Studio Ordet‘s long-awaited first project as main animation studio is finally here and it turned out pretty much as I’d expected. It’s a well produced OVA with nothing particularly new regarding content, but an enjoyable watch nevertheless. I was mildly impressed with Shinobu Yoshioka‘s directing skills, he did a pretty good job with setting the overall atmosphere. He depicted the characters rather low-key and not as forced as in your average bishoujo anime, which adds a lot to the believability and mood. I would like to see more bishoujo anime going into this direction, so more human-like characters without any disturbing, unbelievable traits. I can live with overly exaggerated characters in comedy series like ‘K-ON!!’ where they aim for a different kind of atmosphere, but in anime with a more serious tone they usually feel quite misplaced. It should go without saying that especially heartfelt and dramatic moments feel all the more stronger if the characters act in a way that the audience can relate to, and not just in the manner which the character category demands.
On the technical side of things, it’s certainly an impressive piece of animation with more than 20000 drawings used for 50 minutes of film. ‘BLACK★ROCK SHOOTER’ and its circumstances remind me of KyoAni’s first solo effort, namely Yoshiji Kigami‘s ‘Munto’ OVA from 2003. Just as Ordet, KyoAni had also been famous for doing high quality subcontract work before they eventually got the chance to produce a technically outstanding 50 minutes original OVA. However, I can hardly imagine that Ordet will go on producing TV series in the near future, it’s a fairly small studio after all. I guess their next project – most likely the upcoming Yutaka Yamamoto x Hiroki Azuma x Mari Okada noitaminA TV series – is a co-production with another studio (probably A-1 Pictures).
In accordance with KyoAni tradition, everything moved a lot, though the drawings and movement weren’t quite as polished. It had more of a raw feeling to it compared to most KyoAni stuff, and the animation direction wasn’t as strict either. Animation director Yuusuke Matsuo didn’t meticulously erase most individual traits from the drawings as KyoAni’s sakkans do, but apparently he only corrected the faces and tried to keep most of the movement in its original form. I love the rough yet energetic feeling of the animation, but judging by some fan reactions and blogs it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Even mebae‘s part (the basketball/volleyball match and the bit afterwards, around 21 minutes in) looked like it was hardly corrected and thus is easy to spot. Hironori Tanaka did the great action scene shortly before mebae’s part, but those were hardly the only shots that impressed me a lot. The action sequences were generally well-directed and wonderfully animated, not surprisingly so considering director Yoshioka‘s skills as action animator. He probably did the right thing when he left KyoAni, I don’t think that he would have had many chances to demonstrate his aptitude with action scenes there. Of course, if KyoAni ever decides to produce another ‘Full Metal Panic’ series, he (and the other Ordet expatriates) will be extremely missed. You can count KyoAni‘s action/effect animators on one hand, after all.
It was quite interesting to see who is involved in Ordet‘s first solo project, particularly since I expected that they request some help from outside. As Yutaka Yamamoto pointed out in this recent ‘Business Media Makoto’ interview, that was indeed the case since otherwise they weren’t able to complete it in a reasonable time. They even requested help from Hokkaido-based illustrator/animator mebae – a net acquaintance Yamamoto has never met in person – who is able to be active in the anime business thanks to the internet. mebae‘s real name is Yuusuke Hiroshima [広島裕介] and he’s already worked on some other commercial anime (‘Shugo Chara!’, ‘Jigoku Shoujo’, ‘Higurashi no naku koro ni kai’, etc.), though his core occupation is still illustrating. French blogger Manuloz wrote a nice post on mebae a while ago, you can also watch some of mebae‘s animation works there.
As for the other involved staff, there are some animators from A-1 Pictures in the credits (Toshifumi Akai‘s mates?) who apparently returned the favor of Ordet helping out on ‘So-ra-no-wo-to’, the staff exchange in more detail (yellow = Ordet-associated animator / green = A-1 Pictures animator):
BRS animator list divided in origin/affiliation:
♦ Satoshi Kadowaki [門脇聡]: Chief Animation Director of ‘Kannagi’
♦ Shinobu Yoshioka [吉岡忍]: Ep. Director on ‘Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu’, etc.
♦ Yuusuke Matsuo [松尾祐輔]: Animation Director on ‘Kannagi’
♦ Atsushi Saitou [斎藤敦史]: Key Animator on ‘K-ON!’, ‘Lucky Star’ OVA, etc.
♦ Yoko Takada [高田謡子]: Key Animator on ‘Air’, ‘Kanon 2006’, ‘Kannagi’, etc.
♦ Ryouichi Nakano [中野良一]: Animation Director on ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’, etc.
♦ Asami Komatsu [小松麻美]: Key Animator on ‘Air’, ‘Kanon 2006’, ‘Kannagi’, etc.
♦ Yuugo Mizutani [水谷有吾]: Key Animator on ‘K-ON!’, ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’, etc.
♦ Jun Nakagawa [中川淳]: Key Animator on ‘K-ON!’, ‘Lucky Star’ OVA, etc.
♦ Mitsuru Kakuda [角田充]: Storyboarder on ‘Kannagi’, pseudonym of Ex-KyoAni person?
♦ Toshifumi Akai [赤井俊文]: Character Designer of ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’
♦ Shingo Adachi [足立慎吾]: Character Designer of ‘Working!!’
♦ Isao Hayashi [林勇雄]: Animation Director on ‘Birdy the Mighty Decode:02’
♦ Hideki Nagamachi [長町英樹]: Character Designer of ‘Innocent Venus’
♦ Nao Chikaoka [近岡直]: Character Designer of ‘Today in Class 5-2’
♦ Hironori Tanaka [田中宏紀]: Ani. Director on ‘Ōkami-san’, ‘Naruto Shippūden’
♦ mebae: Key Animator on ‘Shugo Chara!’, ‘Jigoku Shoujo’, etc.
♦ Daisuke Hiramaki [平牧大輔]: Key Animator on ‘So-Ra-No-Wo-To’, ‘Working!!’
♦ Asaka Kazuyuki [浅賀和行]: Ass. Animation Director on ‘Ga-Rei -Zero-‘, etc.
♦ Yuusuke Tanaka [田中裕介]: Animation Director on ‘Birdy the Mighty Decode:02’
♦ Saishi Suzuki [鈴木彩史]: Ass. Animation Director on ‘Toaru Kagaku no Railgun’
♦ Jun Mori [森淳]: Key Animator on ‘Bamboo Blade’, ‘Darker than Black 2’
♦ Yutaka Takahashi [高橋豊]: pseudonym? Different person from the same-named producer?
♦ [小田鴨瞳]: pseudonym
Ani no Miyako 
I’m glad I weren’t the only one to appreciate the animation quality of this OAD. It saddens me when so much spent effort to make it gets crushed by random (and probably non-connaisseur) people who wrote how bad the animation was.
Nonetheless, I’m looking forward next Yamakan project.
And if Kyoani doesn’t want to animate Full Metal Panic, please give the licence to Ordet! 😉
I’m not gonna comment on the actual story of the OVA as I don’t really care for BRS (actually, the hype was driving me insane). The real reason why I watched this was to see just what Ordet can do (somewhat) on their own.
I really liked how you described the animation as ‘raw’. It kind of gave off this ‘choppy’ feel throughout the OVA. I wasn’t really a fan of it, and I felt that this ‘choppy’ style made it seem a lot cheaper to produce than it actually was. I’m sure that’s why some of the reactions you read may have thought the animation was low quality, as that stylistic choice can make it feel cheap if the person doesn’t pay much attention to animation.
I found it interesting that Yamakan decided to sit this one out and take on only a supervision role while delegating the directing to Shinobu. Maybe he’s been busy with that new series as you mentioned. Anyway, I didn’t really mind because it gives a chance to see more of Shinobu. I found the fight scenes to be very impressive but everything else just seemed kind of meh. I’m not really sure how, but I think he could have utilized the allotted 50 minutes better. I especially missed Yamakan during the school life portions. I think he could have made them a lot more interesting.
As for Ordet, I thought they did a great job. It was pretty obvious they would have never have been able to get it done by themselves, so it’s no surprise they had to bring in quite a bit of outside help. It was pretty interesting seeing the affiliations of a lot of the staff so thanks for pointing that out. My hopes for Ordet are that they’re able to grow and become a kyoani-like studio as those types of studios are all too rare in late-night anime. As they are now, Ordet would never be able to maintain this high quality over the entire run of a TV series, so they need to start putting more staff on the payroll. Another reason I’d like to see Ordet grow is so that we can see what Yamakan is truly capable of. He loves to talk big, and I wanna see what he can produce with the full strength of a kyoani level studio behind him.
Overall, I thought BRS was a good watch and I hope that it’s a sign of good things to come from Ordet.
Thanks for an informative post, it was pretty educational too! Being a “credits freak” I enjoy these behind the scenes and talents posts 🙂
I agree with your wish for more “un-exaggerated” characters in the darker anime. This is what killed Ookami Kakushi for me; I just couldn’t relate enough to the characters to care whether they’re about to be dispatched. Too bad the story wasn’t up to Ryukishi07’s usual stuff 😦
We do need more genuine horror/dark anime; even some recent Vampire fare seems a bit light of late. Higurashi balanced its schizoid characters’ more exaggerated moments with more realistic behavior, but the story elements enabled quite an involving suspension of disbelief so that all of them were easy to care about (even the villains). Umineko certainly had its share of exaggerated characters, but who stayed that way LOL
I read with interest your mention that mebae assisted on Higurashi…Kai; what portion was his work?
I watched Black Rock Shooter last week and found it very enjoyable and entertaining. “Raw” is a good descriptor to use for what “quality” I’d noticed about the animation. Still, it wasn’t anywhere near being close to detracting from the presentation, for me; I gave it an 8 on MAL.
I avoided the BRS hype machine too, and glad I went in kind of unspoiled as I found it quite unexpectedly good. It looks as if big things (if not projects) will be forthcoming from Ordet and whomever they partner up with!
@vinhnyu
Chance brought it about that details about the new Yamakan project have just been revealed today. As I anticipated, it’s indeed another co-production with A-1 Pictures, and with that much talent on the script side of things it should be something worthwhile.
@bloo
Thanks for the long comment, it’s always nice to hear opinions of other fans who pay close attention to KyoAni and Ordet. Yamakan was most likely busy with his live-action movie and upcoming noitaminA series, so it’s understandable that he left the director’s chair to Yoshioka. Considering how stressed he seemed recently, it was probably the right and only possible decision. And as you said, it gave us the chance to check out Yoshioka’s directorial skills. I agree that Yamakan would have made the slice-of-life parts a bit more interesting, but I think Yoshioka did a fairly good job as well. I mean, at least those scene didn’t bore the hell out of me like in most other similar anime. And as I said above, I very much enjoyed the atmosphere, which isn’t a given in this kind of anime either.
Ordet developing to another KyoAni-like studio would indeed be great, though I can’t really see that happen. KyoAni does so many things right regarding staff training, promotion, employment aspects, studio philosophy, organization and such that it’s hard to replicate their system. Countless details add to the high quality of their work, from fixed salaries to keeping most work in-house to thoughtful coordination of the staffers, let alone their exemplary animation school. Ordet is currently a good studio because most of their animators were trained at KyoAni. If they just hired some freelancers to grow, the quality of their work would probably drop sooner or later. Anyway, if you ask me, I think A-1 Pictures is a fairly good studio that is capable of realizing Yamakan’s vision satisfactorily. Sure, the animation quality of ‘Kannagi’ wasn’t up to KyoAni’s standards for the most part, yet good enough to express the characters’ personalities convincingly.
@Alastor
Thanks for dropping by. Well, I watched only the first few episodes of ‘Ookami Kakushi’, but what I saw was terribly executed and the story and characters left me cold. Maybe Ryukishi07 was too busy with his other work and didn’t really put much effort into it, at least that was my impression.
As for mebae’s work on Higurashi Kai, he worked on episode #1 and #8. I would have to rewatch them to figure out the parts he did, though…
Knowing that you usually dig KyoAni’s stuff, I’m not surprised that you liked it, many Ordet staffers had also worked on ‘Kanon’ and ‘Air’ after all (e.g. Shinobu Yoshioka directed three Kanon episodes, #4/#16/#22). Ordet is working on Yutaka Yamamoto’s new anime series right now (‘Fractale’), maybe you’ve already heard about it. This is one of the ‘big things’ you were talking about 😉
I see what you mean about Ordet. Although they may have some of that great Kyoani talent, they most definitely don’t have Kyoani’s great system.
If it wasn’t painfully obvious already, kyoani is my favourite anime studio, and it’s for many of the same reasons you listed. Like you said, they just seem to do so many things ‘right’. In fact, their only recent blunder I can recall is how they handled the situation with Yamakan. But in the end, I think it worked out best for both sides. With Yamakan out of the way, other great talent was given a chance to rise up the ranks (I’m thinking about people like Yamada and Touko) and now Yamakan is free to do what he wants with his very own studio. I’m sure many people would be quick to point to Endless Eight as a failure, but I personally thought it was an interesting and bold idea that was even bolder in its execution. I find it hilarious that people use it to cite kyoani as lazy, when in reality they completely re-storyboarded, re-animated, and re-recorded every single episode, even if they were all based around one script. Just think, how many other studio’s out there would even imagine of doing something like that? I doubt any would, not only because of the amount of work involved but also because of the expected backlash. Plus, E8 was a necessity in order to make Disappearance a movie (which everyone seems to love), and to correct the convoluted timeline of the first season. You can’t really claim Haruhi 2009 was a failure on a financial level either. There were of course screams that the franchise was ruined, but the entirety of Haruhi 2009, E8 included, still sold better than a majority of the anime that came out in the same year, and Disappearance has made an absolute killing at the box office (For a late-night or ‘otaku’ anime at least. Something like Haruhi could never hope to compete against the mainstream Detective Conan’s and Crayon Shin-chan’s of the world.) Another thing I like about kyoani is that they’re relatively low-key. In other words, they keep quiet and let their work do the talking, unlike some other people in the industry *cough* Yamakan *cough* (I love your work Yamakan, but would it really hurt for you to refrain from stirring up trouble every chance you get?).
As you also pointed out, they’re whole system is just fantastic. Their board of directors must really know what they’re doing. With their school, they’re able to train animators who become well versed in their philosophy and way of doing things, and with their fair salaries they’re able to keep many of them around. I believe they also produced a couple of books on creating animation, but unfortunately they were only for sale in the kyoani shop and are now impossible to obtain. I also remember reading somewhere that kyoani employees never have to work overtime, which is pretty rare in the industry. Whenever I read about the doom and gloom in the industry in regards to low wages and endless outsourcing, I always proudly remember that things aren’t like that at kyoani.
What really impresses me the most about kyoani, however, is that they do pretty much everything in-house (with the occasional exception of minor things like backgrounds and cleanup work) and at Animation Do, but they’re pretty much just a branch of kyoani anyway. They even have their own digital effects room, although I doubt it gets much use these days, haha. Your average anime fan may not realize it, but keeping things in-house makes such a significant difference in the quality of the work. Having all the parts of the production under one roof gives you so much control over the entire production, and having the same people working on the entire series gives you great consistency. I always like looking at the series credits for kyoani works because you notice that the staff list is usually much shorter compared to works of similar length done by other studios. This is because each individual person works on multiple episodes of the series over its entire run. This as opposed to productions by most other studios which have a laundry list of subcontracting studios and guest animators, who many times appear for only one episode in the entire series. And even then it isn’t an accurate portrayal because these subcontracting studios employ many people, any number of whom could have worked on the episode. Whereas with kyoani, the credits almost always contain only individual animators who are on their payroll, with the exception of Studio Blue (Ani Village), with whom they’ve been working with for a long time
What I find really admirable about this is that they do it at great expense to themselves. There’s a reason why few studios work this way, and that’s because it’s just impractical the way anime is made nowadays (It’s Tezuka’s fault!, haha). But what really makes me glad is that they’ve shown that this approach can work in the industry. Kyoani is a perennial hit maker and I think it’s a great reward for all the work they put into their series. (Munto and its various reiterations being an exception here, but I still consider the series a success simply because the animation was fantastic.)
Even with all their success, I think that K-ON!(!) is really their crown jewel as far as commercial success goes. With K-ON they’ve proved that they can take pretty much any source material, add a little kyoani charm and high production values, and make it huge. All of their previous adaptations were of established franchises with the exception of K-ON. FMP was based off of a popular series of light novels and already had a previous anime adaptation, the Key adaptations had the backing of the fans of the visual novels, the Lucky Star 4-koma was already a hit, and the Haruhi light novels had pretty much reached cult hit status before kyoani took it to the next level and got everyone hooked on Haruhiism. But K-ON really did come out of nowhere. In fact, the first two volumes never charted on Oricon until a week before the first series aired. But despite this obscurity, kyoani has taken the franchise and turned it into a money making powerhouse with billions of yen in sales across CD’s, DVD/Blu-ray’s, and merchandise.
Most of the detractors (many, but not all of whom are cynical and unreasonable elitists or just plain trolls) are quick to say that K-ON is only riding the ‘moe wave’ or that it’s only successful because it features cute girls. Well if that was the case, then every two-bit, barely animated series with appealing girls would be selling like hot cakes, but that simply isn’t the case. I’ve heard many people say that they love K-ON and are huge fans, but at the same time they don’t really know why. I think that’s because when you see something that is truly well made and has a lot of hard work put into it, you can kind of sense that goodness, even if you can’t explain it.
Um…wow, sorry to go so off-topic in describing my love affair with kyoani, but they really are a great studio and I wish other studios would follow their lead. Hope you don’t mind, haha! (Oh, and apologies to Alastor, from whose blog I loosely borrowed and reworded a sentence or two.)
Oh and finally, I realize that this would be a hard type of comment to respond to, so please don’t stress out if you think I expect some kind of long and elaborate response to this wall of text. It’s just nice to write and share about things you enjoy every once in awhile (as I’m sure you know, this is your blog after all) and that’s good enough for me. Although I think I may have gotten a little carried away, haha.
@raito-kun: Actually, I didn’t know about Fractale, but am really looking forward to it now.
I mentioned earlier about being a credits-freak, and this is why: more often than not, I’ve found that a quality “name” is hired by a quality “act” and the combined are more likely to put out a quality “art-work” than if done alone. Further, following a talented artist from project to project might reward the seeker with little gems that go unnoticed, since many stellar works are either under-promoted or ignored by fans. This works for music and film (in a general way), and I’m starting to see that it works in anime as well.
But we’re still collating 😛
I’m wondering how many Visitors were able to catch that “A Look Inside Kyoto Animation” series of DVD extras that came with Kanon? The proof is in the pudding 😉
@bloo:
I was reading your comment and found myself in solid agreement with just about everything, and wondering how I could reply without going overboard myself (as I am wont to do LOL). Now after reading your “source” (and I’m flattered that you Visited and found it useful), I can do just that in this way:
IKR???
Regards all 🙂
First of all, sorry for the late reply.
@bloo
Haha, don’t sweat it, I really enjoyed reading your enthusiastic comment on KyoAni, particularly since you put everything perfectly into words. So thank you for such a great write-up here on my blog, I think some other readers are just as thankful. I totally agree with everything you wrote, btw. And I can’t deny that I share your enthusiasm as KyoAni has always been a studio I’ve liked and respected for the things they’ve accomplished. The quality of KyoAni’s work has never failed to amaze me, and their success proves everybody wrong who thinks that production quality doesn’t matter. And this has also put a lot of pressure on other studios since KyoAni set the bar very high as far as animation quality in TV anime is concerned. In this sense KyoAni is certainly one of the main causes for the rising animation quality in late-night anime.
And I’m totally with you regarding ‘Endless Eight’. It was interesting to see how the very same script can be interpreted differently by different directors. Just look how the mood differs from episode to episode, how some episodes are really slllooowww, while others are more lively and so on. Sadly, many people think that story is the only thing that counts when watching anime, although atmosphere, visual interest and such are equally essential. I’m eagerly looking forward to the DVD release of ‘Disappearance’, btw. I heard so many good things about it and KyoAni obviously put tremendous effort into it. Can’t imagine that this movie is anything less than a masterpiece.
Concerning overtime work at KyoAni, I heard that they have to work overtime if the schedule demands it. If I remember right, I think Yamakan said that working late hours wasn’t unusual at KyoAni. Anyway, they certainly have a fantastic time management considering that they usually have only one animation director per episode and very small animator teams.
I liked how you said that people can sense the goodness of well-made anime like ‘K-ON!’, even if they can’t put it exactly into words why they like them. I also think that this is the case. Doesn’t it feel good to watch KyoAni’s character move on the screen and to see how they react and interact? KyoAni’s good animation makes for a warm and lively mood, and I think any viewer notices that their anime are nowhere near as lifeless as most comparable anime, if only subconsciously.
@Alastor
There are certainly countless of those ‘unnoticed little gems’ you’re talking about, and even enough ‘big’ ones that have just been forgotten. There’s so much ‘old’ stuff worth checking out, you just have to look for the right names in the staff list 😉
Damn, I love this blog and its readers. There’re so many interesting facts to read here.
I remembered the first anime from this studio (which is Air, right?) and I was already blown away by its visual quality for a TV serie. I’m not a great fan of Kyoani since I’m a Gainaxfag (my one and only love) but I do think it’s a great studio which can turn anything into gold… well, besides Munto.
And correct me if I’m wrong but Munto is also their only original animation project which wasn’t a success. The OAV sure was incredible (like El Hazard when it was released) and I was really excited to see a TV sequel serie but it was really disappointing. I feel this failure comes from a poor ability to write an adventure serie.
My point is Kyoani is made of smart people since almost all of their production plays with their strong points: animating slice-of-life series focusing in facies & gesture expression.
It may be a beginning of answer on why Full Metal Panic anime adaptation is delayed since the novel serie is about to end, the slice-of-life part of it becomes more and more obsolete in the latest volumes and Kyoani doesn’t feel like they could do a good action serie. And as said by raito-kun, with the loss of Shinobu Yoshioka, they are incapacited to do something else than comedy serie which, in the end, proves to be their greatest weakness.
(Sorry to write unrelated comment, I just wanted to give my feelings about this studio because of your overpowering passion!)
@vinhnyu
Don’t worry, any comment that contributes something is welcome here.
Actually, KyoAni’s ‘official’ first anime was the first Munto OVA, their first TV series was ‘Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu’. As you say, the real problem with Munto was the writing. Yoshiji Kigami is an awesome animator, a good director, but a bad author. There are many examples of great animators being also good writers – just think of Mitsuo Iso and Masaaki Yuasa – but that isn’t true for Kigami, sadly. We just can hope that KyoAni will do some kind of collaboration work with a good author someday. Maybe doing it like Yamakan, who got Nagaru Tanigawa involved in BRS and now Hiroki Azuma in ‘Fractale’. I think KyoAni is well aware that they aren’t really a powerhouse when it comes to original work. Sure, they have this ‘KyoAni Bon’ where their directors and animators publish stories, but if they were really confident in those then why would they organize the ‘KyoAni Awards’? KyoAni is a studio that doesn’t want to depend too much on outside forces, so these awards are probably the only way to boost their creative drive without loosing too much control over the work.
Just thought I’d make a few responses here.
@ Alastor
I actually just recently received a set of the Kanon R2 DVD’s which I won on Y!JA a little while ago. The first thing I checked out were all those ‘Making Of’ features on every disc. Really enlightening stuff.
@ vinhnyu
I’m glad that you appreciate kyoani’s work even if you’re not too much of a fan. I may be a huge kyoani fan(atic) who’s quick to sing their praises, but I do understand that what they choose to adapt and animate isn’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea.
Gainax (and by extension studio khara) is actually kind of sort of my second favourite studio after kyoani (I say kind of as it’s a bit of a toss-up between them and A-1/Ordet when they collaborate). But with them it’s a bit of a love-hate thing. For example, I can’t stand the original NGE but I’m in love with the Rebuild series (probably because of the TTGL vibe the movies have and of course the insane animation).
@ raito-kun
Thanks for the info on that overtime bit. I don’t have a source for the info I provided (actually can’t even remember where I heard it) so I’m confident in taking your word for it. And I definitely don’t think it’s far-fetched to think that they would be required to do some extra work from time to time, especially if it’s an important or particularly technically demanding episode. I can imagine that Yamakan and his crew (Kadowaki, etc) spent many sleepless nights working on and perfecting “Live Alive”.
I like how you mentioned that kyoani’s work has been a factor in helping to raise the quality of work for late-night anime. From what I remember, it seemed to me that back before Haruhi aired, not many people paid much attention to the studios behind the anime they watched. But after Haruhi aired, pretty much everyone knew who kyoani was simply because the quality of the work (particularly the animation) was so beyond what was airing at the time. After it finished airing it seemed like more people began to pay attention to the anime studios producing the work they watched. In this way I think kyoani has also contributed in making more fans aware of studios and in sakuga animation in general.
You have a really interesting point when you mentioned that kyoani doesn’t like to rely too much on external forces. Indeed they are a very insular studio and don’t really get much outside help except from those they really trust. In fact, I think Gatou Shouji (author of FMP) and Tanigawa are the only two external people they’ve allowed to write scripts for their episodes (Gatou on Day of Sagittarius and the first E8 episode and Tanigawa on Someday in the Rain and Disappearance).
I think that this insular attitude could be a big reason why Key went with P.A. Works rather than kyoani to animate Angel Beats!. With all the previous Key adaptions, kyoani could just have Shimo Fumihiko check out the games and have him pick and choose what to put in the script for the entire series. But since AB! wasn’t an existing work, it pretty much had to be scripted by Maeda Jun. I think kyoani would be a little weary of this as Shimo already has a proven track record of excellent script adaptations. And they were probably right not to take the project (if it was offered) as Maeda’s script kind of fell apart (sorry, not a big AB! fan, although I can appreciate some of it’s good qualities).
As a side note on E8, I actually rewatched a few episodes a while back to compare the differences in storyboarding and directing, and Ishihara’s (EE #5) was hands-down the best. It’s filled with a ton of interesting angles and scene compositions, and it has some great effects that really sell the atmosphere. My personal favourite parts would be the scene repetition as Haruhi is leaving the cafe, and the rotating screen at the end. Fitting for the series director (and my personal favourite director) that his was the best. Ishihara has really got some insane skills.
Anyway, as for the Disappearance movie, I’m also awaiting the home video release. I refuse to spoil myself with the camrip (production values that high deserve better than that) but as soon as the R2 DVD/Bluray is released I am getting it. Unfortunately, it’s actually still in a few theaters (its been running for a long ass time) so it’s probably gonna be a while before we even get a release date. I bought the Shoshitsu guidebook which has interviews with some of the staff that I’ve been going through. I haven’t really been able to read much of it so far (it’s pretty slow going for me as my Japanese reading comprehension isn’t exactly at the level I’d like it to be at the moment), but from what I have been able to read it’s apparent that they really put a ton of heart into the movie.
When it’s released I’d love to hear your thoughts, so I’ll be looking forward to your eventual post on it too.