(L) Aku No Hana (Flowers of Evil)

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

As to the visuals, I share the belief that many viewers are missing the larger point of these artistic choices. They're choices - mostly.

But here's the problem. Just as the show's attackers are missing that point, the staunchest defenders are swallowing a lot that seems like simply shoddy work as being all in the name of art. This isn't trying for photo-realism - in life people's movements aren't jerky because of low frame rates and their faces don't disappear more than 10 feet away from you. Some of this is being done simply because it's cheap, and frankly, it's not especially skillful use of rotoscoping as compared to some.

This reminds me of SHAFT, in a way, using tricks to make up for a lack of animation quality and chalking it all up to stylistic choice. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.

I think people could care less about what tricks they used or what choices they made so long as it looked good. As you said, there is just a lot of shoddy work done here and the aesthetic choices here are quite questionable. People give SHAFT the pass often enough because the visuals they do are genuinely interesting and aesthetically pleasing to a lot of people.

Was the idea itself fundamentally flawed? I'm not going to make that call, since I read the manga I of course prefer that they retain the manga's style. The simpler question here is whether or not they successfully implemented rotoscoping in the show and that would be a big resounding NO.

[ScudFace]

The character designs may not be pretty in the traditional sense but I think it suits the story, perhaps even more than the manga art style which is kind of generic. The story is twisted and should make you uncomfortable to watch so I think the fact that people found the visuals disturbing is what the director intended.

[jeroz]

disturbing doesn't mean that it would have to be bland and flat though.

it's like defending a horror game for having atrocious gameplay mechanics "because it's a horror game"

[Sheba]

It's not even the rotoscoping itself that makes me cringe, it's HOW half-assed the final result look like.

Compare it to the movie A Scanner Darkly that also uses rotoscoping but manage to give a 2.5D feel. Objectively, I can't say A Scanner Darkly is one of the best movies ever made, but from a aesthetic pov, I fucking love it for the mood it manage to set.

[frodonk]

uh, is that "buttshit-insane" tag at the bottom intentional? shouldn't it be batshit-insane?

[Master Assassin]

I wasn't planning to watch the anime and stick to the manga to begin with, but hot damn what I'm seeing is quite... something.

In my point of view, while I can applaud them for trying, I can't give them credit because from what I'm seeing from screenshots, it looks cheap and shoddily done. Never mind the choice of "design" they chose to go with. Actually, I can't really call it "design" because while rotoscoping makes more frames, you don't just stop there and copy your "reference" film almost verbatim showing little to zero effort in actually making a "design." And you don't just skip out on the background scenes by skipping facial features and just giving them outlines filled with colors. Rotoscoping is much more than that. If that's the way they choose to do things, might as well go all out on it, and have it show on the end result. Right now it simply doesn't look like they did.

I understand their efforts, however it is simply not enough to appeal especially when you take the seat of an audience. Considering what the audience has seen before (and used to, even to the most welcoming of audiences), it wouldn't be a wonder why they'd put a "drivel" label on this.

[Azuma Denton]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

As to the visuals, I share the belief that many viewers are missing the larger point of these artistic choices. They're choices - mostly.

But here's the problem. Just as the show's attackers are missing that point, the staunchest defenders are swallowing a lot that seems like simply shoddy work as being all in the name of art. This isn't trying for photo-realism - in life people's movements aren't jerky because of low frame rates and their faces don't disappear more than 10 feet away from you. Some of this is being done simply because it's cheap, and frankly, it's not especially skillful use of rotoscoping as compared to some.

This reminds me of SHAFT, in a way, using tricks to make up for a lack of animation quality and chalking it all up to stylistic choice. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.

If they try to imitate SHAFT, then they fail horribly...
SHAFT being no budget when animating SZS and Bakemonogatari, limit those close up face scene to avoid being so blatant about the animation quality. While in Aku no Hana case, i dunno why they have many focus on character faces.

[Guardian Enzo]

I don't think we can hold an anime from a notoriously low-quality studio up to the standard of a Hollywood film - even an indie one - but yes, whatever you think of the idea of using rotoscoping, the execution in Aku no Hana simply isn't very good. It's clumsy, bare-bones work.

To some extent I give Nagahama credit here for a courageous move - I would guess there was a calculation made that since this was Zexcs and probably had a very tight budget, since the animation was going to be crap anyway they might as well go for something completely unexpected and claim it was all on purpose. And it's worked - I don't think there's any way Aku no Hana would have gotten this kind of attention if it had been the usual Zexcs mediocrity when it came to visuals.

Again, I think there's a lot of parallel to a SHAFT release here, as people are falling all over themselves to sound edgy by embracing all this money-saving trickery as a bold artistic choice. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes crap animation is just crap animation. SHAFT gets away with it partly because Shinbou has talent and sometimes manages to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and partly on reputation. Plus, he has an innate ability to hook up with material that likewise substitutes flash and attention-grabbing trickery for substance.

Will it work in the case of Aku no Hana, which is about as challenging and genuinely hostile towards the audience as manga material gets? We'll see. There are times when Shinbou's flim-flammery doesn't work either artistically or commercially (last season has an example).

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Sheba

It's not even the rotoscoping itself that makes me cringe, it's HOW half-assed the final result look like.

Compare it to the movie A Scanner Darkly that also uses rotoscoping but manage to give a 2.5D feel. Objectively, I can't say A Scanner Darkly is one of the best movies ever made, but from a aesthetic pov, I fucking love it for the mood it manage to set.

I like the fact that even though it's animated, Keanu and RDJ is so easily distinguishable.
I didn't even know who was in it before I hit play.

[Fevvers]

Hmm guys? Sometimes when people like something, they're not trying to be hipster. I don't think anyone here has been applauding the budget because well I think the show itself is proof enough.. Cinematography and sound design though is another beast entirely which I place more credit to. To each his own. *shrugs*

[Guardian Enzo]

Agree about the sound design - it is excellent.

[U<3Anime]

Originally Posted by Wilfriback

If only it looked as detailed as Death Note.

Not a fan of cg in anime. Especially a big no no when it's this level of quality. Artistic choices or not this just looks poor. They might else make it live action if they want realism.

[zarqu]

Originally Posted by Fevvers

Cinematography and sound design though is another beast entirely which I place more credit to.

Yes. I don't think I applauded this enough in my first post. You mentioned Shigurui already which is one of my favourite shows (along with Texhnolyze). I guess that's the reason I loved the atmosphere in Aku no Hana. I'm glad there are still people out there making uncompromising shows, shows like Shigurui and Kuuchuu Buranko. Some shows are just not meant to have mass appeal, even in the face of the so oft-cited horrors of "guaranteed low sales".

I don't defend poor technical work, however. Especially when people with more expertise say it's shoddy. I can only hope it gets better but I feel some things are just too good to be true Then again, the 24 minutes flew by me very quickly and I didn't feel the need to stop watching even once. Must be something wrong with the wiring of my brain.

[omimon]

Originally Posted by Theo

I can definitely see why some fans are a bit upset (just not THAT level of upset). More realistic visuals aka "grittier" I can welcome, but the choppiness and weird dull expressions, aside from the one or two detailed closeups make me feel a bit disconnected from the people I'm watching. The "piece of shit" incident, which is the highlight of the manga's first chapter, is just kind of low-key and uninteresting here.

There's always a shitstorm every season, isn't there?

This isn't just a shitstorm anymore.....it is a freaking tsunami of shit, a hail blizzard storm of shit.....the four horsemen have came riding shit-covered horses that are shitting shit on all of us.

If you haven't guess already but I'm trying to paint a very shit-covered picture here.

Anyways I'm sure some people are still holding out hope that episode 2 will suddenly change the art style and giving an explanation about episode 1 being ugly because that's how the world is portrayed in this series.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Compare it to the movie A Scanner Darkly that also uses rotoscoping but manage to give a 2.5D feel. Objectively, I can't say A Scanner Darkly is one of the best movies ever made, but from a aesthetic pov, I fucking love it for the mood it manage to set.

Calling ASD an example of rotoscoping is an insult to Charles Fleischer -- all they did was take live action footage and run the video equivalent of a Photoshop filter on it. It's a completely different animal from what Fleischer, Bakshi and this are doing.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

But here's the problem. Just as the show's attackers are missing that point, the staunchest defenders are swallowing a lot that seems like simply shoddy work as being all in the name of art.

I don't think anyone's actually said this is a flawless masterpiece, just that it's not the worst thing ever as many people are making out. Just in recent memory, I'd point to Natsuiro Kiseki as a series with worse animation, but people stuck around through that.

Originally Posted by Theo

That video's a great example of people getting carried away with criticism. Okay, so the guy has a unibrow -- why is that bad? He's not supposed to be dashing and handsome.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

This isn't trying for photo-realism - in life people's movements aren't jerky because of low frame rates and their faces don't disappear more than 10 feet away from you.

I don't recall anyone saying photo realistic in terms of the animation. It is "realistic" in terms of the backgrounds and character designs and since most people were complaining based on pictures (since the girls were not as pretty as in the manga or didn't look like every other anime character out there).

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).

I am not going to praise disappearing faces but nor I am going to rage that it is the worst thing to ever happen. Because there are interesting things about what is being done with this series. And as someone else said you are not a hipster for not raging on it.

It is not perfect but it is not the horrible thing that people make it out to be either.

Honestly at this point I am more worried about the content of the story.

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

I don't think anyone's actually said this is a flawless masterpiece, just that it's not the worst thing ever as many people are making out. Just in recent memory, I'd point to Natsuiro Kiseki as a series with worse animation, but people stuck around through that.

Exactly (well I don't know about Natsuiro Kiseki as I never watched that)

[Kismet-chan]

I took the time to sit through the episode.

Is it weird that I actually REALLY like the ending sequence and song? It's like... so perfect.

Also, while the style of it is absolutely horrid... While watching the episode, I felt they accurately captured the vibe of the manga. Voice acting was pretty solid, too. While it turns a lot of people off in a lot of ways, I'm perfectly confident in saying that there are MUCH worse adaptions. I won't ignore its flaws, of course. But it's watchable. It really is. (For me, anyway.) And that's saying a LOT because I'm nit-picky as hell.

Now that I think about it, until I see more of her, the only major thing that bothers me right now is the fact that Nakamura looks more anime-ish than the rest of the characters. It's like her face is not proportionate with her head or something.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

A number of studios these days (KyoAni and PA Works in particular) send people out to photograph locations, so the show isn't unique in that regard. In fact, I think Another had streets that were even grungier than this. But what made the locations seem real to me wasn't just how they were drawn, but how people moved about them. In most anime characters and backgrounds are animated separately, so there's some disconnect with how people move about their environment, but here we're watching people move about in a real environment even if it's not the exact environment that's animated.

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. In Aku no Hana anime, the rusty fences and signs signify what Japan is like today. The difference between something like Red Data Girl and Aku no Hana is that the latter doesn't try to cover up what reality is like, but at the same time it doesn't want to express that rust can be a melancholic, even a beautiful feature. The visuals really are aggressive toward a certain kind of perspective.

[Haak]

Ugh, those character animations...

I was hoping the story would make up for that but all I got out of this episode was some boring high school twat with little to no personality and some girl with serious problems. I'll give it another episode, since it seems like the plot will start to move in the next episode.

[ninryu]

JESUS CHRIS, WHY?! A word from me: just read the freaking manga.

Edit: dem tags.