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Posts tagged “Akiyuki Shinbo”
Cossette revisited: Shinbo, Nasu and the Kajiura connection
Looks like I made it to the second round of the tourney thing, but I’m sadly short on topics for writing thanks to the fact that my laptop is the only working PC I have right now. It’s able to cope with DVD playback though so I can at least rewatch old favourites; I’ve had Le Portrait de Petite Cossette for instance on my shelf for a while but only came back to it last week…and I’m glad I did.
The first time I watched this I felt a bit overwhelmed by the visuals so didn’t really grasp what it was trying to say. I guess it was slightly wasted on me at the time but watching the three episodes again, across as many days, worked better for me so now I really feel I appreciate it more than I did then.
Categories: On screen
Tags: Akiyuki Shinbo, Anime, experimental, Kara no Kyoukai, Yuki Kajiura
5 Comments
Arakawa Under The Bridge is my kind of weird
I’m not an Akiyuki Shinbo completist as I am with some other directors. As dazzled as I was by Petite Cossette and Bakemonogatari I was never tempted to watch Maria+Holic or Dance in the Vampire Bund for instance but his signature style has led me to respect him enormously. Following the two seasons of ef, in which his influence crept in quite noticeably, I realised how those wonderful ‘Shinbo-isms’ are as immediately recognisable as the trademark quirks of Hideaki Anno.
Arakawa Under The Bridge is very much in Shinbo’s comfort zone: it reminds me a lot of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei with its pun-riddled wordplay, sketch-based storyline, zany characters and of course that artistic obsession with colours, composition and geometry. The source material of the two shows doesn’t share the same writer so I wonder whether the production team are being selective with the projects they take on. The similarities go even further, and mostly in a good way too.
Your hand in mine (the best first date ever)
There’s been a lot said about Bakemonogatari just lately, which makes me worry about whether I have anything new and valuable to say. I’d been relatively quiet about it for other reasons too: one being how the middle section of the show left me with mixed feelings. Another is that, as I mentioned in my comment to Gaguri’s excellent recent post, the overall experience of dialogue and visuals combined is so overwhelming that I’ll need a rewatch to appreciate it fully.
Where’s a Reaction Guys-style celebration when you need one?
The problems with the middle episodes were minor ones: mostly the general absence of Hitagi, plus the ‘higher class of fanservice’ (as I clumsily called it) starting to feel a bit exploitative. Fortunately episode #12 made up for whatever I’d felt unsure about earlier on with the only remaining concern being that of the final three episodes. As in, how could anything follow on from this without feeling like a let-down? It was as fitting as it was surprising – I wouldn’t have minded too much if the series ended there and then.
Sputnik Sweetheart, Senjougahara fascination and fanboying
I love Bakemonogatari. From the Heavy Crab, through the clever twist to the Lost Snail, the truth behind the Monkey’s Paw and the tension of the Snake Constrictor, it’s a visual treat and provides a metric fucktonne of characterisation and cinematography that I could wax lyrical on for ages. Except I won’t. First, it’s spoilerific. Second, I think I need an entire post just to explain why I find Hitagi Senjougahara to be awesome before even outlining what makes everything else about these episodes so great.
I would hardly dare to argue
Granted, she doesn’t appear much in the middle portion of the series, but trying to make sense of the Senjougahara Fascination phenomenon became a bit more important when I found myself a part of it. What the hell is this? Am I developing a 2D complex? Well, yes. And no. Idle thoughts coming up.
Categories: On paper, On screen
Tags: Akiyuki Shinbo, deculture, editorial, Haruki Murakami
10 Comments
Bakemonogatari: tsunderisms and a higher class of fanservice
I know I’m late to the Bakemonogatari party. I shouldn’t be, considering how it’s so Relevant To My Interests: it has a vampire, a tsundere, puns and wordplay with Shinbo occupying the director’s chair, for crying out loud. The first couple of episodes didn’t blow me away immediately though: there’s always this vibe of quirkiness that surrounds everything that Shinbo does, which means I have to do a little mental adjustment to appreciate it so I’m confident that it’s worth sticking with.
The whole catching of a floating girl reminded me of the beginning of Miyazaki’s Laputa for some reason. Oh yeah, the staircase looked like DNA or something
I was a little sceptical about the Nisio Isin connection since he was the author of that Death Note spin-off I had mixed feelings about. This is I think completely his own work however, and fortunately has plenty of potential too. After I’d sat through both halves of the first arc my confusion gave way to a sense of respect for how the visuals and themes worked together. I now have a really good feeling about this one.