Posted 4 Jul 2015 Legend of the galactic heroes is getting an official release Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 Jul 2015 Actually, Wooser was me and cascade lolWe are probably not picking it back up Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 Jul 2015 Oh, really? And I thought you liked it. Woops. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 Jul 2015 Yeah, anything involving Masaaki Yuasa turns out amazing. Should definitely give Ping Pong a watch, along with any of his other works. He even worked on the episode of Adventure Time "Food Chain", if that makes you any more interested in him. He directed, wrote the script, and even did the animation for the episode. I really can't praise him enough. I'm nerding more and more over Masaaki Yuasa as time goes on. I'm currently contemplating a rewatch of Kemonozume, which I marathoned and didn't care for ages ago, before I was properly into Masaaki Yuasa's work, but after I'd started to notice him. I like the range of styles the shows he directs have. Varying from more crude expressive figure-drawing like styles to the more rounded cartoony style of Happy Machine, as well as the more eccentric use of mixed media in Mind Game and Cat Soup. I only found out recently that he did Cat Soup, which for a long time, before I knew about the man himself, I liked a lot. I feel like I've been talking about Masaaki Yuasa forever, so I've probably already mentioned the similarities between Cat Soup and Happy Machine. Both of them have very flat and mostly empty landscapes with strange architecture, creatures, and physics. Particularly the water physics. Cat Soup has a water elephant which they swim in and travel in, while Happy Machine has a large drop of water which he can swim around in. Kaiba also has strange worlds (though more detailed), and a nod toward wonderful water physics in episode 7's water tunnels. Ping Pong I don't tend to talk about much because it's actually just a lot like it's source material, apart from the show's emphasis on symbolism and metaphorical sequences. I still maintain that Ping Pong has my favourite characterization of any anime I've watched, and the manga's author, Taiyo Matsumoto has a decent enough track record where that's concerned. Although I didn't really dig Tekkon Kinkreet, one of his. Sunny, however, is a really great manga, which I recommend to anyone who enjoyed Ping Pong's thoughtfully crafted characters. Looking forward to getting volume 5 of that one sometime soon. Taiyo Matsumoto and Masaaki Yuasa both do good perspective abstraction, and lately I've been thinking that, when drawing it, they're just taking the human vision and putting it off centre a little. Like, if you were to consider the scene in front of you including all the objects in your periphery vision, most of the time cameras, and our eyes, only focus on an area in the middle of that range. But if you were to take the area of focus as a rectangle in the middle, and then moved that rectangle away to the far left and into your periphery, all the objects would be distorted and leaning. I feel like their trick is simply drawing the scene as it would be seen in the periphery, which gives an impression of looking at something out of the corner of your eye. That and simply exaggerating perspective by messing around with vanishing points. Also posting this, probably again. Fierce Muffin likes this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 Jul 2015 Man, you're even more Yuasa than I am... A classic from the last episode of Ping Pong. But, yeah, Yuasa's animation style is just so unique. I love it. Even if Ping Pong is just an adaption, I still feel like Yuasa really made it his own. His style really made those matches and all the metaphorical moments with Kazama climbing the mountain or Smile being a robot and all that come to life and add to the intensity and characterization of everything. Speaking of Ping Pong though, the DVDs/Blurays were just released in English and this guy on Anime News Network gave it a review. I feel like it really talks about and sums up pretty much everything I could ever want to say about Ping Pong. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/ping-pong-the-animation/bd-dvd-complete-series/.89583 Give it a read. Makes me want to go back and re-watch it right now. Teto likes this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 4 Jul 2015 Man, you're even more Yuasa than I am... A classic from the last episode of Ping Pong. But, yeah, Yuasa's animation style is just so unique. I love it. Even if Ping Pong is just an adaption, I still feel like Yuasa really made it his own. His style really made those matches and all the metaphorical moments with Kazama climbing the mountain or Smile being a robot and all that come to life and add to the intensity and characterization of everything. Speaking of Ping Pong though, the DVDs/Blurays were just released in English and this guy on Anime News Network gave it a review. I feel like it really talks about and sums up pretty much everything I could ever want to say about Ping Pong. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/ping-pong-the-animation/bd-dvd-complete-series/.89583 Give it a read. Makes me want to go back and re-watch it right now. Yeah, Yuasa's adaptation really tops the manga. I'm glad I read it first in anticipation of the show, because the show kind of makes the manga seem redundant. I'd love to see more of these creative Japanese animators take on their own projects. It gives me a lot of hope for the future of animation that there are so many great animators still out there making things (not that it isn't great now; I just look forward to more great stuff). I'm not sure if this is right, but I've got the impression from some things I've read that the contextless openings of some of the Kemonozume episodes were done independently by different animators, each depicting another man eating monster making an attack. They each have their own kind of style, so I feel like that could be right. Episode 10's is quite good looking. This is one by Eunyoung Choi, who worked on The Tatami Galaxy, Kick Heart, Ping Pong, Food Chain, and Kaiba as well. I'm going to keep an eye out for her, and it's refreshing to see (who I assume is) a female animator for once, as it just occurs to me that I haven't actually seen that before (not that I do a lot of animator research). It's sobering though to remember that, behind all of Masaaki Yuasa's brilliant works are a lot of brilliant animators bringing his vision to life. I like to think of Yuasa's work in the context of his experience and education. Like, apparently he studied in London, and so he studied a lot of European animation. It shows quite a lot in that above Maruko Chan music video. His Wikipedia page also cites The Fantastic Planet, an 80s French movie with surreal landscapes, architecture, and plants. Kaiba, Cat Soup, and Happy Machine all have examples of these, and so it's reasonable to make the connection between those and The Fantastic Planet. Also, mentioning Yuasa studied in London, I wonder if Yurie, Kazama's girlfriend, moving to London to study flower arrangement was somewhat inspired by his own past. Yurie isn't a character in the manga from what I remember, so I'm assuming she's an original character Yuasa added in for the sake of building up Kazama some more. Kazama vs Peco is the main event of the series action-wise, so it makes sense for the show to give him a lot more development. She was a good character. There are a lot of things the show added, while not taking anything of importance away. Like the guy who wanders from place to place looking for his 'place' before ending up back at the finals. He wasn't seen after he loses to Smile and wanders off toward the sea. Again, he might have been there, like Yurie might have been, but not to such an extent that they has sub-plotlines of their own. Additional Yuasa stuff I'm aware of is his brief pieces of work in Welcome to the Space Show, Samurai Champloo, and Space Dandy. I believe he did that one episode with the fish people, which, like Kaiba, Happy Machine, and Cat Soup, had **Wonderful Water Physics** Also, as a bit of a side note, I notice Yuasa has a thing for white ear-hats that I don't feel is consistent with other anime. This theme makes it seem weirdly coincidental that he'd end up doing an Adventure Time episode. And now I'll read that article you linked, now I'm done nerding out. Reading the article it was Eunyoung Choi, an understudy to Masaaki Yuasa, who did the sentient plant episode of Space Dandy which some people incorrectly credited to Masaaki Yuasa. So I guess you were aware of him/her by now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 5 Jul 2015 Note: I hadn't really been able to make a good comparison until now, but Yuasa's loose impressionistic off model animation often reminds me of the fragility of recollection. Like when you try and build a detailed mental image of something in your head, but your imperfect understanding of anatomy fails you. The face of the person you're trying to remember will lack proper detail, and so the image in your head will shift and distort as you try to hold it there. The quick disjointed drawings take on a life of their own as they bend and shake, and it feels like the fabric of the image is fragile. Like a mental image, strung together with basic understanding and gaps of knowledge based only on faith. That faith makes Yuasa's raw style feel a lot more personal, intimate, and vulnerable, and it gives the viewer some kind of connection. At least if you think of it in that depth anyway. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 5 Jul 2015 That's some interesting stuff. Makes me appreciate Yuasa even more. It's cool that he's got all of that art experience in him and it definitely shows, especially compared to a lot of anime where they usually just use the same generic style. Not really hating on that though, but it's nice to see something new or unique or just animated really well. I wonder, too, how the people who work under Masaaki Yuasa will turn out. Gainax spawned a bunch of studios that all try and replicate and change up their signature style of crazy and rough animation to make things like Kill la Kill, the Evangelion Rebuild movies, and Last Exile. Hmm, I was about to say Yuasa should get his own studio, but then I looked on Wikipedia and he made one with Eunyoung in 2014. Nothing's been announced yet, although there is this article on ANN: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-03-22/ping-pong-director-masaaki-yuasa-makes-new-anime-film/.86255 I assume this'll be the studio's first work, but maybe I'm wrong. I look forward to the things their new studio will produce. That part of Genius Party gave me insane Adventure Time vibes the whole way through. It was crazy. The ear hat thing is kind of interesting, maybe that's the whole reason he wanted to work on it in the first place. Also, yeah, I remember finding out that it wasn't Yuasa that did the episode and I was very confused, since the episode was literally Kaiba. I didn't know she worked under him though or that she was such an important person. @second post: That's a little too deep, I think. Not to say you're wrong, but from how I interpret his style, I think he just likes his style to be malleable. Ready for his characters to take on any shape, pose, or action, on-model frames be damned, and with the things he makes them do as well as the character designs he usually has, it only makes sense. I feel like my responses and thoughts are all over the place, but I think we both understand we both love Yuasa, so I guess it's alright. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 5 Jul 2015 Legend of the galactic heroes is getting an official release And there's also that new anime production in the works. Apparently "The new anime is not a remake of the earlier anime, but another anime adaptation of the original novels with a new staff." I may end up not saving LotGH for my death bed now. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-07-02/sentai-filmworks-adds-legend-of-the-galactic-heroes-higurashi-anime/.89987 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 5 Jul 2015 @second post: That's a little too deep, I think. Not to say you're wrong, but from how I interpret his style, I think he just likes his style to be malleable. Ready for his characters to take on any shape, pose, or action, on-model frames be damned, and with the things he makes them do as well as the character designs he usually has, it only makes sense. Yeah I don't really interpret it that way either. It's just quick and expressive, giving a feeling of immediacy. But it's good fun to draw wild conclusions and theories, since I feel like a big part of art is being able to find meaning in things in which little to no meaning was intended. Life is like that anyway. Nothing has any inherent meaning apart from what we ascribe to it, and manmade works are no exception. Looking at art can be an exercise in lateral thinking more than it is a problem solving exercise to find out the intentions of the artist. The artist doesn't matter as much as the person viewing it, and shaping it through their own understanding. But I'm getting a little enthusiastic. I'm only getting to grips with this concept now, so naturally I get wordy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 6 Jul 2015 Kong is the best puppying character in ping pong just sayin Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 6 Jul 2015 Oh god I'm watching Erin and now I'm sad Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 6 Jul 2015 OH GOD I KEPT WATCHING AND NOW IM MORE SAD NO AMOUNT OF ADORABLE DOG CHICKENS WILL HELP. Ok maybe it helps a little Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 6 Jul 2015 Just watched the first episode of Chaos Dragon, and it was hilariously bad at points. The animation quality reached near-One Piece levels of cheapness during the action scenes, only minus all of that show's charm. That plus the awkward plot dumps, way too many characters introduced, super distracting clothing (what were those things on evil lady's legs?), awful CGI dragons, and nose-hair mustaches made this a special kind of opening episode that was oddly entertaining. T1g likes this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 7 Jul 2015 I will be checking out durarara and wagnaria in a bit, the two shows are teaming up again like when they first aired half a decade ago Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
