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Shirobako (TV).


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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
Posts: 13224
PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:48 pm Reply with quote
Well PA Works sure made up for Glasslip's mediocrity. A thousand times over.

I'm sure I don't need to write out all the great things about the show that have already been said and will eventually be said. A must watch.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 6:21 pm Reply with quote
I was surprised by the use of video tapes. Is that still how programs are distributed in a world of HD 720p production? I'd have thought the content would all be digitized and distributed on optical discs or possibly sent directly over the Internet. The "shirobako" themselves contain discs. How does the "transport stream" container format figure into all of this?

I won't belabor what a wonderful show this has been. I started off anticipating each week's Parasyte episode more, but as time went on I found myself more anxious to see each week's instalment of Shirobako. The Japanese seem especially able to inject a certain type of mature sentimentality in works like these that I rarely see in American media.
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1idd0kun



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 62
PostPosted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 9:36 pm Reply with quote
yuna49 wrote:
I was surprised by the use of video tapes. Is that still how programs are distributed in a world of HD 720p production? I'd have thought the content would all be digitized and distributed on optical discs or possibly sent directly over the Internet. The "shirobako" themselves contain discs.


Most TV broadcasters only accept tape, usually HDCAM SR. This is RGB digital video at 440mbps, which makes around 75GB per episode.

yuna49 wrote:
How does the "transport stream" container format figure into all of this?


The content is encoded to MPEG-2 (transport stream) in real time while broadcasting.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:53 am Reply with quote
Episode 24

A culmination of the entire season with this finale, it was just beautifully done and emotional that I had to rewind several times to watch spoiler[Aoi's speech which attributed all the hard work people put in]. If there ever was a series that would make anime fans appreciate all the hard work that goes into anime, it is this one, and I really think it is going to stick around and people's minds for that reason. As Vaisaga said, PA Works well made up for what happened with Glasslip.

What to say about this series, well I might just be spouting thoughts and hope it makes sense. Not done by the same production company, but the show I really want to compare this with is Girls und Panzer, which I think shared much of the similar passion. As well as number of staff such as the director, actually what had me specifically thinking about it was that I noticed the music which had me thinking back to that show and that music is handled by the same person. I would actually go onto say that the shows they worked on within this show quite similar to GuP, down some troubles in production. Maybe it is because I was such a big fan of that series that I feel so invested in this show, and feel that as a theme it might have even surpassed.

This show started out so cluttered as we had such a large cast to keep track of and hearing many confusing technical terms was required. Perhaps it happened too far down the track, but the show took some pretty good moments to actually slow down and explain what certain things meant when it went into the second half with Aoi taking over production desk. I think that it began to soar when it realised that it could use the more fantastical dream like segments like with the toys to convey certain parts, without making it feel like it was taking away from the realism. and that the show really has a lot of character. Character was not just that it had many characters, but that we could switch to what another character was doing and the tone could quite change without feeling like we were taking away from the heroine. Aoi regardless was a bit of a moe figure, throwing a cute girl on the front of a show really is normal and kind of standard way many anime work, but Aoi really showed herself as a character that was introspective and really worked hard instead of being some moe blob. By the end it was not just and female friends that I cheered for, but characters not typical to anime like the director.

For a rating of the series, I think that it was such a complete experience that I am rating it Masterpiece, I think it really does something that almost all fans of anime should really enjoy. It might get complicated, but that is just evidence of the hard work that that this series so earnestly wanted to show. It really was a surprise hit that circumvented high school or fantasy settings, and showed adults working in a way that many fans kind of hoped anime could pull off. During this same time I have enjoyed shows like Cross Ange, Parasyte, and Yona of the Dawn, but I think this is the one that succeeded the most.
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:14 pm Reply with quote
It looked cool and all, but haven't they heard of "the internet" I heard you can send video using that, cost way less than paying everyone plane/boat/train fare (not to mention the thousands of dollars for that car chase and losing her license).

The show was pretty good, but I would have liked a much bigger focus on the different task of production and much less focus on character, they were serviceable but nobody really stood out. That's a good thing since it's a real world anime so overly flashy character only take off from the experience, but when a show is trying to be character driven that doesn't make for all that interesting development. I think they should have flat out dropped the entire high school anime club, instead replace it by just one girl that was friend with Miyamori (honestly CGI girl, writer girl and voice acting girl didn't bring anything to the show), that would make the early part much better since we wouldn't be dealing with 15+ character right from the start with no idea of who was important, plus all that saved time would have allowed for more subtle and focus development of character which are involved in the company and trough that a better focus on there job. I would have liked if every individual task get 2-3 episode dedicated to them.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
Posts: 13224
PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:46 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
It looked cool and all, but haven't they heard of "the internet" I heard you can send video using that, cost way less than paying everyone plane/boat/train fare (not to mention the thousands of dollars for that car chase and losing her license).


They had internet problems in a past episode. It's not always reliable.

Plus I'm pretty sure there was an Answerman collumn that explained that in Japan delivering tapes is still the standard practise.
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1idd0kun



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 62
PostPosted: Sat Mar 28, 2015 2:31 pm Reply with quote
meiam wrote:
It looked cool and all, but haven't they heard of "the internet" I heard you can send video using that, cost way less than paying everyone plane/boat/train fare (not to mention the thousands of dollars for that car chase and losing her license).


Cost is not the problem. Most TV broadcasters only accept tape.
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MaxSouth



Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Posts: 1363
PostPosted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:32 am Reply with quote
Short summary assessment of this project:

1) overall, the animation quality of this project is impeccable, true pleasure to watch. Authors have proven that they had the moral right to make anime about anime;

2) aside of few troubles with believability of what happens, this project is useful for viewers to understand how anime is done as it still has significant portion of realism in it;

3) aside of little stories of certain characters, there was no defined big story to tell in this anime. Even initial premise of five doughnut-eating (but somehow magically still thin) girls dreaming about making an anime was immediately forgot in favour of very detailed chores of anime production that mostly had nothing to do with it. Projects like Bakuman that both explain the process and actually tell a story are much stronger;

4) characters are very good and likeable, except for, ironically, supposedly main characters from the doughnut-eating anime club. Those designs are so cliche and personalities so usual that viewers had little reason to care or even discern them. Other characters were more memorable, interesting and original that "main cast". Main heroine's hallucinations about her toys did not really work either, did not fit the mood and style of anime. Special thanks to animators for portraying people of various ages, weights and looks -- so it is not your typical parade of "beautiful" clones.

I want to give "Masterpiece" for animation, "Decent" to "Good" for story, "Very good" for characters -- all of this taken into account makes "Very good" rating.

EDIT: by the way, this is maybe the last time when you can call many of depicted events of this anime as probable without moving the time of the setting to years back. In reality, even now most of studios already to do drive cars to bring tapes with their anime to various local TV channels as part syndicated broadcast -- all of them have fast Internet access and can download their copy of product to broadcast at least not slower than waiting for studio people running on train, flying on planes, flowing on ships. Wink)
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 1:20 am Reply with quote
Upon further reflection I decided to give this series a Masterpiece rating. Why? Because I feel really good when I remember it's moments, and that's what makes a masterpiece for me. Such as when the Miyamori delivers the final tapes for Aerial Girl's Squad.

I didn't know it was from the same director of Girls und Panzer. I loved both shows, this one slightly more though. He has great talent, even though it's not the most obvious one (compare to Yuasa's highly distinctive shows)

Mizushima, Tsutomu, I see, he also directed The Big Windup, another excellent show. That man has real talent.
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mbanu



Joined: 11 Jan 2010
Posts: 159
PostPosted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 8:46 am Reply with quote
Tsutomu Mizushima is a really talented director -- would anyone else have guessed that the person who directed this also directed xxxHOLiC and Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan? I would say he's up there with Hiroshi Nagahama when it comes to successfully tackling a variety of themes.

Does anyone know what the story is with Asami Takano? It looks like she worked as an animator back in the 90s, but only started voice acting recently? What happened? (A Zuka-type scenario? Kids?) Or are there two Asami Takanos, but not two ANN entries for each, sort of like Koji Morimoto the director and Koji Morimoto the producer?
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
Posts: 13224
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 4:21 pm Reply with quote
animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2015-04-10/.86956

And there you have it: hand delivering tapes is best.
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