![]() And I loved the voice-generated sound effects (a Yuasa trademark) scattered through all the fantasy sequences. While I thought dragonfly fantasy sequence went on a little too long, there’s no denying it was spectacular. ![]() When Midori and Tsubame realize that the other is an artist ( concepts and figures, respectively) kismet kicks in – and sly Sayaka sees the possibilities here. ![]() Anyone who’s attended an anime screening for the first time, dealing with the social anxiety, can surely identify with that moment. She loves anime as much as Midori but has been strictly forbidden from joining the anime club, which leads to an escape and chase scene that’s classic Yuasa madness on display. In exchange for four bottles of milk she agrees to attend the anime club’s screening (which turns out to be Future Boy Conan) with Midori, where they meet rich girl-model Mizusaki Tsubame ( Matsuoka Misato), on the run from her parents’ henchmen. She handles the practical side of life for Midori and indulges her inexplicable (to Sayaka) love for anime. Midori has a best friend, Kanamori Sayaka ( Tamura Mutsumi), a hard-headed tough girl who has “producer” written all over her. That’s a character’s great love for anime being communicated through the anime staff’s great love for anime. And in the second place Science Saru had to recreate the original frame by frame (under Choi’s supervision) because they couldn’t get the rights. In the first place anyone who loves animation has surely had that experience (it was probably Fantasia with me). Midori – as a grade-schooler newly moved to town – watches Miyazaki’s Future Boy Conan and is utterly entranced, realizing for the first time that the anime she loves are actually made by people. Here’s where that prologue really pays dividends, because it provides the most memorable scene of the premiere. Bridges connect to nowhere, water flows where it shouldn’t, and it all looks much more interesting on the screen than it did on the page. ![]() It’s the story of a genki newly-minted 10th-grader named Asakusa Midori ( Itou Sairi) who lives in a fabulously bizarre town called Shibahama (whether this is any allusion to the legendary rakugo I don’t know). But that’s not Eizouken’s problem, it’s mine, and so far this show is doing just fine under its own power. I also have a measure of skepticism because the last plucky girls make anime anime that everyone raved about, Shirobako, was a mixed bag for me (if it had held its nerve and been the story it should have been, I’d have felt differently). I also suspect that the nature of Oowara Sumito’s story lends itself to the screen better than the page – what’s meant to be dynamic can sometimes comes off flat in its original form is legitimately off-the-charts dynamic in Science Saru’s capable hands. But Yuasa and team changed some things up from the manga – adding a prologue that was entirely original – and that definitely helped. You have to stipulate to the fact that all Yuasa material, be it movies or TV, will grab you right out of the gate because of the stunning visuals on display – it’s what comes after that can prove tricky. What about the premiere then? Hey, I’m not blind – obviously it was spectacular. Anything Yuasa and Science Saru do demands to be taken seriously, but beyond that I take nothing on faith. Coupled with the fact that my track record with Yuasa himself is hit and miss ( Devilman Crybaby was definitely a miss, for example), I came into Eizouken with a certain measure of reserve. To be frank it didn’t strike me as especially noteworthy, though I recognize that’s hardly a definitive sample size. After that, it’s a case-by-case basis.Īs for Eizouken ni wa Te o Desu na!, I only knew it from a very tiny portion of the manga – as only four chapters have been translated. He and his regular team of artists (especially Eunyoung Choi, who may be a visual genius at or even above Yuasa’s level) can always be counted on for fabulous creativity and moments of stunning imagination. I have no reservations in calling Yuasa Masaaki a genius, even if I’m not a fan of everything he does. When a genius is behind a project you can pretty much always tell, even if the project itself doesn’t work. I’ve noted it before, but there’s just no substitute for talent.
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