444lpblue
Blue's Anime Corner
I'm going to be posting random short thoughts on mostly seasonal animes that air. Feel free to read! Follow me on Twitter for shorter-form thoughts and more frequent rambles.
@The_Blue_Dash
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The live performance for Whisper Me a Love Song... Wow.
It’s just a total blast of energy and something Yokohama Animation Lab and Cloud Hearts have not had in a while. It exceeds by far the amount of movement I expected for the live performances, and I believe that’s mostly due to the specific allocation of staff. The live performance staff were listed separately in the credits rather than alongside the rest of the episode 1 crew. We have storyboarding and direction from Tsumori Shindo, whom I couldn’t find much information on aside from his Twitter, but he seems to be an extremely talented and creative visual artist. He has an indie anime movie coming out in the Summer of this year, and from the production materials provided on his socials, it almost gives me an ethereal, creepy vibe. It looks very unique, and if someone like him is going to be handling the direction of the live performances for this show throughout its airing, I truly don’t think we have anything to worry about. (Follow the movie’s progress here!)
The other staff members are more in line with what we’d expect from Yokohama Animation Lab. Misae Kawakubo, the animation director for the live performance, is quite a regular presence at Yokohama in general, as is key animator Shouya Gotou, whom we saw handling Monster Animation Direction in The Witch and the Beast (one of the better-animated aspects of that show), and Miyuu Ookubo, whom unfortunately I don’t know much about at the moment. All of them seem to be fairly new to the industry. The fact that they decided to seemingly have a dedicated group of staff just for the performance section of the episodes bodes quite well for the rest of the show. Shouya Gotou’s work in past Yokohama projects, while good, has never been quite this fluid and fun. It seems like they’re giving this project a lot of time for the staff to work with, possibly thanks to the delay, which could be credited to NUManimation, who’s airing this show, being quite consistent in terms of the anime they typically air being of pretty good quality. Being allowed to delay the anime by 4 months is not common. The fact that the animator staff seems to be Yokohama Animation Lab / Cloud Hearts regulars, if not just contracted to the studio, suggests that we’ll likely see them again for live performances in future episodes, which will be great.
That also seems to be the staff direction for this entire project; it’s filled with newer staff which seems to be a great thing in this case as it has improved Yokohama Animation Lab / Cloud Hearts quality of work by a significant amount.
Full writeup here for you to check out.
#Sasakoi#whisper me a love song#anime 2024#spring 2024#spring 2024 anime#sasayaku you ni koi wo utau
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Train to the End of the World #2 – Suppose, Maybe, Presumably
TRAIN TO THE END OF THE WORLD, SHUUMATSU TRAIN, IT'S SO GOOD, GO WATCH IT. Er-hmm.
Episode 2 of the show continues its great worldbuilding in this absolutely wacky series. This might honestly end up being my favorite series this season if it can keep this up.
Clues and hints surrounding the show everywhere just make it so interesting, and I'm just very curious how weird and maybe even dark it could possibly get. I love how they barely tell you anything. It's a big charm of the show for me.
The production seems to be in good hands also with this episode only having 3 animators with very few ADs and still looking completely fine. (Though there are a ton of in-between animators).
Ya know the deal if you want to read my full thoughts on this episode. You can check it out here.
https://animehouse.moe/blog/anime/train-to-the-end-of-the-world-2-suppose-maybe-presumably/
#終末トレイン#train to the end of the world#spring 2024 anime#shuumatsu train#emt squared#mystery anime#review
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The Witch and the Beast #10 - Origin Witch
Shinji Itadaki makes his return on the Witch and the Beast #10 to prove that he is indeed one of the best storyboarders in the whole show. Although shading isn't typically attributed to storyboard artists, his episodes tend to exhibit a very unique shading style, thanks to meticulous attention to detail in his boards. This episode is one of the series' best since Phanora's arc thanks to him.
Also, Kana Hanazawa as Angela was sooooo good. The casting overall in this show has been great.
In my opinion, this ep serves as a great example of what a perfect episode of this show could be, despite encountering various production issues. The show's ideas and aesthetic are always mostly realized, but it's the production issues that bring the show down.
#the witch and the beast#shinji itadaki#anime 2024#winter 2024#majo to yajuu#yokohama animation lab#maru animation
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Train To The End of The World Episode 1: Down the Escalator to Dark Nerima
An anime original's debut episode is measured in quality by how shocking it is in contrast to its trailers. Akiba Maid War is a prime example of that gap, but Train To The End of The World is giving it a run for its money.
Still sticking close to its originally expressed post-apocalyptic roots, it adds a healthy serving of absurd, a dash of horror, and a surprising degree of quality for EMT squared.
It was quite the watch, and myself (Piro) and fellow Animehouse writer @444lpblue express that through our first thoughts that we've shared in full at Animehouse.
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Whisper Me a Love Song – Anime Outlook
Despite the director change and delays, I'm still very excited for the show in general. Minami's character designs really shine through and kept most of the character's personality. I'm interested to see what influence if any Xinya Cai have left on the project before her leave.
The current director who replaced her in Akira Mano is fairly interesting himself. I haven't seen much outside of him other than Ghost Hunt, which really showed off his unique ideas in framing and transitioning quite well, almost Masaomi Andou-like but more organically placed.
It's been over a decade, so I would like to see how his style has changed and what's still there. Overall, I'm mostly hopeful for the project as I love the character designs, I think the delay will do the production some favors and I'm interested in what Mano will have to offer.
If you wanted to read my full outlook on how I think the Whisper Me a Love Song anime will turn out. You can check it out in full here.
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The Witch and the Beast #8 – The Witch and the Demon Sword: Act III
The Witch and the Beast #8 – The Witch and the Demon Sword: Act III
Yokohama's production issues in The Witch and the Beast have been evident since the beginning, despite strong moments in earlier eps (The aesthetic of the manga was well maintained). The current action-heavy arc suffers from weak animation, narrative inconsistencies and an overall decline in vision. EP 6 featured horrendous models, EP 7 had subpar animation and awkward direction, and EP 8, despite being storyboarded by Shinji Itadaki, was hindered by limited animation and choppy fight scenes.
I'm not sure where Yokohama Animation Lab will go exactly as a studio, with their show last season, KoR, lacking staff and now this one being almost entirely outsourced to Maru Animation.
If you want to read more, please check out my full blog here:
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The Witch and the Beast #5 – Beauty and Death: Final Act
Ep 5 of The Witch and the Beast is my favorite so far in the show, both storywise and visually. The episode really delivered on the manga's aesthetics, and some of the artwork in the episode is genuinely mesmerizing.
Hiroyuki Yoshii did a solid job for his first time in this role. He made good use of the backgrounds, which have always been great thanks to Hirotsugu Katou. And while some of the shots you see there is a bit derivative perhaps of the manga, you can't deny they work every well.
Added on to that, Guonian Wang, who animated about one-third of the episode, did an excellent job animating the scene with Death Knights. Further proving himself as likely the best in-house animator at Yokohama Animation Lab.
If you wanted to see my full thoughts on this great episode. You can just go here. I go much more in-depth and also provide more source on my praise of Guonian Wang.
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Whisper Me a Love Song - Volume 7 Review
I enjoyed reading it a lot. Yori and Himari's relationship is adorable, and the ongoing drama is well-handled, addressing my concerns about it previously. Sadly, this arc might not make it to the anime without a 2nd anime. I just love how Yori and Himari's relationship hasn't taken a step back like most romance mangas seem to do at times, and it's just so endearing. It also adds so much that Eku Takeshima's art is so uniquely organic and expressive.
Full review and thoughts here!
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The Witch and the Beast #4 – Beauty and Death: Opening Act
Screenplay: Yuuichirou Momose
Storyboard: Shinji Itadaki
Episode Direction: Hae-Jeong Gim, Shinya Kawabe
Chief Episode Direction: Makoto Tamagawa
Chief Animation Direction: Hiroya Iijima
Animation Direction: Yun-Jeong Kim, O-Sik Kwon, Chang-Hee Won
Key Animation: Su-Jin Oh, Hae-Jeong Gim, Heung-Seok Ju, Momoko, Sun-Yeong Seong, Young-Chan Kim, Jae-Yeong Jang, Chang-Hee Won
The introduction of Phanora and Johan comes with one of most the consistent and well-drawn episodes yet! Check out my full write-up here.
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Well, no time like the present to finally bother saying this- I made a (proper) blog website!
Loving the Tumblr feel, but being left frustrated by its limitations, I decided to go off and make my own so that I can shamelessly write my heart out.
Anyways, if you want some (much) more detailed thoughts on Nagahara's boarding and overall effort on the episode, I've got a post up now for it.
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The Witch and the Beast #3 - The Witch's Pastime: Final Act
Screenplay: Yuuichirou Momose
Storyboard: Motohiro Abe
Episode Direction: Hae-Jeong Gim, Shinya Kawabe
Chief Episode Direction: Makoto Tamagawa
Chief Animation Direction: Hiroya Iijima
Animation Direction: Chang-Hee Won, Hui-Yeong Yun, Ju-Hyeong Eom, O-Sik Kwon
Key Animation: Sun-Yeong Seong, Su-Jin Oh, Seo-Gi Kang, Hae-Jeong Gim, Young-Chan Kim
The conclusion to The Witch's Pastime arc comes with its own visual ups and downs. The episode, for the most part, was a lot more on model than the previous one, but the storyboarding is arguably quite a bit worse. There were several sequences in this episode that I felt were severely hindered by the boarding, not just the animation. For example, check out the clip below.
I wanted to post more than just this one, but Tumblr limits me to just one video per post. This is a short one, so it's easy to explain. This is more minor than the fight scene later on in this episode, but it's the same concept in terms of the issue I have with it. Abe's boards don't really even allow for animation; the way he sets up his shots to hide animation doesn't flow well together, and it feels abrupt and just kind of weird. There are much better ways to board this with about the same amount of animation planned, and it would have been a lot smoother. A simple angle change to the back of Guideau, for example, would hide the lack of any movement in general a lot better. Even if you get the best key animator for this scene, with this style of boarding, there's just not much to do with it in the first place.
However, that is not to say Abe's boards were all bad. There were still some good shots in this episode. I do like that every storyboarder in this show so far seems to understand the strengths in the art direction of the show and really leans into it. Abe also interestingly changes a lot of shots which obscure the face from the manga, such as Ashaf's face being visible when the dummy is revealed or one of the brothers no longer being obscured by shadows unlike the manga, when he's sneak attacking Guideau. Abe's boards were fine, but I do think out of all the storyboarders, he definitely seems to be the most subtle with his own stylistic choices.
I still enjoyed the episode. This arc has never been one of my favorites, even in the manga, and the anime adaptation of it has some hiccups here and there. However, I would still say it has been a pretty decent adaptation so far.
Also, if you're interested, the prop designer for The Witch and the Beast, Miki Matsuda, posted the gun designs used in this episode on his Twitter. Please take a look and consider following him!
His work on this show has been consistently great so far. This sentiment extends to my overall opinion on the visual aspects of the series. From the character designer to the art director and prop designer, everyone is excelling. The Witch and the Beast is a series that heavily relies on its style, and I believe they've truly understood the assignment when working on it. While there might be some production shortcomings in this particular arc, who knows how future ones will unfold. Plus, any off-model issues can likely be addressed through Blu-ray corrections. I don't find the action sequences too bad, and the anime maintains a strong sense of style that I still enjoy.
Spoiler alert, since I'm a bit late in writing this: Episode 4 has been out for a week now, and episode 5 is on the horizon. The production quality in episode 4 stands out as one of the best in the series, giving me hope that this second arc was just a resting point, and that they have bigger plans for future arcs. I'll save my discussion on episode 4 more for when I write about it.
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The Witch and the Beast #2 - The Witch's Pastime: Final Act
Screenplay: Yuuichirou Momose
Storyboard: Toshiyuki Sone
Episode Direction: Masahiko Suzuki
Chief Episode Direction: Makoto Tamagawa
Chief Animation Direction: Hiroya Iijima
Animation Direction: Makoto Shimojima, Kazuharu Tada, Miyoko Shikibu, Miyako Nishida, Geun-Su Lim (Monster AD: Shouya Gotou)
Key Animation: Yuka Anze, Yasunori Yamaguchi, Kouichi Takai, Ryou Suzuki, Mizuki Nakane, Shouya Gotou, Tomokazu Gunji, Aya Nagumo, Mayu Nakamura, Mitsuyo Tsuno, Riku Yamahira, Kazumasa Takeuchi, Hideo Maru, Seon-Hui Kim, Studio Toy Box, Kou Kitakaze
Better late than never, right? On my first watch of this episode, I'm not going to lie; I was a bit harsh on it. I couldn't keep the inconsistency and off-model nature of the episode out of my mind (most of which I hope will be fixed in the Blu-rays), and it kind of blinded me in my real assessment of this episode. I want you guys to keep in mind that this is one of my favorite mangas of all time, so I have very high standards for it. Seeing these production issues crop up just isn't a great feeling when the animation itself is already quite limiting.
Despite all of that, I'd still describe it as a reasonably decent episode, though not quite on par with episode 1. However, it did feature some remarkable shots that were visually stunning, courtesy once again of Hirotsugu Kakoi's art direction plus his team at Kagoshima Ramecahirim. The storyboarder of this episode, Toshiyuki Sone, while quite derivative of the manga, I believe, had many shots that make great use of the excellent background art and has a serious sense of depth.
When the scenes are good, they're REALLY good. I've noticed that the show particularly shines during nighttime, and I absolutely love it; it has become my favorite visual aspect of the series so far. Recently, I saw someone describe The Witch and the Beast as a grotesque and gory show, which is only partly true. This manga is aesthetically inclined, balancing the gory and the beautiful, and I believe these specific shots emphasize that quality. The new city setting is dark, empty, and moody, yet it's visually captivating—almost like eye candy. The ethereal lights style, illuminating everything, coupled with the depth and details presented in the aftermath of the victims, all come together in a gory yet beautiful amalgamation for example.
The animation in this episode was still overall limiting, but it wasn't one that particularly needed much per the narrative (of this episode). As mentioned before, the consistency really bothers me, along with some odd choices that could perhaps be attributed to the direction of this episode. The zoom in with Ashaf casting his spell looked low-res when zoomed in and somewhat disrupted my immersion in the episode. Guideau hitting the handrails had this weird effect applied instead of proper animation, which felt awkward. The entire restaurant scene in the second half of the episode was extremely off-model. Despite these issues, the actual episode, both in the narrative adaptation and the background/board ideas, still meshes pretty well with my vision of the manga.
I also hope that, considering this is arguably one of the less important arcs, when we reach Episode 4, which focuses on Johan and Phanora's arc or beyond (don't worry, I'll write about Episode 3 right after this), there will be an improvement in the production levels compared to what we've seen in this episode. I'm optimistic that they've been saving their staff for these more significant episodes. While I acknowledge that this isn't the best production ever, I appreciate the art direction, some of the storyboarding has been quite good, and the show as a whole has been a decent adaptation of the manga. However, I would like to see more consistency going forward.
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The Witch and The Beast Episode 2: The Witch's Pastime - Opening Act
The first episode in proper of The Witch and The Beast aired today, and I must say it's left me a little confused about the whole production and approach. Some great work here, some not so great stuff, and a lot of unanswered questions. Of course, I'm a big fan of the manga so this is almost exclusively a conversation of visuals, but I think there's some interesting discussion to be had.
First off, the second episode has a new storyboarder and episode director. While the director is really not of much importance, Toshiyuki Sone is. They're not a very common storyboarder so I didn't have too much to expect out of their work, but admittedly, they've done a passable job with the content that they were given.
Sticking close to the manga in a lot of places, Sone's episode remains rather faithful to the manga. Some of their original ideas are great, as you can see below, but quite a bit of what they bring from the manga doesn't translate in the way they might have expected.
For example, the zoom sequences that are added in various parts produce low quality and poor detail, though you can't really tell because of Tumblr's pesky compression.
If I were to explain the episode in broad terms, it's from someone that has some good ideas, but little confidence and experience within the role. There's potential, and there's some great work involved, but it's hampered by a lack of understanding in how to approach various challenges.
One such example being the challenge of Iijima's piss poor animation direction. The designs they've made are great up close and personal, but at a distance they're god awful, and can hardly even be considered consistent in any way shape or form. I'm really desperately hoping that they'll be relieved of their position as CAD at some point during this season, just so I can see what can be done beneath another person.
Something else that I'm curious about with this episode is the work in brighter scenes. It's really just not as good as darker layouts or anything that happens at night.
And it's hard to pin down because the line drawn between color design, composition, and art direction/background is hard to make in these spots. Whatever the case is, the scenes in bright daylight simply can't compare to the quality nighttime work. Thankfully a lot of The Witch and The Beast deals with darker sequences so it shouldn't be of too much concern.
And also since I mentioned it, I really do still like the color design and composition. The colors really do best when in more homogenous scenes, but the composition overall has been really great still, even adding a good deal of feeling to some sequences.
The only place that really has not shown any promise is the animation. There was a bit in the first episode, but nothing really to write home about here, and that's where the big question for me comes from.
We're yet to encounter a heavy episode in terms of content, so it's hard to gauge just how this production is faring. As my friend Blue would (most likely say) though, it's very typical of a Hamana production within our small frame of reference. He directs the first episode and brings with him a lot of previous staff members to round out the ranks behind this series.
Because of that, and because of the content of these early episodes and this "arc" (if you can call it that), it's hard to tell how things will go. Is Hamana padding the easy episodes out to save room for the more intense ones, is Sone's episode more limited because of the buildup within the arc, or is it just the limitations of the ability behind his boards and the work of the episode director?
There's a lot of blanks in terms of how this production operates still, so I'm hoping that within the next 2 or so episodes we'll get a better grasp as to just how good this series will be. Of course, I'm hoping it'll be good, but with Yokohama behind it it's hard to have much confidence in my words.
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The Witch and the Beast #1 - The Witch and the City of Blazing Red
Screenplay: Yuuichirou Momose
Storyboard/Episode Direction: Takayuki Hamana
Chief Animation Direction: Hiroya Iijima
Animation Direction: Kei Tsushima, Yuri Hashimoto, Guonian Wang, Kazuharu Tada, Miyoko Shikibu, Asuna Imahashi, Shinya Segawa (Monster AD: Shouya Gotou)
Key Animation: Mana Azumaya, Noa Kawamura, Shigenori Taniguchi, Yoshihito Narimatsu, Yuki Uejou, Hiroyuki Kamura, Mitsuyo Tsuno, Kouichi Hayamizu, Kazunori Ozawa, Shouya Gotou, Yoshiko Nakamura, Studio Maf, Yuka Hayashi, Takuya Nemoto, Maru Animation, Yeong-Nam Ko, Su-Jin Oh
A bit late on this, aren't I? But no matter what, I was going to write about this, and I will write about every episode too – don't worry about it!
If you were in the know how of Yokohama Animation Lab's recent animes, much like me, you were probably very nervous about The Witch and the Beast adaptation. I mean, I made a whole write-up on the outlook, which mostly hinges on director Hamana's consistency in terms of quality and his tendency to bring in specific animators. Well, now that the episode is out, how do I actually feel?
It's… surprisingly very well done. Of course, I'm not saying it's perfect; the biggest issues are likely the limited animation and a bit of off-modelness. But I'm not going to lie, guys. Maybe I am biased because The Witch and the Beast is one of my favorite mangas, but I genuinely had a lot of fun with this debut, and I kind of loved it. It felt like it had the soul of the manga I love despite some production hiccups.
First, let's talk about what you probably felt but haven't been able to confirm. The episode was indeed better than the PV. I got a sense of this as I was watching, and I was really kind of confused about why I didn't feel like the PV looked this good. When I looked back, it was very interesting to see how many differences there were and the improvements that made the shots so much better.
The obvious improvement in the shading of Guideau and Ashaf is apparent, but I also love the addition of the impact gust that they added to Guideau's stomp. Personally, it was something I noticed in the PV as feeling a bit too still. The only effects in the PV were just simple camera shakes, which didn't really sell the impact of her stomp that much at all. Seeing improvements like these from the trailer to the actual episode fills me with a lot of hope for the production. I feel like it shows that, unlike more recent Yokohama productions, they are trying a significant amount more.
If you couldn't already tell from some of the close-ups I've provided in this post, while the on-modelness of some farther away shots can be questioned, the close-ups in this show are absolutely gorgeous. I wasn't super sold on Iijima's character designs initially, but after seeing the improved shading and the various shots they kind of hid from us in the PV, the designs are freaking gorgeous up close. The Witch and the Beast, the manga, has always been a visual spectacle that relied a lot on its art direction, aesthetics, and of course, character designs. While it's nearly impossible for the anime to match it, I think they came very close. The characters' eyes are so pretty; I love the compositing effects they applied to them. It feels like it gives them a lot of depth and kind of like an otherworldly blur, which I think looks great. The features are sharp; they're so pretty. Everyone has their premium eyelash extensions on, and it's just about as aesthetically pleasing to me as the manga. To be honest, it might be my favorite character design for the season.
And since I also briefly mentioned the compositing, I have to apologize to Natsumi Uchida. I specifically pointed her out in my social media rambles as someone who was making me worry a bit. And that mostly stems from her recent effort in The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World, which, to be frank, I thought was terrible. The effects looked cheap, just due to how bright and almost neon at times they are. They don't fit in with their environments; it just wasn't pleasant to look at. However, her work in The Witch and the Beast is so much better. While some effects are somewhat questionable, like the smoke and Ashaf's crow appearing when he was saving Guideau, I would definitely say the compositing was a highlight in this episode. It really puts a stamp on the character designs with the beautiful compositing over them. It makes every scene paired with the art direction feel so dense, like everything is just so in-depth.
The art direction in this show is probably its best visual element. It absolutely shines. I mean, if you had to pick something out from this production as a major highlight, it has to be one of the undeniable biggest pros of the show so far. The series is a dark fantasy, but it's not a dull one. A lot of adaptations, I feel, confuse this with each other a bit. A dark fantasy doesn't have to mean dull colors or a realistic design; after all, The Witch and the Beast is all about its aesthetically gothic yet fantasy appearance that is quite grandiose and beautiful in nature, and the art direction covers that perfectly. So huge credit to the art director, Hirotsugu Kakoi and his crew at Kagoshima Ramecahirim.
One of my biggest worries for the anime adaptation, when I first saw the trailer, was actually, believe it or not, kind of its color palette. I genuinely thought they didn't get a full sense of Satake's style. It felt a bit too plain to me when I always imagined the colors in the world in this series to be very solid and strong, while not bright. I think the series functions on its boldness, and the backgrounds are a perfect example of it. The opening, I think, is a great example of this too, just them surrounded by those buildings in the midst of the night feels almost overwhelmingly dense. It really serves as the main appeal in many of the show's shots and ties everything (the compositing, the character designs, and the aesthetic) all together. The buildings and architectures, a mix of 2D and 3D, blend in so perfectly. You can take so many of those shots and make them your wallpaper; honestly, it's so pretty. It's also not just the buildings; the flowers in the room where Guideau and Ione fight were stunning. I also love the visual of the flowers always fluttering up due to impact; it just created such a magical experience for me. It's such a simple addition, but it was great. That, paired with the great soundtrack which goes from almost Persona-like music to soft notes of somberness that build up to the release of a monster, just all goes together so well.
At the beginning of this write-up, I already noted its production issues in terms of sometimes limited animation and a good bit of off-modelness in farther away shots (which I hope they'll fix in the Blu-Ray). There are many instances of very solid animation, which you can just look up on Sakugabooru if you want an example. I'm very impressed by Hamana's ability to manage this level of quality and a very strong self-identity of the show's visuals.
His direction in this episode, while some people might not like it due to its reminiscent of older styles, is noteworthy. Many of his shots rely on simple zoom-ins and zoom-outs, which I would say was a more common technique around 2008 or so. His way of transitioning is also a lot less focused on smooth transitions than most styles nowadays. For example, in Ghost Hunt, Gungrave, or Library of Bantorra, the flow of the storyboard is much less smooth and flowing than modern ones. Hamana's boards feel much more jumpy, I suppose? There's a larger gap that isn't covered by anything, which seems to have given many reviewers the impression of a slideshow. Personally, I don't mind it too much, as I think he still has some pretty interesting ideas. The transitions to Guideau getting stabbed and then grabbing Ione, I thought were really well done and mesmerizing. All the choices for the fluttering flowers were probably directly from him.
And hey, normally I don't like his openings, but the opening for The Witch and the Beast is badass, and I might write an individual write-up for it this week. However, I would also love to see other storyboarders and episode directors on some episodes to compare, especially for future episodes like for Johan and Phanora. I would love to see somebody like Shinj Itadaki give it a try, who I really hope to see in this series at some point. I think it's very possible due to the fact he's worked with Hamana before, and he's worked with Yokohama Animation Lab before. Much like a lot of the key animators here, he was also on Ancient Magus Bride S2, which, if you guys didn't know for some reason, contains an oddly large amount of staff that Hamana worked with before across the years, and they're also appearing in The Witch and the Beast now.
As you can tell, I really enjoyed the debut, despite its issues. I could ramble about it all day; there are so many things I want to talk about. However, I think it would be best to save that for when we get to future episodes. In this write-up, I've already spent a lot of time discussing more of what I like about the general direction and visual appeal of the series. Hopefully, in future episodes, I will be able to go more in-depth on specific storyboards, direction, and visuals that the upcoming episodes will showcase. I'll see you guys next week for the next episode of The Witch and the Beast.
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The Witch and The Beast Episode 1: The Witch and The City of Blazing Red
I'll be brutally honest: this is still a Yokohama production. Hamana brings some good work with their helming of the production, but there's still struggles. But in spite of those struggles I can't help but love this episode, and I can't help but want to talk about it. So let's talk about it.
First of all- the negatives. Characters are off model as often as they are on model, the animation is rather sparse and there's some awkward sequences throughout the episode. Some designs end up a little too simple for my tastes due to limitations with animation, and Hamana's storyboards and sense of direction do not mesh very well at all with this episode.
In spite of all of that there's still a mountain of work that I can only describe as incredible within.
For one, the environment art and art direction was superb. I was worried about how flat the colors were in the PVs, but this episode proved they're able to deliver a great deal of range on incredible environments that mesh 2D and 3D almost effortlessly. A Sign of Affection by and far has the best backgrounds in this season, but personally I'd put The Witch and The Beast as a reasonable second place (with Ishura hot on its tail).
The backgrounds in The Witch and The Beast really bring out the most in terms of style and color, really embodying Satake's modus operandi with them: very strong and full color palettes that hinge around a color or combination. It has me incredibly excited to see how they tackle other sequences in this season.
But that's about the only aspect in this episode that deserves its universal praise (aside from the OST, which is great) , the rest tend to come with a caveat. Like Hamana's boards.
I did sort of tear them apart earlier, but I'll come completely clean: there's still some really great layouts in this episode. They're not god tier and they miss out on the potential with symbolism and whatnot, but they're still damn good pieces that help sell the episode to viewers.
And then there's the animation. Hamana's boards don't really give much opportunity to effectively animate, but there's some sequences that really stand out.
Take, for example, Gideau eating. Sure, it might be a simple and short sequence but the fact that it was animated as well it was speaks volumes to the level of work that can appear with this series.
Similarly, there's this clip of a rotoscoped Gideau winding up a punch for Ione. It might be a little awkward, but the idea and execution of the rotoscoped sequence was really cool to see.
And there's a handful of other moments that express the surprisingly ability of Yokohama's animation for this series. Unfortunately we don't get much animation in Gideau's fight, but I'm hoping that we'll see better work done under more creative and involved storyboards we move along with this story.
It's overall a very middle of the road production with this first episode for sure, but I think that the bad parts are rather mild, while the good parts are quite inspiring. So rather than feeling concern or reservation with this adaptation, I oddly enough find myself excitedly waiting to see what Yokohama manages with the next episode!
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Ishura #1 - Soujiro the Willow-Sword
Screenplay: Kenta Ihara
Storyboard: Takeo Takahashi
Episode Direction: Takuya Asaoka
Chief Animation Direction: Yuka Takashina
Animation Direction: Jun Yoshida, Shintarou Matsushima, Osamu Sakata, Norikatsu Nakano, Genichirou Kondou, Minami Sakura, Tatsuya Fukushima (Assistant AD: Keiichi Ishida, Eiji Shirai, Yuuki Ogawa)
Key Animation: Hiroshi Yoneda, Tatsuya Takahashi, Hiroya Iijima, Jun Yoshida, Tsutomu Shibuya, Seiji Handa, Norikatsu Nakano, Yousuke Murata, Tatsuya Fukushima, Shintarou Matsushima, Osamu Sakata, Yasutoshi Iwasaki (Eyecatch F島)
Ishura was going to be a bit of a challenging anime to get right. Its well-woven and descriptive action in the novel would be difficult for a rough production to cover. The constant shift of perspectives and the slow pace at the beginning would likely make it hard to adapt. Now, we'll have to wait to see the latter part, but as for the action? I think they did a pretty damn good job.
I'm literally in school for computer animation, so I have nothing against CG, but in anime, they tend to be admittedly hit or miss. Even from the trailer, especially in specific cases like Shalk (skeleton bro), I could tell it was going to be pretty good. However, a lot of the shots of the golem in the PVs, I wasn't an extremely huge fan of, but they really do blend in a lot better than I expected in the actual episode.
I think it's mostly because of the way they did it; our 2D characters kinda look shiny themselves, they sorta have a 3D shading look to them. While opinions on this will be mixed, I think it was smart to seemingly work the other way around—getting the characters to blend in with the 3D models. It really does allow the show to have a more cohesive look, and I believe the 3D models/animation will save them from production issues later on.
I actually enjoyed this premiere significantly more than its light novel counterpart. I feel like it gave me a better liking to Sojirou, who, in my opinion, had the weakest introduction chapter by far. Seeing his excellent voice acting by Yuuki Kaji and all the mannerisms executed so well really sell his 'I don't really give a shit' attitude that greatly infuriates Yuno. I'm very excited to see more.
It would be very curious to see if the action can keep up. The episode was directly boarded by the chief director, Takeo Takahashi who did an amazing job here, but I'm doubtful that he will return just because he has Spice and Wolf to manage April of this year. So we'll have to see how the action flow without him. I'm eager to know the episode count because there's no way they can keep up with this one-episode-per-introduction pace unless it's a 2-cour series. Either way, I enjoyed the debut episode a lot as a light novel reader, and I'll be here next week for more.
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The Witch and the Beast Anime's Outlook
I've finally awakened from my anime slump and have been catching up on a lot of anime. I learned my lesson about trying to do too much and watch too many shows. Therefore, I'm going to limit the number of anime I watch going forward so that I actually have time to write about them. I was barely finding time to watch the shows I've decided to begin, let alone write about them. I'm feeling a bit more comfortable now after grinding a ton, and I would like to talk about one of my anxiety-inducing and highly anticipated anime, The Witch and the Beast.
If you didn't know, The Witch and the Beast is possibly one of my favorite mangas of all time, if not my absolute favorite. It's very under the radar, and I think if you love the world of Ancient Magus Bride or enjoy The Case Study of Vanitas and want a darker twist with a highly aesthetically pleasing art style, I think you should give it a try. But back to the anime, like most people when their manga get adapted, when I first heard it was announced, I was extremely excited—after all, who wouldn't be? Getting an anime adaptation is probably one of the things you wish for your favorite series. After months of confirmation, we finally got the first teaser PV, which looked fine (I did have some complaints about it, but it was mostly fine). We learned that the studio working on it is Yokohama Animation Lab.
If you've been watching anime recently, you might have come across some of Yokohama Animation Lab's works, as they have been quite active since 2017. They have produced visually appealing shows such as Miru Tights and Lapis Re:LiGHTs. However, more recently, they've released shows with less-than-stellar visuals, like Kingdoms of Ruin, The Great Cleric, and Rail Romanesque 2. Even their highest-rated show at the moment, The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt, doesn't exactly have amazing animation quality; it's more of a passable-looking show. Which made the studio choice a huge large concern for me, as The Witch and the Beast is a series that relies a lot on its visuals. It's an integral part to the enjoyment of the series, it's a series that relies on its aesthetically pleasing artwork for the sake of showing off the characters and the worldbuilding.
However, studios aren't people, and I didn't want to adopt an incredibly negative outlook because the people working on it will change over time, and anime relies heavily on freelancers. The quality of the anime you see from individual studios will differ greatly. But there is a difference in that aspect to an extent in Yokohama Animation Lab, much like in this interview said. They are looking to become more of an in-house studio rather than freelance due to the costs of subscription programs. Oogami Yuuma emphasizes that while digitalization in anime is often viewed as a cost-cutting measure, setting up the required digital environment can be initially expensive. So they are seeking a cost-effective solution. His statement, to this day, still rings pretty true. If you look at the staff for Yokohama's series episode by episode, you might be surprised that a majority of the episodes do seem to involve in-house staff more than the average anime. However, that doesn't seem great when their recent quality, especially in shows like Kingdoms of Ruin, has been rather atrocious. In all visual aspects, animation (incredibly lacking), storyboarding (low quality and not engaging, scene flow to eachother like a slideshow), compositing (incredibly jarring). The only thing I can praise about it is its art direction.
I mentioned Kingdoms of Ruin specifically as it does share several key staff with The Witch and the Beast and I think it's just worth mentioning. Now with all that being said you can see how my worry for the adaptation was incredibly large at the time (in the fact it still is), but I've lessen my worry of it when I tried to look at the individual staffs working on this show and the stafflist of the recent Yokohama shows.
Unfortunately, I did sit through some episodes of Kingdoms of Ruin (do not recommend), and I found it interesting that the staff list for the show was rather small at times— a lot of animation directors, but not many actual animators. For example, one of the action-heavy episodes only had a singular key animator. It's as if they didn't have enough staff. I would say that Kingdoms of Ruin is of lower quality than even the average Yokohama series.
This got me thinking, where are the staff going? Well, there are several options. Yokohama has some upcoming releases, but unquestionably, their biggest series coming out is Whisper Me a Love Song (which I also love), followed by The Witch and the Beast. The other two upcoming series are not nearly gaining as much traction.
This is all just a guess that likely won't amount to anything, but just the type of series that The Witch and the Beast is and the fact that it's the series coming right after Kingdoms of Ruin, I think it's possible that it will end up benefiting from the staff that was missing from that series. I feel like Yokohama will try to put more effort into this series, considering they didn't opt for their usual newbies and completely in-house directors; rather, they got a veteran director in Takayuki Hamana.
Hamana has been in the industry for an incredibly long time, but chances are you haven't heard of him. Recently, he directed Power of Hope Precure Full Bloom, which had a lot of great cuts from what I've seen. He has also recently finished working on the Sorcerous Stabber Orphen series, which didn't receive the best reception (more so for its rushed nature rather than visuals). Additionally, he worked on the Rakudai Majo movie recently, which unfortunately doesn't have an English release yet.
While it's not like these recent shows have the best ratings on MAL or other sites, it tends not to be because of the visuals but rather the story, over which he likely didn't have much control, especially in the case of Precure. He's very much capable of delivering a good product if the source material and the script are solid. Beast Player Erin is his highest-rated work, but he also has shows like Library Wars or Arte, which I know many people like.
In studios like Yokohama, I always tend to favor veteran directors, as they have been in more situations and will likely be able to find a way to maintain quality better than newbie directors; their industry connections should allow them to get external staff to help out. Hamana has shown evidence of this many times, even in the rushed release of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and the hazardous release pace of each season. They all still managed to have well-animated cuts here and there, and that has been a trend for a majority of his series.
If you just put some of his randomly directed series on Sakugabooru, for example, you'll find that every one of his series tends to have cuts listed there. I think this is a testament that Hamana, while he won't always make the best shows, knows who to bring in and how to manage them for the more important parts of a show. He's a very consistent director, and I think he's someone who could and likely will benefit The Witch and the Beast's studio situation a lot in terms of its production quality. Whether you'll like his directing style (which tends to remind most of 2008s anime) is an entirely different matter, but he is a source of hope in terms of its production quality.
And you know with all this talk of Yokohama and the many people, like me worried for The Witch and the Beast's quality, while I may not be a fan of the many visual direction choice that has been shown in the PV, we haven't gotten any real evidence that the production quality or animation quality will be bad. From the most recent PV and likely final PV, the character designs look fairly well-maintained for the most part. Close-ups are impressive. I also like the expressions for them, strong eye work. Overall CAD work seems good.
Though, essentially, there isn't a lot of animation shown, so that aspect of it can't really be touched on at the moment. So, conclusion? It's a really lazy thing to say since I made you read through this long spew of mine, but I don't really know either. It really is a wait-and-see situation; however, I do encourage you not to write it off just because of the studio choice. A good pick in a director like Hamana, and some other staff I haven't even touched on, like the character design by Hiroya Ijima, and the external studio situation in terms of releases, provide hope for the series, and I genuinely believe that, at the very worst possible version of the series, it probably will be about the Genius Prince's visual quality, which isn't great but won't be a complete disaster. However, with Hamana at the helm, I do expect a better quality show than that.
I'll see you guys next time on January 11th when the show comes out, because, trust me, I will be there.
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