The Reflection 1
This was... strange. I very, very much want to believe in this show, but a lot of the moments in this episode fell flat. In some ways it reminded me of the first episode of Flowers of Evil, with its long stretches of nothing, still frames, and slightly undercooked animation. But in that case, the stillness fit the mood, the lingering shots built a sense of dread that paid off with the episode's conclusion, and at least there were some fanatically detailed backgrounds to drink in. Here, so much stillness was injected into a flying superhero battle above Times Square. It didn't fit.
Still, there were so many fresh ideas at work here that I still want to see more. I liked how the buildings were used to create diagetic comic book panels, with their sides dissolving into speed lines as the heroes flew past early on, and creating a picture-in-picture effect for the cheering crowd as I-Guy struggled with that bat dude. I also thought the transition from the news report was really clever, watching the camera guy try to follow this aerial battle taking place overhead. The flat-shaded art style, when everything came together, popped unlike any other cartoon I've ever seen, truly a comic come to life. But at its worst, the drab backgrounds recalled something a step below Mirror's Edge's old animated cutscenes.
This episode felt a lot like a pilot or proof of concept, light on plot and heavy on ambition. It felt to me like the animators involved still weren't fully accustomed to working in this new style, or they didn't have enough time/budget, or whatever. The storyboard, at a faster pace, could have really sung, but the mix of a slower tempo and very limited animation tempered its impact. I hope Nagahama and DEEN develop a better grasp of the material as they go.
I'm curious to see where this goes thematically. Opening with Obon and the candle boats, a festival about mourning the spirits of the dead, feels like it has to be an intentional choice. With superpowers arising out of a natural disaster, and people being transformed by it over time, I feel like this could represent another sort of response to the 3/11 earthquake and its aftermath. Too early to say, so we'll see.
What was going on with those end credits?