Thursday, November 25, 2010

More Yamashita and Panties.

Another post, another episode of Naruto Shippuden with Hiroyuki Yamashita as an animation director. I don’t want to make this blog dedicated solely to him, but there are only a few things that are making me fired up enough to post on here nowadays. Anyways, there were 8 episodes in-between Yamashita’s episodes as an animation director. Last time he was only directing half of one episode, whereas here he was in charge of the whole thing. The lip sync, timing and drawings that were so clear in Yamashita’s half of 178 wasn’t as prevalent here. You could see a bit of the flat fingers and everybody is thinner than usual, but everything that makes Yamashita so interesting to watch seemed to be lacking all around. It was much more reserved. I imagine Yamashita as an animator himself must have been responsible for the start of the fight here since that’s what stood out the most, but it still didn’t wow me like the ep. 178. Here are some of shots from 178







(^Presumably Yamashita work)













and from 186



















(^Yamashita again?)

I’m guessing that the production schedule and the overall learning curve in becoming a animation director lead the difference in quality here. He’ll have plenty of chances to get more familiar with the the process of actually correcting and supervising everybody’s shots for a weekly TV schedule in the future, so I don't think this is a big deal.

On another note, Tsuneo Ninomiya was the first animator on the key animators list for this episode. He’s been involved in the industry since the mid 60s, but as far as I can tell his biggest contribution is being the character designer for MD Geist. Clearly the connection to Koichi Ohata's masterpiece had something to do with how this episode turned out.

I'm still watching Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and I still think it's the best show that's come out this year. Great action aside, episode 11 (or 6) had some beautiful work done by Yasunori Miyazawa. I'm guessing he did the brief shot of the little ghost getting killed and transforming, but there's no doubt he was responsible for the multitude of flames that were present at the end of the episode. Tomorrow's episode will have Ryo-timo as the animation director and next week will have Nobutake Ito teamed up with Masayuki. Good times ahead!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Recent Viewings (November 2010).


As typical of this time of year, I’ve been crunching anime into my hectic and unorganized school schedule, but I have managed to enjoy a few things here and there.

---Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt- So with this we again have Imaishi directing as his unrestrained self. As much as I like Gurren Lagann, if you compare it to Dead Leaves, you can see that he’s holding back. Not in terms of the quality of the animation, but in terms of being absolutely crass and, frankly, immature. Lagann was clearly aimed at younger audience, so he couldn’t have the same kind of sex and poop jokes that he placed in Dead Leaves. The closest he ever came to that level was the uncut version of episode 6 directed by Shin Itagaki.

But that isn’t the case here. If you couldn’t tell from the trailer, then this show will make it clear as to what it’s about fairly soon. Right from they get go, you have a joke about “morning wood”, the huge sound effects that go across the screen (something that Imaishi also used in Dead Leaves) and the kind of visual set-up and organization that makes Imaishi’s work such a joy to watch. For the people that can get pass the ill-advised notion of anime should look like, the biggest complaint I’ve seen aimed at this show is that it’s the same joke over again. After watching 10 episodes (or 5 if you must), I can’t say that at all. While the characters have stayed consistent since the first episode, the way the “Geek Fleet” has handled and placed them in a number of various situations still remain interesting. From the fat monster to the booger monster, while they tend to involve some nasty or crass subject, the way they look at the boundary of what’s the norm for anime and go right past it is commendable.

The soldiers episode is one of the highlights in the early going of “Pansuto”, with the war sections all animated by Hirokazu Kojima and the script by Shigeto Koyama. Taking a firmly tongue-in-cheek approach to this hilariously dramatic struggle totally caught me off-guard. But the biggest thing so far in terms of blindsiding the viewer is without a doubt Osamu Kobayashi’s episode 10/5b. In large part by changing the art style to give off a more realistic tone, Kobayashi and Takashi Mukouda managed to inject convincing social commentary in this escapist show. Kobayashi’s previous endeavor on an Imaishi show (Gurren Lagann episode 4) generally left the viewers in an uproar, but I believe that the people who would have complained about the art and animation taking such a drastic turn already left show at episode 1. Imaishi clearly doesn’t care about the negative feedback the production got from that episode since he knows what he got. Bringing Kobayashi back to his next show and allowing him to go ahead with this scenario is the kind of bold accommodation of strongly distinct and individual styles that make Imaishi one of the few directors whose work I always look forward to. Needless to say, I’m looking forward whatever comes next (apparently people like Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki, and Ryo-timo are working on future episodes)

---Naruto Shippuden (up to ep. 181)-Well, things are looking up for this show even with its current break into filler. Episode 178 featured Hiroyuki Yamashita, whom I’ve talked about before, making his debut as an animation director. He only worked on the second half, but what a half it was! It starts out animation by Yamashita himself and the rest of the episode, while not completely matching Yamashita idiosyncrasies since there’s only so much one man can do, did manage to retain a good deal of his sense of timing and visual flair. It’s been noted by others that Yamashita has been influenced by Hirofumi Suzuki due to the lip-synch on display on the episode and it’s hard to argue against that. Working on Shippuden has allowed him to be among some very talented people like Norio Matsumoto (who probably got him to work on Keiichi Hara’s Colorful), Suzuki, et all so it’s only natural to take in some of that experience.


Yamashita also directed the delightful new ED (#15), featuring Shingo Yamashita, Kenichi Kutsuna, Tatsuya Koyangai, Shingo Tamaki, Yoshimichi Kameda, 甲田秀人 (couldn't get a reading) and Yamashita himself as animators. Hiroyuki did the Naruto vs. Neji part which is easily identifiable and Kameda did the Rock Lee vs. Naruto part. The new OP is a slow piece with no action, but it still is another solid delivery from the Toshiyuki Tsuru/ Hirofumi Suzuki duo. Tokuyuki Matsutake leads the animator list (presumably he did the part where Naruto is blasted out of the water and he’s spinning around).

These new OP/ED debuted on ep. 180 and this episode also marked the debut of Gorou Sessha as an episode director on the series and Masayuki Kouda’s as an animation director (another Pierrot animator). Sessha (rumored to be the pen name of ex-Kyoto Animation animator, Seiji Watanabe) has been one of the bright spots in this series, being the animation director for eps. 26 and 143 (among others), and the chief animation director for episode 135. While Atsushi Wakabayashi was absent from Shippuden until his return in ep. 167, Sessha and episode director Atsushi Nigorikawa were trying to fill the considerable void that Wakabayashi left behind. Their best effort by far is episode 143, which features sole great swordplay courtesy of Hiroyuki Yamashita right after the opening credits and the pacing and framing throughout exhibits the kind of ambition that you would find in Wakabayashi’s episodes, though I would not exactly equate the two. Not that it fails, on the contrary, but Wakabayashi is simply on another level.

Episode 26 marks the duo first real effort to break through and give the audience a high quality episode. You can clearly see their grandiose intent, but it ultimately falls short. It’s not bad for their first effort, however. Episode 135 is a retelling of the Uchiha massacre which contains some more striking imagery and a very nice fight between Itachi and Sasuke—I still don’t know who’s responsible for it.

Going back to ep. 180, this one features some neat smoke effects, particularly towards the end. I believe it was the work of Gen’ichirou Abe, the Shaft animator they got to work on this episode, who was responsible for this. I’ve never seen anything like it in the series. There are also some nice smoke effects when Sasuke kicks Naruto in the face that, as others have noted, feels very much in line with Kishimoto’s smoke effects. As a side note, Shigeki Kawai was the animation director for the first half half of ep. 181. Nothing great in comparison to his previous effort, but it’s safe to say that ep. 180 must have taken quite a bit of that budget from 181.

Looking forward, Chiyuki Tanaka was set to be the episode director and animation director for episode 184, but she ended up as only the animation director instead. Hiroyuki Yamashita is set to be the animation director for ep. 186 and maybe this time he’ll be the only AD on board this time. Perhaps he’ll be a workhorse like One Piece’s Naoki Tate after all. I wonder if the being an AD gets easier as you go on or do you just get worn down after having to correct so many subpar drawings.

---Street Fighter Alpha Generations- I went and rewatched Ikuo Kuwana’s directorial debut after reading Ben Ettinger’s post about it. If you thought that this movie was boring when you first saw it, I highly recommend giving it another shot. I thought so too at first, but after revisiting it I came away with a different impression. The biggest problem this movie faces, aside from being spearheaded by a novice director, is the “Street Fighter” tag that comes with a load of expectations. You automatically expect every notable character from the game to show up ala Gisaborou Sugii’s Street Fighter movie and for it to be overblown like the video game.

This movie would have been more at home in the 80s, where you saw these kinds of one-shot OAVS that were largely self-contained. The overall tone is very low-key and Kuwana lets the storyboarding and animation tell the story, much as you would expect from an animator who’s been given the task of directing. At the start of the movie, you’re not given a clear definition of where the current story is taking place in terms of the timelime; but it’s still able to move forward and backward without being too confusing and manages to be effective by avoiding the typical pitfalls of that “flashback sequences” fall in.

The line work on the old men’s faces on this one really bring out some expressive features, though there are notable shots throughout the movie where you can tell they had to sacrifice in order to pay attention to others. I could only tell Hiroyuki Imashi’s part on this one and they stands out, per usual—it’s the fight with the old man and Ryu and his part ends when the old man starts laughing after launching Ryu through the wall. The part after that looks a bit too smooth for Imaishi.

And that’s that. I typed a bit too much so I’ll leave stop right here.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Finished Monster (no spoilers).

I finished watching Monster on Sci-Fi yesterday and I have to say that was one of the more satisfying conclusions I’ve seen recently. It remained faithful to the rest of the show while still wrapping what needed to be wrapped up and leaving just enough room to spark discussion. To be honest, after a while I kinda forgotten what had happened in certain parts. It became too intricate-- almost to the point where Urasawa seemed to be adding more dimensions and stretching out the story just for the fun of it.

I’ve heard the Monster manga is going out of print and I saw that my local Borders had the rest of what I needed to complete my collection. But I decided not to pick any of it up because I realized that I much prefer the anime over the manga, which Viz hasn't released past box set 1. Urasawa might be very good at what he does, but he has some tendencies that get quite tiresome after a while. Every revelation has to be super important and these have to be accompanied by close-ups of character's faces that he telegraphs from a mile away. He can get rather preachy too and his characters start to resemble each other after a while (thanks in part that he designs so many of them). But I find these flaws much easier to forgive in the anime. Aside from the elements of sound, the overall visual design and execution of the anime is superb for such a long running show. The animation and background art quality are remarkably consistent for its 74 episode run. There's a really solid staff with people like former Ghibli animator Hiroyuki Morita, Hiroshi Shimizu, Yoshiaki Tsubata, and Kunihiko Hamada, among others.

For the last stretch of episodes, the one that stood out for me was episode 71. This episode was written by Masahiro Hayashi, directed by Ryousuke Nakamura, with Junichi Takaoka as the animation director. While the realistic style of animation for Monster is consistent, you can tell right from the very first scene that they were aiming a bit higher on this episode. A slightly higher frame rate that leads to richer movement easily makes this episode stand out, even among the climax that spans across 6 episodes. My favorite scene here is when Lunge enters the hotel lobby with his rifle and the scene that occurs. Really nice timing and framing.

If you live in the US, then you can watch all of Monster on Hulu, or you can buy it all off of iTunes.... And none of these options are what I want. Viz needs to actually release the rest of this show on DVD, even if it's one cheap, slimpack DVD collection.

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