[Arabesque]

Yikes the thread moved on quicker than I thought but still no duckroll?

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I thought of Madoka Magica too, in the sense of this being a show of big talents that could take on a quasi-religious following. But the more I thought of it the less I think it holds, not just for the reasons that you suggest but because MM was a true melding of several giants in the industry. MPD does have Lily Hoshino's character designs but really, this is a one-man show. It's Ikuhara's mad vision and it's on him whether it succeeds or crashes like a meteor with all the fires of hell.

I think Blood-C is actually a closer comparison to MM in some ways. Some big hitters in the industry trying to meld styles that don't immediately seem 100% compatible.

I do think that the comparison would be more accurate with Blood-C now that you mentioned that one, though it's still a bit safer since CLAMP already has an exciting fan base who'd get their stuff regardless, and Blood is an already established property.

But any way, I do agree with you that this is Ikuhara's baby. He is going to raise it to be whatever he wants it to be, so at the moment we are getting his vision more than anything.

Originally Posted by ZODDGUTS

Spoiler most people likely missed it, including me:

Spoiler for Family Photo:

And the dissection begins

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

-Let's react a bit more to people reviving right in front of you
-The voice actors... Especially the girl's. When she isn't raising her voice, there isn't much of a problem, but when she begins to talk louder... Talk about a straight line...

-They did react to it, but the show sort of glosses over it other than the two being dumbfounded and happy that their sister came back to life. Heck, even the doctor had a similar reaction and just said it was a miracle. I mean, putting myself in their place, if my sister all of the sudden came back to life, I would be more grateful than scared that she came back at all.

-I agree that the voice acting isn't all that great. Or rather, the voices don't really fit. That's the one aspect of the show I'd didn't like so far, but I hope that I get used to it.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

So would we all . Too bad it seems that no pictures have ever made it to the Internet.

Yeah, it's strange. You'd figure you'd find that picture readily available. The most fruity picture I could find of him was that panther leather pants pic, and the recent ones don't seem as extravagant anymore

Originally Posted by 4Tran

I particularly like the eyecatch where it seems that we've progressed to the next stop. It's so intuitive and effective I'm not sure why nobody has done it before.

For starters, it's really hard to pull of. I mean the closest thing I had seen for unusual transitions was with SHAFT (whom I feel we'll be mentioning a lot here for better or for worse) and even then ... I also think since the train station being an integral part of the plot would mean that this sort of style fits perfectly as well.

Originally Posted by 4Tran

I love that scene with the friend. We get introduced to another character, we learn quite a bit about her, and all of this in a 15-second sequence where she barely says a word. Instead, it's all told through clever direction, blocking and shot composition.

In a lot of other shows, the background characters are given cursory body shapes and blobs of color to flesh out crowd scenes, but here Ikuhara decided that there was no need to draw them as real people at all! Making them all look like figures on street signs just works all the better. I also really love the way that hands are animated - they're just so expressive and thematically resonant. This episode alone puts to rest any doubts that Utena was as good as it was because of Ikuhara himself. Sure the rest of the staff was great on that show, but it's pretty obvious who the driving force was.

No disagreement here.

Originally Posted by NaweG

Having just read through the last several pages, I'm a little surprised I didn't see more comments on just how much the style of this seemed to reflect a lot of Shinbo ala Bakemonogatari - particularly the use of signs and white space. Regardless of the source of this one man force of nature behind this series, the style seemed a bit more Shaft than Brain Base.

Then again, I was feeling by the end of this that Shaft was cleverly doing the Madoka second season they hinted at, but changing Sayaka and Mami into guys this time...

I can say with certainty that this wont be related to Madoka at all. As far as it goes, SHAFT has no influence here.

Also, the reason why you don't see a lot of comments about this being a reflection of Shinbo is that aside from Ikuhara preceding him (so it would be more appropriate to say that Bakemonogatari is a reflection of Utena, though that still wouldn't be right), the two are very very different in how they each compose and create their shows, as well as the style being unique to each one.

The way Shinbo approaches his scenes is by making sure that the viewer maintains full attention on the visual aspect of the episode. To him, being stylish is far more important than following the script. He likes to have everything focus on certain details either to trick the viewer or hint at future developments.

Ikuhara, on the other hand, is a whole lot more symbolic. Sure, Shinbo likes using symbolism in his work, but Ikuhara creates his shows with it in mind from the ground up. Every frame is referencing something, every still has a secret, and the more a show unfolds the more things become apparent to us, not only the more obvious things (the apple) but the subtle, hidden and obscure as well.

Also, with Ikuhara, the visuals are used more as a driving force for the plot (or for the characters) so it's more often to see that what you seen here will have a far more profound meaning as time goes on and we get to learn more about the cast (in comparison, Shinbo is different in regard, where he likes to use the characters and plot as a means to do more creative visuals, which ends up at times hurting the stories (not often though))

Both men I enjoy their work greatly, but if I were to pick favorites, I'd go with Ikuhara since his style is as close as an anime got to being artistic innovative.