This Week in Anime

Traversing the Emotional Themes in Naoko Yamada's Works

Chris
She either appreciates the scene's surrealist intensity or constantly ponders how she would have framed it to feature the baby's legs more prominently.

I shouldn't be surprised a movie buff who makes movies like Yamada knows her way around the Criterion closet.

She can bring people together, and general anime fans understandably love her. She came up animating at fan-favorite studio Kyoto Animation, and since growing into a directorial role, has helmed many works that are, without hyperbole, legendary in the community.

Hence, The Colors Within is one of those non-franchise anime movies that can net a U.S. theatrical release. Her name is a draw!

Paying respects to how Yamada came into the directing gig through animating is crucial. But it's also a little funny, given how the story goes, that she was always allegedly more of a film nerd herself than someone focused on animation, joining KyoAni on something of a whim.

It's impressive that after only a few years of drawing frames for series like Air and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, she was getting mentored up to direct episodes of Clannad and its sequel Clannad: After Story.

She has a healthy respect for the classics.

I've grown enough to admit that I didn't give K-ON! a fair shake back in the day, arguably projecting general frustration with the litany of similar cute-girls-doing-cute-things series that sprung up around it. K-ON!, even in its first season, where Yamada is still figuring out how hard she can indulge her style, is far richer in its presentation than those other also-rans.

Even after all this time, it's easy to see how this caught on.

It's funny, I said Yamada felt like she was more constrained at this early stage, but even in the premiere episode she directed for K-ON!, the instant the music scene kicks in, you're like, "Oh, there she is."

Sending the girls into the heart of Bloodborn means K-ON! truly is on the same wavelength of drama being tapped in Ave Mujica today.

Jokes aside, there was always the sense that Yamada was working to infuse K-ON! with more earnest emotions than other CGDGT chaff. Much of it is rooted in evoking some raw high school nostalgia, a recurring vibe in her work. She pushed that harder with more episodes and material in the second season. I love how right from the start of K-On!! part deux, you can tell she's 200% more on her bullshit. It's great.

Same. It doesn't help that the movie Tamako Love Story, in all its fully-boarded-by-Yamada-herself glory, seems currently absent from streaming options. Check out the beginning of Tamako Market you can see a director coming from a successful adaptation and now getting to flex on an original work.

It's also nutty. I can buy that this was what she jumped to after working on Nichijou.

Or drawing a funny little girl. I still think about the stories coming out of her key-animating and directing a few episodes of Free! about her focusing too much on Gou in what was, ostensibly, supposed to be an anime about hot guys.

In her defense, Gou was excellent, and I can always respect an artist who knows what she wants to focus on. Plus, it's interesting to put a pin in since Yamada's prioritization of gals versus guys would come up notably in one of her future works.

Big same. Like I said, I blew off K-ON! at the time, but Sound! Euphonium made me a believer. The production paired with Yamada coming into her directorial style, which matched it perfectly, felt like it was operating on another level compared to other anime I'd seen around then.

Bolstered a good bit, yes, by our floofy queen Kumiko.

I know I made a crack early on, but we would be remiss if we didn't properly mention Yamada's predilection for focusing on characters' legs. It's one of her most (in)famous directorial trademarks! After decades of watching her stuff, and especially going back and reviewing for this column, I think I understand the idea of it as a way to hone in on body language that's not necessarily always the first part we consider, but innately understand.

It speaks to the movie buff side of her. Sound! Euphonium, to me, is one of those series that feels cinematic even as a TV anime and made even more clear what a natural Yamada was for also handling its movie versions, as well as the movies for the aforementioned Tamako Market and K-ON!. Probably why she would do even more films as her career carried on.

This is the one I was talking about where Yamada expressed uncertainty about her ability to handle an adaptation with a male lead compared to all her preceding ladies. It probably didn't make it easier that Shoya himself is a character with a lot of nuances and complexities to explore. She did a good job inhabiting many of them for what it's worth. For one, she gets how much he cares about his kickass mom.

I can see the arguments some critics had that Yamada's direction in the film somewhat sensationalizes and overdramatizes what had felt more grounded in manga form. Still, that means a stunning direction is on display. I didn't take over a thousand screencaps while watching the movie for this column for nothing.

A Silent Voice was an interesting fit, but it's amazing how at home she feels back in the Euphonium-verse. It's just pure uncut Yamada, especially with Ushio's score backing it in a way where you swear this has always been the sound of Yamada's work.

On a different level, it's cool to consider her taste for high school musicality and track her style from the band girls of K-ON! to the lovingly held emotional intensity of Liz and the Blue Bird over about nine years.

It's another reason I think Yamada is a natural fit for the film. Movie runtimes give her so much more breathing room to indulge in those stretches of musical communication. Sound! Euphonium TV already pushed at that, and this bluebird just let her fully spread her wings.

It has its own elements of musicality...and kensuke ushio on the actual music. She came in and made this as natural a fit as possible.

It also (kind of) ties in with Science SARU's INU-OH, if you're looking for more fantastic anime films about the power of music. Yamada had always been strong on adaptation since K-ON!, so it shouldn't be surprising that she was able to adapt to working with a new studio adapting a true classic of epic literature. I think about how it feels like she naturally brings so much of the KyoAni approach to a series like The Heike Story, even as the art style is necessarily different, and that's probably because of how ingrained she was in the studio, and vice-versa. She was instrumental in mentoring KyoAni members who continued following her departure.

She didn't return to direct Sound! Euphonium 3, but you can tell they'd been taking notes.

You can see that in other ways she's branched out since departing KyoAni, like directing an animated Modern Love Tokyo episode. If you can believe it, it is a nostalgia-tinged story of high school students connecting over music. It's also framed by the main character's POV as an adult, who is a mood and a half.

Speaking of relatable.

As has been established, that's my kind of cozy. I won't say it feels like I've grown alongside Yamada since I have not developed the ridiculous talents she has during her time in the industry. I've enjoyed watching her grow, and my appreciation for her work is growing. The Colors Within got a pretty short run where I'm at, so I can't wait for it to get a wider video release so more people can experience it and see how far she's come (they should include Garden of Remembrance).

It's almost certainly the best music anime starring kids in a Catholic school since D4DJ. It makes me glad to see that Yamada can continue to thrive in original works as well as she does in adaptation. I am excited to see what she'll do next as she continues with Science SARU. Who knows, maybe she'll even get to do an anime adaptation of Trainspotting!

No matter what she does, she'll always have a leg up on catching my interest!