October 13th, 2008 by Brack
Turns out that apart from linking to one for my first MADstravaganza panel notes, I’ve not posted a Masaaki Yuasa video yet. Well here’s one I’d overlooked from this year, that mainly focuses on his earlier, funnier work.
Posted in Anime, MAD Monday | Tags: Masaaki Yuasa | No Comments »
April 24th, 2008 by Brack
My first thought after watching this was “Why am I even bothering watching any of the other new anime?”.
There’s two reasons for this. Firstly, and most obviously, it’s better animated than anything else right now. There are two wonderful set pieces in this first episode. The opening where Kaiba/Warp is chased by “Skronks” through the alien looking architecture, and a more slapstick section where Cloak is running trying to board a spaceship. One thing that Yuasa doesn’t get complimented enough on is his ability to direct physical comedy in animation. The scene with Cloak and Vanilla is a fantastic combination of the sort of desperation, pain and sadism that great slapstick comedy is born from. Also there’s moments of subtle beauty, such as when a child flies her toy bird through the hole in Kaiba/Warp’s chest.
Secondly, and to an extent it can be seen as an explanation of the first reason, it’s not an adaptation.
Now, part of me likes adaptations, it can be fun to see your favourite thing from one medium in another medium and I’m like an eager little puppy with anticipation for the Iron Man film. Some things do transfer to film wonderfully with little effort, some require panel beating until they are unrecognisable.
But there’s things that bother me about adaptations. One is that they are done often for the wrong reasons, film wants the respectability of literature so it adapts novels to film. Comics wants the respectability of film, so you get comic companies setting up movie studios. Manga wants to sell more copies, so it makes anime to advertise it.
However the main one is that even if you willfully ignore the source material, you are still a slave to it. The very act of denying the source is influenced by that source’s existence. And I think that, in general, gives you less worthwhile results than if you build something from scratch just for the medium it’s made in.
As good as the animation and design is on something like Soul Eater, it still has things that would work far better on the printed page than in animation dragging it down (I’m actually hoping that Square-Enix and Bones pull what they did on FMA and create new stories halfway through).
Whereas, what Kaiba has, and Kemonozune before it, is a sense that every creative decision made was to the benefit of making a cartoon. For instance, I’ve seen people complain that there’s too little talking, which is slightly bewildering to me. You’re watching a cartoon, surely you’d prefer storytelling to be told via animated drawings rather than static talking heads. But when so much anime comes from manga, and increasingly novels, people are more accustomed to anime ruled by writers, rather than animators. Plus talking heads are often cheaper to animate…
It’d be nice to see more original shows from animators with a particular voice, but I’m not sure how many have the cache to be allowed to do so or how many outlets there are for this sort of work. So let’s be thankful we get things like Kaiba, Mononoke, Denno Coil and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
That all being said, this didn’t grip me quite the way Kemonozume did. I’m not overly keen on science fiction and this story, with it’s own strange world and rules of physics, wasn’t as immediately relatable as Kemonozume’s setting and characters were. So I’ve only watched it twice so far, rather than the three times in a row I did with Kemonozume’s first episode.
Posted in Anime, Hate Fun? | Tags: Kaiba, Madhouse, Masaaki Yuasa | No Comments »
January 9th, 2008 by Brack
Iwa ni Hana brings the knowledge on Yuasa Masaaki’s new TV show.
Everything looks in place for awesome to abound. Yay.
カイバ｜WOWOW ONLINE
Posted in Anime | Tags: Kaiba, Madhouse, Masaaki Yuasa | No Comments »
December 4th, 2006 by Brack
Finally finished this bad boy.
GO WATCH IT.
Here's something I noticed on ANN's credits. Episodes 1, 2, 3, 10, & 11 were scripted by people who actually storyboarded the episode. Which makes me wonder if they scripted from storyboards or vice versa. I also wonder what the scriptwriters Kuboshichi Ogi and Ryou Ono's backgrounds are, as they seem to be the only names credited with script who don't have actual animation credits to their name. Compare this to most other TV animation where it seems actual animators are kept at arms length from actual scripting.
GO WATCH IT.
But's not all just great animation. There's also some great voice acting from Kenji Utsumi (he of Alexander Armstrong from FMA fame). It's a tour de force, and gives a lie to those twits who claim that just because something is in a language you don't understand you have no idea if someone is acting well or not.
GO WATCH IT.
Next thing of interest is Tokyo Tribe 2, apparantly this is the next Madhouse-produced, auteur anime for WOWOW. This time it's Tatsuo Sato (Nadesico, Stellvia, Cat Soup OAV) in the driving seat.
Posted in Animation, Anime | Tags: kemonozume, Madhouse, Masaaki Yuasa | No Comments »
August 21st, 2006 by Brack
More on Kemonozume.
Toshihiko is training in a dynamically animated sequence where he dodges tennis balls fired at him by his compatriots. One of which gets over excited and so Toshihiko takes him outside to remind him of what the Kifuuken's goal is - “to contain the evil in your own heart”.
But now Kazuma wants to inherit the Kifuuken, and challenges Toshihiko to a fight to prove he is more worthy. However, The Monkey wants a peach. And subsequently disarms and debags Kazuma in his attempt to get a peach.
Toshihiko chases The Monkey onto the beach and almost has a parachutist land on him. He lays eyes on the woman (Yuka) and is instantly smitten. Here is the genius bit of animation from this episode. Once he lays on eyes on her the “camera” stays fixed on her face. It's clear from the movement that she's picking up her parachute and getting in a car, but you only see her face. It's like they are animating something you aren't actually seeing. Fantastic stuff that totally conveys the love at first sight emotions Toshihiko is feeling at that moment.
Toshihiko then can't sleep and sees her face everywhere, on The Monkey, on Kazuma, on the all the other hunters. He runs to the beach were he meets Yuka, and to the sound of a thunderstorm we get a segue of them making love. However, Toshihiko fails to notice that as she climaxes she starts to shapechange into a flesh eating monster of seemingly of the kind we met at the start of the episode…
Excellent 1st episode, looking to be the best show so far this year. I've now watched it 4 times after doing this write up. Get the fansub here.
MINOR RANT TIME:
While the show's gotten good feedback on the whole (and what I considered a surprising number of downloads), I had to laugh at this idiot proclaiming it as cheap porn. I'm guessing the porn thing is down to the sex scene. The eyes roll. It does seriously weird me out how some anime fans seem to instantly equate sex with porn, act all squeamish about it and then merrily watch some simpering otaku pandering show that was made by watering down some pornographic PC game. Whether it's a reaction against other elements of anime fandom parading their weird fetishes as a badge of honour, or something else, I don't know. But it weirds me out. Happy mediums folks, happy mediums.
Posted in Animation, Anime | Tags: kemonozume, Madhouse, Masaaki Yuasa | No Comments »
August 21st, 2006 by Brack
I think I've watched Kemonozume episode 1 three times in total.
The prelude to the credits describes and event that took place in the ancient history of the show's world. An event that directly leads to the situation the characters find themselves in. Simple small shadows form the characters here, reminding me of the interstitial segments linking scenes in Jim Henson's Storyteller.
After the credits we find ourselves in a club where 2 men are talking surrounded by aquariums. The fish in the aquariums look like digitally treated live footage. While this scene betrays the cheapness TV animation tends to possess, the dialogue and acting here are great. And the body language is well portrayed. One man (or monster) is revelling in his murder and eating of young women, the other is restrained, seemingly happy to live a hidden existance. The flesh eating monster chides his companion for not giving into these urges. However it turns out he has been set up.
The Kifuuken, a group of monster hunters attack the creature with swords and missiles. And the male lead Toshihiko shits himself when confronted by the creature…
There then follows a lengthy talking heads scene that acts as both detail of the world the show takes place in and the relationships between Toshihiko, his father and adopted brother Kazuma. Here we seem to have themes of tradition vs. ambition introduced as Kazuma wishes to use high-tech means to eliminate all the Kemonozume (the monsters we met at the start), whereas his father seems to have other intentions in the fight with them other than to kill them (once an arm was removed he allowed the creature in the opening scene to flee).
We then get a scene between Toshihiko and Rie walking on the beach. Old friends, a subtle scene where Rie tries holding his hand shows you all you need to know about their relationship. This is followed with a short montage showing various Kifuuken at work. Also a Monkey!
Sheesh, that's only about half way through the episode. I shall rave on more about it tomorrow I think.
Posted in Animation, Anime, Comics, Hate Fun? | Tags: kemonozume, Madhouse, Masaaki Yuasa | No Comments »
