Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple_R
Well, that's pretty sad and sucky. You'd think that the obvious passion of overseas FMP fans would be enough to warrant somebody translating this.
To keep this somewhat on-topic (for the thread), what I hope to see from KyoAni has largely flipped compared to where those hopes were a few months ago.
Of KyoAni's last four works, my personal enjoyability rankings would be...
1, Chuunibyou
2. Free!
3. Kyoukai no Kanata
4. Tamako Market
Not that I hated Tamako Market, but I did drop it after a few episodes, so KnK gets an edge over it for that reason alone. The biggest gap above would be between Free and KnK.
With Chuuni and Free!, KyoAni adapted content well-suited to its distinctive style (Free is simply the gender-flipped version of that distinctive style, pretty much).
KnK and Tamako Market were the two (of the four) most outside KyoAni's comfort zone (KnK for its darker and more action-packed sections; Tamako Market for having a lot of important adult characters and a talking animal fantasy element that's prominent for the whole show).
In my view, KyoAni clearly does its best work when using content that fits snugly within its comfort zone. When it ventures too far outside that zone, it half-asses it a bit.
So I look forward to more Chuuni, and more Free! And maybe we'll see an idol show off the heels of KnK (rather than more KnK itself). If this is what KyoAni goes with, I'll be content.
What do fellow followers of this studio think?  |
I agree with what all_flying said: you need to expand upon your "comfort zone" statement. "KnK has dark and action-packed sections." Well, so does FMP,
Haruhi,
Munto, and
Nichijou has the latter.
Tamako Market and
Nichijou could be swapped word for word with your definitions. How is that "venturing outside their comfort zone"?
I won't say their shows are without faults. While I love
Tamako Market, it's clear that Yamada had an idea in mind that was not well-suited for a late night market. The fact that we only heard about it a month before airing shows how little faith the producers had in it to sell very well. Yamada and Yoshida wanted to tell a tale about a girl living in a shopping district throughout the time period of one year, something new, but not innovative. What they did to make it innovative was to tell the story of Tamako from everyone around her and not her. Thus the best way to do that was to introduce new elements (otherwise, it's not logically consistent to introduce people and such). The fact that Tamako's internal monologue in the prologue to the LN is a better introduction to the market than anything in the show astounds me. Due to constantly shifting focus around Tamako, the audience feels tugged around each episode and that becomes disjointing when watching week to week. I think the pair have realized their flaws in the main series and have worked to strengthen the franchise for the movie.
Kyoukai has more issues than that. Ishidate read the first novel, liked it and chose to become a director of that project, having never done it before. The series becomes more original than the novel (which gets semi-summarized throughout the TV series) and thus Ishidate has to think of new elements to last 12 episodes. He began to overthink things like the final boss of the series and changes things around (some for the better, like Mirai's motivations), which introduces more new elements and motivations which aren't elaborated upon. Therein lies the problem. Ishidate knows why characters act the way they do and the rules of the world, but he doesn't elaborate why things are the way they are and how things progress (or even what ends up of two characters during the final episode). While I can't fault him for Akihito's constant glasses-fetish being mentioned as it was that prevalent in the novel, it becomes grating when mentioned constantly in the first few episodes. This highlights the other big flaw of the series: the clash between Hanada's skill at writing comedy and seriousness. Hanada writes wonderful comedic scenes, but his serious scenes tend to lack a lot of tension, which is needed in an action series. Finally, one of the strengths of KyoAni's animators/direction staff is their ability of capturing characters in their body language/small motions. Action series tend not to emphasize those movements in favor of fast, elaborate, combative motions. Thus, they can't use the strength they've developed and pull off consistent action animation (one note: look at how many assistant animation directors
Kyoukai has per episode compared to many other works). It's not matched well to them, but they attempted to do something to appeal to a new audience. This isn't "half-assing" production; it's doing something against how you've drawn for years.
With CTFK, the executives wanted to create works that reached a wide variety of people to hedge bets that any one of them would fail. They also hedge their bets with the merchandise they sell through their store and at event booths. They're also part of the "selling committee" which profits more from video disc sales than people realize. Overall, they're in good shape as a company.