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With Sparks of Tomorrow, the Dreams Are in the Details

Kyoto Animation's ambitious Sparks of Tomorrow, which is currently streaming on Netflix, has been a notable departure from the studio's previous aesthetic, with director Minoru Ōta calling it a “new era” for the animation powerhouse. Combining grimy, gritty backgrounds with visuals that sometimes veer into the uncanny, it has embraced an aesthetic that's not only unique, but is the culmination of years of meticulous planning, painstaking testing, and Ota's obstinate vision. What's resulted is a stunning series dominated by intricate details—from the thoughtful color palettes, to the digital brush strokes, to the music and animation style selections, to even furniture placement in the scenes.

To learn more about this, fans of Sparks of Tomorrow attending Anime NYC this past weekend were treated to a question-and-answer panel featuring musician Ginger Root and animation producer Mao Takayama. Before they gave audiences a sneak peek of episode eight, they highlighted some of the artistic choices in the series that give it that distinctive flair, including some of the intentional style shifts throughout the season.

One obvious example given was episode six, which humorously dips into a gekiga-style animation during the girls' talent show training montages. The style, which is reminiscent of older classics like Ashita no Joe or Lone Wolf and Cub, uses strong ink strokes to cheekily harken back to old-school training sequences. It's fitting for an episode that ultimately crescendoes to a raw, energetic punk rock performance. The staff was so excited about the musical scene, they even sent it to Ginger Root, who said they were eager to hear his reaction. “When the generator is over-driving, and you get the crunch… oh, I know where this is going… Punk rock is about leaving it all on the stage. I really enjoyed it,” he added.

But beyond these obvious stylistic changes meant for artistic effect, the series also plays with more subtle changes, such as those meant to depict different locales. For instance, backgrounds set in Kyoto use a more muted, dark, and brown-tone color palette, reminiscent of the series' decision to cast the city as the smoky, industrial center of steam power. In contrast, when the characters travel to Shiga, the color blue is suddenly introduced into the color palette, with bright blue skies and water that's meant to counter the oppressive nature of Kyoto.

Another thing that changes, quite literally, is the placement of furniture in settings throughout the series, which is meant to depict the changing of seasons. According to Takayama, this is based on historical customs from that time period in Kyoto, particularly in machiya, or traditional Kyoto townhouses. Elements of the buildings, such as blinds, partitions, and panels, could be swapped out to block sunlight or redirect airflow. Likewise, large furniture could be reconfigured to also aid in ventilation. It's a clever way to denote the passage of time in the series for history buffs in the know, but also another example of the animation team's fastidious attention to detail.

Takayama went on to discuss the series' backgrounds at length, one of the hallmarks of the show's aesthetic. Meant to look like oil paintings, much care has gone into making sure the style is reproducible and consistent. “It's too unrealistic to use actual paint,” Takayama agreed, saying that they spent considerable time developing their own digital brush strokes to really nail down their targeted look and feel. “We had a lot of discussions, a lot of sessions, with the animation directors, the animators, the people who were working on the animation… I really want to emphasize that we did a lot of tests and experiments to make this work. I think that was one of the biggest challenges.”

This dedication feels appropriate for a series whose central heart revolves around hard work and its promise of a hopeful future. From the main characters' visions of an electricity-powered world to fantasies of a future awash in technicolor brilliance, the show is constantly pushing a dream of a brighter tomorrow.

It's fitting that one of the series' most prominent champions this convention season has been none other than Ginger Root (Cameron Lew), an artist whose electronic and dreamy synth-fueled melodies draw their inspiration from retro Japanese pop. A self-professed “weeb,” Lew is no stranger to anime music—his Ginger Root sets (he recently played around 120 shows touring with the shoegaze indie pop band Japanese Breakfast) often sprinkle in anisong interludes… including probably the first time “A Cruel Angel's Thesis” was ever played in Coachella's Sonora tent. Just last Thursday, Lew played an hour of anime covers to a sold-out crowd at New York's Mercury Lounge, all while dressed up as FLCL's Haruko Haruhara. On his lengthy setlist were theme songs from Ranma ½, Kyoto Animation's K-ON, His & Her Circumstances, and even a rousing whole-room singalong of Evangelion's “Komm, Süsser Tod.”

“I'll just say that as a huge weeb, being able to make an anime theme song is crazy,” he said during the panel. He talked about how nervous he was submitting the first draft of the song, especially since the opening theme had reportedly gone through a dozen revisions before it was finalized. His track was accepted immediately. “I learned one thing about Ota-san, and it's that he's a Lady Gaga fan,” Lew joked, adding that the director had specifically asked for a song that had electronic elements, one that represented a future that could have benefitted from inventions inside Sakamoto's “Electric Catalog.” “I had a great time making it… I purposely wrote a lot of things in the song that I thought would be cool to let the animation breathe, like the drum fill into the chorus, or how it starts. Being aware of those parameters was a really fun challenge.”

Sparks of Tomorrow is currently streaming on Netflix, with new episodes released every Sunday. This season is slated to have 13 episodes.