Fall Season 2009 Impressions: Part 1

 

♦ To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

It comes as no surprise that the first episode features some excellent work both on the directing and animation side of things, certainly one of the most impressive first episodes this season. There’s a whole army of animation directors on this episode (9), which says a lot about the good animation quality since more movement means more drawings to correct, so they apparently needed more ADs to complete it in time. Tatsuyuki Nagai‘s directing is interesting as usual, and especially the layout sense throughout the first episode is great with many carefully thought out compositions emphasizing the happenings on the screen and providing an appropriate stage for the characters. The great layout work was supervised by nobody less than Katsushi Sakurabi, known as the director of “Tsukihime” and “Gunparade March”, who did also some good work on Nagai’s former J.C. project “Toradora!”, in particular his job as episode director of #16 and #24.
The final action scene is the stunning climax of this episode, besides the great animation it’s especially the nice storyboarding which gives the scene its tension and Mikoto her stylish and intruding appearance. Since it’s a first episode the key animation credits feature some rather famous names like Shinichi Iimura, Satoshi Iwataki, Nozomu Abe and (of course?) Hiroki Tanaka (the opening displays also some work by him).
So as far as the production is concerned, it’s certainly a very satisfying debut as one would expect of Nagai, but I have to admit that the scenario is a weak point due to the generic nature, at least that is my impression based on the very first episode. Nagai has already established strong character images and the cunning character interactions which made “Toradora!” so good are also there, so I hope he keeps that up in the succeeding episodes and manages to pull everything together in a worthwile way to cover for its weaknesses.

 

♦ Seiken no Blacksmith

As expected nothing more than a typical light novel/fantasy anime with rather good manglobe quality. The animation is decent enough with some nice cuts now and then, though the directing isn’t that good for the most part but rather bland like the source material. The first episode is dominated by pretty typical anime behaviour and interactions and correspondingly the characters aren’t particularly interesting or likable at this point, however, I’ll check out some more episodes to see where it’s heading.

 

♦ Kampfer

Despite knowing that Kampfer is another one of those mass-produced anime for bishoujo/moe fans I watched the first episode and naturally wasn’t too impressed. It’s the kind of anime popular among otaku these days, with the usual stereotypical cast of characters and unimaginative storyline/setting as well as absolutely trite character designs and poor directing. At least the animation is a bit better than in the typical Deen/Xebec/Arms/ZEXCS etc. production, but I’m sure that will change in the succeeding episodes.

 

♦ Seitokai no Ichizon

Another “masterpiece” by Studio Deen, this time presented in a more self-ironic fashion with loads of references, but it lines up in the studio’s record of cheaply produced series anyway.

 

♦ Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra

The first episode is neither particularly good nor really bad, but it certainly shows the origins of david production as the execution is strongly reminiscent of past Gonzo works both in a positive and negative way. Miserable CG work is nothing rare in Japanese animation, but in this case the whole integration as well as the realization are simply uneffective and unaesthetic. The hand-drawn animation is decent for the most part, though I’ve never been a fan of these typical “Gonzo style” drawings because they often look too stiff in motion and aren’t particularly expressive, but compared with some former Gonzo and the Beetrain series this problem isn’t that dominant here (at this point) and at the very least I appreaciate the nice variety of character designs and their rather mature look.
I can’t say much about the story yet, but my initial impression is by and large positive, even if the characters and setting feel somewhat familiar. The directing is admittedly not as interesting as I hoped with a pretty typical approach on the visuals.

 

♦ Kimi ni Todoke

In terms of direction and animation it certainly fulfils my expectations and it’s another good example of how a good production can make up for a generic scenario. The excellent animation enriches the characters’ personalities and makes their behaviour more believable, especially in the scenes with nuanced acting like the part before the ending of episode 1. This scene feels very natural with richness and harmony in the animation and was probably done by Kenichi Yoshida, who did all in all 30 cuts for this episode according to a statement on his BBS. The directing is very interesting too, Hiro Kaburaki certainly knows how to establish a distinctive mood with clear and appealing visuals, even though the typical anime overacting in some scenes is a bit too much for my taste.
Overall one of the better anime of this year’s fall season and certainly worth checking out.

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Anime Fall Season 2009 preview

 

My season ‘preview’ of sorts is not so much about simply copying the synopsis and other trivial data, but about my expectations on the upcoming titles, I’ll leave out all series which are mass-produced low-quality anime in my eyes. And sadly that applies to many titles of the fall line-up, though there are also some promising anime by the usual suspects like Bones and Production I.G. around. But overall it seems to be one of the weakest fall seasons for years, a lot of cheap sequels and a lack of original projects show the uncertain condition of the current Japanese animation industry.

 

High Expectations

 

♦ Kuchu Buranko

It’s the ‘noitaminA’ series of the season and further by the same team who were responsible for Mononoke, namely director Kenji Nakamura and character designer/animation director Takashi Hashimoto working with studio Toei. If you’ll find anywhere creativity this season then it’s certainly in Kuchu Buranko, I expect refreshing and inventive visuals in the same vein as Mononoke. But not only the presentation will be great as the synopsis reads very interesting, too. The original material is Hideo Okuda’s Naoki award-winning-novel, it’s great to see acclaimed and more serious literature turned into anime besides the usual superficial light-novel stuff.

 

♦ Darker than Black: Twins of the Shooting Star

One of the few original projects of the upcoming season and sequel to the first DtB by talented director Tensai Okamura. It’s very rare these days that the original creator and the director of a TV series are one person, but that can lead to very interesting results as there are lower restrictions to the creative process. The animation is produced by Bones (respectively the team of season 1), so I’ve no doubts that the quality will exceed most other series.

 

 

Medium Expectations

 

♦ To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

I didn’t watch “To Aru Majutsu no Index” as it’s a typical light-novel adaption in every aspect and far from being anything special with the usual poor directing and trite script, but there’s one thing that makes me confindent that this spin-off will be more than a typical unimaginative bishoujo series. To be exact, it’s the participation of Tatsuyuki Nagai (Toradora!, Idolm@ster Xenoglossia, Honey & Clover 2) who happens to be one of my favorite directors for this kind of material. His sharp approach on directing and his emphasis on character animation to make the characters lively through multifaceted animation makes the comedy so much funnier and the drama much more engaging than in the usual bishoujo/moe stuff, especially the episodes he directs himself have a wonderful sense for gags and interesting character acting. I only hope that the material proves to be worthy of this skilled director…

 

♦ Seiken no Blacksmith

Don’t know why manglobe chose to do an adaption of a generic light-novel instead of doing another interesting original project, but that has probably economic reasons as it’s easier to get a project with successful source material funded. Studio manglobe projects are always highly interesting since staff from all over the industry comes together. The PV shows decent animation quality, though as usual ups and downs are to be expected, depending on where the episode is produced and who is the episode/animation director. Director Masamitsu Hidaka has a decent record of works to some extent, but the generic source material sorf of limits the potential.

 

♦ Kobato.

Another Madhouse Clamp manga adaption supervised by Mori Asaka (Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, NANA, etc.) and directed by Mitsuyuki Masuhara. Latter has still to prove his skills, but the rest of the project staff is certainly promising with character designer Hiromi Kato of “Clamp in Wonderland 2” fame and the experienced scriptwriters Nanase Ohkawa (Clamp member) and Michiko Yokote. The animation quality will probably be not too high as manga adaptions are usually of secondary importance to them, but middling Madhouse quality is still better than most of the other stuff out there.

 

♦ Kimi ni Todoke

Manga adaption by Production I.G. It’s the first job as series director for Hiro Kaburaki who did some decent work on “Welcome to the NHK” and “Le Chevalier d’Eon”, but nothing too outstanding. Apparently it’s not a high priority anime for I.G. in the vein of their original projects, though the quality of their works never disappoints anyway.

 

♦ Anyamal Tantei Kirumins

Despite having a weird premise, this one could be a surprise. It’s an original project by Shoji Kawamori (Macross, Basquash!, etc.) and directed by talented director Soichi Masuo (Scrapped Princess), produced by Satelight, Hal Fim Maker and JM Animation. They seem to go with the current trend of ‘uber moe’ little girls in cute costumes, but the execution could be pretty good due to the promising project staff. Director Soichi Masuo is someone who did a lot of interesting work in the past, and Hideaki Anno even invited him to do storyboarding for “Evangelion 2.0”.

 

♦ Fairy Tail

Fairy Tail has certainly a lot of potential, not only due to the nice source material, but because of Shinji Ishihara who really knows how to direct action stuff. Recently he did a lot of outstanding work on “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood”, particularly on the fight scenes which have a great sense of perspective and staging. Recently both Satelight and A-1 Pictures delivered pretty mediocre works (especially animation-wise), so I hope they make good for that with Fairy Tail.

 

♦ Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra

The trailer is pretty promising with lots of nice animation / backgounds and clearly shows Toshiya Shinohara‘s (Kuroshitsuji, Gunparade Orchestra) directing style. The studio david productions is pretty young and consists mainly of ex-Gonzo people. Quality-wise I don’t expect that the quality of the trailer will be uphold over the entire series as their former works are rather weak in terms of animation, although the synopsis sounds more interesting than in most other upcoming anime and I have faith in Shinohara’s skills as director.

 

♦ Jungle Taitei: Yuuki ga Mirai wo Kaeru

Adaption of Osamu Tezuka’s classic “Kimba the White lion” with some very interesting staff members like Goro Taniguchi (Code Geass, Planetes) and screenwriter Osamu Suzuki.

 

 

Low Expectations

 

♦ White Album 2

I haven’t come around to finish season 1 yet, but the episodes I’ve seen were decent and much better than any other anime by Seven Arcs. The presence of Kou Yoshinari (character designer) and his animation is one of the reasons for this, so I hope we’ll see more of his work in season 2.

 

♦ Natsu no Arashi! Akinaichuu

Another unnecessary sequel, I wouldn’t mention it here if it weren’t for Shinbou‘s directing.

 

♦ Winter Sonata

A joint production of Japanese and Korean companies so I don’t expect too much quality-wise, though it could be a welcome change at least regarding story and content.

 

 

The rest of the upcoming series are of little interest to me since they are either cheaply produced and/or the 100th incarnation of the same garbage.

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