×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 3:26 pm Reply with quote
There's definitely issue if they start turning a profit, since they might end up having to deal with labor law at some point, which could be a giant headache for the school since they're using their facility.

The school/student council are portrayed as the evil obstacle, but they've been pretty reasonable. It would make sense for the eizouken to go in the anime club to make anime. The school can't exactly provide for every club that want to exist (building are in short supply). Especially when as far as the school is aware, it overlap a lot with the regular anime club (sure they said they would be very serious, but most student would say the same things, until they proven that they were serious they had no way to be sure). Considering in exchnage the eizouken got access to a giant building, specialized equipment and computer/software, it's not exactly unreasonable to ask for assurance.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 2457
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 6:28 pm Reply with quote
In the first (or second?) episode I thought it was pretty clear how the other anime club was about watching/analyzing/reviewing/etc anime and not making it, which is why they wanted to make their own. They just had to pretend to be something else because they thought the teachers wouldn't get it - and as soon as the teacher mentions it, Kanemori counters him and 'wins' that one.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 11:00 pm Reply with quote
Even if the anime club is about watching it, that doesn't mean they can't make it there. I imagine most anime club that get started claim they plan on making their own and just devolve into just watching them, there's very little reason for the teacher to just take them at their word.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Probablytomorrow



Joined: 04 Aug 2019
Posts: 164
PostPosted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 11:45 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
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 wasn't really talking about the student council, much less defending them. HAL14 said it - The student council and the school faculty are two different beasts.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
dm
Subscriber



Joined: 24 Sep 2010
Posts: 1346
PostPosted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:36 pm Reply with quote
When Midori opens the episode munching on a cucumber, I thought it was a call-back to Doumeki's cry of "Kappa!" when startled awake from her nap in the Sound Club's room.

Perhaps it was, but it was also a little prelude to the role kappas would play in this episode.

Charming flashback to Midori and Kanamori first meeting.

I also think it is interesting how Tsubame often narrates Midori's quirks: "she's sucking on her bunny again!" "She's melted a well for herself to hide in", etc.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
FrodoGate222



Joined: 21 Jun 2019
Posts: 104
PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 5:51 pm Reply with quote
I do want to note that Eizouken actually has one episode left rather than two.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Doodleboy



Joined: 23 Dec 2013
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:42 pm Reply with quote
Kanamori and Sakaki would probably get along pretty well if they're weren't enemies, they're pretty similar.

This is one of the rare episodes where Kanamori was completely in the wrong with trying to hamper Midori into getting back into work. It's important to note that Kanamori was netting Midori just while she was in the middle of an important breakthrough for the story, a breakthrough she was making because she was playing around outside.

Relating it to the "creative process" (ugh that sounds pretentious), but ideas for art don't come out of the vacuum. You need information to make the ideas out of, and the Eizouken club-room isn't the best place for that. Most of Nintendo's games come from Shigeru Miyamoto's hobbies for instance. Warren Ellis describes the process of idea generating as pouring as much information as possible inside his head (through research, history, news, other media etc), until they connect to each other. Originality isn't working exclusively from your own head, it's finding a new combination of things that already exist in the world.

If you spend all of your time on an animation desk, just animating, you'll run out of experiences and information to make new work out of and stagnate. What Kanamori was doing trying to get Midori back in her desk was counterproductive.

This episode was a good look at how somebody makes a story. Both by looking outside, taking in new information, combining it with their own personal experiences and worldview, using their imagination to make a connective leap to tie it together. Making a whole greater than the sum of it's disparate parts.

Other details I like are Midori's middle-school artwork being cruder than her artwork now. And how the films are getting more and more complex. If the last two films were their Daicon shorts, this will be their Royal Space Force.

Although I hope Midori and Eizouken gets a less traumatic arc than Anno and Gainax.


Last edited by Doodleboy on Tue Mar 17, 2020 12:53 am; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
AnimeFlyz



Joined: 31 Aug 2015
Posts: 363
PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:08 pm Reply with quote
So question. Is Zac ever gonna give an episode less than 5 stars? Like I get that its a good show, but the fact that the season is wrapping up soon and every single episode has gotten a perfect score, it makes me question Zac's level of quality.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
dragon695



Joined: 28 Nov 2008
Posts: 1377
Location: Clemson, SC
PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:23 pm Reply with quote
I feel like a lot of the problems they are having with the school could have been solved if they simply agreed to not profit off the film and to use the proceeds only to fund club activities. Now they are reaping what Kanamori sowed, which likely means they cannot enlist any other club’s help in fixing the sound track. I don’t think her use of media has solved the problem, to be honest.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2020 1:42 am Reply with quote
AnimeFlyz wrote:
So question. Is Zac ever gonna give an episode less than 5 stars? Like I get that its a good show, but the fact that the season is wrapping up soon and every single episode has gotten a perfect score, it makes me question Zac's level of quality.


Every single episode has been a banger so far and I haven't had any criticisms that would cause me to lower the score. In fact, I really haven't had any at all - and I'm not the only person who feels that way about this show. There are other shows I'd give this same treatment to. Not many - this one does seem special to me.

But it isn't a critic's job to artificially lower scores and be dishonest with you about how they really feel about a show just for the appearance of being a hardass, or to stretch just to come up with reasons to lower the score in order to not appear "biased" or whatever. These reviews represent my honest, totally subjective take on the series.

Additionally, I have absolutely trashed plenty of bad anime in my 20-year career - and have gotten both praise and death threats for doing so. I stand by my record and will proudly defend it.

"This was great, I loved it, here's why I loved it" isn't a 4.5, it's a 5. I do not hold back with praise when I have nothing but praise.

dragon695 wrote:
I feel like a lot of the problems they are having with the school could have been solved if they simply agreed to not profit off the film and to use the proceeds only to fund club activities. Now they are reaping what Kanamori sowed, which likely means they cannot enlist any other club’s help in fixing the sound track. I don’t think her use of media has solved the problem, to be honest.


...I mean, they did set this up as the central conflict for the third act of the show. If they solved it that easily there wouldn't be much conflict at all, and it would damage the show's central thrust as a metaphor for how the anime industry functions. Everything that's happened so far is intended to illustrate just how difficult it is to get what you want done as a fledgling studio, how many corners you have to cut, how many bureaucrats you have to work around, and the value of a clever producer who's willing to do whatever it takes to make your art happen. Makes sense to me.

Pick up Hayao Miyazaki's book Starting Point for a very direct glimpse into what this all represents.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime
Kiskaloo
Subscriber



Joined: 04 Jan 2018
Posts: 79
Location: Seattle
PostPosted: Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:32 pm Reply with quote
AnimeFlyz wrote:
So question. Is Zac ever gonna give an episode less than 5 stars? Like I get that its a good show, but the fact that the season is wrapping up soon and every single episode has gotten a perfect score, it makes me question Zac's level of quality.


I find the show to be perfection so I'd give every episode five stars, as well (and have on MyAnineList, where I rank it as 10 - Masterpiece).
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kiskaloo
Subscriber



Joined: 04 Jan 2018
Posts: 79
Location: Seattle
PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2020 1:04 pm Reply with quote
Richard Attenborough Voice

"Welcome...to Daicon IV."


My pick for Best Show of 2020. Absolute perfection. Bring on a second cour.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Horsefellow



Joined: 01 Jan 2020
Posts: 262
PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2020 2:30 pm Reply with quote
Decent show. Felt it meandered in places at times, but any show that talks about the anime industry itself catches my attention, even if this was just a school club and not the actual industry. I do think Kanamori was the best part of the series. It would have been easy for them to portray the producer as some greedy, money hungry anti-creative who only cares about profit, but the show did a good job showing how the finances and behind the scene stuff in creative work is just as important to the creative process as the writers and animators are. Kanamori had to wrangle in the overzealous artists who would try to lasso the moon if they thought they could get away with it, and bring them back down to Earth and take a realistic approach to balancing what the artists wanted and what was realistic to do and actually let them make their money back. Often times people like to blame the faceless production committee on why a show failed or wasn't that good by citing executive meddling or accusing them of focusing only on profit over "artistic merit".
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5406
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2020 3:40 pm Reply with quote
Overall this is a very strong show that clearly showcases the passion of Yuasa and all the creative staff behind it. I agree that it would be nice to have more of this wonderful passion project, but 12 episodes managed to convey the intention and soul of this anime.

It is early in the year, but it is going to be hard for another anime to top Eizouken! in terms of creativity and overall quality.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5294
PostPosted: Sun Mar 22, 2020 3:57 pm Reply with quote
Doodleboy wrote:
Painting digitally is just far quicker, and far better for production than painting by hand. You're not waiting for paint to dry. You don't need expensive camera equipment (like the multi-plane set-up they found in the second episode) since the file is already on the computer and seperated into layers.

Making changes is also a lot easier. If you're not sure whether you want some power-lines in the scene? Paint them on a separate layer and you can decide on the fly. The colour-key is now blue instead of orange? Shift the hues of the entire painting in photoshop and then paint over what doesn't work.
Oh I see, I overlooked all the bottle necks. I hadn't thought about the paint drying or photographing them(I find it hard enough just scanning in pencil drawings), and then you need to mix the paints.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9  Next
Page 8 of 9

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group