Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I respect your take, but did you miss the speech Kanamori gave about how this is all unsustainable financially if they keep taking projects from student clubs? It was the catalyst for why they shifted gears to making something for the city and expanding their ability to create. I definitely got the feeling that the club’s existence was imperiled by the $200 they made after months of work. Kanamori wasn’t being greedy - she was trying to preserve what they’d built. You can’t run an animation studio on that little money. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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That was just because Kanamori doesn't want to work for nothing. They don't need money , in fact they're supposed to now have club fund, that was the whole point of the first arc. The school is obviously not going to shut down the club if they can't make money while at the same time telling them they can't profit from selling their stuff. The most generous take you can do on the events is that Kanamori is saying she's going to quit the club if they can't make money out of it causes she'd rather be doing something else that turns a profit. I think the writer is trying to use the classic setup where the characters need money for something soon (for example, the character own a lot of money to gangsters so they have to make it back in a month or have their loved one killed), but just... didn't bother setting up the reason for the money (maybe it's in the original story?). The student council are playing the part of the thugs, reminding the main characters of their debt (which doesn't exist), the faculty are playing the part of the uncaring cops. Honestly I think the entire sub plot could be dropped out and it would only make the story better. |
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1354 |
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They may have a school-provided budget, but it probably doesn't cover their art-material costs, not for the stuff they're doing. Though Midori and Tsubame are probably buying their own sketchbooks anyway.
I think Zac is wrong, though. The end of the episode: "the club won't get any funds, but the copyrights belong to the creators, and they will be compensated for the club's use of them" makes it clear what Kanemoney's goal is. It also makes a good point about the industry. Earlier, when she talked about how working for other clubs didn't compensate them enough, she talked in terms of hourly wages for the artists. She didn't try a "we need to cover our costs" defense with the faculty, she used a "learning how to run a business is not education? Since when?" defense instead. It's all allegory for the anime industry, so, of course profit is a concern. With that, I'm not sure what the student council and faculty interference are allegories for. Maybe nothing: they're compromises with the school setting, and add dramatic tension while the club goes and collects sounds. Oh, I just realised that the money subplot and the sounds subplot are related: kane is the word for money. It is also the word for "bell". The sound expedition was to get a recording of the kane at the old clock tower (and there was that bit with the prayer bells in Midori's fantasy), while Kanemori is struggling with the club's kane problems. Last edited by dm on Wed Mar 11, 2020 11:39 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Hm, that's not my understanding. My read on it was that club funds were for one - only one - project, and while it was popular, it didn't make enough money to sustain the cost of production, which is significantly more expensive and time-consuming than what the club funds will actually pay for. Kanamori understood this, and is trying to herd cats into making something successful enough to sustain Eizouken, outside of the watchful eye of the Student Council and the faculty. That was how I saw this going - it mirrors how difficult it is to start and maintain an anime studio, even if you have a successful project and plenty of talent to spare, which is what this entire show is about. I do compare it a lot to The Muppet Show - weirdos trying desperately to maintain and put on a good show, with a harried producer and a bunch of talent, even if they're kind of scatterbrained. It also directly mirrors the creation - and continued strife - of Studio Ghibli, as I mentioned in the piece. But you could be right! We'll find out over the last 3 episodes, I'm sure. I cannot imagine nobody has licensed this manga yet. I'd really love to read what the source was like - not as some kind of negative comparison, but it would just be fascinating to see where the story behind this wonderful show came from. |
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dragon695
 Posts: 1377 Location: Clemson, SC |
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I think Zac is buying too much into the idea that this is a metaphor that transcends the school setting. I tend to think not and welcome a reality check that they are still children. Their club will exist as long as it is allowed and they are interested. Again, we need to address the Chekhov’s gun of Tsubame’s parents’ money in context, too. They now approve of her activities. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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It's clear the author is trying to say something about the real anime industry (does the manga writer have experience in the industry?). I think he's just not bothering setting up the actual story in a way that both the message about the real industry and the event happening as depicted in the story line up properly (but again, that could be the fault of teh adaptation).
A real anime studio has to pay it's employee, so they need to turn a significant profit every time they make something. A school club doesn't. The writer could have patched over that problem one way or another (say maybe Tsubame parent signed her up for a big contract starting next year and won't approve of her becoming an animator unless she can buy out her own contract). But he didn't, which I don't think is a bad idea, between more time of the girls just being their weird self or spending time setting up the money plot I'd much rather have more of the former than the later. But then the answer is just to drop the money sub plot altogether. Like the educator said, their just kid, nothing wrong with enjoying their passion while they're in school. Nobody ever watched k-on and though it'd be better if the club needed to turn a profit. |
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dm
Subscriber Posts: 1354 |
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I suppose you could argue that the student council meddling is an illustration of what Kanamori is always quizzing Midori about: “Okay, so you have X happening. What about Y? Won’t the audience wonder about that? Isn’t there a plot hole here?”
As in, “okay, you’re illustrating the nature of the anime industry (both good and bad), but it’s set in a school. What about...” |
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Probablytomorrow
Posts: 164 |
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I don’t think this conflict needs metaphor to explain itself, really. Kanamori’s dream is to build a business, just as much as Midori’s and Tsubame’s dream is to make anime. From her point of view, it’s wrong for the club to work this hard without getting rewarded for their labor, and yet labor isn’t budgeted into a school club’s funds. Kanamori doesn’t want an allowance from someone’s parents, or from the school budgetary committee. She doesn’t trust them to run her business. She wants to sell a valuable product with her own hands, and see its direct results with her own eyes.
If you want to make it a metaphor for the industry at large, it can work that way too. Kanamori is having to fight for the rights of the whole club, even though Midori and Tsubame don’t really care about money. Kanamori is trying to tell everyone that the school isn’t teaching them the value of money, and it’s setting them all up to expect to be underpaid after they graduate. So, the school can work as a metaphor for the industry’s chronic exploitation of its workers. |
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Hal14
 Posts: 660 Location: Heart of africa |
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I agree with most of what you said except for the industry metaphor, specifically the part about exploitation. The school isn't exploiting them; their under no deadline enforced by the school, they are able to pick their own projects and clients from even outside the school. Heck, their 'supervisor' doesn't even give them tasks. The only thing the school has asked of them is to prove they deserve the club budget, which they did with their first short. Now their saying they should behave more like a club than a startup, which isn't exploitation since , as mentioned, they can chose their own projects. |
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killjoy_the
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No, I just didn't take it as seriously. She's making a point on how it's unsustainable as a way to gain money, yes, but I never thought that ever threatened their standing based on the context I said before. Still, I can understand more where you came from - we're just interpreting the same lines differently. I can absolutely see the 'eizouken as metaphor for anime studios in general' metaphor coming from all this, too, which is probably the most interesting way to go about analyzing this show's underlying plot - when not exploring the characters themselves. |
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Probablytomorrow
Posts: 164 |
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I mean, the school's not forcing them to work hard, true. But in the same way, nobody's forcing animators to get a job in the anime industry.
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dragon695
Posts: 1377 Location: Clemson, SC |
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And I touched on this before. The school is providing them A LOT of their resources IN KIND. They have been given a workspace, electricity, provided commercial grade software, access to workstations/server farm, furniture, projection facilities, etc with them only paying $200 to fix a leak in the roof (and only that because they were impatient). I think that the school’s position that it is supposed to act as non-profit institution is a reasonable one. If the girls want to be paid salaries, then they should find their own equipment and space elsewhere. To reiterate, especially with software and equipment, a lot of it is provided through grants and licenses that prohibit commercial use. The school has to look out for the greater welfare and it recognizes how problematic it would be if all the clubs started monetizing/paying members. It also speaks to what a school is and is not. In short, there is nothing realistic about this scenario, because outside of China, who is going to provide those resources for free when they graduate? It’s just forced drama bullshit. To be honest, I am getting a little sick of Kanemori, because you can see how this extreme commercialization mindset clipped the wings of exceptional talent like Makoto Shinkai. |
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Probablytomorrow
Posts: 164 |
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Oh, I agree with all of this. The school definitely has a case against Kanamori. That's what I find especially interesting about this conflict, and why I would love to see it continued. Neither side is absolutely right. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Uh... The student council has fought them at every turn, making it nearly impossible to get their work done. They had to find a sympathetic faculty member to even get the totally derelict warehouse space to work in, that they then had to repair themselves to even make it a decent place to work. Their motives are always suspect and they have to prove themselves through the blood, sweat and tears of hardcore animation production (being produced by only 4 people, mind you) in order to catch a break at all, and even with provable talent and results, the student council is still chasing them down. I mean, the show is literally called "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken", guys. It's not "two sides". Yeesh. |
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Hal14
Posts: 660 Location: Heart of africa |
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The school and the SC aren't the same and the discussion was on the school. There has definitely been faults that can be blamed at the school though: the ridiculous amount of power the SC has and the conditions of the club building, but some things are on Eizouken. You mentioned they have only four people but whose fault is that? Certainly not the school or the SC. Unless you want them to do that 'club must have certain number of members or get disbanded' cliche which i'm glad the show hasn't done but still... they thought about outsourcing their work before getting new members (which they actually haven't thought about). Back to the school, regardless of how you feel about them it would be weird for a school not to step in when students turn a school organization into a business. If it was outside of the school that would be one thing, but they're using the school's name. Also, as a club, talent doesn't really matter. It would if they wanted to enter competitions, which they don't want to but otherwise giving attention and funds only talented clubs would defeat the purpose of school clubs, which is to have fun |
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