Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Fire Hunter
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maric
Posts: 23 |
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Just to note, the animator that animated basically all of the scenes that people are finding off-putting is Yasunori Miyazawa, an industry veteran who is known for his sort of amorphous character/background animation (similar to someone like Shinya Ohira):
https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/203050 https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/28498 https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/175930 https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/179442 Clearly the animation style in these scenes is a stylistic choice (you can look through some of his other work and see he's fully capable of more "normal" animation), so I feel like it's reductive to just label it "bad animation". That being said, the work here is noticably rougher, and it's hard to say what the reason is there. It could be something getting messed up in the pipeline after his key animation (I can imagine the unconventional style being hard to work with for a studio less experienced with that sort of thing), or maybe he's stretched thin because he's working on so many scenes, or some other reason. Anyway, I still think there are things to appreciate about it, especially how it emphasizes the otherworldliness of the fiends and makes the fights feel more disorienting and chaotic. It's a mixed bag, but just wanted to throw that context out there. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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I agree, obviously the animation style overall is a stylistic choice, and I don't have a problem with it - however I think it's fairly obvious that the animation in the show overall is struggling. From all those "action" stills (very nicely done, by the way, but come on!) to excessive dialogue over stills, to pop-outs, etc. it's all very obviously not what it's supposed to be like. I guess they're also caught up in the outsourcing-to-China problem so many other shows have, but instead of delaying further episodes they just decided to push ahead and hope the audience doesn't mind. Personally, the animation quality doesn't bother me that much, I mean I survived Kobayashi Osamu's solo episode in Kemonozume (where he was the director, storyboarder and only key animator, and it looked rough - it was an interesting experiment but not one that really worked), I'll survive anything if I'm interested enough in it. It's just that clearly the storytelling itself is also suffering as it has to adapt to what the animation can support, which is sad. |
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Doctorkev
 Posts: 80 Location: Scotland |
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I was on the fence about starting this show. I have a complicated relationship with director Mamoru Oshii's work. His early stuff like Urusei Yatsura (love those first two movies) and the first two Patlabor films are great. Ghost in the Shell is a movie I admire rather than enjoy - it perfectly adapts the best scenes from the manga, while surgically excising all sense of fun.
Innocence is pretty but dull and navel-gazing. His live action movie Avalon should really win some kind of award for testing audience patience to the absolute limit. Following Innocence and Avalon I avoided his work as he seemed to have disappeared up his own arse. I watched Vlad Love in its entirety... somehow... and was utterly unimpressed. So although I had thought I might give him another chance with this, Lynzee's obvious disappointment and frustration with his newest material puts me off completely, so I think I'm not going to bother. Thanks for saving me the time! |
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maric
Posts: 23 |
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I agree that the show as a whole is struggling, though the painted stills and pop-outs for dialogue are also a known quirk of Nishimura's direction (the latter can be seen all over Vlad Love, not to say it's a choice I particularly like lol). Definitely likely that they're being used more liberally here as a compromise for production limitations though. The parts where the dragon or the hunter transition into a painted frame seem more intentional than, say, Touko cleaning the bathroom in episode 2 for example |
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maric
Posts: 23 |
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Man Vlad Love was such a disappointment. I thought the first episode was really great and a few other moments here and there, but the show was such a mess overall. That one gag with the live action gun was top tier though lol |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2301 |
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Man, the animation here's such a shame. I don't mind how the individual stills look, mostly; the clumsy linework feels more like an interesting stylistic choice than cutting corners for whatever reason. But the production just falls apart on anything involving dynamic motion; half the time it feels like watching one of those puppet shows with cardboard cutouts on sticks, where 'motion' is just bobbing the stick around a little faster.
A bummer, because the world and writing seem really engaging. Maybe I'll pick up the manga, for once. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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I don't think it's fair to pin this show's failings and troubles on Oshii, and I say this as someone who hasn't liked most of his works since GitS (Innocence not included). Sure, he's probably the biggest name in the staff, but he's handling the series composition and some script writing, not the animation or even direction. This is not his show the way Vlad Love or GitS were, especially since this is an adaptation, not an original work (yes, GitS, but let's face it that was more "inspired by" than an outright adaptation).
It is a shame that the show's animation has these troubles, because otherwise I like the style, and I especially like the attention on some of my pet peeve issues - the dogs, for example. I can't describe how great it is to see dogs in anime that actually look and sound like dogs, and even move like dogs most of the time (action scenes aside), instead of those weird four-legged creatures with human-ish faces that look like they were drawn and animated by children, and sound like an adult human trying and failing to make animal sounds. Animal designs and animation in anime tend to irritate me for how bad they are (stylized depictions aside, obviously - it's one thing when there's a concept, and it's another when someone clearly just can't draw animals), and it's great to see a show where dogs play an important role and they don't in fact look and sound terrible. It's probably the first time since Wolf's Rain that I see canines in anime that look so good. And the writing is pretty good, too, I'm not sure I'm completely sold on everything just yet, but it is engaging, and I'm curious to see where it goes. Depending on how the story develops I'll probably read the novel after the show ends. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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Well... it's probably just a style that doesn't work for me, since I have a hard time seeing why those linked examples are better than what we've seen in Fire Hunter, other than having a higher frame rate. This whole "style" seems to be designed to be as disorienting as possible--showing everything at weird angles, intentionally-ugly characters, and most importantly, having all motion stop abruptly and lurch in a random new direction two or three times per second. I never even considered watching Ping Pong; postmodern is one thing, but post-visually-tolerable doesn't work for me. Fire Hunter's fights are probably supposed to be disorienting to be scarier, but for the most part it just ends up looking silly. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I've come to wonder whether the material is just too "large" for an anime adaptation. I have all sorts of criticisms about the directorial style, but perhaps there is just too much in these novels to fit into an adaptation. Has anyone read the Kemono no Sou-ja Erin novels? I haven't, though I could tell it was a pretty big story from the outset. It hung together well as an anime, but the NHK gave I.G. fifty episodes to tell the story. |
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maric
Posts: 23 |
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I can totally understand that the style isn't for everyone. I find it interesting because he's actually really excellent at more traditional anatomical animation, and that's probably the reason why he's even able to do the type of movement and angles that he does in the weirder stuff. Just wanted to say though, you should totally consider watching ping pong because it's an incredible show with excellent characters, even if you might find the style off-putting. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2301 |
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I remember Ping Pong as being visually very distinctive, and can see some overlap between the two series visually, but I don't remember it just failing to work so miserably and frequently in Ping Pong as in Fire Hunter. Maybe I've got rose-colored glasses on in my memory of Ping Pong, but I think the animation there was fine and an interesting choice, while in Fire Hunter I think it does a disservice to the source material. Not sure it matter much if it was an active choice rather than the result of production issues or something.
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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I think it's very clear that Fire Hunter's animation is struggling, it's not simply the style. Perhaps due to the style the failings are less obvious, but overall even taking animators' and directors' signature styles into consideration I think it's clear that this is not how the show is supposed to look like. Ping Pong was nothing like this - it looked and moved exactly how it was supposed to look and move.
For a better comparison, look up episode 7 (? I think, or maybe 8?) of Kemonozume that I mentioned previously - the one that was not only storyboarded and directed by the same person but he was also the sole key animator - and compare it to the rest of the series. It's very obvious that the episode with only one key animator is not how the rest of the show looks like, it looks much rougher and choppier. In case of Kemonozume it was just an experiment that didn't end up working out too well, in case of Fire Hunter I'm sure it's due to the whole China-covid-etc. situation. |
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AQuin1904
Posts: 264 |
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I've read the Kemono no Souja novels. I've never gotten a chance to watch the anime, although I hear good things about it. It's an apt comparison—both series are four main books plus one side-story volume, and they're at a similar reading level. The Hikari no Ou novels are longer on average, but not by much. So, realistically, this anime would need twice the episode count it has to cover all the material at a reasonable pace. Episode 5 was an improvement on some of the prior ones, imo, but I really hope they find a way to make up for some of what we lost from this section, like backstory and character development for Kaho, Akira talking about being a woman fire hunter, and some more proactive moments from Touko. Kind of a shame we got to see Temari fight immediately instead of two chapters of suspense about whether this tiny dog can even do anything. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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Oh, it's way beyond just off-putting... even a 15-second clip is uncomfortable to sit through. A whole 20-minute episode, let alone a whole season? No way. (On top of which, it's a sports anime, and I've never gotten through more than 4 or 5 episodes of anything in that genre.) Episode 5 was a bit better than previous ones, though mainly because there isn't much action and the one battle scene didn't try for anything too wild. The child found in a cave who was somehow related to whoever attacked the trucks was so random that I had to go back to see where he even came from, since he seemed to just appear out of nowhere at the beach scene. Koushi's dream was framed weirdly, making it seem like he had a waking hallucination during the party, or something...? |
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AQuin1904
Posts: 264 |
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In the anime, I suppose he must have. This is another casualty of cut scenes—novel Koushi fell asleep during a lesson with Kira, after late nights of experiments that finally seemed to be getting somewhere. |
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