Forum - View topicWhat Makes Kyoto Animation So Special?
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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K-on to date still remains one of my favorite Anime series of all time I can watch it a hundred times over and never get bored of the show.
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Lucky Star came before Clannad and the second season of Haruhi... and their style went from this: 
and 
to this: 
and 
Which, I think, while definitely "moe", is much more well balanced, personally. |
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Sloppy_Jimbo
 Posts: 98 |
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Sound! Euphonium is my favorite anime this year. Less slice of life, more the whole damn pie. Kudos to Kyoani. I'm a tough cookie, but I crumbled. I have a beef with LCD, though. The show felt half baked. Kyoani does their work in-house huh; that's an interesting morsel. I hope that strategy brings home the bacon for them...and Dame yo!
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9848 Location: Virginia |
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The Lucky Star and K-On character designs are taken directly from the source material with minor changes for animation purposes. I assume the same pertains to other shows with an underlying source material. Kyo-ani did not invent those designs.
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4088 |
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A number of Kyoto Animation shows make my top shelf for a reason- except for Lucky Star which I sold. Even Haruhi-chan is up there and that one is pretty much the worse they've done.
Wait, I forgot about Nyoron!, included on that DVD for free, so I guess that makes me Nyrong. Everything else is a slick animated piece of entertainment compared to that one. One punchline per short, that's all they needed and they couldn't even manage that. At least Haruhi-chan gives us "Kyon versus truck". And that dodgeball game. Asakura and Mr. Kimidori and anything Nagoto... I really need to rewatch it one of these days. Nowhere does this article mention sunsets, Ishihara's calling card. The guy even managed to sneak seven of them in K-On!! first opening. And then there's his masterpiece, the sequence in Kanon where he does more than ten in rapid succession; It could be an excuse of showing "some time has passed" but he just wanted to do it to see it done. He has a thing for colors and how light affects everything, including mood, and Kanon has a thing for sunsets so you get every color sunset possible and some that aren't. One almost black sky lit by violet light- the utter tail end of a sunset is still a sunset But this isn't animation, this is, well, all post production these days. Am I the only one who wonders how long they take to fine tune the tone and saturation and lighting just to get that one moment where... Ayu runs into the sunset? The fall... it's a simulated optical illusion where you can't tell if the image gets burned into your mind because of how quickly the light was turned off or if you really see black on black. The answer? Yes. The kiss. The wish. And on and on... It's Kanon where "afterhours" are the only hours that matter. So my favorite scene is Kanon... Yes, all of it... but my second has to be Yuichi and Nagato and her series of revelations and disclosures. There's something about the lighting, cuts, changes in information and intensity... and that grinning, yellow face like she's looking at a Christmas ornament. Kyoani being Shaft before Shaft got around to it, really. And Kyon's response? "Ugh." And all goes back to normal... Yes, I respect their animation but it's not why I love them. Or why Ishihara's my favorite director. Oh, the colors I've seen because it's the colors he's shown me... even when he removes them all. |
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Zoldicc
Posts: 6 |
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Eh, KyoAni is definitely a good studio and their shows are generally well made but I don't see anything praiseworthy about their character acting even after this post. There's no subtlety or realism whatsoever, anyone claiming that should probably go have a look at humans. Those "small details" you talk about are anything but. Seriously, the only reason it sticks out is because every other anime sinks far below average in every aspect when it comes to character acting.
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xyz
Posts: 243 |
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KyoAni is special to me because they created MakoHaru. I don't care about anything else.
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mulrich
Posts: 139 Location: Denmark |
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For me, it was always "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya". From the awesome musical number in episode 12 to the set pieces full of life (no static backgrounds - all characters, however minor, move around, getting on with their business, even passing in front of the "camera" at times) to even the odd out-of-order episodes that lead up to the BIG FINALE in episode 6. I watched the anime before reading the books, and I have to say that scene had much more of an impact at that time than watching all the episodes in chronological order, or just reading the book.
Their adaptations of KEY games are also brilliant, I might add. |
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BassKuroi
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What's that? |
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Keichitsu0305
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*slips in* The fan name of pairing Makoto and Haruka from the Free! series. Which, happens to be one of my favorites as well. *slips out* One thing I forgot to mention was how much KyoAni has grown in terms of taking charge over the series they produced. They are now able to make back a nice chunk of the merch they sell online and at the store locate near HQ. Too bad Myriad Colors doesn't look as promising (in terms of the initial premise) as their past works. Hope they adapt that Violet Evergarden LN that didn't win an award just like their other shows. |
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secondkas
 Posts: 95 |
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Good analysis, but I feel that Nick Creamer and some of the posters have a high tolerance for shows where nothing much happens. This is where the “to each his own” phrase comes in.
KyoAni is definitely a good animation studio, but I can’t honestly say that it’s the best. I find it tedious watching most of their series despite the beautiful visuals presented before me. Their stories (that I’ve watched) either have non-problems (K-on!, Lucky Star, and Hyouka) or promise major problems only to be ignored or resolved nonchalantly in the last episode (Free!, Beyond the Boundary, and Tamako Market). What KyoAni does well is to serve indulgence. Any animation studio can pander to fans but KyoAni does it so earnestly and artistically. The backgrounds, details, and animation are very indulgent to the eyes. However by the end of the show, I find all of them meaningless to the plot, leaving an unfulfilled, empty feeling to the viewer. Nonetheless, I also think KyoAni is still growing and it’s heading towards the right direction of substantial storytelling. Its most recent series, Amagi Brilliant Park and Sound! Euphonium have a more balanced conflict-resolution pace. There’s also news about it producing A Silent Voice, right? In due time I might also agree that it’s the best anime studio out there.
Gotta admit, I agree with this on so many levels. Now that is special. 
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4581 |
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I honestly haven't watched anything more than clips of KyoAni's work (though I do need to get to Haruhi someday), but overall they leave a similar impression on me as most of Makoto Shinkai's films. They both do some amazing things from a pure artistry standpoint (in different ways), and they have specific intended tones that they manage to hit very well. However, they keep retreading the same themes without ever branching out very far to explore something new, and the ground they do tread largely doesn't manage any real emotional grip on me. In KyoAni's case, it all seems to be the likes of either tragedy-porn Key adaptations, or cute-girls-doing-stuff-while-nothing-really-happens, or some blend of the two. Either way, as much as I'm a fan of good animation in general, that alone isn't going to draw me to something that doesn't fit any of my interests.
The K-ON example is really what jumps out the most at me, though. I mean I look at those scene compositions and detailed character animations, and all I can think is...what an absolute waste. All of that effort spent on a show that largely eschewed its basic premise, and instead chose to focus on a bunch of cutesy moeblobs sitting around talking about cake. You see, I've already seen an actual making-the-band anime series. Its name is BECK, and it's fantastic. And even speaking as someone who has little time for the slice-of-life genre as a whole, it managed to capture a slice of honest-to-goodness actual life, not the saccharine facsimile that K-ON was peddling. If KyoAni's staff could have spent their prodigious talents on something like BECK's story, the results could have been all-time legendary. Instead, there's just empty fluff there. |
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Megiddo
 Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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If I recall correctly, isn't it that the bird is searching for the bride and makes the decision that Tamako is fit to be the bride? I don't recall the prince selecting Tamako at all. It's just that he trusted the bird's judgement since that's likely the normal process for that kingdom. Correct me though as I may be remembering it wrong. Tamako Market was honestly one of my least favorite KyoAni works. |
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ultimatemegax
 Posts: 412 |
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Spoilers for Tamako: spoiler[Dera, the bird, is hunting for his prince's bride and ends up trapped in a package of flowers delivered to the shopping street. He then stays due to enjoying the food/company. Later, the prince's retainer, Choi, comes to return with Dera, but stays as well due to enjoying the scenery. She begins to assume Tamako is the prince's bride due to a particular scent of flowers. The prince comes later that year after them and in no way thinks Tamako is his bride. That plot point remains unsolved at the end of the series.] |
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secondkas
Posts: 95 |
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^Yes, going through details, it was the bird, selecting for the prince; I just made a very general statement about it, sorry if there's confusion. Either way, it is a big deal and an opening for an interesting conflict. But, like what ultimatemegax stated,spoiler[ it wasn't resolved.] That is an example of why I had problems with KyoAni's pacing.
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