(L) Aku No Hana (Flowers of Evil)

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I don't recall anyone saying photo realistic in terms of the animation. It is "realistic" in terms of the backgrounds and character designs

Yep. Everyone is dragging out Scanner Darkly, but that's not what the anime is trying to do. (Frankly, in Scanner Darkly I never got the point of using this technology. Why go through all that trouble if in the end your aim is still to make it look as realistic as possible?) Aku no hana is obviously not going for photorealism, what they're going for is, as someone said, an overall realistic perspective. They're trying to make the characters and the story feel "real" as if you were watching a movie, to get the essence of the manga (or rather, the essence of the "original story" in Oshimi's head...) across in a way they wouldn't be able to if it was just the manga with colors and movements.

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Yes the animation is cheap but so is a lot of anime that doesn't get this much ridiculous hate (and some not from even watching the series).

"Some"? I think most people who RAEG about how horrible it is haven't even watched the episode... Anyway, pretty much, yes. There are tons of anime with cheap animation, and I won't drop a show I find interesting just because the animation is done on a budget. (If that was the case I would've dropped Shinsekai yori right at the beginning...) And as for disappearing faces, you get those in traditional, budget anime as well, and even more so in manga, so... It's not "nice" but I honestly don't get why it is such a huge issue.

(Really, a huge percentage of the rage seems to boil down to "I wanted to see sexy girls" and... well, what the mangaka said about that.)

To reiterate what I said elsewhere, I'm a bit baffled by all this RAEG about the visuals. (I wouldn't call them character designs because they're not, not really.) Sure, the show looks unconventional and it's definitely not pretty, but I don't think it's particularly ghastly at all. Given the effect the creators are trying to achieve, the characters look fine. In the context of the show it's easy to tell that the girls are supposed to be pretty, and for me that's enough. (Then again, one of my favorite manga is "Sex" by Kamijou Atsushi, that often employs tracing/semi-to-full realistic style, so I'm used to seeing people look like that in manga.)

Anyway, all this uproar about how ugly Aku no hana looks reminds me of the reactions to Noein and Kemonozume, people dropping them and bashing them because they looked "ugly." Too bad, because both of them turned out to be awesome shows. For what it's worth, I originally wasn't even interested in this show, and I think if it was just another anime, only "dark and depraved", I still wouldn't be interested in it. This way it's at least doing something interesting that has my attention.

[ahelo]

I finally got to watch the first episode. Wow. Just. Wow.

The rotoscope is pretty bad but it really somehow captures a certain sinister feel. The manga was already fucked up to begin with but the animation and atmosphere here really manages to capture and even elevate those feelings even further. This premiere was sluggish but damn it got me immersed.

I think it's right in that absolutely terrible OP when it hits you. Yeah, they're doing this on purpose. It's like giving you a Middle Finger for expecting something remotely normal when obviously it's not. AND I LOVE IT.

Yeah I can completely understand if people want to drop this right away. They've made it clear that it's niche as it can get and they don't want to you in a comfort zone at all the entire time you're watching it. I'm in it though.

Also damn that ED is creepy. It's autotune at its creepiest

[jeroz]

For all that says this series is meant to be confronting. Maybe it's just my personal anecdotal experience, but I pretty much zoned out throughout and just read the sub and watch the background instead.

It's fairly relaxing once you neglect everything that's moving on screen.

[Kakkou]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

And as for disappearing faces, you get those in traditional, budget anime as well, and even more so in manga, so... It's not "nice" but I honestly don't get why it is such a huge issue.

The problem with the disappearing faces is that it appears to be the result of whatever techniques they've employed with the rotoscoping, like a filter of some sort. The faces just magically a slowly reappear onto the screen at a certain distance:



Even if it isn't the byproduct of some technique and the animators were having some fun out of slowly tracing back in facial features (and if that's really the case why make their mouths appear after their eyes? Why not have both at the same time or even a basic implication of a mouth when the eyes show up?) it's just really, really weird in a bad way and has no apparent meaning or purpose behind it other than to bewilder the audience. I can understand trying to unsettle the viewers with drastically different visuals, extra realistic gestures, etc. and to accentuate and bring out the atmosphere of the manga while you're at it but magic faces? Just why? It just doesn't help elevate the uneasiness created by their choice to rotoscope the anime like this, it just gives them another new thing to complain about.

While you are also right about faceless mobs/distant shots not being new to anime/manga, the sheer number of them (and not all being really far shots where facelessness would normally be overlooked or excused) would have the animators bashed even if it went for a completely normal anime adaptation look.

This scene in particular is a good example:



The entire scene being a brief moment of silence and the second shot coming right after the first, with both of them being stills. I don't care if the entire shot barely lasted a few seconds, it's enough to give the impression of the animators being lazy to not even give the teacher a face for a still shot, moreso since he's not some mob crowd character, he and Nakamura are supposed to be the main focus of the scene. Plus it detracts from the actual situation itself where he goes from having a puzzled look to literally no look at all.

I mean, it may all sound like nitpicking but when you've decided to be so different and present your work in a bold way you have to at least make sure it's done as properly as possible and not appear half-assed, otherwise you risk turning some viewers who would have supported your idea against you because they found your execution of said idea unsatisfying. If you're prepared to be given shit for your audacious move you have to make sure the shit they're gonna give you is exactly the kind of shit that you know you should be getting, not extra shit you shouldn't. (I hope that made sense?)

Just too be clear, I did mention previously that I'm really not that bothered by the look of the anime after seeing it myself and that still stands. It's undeniable that there are tons of hating solely because the visuals are unfappable to or look plain ugly but there are genuine problems that should not be chalked up as mere nitpicking or hating because it's different. The magic faces are one of them and if you can accept them then good on you, if you can't you shouldn't be blamed for it and if you hate the anime because the visuals/designs are too different then it wouldn't have mattered if the magic faces were there or not, you'd still be trying to shit on the staff.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by cyth

The biggest difference I perceive is that studios like PA Works capture reality and purify it so that it seems cleaner, more plastic and more attractive than it actually is. That's because they're effectively making a tourist advertisement for those places. No otaku with their squeaky clean shiny butt moe figurines wants to visit a place that reminds them of the harsh reality they're running away from.

Not always -- for instance, Another was just as grungy as AnH is.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

(Really, a huge percentage of the rage seems to boil down to "I wanted to see sexy girls" and... well, what the mangaka said about that.)

The complaints about Saeki are definitely off base -- she's not supposed to be drop-dead gorgeous, just the most attractive girl in a class of thirty, which the anime conveys -- but Nakamura should be superficially attractive, maybe not at Saeki's level but much better looking than she appears in the anime.

To reiterate what I said elsewhere, I'm a bit baffled by all this RAEG about the visuals. (I wouldn't call them character designs because they're not, not really.) Sure, the show looks unconventional and it's definitely not pretty, but I don't think it's particularly ghastly at all. Given the effect the creators are trying to achieve, the characters look fine. In the context of the show it's easy to tell that the girls are supposed to be pretty, and for me that's enough.

What I found baffling is that most of the people raging haven't even mentioned the plot or the acting or the music. (Okay, it's not totally baffling since a bunch of people are piling on without bothering to watch the episode.) It's as though the quality of the animation is the only thing that matters, whereas I'd much rather have a well written story badly animated than dazzling visuals in service of a mediocre story (*cough* K *cough). One of my favorite American cartoon series is Home Movies which has some of the most primitive animation and amateurish character designs you will ever see, but the writing and acting are brilliant.

[Dop]

Well, I absolutely loved that, every delicious minute of it.

The backgrounds had a wonderfully grotty feel to them, with peeling pain, rust, corrugated iron, rotting and damaged signs, weeds and so on. Looked more real and decidedly more dingy than other shows which base their backgrounds on real locations.

The whole soundscape of the show is also fantastic and fits in with the atmosphere generated by the setting.

As for the animation which seems to be upsetting so many people, I don't dislike it. It's different, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's plunging deep into the heart of the uncanny valley and I suspect that is the point!

This show is a bold attempt by the director and staff to do something different and unique, to lift viewers out of their comfort zone, and for that I applaud them. It's a good thing when people try something different.

[orion]

All the complaints about face disappearing could be that they didn't get the in-between footage back or some scenes got skipped before the airing date of the 1st episode and not intentional. It could be like what Shaft does. They simply could have ran out of time before the airing date. Magi had a similar issue last season.

[ahelo]

Originally Posted by orion

All the complaints about face disappearing could be that they didn't get the in-between footage back or some scenes got skipped before the airing date of the 1st episode and not intentional. It could be like what Shaft does. They simply could have ran out of time before the airing date. Magi had a similar issue last season.

Nah I'm pretty sure it's intentionally unintentional (if you get that). I'm willing to bet that the director knew that the rotoscope wasn't gonna completely work since you'd need a significantly high budget for that but he let it pass anyway since it worked pretty well in being as unsettling as possible.

The only question here is probably, if you're willing to sit through this or not. I doubt anyone (and they shouldn't) is gonna question someone for dropping this early on but for those in the ride (me), you're gonna get something so beautifully and revoltingly terrible both in visual medium and in story. I'm pretty sure the manga made it clear too that it wasn't trying to please anyone and the anime just pronounced that anymore.

To those asking why they made it look like this, Aku no Hana is (I'm most definitely sure) trying to be as experimental as possible therefore I highly doubt it cared about commercial success to begin with (judging from the interview, I think this statement holds water).

[Iby]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

What I found baffling is that most of the people raging haven't even mentioned the plot or the acting or the music.

The plot? Some people have already said that it was non-existent in this episode.
The acting? Just like in other doramas.
The music? The only things in episode that weren't worthless are sound work and extremely detailed backgrounds. Though I can't actually remember the ED that's being praised by quite a lot of people because I watch most of episode on 2.5x speed (because I've already read the first 2 or so chapters of manga before dropping it because such things as femdom disgust me). Otherwise the OP and ED are non-existent too for me (though the latter may change) in terms of both songs and "animation".

BTW the composer of this "anime" has also worked on around a half of a Mahoutsukai no Yoru OST tracks.

[ahelo]

I remember saying "shit" and "fuck" out loud at certain points in the manga. Here though, I think I said it so many times (that intentional/unintenionally terrible OP, the disappearing faces, the blobby rotoscopy in a number of parts, uncanny valley going way too deep, and I literally got goosebumps once the ED started playing) so in a sense, this series is working magics on me.

Seriously though that ED. . . who did not get creeped out with that ED??

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Kakkou

I mean, it may all sound like nitpicking but when you've decided to be so different and present your work in a bold way you have to at least make sure it's done as properly as possible and not appear half-assed, otherwise you risk turning some viewers who would have supported your idea against you because they found your execution of said idea unsatisfying. If you're prepared to be given shit for your audacious move you have to make sure the shit they're gonna give you is exactly the kind of shit that you know you should be getting, not extra shit you shouldn't. (I hope that made sense?)

I don't think it is nitpicking to have some complaints or to say yes it's not perfect and this aspect isn't really good. I can also appreciate that not everyone is going to be into something experimental like this. Different things appeal to different people and well this is certainly different.

I think the issue is the extreme rage against this anime is borderline ridiculous and a lot of it came from not even watching the actual episode.

And it is also kind of annoying when people don't complain and maybe even like what the anime is doing you get oh you are just a hipster and can't acknowledge its faults. It's not that people can't acknowledge the faults its more that they also acknowledge that for them positive aspects outweigh those faults.

Anyway I do think some people on here have legitimate complaints and have presented them fairly. Just because someone doesn't like what the anime is doing is not being unreasonable.

[Iby]

Originally Posted by ahelo

Seriously though that ED. . . who did not get creeped out with that ED??

Read the post that's above yours.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Iby

The acting? Just like in other doramas.

I don't know what dorama you watch but I don't notice this more natural acting in any I've seen.

Of course not saying it isn't out there but it doesn't seem all that common.

Even in live action over here you don't get that natural type of acting. The acting almost reminded me of neo-realism. Heck I wonder what people complaining would think of things like neo-realism

[Blaat]

Honestly I had no issue with the rotoscope drawing style, in fact I rather like it. The slow pace on the other hand is what killing my interest in this, I know that these days we have super fast first episodes which doesn't offer the viewer much time to catch their breath and I don't like it but this show took the extreme opposite. Nothing really happened except in the final five minutes and when I took a quick look at the manga (to compare the drawing styles; haven't read it) I was shocked to see the first episode only adapted fifteen pages (?!) of the first chapter.

Also I thought the bag was talking to the main character only for a seconds later to realise it was the ending song. I'm a fan of the ending song starting early but with this song? It doesn't really work.

[ahelo]

Originally Posted by Iby

Rd the post that's above yours.

Originally Posted by Blaat

Also I thought the bag was talking to the main character only for a seconds later to realise it was the ending song. I'm a fan of the ending song starting early but with this song? It doesn't really work.

But-but- it's so creepy. That autotuned voice that suddenly stops on spots you don't expect it to-- meh stuff works for some but not all.

Seriously though I'm spazzing. I wanna give pros and cons for Aku no Hana since it does have them in almost equal proportions but the series captured me. I'm okay with being in the minority for once. After lashing out at people for liking SAO, I guess it's only due time that people should lash out on my taste.

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Kakkou

The problem with the disappearing faces is that it appears to be the result of whatever techniques they've employed with the rotoscoping, like a filter of some sort. The faces just magically a slowly reappear onto the screen at a certain distance:

It's not a filter, it's just the usual "they're far away, no face, we wouldn't see it anyway -> they're closer, we see their most prominent features -> they're close, full details" thing. (In the girl's case her most prominent feature is her mouth since she's talking, in the teacher's case it's his glasses.) In normal anime it's usually the same, except there it's easier to add some extremely rudimentary features - two points: eyes, one straight line: nose, etc. but that wouldn't work here.

I'm not saying you're wrong for letting it bother you, but honestly, it didn't bother me at all. It would have, if the show had a normal anime look, but as it is, it barely even registered with me. Of course, I agree that it would be overall nicer if they drew all the faces as they're supposed to be, but I had no problem with it. (I'm rather shallow when it comes to things like this, and it helps that IRL I rarely notice people's faces until they're within a certain distance. )

[Allium]

Wow...some of the tags of this thread are just...

Just watched the first episode. I'm not a manga reader, but having seen the manga character designs, I'm actually fine with the rotoscoping and 'realistic' character designs. It's somehow refreshing, and as some others mentioned, the realistic style makes the atmosphere of the series much more creepy and ominous (hence the Uncanny Valley effect).

The only things that irk me are the characters' being 'faceless' at a certain distance from the viewer's POV, and the characters' 'jerky' movements at times. If the staff had put more effort in the details it wouldn't have been that bad - now it comes off as incomplete to me.

Anyway, I think I'll be keeping this for a while. It's something unique...for now, I think...

Originally Posted by Blaat

Also I thought the bag was talking to the main character only for a seconds later to realise it was the ending song.

Same here! That gave me a bit of a shock.

[jeroz]

ED is the highlight of the episode, in various ways

[Guardian Enzo]

Another change that I don't see getting any mention is that Nagahama changed the characters from middle-schoolers to high-schoolers (either that or they just made them look several years older and aren't saying anything about it) which I think significantly changes the dynamic (and not for the better). Given the nature of the content it doesn't surprise me, but it's still quite an important change.

[Kakkou]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I don't think it is nitpicking to have some complaints or to say yes it's not perfect and this aspect isn't really good. I can also appreciate that not everyone is going to be into something experimental like this. Different things appeal to different people and well this is certainly different.

I think the issue is the extreme rage against this anime is borderline ridiculous and a lot of it came from not even watching the actual episode.

And it is also kind of annoying when people don't complain and maybe even like what the anime is doing you get oh you are just a hipster and can't acknowledge its faults. It's not that people can't acknowledge the faults its more that they also acknowledge that for them positive aspects outweigh those faults.

Anyway I do think some people on here have legitimate complaints and have presented them fairly. Just because someone doesn't like what the anime is doing is not being unreasonable.

Yeah, it's just sad how valid and reasonable points from both ends get lost within the flurry of "You hipster!" and "You moefag/hater/etc.!" arguments, but that's just how it is.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

It's not a filter, it's just the usual "they're far away, no face, we wouldn't see it anyway -> they're closer, we see their most prominent features -> they're close, full details" thing. (In the girl's case her most prominent feature is her mouth since she's talking, in the teacher's case it's his glasses.) In normal anime it's usually the same, except there it's easier to add some extremely rudimentary features - two points: eyes, one straight line: nose, etc. but that wouldn't work here.

I'm not saying you're wrong for letting it bother you, but honestly, it didn't bother me at all. It would have, if the show had a normal anime look, but as it is, it barely even registered with me. Of course, I agree that it would be overall nicer if they drew all the faces as they're supposed to be, but I had no problem with it. (I'm rather shallow when it comes to things like this, and it helps that IRL I rarely notice people's faces until they're within a certain distance. )

Except her eyes appeared before her mouth did, just like the guy . But yeah, it does look like the distance to details thing is what they were aiming for, it's just not done well, plus that distance does not warrant that effect imo. Anyway I just wanted to explain why people do find it a big issue, which I've done. Lucky you for not being bothered by it, at least you can enjoy the show better.