So I ended up binge watching this last night as I was in a weird sort of mood. I had watched the earlier parts of the show when it aired and I overall found it boring to mediocre. The first season aggravated me more than anything and I remember the early parts of Railgun S to be not that much better. Now I had heard Nagai had done a much better version of the Touma vs. Accelerator fight but I didn't expect it to be this big of a leap. It's almost like watching an adaptation with two different sources, I mean the events are generally the same but that's where the similarities end. If you ever want to see the difference between mediocre direction in anime and great direction, watch the Index version of these events and then watch the Railgun S version.
I ended up rewatching the Index version and good lord is it night and day. In the Railgun S version, Touma takes much more visible damage and is actually bleeding. There's a stronger sense of danger and physicality on both sides through visual components such as slow motion. The fight is used for fleshing out Accelerator's personality and background through flashbacks. While it does not making him sympathetic, it does give the audience insight into his perspective and why he's such a piece of shit.
There's strong visual direction with the playing of color both on the characters and backgrounds. As seen above, in Accelerator's flashbacks/mindset he's drawn in black and his material is similar in tone to a horror movie. The fight uses both black and white backgrounds during emotional moments such as when Biriri is talking to her clone, the black symbolizes her desperation and dread.
The bridge scene had really solid storyboarding and animation as it better conveyed the emotions of the participants. A big factor was the difference in music as the piece played in Index is something closer to a battle theme while the one in Railgun is more heartfelt. In addition to that, the sound direction brought everything home repeatedly such as cuts at emotional climaxes and using the ED as an outro. Great stuff.
Did you come into a community to tell said community what happened in their community? OK then... Well if you're going to do that at least get the facts straight.
I've personally always hated this fight because it simply showed the levels of stupidity the author will have his villains go to during fights with Touma and not doing the simplest things to win so that Touma wins the fight instead. Touma's ability is plot armor not IB.
Just the amount of dialogue and how fast it is. Had a similar thing with Ghost In The Shell. A lot to take in, got to be in one of those high consuming moods.
Kawamori really is here in spirit. And this time we get to have Jouji Nakata speak to us about the evils of modern society.
Didn't think God Eater would kill ufo this hard. Is this because of FSN burnout, lack of animators/organizational problem or is the unique color palette of this show simply hard to do?
Considering how many animators are thrown into each episode to finish it. It's probably because they devoted too much time/effort on UBW and are scrambling to keep up with God Eater's schedule commitment. Some producers miscalculated the lead time needed/did not anticipate UBW would be as taxing as it was perhaps?
Or maybe they'll just take a cue from Bandai Visual's success with limited theatrical screenings and release the last few episodes as a God Eater movie event!
WE'RE LIVING ON THE EDGE!
