アニ・ノート

I watched 3 episodes on fansubs, but now it is for real. And what an amazing show.

For the episodes I’ve seen, my impression is different from what it was. I’ve read much about it on blogs, and I’m prepared. Disregard for the consistency of setting does not faze me at all, I watch the expression of the man’s spirit.

UPDATE: Steven pointed out that this entry contains major spoilers. One would think it’s inconceivable for anyone not to know that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, but nonetheless it’s true. I mean, it’s true that spoilers follow.

Back at the first pass, I observed that Gurren-Lagann used economical art style, perilously close to American animation standard. In fact, with shows like Avatar there may even be a certain overlap now (and that is even before we consider anti-anime shows such as Shin-chan). Creators decidedly went for expressiveness at the expense of detail.

The operation is a little tricky, which ep.4 aptly illustrates. When detail is so low, small off-style deviations become rather noticeable. The cleavage of the eldest sister below (unfortunately obstructed) speaks volumes, and the thick jaw outline a-la Vandread The Second Stage is just horrible. I also saved screenshots of Simon subtly but noticeably off-model.

As the show progressed, creators started to give more better close-ups (of course, Yoko enjoyed those from the start (or should I say Yoko’s chest enjoyed them)). Not that the detail skyrocketed, but it just looks like they hired competent artists. Here’s one of the young ladies introduced in ep.4, grieving for Kamina:

In general, Kamina’s death was taken as an excuse to excercise almost Shinbo-esquie cinematograhics, which amused me greatly despite the somber moment. Here’s a crying Gunmen:

And of course, the rain:

All in all, I’m quite pleased despite being a self-styled eye-candy taster. Looking forward to the rest of it (isn’t tomorrow the street date for v.2?).

FRIDGE: Coincidentially, Steven rips Gurren-Lagann a new one today:

Add to that the fact that the animation is some of the worst I’ve seen since Tweeny Witches. I had seen a lot of fanart of Yoko before I watched the series. I’ve seen fanart about a lot of series over the years, but this is the first case where nearly all the fanart looked better than the series art did.

But is there a motion in the fanart?

I’ve not seen anything so thoroughly, all-around amazing in years.

As I think back in time and try to remember when I could not put series away, ef was touching, and F/SN had a strong story, but… they are just not in the same league. I think even Manabi is not secure at the top, after all it had a slow start. But Gurren-Lagann is even better. I can put it away. I savour it.

Kuro’s post about the latest GLPW mentions how “Lord Genome’s resemblance to Nia when he was young is a bit disturbing to say at least.” This reminds me about an unpublished post of mine, which ran:

I pooh-pooed the GLPW as a bunch of amusing, but derivative videos until I saw the portrait of young Lord Genome.

For some reason, it made me to reconsider the whole excercise in officially commissioned fanfics and fanart. I’m not planning on buying any light novels or anything (which would be a tantamount to something as dumb as Star Wars literature), but the enterprise acquired new respect in my eyes.

It wasn’t publiched at the time because I found no way to make the huge picture smaller without losing important details such as the four generals, all of whom are present in it.

Here’s how the little Genome looks in the video that Kuro embedded:

What’s up with the dolphin flopping around the pedestal?

When I regard my anime favourites, I see a big gap between the few I consider truly great, and the best of the rest. Azumanga Daioh, Manabi Straight, and Haibane Renmei tower over the crowd of lesser shows like three titans of anime series.

Actually, this picture is obsolete, because I’ve seen Gurren Lagann. I am not quite sure where it fits. Is it as great as Azumanga? Or greater? If so, how much greater?

UPDATE: Steven, here’s the list:

The list is made out of the list of completed series at my ANN list, with a couple dropping out by accident (e.g. To Heart should’ve been there). Vandread represents both itself and Stellvia.

UPDATE: Thanks to Matthew for corrections (Ixthil -> Ixtli). And indeed, Meia’s insert was poorly done. OTZ.

MAYBE IMPORTANT: I went through my old notes found that the collage project was started after I’ve read a post by Evirus looking back to Azumanga. It reminded me just how tremendous Azumanga was. BTW, he had some choice words for the evil Ledford regime too.

Looks like he liked it:

Objectively, the show ends on an upbeat note, the universe is saved and made a vastly better place, it was a wild and enjoyable ride that kept me glued to the TV for 3+ hours, but the unnecessary and out of the blue gut punch really spoiled it for me as it just felt mean spirited and pointless.

I thought it was an excellent ending, but what do I know. Also, I thought this funny because it rang true:

My biggest problem with the show is the crass stupidity and pig headedness of a lot of the cast, which frequently leads to seemingly unnecessary plot complications this is not as annoying as it could be due in part to the fact that said problems are usually resolved by thoroughly amusing giant robot battles.

BTW, in this regard I would like to draw everyone’s attention to Kamina’s account of being trapped in a cave-in, which was shown [no less than] twice, and the corresponding account of Simon. It gives quite a bit of depth to Kamina, I think. Yoko’s “sono hanashi…” on the ship’s prow was specifically designed to draw viewer attention to the episode.

Thanks to BigN, I have just discovered that SDS runs Ogiue Maniax. The blog itself displays no identity, so how could I know? People did, however. Tooltip in the Heisei’s blogroll says “SDS’s blogging enterprise par excellence, with deep ruminations on anime and Ogiue”.

The significance of this discovery is only that SDS wrote the note at Shiro’s place about the decades of giant robot animation mapped onto Gurren-Lagann. I even have it saved at del.icio.us.

P.S. Yes, I’m on vacation, just one last post and that’s it.