Kyoto Animation: Studio discussion, speculation, and whatnot.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by cupkeika

Hello,
My name is Keika and I'm new to the AnimeSuki forums.
I'm so glad there is a thread about KyoAni! I am the Kyoto Animation intern from 2002.
If you have any questions about my experience with KyoAni, please feel free to reply to this post or send me a private message.
Thank you!
cupkeika

Great to have you around these parts. We would love to hear more from your experience there.

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by Warm Mist

I wonder, was there much overtime work when you were an intern?

This is what I'm most curious about. What were the hours alike? Did people tend to arrive/leave in waves, or all at once? Were there any rituals like a morning greeting with all the staff? (Wondering how an animation studio is similar to / different from your average Japanese company office.)

[cupkeika]

Originally Posted by Warm Mist

I wonder, was there much overtime work when you were an intern?

I worked 5 days a week, 10 hours a day as an intern. They never asked me to do overtime as my objective for the internship was to complete a short anime film. If I had to work more hours it was only because I had to in order to finish my film.

Originally Posted by kyouray

Hello! Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming here!
I guess you learnt animation process and such things but did you learn things specific to KyoAni ?
And are you still in contact with KyoAni folks ?

I learned about KyoAni's culture and philosophies surrounding their work.
Yes, I am still in contact with KyoAni. In fact I visited them a year ago with my husband. ^_^

Originally Posted by Dagger

This is what I'm most curious about. What were the hours alike? Did people tend to arrive/leave in waves, or all at once? Were there any rituals like a morning greeting with all the staff? (Wondering how an animation studio is similar to / different from your average Japanese company office.)

What great questions!
Everyone tended to be in by 9am and when I would leave the office at 8pm-9pm most of the studio was still working away.

My favorite meetings I was invited to were when the studio finished an episode of "Inu Yasha" everyone would gather in a room and watch the final product together on a projector. The director and leads would say their comments and everyone would enjoy the accomplishments. It felt like a family.

[brocko]

Whoa direct interaction with a KyoAni insider. Truly an honour Hope you enjoy our little corner of the internet here. Warm greetings and welcome to Animesuki!

- From your visit a year ago, how much has changed since your time there as an intern?

- Could you elaborate more on the KyoAni philosophy if possible?

- Which KyoAni work would you consider to be your favourite?

Much appreciation for both sharing your KyoAni experiences with us and taking time to answer our questions too. Many, many thanks!

[kyouray]

Originally Posted by cupkeika

I learned about KyoAni's culture and philosophies surrounding their work.
Yes, I am still in contact with KyoAni. In fact I visited them a year ago with my husband. ^_^

Thanks for the answer. I see you have an active blog so I guess I will have more details
That's great you're still in contact. Did you see again Tomoe Aratani since she's still in Kyoto (Nintendo) ? I'm looking forward to reading your post about her.

[darkchibi07]

So with KyoAni's now into uncharted territories with Free and on the verge of it becoming another hit for them, there a couple thoughts that came up in my head.

Will KyoAni's other staff take notice on Free so they could apply:

1.) The girl character design for Gou into any future works involving a mostly female cast? Seriously, it's been awhile (probably since Hyouka with Irisu though Shinka and Touka from Chuu2 are close) since I've been enamored over a female character, and I'm jealous she's there in show that's clearly aimed for girls.

2.) The campy fanservice shots on the guys and use it on the girls in a future work that's most appropriate. Obviously the girls' agency has to be maintained or else it'll look creepy and be like those other trashy ecchi shows aimed for men.

And out of curiosity, considering as of late KyoAni are branching out their LN label, does anyone know if any of their "honorary mentioned" titles has premises that has "legit fanservice" opportunities on girls like sport stories about a girls' gymnastics team, high diving, Latin dancing, or cheerleading?

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by darkchibi07

So with KyoAni's now into uncharted territories with Free and on the verge of it becoming another hit for them, there a couple thoughts that came up in my head.

Free is just the female equivalent of K-ON! This is not uncharted territory. It's the same old, same old just applied to a different audience. I don't think there's a lot to take away here.

[Random32]

The level of fanservice in Free is beyond typical KyoAni imho.

K-On was a lot more pure than Free. Maybe I notice fanservice on guys more because I'm not used to it, but general consensus seems to be that Free has fanservice and K-On just has adorable.

[Warm Mist]

The first season of K-On! had some fanservice here and there. Free has more, but it's not overwhelming in either of these shows.

I agree it's not uncharted territory. The method of execution is extremely similar to K-On!
The most interesting part in Free! is the treatment of water, especially since Utsumi stated that they have a dedicated team just for that. Of course, for people who don't care about these things it's little more than a gimmick, but I'd say it's healthy for the animators to hone their skills at doing water and FX. You can see there's a lot of ground to improve- look at Rei falling to the pool in episode 3 and the splash, it's pretty rough.

Kyoukai no Kanata might be closer to "unexplored territory" depending on how heavy it gets with the action and gore. From the outside it just seems like a generic action LN, but it's not the type of thing the studio has been doing, the last of this kind was FMP: TSR, 8 years ago. I'm certainly looking forward to that much more than the movie and S2 of Chuu2, especially if they're really going to let Ishidate direct and Chise Kamoi be chief sakkan.

[darkchibi07]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Free is just the female equivalent of K-ON! This is not uncharted territory. It's the same old, same old just applied to a different audience. I don't think there's a lot to take away here.

Free seemed far more focused on building its premise of swimming directly while K-ON! was rather wishy-washy on the music aspect. Granted KyoAni was bounded by the manga source, but their original episodes did contain a substantial amount music. You could say they used the same formula in K-ON! and REALLY polished its pacing in Free.

Originally Posted by Random32

The level of fanservice in Free is beyond typical KyoAni imho.

K-On was a lot more pure than Free. Maybe I notice fanservice on guys more because I'm not used to it, but general consensus seems to be that Free has fanservice and K-On just has adorable.

This is why I hope some of the other KyoAni staff take notice of how they applied the fanservice of the guys in Free and use it on female main characters in some undisclosed title. I'm getting a feeling that Free will be starting to become a pioneer on the playful manly physique fanservice, and it'll great for KyoAni does the same in reinvigorating the womanly features of a female while still being playful and not creepy.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Warm Mist

Kyoukai no Kanata might be closer to "unexplored territory" depending on how heavy it gets with the action and gore. From the outside it just seems like a generic action LN, but it's not the type of thing the studio has been doing, the last of this kind was FMP: TSR, 8 years ago. I'm certainly looking forward to that much more than the movie and S2 of Chuu2, especially if they're really going to let Ishidate direct and Chise Kamoi be chief sakkan.

Want to bet that Kyoukai no Kanata is going to be awesome and pull in the lowest sales since Tamako Market? Yes, I'm have that much lack of faith in the japanese fandom right now

[cyth]

Originally Posted by darkchibi07

I'm getting a feeling that Free will be starting to become a pioneer on the playful manly physique fanservice, and it'll great for KyoAni does the same in reinvigorating the womanly features of a female while still being playful and not creepy.

I'm pretty sure that when straight women are presented with that glorious display of pumped meat, the reaction creators expect out of them is primarily sexual. Sure, us guys can watch it for the camp, but that's not why they dumped so much money into making the characters look great. Comparing Free! to K-ON! in terms of fanservice feels so wrong to me. I can acknowledge that some scenes from K-ON!'s first season were created specifically to appease the moe-buhi fan crowds. Their intent to please the target audiences is thus the same, but K-ON! simply wasn't made to be sexual. What you're suggesting they should do with female characters is interesting, because that approach is just really rare. I remember Mikura from Mezzo Forte done this way. It was an adult OVA title, but still a piece where you could ignore the sex scenes and recommend it to other anime fans without hesitation. Her character was sexually charged, but tasteful in execution. To see that in modern anime without the characters going through some process of deformation is just extremely rare.

Free's characters need more bulge to really compete with Mikura though. Just my heterosexual 5 cents.

[darkchibi07]

Originally Posted by cyth

What you're suggesting they should do with female characters is interesting, because that approach is just really rare. I remember Mikura from Mezzo Forte done this way. It was an adult OVA title, but still a piece where you could ignore the sex scenes and recommend it to other anime fans without hesitation. Her character was sexually charged, but tasteful in execution. To see that in modern anime without the characters going through some process of deformation is just extremely rare.

Yeah, and that what aggravates me if you consider most of the male-oriented female fanservice nowadays tends to be wish-fulfillment power fantasies where you don't get that in the female-oriented male fanservice found in Free. It makes me wish KyoAni would announce their next project which stars sexy female characters with agency. And then they could show off to those other anime companies that utilize male-oriented fanservice and say, "See? This is how you do female fanservice, and we learned that from Free!" after raking in high sales and popularity.

So yeah, KyoAni. What ever you next project will be, please have it star female characters with a premise that's allows them to be sexy and maintain credibility.

[Pocari_Sweat]

I always found it that Kyoani animes have great male characters like Sousuke, Kyon and Oreki if you ignore their comic relief side characters (*cough Sunohara*), but have very one dimensional, archtype-centric female characters designed to appeal to certain crowds. Although it's not solely a Kyoani problem since it's pretty much everywhere particularly in this light novel adaption plague we are in at the moment, it is very annoying.

But at least Kyoani has the male characters right most of the time, unlike the innumerable number of spineless, oblivious harem male leads we have as of late.

[Skane]

With regards to "sexy female characters that had agency". They already kinda did that with TSR... an anime ahead of its time. Although to be fair, it is an adaptation, so it might be more due to its source material than boardroom decision making.

Just wish it didn't bombed...

Natch.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

I always found it that Kyoani animes have great male characters like Sousuke, Kyon and Oreki if you ignore their comic relief side characters (*cough Sunohara*), but have very one dimensional, archtype-centric female characters designed to appeal to certain crowds. Although it's not solely a Kyoani problem since it's pretty much everywhere particularly in this light novel adaption plague we are in at the moment, it is very annoying.

But at least Kyoani has the male characters right most of the time, unlike the innumerable number of spineless, oblivious harem male leads we have as of late.

Well KyoAni does generally avoid spineless male leads but the characters in Free! are an entirely different problem altogether...

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by Pocari_Sweat

but have very one dimensional, archtype-centric female characters designed to appeal to certain crowds.

If you're still saying this about Mayaka or even about Chitanda, you didn't pay much attention to Hyouka.
There's nothing wrong with "appealing to otaku" other than the fact that it clearly bothers you, an otaku, ever so much, it would seem.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

There's nothing wrong with "appealing to otaku" other than the fact that it clearly bothers you, an otaku, ever so much, it would seem.

There's plently that can go wrong when appealing to otaku. To succeed in this industry is to make your work interesting inside the limitations of the medium, which of course has its audience with certain expectations in mind. KyoAni doesn't skirt around the margins of these limitations, with each work it fails to exceed these limits or impress us with some innovative approach.

Tell me, Kaisos Erranon, what recent Kyoto Animation work would you say exceeded your expectations of what anime can accomplish?

A person I knew once said she is not an anime fan, even though she watched a lot of anime. She said this because she couldn't take the moe stuff, the harems, the ever repeating stories and themes in certain genres. But she certainly loved anime as a concept. I guess being an "otaku" has its limits too.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by cyth

KyoAni doesn't skirt around the margins of these limitations, with each work it fails to exceed these limits or impress us with some innovative approach.

Bullshit, anime isn't -just- about storytelling. It's a visual medium as well.

Originally Posted by cyth

Tell me, Kaisos Erranon, what recent Kyoto Animation work would you say exceeded your expectations of what anime can accomplish?

To that end, both Nichijou and Hyouka are incredibly excellent series from a visual standpoint; Hyouka in particular is very good at representing the thought processes of its protagonist through high-quality surreal imagery, and the sheer amount of detail packed into the backgrounds during the school festival arc made it feel more genuine and alive than anything similar I've ever seen.
Nichijou on the other hand, while not creative in the same way due to being tied down to an already visual source, has some of the best animation I've ever seen in a TV series -- and no, before anyone gets confused, art and animation are not the same thing.
You may have felt that these series were "unsatisfactory" because... because why, exactly? Because you feel KyoAni is "wasting its time" with school-life settings and """"moe"""" characters?

Originally Posted by cyth

A person I knew once said she is not an anime fan, even though she watched a lot of anime. She said this because she couldn't take the moe stuff, the harems, the ever repeating stories and themes in certain genres.

Tell her to watch other stuff...? There is other stuff, you know, unless you think that "moe" means "anime that has girls in it", like a lot of idiots seem to.

[Warm Mist]

I don't see what major difference there is between catering to "otaku" and catering to any other audience, like say, making child shows. It generally boils down to otaku being a questionable audience in moral terms, but I don't see how that isn't a sweeping generalization, or how that necessarily has to bring down the quality of the works made by anyone. A good show stands on its own merits, regardless of the context in which it was produced.

@cyth, I also want to know your reasoning for thinking Hyouka, Nichijou and even K-On!! are unsatisfactory. I hope you have at least a compelling argument about the quality of these works.