. In order to make this fair, I’ll be using the original TV broadcast version of Psycho-Pass, since the show was touched up on the blu-ray and re-broadcast versions. Anyways, let’s dive right in. Episode one of Psycho-Pass opens up by replicating classic film helicopter shots as it invites us to a shining blue city, which stands above the submerged rubble of another city. Helicopters weave between different layers of background amid shining billboards–all of which clearly evokes the feeling of the famous intro to Bladerunner, or even the beginning of this team’s previous work, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. In-between rows of familiar-looking cars, a train of unfamiliar robots emerges, and a close-up shows their head-like pieces seemingly observing the surroundings. Overhead shots reveal intense amounts of traffic, and we pan up to a massive, strange-looking building in cinematic fashion. These first thirty or so seconds have already established the look and feel of the world of Psycho-Pass. The heavy use of blues gives a distinct futuristic cyberpunk flair, and we immediately understand both the scope and the pristine nature of this city. It resembles our own world enough with its cars and helicopters for us to know that it’s not too far from the present, but the existence of these little robots clues us in that it’s set in at least a somewhat futuristic science-fiction world. The variety of colors on the billboards and the brightness of the city make it feel lively and detailed, even though we’ve barely seen any people. It can’t be overstated just how many lights there are in this city–every building has most of its lights on, and when the police robots go by, we see different colored lights reflecting off of them and the street. Everything in this scene is explicitly designed to make the city look shiny and living. Psycho-Pass 2 attempts to do something similar, but on a much smaller scale, and with far less cinematic scope. The opening shot is set at dusk and still captures the bright city lights, but instead of feeling like a sweeping helicopter shot, it’s just a panning shot of a stationary background scrolling across the screen. Compared to the multi-layered opening shots of the first season, it obviously leaves something to be desired. At this point, you’re probably realizing already that these differences seem pretty minor and negligible, and if you’re not inclined to pay attention to these things, then that’s an understandable position. However, I see this as the difference between a really striking and memorable way to open up a show, and a really average way to open up a show. The opening shots of Psycho-Pass remind me of the opening shots of The Dark Knight, which has some of my favorite cinematography in film, while Psycho-Pass 2 reminds me of… nothing. It cuts from that first panning shot to a shot of someone’s hand holding a phone, so our vantage point has already switched to ground level. In the next shot, we see some bland-looking people walking around in the foreground, and because of the lack of a horizon line, it kind of just looks like they’re walking in the middle of the road in totally random directions. I had to seriously study this scene to realize that this shot took place in front of this building–each of these shots feels disconnected from the last, with totally nonsensical vantage points. It’s weird though, because if you really study each of these shots, it’s obvious that they spent a lot of time planning out this little area and all the details of its setup, but it’s presented with so little flair, and the scene is over so quickly, that you can’t get a real sense for anything. For the sake of keeping these two shows relatively in parallel, I’m going to skip the whole flash-forward scene between Kogami and Makishima in the first season and go right to where both shows present their first mission. Psycho-Pass once again opens up with a Bladerunner-eqsue cityscape shot, this time in the rain. You may be thinking that this episode has so many shots like this because it’s the first episode and they had to establish the setting, but the thing is that Psycho-Pass had TONS of shots like this throughout the entire run of the show. After all, the setting was kind of EVERYTHING in Psycho-Pass. The entire point of the show was exploring this sci-fi world, to the point that the city and its systems could almost be considered the main character. Not to mention, the interplay of bright blue lights beaming out of an all-encompassing darkness immediately creates a cyber-noir tone that gives us a good sense of what we’re in for. Psycho-Pass 2 starts with a generic shot of flashing police lights in cheap-looking CGI, followed by a weirdly cramped shot of police vehicles heading down the road. Psycho-Pass pans down on a junky-looking alley as a character approaches, shrouded in darkness and rain. We can barely see her, but we can tell she’s holding something over her head to keep rain out of her eyes. A gorgeous close shot has her running by as the title flashes on-screen, and it hangs there to transition us into another air shot of an interesting and subtly mysterious array of weird police robots. Meanwhile Psycho-Pass 2 cuts to a computer map screen with a bunch of floating windows on it. Even though the pictures are detailed, they’re too blown out and go by too fast for us to get any idea of what they’re showing. This just feels like a throwaway shot because we have no context for what we’re seeing or time to process it. From here, we launch into an exposition scene, and while it isn’t handled poorly, it feels like a jarring thrust into the action when compared to the first episode of season one. I can understand where maybe they wanted to start off fast because this is the second season, but it doesn’t end up being necessary, since this episode actually manages to establish fewer new concepts than the first season did. Most of the episode feels like it’s just trying to reacquaint us with the setting and characters, while briefly showing us who the new characters are, but the city doesn’t even feel as familiar as it did within a single episode of the first season because it does so little to acclimate us to the tone and feel of the setting. Look at just how much the first episode of season one does to set the scene, with all these overhead shots, incredibly detailed placement of police robots, and shots of Ginoza getting out of the car. This shot where Akane bursts through a crowd of onlookers to face an illusory robot which is being disrupted by the rain communicates a fuckton of information all at once. Compare that against this fucking awful shot of her police car pulling up to… a wall? And her stepping out onto a backdrop of this weird green industrial complex… place? In Psycho-Pass, Akane runs up to a tented off area, which is already a detail I’ve never even seen in any anime before and, out of breath and soaked, greets her new partner, with a shot that feels like a proper introduction. This shot is duplicated at the end of the first season for Akane’s new partner, but that doesn’t change how boring it is for both Akane and her partner to start the second season sitting in a car. At around the same time in both shows, the commanding officer looks over the mission details on a projection from their watch, and if this doesn’t tell you everything about the difference, I don’t know what will. In the original, the holographic HUD takes up the majority of the screen, and the out-of-focus background features bright, but nondescript details, which make the whole frame look pretty, but doesn’t distract from the abundance of details on screen. Season two has a much less detailed and overall uglier HUD which is poorly framed against a massive background, half of which is occupied by a police car, and the other half of which is just an expanse of nothingness. It doesn’t even obey the law of thirds, which is like the most basic tenet of photography. Plus, the angle of Akane’s arm makes no sense. The next shot, though, was the moment when watching Psycho-Pass 2 wherein the gravity of the bad shot composition really hit me. In this shot, Akane and her partner are just standing against a vast expanse of featureless red ground. Just… why? First of all, why does the ground look like that? Why is it red, why does it not look like road at all, why is there just an infinite amount of light shining from I guess directly above them? What the hell kind of camera angle is this? There’s no horizon line, no sense of space or height, how’d they get so far away from the police car, why does the angle of their faces suggest that we’re facing them, even though we’d have to be like twelve feet above them to get this shot? Why go for a wide-angle shot if it was going to mean drawing tiny details on tiny characters, which is always going to look like shit? Why are they standing directly in the middle of the fucking frame? Look at the comparable scene from the first season. Holy fuck. We’ve got this awesome angle where we can see over Ginoza’s shoulder to his watch, while also seeing Akane’s full body, and she’s got this fantastic facial expression. We’ve got a horizon line, objects in the background, and even this tentpole in the mid-ground, which all gives us a perfect sense of space; and not only does the ground have markings on it, but there’s an interplay of different light sources on the pavement. This shot is so detailed, that when you stop to think about the fact that this was all planned out and drawn by a team of people, it’s kind of mind-blowing. They didn’t film this with real people standing under a real tent in a real lot with real police robots in the background, they had to draw all that shit, and it looks totally real and immersive. This shot from Psycho-Pass 2 could not possibly be recreated in live action because the perspective is impossible. Look at how both shows have almost identical scenes of the dominator machines opening, but in the original it’s bright and impactful, while in the sequel it’s dark and hard to make out. Also the pavement is now grey instead of red. I could go on through both of these episodes and talk about how the first one feels like a cohesive and linear journey through an interesting part of town with interesting characters and a good sense of what the target is up to, while the second show feels like a disorganized and jumpy mess that goes all over town, never gives a hint of personality to any of its characters, and barely gives any sense of what the target is doing along the way, but all of that falls more on the writing and directing side. I just wanted to cut to the heart of how these show’s differ visually. One has its final confrontation in a dank and terrifying warehouse, while the other has it on a rooftop where the color of the sky is different in like every shot for some reason. Both shows roll credits on an identical cityscape shot, but one comes after some hyper-detailed shots of a murky industrial harbor, and the other comes after some like… mall… building? I don’t know. I don’t necessarily expect other people to care about or notice this kind of stuff the way I do, and I also won’t pretend like I was breaking all this stuff down to this extent in my head while I was watching the shows. All I knew was that the first episode of Psycho-Pass had blown my mind back when I first watched it, and when I kicked up the first episode of the sequel, I quickly thought, “huh this kinda looks like shit.” Considering that Psycho-Pass is one of my top five favorite anime largely because of the strength of its aesthetic and setting, it was a huge letdown to see that the staff responsible for season two dropped the ball so hard in those areas. Maybe this won’t affect your viewing of Psycho-Pass 2, but it certainly affected mine, and I hope that even if I can’t make you care about these things, I’ve at least done enough to make you understand where I’m coming from.

Text version and extra description:

I made this video with the intention of posting it on the Digibro channel whenever it gets un-suspended; and as such I had to keep it under 15 minutes thanks to the problems my channel *already* had.

The script was actually a bit too long to fit in the video, so I had to cut some parts near the beginning; and the result makes somewhat less sense, so here I’ll explain what I was getting at:

One of the basic principles of animation is the manipulation of weight and momentum to make animation look more realistic and impactful. Similar to how Jackie Chan manipulates shots to create impact, animation is all about manipulating the timing of frames to create impact. However, Imaishi’s team applies this basic animation principle to the flow of scenes, which not lot a lot of anime does (but someone like Jackie Chan does expertly). In other words, Imaishi is like the anime Jackie Chan (or something).

Hope that clears up what I meant there. I’ll link the Jackie Chan vid below among other things.

By the way, I would be super duper appreciative if you supported me on patreon or paypal. Tax season came around and since my income is not taxed across the year I’m about to pay the government a loooot of money, so I can really use anything I can get!
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/digibrony
Paypal: digitalboyreviews@gmail.com

Jackie Chan – How To Direct Action Comedy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ

Dailymotion upload in case this gets taken down here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2grusp_visual-rundown-kill-la-kill-s-opening-scene_tv

Kill la Kill is, for my money, one of–if not, THE–best-looking TV anime ever made; and while the series has gotten a lot of credit for its sense of visual design, I nonetheless think that it has been unfairly criticized in this regard, and underappreciated for its strengths. Reviewers often seem to miss the forest for the trees when talking about Kill la Kill’s liberal use of stills and limited animation–without accounting for just how cleverly it utilizes those elements, or talking about the incredible way that every single moment of animation flows into one-another.

What director Hiroyuki Imaishi and his team excel at (more than any other anime staff in my opinion) is high-impact visuals, generated via manipulation of weight and momentum.

This sensation of impact is essential to creating an effective action scene. If you haven’t seen the video on Jackie Chan and How to Direct Action Comedy by Every Frame A Painting, then I highly recommend checking that out. In it, Tony explain how Jackie Chan manipulates a sequence of shots to make every punch and kick have more of an impact. These kinds of techniques are why, when you watch a great kung fu movie and someone gets punched, you and your friends all yell, “OH!,” whereas in a more empty and low-impact fight scene, you might not feel much of anything.

But what makes Imaishi’s style so compelling is that he doesn’t simply apply the ideas of weight and momentum to the individual animation cuts–he also applies them to entire scenes. Imaishi’s work is all about a sequence of rapid buildups and payoffs which flow together beautifully, combined with extremely well-crafted shot composition.

Remember how Jackie Chan’s style was called, “action comedy?” Well, like action, comedy is all about buildup, payoff, and timing. In other words, the key to both action and comedy is the feeling of catharsis. It’s the satisfaction that comes from being wound up and then released–or the impact of something bending until it breaks. A lot of the action scenes in Kill la Kill, such as the one which I’m about to talk about, are also funny, simply by virtue of their cathartic timing. What makes the series so fun and to watch is the satisfying way that all of its animation plays out, and the hilarious and kickass moments that constantly result from its use of momentum.

Right off the bat with Kill la Kill’s opening scene, it starts to build tension using super-dramatic text cards that pan towards the screen with a bassy musical cue behind them. The camera pans back across what would be a typical classroom scene, except that we can immediately tell that something’s off about it from the metallic look of the walls, the pipes running through the ceiling, and what looks like the door of a battleship. The high contrast between orange light coming in from outside, and the dark blue shadows on the walls, as well as on the uniforms of the students, creates a sense of heightened drama–which contrasts with these silly shots of Mako’s sleeping head bobbling around with a giant snot bubble, and with all of the snacks and toys on the students’ desks.

This contrast puts us in an interesting state of mind as viewers. The scene is set up equally for some kind of dramatic confrontation, as well as for irreverent slapstick comedy–and the scene which is about to come is exactly all of those things. After a sudden bang on the door, the camera pans towards it very slowly, while the wheel turns with lots of resistance, causing the tension to rise even more with our expectations.

Then, BAM! Giant foot through the door! As the torn-off door crashes into the window, we hear the classmates react with the same incredulity that we do; and then there is once again a small buildup between the door hitting the window, and it breaking apart to decimate the room. Because of how the door initially leaves through the left side of the screen, passes through this shot wherein everyone turns their heads to follow it, and then comes in from the right to hit the window, the impact of that action is felt across all three cuts. The buildup after the door hits the wall then gives us just enough time to process that impact before it comes crashing back through the right side of the screen and into this next cut. This way, the destruction of the classroom has just as much impact as the shot of the door getting kicked in, with the addition of a big visual payoff in the way that all of this detail litters the screen.

What keeps us grounded in this shot is the placement of the teacher in the center, who is standing still in a strange pose amidst all the chaos. If not for this, then the cut to the teacher staring into the gaping doorway would feel jarring after all the stuff going on in the last shot; but because of this visual through-line, the transition feels natural.

In this shot, the slow-moving dust and falling papers serve as a resolution to the previous payoff, which helps to transition into the next tension buildup. We still feel connected to the action which has just happened, while pensively awaiting the forthcoming drama. Our anticipation for what might come from the darkness is heightened by the length of this shot, and by the teacher’s slow drawl when he talks.

Three lights come beaming out of the darkness to signify to us that something is coming–sort of like an enemy telegraphing its attack in a video game. Our anticipation reaches its peak at this point, and then is payed off big time with the utterly insane visual of Gamagoori flooding the frame with his massive body. This animation cut itself has an enormous sense of elasticity, as Gamagoori stretches to fit his body into the screen, and then slams his foot on the ground and screams, generating tons of impact.

If we compare this animation cut to the impact of a shotgun sound, then Gamagoori squeezing through the door would be the cocking of the gun, the slamming of his foot and screaming would be the sound of the gun going off, and then the appearance of the one-star students would be the sound of the gunshot reverberating through the air. The appearance of these students also draws a clear line leading out of the frame into the opposite direction, which is where the camera then cuts to next.

Gamagoori’s massive presence not only dominates the majority of the frame in this shot; but the teacher then escapes backwards across the frame until he’s tiny, signifying the immense power of this giant man. Gamagoori’s head even encroaches further into the frame as the shot continues, allowing him to take complete ownership of the scene. Remember that up until now, the teacher’s presence near the center of the frame was our visual through-line for every shot. However, Gamagoori has come in from the right, taking up a ton of the frame, forced the teacher out of the frame, and then boldly taken over the entire frame with his face and name in the next shot. Within seconds, Gamagoori has run the teacher out of his scene and taken possession of it by force.

Gamagoori remains centered in the frame as he walks around the classroom, forcing even the camera, which had mostly been stationary until this point, to follow along with him. Gamagoori is portrayed at his actual size now, meaning that his size before was more representative of the size of his presence. Kill la Kill manipulates scale like this constantly, using its art more to convey the feeling of a scene above its actuality. It’s also worth mentioning how these cuts cleverly utilize the silhouette of a student as a wipe when transitioning between them.

As Gamagoori surveys the students, we are now introduced to the student whom he is obviously looking for, and whose face conveys a mixture of fear and anger. Once again, we enter a period of buildup, as we wonder if this kid is going to make a move. He stands up and knocks his desk out of the left side of the screen, which draws our attention in that direction, before this next shot which, also features right-to-left tension.

In this shot, both Gamagoori and this kid are sharing the center of focus. Gamagoori dominates the upper left half of the screen with his massive body–but in spite of his size, the kid’s presence is bolstered by all of the other students staring at him, and by the fact that Gamagoori’s face is shadowed, while his is lit. As the kid raises his arm slowly into the air while clutching a smoke bomb and his voice goes up in pitch, the tension escalates all over again, before the kid bursts the bomb and the screen is completely filled with smoke.

Now, the camera cuts out to the hallway as smoke blows the door off of several classrooms, and suddenly everything starts moving very fast. In contrast with the tension of the previous scene, now we are greeted with pulse-pounding, explosive action. Our defiant youngster has burst from the classroom and taken off, attempting to flee from the tension and overwhelming presence of Gamagoori.

However, only seconds later, Gamagoori shows that he will not be forgotten so easily. This brilliant multi-layered scene gives us two action sequences at once–one of this kid who thinks he’s getting away hauling ass down a revolving series of staircases–and one of Gamagoori’s aerial pursuit as he freefalls from the building. Besides being visually impressive, the action has gotten so frenetic and chaotic in this sequence that the next payoff actually arrives in how it comes to a hault.

In one very rapid sequence, just as this kid has finally gotten the scene all to himself for a moment, he throws the doors open with a bang, only for Gamagoori to be right there, towering over him; and then Gamagoori grabs him by the collar. You’ll notice that the transition from Gamagoori standing in front of him to having him by the collar is so fast that we don’t even see the action taking place–we only understand it because of a well-placed sound effect which occurs across both cuts. It’s because of the sequential impact of the doors flying open and Gamagoori grabbing the kid by the collar that we instantly sense how completely Gamagoori has flattened this kid’s attempt to escape, and how he immediately takes back control of the scene.

Whereas the previous action sequence had featured both Gamagoori and the kid in contesting positions of power, the next shot after Gamagoori throws him is the beginning of a beatdown. Gamagoori has once again forcefully expelled someone from the frame; only this time, we follow along to see just how much damage the kid is taking. This high-intensity sequence immediately smash-cuts into a detailed frame of Gamagoori asserting his dominance–only this time, it’s less about Gamagoori, and more about the school itself. Notice that the school dominates most of the screen, along with both Gamagoori and his one-star lackeys. We even have this enormous burst of light, which signifies the supreme power of the school itself; however, we have yet to see the actual source of this light, meaning that the school and Gamagoori are merely a part of the light that the school casts over its students.

Our kid is not done, though. While Gamagoori is still looking down at him, he once again finds himself better-lit, and attempts to reclaim the scene by unveiling the one-star uniform which he’s stolen. The uniform even gets its own on-screen text, which has already been used to establish important or powerful forces. However, the uniform only gets a text crawl, which tacitly implies that it is less important than Gamagoori, who got an entire screenful of text before. This slow panning shot once again builds up the tension, as we are posed with the question of whether or not this kid can turn the tables on the opponent who is casting that shadow across his face.

Once the kid dons the uniform, he gets to take center stage, and even has his own starburst from behind! Immediately, his presence has increased massively; and as his body transforms, he dominates the screen in his own blinding light! This is the kind of shot which would be used to introduce a main character or a superhero in most episodes of most shows. Right away, we understand just how much this uniform has increased his powers, as well as his importance in the eyes of the scene. Now, in spite of Gamagoori’s overwhelming presence, the kid is able to hold his own in a longer shot, and even pull the camera back to focus on himself. He slaps away Gamagoori’s whip, and then takes over as much of the screen as he can in the windup to one huge, scenery-tearing punch! And then—

boom. What should have been this kid’s earth-shattering rebuttal to Gamagoori’s attack is instead consumed by Gamagoori’s presence all over again. Not only do Gamagoori, his men, and the light of the school consume the majority of the screen, but Gamagoori’s power radiates out of him with a demonic light. This is the turning point after which it’s apparent that Gamagoori is far more powerful than what any of us could have expected. This kid feels small and feeble all over again as Gamagoori reclaims the frame for himself once more. In this shot, even though the kid is centered and alone in the screen, the actual focus of the shot is of Gamagoori’s shadow being cast over him. At this point, Gamagoori’s presence is so all-consuming that he doesn’t even have to be in the shot to have possession over it. Gamagoori grows even more gigantic, brilliant, and terrifying as he continues his explanation, before finally jumping into his utter beatdown of this poor, pathetic rebel.

In the midst of Gamagoori’s scenery-chewing beatdown, we are teased by brief cuts of Satsuki waiting in the wings. We don’t know who this is yet, but the fact that she’s important enough to stand over Gamagoori’s fight sets us up for the expectation of her power.

By the time Gamagoori’s beatdown is complete, the kid has been reduced to nothing but a tiny blob in the midst of this gigantic shot, which is dominated entirely by Gamagoori and the walls of the school. One Gamagoori has retrieved the uniform, he gives it a pat down–signifying that he’s completed his mission and done away with his opponent. When Gamagoori hands the uniform back to his subordinate, the camera pans to the right, which works as a transition away from kid and onto the rest of the school behind them. Just in this one cut, we have effectively ended the relevance of that kid’s scene, and moved into a new sequence.

As Gamagoori rants to the entire student body, we see panning shots of students looking out of the windows–all of which are covered by the school’s radiant light filtering in from above. This shows that while the camera may be focused elsewhere, the scene is still being owned by the school and those who govern it. Then finally, as the teacher and Gamagoori glance upwards, drawing our attention towards the light source, we finally get our introduction to Satsuki.

Within seconds, and before even emerging onto the scene, Satsuki immediately takes complete control of the scene in just this one shot. In spite of having dominated the entire scene up until this point, Gamagoori is made to look small in the face of this incredible light which consumes everything. Satsuki doesn’t have to force her way into the center of the shot; even from a distance, her presence owns the frame. Similar to how Gamagoori’s shadow had continued to possess the scene even when he wasn’t on-screen, Satsuki’s light shines entirely over this cut as Gamagoori pays deference to her in the center. Satsuki’s proper introduction with her name card on screen requires a towering panning shot, which places the entirety of the school and its one-star students underneath her radiant light.

It’s worth noting that in the consecutive upward pans while Satsuki gives her brief speech, we can just barely get a glimpse of her other elite four members. While we don’t know who these shadowy figures are just yet, we at least know that there are others who are powerful enough to be sharing a screen with Satsuki. Considering all that we’ve seen, we can instantly recognize that these are going to be hugely important characters, even though they’ve been on-screen for less than a second and never even been verbally mentioned.

After Satsuki’s radiance wipes the screen, we then cut to another shot of the school, only the without light radiating from the top–signifying that we’ve transitioned into a new scene. The next shot is simply one long, continuous pan, which once again serves as another huge tension build. We see Honnouji Academy–the school which we’ve just been made to understand–in its full form; followed by the entirety of the gigantic city that this school stands at the summit of. Then, finally, we are introduced to our main character–the transfer student, Matoi Ryuuko–who gets her own screen-filling shot all to herself.

Matoi Ryuuko is then shown at the foot of this city, standing off against the overpowering light from high above. Right away, we understand that this girl is going to have to fight her way to the top, in opposition to the city in its entirety–and that’s when we get the title card.

Just within the span of this opening scene, we have witnessed the ways that Kill la Kill uses a constant sequence of tension and payoff to build satisfying, high-impact action-comedy scenes, as well as how it utilizes shot composition and color design to communicate the power relationships between its characters and the flow of its action; all while introducing us to the setting and most of the important characters. I’m confident that had I first watched this sequence entirely in silence with no subtitles, then I still would‘ve felt every single thing which I was supposed to feel and understood what was going on just through the visuals alone (although I wouldn’t advise doing this, considering how the fantastic soundtrack and sound design makes the entire sequence that much more impactful).

I hope that this breakdown can help people to appreciate why I regard Kill la Kill as such a visual masterpiece. Honestly, there are not a lot of TV anime which come anywhere close to putting this level of care and thought into every single frame of animation; and to criticize Kill la Kill for not always having the most fluid animation seems like totally missing the point to me. Before criticizing a show on its visuals, I advise taking into account what the show is trying to convey with its visuals, and looking a little bit deeper into how each scene plays out. When you can tell that a series has a very satisfying visual element, even in spite of its limited animation, then try and figure out what the series is doing to compensate for that limited animation. Personally, I think that Kill la Kill’s sense of flow and composition makes it far more visually engaging than any other TV anime that I’ve seen, regardless of the fluidity of its movement. Let me know how you feel about it in the comments; and if you enjoyed this video, then be sure and subscribe for more videos just like this, and support me on patreon if you’d like to help me continue to make this kind of content in the future. I’ll see you in the next one!

Text version and links:

Visual Cohesion and Flow in Anime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1zhW9lAIeY

Visual Breakdown: Tension and Payoff in Kill la Kill’s Opening Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZYUEw6y_hk&list=UU1VFTzhwUTp0gArl78br2SQ

My twitter: https://twitter.com/digibrah
Digibro After Dark: https://www.youtube.com/user/DigibronyAfterDark
Thoughts on Current Anime: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrNNYICtHM3OxLFOKsvGywA

What I love about animation as a medium (and what makes it my medium of choice when it comes to watching and analyzing stuff) is that there are so many different elements which go into creating it. Having so many different components means that there are that many more ways in which animation can be done right; but it also means that there are that many more ways in which it can be done wrong. Anime reviewers tend to look at all of the different elements which make up an animation, and then attempt to qualify how well each of those elements was handled. They tend to follow a system which looks something like this:

Story, Art, Sound, Character, Enjoyment, and Overall. Personally, I find these kinds of broad categories to be wildly unhelpful. Aren’t the characters a part of the story? Isn’t enjoyment derived from how well all of these elements were combined–making it pretty similar to Overall? What does it mean to have good story, or good art or sound? In the interest of creating a more helpful metric to go about judging these things, I think it’s important for us to look at animation in a bit more depth, and to really think about all of the different elements which comprise it.

In this video, I’ll be tackling the “Art” category, though I think it’ll be much more helpful if we refer to it as, “visuals.” After all, any part of a show can be called art, but I think “visuals” makes it pretty clear that I’m talking about what the viewer is literally seeing on-screen. I’ll be breaking the visual elements down into six categories: Animation Quality/Directing, Background/Setting Design, Character/Mechanical Design, Shot Composition/Flow, Color Design/Digital Processing, and Consistency; and then describing how each can be done well, or done poorly.

1. Animation Quality/Directing

Animation quality is probably the easiest thing for the average anime critic to notice about a show’s visual design. After all, it’s not hard to tell if the images on-screen are moving with a lot more fluidity and detail than what you’re used to seeing in TV anime–which, if you’ve watched a lot of it, is little to none at all. Most anime is pretty cheaply made and stationary–so when suddenly everything on-screen is moving, it tends to stand out a lot.

However, while a high level of movement can be impressive in itself, I think that animation directing plays a much bigger role in creating memorable moments, and in making sure that the animation makes sense and flows well. Examples of great animation directing are all over the place; go watch a Sakuga MAD or any fight scene animated by Bones, and you’ll witness some incredibly well-choreographed, timed, and animated sequences. However, I think it’s possible to have animation with high-quality movement that ends up being unmemorable thanks to lackluster direction. Not everyone will necessarily agree with my picks, as I’ve seen others praising these works for their animation; but personally, I don’t feel that these shows stack up in comparison to other, similar works.

Black God, or Kurokami, has been known pretty much exclusively for the highly fluid animation of its fight scenes. However, I’ve always found the fights to be really confusing and unmemorable due to their awkward use of space and low-impact attacks. Every fight looks like it’s happening on a 2-dimensional plane, even when that obviously isn’t meant to be the case, and the individual attacks have no real sense of punch. Compare this against the famous sword duel from the final scene of Studio Bones’ Sword of the Stranger. Every single swing of the blade feels dangerous, unique, and memorable, as the characters navigate a huge and easily-understood space. I’m not saying that Kurokami sucks for not matching up to one of the best action scenes ever animated, but it definitely lends some perspective to how things can be done much better than when Kurokami provides.

For an even more extreme example, a film which bothered me to no end with its animation was Nerawareta Gakuen. The best way I can explain it is that the film is overanimated, to an extent where none of the movement feels natural. Instead of looking cool, it’s mostly just awkward–and the entire film is like this constantly. Compare that against one of my favorite animation cuts in Space Dandy (which happens to be from the same animator who did that scene from Stranger). This scene comes in the middle of an otherwise mostly normal-looking episode, and stands out because the livelihood of the animation fits with the theme of the song and the scene surrounding it. These cuts are super-memorable, even though the characters move almost too much, because it feels natural in the scene for them to move that way.

Again, I do think it’s impressive any time that a show can feature highly fluid and detailed animation–but I think that the truly well-directed animations are the ones that stand out above all the rest, and deserve to be recognized for just how special they really are.

2. Background/Setting Design

This is also pretty easy to figure out. Some shows have really interesting and well-illustrated backgrounds and settings, whereas others take place in perfectly generic copy-pasted schools. However, this is another case wherein there’s a difference between backgrounds which are just drawn well, and those which are also designed well–which I’ll get into through some examples.

Guilty Crown is a show with a lot of highly-detailed and intricate locations which I found to be completely unmemorable in the episodes that I watched. I never felt like I had a real sense of where the action was taking place, because all of the locations just seemed like generic blown-out buildings and futuristic slum fare. There’s no real sense of atmosphere or personality to the setting, in spite of how well-drawn the backgrounds are.

Compare this against the art in another sci-fi thriller with lots of futuristic slums, Texhnolyze. This city is not only filled with detail, but it also carries a persistent atmosphere of grime, despair, and poverty. Everything has this worn-in and rusty look to it, which constantly gives you the impression that this place and the people in it have completely gone to shit. More than anything in the show, the tone of the setting is what really gets into your bones and sticks with you when watching Texhnolyze, because it’s such an uncomfortable yet impeccably crafted setting.

Having just the right sense of design and use of detail can be the difference between a memorable setting and a generic one. I have seen thousands of cookie-cutter anime schools in my day; yet I can instantly recognize the school from K-On because of how it was filled with so many little details, and made to look like a real, specific location–because it literally was based on an actual school down to a photographic level. I’m confident that if I visited this school, based solely on having watched all of K-On, I could find my way to the music room without any assistance, just because of how memorable the landmarks of the setting were in the show.

3. Character/Mechanical Design

This is where things get a little bit more complicated. Again, I think it’s pretty easy for most people to tell the difference between memorable designs and generic ones, though the range of what the audience prefers will ultimately come down to the individual. On the technical level though, it’s definitely true that there are certain designs which translate well into animations, and others which do so with much more difficulty.

Most of the worst examples come from anime adaptations of manga and light novels. After all, when it comes to non-moving pictures, it tends to be the carefully crafted and detailed drawings which attract the most attention; and care is given mostly to how cool the characters will look on the page without any thought to how those characters would move in 3-dimensional space. If you’ve looked at pretty much any light novel covers and then looked at their anime adaptations, then you’ll have seen how the animation team had to compromise the prettiness and cleanness of the original designs in order for them to work in animation; and even then, a lot of the time it’s just impossible to make them look right consistently. I always think of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai as an example of a series which has gorgeously attractive character art that completely falls apart when drawn from different angles or put into motion; or Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure as a show that gave up on trying to have its characters move, and just went with having the most stylistic still frames possible at all times.

It’s for this reason that most original anime tends to favor designs which are less complex and difficult to draw, and more rely on having a few memorable characteristics that set them apart. For instance, the cast of Gurren Lagann are each known for their iconic outfits, accessories, and color palettes, more so than for being beautifully drawn in individual shots. Kill la Kill is a show which rides this line perfectly, with characters that work well in animation, but have such memorable costumes and body types that they stand out in illustrations as well.

I also threw mechanical design in with this category, simply because it follows the same principles as character design, and is also an important part of creating memorable visuals in shows which incorporate mechanical elements.

4. Shot Composition/Flow

I’ve already made a separate video about what good visual flow looks like in animation, and on how rare it is to see shows which handle it exceptionally well. It’s also pretty rare to see shows which handle it exceptionally poorly, but if you want the perfect example, look no further than Gundam G-Reco. Despite being excellent in just about every other visual category, the flow of its directing is so awkward and jarring that the majority of scenes are completely incomprehensible. The flow is bad enough to almost completely kill the entire show.

Shot composition, meanwhile, is more about the attractiveness of each individual frame, and has a lot to do with creating good flow in itself. This is one of the things which doesn’t carry over quite as poorly from manga as a lot of other elements do, considering that manga also has to concern itself with panel composition; but we can start to see tons of really awkward and bland shot composition when we look into low and mid-grade light novel adaptations.

Because the average light novel consists mostly of characters sitting or standing around talking, a lot of their adaptations have a really awkward time figuring out how to make those scenes visually engaging in animation. We get a lot of scenes of characters standing around awkwardly and talking forever, which just feels boring and lame to watch.

One director and studio who have banked everything on making these types of conversations interesting through shot composition is Akiyuki Shinbo and studio SHAFT. This team has long been infamous for trying to cover up their lack of animation budget and largely stationary scripts by throwing as many strange and visually engaging frames at the viewer as they can muster–and a lot of the times, it works out really well. The Monogatari franchise has managed to be one of the most visually engaging TV anime out there in spite of being almost exclusively dialog-driven and fairly light on movement altogether.

However, you don’t have to go down the road of experimentation just to make a conversation a bit easier to watch. Check out this scene from the first episode of Baccano, in which the layout of the shots and location, the acting of the characters, and the overall aesthetic manages to be engaging on its own, without anything really moving around or any crazy stuff going on.

Shot composition can also be used to convey deeper emotions and subtleties in the storyline when used well. Hideaki Anno is arguably the master of shot composition in anime, with Neon Genesis Evangelion being his magnum opus. He can convey the sensations of loneliness, distance, and solitude that Shinji feels just by his position in the frame, and brings tension to exposition scenes in the first episode just by cutting off the eyes or mouths of the people talking, to give them a more mysterious and unsettling presence. If any series is really deserving of a shot-for-shot analytical breakdown, it’s that one.

5. Color Design/Digital Processing

This is a bit harder for me to explain because I don’t completely understand it myself, being the most uncoordinated person on earth when it comes to colors. Still, even though this aspect doesn’t get talked about much in anime criticism, I think it’s pretty easy to tell when a series makes excellent use of colors or has a cohesive and distinct palette, versus looking kind of awkward and janky like a lot of shows from the early 2000s had a tendency to.

For another example of a show that did everything right except for colors, but then also did colors perfectly at times, I’m going to, perhaps controversially, look at Space Dandy. Some of the settings and color designs in Space Dandy, especially in the early episodes, are kind of bland in comparison to the show’s awesome designs and godlike animation. For instance, the interior of Dandy’s ship or the Boobie’s restaurant have this implacably unappealing color scheme that just did not work for me at all.

Luckily though, Dandy is a show that constantly changed up its visual style, and incorporated the ideas and talents of a huge number of creative minds; so we also get stuff like episode eight of season two, which had some of the most attractive and memorable setting and color design that I saw in 2014. I’m always a fan of bold, high-contrast blues and reds and the like, so this episode was like a visual feast for me.

Digital processing is also something that I don’t really understand, other than that UFOTable have mastered it somehow, and by golly is it impressive.

6. Consistency

This is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s also one of the biggest hurdles that most anime have to face visually. Anime production occurs on a constant time crunch by severely overworked and underpaid teams, and it’s easy for everything to go wrong even in a high-budget productions. If you’ve not started watching Shirobako, then I advise doing so, as it exists as a sort of guide to all of the things that can go wrong to effect the consistency of a show’s animation. A lot of older anime especially tend to fall apart when it comes to consistency, since every frame had to be totally hand-drawn from start to finish back then, which only complicated the process further. I’m not sure there exists a TV anime which is both visually impressive in every category and consistently good-looking to boot, though Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy, and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex probably come the closest.

I’m sure that there are more ways in which a show’s visuals could be broken down further, and bear in mind that while I am a diehard fan of animation, I am not actually an animation student, so there may be some more technical terminology and theory behind the things which I’ve described here. That said, I hope that this quick rundown has been enough to help you to break down the visual component of animation in more depth, and that it can lead to some deeper and more interesting criticism on the subject. I certainly intend to share more examples of shows which use some of these elements well in the future, so stick around on my channel if you want to see more breakdowns of this nature.

By the way guys, I’d like to give a massive thanks to everyone who supported my channel over the five days that it was suspended in the past week. It meant a lot to see that so many people cared enough about my content to try and fight to get it back; and that definitely helped motivate me to keep pushing to reclaim it. In case this happens again in the future, I highly recommend following me on twitter, where I post any updates that I have on the channel, as well as generally tweet about the shows which I’m watching and stuff like that. You can also follow my channel Digibro After Dark, which is where I put out the video giving the details when my channel went down, and also where I’ll be sharing the details of how I got it back.

As always, if you want to help me to be able to continue creating this content, then consider supporting me by becoming a patron or by sending donations via paypal; and once again, thanks a ton to everyone who has continued to support me through all of this, both financially and otherwise. I love you all, and I’ll see you in the next one!

Text version (adapted from this old post):

Once upon a time, I was in my little brother’s room watching Beyblade on Cartoon Network (don’t ask why), when a certain character appeared on screen, and I immediately thought, “this guy looks like he’d be voiced by Takehito Koyasu.” I looked it up, and sure enough, that’s exactly who plays him in the Japanese dub.

If you know about Koyasu, then you probably know that he has one of the most distinct voices in anime, and that he’s performed in more anime series than any other voice actor. If you’ve been watching him closely, you may have also noticed that a lot of his characters look pretty similar. Nougami Neuro has a long face, snake-like features, and almost the same hair colors as the guy from Beyblade, and they’ve both got one strand of hair falling in front of their face. Luck Gandor has a similar strand of hair and facial structure, as does Betterman, but with even more colors. Fool from Kaleido Star is similar, and even Dio Brando kind of has the long face situation going on. If you start looking at a bunch of Koyasu’s long-faced guys back to back, they all kind of start blurring together.

Just like regular actors tend to get typecast in live-action films and television, the same thing happens to a lot of voice actors. There was a period in the late 2000s wherein Rie Kugimiya became famous, if not infamous, for portraying a bunch of bossy, long-haired lolis, between Shakugan no Shana, Zero no Tsukaima, Hayate no Gotoku, and Toradora; but sometimes the similarities in appearance across an actor’s roles become almost scary.

Keiji Fujiwara has played so many gravelly-voiced cool guys that you’ve probably run into him more than a few times, but did you notice how his characters almost always have the same face? Boxy, rectangular eyes–often with marks under them–are pretty much a constant; and most of them are prone to break out the cocky smile every now and again. Keep in mind that a lot of these were manga adaptations, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the casting director took a look at a character like Fujimoto Shirou from Blue Exorcist and thought, “that guy looks like a Keiji Fujiwara character, let’s hire him!”

Kana Hanazawa has gotten to be pretty much ubiquitous these days, showing up in every damn show, but she really does happen to play a lot of characters with weird bangs. Sengoku Nadeko, Sonohara Anri, and Amano Touko all share a hairstyle that I’ve never really seen any other characters rocking.

Toyosaki Aki seems to find herself in a lot of shows that have this teeth thing going on with their character designs. Don’t know what that’s about.

This isn’t exactly the same kind of deal, but Izaya from Durarara and Araragi from Bakemonogatari are both played by Hiroshi Kamiya. Both characters have one little sister who usually wears green, and another little sister who usually wears yellow and is voiced by Kitamura Eri. This is either the weirdest typecasting ever, or the most awesome coincidence.

Have you ever noticed a voice actor whose characters all kind of look alike, or tried to predict who would voice the characters from your favorite manga if they made an anime adaptation? If so, tell me about it in the comments, and if you like this video then be sure to share it around. If you wanna help me keep making videos like this, then support me on patreon, and if you find yourself super bored around noon every day, then check out my gaming channel.

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A large part of what’s kept Neon Genesis Evangelion so relevant and rewatchable over the years is the masterful cinematography which Hideaki Anno and his team at studio Gainax brought to the show’s production. Every episode is inundated with iconic imagery which does as much to tell the story as the dialog does. Today, we’ll be looking at ten excellent cuts from the first episode.

1. The line of tanks on the shore

Evangelion opens on some interesting post-apocalyptic imagery which almost underplays the darkness of its setting. A city long submerged underwater, with a gigantic monster swimming through it, followed by images of tanks lining the shore, all are brightly lit on a beautiful day with the sound of cicadas in the background, and a seagull landing on one of the guns. This all gives the impression that some great cataclysmic event has happened in this world’s past, but that to some extent, it’s recovered enough for life to persevere; and that this life is prepared to fight against whatever future dangers may emerge.

The most important thing about this cut is how it establishes right away that the military is expecting this monster’s arrival. As the episode goes on, we’ll see the military exhausting all of their prepared methods for dealing with this alien threat to no avail; but from the beginning, we have the sense that humanity was ready for an attack. This shot also exists as an homage to old giant monster films, which usually established the strength of the monster by having legions of tanks ineffectively attempting to take it down.

2. Shinji Ikari in the phone booth

After several shots of an empty city on lockdown, the first signs of life that we see are brief glimpses of Misato’s hands and legs, followed by a photo of Shinji, which transitions into this cut of Shinji at the payphone. This shot does an almost ridiculous job of making sure we know Shinji is the main character, literally putting a border around the frame full of lines pointing directly at him. It’s funny, too, because some of those lines would imply that the top of the phone booth’s side panels are slanted inwards, which doesn’t seem to be the case when we actually see the booth from the side. Regardless of this inconsistency, I think this was a brilliant way of putting a frame around the main character without breaking immersion, by utilizing an object which existed naturally in the setting.

3. Military dudes out of frame

After a couple of very brief, non-descriptive establishing shots within NERV headquarters, we are introduced to a trio of military personnel giving commands to their troops as they attempt to fight against the angel. This cramped, claustrophobic shot immediately conveys the tension in the air, which is taken to an almost comical level when one of the men snaps a pencil in half. What’s cool about this shot, is how it deliberately shows us very little of these men’s faces, subtly cluing us in that these guys are not important. For all we know, these are just interchangeable military dudes, whereas the guys from NERV are obviously more distinctive in their silent, unique poses and clothing. Later on, other, similar shots do allow us to see some faces, along with an ashtray overflowing with cigarettes to reinforce the level of stress in the room. These shots also lead well into the next one.

4. Gendo’s glasses getting knocked out by the shockwave

After the military dudes drop an N2 mine on the angel and briefly think that they’ve destroyed it, they take a braggadocious tone towards Gendo, telling him that he won’t be needed. This is where we feel a clear divide between the NERV and military people, if not an outright sense of competition. The shockwave crashes the monitors in Gendo’s glasses, as if to suggest that the N2 mine’s supposed success has stopped him dead in his tracks and cut off the thing which, until now, has made him look powerful and in control. Later on, once NERV takes back control of the situation and one of their satellites gets destroyed, we see Gendo’s glasses go out for a moment, only to come back on when switching to the next camera–as if to suggest that Gendo and NERV always have a backup plan ready.

5. Gendo’s letter to Shinji

While Gendo referring to Shinji as a spare pilot, and Shinji stating that his father only calls him when he needs something, are both strong indicators of Gendo’s character, his letter to Shinji is perhaps the most impactful (even if it’s only on-screen for about a second). It appears to be a file with Shinji Ikari’s name on it, which has had all of its information struck out, and the word “COME” scrawled on it in marker, followed by the smaller, “thanks.” It seems likely that the thanks was added later by someone like Fuyutsuki before the letter was sent to Shinji.

The fact that all of the information is stricken out not only indicates the secrecy of Gendo’s operation, but also his lack of trust in and general respect for his son. The letter has also been torn into pieces and then taped back together, which most likely was the result of Shinji reacting violently at first to his father’s cold-blooded summons, but then later thinking that his father might really need him for something, and deciding to go and check it out. This one letter tells us everything we need to know about their relationship, which will only be reinforced in the next shot.

6. Gendo looking down on Shinji

This is probably the most iconic shot in the episode, as it confirms everything we’ve been lead to suspect about Gendo Ikari. His first meeting with his son in years has him lording from on high and behind a glass panel over his son; asking him to do the impossible without even the willingness to engage him on a personal level. Already, Gendo seems like a dominating, fearsome character, while Shinji is as helpless and disconnected from Gendo’s world as he could possibly be.

7. Framing Misato and Ritsuko on either side of Shinji

This continues throughout the scene, but there’s an interesting dynamic with the way that Misato and Ritsuko are framed on either side of Shinji on the walkway. At first, we have Misato on one side being sympathetic for Shinji and aghast at the situation, wheres Ritsuko represents the direct pressure of Gendo’s plan on the other. As the scene goes on, Misato ends up taking Ritsuko’s side, leaving Shinji literally, physically trapped. Everywhere he turns is someone pressuring him to get into the robot; so when he refuses, he does it standing right in the middle, unable to run away.

8. Evangelion as a fierce protector

Eva Unit 01 is one of the scariest, most fearsome-looking giant robots in anime history, and immediately gives off a hostile impression in spite of its colorful paintwork. However, when the Eva springs to life to protect Shinji, that hostility takes on a certain character. Rather than being a bloodthirsty beast, the Eva looks like a steely-eyed mother protecting its child–which will prove more appropriate than anyone could’ve anticipated by the end of the series. This act of protection is the first nice thing that anyone has done for Shinji until this point, and may be what inspires him to pay it forward after the next iconic image.

9. Shinji with blood on his hands

This one is pretty blatant with its symbolism, but no less effective. After seeing Rei in critical condition and recognizing that she is in terrible pain and in no position to fight, Shinji realizes that he literally has her blood on his hands. If he doesn’t pilot the robot, then she is going to suffer more and possibly die, which he wouldn’t be able to handle on his concience. Thus, just as the Eva has protected him, he decides to try and protect Rei.

10. Gendo’s smile

Every scene in this episode either subtly or directly informs us that the odds of victory against this angel are astronomically low. Besides the fact that the world has already been irreparably damaged, that the cities have been abandoned in the name of escape, and that the military have exhausted all of their capabilities; we have Ritsuko telling Misato that there’s about a one in a million chance of the Evangelion even activating. She does remark, however, that the odds are not zero. This brazen confidence is one of NERV’s biggest strengths, and it shines through in the moment that Gendo smiles after being asked if he thinks this plan will work. Of course it will–it has to. This is the last hope that humanity has, and to believe anything else would be to accept defeat. Here, Gendo’s madness and cruelty are almost justified by his confidence. This is the smile of a man who knows that he’s about to prove to everyone that humanity still has a chance.

Those were ten of the most killer cuts from the first episode of Evangelion, but what were some of your favorites? Let me know in the comments below, and if you enjoyed this video, be sure and share it around. If you want to help me to make more videos like this, then support my content via patreon or paypal; and if you find yourself bored for like half an hour every day, then check out my gaming channel. Thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.

Check out this interview with him that Toco Toco TV posted last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1tiKOsCz2M

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You might not know his name, but you may be familiar with the work of art director Shichiro Kobayashi. He’s been in charge of the background art for popular and classic anime series like Berserk, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Detroit Metal City, and Nodame Cantabile. If you do already know his name, then it might be for his beautiful work on the dark and striking Angel’s Egg; or the soft and soothing Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou; or maybe for his work with Hayao Miyazaki on films like Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.

Shichiro Kobayashi has been working with anime since the dawn of time–or at least since the early 70s, with his first widely-recognized work having been on the Osamu Dezaki-directed Nobody’s Boy Remi. It must have been from Dezaki that Kobayashi picked up the technique called Harmonies–high-detail paintings which Dezaki would often use to punctuate the dramatic moments in a show, and which Kobayashi would go on to use in more of his work over the next three decades.

Kobayashi’s style is instantly recognizable, whether it’s in the background of a gritty 90s high-fantasy series like Orphen; or in a goofy moe slapstick comedy from the 2010s like Tantei Opera Milky Holmes. His hand-painted backgrounds always bear the mark of his handiwork very clearly; with their inky, unclean, and almost unfinished look to them. He tends to leave a lot of white space in his backgrounds, and his very distinct ways of drawing trees, bushes, towns, and rocky roads, are easy to pinpoint as visual signatures.

If you’re watching a series that Kobayashi is involved with, you’re almost guaranteed some sweeping cityscape shots, regardless of their level of detail. Lots of his shows take place in small, rustic villages, which he brings to life immediately in his art. Others are set in more contemporary cities, which are always shown in a few super wide-angle shots. Also, this might be a coincidence, but I found that towers and steeples kept popping up in his shows, often in close relationship to a lake. Something almost sexual about that.
By nature of working in anime, he also ends up drawing a lot of schools. Most of them are very old-school, individual three-story buildings; but occassionally you get something crazy like the school from Utena.

Very ocassionally, but more commonly in his older work, Kobayashi would use these parallax background layers to create some really dramatic shots. Nobody’s Boy Remi in particular used so many of these that it became kind of hilarious.

Looking into the works of an art director like Kobayashi was fascinating, because he was so unbeholden to any genre across his career. He could pop up in a high-concept, high-budget film, or in a low-tier early-2000s harem comedy, and still be totally recognizable.

The closest thing to a connective thread in his work is that most of what he did from the late 90s onward was with studio JC Staff; tho he didn’t work with them exclusively.
If I have one criticism of the way that Kobayashi has been used, especially on a lot of those JC Staff shows, it would be that the character designs don’t always look at home in his backgrounds. Sometimes, seeing clean and colorful designs set against these sort of washed-out and soft backdrops could get a little weird, though I wouldn’t necessarily blame Kobayashi for this.

Around five years ago, I remember listening to the commentary on the Simoun DVDs wherein director Junji Nishimura briefly talked about working with Kobayashi. He described him as being so old school that he still did a lot of work on cels, and would even walk into the office with cels in hand and submit them for the show. I always wondered about what kind of person Kobayashi might be after hearing that, and I finally got a little insight into his personality from this interview that Toco Toco TV posed with him on youtube last year.

Having retired from the industry three years prior at age 79, Kobayashi still continues to work on his art and to strive for improvement at home in his incredible home studio. From the way that he talks, Kobayashi seems like a true dyed-in-the-wool artist through and through, who will probably keep going with his art for the rest of his life, and has a lot of deep thoughts about the nature of his craft. I’ll put a link to this interview in the description for anyone who’s interested in it.

Kobayashi’s contribution to anime history on more than 100 shows is staggering, and it’s always fun to be watching an old show and to instantly realize that he must’ve been the art director on it as soon as you see a few trees. If you want to see his work at its best, I’d highly recommend checking out Nobody’s Boy Remi from the 70s, Angel’s Egg and Venus Wars from the 80s, Berserk and Utena from the 90s, and Windy Tales and Tokyo Marble Chocolate from the 2000s. All of them are great shows where Kobayashi’s work really shines.

Stick around on my channel if you’d like to see more videos like this; and if you’d like to support those videos, then consider donating via Patreon, or sharing this video to anyone whom you think will enjoy it. Thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.

Edited by The Davoo

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Welcome everyone to Cool Character Designs, a new series in which I’ll be highlighting shows that feature what I find to be interesting or exceptional character designs. To start us off, we’ll have a look at last year’s uber-raunchy high school comedy/dystopian social commentary light novel adaptation, A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist, or Shimoneta for short.

The theory behind Shimoneta’s character designs is tied directly into the show’s concept: in Japan’s future, censorship has become overwhelming to the point that people can be arrested just for saying dirty words, as monitored via collars around their necks; or even for drawing dirty images, as monitored by bands around their wrists. These bands are the first important design element, as they communicate visually the idea that in this world, everyone is directly shackled to and controlled by the moral system of their society. In particular, these band communicate subservience and obedience, as we typically associate them with pets or slaves.

As is the case with most anime in general, given how much of it takes place in highschool, the most prominent outfits which we’ll see our characters wearing in this series are their school uniforms–but while the grey and blue uniforms of Tokioka Academy would seem pretty typical at a glance, what makes them interesting is the length of the girls’ skirts. Most anime school uniforms aim to hike their skirts up as high as they feasibly can–but given the focus on chaste morals in the world of Shimoneta, it only makes sense that their uniforms tend toward the opposite.

Being the paragon of mental purity that she is, at least in outward appearance and common understanding within the show’s universe, Anna Nishikinomiya naturally sports the longest skirt; and from there, the lengths could be seen as a gradient corresponding to the character’s self-perceived lewdness. Hyouka Fuwa and Otome Saotome wear their skirts fairly long, whereas Ayame Kajou wears hers shorter than anyone else when she’s not at school, barely compensating by wearing thighhigh stockings in full knowledge of their true lewdness. These skirt lengths end up being hilariously subversive in the long run, as each character’s actual lewdness is inversely proportional to how they first appear.

Ayame’s design is overall the most interesting, as she transforms her appearance during and after school, as if assuming a secret identity. She puts her hair up in a tidy braid, wears her skirt longer, and puts on bulky glasses to look more serious and studious as a member of the student council; but literally and metaphorically lets her hair down at the end of the day, transforming into the more free-spirited girl that she really is. But of course, this isn’t even her final form.

Blue Snow is Ayame’s terrorist alter-ego, and easily the most memorable design in the series. It’s simple enough–white panties over her face, and a white smock covering her naked body; but what’s great is how it simultaneously communicates the idea of a superhero dressed in mask and cape, which is exactly how Ayame sees herself, as well as the idea of a huge pervert, which is what she’s the hero of. White panties are a universal symbol of sexual purity in the world of anime, which gives this design an interesting level of depth. Ayame believes her ideals to be pure, even if her ideals are that dirty jokes and perversion should not be censored. She’s directly subverting the idea of purity in both ours and her society, by suggesting that true purity comes from embracing sexuality, rather than from trying to hide it. Her outfit manages to be a powerful symbol, and Blue Snow is both the hero that we need and the one that we deserve.

Continuing on the purity train of thought, we get Anna, whose hair is not only a shimmering silvery white, but whose eyelashes and eyebrows are colored lighter as well, giving her whole face a shining, sort of angelic appearance. I wonder, though, if her hair doesn’t turn to the darker shades of silver to reflect how much her purity is to be tainted across the series.

Fuwa Hyouka has one of my favorite designs in the show, being as I’m a big fan of that tired look–and does appear that way for a reason, as it reflects her tireless pursuit of scientific knowledge. Her sickly green, seaweed-looking hair in combination with the dark circles under her eyes gives the impression of something like rotten or bruised fruit–which suits her character well as someone who’s sort of turned away from the purity of her society and slowly gone bad. Her oversized lab coat goes a long way in making her look goofy at times, yet strangely professional and cool at others, which reflects the way that her character appears in different scenes throughout the show.

Rounding out the main students, Otome Saotome is nothing special in terms of meaningfulness, but her design is pretty cute nonetheless, and the image of her in a headband and robe drawing porn with her mouth is especially memorable. Raiki Goriki is obviously meant to look like a gorilla, and to be somewhat imposing at first, only to have that image flipped on its head when he becomes attached and attracted to the main character.

Which reminds me: the main character, Okuma Tanukichi, is also a guy! His overall design is pretty generic and typical. When he develops his own terrorist alter-ego, it pretty much just riffs off of the Blue Snow design, but kind of has a more mischievous and burglar-esque look to it, perhaps meant to evoke a Robin Hood kind of feeling. Overall, though, it’s less of a powerful design than that of Blue Snow.

Oboro Tsukimigusa shows up later in the show and has a pretty basic, unremarkable design, which is most likely on purpose as their lifestyle involves swapping out characteristics to match the missions given to them by their boss.

Moving on to characters outside of the school, Kosuri Onigashira’s outfits and design are fairly unremarkable besides the fact that they’re usually kind of cute. The main point of attention is her pink hair, which, as Ayame points out, resembles the head of a dick. Kosuri’s hair can actually be seen inflating and deflating in accordance with her energy level and happiness, which is obviously meant to mirror the states of male arousal. I don’t know how much I’d say this reflects her character uniquely, though, so much as it’s just one big dirty pun on the part of the show.

Lastly, we’ll have a look at another of my favorite designs from the series: the head of rival terrorist organization Gathered Fabric, named White Peak. What’s fascinating about this design is its contrast with Blue Snow. Both terrorists aim to utilize the purity of white panties in sending their message, but whereas Blue Snow is modelled to look like a superhero, White Peak’s twisted and haphazard placement of panties makes him look like a psychotic villain. The way all of the panties are stitched together is reminiscent of things like the sewn-together face of modern Joker incarnations, or the look of Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Right from the first time he appears, it’s obvious that he’s perverted the message and goals of Blue Snow into something corrupt, which turns out to be exactly true of his long-term goals.

That about wraps up this rundown of what I find interesting and memorable in Shimoneta’s character designs. I’ll be putting out other videos like this in the future, so stick around on my channel if you’re interested in seeing more along these lines. If you’d like to support me in being able to create more content like this, then consider donating via patreon by following the links below, and if you want to hear more of my voice, then subscribe to the Pro Crastinators Podcast which I do with my friends, or to my let’s play channel which I do with my brother. Thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one!

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When I ask myself which anime has the outright best character designs that I can think of, I inevitably come to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Let’s list the reasons why!

#1. Readability

Gurren Lagann’s characters were designed from the ground up to be easy to animate, meaning that they couldn’t have too many intricate details in their clothing, and had to be easily identifiable even when chaotically darting around the screen. In order to make each of them recognizable without going too heavy on details, designer Atsushi Nishigori instead focused on giving each character a unique body type and some kind of highly noticeable piece of clothing or accessory. Yoko has a flaming bikini and a gigantic sniper rifle, Kamina has his cape and famous sunglasses, and Simon has his jacket and goggles. None of these are too difficult to draw, nor do they need to be drawn in full detail in order to be recognized–which means that the characters are incredibly readable even when animated frenetically.

As the great Gin-san once explained in Gintama, a good character design should always be recognizable by its silhouette alone–and this is certainly true of the main cast of gurren lagann. Kamina’s sunglasses and Simon’s goggles point off of their faces in a very recognizable way, and Yoko’s giant rifle as the only thing adorning her barely clothed body is unmistakable. This is without even getting into how distinct the shapes of these characters are, with just enough defined musculature to look human and realistic, while still being able to deform into highly animated modes without looking like a different character. Even with a mostly-clothed and typically-of-anime skinny character like Nia, the incredibly distinct shape of her hair makes her silhouette stand out. All told, these are characters whom you can recognize immediately, and who don’t quite resemble any other characters out there.

#2. Versatility

Each of the characters in Gurren Lagann can be drawn very realistically at times, and have less exaggerated features and body types than what might be considered typical of the medium; but they can also be made incredibly cartoony and stretchy without really changing the fundamental nature of the designs. They still look like themselves, whether they’re being drawn in a highly detailed static harmony shot, or in a much looser and more animated action sequence. The characters don’t have to become super-deformed to fit into a comedy scene, nor do they seem to drastically change when drawn more seriously–they are capable of fitting into any emotional scenario in animation.

This is kind of the opposite of how Nishigori’s designs would later be used in Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, wherein the difference between each emotional mood of the designs was highly exaggerated, switching between extremely super-deformed characters, somewhat more normal designs, and ludicrously detailed ones during the transformation sequence–almost as if director Hiroyuki Imaishi had specifically asked Nishigori to do the opposite of what he’d done for their previous show.

#3. Unity

Each of the main characters’ designs in Gurren Lagann sort of flow into one-another in ways that are obvious when you think about them, but not so glaring that they feel overly apparent from the beginning. Kamina, Simon, and Yoko all follow a clear blue and red color scheme, with inversions in places to reflect that they aren’t all from the same hole, even if Yoko is simply from the next hole over–i.e. all of them are pretty similar in worldview and unified in their goals.

The flames and skull patterns from Simon’s jacket and Yoko’s bikini top fuse together on Kamina’s cape, and each of the three carries some kind of oversized crude weapon–a huge katana, a huge rifle, and a big drill. They all wear light clothing because they come from underground, and both Kamina and Yoko have highly impressive physiques, which Simon will eventually grow into one of later on, while adopting a sort of combination of his and Kamina’s wardrobe styles over time.

Then we’ve got Nia, who shows up at a major turning point in the story and completely breaks all of the conventions established by the other characters. Instead of bold primary colors, she is made of pastels. Her hair is two-toned, her eyes have their own unique shape, and she’s dressed head to toe in pink. Nia comes from a completely different culture and background, and as a result looks almost alien amongst the rest of the series’ cast. This goes a hell of a long way in matching what Nia’s place in the story ends up being, which is to provide an alternate perspective from Kamina and the others whom Simon has grown up around, and to help him to learn a more balanced way of looking at the world. Nia’s design does become more unified with the rest of the cast after she properly joins the Gurren Brigade, however, and is adorned with the trademark skull.

Later into the series, the skulls and flames are slowly traded in for a star motif, which all culminates in the moment when Simon’s sunglasses turn into the star-shaped visor–a symbol of how the spiral warriors have already risen high above the flames below into the stars above.

The beastmen, meanwhile, are a much bigger hodgepodge of design elements, given their nature as sort of weird chimera creatures; but where they are more unified is in the way that they’re drawn–often being portrayed with enormously thick, rough, painterly lines, as if a calligrapher was outlining them with a huge brush. Lord Genome brings this to the next level, as the king of all the beast men with the biggest, most outrageous lines of all.

The anti-spirals then turn to even more abstract and alien designs, to give a sense of their barely-comprehensible, almost lovecraftian nature. This is reflected in the designs of their ships as well, which are either CG UFOs that look nothing like anything else in the show, or just really trippy bizarre ships out beyond the reaches of space and time.

#4. Everyone Stands Out

Not every character design in Gurren Lagann is equally memorable, and they certainly aren’t all equally appealing, but not a single one of them is boring or generic. Every single character has a unique design that communicates their personalities effortlessly, to the point that some of these supporting characters who get less than ten lines across the whole series and maybe have their names shouted out once, still feel like distinct characters who have entire stories of their own that we’re only seeing a small part of.

Kittan’s sisters, Gimmy and Darry, and Leite all have strong enough designs that they could be main characters in any other series–to the point that it’s easy to forget how little each of them actually appears throughout the story, since each of their appearances has so much impact. The series villains are all highly memorable as well, and have a great sense of variety among their designs. Supporting cast members like Leeron and Attenborough whose designs are so different from the main cast or much of anything else in anime lend the series an extra depth of character, like there might be as many different body types and features in the world of this series as you could find in the real world.

#5. Evolution–by the way spoilers, if you haven’t figured that out already.

Every major character in Gurren Lagann undergoes a massive evolution in their design across the series–and not just because of the seven-year time skip that happens in the middle. Kamina starts out as more of a teenaged ruffian before he comes face to face with his father’s failure and takes up his cape to assume the visage of a great leader. Nia has her hair blasted off and then shapes it into her adorable short-haired look to signify her finding her place as a real member of the Gurren brigade. In the future setting, many characters undergo major costume changes several times to reflect their current place in the story–such as Yoko evolving from a schoolteacher into the biggest set of stars in the sky, and Viral going from roughed-up prisoner to starship co-commander.

Some of these characters grow in ways that we expect, while others really show how the times have changed them. Rossiu becomes far more masculine over time, and Kinon totally changes her image in order to follow him. Darry goes from a deadpan little girl to a passionate warrior with the best body in the series, I’m just saying; and then, at the end of the series, we get to see these characters grow up all over again into epic old badasses, which I wish every single anime ever would give us the courtesy of.

None of this is even to speak of the many subtle ways in which the characters’ designs allow them to change with the different emotional moods of the story; such as how Simon can hide behind his goggles in times when he’s feeling the most powerless and dead inside, or Yoko can retreat into her scarf when she’s feeling shy. Even though these characters have so few pieces to their costumes, those pieces are used in as many ways as you could imagine, like the team behind the show wasn’t willing to let a single aspect of the show’s design go unexplored.

#6. Accessibility

Gurren Lagann is a show for everyone. It’s got hyper-masculine guys, cool-looking and smooth guys, busty, voluptuous girls, small cutesy girls, and so on–and somehow, all of them naturally fit into this universe and the tone of this series together. You could show this series to someone who says that they just can’t get into that anime look, or that they hate the aesthetic of modern anime, and they’d probably still be able to appreciate these designs. Likewise, you could show it to the most hardcore moe afficianado, and he’d have bought figures of half the girls before he was done watching it.

Because the characters are drawn with realistic body types and musculature, all of the main cast have been massively popular for cosplay since the series came out–and anyone with the body type to pull off these cosplays at their full potential is bound to be one of the best-dressed people at the convention. These outfits look as cool on real people as they do on the characters in the series, and if you wanted to do a big group cosplay with all your friends, you can probably find someone in the series for each of them to pull off–albeit not necessarily ones that they’ll be happy to hear that they’ve got the right body for.

Even when it comes to fanart and porn, this series has one of the highest cross-gender appeals that I’ve ever seen. There’s as much gay art of Kamina and Simon as there is artist alley airbrushings of Yoko, and it’s not like these designs only appeal to the opposite gender either. Yoko seems to be an insanely popular design with women, especially for cosplay, and Kamina is such an inspiration to any man who values aesthetic excellence that some of my friends have modeled their entire lives after him. Suffice it to say that these are some of the sexiest, coolest, and most widely beloved character designs in the history of the medium.

So there you have it: the six reasons that Gurren Lagann has, at the very least, some of the greatest character designs in the history of anime. And those aren’t even the only noteworthy design elements–every incarnation of the robot itself or any of its main opponents are toy-worthy in their own right, and the setting design has moments of incredible inventiveness. Gurren Lagann is easily one of the most visually stupendous animated series that I’ve ever laid eyes on, and perfect in every other way to boot. Holy shit, what a cool series!

Anyways, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to share it with anyone whom you think will appreciate it; and if you want to help me make more videos like this, then consider supporting my channel via patreon. Check out my other channels for more of me and, as always, thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.

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Of all the anime to come out in 2016, Flying Witch might be the one that I’ve seen the most consistent praise for. It isn’t the most popular show around by any stretch, but it nailed the appeal to its target demographic perfectly, and I’ve seen it mentioned alongside the words “favorite of 2016” no shortage of times. The only real criticism I’ve seen of the show is stuff that broadly applies to the iyashikei genre as a whole: that it’s boring, and nothing really happens; but fans of that genre really don’t seem to have any complaints. The same goes for Amanchu, an incredibly similar show from the same studio that came out right afterwards. This one hasn’t been quite as much of a critical darling, and I have seen a little bit more criticism over it, but in both cases, I’ve never once seen these shows criticized for their fanservice.

Some of you might be thinking that this is because these shows don’t feature a lot of fanservice. On the contrary, I think that these are probably two of the most fanservice-laden shows to come out this year. In fact, in both cases I think that the fanservice is practically a constant.

First of all, each of these shows centers on a cast consisting primarily of unbelievably beautiful women. Nearly all of them are busty, full-bodied, and with beautiful faces and cool hairstyles. I’m going to posit a number of reasons why I think that these shows haven’t been criticized for their fanservice, but the first and most hilarious one is that the characters are more realistic-looking than is typical of anime. When an anime character has exaggerated and cartoony features, it seems to emphasize in the viewer’s mind the idea that the artist who created them went out of their way to imbue them with sex appeal. This is no less true of more realistically-drawn characters, but since they look like what actual beautiful women look like, you’re more likely to just compartmentalize them as naturally beautiful. It takes that moment when you see the three main adult women in Flying Witch in the same room together and realize that every single one of them is rocking at least a D-cup to make it finally click in your head that this show has gone out of its way to give all of its characters perfect ten figures.

Of course, the real kicker is the fact that all of the women in these shows wear unrealistically skin-tight outfits which conform to every contour of their body. Thigh gaps are often readily apparent, postures are maintained which cause the girls’ breasts to be pronounced, and the simply phenomenal linework of the character art gives you a vivid mental image of exactly what these girls’ bodies look like just under that thin layer of clothes. The second reason that no one criticizes the fan service in these shows is because the characters are almost never naked or even showing much skin–but that hardly matters in the end, because the characters are practically naked much of the time anyways–there’s just a few ruffles of texture and a difference in color to communicate that these aren’t naked human bodies; and that attention to detail in how the clothes conform to the body is, in many ways, sexier than it would’ve been if they were naked anyways.

Now, granted, the biggest reason that fanservice hasn’t been a part of the conversation surrounding these shows is that the fanservice never intrudes upon the plot. I don’t think most of the people who complain about fanservice have a problem with a series managing, or even flaunting, a sex appeal; what they really have a problem with is when a show treats them like an idiot, or undercuts its story or its tone by forcing fanservice scenes in where they don’t belong.

After all, sex and attractiveness are just facts of life, and we humans are drawn naturally to things that we find attractive. A beautiful person doesn’t have to take off their clothes for us to want to look at them. When a show pushes a girl’s big tits in your face, it can feel like the creators are screaming at you, “this is what you wanted, right?!,” and it just makes the whole transaction feel a bit dirty. If I wanted a show to do me raw like that, I’d just go watch porn.

But it’s amazing what a show can get away with just by keeping its ludicrously, insanely attractive cast dressed–and presenting them as reasonable, functional human characters. I mean, keep in mind that, like most of their contemporaries, the main characters in these shows are both high school girls with ditzy personalities and nothing really important going on in their lives–but since they look and act more human than what we’re used to, the idea that they’re tailor-made to be as attractive and personable as possible hardly registers as a negative. We just want to like these girls–and we do.

Well, if I may, I’d like to be the first to criticize the fanservice in these shows–not for its existence, but for its presentation. Personally, I really hate it when clothes in anime seem to unnaturally contour to a character’s body. It just leaves me wondering if every single character has a really great tailor on-call to touch up everything they wear. I apologize to anyone who wasn’t previously distracted by this and is going to be from now on, but it really drives me crazy; shirts don’t work like this! But that’s not really a big deal; I don’t think these shows are exactly trying to hide their assets in terms of beauty, but the lack of criticism over it really sheds some light for me on the bizarre way that fanservice and sexuality are thought of by anime viewers.

As a mature audience, we like to insist that sex is a normal and healthy part of life and that it’s a good thing if a show can represent it with some nuance–but it’s funny what we think that that entails. I mean, is there really anything mature about clothes that contour to the curves of the bodies of a whole cast full of big-breasted women? At least, anything more mature than normal? Is this a better use of sexuality just because the girls aren’t getting naked?

It makes me think of how any time a character gets naked in a show, it’s a conversation starter over whether or not it was handled tastefully or done well. I have literally seen countless arguments waged over whether or not the Monogatari series uses fanservice in a meaningful way, or if it’s just self-indulgent schlock, and how that argument applies to each different scene in the franchise. In fact, I, uh, made a whole video that had a lot to do with that. I’ve also seen sex comedies completely dismissed for the presence of sex or nudity at all. It feels like a layer of abstraction is needed before people will accept a show like Panty and Stocking or Oruchuban Ebichu–shows that are willing to make sex ugly and uncool, and therefore seem more sophisticated; and even then, people have to argue to justify them. But if you asked me to step up to bat for a show that makes absolutely no excuses for itself and its raunchiness like Seikon no Qwaser, then I promise I’ll show up to the plate with a road sign like Shizuo.

My point, simply, is that I think it’s horribly ironic that when Kanbaru Suruga deliberately poses naked, of her own accord in a show, then there’s going to be a debate over its tastefulness–but when every single shot of a character from behind in Amanchu has their outfit subtly riding up their ass to some degree, no one even mentions it. And don’t act like you motherfuckers didn’t notice–you just thought that, since they were clothed, it was just your little secret observation. I know because the whole time I was watching Flying Witch, all I could think was, “man this show is going to have so much porn. And I’m gonna be on the lookout for it.”

Anyways, that’s enough being a gross nerd for today. If you want to help fund my degenerate videos, head on over to my patreon and help me to give my editor a much-deserved raise. Check out my vlogging channel and podcasts if you want to hear my voice constantly, and subscribe for more stuff like this. Thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one!