As typical of this time of year, I’ve been crunching anime into my hectic and unorganized school schedule, but I have managed to enjoy a few things here and there.
---Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt- So with this we again have Imaishi directing as his unrestrained self. As much as I like Gurren Lagann, if you compare it to Dead Leaves, you can see that he’s holding back. Not in terms of the quality of the animation, but in terms of being absolutely crass and, frankly, immature. Lagann was clearly aimed at younger audience, so he couldn’t have the same kind of sex and poop jokes that he placed in Dead Leaves. The closest he ever came to that level was the uncut version of episode 6 directed by Shin Itagaki.
But that isn’t the case here. If you couldn’t tell from the trailer, then this show will make it clear as to what it’s about fairly soon. Right from they get go, you have a joke about “morning wood”, the huge sound effects that go across the screen (something that Imaishi also used in Dead Leaves) and the kind of visual set-up and organization that makes Imaishi’s work such a joy to watch. For the people that can get pass the ill-advised notion of anime should look like, the biggest complaint I’ve seen aimed at this show is that it’s the same joke over again. After watching 10 episodes (or 5 if you must), I can’t say that at all. While the characters have stayed consistent since the first episode, the way the “Geek Fleet” has handled and placed them in a number of various situations still remain interesting. From the fat monster to the booger monster, while they tend to involve some nasty or crass subject, the way they look at the boundary of what’s the norm for anime and go right past it is commendable.
The soldiers episode is one of the highlights in the early going of “Pansuto”, with the war sections all animated by Hirokazu Kojima and the script by Shigeto Koyama. Taking a firmly tongue-in-cheek approach to this hilariously dramatic struggle totally caught me off-guard. But the biggest thing so far in terms of blindsiding the viewer is without a doubt Osamu Kobayashi’s episode 10/5b. In large part by changing the art style to give off a more realistic tone, Kobayashi and Takashi Mukouda managed to inject convincing social commentary in this escapist show. Kobayashi’s previous endeavor on an Imaishi show (Gurren Lagann episode 4) generally left the viewers in an uproar, but I believe that the people who would have complained about the art and animation taking such a drastic turn already left show at episode 1. Imaishi clearly doesn’t care about the negative feedback the production got from that episode since he knows what he got. Bringing Kobayashi back to his next show and allowing him to go ahead with this scenario is the kind of bold accommodation of strongly distinct and individual styles that make Imaishi one of the few directors whose work I always look forward to. Needless to say, I’m looking forward whatever comes next (apparently people like Kazuya Tsurumaki, Masayuki, and Ryo-timo are working on future episodes)
---Naruto Shippuden (up to ep. 181)-Well, things are looking up for this show even with its current break into filler. Episode 178 featured Hiroyuki Yamashita, whom I’ve talked about before, making his debut as an animation director. He only worked on the second half, but what a half it was! It starts out animation by Yamashita himself and the rest of the episode, while not completely matching Yamashita idiosyncrasies since there’s only so much one man can do, did manage to retain a good deal of his sense of timing and visual flair. It’s been noted by others that Yamashita has been influenced by Hirofumi Suzuki due to the lip-synch on display on the episode and it’s hard to argue against that. Working on Shippuden has allowed him to be among some very talented people like Norio Matsumoto (who probably got him to work on Keiichi Hara’s Colorful), Suzuki, et all so it’s only natural to take in some of that experience.
Yamashita also directed the delightful new ED (#15), featuring Shingo Yamashita, Kenichi Kutsuna, Tatsuya Koyangai, Shingo Tamaki, Yoshimichi Kameda, 甲田秀人 (couldn't get a reading) and Yamashita himself as animators. Hiroyuki did the Naruto vs. Neji part which is easily identifiable and Kameda did the Rock Lee vs. Naruto part. The new OP is a slow piece with no action, but it still is another solid delivery from the Toshiyuki Tsuru/ Hirofumi Suzuki duo. Tokuyuki Matsutake leads the animator list (presumably he did the part where Naruto is blasted out of the water and he’s spinning around).
These new OP/ED debuted on ep. 180 and this episode also marked the debut of Gorou Sessha as an episode director on the series and Masayuki Kouda’s as an animation director (another Pierrot animator). Sessha (rumored to be the pen name of ex-Kyoto Animation animator, Seiji Watanabe) has been one of the bright spots in this series, being the animation director for eps. 26 and 143 (among others), and the chief animation director for episode 135. While Atsushi Wakabayashi was absent from Shippuden until his return in ep. 167, Sessha and episode director Atsushi Nigorikawa were trying to fill the considerable void that Wakabayashi left behind. Their best effort by far is episode 143, which features some great swordplay courtesy of Hiroyuki Yamashita right after the opening credits and the pacing and framing throughout exhibits the kind of ambition that you would find in Wakabayashi’s episodes, though I would not exactly equate the two. Not that it fails, on the contrary, but Wakabayashi is simply on another level.
Episode 26 marks the duo first real effort to break through and give the audience a high quality episode. You can clearly see their grandiose intent, but it ultimately falls short. It’s not bad for their first effort, however. Episode 135 is a retelling of the Uchiha massacre which contains some more striking imagery and a very nice fight between Itachi and Sasuke—I still don’t know who’s responsible for it.
Going back to ep. 180, this one features some neat smoke effects, particularly towards the end. I believe it was the work of Gen’ichirou Abe, the Shaft animator they got to work on this episode, who was responsible for this. I’ve never seen anything like it in the series. There are also some nice smoke effects when Sasuke kicks Naruto in the face that, as others have noted, feels very much in line with Kishimoto’s smoke effects. As a side note, Shigeki Kawai was the animation director for the first half half of ep. 181. Nothing great in comparison to his previous effort, but it’s safe to say that ep. 180 must have taken quite a bit of that budget from 181.
Looking forward, Chiyuki Tanaka was set to be the episode director and animation director for episode 184, but she ended up as only the animation director instead. Hiroyuki Yamashita is set to be the animation director for ep. 186 and maybe this time he’ll be the only AD on board this time. Perhaps he’ll be a workhorse like One Piece’s Naoki Tate after all. I wonder if the being an AD gets easier as you go on or do you just get worn down after having to correct so many subpar drawings.
---Street Fighter Alpha Generations- I went and rewatched Ikuo Kuwana’s directorial debut after reading Ben Ettinger’s post about it. If you thought that this movie was boring when you first saw it, I highly recommend giving it another shot. I thought so too at first, but after revisiting it I came away with a different impression. The biggest problem this movie faces, aside from being spearheaded by a novice director, is the “Street Fighter” tag that comes with a load of expectations. You automatically expect every notable character from the game to show up ala Gisaborou Sugii’s Street Fighter movie and for it to be overblown like the video game.
This movie would have been more at home in the 80s, where you saw these kinds of one-shot OAVS that were largely self-contained. The overall tone is very low-key and Kuwana lets the storyboarding and animation tell the story, much as you would expect from an animator who’s been given the task of directing. At the start of the movie, you’re not given a clear definition of where the current story is taking place in terms of the timelime; but it’s still able to move forward and backward without being too confusing and manages to be effective by avoiding the typical pitfalls of that “flashback sequences” fall in.
The line work on the old men’s faces on this one really bring out some expressive features, though there are notable shots throughout the movie where you can tell they had to sacrifice in order to pay attention to others. I could only tell Hiroyuki Imashi’s part on this one and they stands out, per usual—it’s the fight with the old man and Ryu and his part ends when the old man starts laughing after launching Ryu through the wall. The part after that looks a bit too smooth for Imaishi.
And that’s that. I typed a bit too much so I’ll leave stop right here.