Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai. (second season) General Discussion

[Vexx]

Well, there's been a small trend that having a written series and an animated series end together creates buzz and sales (S&W, Toradora, etc). So... that's what I'm hoping for.

[ultimatemegax]

Animation company change. The second season will be animated by A-1 Pictures as was mentioned in the event today at the Dengeki Festival. It also appears to be scheduled to begin in April 2013.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

Animation company change. The second season will be animated by A-1 Pictures as was mentioned in the event today at the Dengeki Festival.

..............................HAI ?

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

Animation company change. The second season will be animated by A-1 Pictures as was mentioned in the event today at the Dengeki Festival. It also appears to be scheduled to begin in April 2013.

Hmm... interesting. Even though the animation production company changed, past interviews seem to suggest that most of the key staff (lead positions) have not. I guess it was a matter of balancing workloads and priorities. (In truth, A-1 being on production really just means that Aniplex is producing it themselves, and they could in fact contract out to practically the entire same teams, so who knows how much things will actually change, if at all.)

[Maugomale]

I hope this change doesn't affect the anime's art. I'd hate to see the characters's features look different

[Marcus H.]

A-1 is the main studio, am I right, so this shift to the "stronger" studio should improve the quality of the second season, especially with Aniplex's more direct involvement in the project (accdg to relentlessflame's analysis).

[Chaos2Frozen]

Is it me or does changing studios seem to be happening more frequently now? And unlike Seitokai, this is a pretty big fish here.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

A-1 is the main studio, am I right, so this shift to the "stronger" studio should improve the quality of the second season, especially with Aniplex's more direct involvement in the project (accdg to relentlessflame's analysis).

Well, I don't know if it's stronger or weaker necessarily. The way an anime turns out has as much (if not more) to do with the key staff than it does just strictly with the studio on the label, particularly with a studio like A-1 that outsources a lot of its work.

People sometimes think that the company with the "Animation Production" credit means that all the show's animators are inside their offices in like one giant room doing all the drawings week after week or something, but really it just means that the planning meetings happen at their boardroom table, and that they manage the contracts and the funds. The actual work could be done by anyone, anywhere. (When you look at the credits, you'll usually see tons of names that don't actually work for the company with the production credits.) So it could very well be that the same teams that animated the first season will animate the second season, just that the budget, contracts, and coordination will all be handled by Aniplex at A-1.

In other words, we really don't know what sort of impact this will have yet. Time will tell.

[ultimatemegax]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

And unlike Seitokai, this is a pretty big fish here.

If it was anyone but Aniplex/A-1 Pictures, you'd be right to be concerned, but there's no reason to fear. A-1 is Aniplex's contracting studio they give big projects to. My thought is that AIC Build will be busy working on Haganai until mid-March and wouldn't be able to begin pre-production on Oreimo until then, which would be too late for a Spring start date. By using A-1, they can keep the main staff (like relentlessflame mentions above) while using their contract staff to draw the key animation/in-between/backgrounds. It's not going to have a big effect.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

If it was anyone but Aniplex/A-1 Pictures, you'd be right to be concerned, but there's no reason to fear. A-1 is Aniplex's contracting studio they give big projects to. My thought is that AIC Build will be busy working on Haganai until mid-March and wouldn't be able to begin pre-production on Oreimo until then, which would be too late for a Spring start date. By using A-1, they can keep the main staff (like relentlessflame mentions above) while using their contract staff to draw the key animation/in-between/backgrounds. It's not going to have a big effect.

Well I'm not exactly worried, just really really surprised that even big name franchises can change hands.

But if it's like what Relentless said- that's A-1 could possibly just be handling administrative work, then I guess this really isn't that big of a deal as I thought.

[Westlo]

OreNo was the biggest hit AIC (as a whole, not just BUILD) has had in the last 12 years, weird for them to let the series go but I'm sure it's Aniplex's call anyway.

Also I don't see the point in mentioning A-1 outsource a lot, the majority of studio's outsource, the thing that A-1 does is bring in teams of key staff to produce shows they pump out. They don't really seem to have "iconic" staff of their own like other studios, that's why they're called a factory, Aniplex's hit factory....

Anyway another 10k+ seller for A-1... so dominating in that regard...

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Also I don't see the point in mentioning A-1 outsource a lot, the majority of studio's outsource, the thing that A-1 does is bring in teams of key staff to produce shows they pump out. They don't really seem to have "iconic" staff of their own like other studios, that's why they're called a factory, Aniplex's hit factory....

I think the main reason it was mentioned was precisely because this tendency to bring in staff from the outside (rather than having an army of internal fixed staff) means that it's quite possible a lot of the people who worked on the first season (even on the ground level) could very well still be involved with the sequel. If this were another studio with a more fixed set of staff, then you might expect to see more significant production changes (working with their own established staff and contractors), but here I am basically expecting this to be more of a change on the management (but not creative staff) level rather than a significant change to the show itself.

In other words, it's quite possible in this case that the change won't be that noticeable from a viewer's perspective if the same key staff are preserved.


Edit: Other reports are coming out now confirming that the staff of the first season are still producing the sequel, so it is more of an administrative/production change.

[kobester11]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Well, I don't know if it's stronger or weaker necessarily. The way an anime turns out has as much (if not more) to do with the key staff than it does just strictly with the studio on the label, particularly with a studio like A-1 that outsources a lot of its work.

People sometimes think that the company with the "Animation Production" credit means that all the show's animators are inside their offices in like one giant room doing all the drawings week after week or something, but really it just means that the planning meetings happen at their boardroom table, and that they manage the contracts and the funds. The actual work could be done by anyone, anywhere. (When you look at the credits, you'll usually see tons of names that don't actually work for the company with the production credits.) So it could very well be that the same teams that animated the first season will animate the second season, just that the budget, contracts, and coordination will all be handled by Aniplex at A-1.

In other words, we really don't know what sort of impact this will have yet. Time will tell.

Ummm, not really... The key animation is done there and they outsource the IB's and the BG art... If they could do the IB , they'll do it themselves (e.g. kyoani)

But having A1 do this really worries me, for me A1 has been off this season... I mean the quality is still there but something is still missing...

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by kobester11

Ummm, not really... The key animation is done there and they outsource the IB's and the BG art... If they could do the IB , they'll do it themselves (e.g. kyoani)

I'm under the impression, anyway, that a lot of the key work is outsourced too, and/or people are brought in specifically to work on projects but don't work there permanently. But I'm not sure how many full-time staff (or contract workers) they retain permanently at the moment; in the past it wasn't very many, in any case. (This would be unlike studios like KyoAni that have a relatively fixed talent pool, not a lot of outsourcing, and tend to do almost everything internally.) Perhaps things have changed, though.

In either case, with the same key staff, I think there's a good chance that the same tone and general presentation will be preserved, along with the same general look for the character designs, etc.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by kobester11

Ummm, not really... The key animation is done there and they outsource the IB's and the BG art... If they could do the IB , they'll do it themselves (e.g. kyoani)

But having A1 do this really worries me, for me A1 has been off this season... I mean the quality is still there but something is still missing...

If the quality is still there (and I'll say SAO has too many stills/lazy work for my liking...) that something missing should have to do with they key staff working on the show (as well as the source/show itself more than anything else.

And yeah most of the key animation will be done in studio, obviously some episodes will get outsource (as well as backgrounds) but that is standard practice in the industry. Relentless the only thing that's going to stay the same is the top 1% of the staff, the grunt work changes completely in going from AIC Build to A-1 Pictures. That's not exactly outsourcing which is why I was confused @ you using that term.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Westlo

And yeah most of the key animation will be done in studio, obviously some episodes will get outsource (as well as backgrounds) but that is standard practice in the industry. Relentless the only thing that's going to stay the same is the top 1% of the staff, the grunt work changes completely in going from AIC Build to A-1 Pictures. That's not exactly outsourcing which is why I was confused @ you using that term.

I guess we'll have to check the credits to see how much commonality there is at the staff level, if any. You could very well be right. (It occurred to me that, this being Aniplex taking control of their own production, they could still outsource production to AIC Build for certain episodes if the opportunity presents itself.) In any case, as long as the same key staff plan and direct the story, I expect the work should continue to carry on in a similar manner, even if the "grunt work staff" does end up changing entirely.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by ultimatemegax

Animation company change. The second season will be animated by A-1 Pictures as was mentioned in the event today at the Dengeki Festival. It also appears to be scheduled to begin in April 2013.

Woah... It's still October!!!!

[totoum]

As long as it's the same staff at the top I don't expect anything different.

Saki changed studios in the middle of its 1st season (from gonzo to picture magic) and don't reember anything drastic happening.

And yeah most of the key animation will be done in studio, obviously some episodes will get outsource

Define "some"

Looking at the oreimo credits,apart from the first couple episodes it seems they got assistance from other studios in every other episodes.
Of course assistance is kind of vague but it seems to me it involves key animation at least.

[kobester11]

Originally Posted by totoum

Looking at the oreimo credits,apart from the first couple episodes it seems they got assistance from other studios in every other episodes.
Of course assistance is kind of vague but it seems to me it involves key animation at least.

^^;; some of you really need to know more about anime production...

picture magic was part of gonzo, like BONES to sunrise

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by kobester11

^^;; some of you really need to know more about anime production...

picture magic was part of gonzo, like BONES to sunrise

Not that I don't think this is possible, but out of curiosity, do you have a source on that? I can't seem to find anything that suggests this to be the case, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.