Episode 7 was incredible. It's such a great culmination of all the angst and guilt and self-loathing that had been curdling until this point. It's beautiful to behold; it's one of the best moments I've experienced in anime ever.
I have no idea what the show can do from here, but I have total faith in Nagahama right now.
Given the deliberate pacing and careful structuring of the show so far, the way each episode ends at a place calculated to allow for maximum effect when the ED song kicks in, the placement of this climax in the middle of the series, I would be surprised if Nagahama doesn't have a definite idea of how to end it, an stronger idea than randomly stopping at some random manga chapter just because he ran out of episodes. Even if he has to create some anime-original material to get there.
At any rate, this show has already delivered more than I could have expected or hoped for; everything from this point on is just a bonus.
oh, i didn't notice there was discussion about this show here.
i watch a lot of japanese dramas and movies.
this is way better than most of them. like, it's not even funny how much more effective and better "acted" this is. (though a great deal of japanese tv series are shit to begin with haha)
I love the visual style even from the first episode, and this and becomes more and more effective as each episode goes on.
and how bout that ASA-CHANG song, its an older song, and i've encountered it before years back, but damn, it felt like it was made just for this anime.
i might have missed it, but how many episodes this season are they planning? i don't want it to end fast :O
Episode of the year! Anime of the year! That scene in the manga was where I knew I was reading something special and Nagahama took that and made it into something that transcended my wildest expectations. Not to take away from the rest of the episode which was top notch as well. Can't wait for next week's episode.
That was really quite good. It's nice to see the show finally do something with the pieces its been setting up, and the build up to the climax was solid. I liked the fact that the episode had a bunch of new backgrounds too, compared to the last few episodes (lol). It'll certainly be interesting to see where the story goes from here, since the climax was definitely a major game changer. I hope they don't find a cheap way to dance around it, or reset the situation.
That was really quite good. It's nice to see the show finally do something with the pieces its been setting up, and the build up to the climax was solid. I liked the fact that the episode had a bunch of new backgrounds too, compared to the last few episodes (lol).
Episode 5 had a ton of unique backgrounds during Kasuga and Saeki's date.
It'll certainly be interesting to see where the story goes from here, since the climax was definitely a major game changer. I hope they don't find a cheap way to dance around it, or reset the situation.
Episode 8 Well it's clear they blew all of the budget in the last episode :lol Still, it's good to see nothing has returned to normal after that ending. I really liked the music in this episode, especially the music that plays near the beginning when
Kasuga and Nakamura are walking home holding hands
- I think that scene was pretty daring for them to do as well, obviously part of it was because it's cheaper to do, but it was like 3 minutes long of basically very little happening on screen but atmospheric fall out following the ending of the last scene. I liked it.
It felt like a very short episode, it's more to set up for the events that are about to come now that
Saeki knows it was Kasuga who stole her gym clothes
If they're gonna do some montage type stuff to fit more into the plot then I think the next episode is where to do it.
So I decided to go ahead and watch the show today after given a list of what animes I should go and watch and aside from the rotoscoping and creepy looking smiles, I really like it. I'm currently about 3 1/2 episodes in and it started out pretty slow but I like watching how everything pans out for kasuga. so how much does this differ from the manga?
So I decided to go ahead and watch the show today after given a list of what animes I should go and watch and aside from the rotoscoping and creepy looking smiles, I really like it. I'm currently about 3 1/2 episodes in and it started out pretty slow but I like watching how everything pans out for kasuga. so how much does this differ from the manga?
I cannot wait to have the soundtrack for this anime. I absolutely love ambient music like this.
If I had the same mindset from when I first watched episode 1, I would've said that the first half of the episode was probably very padded and a waste of time. However, coming off from the events in the previous episode it felt very meaningful. I loved those scenes of no dialogue. Really good follow-up to last week overall. I like how it pulls no punches with the aftermath of the classroom and with Saeki's character in general.
It's great that Nagahama has the courage to go such long stretches without dialogue. It's a risky thing, that silence. When I'm with people and our talk falls dead, there's that need to fill that space with something, anything. Perhaps I am afraid that without keeping the banal chatter up, the mask will fall off and my true self will be laid bare for other people to see. Silence is uncomfortably intimate. The first half of episode 8 probes that intimacy in a way not many people would be willing to do.
Of course, it's not completely silent. This and similar sequences wouldn't work if they didn't have such strong atmospheric music backing them up. I have to say, Hideyuki Fukasawa's work does not compare unfavorably with the work of the main anime composer I think of in this regard, Kenji Kawai. Having just watched the Patlabor films, I was reminded of the long, slow cityscape sequences in Oshii's films that Kawai composed for. The difference is that in Oshii's films, these sequences are meant to highlight the city as an entity unto itself, a collective that has taken on a life beyond those of the individuals of which it consists. In Flowers of Evil, these sequences highlight the psychological state of the characters. At times, the town is there as an oppressive, stifling force of decay, bearing down on Kasuga. At other times, such as the first half of episode 8, it is there simply as a background for him to pass through and be left to his thoughts. In contrast to Oshii's impersonal directing style, Nagahama shows himself to be a deeply personal director.
For as "slow" as the pacing in episode 8 was, the episode felt super-fast. The way it pulls me into its emotional landscape and keeps me gripped throughout the grinding torture is just that good.
seconding the scoring/incidental music in the show. its pretty well executed.
damn, ep8 just made me want ep9 FASTER.
random question, is the girl that's a (obviously) guy with the twin braids supposed to be someone important? its just weird, its like the 3rd time they showed him/her
random question, is the girl that's a (obviously) guy with the twin braids supposed to be someone important? its just weird, its like the 3rd time they showed him/her
She's just an incidental member of Kasuga's class. She stands out from the rest because of her odd appearance, but (not having read the manga) I don't think she's going to play any important role.
seconding the scoring/incidental music in the show. its pretty well executed.
damn, ep8 just made me want ep9 FASTER.
random question, is the girl that's a (obviously) guy with the twin braids supposed to be someone important? its just weird, its like the 3rd time they showed him/her
oh i dont mean plotwise, i was just curious if that guy was supposed to be some staffer (manga/anime?) or like some kind of inside joke amongst the team or prod. crew, haha, eitherway, yeah weird lol.
One other thing I have to praise in episode 8 is the shot composition of the final scene, which was above the show's already high standards. A shot like this:
succinctly gets across the character dynamic. Great framing throughout which made the final break with status quo occurring that much more painful. You could feel strongly how much being there was difficult for all three.
oh i dont mean plotwise, i was just curious if that guy was supposed to be some staffer (manga/anime?) or like some kind of inside joke amongst the team or prod. crew, haha, eitherway, yeah weird lol.
The show has done a few cameo appearances for the side characters/extras, such as Oshimi's appearance as the bookstore owner in episode 5. I noticed in the credits of episode 8 that one of the extras in the assembly scene was from Studio Pablo, the show's art studio. So it's possible.
Heh. I was more talking about how it divides Saeki from Kasuga and Nakamura. Saeki is just now realizing she was on the outside of their "joke" the whole time, and that Nakamura is far closer to Kasuga than she is. I also like how unbalanced it is, with all the elements bunched up towards the left and large empty space on the right. It conveys just how off-kilter the relationship between these three is. I could also talk about the wall cracks that run through Kasuga and Nakamura. Really a lot contained in this single image.
I can't remember a show having the balls to do the whole no dialogue lets walk a bit since like the days of Texhnolyze. The one bit I didn't like is that they didn't go full out with the silence, the heart beat sounds going into the classroom was totally unneeded and honestly detrimental to the scene as a whole - there was so much natural tension already in place so why go over the top like that?
The one bit I didn't like is that they didn't go full out with the silence, the heart beat sounds going into the classroom was totally unneeded and honestly detrimental to the scene as a whole - there was so much natural tension already in place so why go over the top like that?
I think it did a good job of driving home just how horrified Kasuga was of what's gonna happen as soon as the classroom door opened by Saeki. Just think of it as the slowly approaching footsteps/axe grind heard from the other side of a door in those slasher flicks.
I really didn't know how this show was going to deal with the events of the previous episode. While I might have hoped that the ink-orgy would lead to a palpable, lasting change in the characters and the direction of the story it almost felt to dramatic, to damming and too raw to be allowed to stand. How could they possibly move forward with this hanging over them? Therefore I'd imagine that the writer would hand wave or undo the events in some manner to allow the story to survive. That would be the cheap way out, at least. Thankfully, that doesn't appear to be happening and while Kasuga might have briefly thought he had escaped execution it was clear from the language of the visuals that this wasn't going to happen.
It's actually quite hard to think about the events of this episode in isolation, as it's own self contained narrative because of how it follows immediately on from the aftermath of the previous episode. So crucial is the link between these two episodes that the director even included a few cuts from the previous episode before the opening to this episode to get you in the right state of mind. I think this is pretty telling of the fact that the slow, dialogue-free opening of this episode can't possibly stand in isolation. It has to be the cold water that releases you from the heat of the finale. The problem is that, as this is a weekly series it's been an entire week since that powerful scene. If you were to watch episodes 7 and 8 back to back I imagine this contrast would be even more powerful and effective than it already is. Including a few moments from the climax of episode 7 kind of works but it's not really ideal.
Now, I understand the reasoning behind the extremely slow sequence in this episode. I get it. I've seen the technique used before and I've even defended its usage in works such as Neon Genesis Evangelion. However in this particular case I feel like the director went too far. From the end of the title sequence to the first words of spoken dialogue six minutes of time passed. It's not so much the fact that they went so long without talking, it's rather that they went so long without showing us anything in particular. Hundreds upon hundreds of seconds flew past and yet we only actually had about 11 cuts. One cut in particular lasted one hundred seconds and it was nothing more than Kasuga and Nakamura walking forward agonizingly slowly. I don't care how pretty your visuals are or how beautiful the music is when the actual content is so painfully mundane.
Now, I understand the counter-argument to this: the whole point was that is was slow and lengthy, so that both we and the characters could reflect on the actions that they had undertaken and to allow us all to come down from that peak that had been reached. That's exactly right, but they could have achieved the same effect without devoting quite so much time to it. Three minutes, at most, would have been plenty. I just don't feel like they did enough with those six minutes to justify their existence and it started to feel like padding before it was over. After all, if you want to argue that the scene was effective because it went on so long how long is enough? 8 minutes? 12 minutes? 24 minutes? I felt what the director wanted me to feel after a few minutes. A few minutes after that, however, and I just started to get bored. What's worse is that when I arrived at the very satisfying end of the episode I felt like the director had kept those earlier sequences as long as they were just so that enough time had been filled to allow the episode to end right here.
With that put to one side and I can safely say that the rest of the episode was great as usual and I had no other substantial complaints. Hosanna has already deal quite nicely with the symbolism in final scene but there's a few bits and pieces I'd like to mention:
We see Kasuga wash away his sins quite easily as he purifies his body in water but of course this is rather ironic because we know that it isn't that easy. If anything his burden is far heavier than before because of the actions he's taken.
All the scenes between Saki and Kasuga are noticeably awkward. Consider the framing here, with Saki far away from him:
In other words, you can practically tell where things are going to proceed based on the imagery alone because you can see how far apart these two people are. Meanwhile, you can see how intimate this shot with Nakamura is:
Meanwhile, the director demonstrates a real fascinating with extreme close-ups of people's eyes, to allow us to get an extremely powerful impression of what they're feeling:
Kasuga has turned away from what he's done and there's a really strong visual conflict in the image between the rigid, cool concrete and the colourful and organic natural image. It's a split that runs right through the middle of him. I would assume, although I may well be wrong on this, that it
represents the conflict within himself between the part of him that wants to confess and come clean and the part that wishes the entire affair to be hidden and buried
Now, I understand the reasoning behind the extremely slow sequence in this episode. I get it. I've seen the technique used before and I've even defended its usage in works such as Neon Genesis Evangelion. However in this particular case I feel like the director went too far. From the end of the title sequence to the first words of spoken dialogue six minutes of time passed. It's not so much the fact that they went so long without talking, it's rather that they went so long without showing us anything in particular. Hundreds upon hundreds of seconds flew past and yet we only actually had about 11 cuts. One cut in particular lasted one hundred seconds and it was nothing more than Kasuga and Nakamura walking forward agonizingly slowly. I don't care how pretty your visuals are or how beautiful the music is when the actual content is so painfully mundane.
Now, I understand the counter-argument to this: the whole point was that is was slow and lengthy, so that both we and the characters could reflect on the actions that they had undertaken and to allow us all to come down from that peak that had been reached. That's exactly right, but they could have achieved the same effect without devoting quite so much time to it. Three minutes, at most, would have been plenty. I just don't feel like they did enough with those six minutes to justify their existence and it started to feel like padding before it was over. After all, if you want to argue that the scene was effective because it went on so long how long is enough? 8 minutes? 12 minutes? 24 minutes? I felt what the director wanted me to feel after a few minutes. A few minutes after that, however, and I just started to get bored. What's worse is that when I arrived at the very satisfying end of the episode I felt like the director had kept those earlier sequences as long as they were just so that enough time had been filled to allow the episode to end right here.
It was a risky directorial decision - and one that, as you say, was no doubt in part designed to let the episode end on the moment it did. It ran the danger of alienating a large portion of its audience, and obviously did, as it alienated you, though Nagahama clearly doesn't care about that. It that sense, it reminds me of the driving sequence in Tarkovsky's Solaris, which just goes on and on in the depiction of a menial, seemingly meaningless event. And I would say that, if there's a general directing flaw I could attribute to Aku no Hana, it would be the tendency as part of its overall contemplative style to linger a bit too long on certain scenes. (Though at the same time, I respect it for being willing to do so, since it runs against the grain of the Internet culture's high-speed, multitasking, hyperlinked distraction.)
With that said, I think what made this sequence work for me, as opposed to, say, some of the walking during the date sequence in episode 5, is that it created an emotional mood that I wanted to linger in so powerfully. When I was living in Austin, and I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, I would cue up some ambient electronic music on my iPod and take to the deserted streets at nighttime, letting the calm sounds and the atmosphere of a city at rest seep into my soul. It was a meditative, even spiritual experience, and the beginning of this episode captured the essence of that for me. Even deeper than that was the bond between Kasuga and Nakamura that their walking hand-in-hand spoke louder of than words ever could. Unlike so many of the silences in this series, the silences in the final scene of this episode for instance, it was not awkward, it was not tense, it was souls communing in harmony with each other. It spoke of that desire to be together, that having each other by their side was enough for now. When they got to the end and Nakamura turned away towards her home, I felt the reluctance to part from what had just happened. I would have been happy if the sequence had been twice as long, honestly.
But whether something like this is effective or too exaggerated is an intensely subjective determination, of course. As someone who feels music intensely, I will admit that strong music can hold me engaged longer than it would most people.
Edit: After rewatching this sequence for the nth time, I also want to add that one thing I really like about it is how it conveys the sense of night transitioning into morning, as the sky gets gradually lighter and lighter during the walk. Eventually the chirping of birds can begin to be heard, and afterwards the sound of their footsteps fades in. It's an accurate representation of the experience of dawn, eschewing the sunrise cliche.
Your framing analysis is excellent and thoughtful, as always. One comment:
There's a couple of other great Saeki close up's as well, especially this one:
which is only worth noting because Saeki has a very expressive face and is often smiling, something which clearly isn't happening here.
This shot is also noteworthy for how it cuts off half of Saeki's face. When you divide the frame like that, especially with all the empty space on the left side, you speak of someone who is psychologically disordered, who is not whole inside. Compare it to the earlier image you posted:
Where she appears in her entirety and centered in the frame, happy and psychologically whole. The contrast between the two shots, before and after her discovery of the classroom, shows how much her usual serenity has been thrown into turmoil. The camera breaks her apart just as she has been broken inside.
Kasuga has turned away from what he's done and there's a really strong visual conflict in the image between the rigid, cool concrete and the colourful and organic natural image. It's a split that runs right through the middle of him. I would assume, although I may well be wrong on this, that it
represents the conflict within himself between the part of him that wants to confess and come clean and the part that wishes the entire affair to be hidden and buried
Saeki and Nakamura symbolize for Kasuga two directions he can choose to go in. He can confess everything to Saeki, have an open and frank conversation with her about his feelings, and live a healthy life with her in the light. Or he can continue to run away and hide from himself and his actions and instead run into the cruel comfort Nakamura offers, confirming everything about himself that he loathes but affirming that it is not something to be loathed, living a perverted life with her in the darkness. Those are the two options that he has been caught between the entire series. He's been trying to leave both of them open, but now things have reached the point where that is becoming impossible and he must make a choice before it is made for him.
It was a risky directorial decision - and one that, as you say, was no doubt in part designed to let the episode end on the moment it did. It ran the danger of alienating a large portion of its audience, and obviously did, as it alienated you, though Nagahama clearly doesn't care about that. It that sense, it reminds me of the driving sequence in Tarkovsky's Solaris, which just goes on and on in the depiction of a menial, seemingly meaningless event. And I would say that, if there's a general directing flaw I could attribute to Aku no Hana, it would be the tendency as part of its overall contemplative style to linger a bit too long on certain scenes. (Though at the same time, I respect it for being willing to do so, since it runs against the grain of the Internet culture's high-speed, multitasking, hyperlinked distraction.)
While I know that you are probably well aware of this I thought it would be relevant to this discussion to point out that Aku no Hana doesn't just go against the grain of internet culture, but modern film making in general when it comes to shot length. Consider the average length of a shot in a movie today, which is about 4 - 6 seconds. Many shots in Aku no Hana are noticeably longer than that.
Of course, film editing has gotten faster over time. The average length of a shot in a movie used to be 8 - 11 seconds. Source.
This shot is also noteworthy for how it cuts off half of Saeki's face. When you divide the frame like that, especially with all the empty space on the left side, you speak of someone who is psychologically disordered, who is not whole inside. Compare it to the earlier image you posted:
You're absolutely spot on with that analysis. In further support of your argument there's actually a shot a few seconds before the half-face one where we see Saki's full face, then we cut to the half-face one to emphasise your point.
Wow. What an episode. I don't know where to begin, so let's start with how I felt about it. I was bored to tears, and it really tried my patience. Yet throughout the whole thing, I was filled with a deep sense of appreciation that the director had the balls to go all the way with it. The feelings and emotions imparted through the exaggerated slow pace of just showing two people walking without dialogue set to an equally slow and evocative background track. For 6 whole minutes. Amazing.
It perfectly captured the sense of a dazed hangover, with two people coming to terms in their own way with having finally pulled off something insane and unimaginable. Yet it's just so hard to watch. That part is probably intentional too. It's the biggest fuck-you to mainstream audiences I can think of. It was still fucking boring though!
The slow pace doesn't just stop there, it continues throughout the episode, capturing Kasuga's dream-like state as he dazes through the events during the day, and the episode ends just as something actually meaningful and interesting happens. Considering how the previous episode concluded, it takes some serious balls to spend an entire episode on the hangover state of the cliffhanger, instead of actually letting the consequence play out immediately. It's more realistic, and it lets the emotions all soak in, but it sure doesn't do the dramatization any favors. Really bold choice here.
I liked the slow nature of episode 8, it really lets the magnitude of what happened in ep7 sink in. Good follow up on an amazing episode. Let's see what ep9 brings.
While I know that you are probably well aware of this I thought it would be relevant to this discussion to point out that Aku no Hana doesn't just go against the grain of internet culture, but modern film making in general when it comes to shot length. Consider the average length of a shot in a movie today, which is about 4 - 6 seconds. Many shots in Aku no Hana are noticeably longer than that.
Of course, film editing has gotten faster over time. The average length of a shot in a movie used to be 8 - 11 seconds. Source.
Yeah, by Internet culture I also had in my mind the frenzied nature of film making encapsulated by contemporary Hollywood blockbusters, the rapid cuts, the shaky cam, the never stopping to let you take a breath or think about what's happening. It's all part of a general deterioration of attention spans and focus whose greatest example is perhaps the constant fiddling with smartphones that I am guilty of as well. (It's interesting to note that smartphones, as well as computers and the Internet, are absent from Aku no Hana.)
I've been watching a fair deal of older films lately, and it brings home just how much things have changed. Yesterday I watched The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and that was a very deliberately paced film, filled with lingering close-ups. The first words of dialogue don't occur until several minutes in the film. The final shootout is stretched out to a nearly unbearable degree of tension before they actually shoot. If it had been filmed today, the pacing would have been a lot tighter, and its weight would have been undercut as a result.
Most directors, when faced with the material of Aku no Hana, would have treated it as a wild rollercoaster of twists and turns, running from one flashpoint to the next, filled with campy melodrama. It would have been more "entertaining" in the conventional sense, and so accessible to a much wider audience. I am personally happy that Nagahama did not go in that direction, since the show that would have been would not have lingering in my memory as much as the show that actually exists does.
Wow. What an episode. I don't know where to begin, so let's start with how I felt about it. I was bored to tears, and it really tried my patience. Yet throughout the whole thing, I was filled with a deep sense of appreciation that the director had the balls to go all the way with it. The feelings and emotions imparted through the exaggerated slow pace of just showing two people walking without dialogue set to an equally slow and evocative background track. For 6 whole minutes. Amazing.
It perfectly captured the sense of a dazed hangover, with two people coming to terms in their own way with having finally pulled off something insane and unimaginable. Yet it's just so hard to watch. That part is probably intentional too. It's the biggest fuck-you to mainstream audiences I can think of. It was still fucking boring though!
The slow pace doesn't just stop there, it continues throughout the episode, capturing Kasuga's dream-like state as he dazes through the events during the day, and the episode ends just as something actually meaningful and interesting happens. Considering how the previous episode concluded, it takes some serious balls to spend an entire episode on the hangover state of the cliffhanger, instead of actually letting the consequence play out immediately. It's more realistic, and it lets the emotions all soak in, but it sure doesn't do the dramatization any favors. Really bold choice here.
Wow. What an episode. I don't know where to begin, so let's start with how I felt about it. I was bored to tears, and it really tried my patience. Yet throughout the whole thing, I was filled with a deep sense of appreciation that the director had the balls to go all the way with it. The feelings and emotions imparted through the exaggerated slow pace of just showing two people walking without dialogue set to an equally slow and evocative background track. For 6 whole minutes. Amazing.
It perfectly captured the sense of a dazed hangover, with two people coming to terms in their own way with having finally pulled off something insane and unimaginable. Yet it's just so hard to watch. That part is probably intentional too. It's the biggest fuck-you to mainstream audiences I can think of. It was still fucking boring though!
The slow pace doesn't just stop there, it continues throughout the episode, capturing Kasuga's dream-like state as he dazes through the events during the day, and the episode ends just as something actually meaningful and interesting happens. Considering how the previous episode concluded, it takes some serious balls to spend an entire episode on the hangover state of the cliffhanger, instead of actually letting the consequence play out immediately. It's more realistic, and it lets the emotions all soak in, but it sure doesn't do the dramatization any favors. Really bold choice here.
Yeah, it's the antithesis of the typical ADHD driven consumer content, where if something isn't happening NOW then it's boring. I saw a lot of people on one particular website having a field day with that opening segment because 'nothing' was happening. I personally loved how the creator just doesn't give a fuck :lol It's not designed to appease mainstream audiences so with that in mind, the director is free to do what he likes.
For me personally, I feel that the scene would have been equally as effective if it had only the shot of them slowly walking over the bridge, hand in hand.
well I watched the first episode a few days ago, I din't mind the style and I actually liked it in some escenes but man, this episode dragged to much, the pacing was horrible and it bored me to sleep, does it gets better or something? or should I read the manga?
edit: just read the post above me, I guess it doesn't improve the pacing haha
well I watched the first episode a few days ago, I din't mind the style and I actually liked it in some escenes but man, this episode dragged to much, the pacing was horrible and it bored me to sleep, does it gets better or something? or should I read the manga?
edit: just read the post above me, I guess it doesn't improve the pacing haha
The pacing really fits with the series though. I stuck with it and love this series. Too bad I'm in the minority with this show. A lot of people online (not in this thread) dropped it and think it sucks.
