Yama no Susume S2 13
After finally actually watching The Episode, I'll confess I'm not as blown away by it as I was expected to be. I guess I was expecting a little more motion throughout with the star-studded list of animators who worked on it. It's unfortunate, for example, that the Hisashi Mori flashback scenes were more a series of (nicely drawn and stylized) stills than actually animated. It's still working within the restraints of typical TV anime. That said, it is undoubtedly at a level of attractiveness above the already normally attractive show. The drawings have that extra level of refinement about the linework with more individualistic expressiveness:
as well as more elaborate detail in things like Hinata's hair here:
The bits of motion that are there have
an added looseness to them. Plus the stylized scenes do look really great:
and there's great photographic ambition than typical which works really well in presenting the fireflies;
So overall a very good episode with strong execution of an adorable story, even if it isn't quite the masterpiece I imagined it would be.
