Shouta said:
I don't really see where Taniguchi gets the praise myself.
He gets praise because he knows:
--How to use music. I am a very musical person myself so I find this very important. Goro synchs every scene to music perfectly. I have never seen a director better at doing this to date even in live-action with music video directors. He always hits matches the notes to the emotions and truly understands how music is part of the flow of an ep.
--He knows pacing. He cuts all his scenes at perfect lengths. There are never scenes that drag, nor are there scenes that feel rushed. He knows how much time a scene or cut should last and this gives all of his works excellent pacing.
--He is the best voice director in anime. Maybe he doesn't directly influence the voice actors/actresses in his works, but it seems like something beyond coincidence that in his 3 works the featured seiyuu always seem to give the best performances of their careers.
--He is very meticulous about the overall script planning of his shows. If you look at his 3 shows from a distance you can see how even from ep1 he knows exactly how ep26 will end and starts to setup themes and sub-plots that will come into fruitation. In each of his tales there are huge casts and many themes running through and yet by the end everything comes together and feels complete. Very few people can pull this off in anime.
--He brings talent out of everyone around him. This sounds goofy, but if you look at it soooo many people in the anime industry were nobodies until they worked with him and did something great, from their they went off and had successful careers (Kuroda, Hirai, Souichirou, etc...) He just seems like this incredibly talented friendly guy full of ideas who finds talented people to work with him and some of his ideas/coaching rubs off onto these people.
--He's very aware of the fans. He's done more extras his 3 shows on dvd than any other TV series I know of. The extras aren't fluff either, he does full audio commentaries, audio dramas, brand new animation shorts, music videos, and just tons of bonuses. He also has great dvd covers
In short I feel Goro Taniguchi is it. The person who comes along once every 50 years or so and changes the industry. He came in with his debut title of Ryvius and shook Japan. Ryvius was huge and considering it was mainly unknown staff under an unknown director it was an incredible accomplishment. From there he's done 2 more series which were widely praised and he's still really young and seems like he has no plans of slowing down on his 1 show every other year plan. He gets so much accomplished in all areas of his projects that he truly is Goro, the man with 4 arms.
PS. I shook his hand and thanked him personally for making great shows so I may be biased.
