Sensei's 2017.04 Update: Harvest Time (mostly sketches)

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JWR
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Re: Sensei's 2017.03 Update: Midsummer Madness!

Post by JWR »

Glad to see you have been still able to find a few nice items to update with.
I would say the the Mayuko headed to cram school sketch is the one that really caught me eye in this update. something about her looking lost and alone while being lost in thought makes an interesting scene.
"Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment." Harlan Ellison
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Re: Sensei's 2017.03 Update: Midsummer Madness!

Post by sensei »

Thanks, Joe. NieA is a deceptively slow-paced series -- next to nothing really happens, though the alien girl is a constant source of slapstick humor. Mayuko gets up, goes to cram school, does her one PT job, then comes to the public bath house where she rents a room and does her other PT job, then studies, tries to sleep (NieA is her disruptive roommate), and then the day loops. So the very mundane things that season her dull life really stand out in more relief, the nice things and the unpleasant (like not feeling like she has clothes appropriate for a party her best friend invites her to attend, and so just sitting the evening out alone.)

Mayuko's character design, too, is simple, and yet the animators do inventive things with it. It was interesting to see how that shadow bar (from the crosspiece in the bus window) got added during production and placed just so it makes a strong diagonal across her face. Also that in the final form of the cut in the released episode that the right frame cuts out half of Mayuko's head, leaving just the side with the shadow bar.
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Sensei's 2017.04 Update: Harvest Time (mostly sketches)

Post by sensei »

My fourth update of the year is now complete, a somewhat more focused and esoteric event than in the past, but people with a deep interest in the animation process will find rewards in it. It's nearly all sketchwork, but with two nice cels to balance them. They're from <i>Tenshi ni Narumon</i>, a series from which cels with do anything and everything to infiltrate your collection, but they make a matched pair from a crucial moment in the great final episode:

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TYuusuke grabs Angel Noelle’s hand (Ep. 26).

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Angel Noelle grabs Yuusuke’s hand (Ep. 26).

This is the crucial instant when, beyond anyone's hope, the happy ending arrives, and it's appropriate that the two central figures initially cannot believe that it has happened.

The sketchwork includes two items (broken sets, sadly) from the CGI portion of Inuyasha, which are increasingly hard to find. They both come from Ep. 132 and a scene in which Sango has become possessed by an evil salamander and so is compelled to attack her companion Miroku with all her skill. One includes a nice rough by Mamiko Nakanishi:

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Sango possessed by the Salamander.

The other appears to be a set of rough drafts done by the inbetweener artist for a later cut, in which Sango tries to take advantage of Miroku's momentary distraction. The reanimation, though it is rough and has several gaps, is still interesting.

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Possessed Sango attacks Miroku

The yoshitoshi aBE series NieA_7 has been a favorite of mine, particularly the way that the team animated the changing emotional states of the hard-pressed protagonist Mayuko. Neither set came with an ep/cut id, but both featured Chiaki, and that helped me run one down to Ep. 7, when Mayuko is invited to a "Go-con" (we called them "mixers" when I was in college):

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Chiaki invites Mayuko to the Go-Con.

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Mayuko gets invited to the Go-Con

The other (tracked down through the warmer fall-weather clothes both wear) came from the peaceful coda to the story in Ep. 12:

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Mayuko being happily embarrassed

Mayuko's expressions look very much like those of the Haibane Renmei cast, and appropriately so, as her companion in this scene was voiced by the same seiyuu who did Haibane Hikaru. (And also Victoria Seras in Hellsing btw.)

But the big event was a major upgrade of my Rozen Maiden: Zuruckspulen gallery, now split into two galleries for convenience. No, it's not the peer of RM season one, which is a crazy-good series with amazing animation. But it is nice to see pencil-on-paper animation still being done in 2013, and the two senior animation directors, Kyuta Sakai (Higurashi) and Hirofumi Morimoto (Is This a Zombie? produce images that are often moving and extraordinary.

Sixteen sketch sets have been added, and a number of them came with douga sets complete enough to reanimate. Animation freaks should look through all of them (and the twelve older sets they join) to get a unified sense of Studio Deen's practice. But I'll call out a few that are worth visiting:

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Shinku hears Hina-ichigo’s voice through the mirror (Ep. 1) The reanimation that goes with this one is very interesting.

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Shinku looks at her reflection (Ep. 6). Very delicate, complicated animation, a 1/4 portrait mirrored as a 3/4 portrait.

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Shinku gets a present from Elder Jun (Ep. 7). Psychologically very complex. Shinku tries to be the old tough Shinku she was in the old series, but she's very vulnerable in this world and shows it.

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Souseiseki lays her sister down (Ep. 10) Sou dies at the end of Season Two -- but now she's baaaack, thanks to a plot turn that is totally implausible but (imho) surprisingly welcome. And the animation is tenderly done.

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Suiseiseki revives (Ep. 11). Oh, and Sui's gone ... and back again, thanks to another complex plot turn. But her coming back is really very cleverly done.

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Shinku dies (Ep. 11) And then, in one of the genuinely scary turns in this rewind plot, now Shinku's gone, and gone in an especially disturbing way. (Yeah, yeah, she gets back too, and that too is implausible, but it's terrific animation and I already had the sketch set where she revives.)

That was a lot of scanning and thinking about how the sketches related to each other, but the benefit is that one gets a much clearer picture of the animating styles and personalities involved in this project. And whatever one thinks about the story, one has to admit that the Studio Deen animators did the various Maidens proud, taking their time with their complex costumes and ensuring that their actions were smooth and credible (at least one can believe that self-animated magical dolfies would walk, act, and even die like this.)

Enjoy!
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Re: Sensei's 2017.03 Update: Midsummer Madness!

Post by BuraddoRun »

sensei wrote:
Also new on the "Golden Age" front are some new items from Fushigi na Koala Blinky aka Noozles, one of the products of 1984's "Koalamania" and one of the first anime series to be dubbed and widely seen in North America thanks to "Nick Toons."

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Blinky and

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his sister Pinky
Golden Age indeed! I know these are older acquisitions, and that you just updated with some new stuff today even, but I had to comment on these because Noozles was one of the shows that inexplicably drew me to anime in the first place. I remember watching it many times on Nickelodeon as a kid, but not particularly enjoying it as much as some other shows I watched. Even so, I kept watching, and couldn't really explain what it was that drew me to it. That happened a lot with cartoons I watched when young. Japanese animation was almost always of a higher quality on television than Western animation, and I knew it, though I didn't actually know the difference. I didn't know that a lot of my favorite shows were actually Japanese in origin. In any case, I did grow a fondness for the show after sticking with it, and remember watching the final episode when I was home sick from school one day, and getting emotional about it.

Great pickups Sensei, and great additions to your ever-expanding gallery!
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Re: Sensei's 2017.04 Update: Harvest Time (mostly sketches)

Post by sensei »

Thank you, BR, and welcome back. Your reaction is very similar to mine, though I was a parent being solicitous to make sure that my young daughter was not watching TV that was psychologically damaging to her. I was intrigued by Noozles, though I did not watch it regularly, because of the long story arc of the series, which also attracted my daughter to that and Mysterious Cities of Gold. And as a folklorist I was impressed with Grimm's Classic Fairy Tales, as the adaptations did not duck any of the genuinely Grimm qualities of these folktales. (We especially liked "The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes" and "Brother and Sister.") When in time she fell in love with Gundam Wing (and I with CCS), we learned the origins of these series.

And it must have been good for my daughter, as she did well in high school and college, won awards as a journalist, and now is doing publicity for a private English-language school in Hong Kong. I expect that as her generation grows up, we will see this country do better things than my generation (who grew up watching Popeye and Hee-Haw) has done in our day.
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Re: Sensei's 2017.04 Update: Harvest Time (mostly sketches)

Post by BuraddoRun »

Mysterious Cities of Gold was another childhood favorite of mine as well. Can you believe they recently revived that show? But I believe the new series was animated in France/Belgium primarily (Wikipedia says also Japan (citation needed)), and of course it's now CG. I haven't watched any of it to be able to give my opinion yet.

Grimm's Classic Fairy Tales is one I somehow overlooked, but something I may need to give a watch. I see many episodes are available on Youtube, so maybe I'll look up you and your daughter's 2 favorites you mentioned this weekend.
"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." -Isaiah 1:18
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