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INTEREST: Mamoru Oshii on Vladlove: "Let's Make an Anime that Can Also Serve as a Strong Medici




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Mizuki-Takashima



Joined: 10 Sep 2011
Posts: 215
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:06 pm Reply with quote
I am happy to hear that the people who made this anime actually had fun making it. But that "modern anime is too bland and inoffensive" line doesn't entirely sit right with me. I could infer a lot of things but on a basic level if sounds like they're gonna go out if their way to be edgy with this lol.

I might still check it out though.
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Zeino



Joined: 19 May 2017
Posts: 1098
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:06 pm Reply with quote
Oshii, I don't know how to break this to you but this kind of wacky hijinks love comedy you are making isn't that much more different from what modern anime has done. You are just being a typical crotchety old man who is thinking that "things were better in my day."
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Arale Kurashiki



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 748
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:53 pm Reply with quote
Lol stay mad guys, anyway Oshii is a king
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Sakura Shinguji



Joined: 09 Feb 2005
Posts: 190
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:15 pm Reply with quote
I don't mind Oshii's comments because he's not particularly wrong.

With that being said, the first episode of Vladlove is exactly what I would apply descriptions like "neat and tidy" and "bland and harmless" to, unfortunately. I wasn't sure quite what I was expecting going in, but I certainly wasn't expecting... to be bored by it.

Look, I'll blindly go to bat for Oshii, for the most part, since I'm into his brand of pretentiousness whether it's earned or not, since if nothing else it feels like he's really putting in effort to be different or unusual. But Vladlove's first episode doesn't make it seem like he and Nishimura were trying to really achieve anything different, despite Oshii's comments.

To put it another way, if I didn't know it was his project, and ignored the names in the credits, I absolutely would not have been able to tell you that it was an Oshii project. Unless his real goal was to present a bog-standard mix of comedy tropes that is intentionally meant to be bland and unfunny, as some sort of galaxy brain meta commentary on the state of anime today.
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Abraham Omosun



Joined: 05 Mar 2020
Posts: 158
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:20 pm Reply with quote
I love a number of Mamoru Oshii films but when a creator says things like this before a show airs, it feels like they are setting themselves for a "this did not age well" situation. I just hope the anime is good though the first episode wasn't really a "strong medicine" lol

Last edited by Abraham Omosun on Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
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#Synaesthesia



Joined: 30 Jan 2019
Posts: 157
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:44 pm Reply with quote
"modern anime is too bland and inoffensive"
so true. I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that sentiment.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5307
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:39 pm Reply with quote
Depending on what he means by "It is neat and tidy, and can by watched by everyone. It is bland and harmless, neither poison nor medicine" I either agree or disagree. If he means in terms of production, then he has a point has you don't see Anime, outside of shorts and maybe OVAs, that have that very uneven style, like how he has made VladLove. TV shows have a presentable style with nothing that really stands out and no large dips in quality. Ufotable are a great example, a very polished and smooth look. The last TV show I saw that had that truly had an uneven production was Kill la Kill, where scenes would go from barely animated cut-outs to full motion high quality animation then to still paintings. The closest thing since would be Mob-Psycho.

If he means in terms of story and character. No there's plenty of stuff that defies that description. only recently Golden Kamuy had plots and characters that certainly weren't bland and harmless. Being busy I can only assume he probably just takes a quick look at something like My hero Academia or something similar. And while I did enjoy VladLove, if he does mean this second point, while I don't think it is as run of the mill as others here are saying, it's still not a title that he can say "Hey kids move out of the way, THIS is you make an out there radical anime"

It is a more interesting critique at least than the typical western approach of bitch at whatever is currently popular and make false claims about the industry.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 8:47 pm Reply with quote
Guys, I think it’s obvious that he’s talking about fanservice. And maybe smoking? Because the first episode of Vladlove had the school nurse character smoking and stripping. And another female character strips. That’s it. That was the “edgiest” aspect of the episode. Cigarettes and censored boobs.
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phia_one



Joined: 15 Jan 2012
Posts: 1657
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 10:47 pm Reply with quote
I'll probably check this out because it's Mamoru Oshii.
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H. Guderian



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 1255
PostPosted: Sat Jan 02, 2021 9:14 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
Depending on what he means by "It is neat and tidy, and can by watched by everyone. It is bland and harmless, neither poison nor medicine" I either agree or disagree. If he means in terms of production, then he has a point has you don't see Anime, outside of shorts and maybe OVAs, that have that very uneven style, like how he has made VladLove. TV shows have a presentable style with nothing that really stands out and no large dips in quality. Ufotable are a great example, a very polished and smooth look. The last TV show I saw that had that truly had an uneven production was Kill la Kill, where scenes would go from barely animated cut-outs to full motion high quality animation then to still paintings. The closest thing since would be Mob-Psycho.


Depending where you look, things get messy all the time on purpose at an artistic level. But you would need to look elsewhere.

I think his problem is he detached from the industry over time. As I get older I watch much less, and I've seen so much quality anime over the decades they can have trouble standing out. So then I might take a season off and watch 'something popular' so I can keep up. but then I am not watching the weird niche shows, the experimental shows, etc etc. Not to mention the prevailing styles have changed. I find a lot of late 90s and early 2000s anime to be nigh unwatchable.

Overall he isn't wrong, but he's not right either. I think he just needs to try some anime outside his comfort zones. Did he really go through Devilman and say "This is saying nothing and just looks like everything else."? All of us here can certainly point to excellent anime among the sea of 'average' works.
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Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4807
PostPosted: Sun Jan 03, 2021 2:48 pm Reply with quote
This seems like the kind of statement most older anime creators with a certain mindset about the modern industry make whenever they come out with some new experimental project they insist is going to completely save anime. I remember the Under the Dog creator saying similar things about that anime before it came out and then it ended up being pretty under-whelming. I'm still looking forward to this because it's Oshii though I haven't watched the first episode yet but as long as it's entertaining and fun and well produced, he doesn't need to make these kind of statements to sell the show.
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