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[Admiral Woofington]

speaking of sports anime... I remember watching a few episodes of a show yeeeears ago, it was about some kids fighting with RC cars in a tournament,I don't remember what it was called, anyone?

believe it or not I was going to ask the same thing here recently.

Assuming we're thinking of the same show. The one where he gets transported into a magical fantasy world where people give a shit about RC car racing? And his rc car has a personality and talks back to him?

 

[Pooya]

believe it or not I was going to ask the same thing here recently.

Assuming we're thinking of the same show. The one where he gets transported into a magical fantasy world where people give a shit about RC car racing? And his rc car has a personality and talks back to him?

no, nothing like that. It was 'normal' world, the artstyle/character designs looked like well normal/usual stuff (to say nothing uniquely stylized).

Pretty sure all the RC fights were in some kinda of arena (think like Robocup soccer tournaments) and it was all CGI.

 

[BluWacky]

speaking of sports anime... I remember watching a few episodes of a show yeeeears ago, it was about some kids fighting with RC cars in a tournament,I don't remember what it was called, anyone?

It's probably Bakuso Kyoudai Let's and Go in one of its various incarnations?

Oh, wait, if they're fighting then it probably isn't, particularly if you're saying there was all CG. Hmmm...

 

[Narag]

For those of you interested in learning more about the visual language of film there's been a pretty good series of articles to ease you into the topic over a the A.V. Club called Internet Film School. You'll want to start at the bottom and work your way up. Be warned that there's kind of fairly minor spoilers for each work discussed but how much that bothers you is a personal question.

If you want to look at the no-frills approach to the same topic you can just read through this website here http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/index.htm which is a lot more academic and far less chatty.

Thanks. Been hoping something like this would come up and I kept forgetting to ask.

 

[Defuser]

Where's my eSports anime.

not the daigo one

SAO season 2

 

[FelixOrion]

Engaged to the Unidentified 1

This was actually...pretty fun. I think I'm gonna get a kick out of this show. Interesting setting, a crazy but enjoyable cast, and it's animated pretty damn well too, I have to admit.

I can see how this might've got popular last season.

 

[Joe Molotov]

Sounds like you wouldn't enjoy Ghost Dad.

When I was a kid, my parents took me to the theater to see Back to the Future III, but it had left the theater the day before, and we had to see Ghost Dad instead.

No regrets.

 

[Pooya]

It's probably Bakuso Kyoudai Let's and Go in one of its various incarnations?

don't think so. FWIW, the RC cars didn't look like cars. they actually had drills, weapons and stuff.

 

[BluWacky]

don't think so. FWIW, the RC cars didn't look like cars. they actually had drills, weapons and stuff.

A ha! Sounds like it's the Crush Gear franchise, then? That has CG arena battles and the cars have weapons etc.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Dragon Collection Episode 2

The summoning portions are still the most interesting parts because of how its is animated and the tiny parts of it like Hiro's grimoire turning pages, little light flash and more.

Love Shin, perfect partner to have in this fight against the Nidhogg.

 

[DiGiKerot]

Love Live's is still dead last. Janky and the constant switching between 2D and 3D during performances still looks like crap.

Aikatsu's CG has gotten significantly better, but the faces aren't as expressive as Precure's and in some performances the characters' mouths don't even move. They're still really good in terms of realistically emulating the look of 2D animation in anime style.

This is basically what Aikatsu is capable of currently.

Whilst it's nowhere near the bonkers choreography of KiraPataShining, I actually find performances like that in the most recent episode of Aikatsu weirdly more impressive -

Spoiler

I'm genuinely impressed that they went to the effort of animating Akari/2P Ichigo as dancing off-time in comparison to Ichigo for the entire performance, not to mention that her dancing just looks comparatively half-arsed anyway

.

As for Love Live, I think the fact that they have to at least attempt to match the CGs frame rate to that of the 2D cuts, in order to make it not be even more absurdly jarring against the 2D cuts, does it absolutely no favours. I'd bet the same routines would look way more convincing were they rendered out in 60fps or whatever rather than on the 2s, as it were.

Its Visual novel complany mascot (Nitro+] I think.

Bingo, though there is an idol production-themed 3DS game starring Sonico on the horizon, I do believe.

 

[BGBW]

If we're talking presence, there's no beating Hello Kitty...

Yeah, but when I was in Fukouka and Kumamoto it made sense to see him everywhere. But he followed me throughout the rest of Japan. It was quite unsettling.

Also I wish I was a fan of One Piece. If I was I could have bought a phone strap dingle dangle from almost every tourist attraction I went to.

 

[MikeHattsu]

Yeah, but when I was in Fukouka and Kumamoto it made sense to see him everywhere. But he followed me throughout the rest of Japan. It was quite unsettling.

Also I wish I was a fan of One Piece. If I was I could have bought a phone strap dingle dangle from almost every tourist attraction I went to.

Haha, yeah. One Piece is almost in as many places as Hello Kitty and Disney stuff.

 

[Kurita]

I hope you guys are not dissing Kumamon because he'll wreck you.

 

[Pooya]

A ha! Sounds like it's the Crush Gear franchise, then? That has CG arena battles and the cars have weapons etc.

Looks like it, thank you.

I think it was Turbo, gotta watch a bit to remember.

 

[fertygo]

Kara no Kyoukai : Mirai Fukuin

This is no doubt the 2nd best movie in the series after the 5th one. The directing are great and on-point, they did very good job putting the story that essentially split by three short stories into one package, I'm very impressed by it. Tomonari Sudou show very promising talent at directorial work with this despite, he usually more passive role such as character design and providing key animation. The first hour is particularly impressive with interchanging between two different scenario and the pacing felt pretty seamless despite that, there's only few minor blip that didn't sit right to me such as there one scene that feel like they lied and faked a bit a scene to taking advantage of the non-linear narrative to make the scenario that actually didn't happen to trick the audience and later we find out the scene doesn't play out exactly that way, its feel rather cheap and I think they can do so much better than pull such a trick. Aside that I really enjoy the directing that feel pretty modern and elegant.

Still in subject of Tomonari Sudou, I see him also listed at character design department I do notice there's quite big of different for chara design in here than the other movies.

Its sharper and closer to Takeuchi's design and also more expressive, its made me happy because Sudou gonna handle the chara design for new F/SN anime too and you can see the similarities between these design and the promo art for the new F/SN, the only slight that I had is the neck that look really weird and too small in various occassion, their previous look for TYPE-MOON adaptation didn't have this lol.

Also for the visual, I feel this is the best try for the lighting that they want to apply for the series, its not looked too dark for the black tone, and the "burn out" aspect for the daylight looked nicer in here than in other entry.

Maybe big part of it because this is the first movie that truly mastered in high definition though.

Back to the movie, like the more latter entry of this series, its very clear the production team is very confident in what atmosphere that they want to take in adapting this series, the first few movie are trapped in deciding are they want focusing the horror element or not and its looked very awkward in doing that, some part looked pretty uneven with the rest. The team looked more confidence in latter movies in term what direction that they want to take for atmosphere of this series. This movie also showing that, although the big part of it maybe because the source of material demanding it. The atmosphere and tone felt moody, with the supernatural feel giving mysterious and pleasant feel and not overpowering you. Its pretty relaxing.

As for the story, like I said before its a pack of three short stories, with the first two showed back and forth and the latter, out the first two one of it is the typical "procedural" type that the series already done it some time before and the other is more like personal story of one character that showed in the movie, and one act as epilogue later. All of them have same theme and really, the presentation of these stories as one package really make it shine, with offering contrast for them and later ended up with their different conclusion but still tied up thematically, I think its once again kudos to Ufotable with this stellar presentation. For the writing itself its thing like this that made me really like Nasu's work for Kara no Kyoukai, with he trying writing smaller stories and more grounded approach yet still have some strong idea for known subject, this movie had some of it too.. the categorization of two type at future-seeing abilities is really fascinating to hear.

Nasu always had these strong and unique subject at every of his work, but its very clear he also always had trouble for articulating his idea with clear and not indulged and spinning around at one subject, his prose also hard to understand. Its always nice to see someone succeeded corrected those flaw and articulating his interesting idea better like this movie better and few other occasion, its always stood out for me as the ideal form that I want to see in Chuunibyou material. When these crazy and interesting japanese nerd idea spelled out with clear and not became self-indulgent mess. I really appreciate what Ufotable and Nasu pull for Kara no Kyoukai, although admitedly there's part that worse than others and uneven in term of quality, but the high point like this movie pull really satisfied me. Good Chuunibyou always had place in my heart despite most of the time normal standard not applied for them.

For the last note, OST for this movie had some of best track in the entire series with more moody and melodic approach than the other movie use, also Alleluia hand down is the best Kalafina song that they use as ED for this, godly song.

 

[BGBW]

I hope you guys are not dissing Kumamon because he'll wreck you.

That's why I was afraid of the fact he followed me throughout Japan. Luckily I escaped with my life intact.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Oreca Battle Episode 2

Battle animations and style could use some work but it was a fairly fun and intriguing one against the dragon. Orega Fire is one lucky dude thus far.

Curious which one of the characters has the darkness coming from them.

 

[fertygo]

It's probably Bakuso Kyoudai Let's and Go in one of its various incarnations?

Oh, wait, if they're fighting then it probably isn't, particularly if you're saying there was all CG. Hmmm...

I think its this one


Crush Gear Turbo

With the toys played with ram to each other and not racing.

 

[Jex]

So... uh... what's Super Sonico

Breasts that wear headphones.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

Hero Bank Episode 2

Sniping Sweeper v Enter the Gold was a hilarious fight especially with Nagare's cleaning techniques, that dust tackle especially. Thinking he will eventually give into a dark power of sorts, which is pretty fitting considering the continuing phibrain parallels taking place for Nagera/Kaito. lol

The ending is too soothing, really one of the best songs this season and I like its style.

 

[R_thanatos]

Amazeballs ep 2
.

I understood that reference

Tonari no Seki-kun 15

The love and tribulations of Goto's fantasies.

I just how

Spoiler

she pulled herself back with her own hair

several times

Useless meat

There is only ONE "useless meat" and it's not super sonico

 

[cajunator]

Engaged to the Unidentified 1

This was actually...pretty fun. I think I'm gonna get a kick out of this show. Interesting setting, a crazy but enjoyable cast, and it's animated pretty damn well too, I have to admit.

I can see how this might've got popular last season.

This was one of the most beloved shows last season. Mashiro is so adorable its ridiculous.

I understood that reference


I just how

Spoiler

she pulled herself back with her own hair

several times


There is only ONE "useless meat" and it's not super sonico

Well it definitely isnt Sena so Im not sure who you could be referring to.

 

[Theonik]

The QT-tars are spreading.

But who is me and who is the chamelonean.

They peaked here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5_hpzykMA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v53SdslmeS8

The related videos linked me this and I now want one. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE.

WIIIIIINGS OF MY HEART

It's screaming "I'm from the 90's!" at me, but it's doing it IN ONE MONOTONE VOICE AAAAHH SOMEONE SAVE ME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSzsvk4pdfo

Yes. Super Sonico life everywhere.

Those DFC mousepads lol

 

[OceanBlue]

Reading through some of the links Jexhius posted motivated me to try watching something again, but with the intent of understanding what kind of message the framing and imagery might have tried to convey. Keep in mind that I'm going into this with the intent of overanalyzing (because how else will you learn?), so if some things seem like a stretch, it's on purpose . I'm not very astute, but let's see how this goes...

Edit: Sorry for the huge post. I'll condense it when I have time.

Actually, I'll just put it here:
http://pastebin.com/jexvM0tN

Post preview it if you want to read it.

 

[Black Hat]

Well it definitely isnt Sena so Im not sure who you could be referring to.

u wot m8?

 

[R_thanatos]

Well it definitely isnt Sena so Im not sure who you could be referring to.

YOu should read the maoyuu mou yuusha manga

Edit : what the heck OceanBlue, that's way too many pictures ....

 

[duckroll]

I don't want to be an ass, but I think there's a difference between using images as visual examples for a point you are addressing, and basically summarizing the entire episode in embedded images complete with subtitles which spoil all the story beats. It comes off as incredibly obnoxious especially to people who might not have seen the episode next and don't care to see the entire episode on display like that. Please.

 

[OceanBlue]

YOu should read the maoyuu mou yuusha manga

Edit : what the heck OceanBlue, that's way too many pictures ....

Well, I was doing a visual analysis, and I figured it'd be easiest to show by using pictures. I feel bad that it's so long, but not bad enough that I'll scrap my post.

Also I agree with the MMY manga suggestion! It's so good, and the art is so much better than the anime.

I don't want to be an ass, but I think there's a difference between using images as visual examples for a point you are addressing, and basically summarizing the entire episode in embedded images complete with subtitles which spoil all the story beats. It comes off as incredibly obnoxious especially to people who might not have seen the episode next and don't care to see the entire episode on display like that. Please.

Nah, I see your point. It was definitely something I worried about, but I had already spent so much time on it that I didn't want to get rid of it. I don't have the time to reduce it right now (I already spent way too much time on the post lol), so I'll just take it down until I have time to edit it down.

 

[BluWacky]

Ginko and the Village

Something else that struck me as peculiar was how Ginko was framed with everyone else. I'll talk about how the show frames characters more later, but something this episode (and I'm sure Mushishi as a whole) does a lot is include or preclude people in the frame to show their emotional states. Ginko in particular, though, almost never appears in the same frame as another person, and if he does, it's usually as an outsider.

This probably doesn't surprise anyone, since Ginko is an outside force, almost like the mushi. It was just interesting to me how reinforced it was through the composition. Who knows whether it's due to what I'm postulating, anime constraints, the director's preference, or any combination of these lol. Anyway, the idea of framing to establish a character's relationship to another's leads to the meat of this post.

This is something that cropped up in the first episode a lot as well - Ginko is often framed in odd places, or out of focus. He's the ultimate outsider in every plot in the show, of course!

Emotional Distance

If anything in this post leads you to say, "This is probably a stretch," it'll be this, because it all comes down to whether you believe scenes were framed this way for this explicit reason or because of some other reason. The facial close-ups are pretty dramatic! They also reduce the need to draw extra details, which is always important in anime lol. Anyway...

Forgive me for cutting the rest of your analysis out for space reasons. I think your analysis seems very sound and picks up on a lot of things that I would probably not consciously think about while watching, so thank you!

I haven't actually watched this episode yet (I know you said not to read the post until you had, but... temptation...) but I'll definitely be keeping all of this in mind as I do watch - thank you!

 

[cajunator]

YOu should read the maoyuu mou yuusha manga

Edit : what the heck OceanBlue, that's way too many pictures ....

I dont read manga really but I liked MMY anime.

 

[duckroll]

Nah, I see your point. It was definitely something I worried about, but I had already spent so much time on it that I didn't want to get rid of it. I don't have the time to reduce it right now (I already spent way too much time on the post lol), so I'll just take it down until I have time to edit it down.

I don't think you need to condense the text so much as use some discretion with the images you select to represent your point. There's good stuff there, but it would be far more effective with just one or two good images to convey each point. Have more confidence in your expression and analysis, and remember that the main audience reading it would be people who have also seen the episode and are looking for additional insight, so there isn't a need to over illustrate, and that also in terms makes it less of an eye sore for those who haven't seen it yet and don't want to be overwhelmed by images.

 

[OceanBlue]

I don't think you need to condense the text so much as use some discretion with the images you select to represent your point. There's good stuff there, but it would be far more effective with just one or two good images to convey each point. Have more confidence in your expression and analysis, and remember that the main audience reading it would be people who have also seen the episode and are looking for additional insight, so there isn't a need to over illustrate, and that also in terms makes it less of an eye sore for those who haven't seen it yet and don't want to be overwhelmed by images.

Haha, I just got too excited because I was getting too invested in the characters as I was making the post, so I wanted to talk about each and every little thing. I put it in a pastebin so it won't be obnoxious to browse the thread. I use MobileGAF so I understand the struggle, especially with huge GIFs lol. Thanks for the tips!

 

[gashikunFLCL]

But who watches anime sports for the sport?

Even after all manga/anime I've seen about baseball I don't know what's a RBI.

 

[R_thanatos]

Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem

Sometimes you have stuff in front of you and you just say " why not ?".

I had already seen bits of this in my time ( on tv ) but i realised that i had never seen all the pieces together to see the story properly.
And since i like daft punk , this was one of the few keywords i inputed on Vidzone in my PS4.

I think it was cool to finally see just how every thing ties in together. I had listenned to the album "Discovery" several times before but seeing the thing animated gave it another context and i loved it.
Actually i think it changes the context of many song , especially "harderfasterstronger".

I looked it up , this was released in 2003 and it was made by toei animation ? It has that kind of old school animation that made me crack a smile.
Not going to spoil the plot , most of you already knows about it ,and for those who don't just go watch it ...

"Earl de Darkwood" is a funny name for a bad guy.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

So... uh... what's Super Sonico

I'm four episodes into Super Sonico right now and I still don't know what it is.

 

[R_thanatos]

I dont read manga really but I liked MMY anime.

i think the point is still present in the anime even if some translations missed it.

Spoiler

She say it more in the manga

Case in point :

You make me realise that i need to see what the author wrote recently in this franchise.

 

[Quasar]

Railgun and all the index spin-off are only there to expand the index world , nothing else . The sister arc was a mandatory passage but it should be the only arc in that sense with railgun ( ever ) The rest is much more original stuff
and much more misaka focused ...
I mean the sister arc in index S2 was fine when misaka was the main character , problem in that arc ( in the railgun context ) is that the main heroine didn't do shit for the finale...
Thankfully we'll have the daihaiseisai to look forward to from misaka perspective if they plan to make a railgun S3..

As long as we get more Saten I'll be happy.

I didn't have a major problem with S2 given what they had to work with. Though it did feel jarring to me, their failure to integrate the sisters arc into the show. It was like two separate shows aired together. But again given the material they couldn't have say the whole railgun crew involved simply because they didn't even appear in the original version of the story.

 

[cajunator]

Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem

Sometimes you have stuff in front of you and you just say " why not ?".

I had already seen bits of this in my time ( on tv ) but i realised that i had never seen all the pieces together to see the story properly.
And since i like daft punk , this was one of the few keywords i inputed on Vidzone in my PS4.

I think it was cool to finally see just how every thing ties in together. I had listenned to the album "Discovery" several times before but seeing the thing animated gave it another context and i loved it.
Actually i think it changes the context of many song , especially "harderfasterstronger".

I looked it up , this was released in 2003 and it was made by toei animation ? It has that kind of old school animation that made me crack a smile.
Not going to spoil the plot , most of you already knows about it ,and for those who don't just go watch it ...

"Earl de Darkwood" is a funny name for a bad guy.

I love the hell out of this. finally scored a DVD copy of it about a year ago. I hear the bluray isnt worth it. Its a great example of Leiji Matsumoto's trademark character designs.

i think the point is still present in the anime even if some translations missed it.

Spoiler

She say it more in the manga

Case in point :


You make me realise that i need to see what the author wrote recently in this franchise.

Ah I understand now. But Ive only heard "useless meat" referred to Sena from Haganai (which I disagree with)

 

[OceanBlue]

This is something that cropped up in the first episode a lot as well - Ginko is often framed in odd places, or out of focus. He's the ultimate outsider in every plot in the show, of course!

Forgive me for cutting the rest of your analysis out for space reasons. I think your analysis seems very sound and picks up on a lot of things that I would probably not consciously think about while watching, so thank you!

I haven't actually watched this episode yet (I know you said not to read the post until you had, but... temptation...) but I'll definitely be keeping all of this in mind as I do watch - thank you!

Yeah, I didn't notice the thing about Ginko until now. It didn't occur to me why Ginko always felt like separated from the conclusion to most episodes.

Lol I feel bad because I basically dumped the entire episode out. I hope you still manage to enjoy it because it's really good. I personally didn't notice any of that when I watched it the first time. I don't usually think about shows in terms of its editing, which is probably why it took so long to do it now, but I think if I continue to consciously do this then it'll extend to my regular watching as well.

 

[fertygo]

But who watches anime sports for the sport?

Even after all manga/anime I've seen about baseball I don't know what's a RBI.

I will not expect high school sport mentioning PER or +/- or other advanced metric anyway especially with region isn't in muricah, do they even counting stat and stuff?

 

[R_thanatos]

As long as we get more Saten I'll be happy.

Well don't count on it unless fillers ... can i offer you a quintuple dose of "misaka" instead ?
Or maybe a bit of "mental out" ?

I didn't have a major problem with S2 given what they had to work with. Though it did feel jarring to me, their failure to integrate the sisters arc into the show. It was like two separate shows aired together. But again given the material they couldn't have say the whole railgun crew involved simply because they didn't even appear in the original version of the story.

That's pretty much it.But the good thing is that now Everyone can be involved in the story ... This was pretty much the only time railgun was forced to change their main cast.
Touma will still be a character in railgun however , for better or worse

I love the hell out of this. finally scored a DVD copy of it about a year ago. I hear the bluray isnt worth it. Its a great example of Leiji Matsumoto's trademark character designs.

Yeah those characters designs are lost now, Nobody use them anymore. This give it a old school feelign that i trully enjoyed.

Ah I understand now. But Ive only heard "useless meat" referred to Sena from Haganai (which I disagree with)

Useless meat is used toward anyone who has large "assets" , but for me there is only one demon queen worthy of the title.

 

[astrogamer]

Escha & Logy 1
The world seems interesting as are some of the characters like Clone.

 

[Jex]

Reading through some of the links Jexhius posted motivated me to try watching something again, but with the intent of understanding what kind of message the framing and imagery might have tried to convey. Keep in mind that I'm going into this with the intent of overanalyzing (because how else will you learn?), so if some things seem like a stretch, it's on purpose . I'm not very astute, but let's see how this goes...

Edit: Sorry for the huge post. I'll condense it when I have time.

Actually, I'll just put it here:
http://pastebin.com/jexvM0tN

Post preview it if you want to read it.

I don't really think this needs to be edited down too much as it is, except for posting in an actual thread because obviously it contains basically a summary of the entire episode. Which isn't really a problem form an analysis point of view. It's just a shame that GAF doesn't have an option to spoiler whole elements of posts (pictures included).

As for the analysis itself, everything looks to be pretty much on point. I was actually planning to do a write up on this episode with a similar focus but you've pretty much covered all the major points re: framing and the episode itself was clearly about outsiders/the group as well 'distance' (in the emotional sense). As you can see, the visual storytelling in the episode is very clear in terms of the way the frames tell the story.

There's just a couple of points I can add:

- In the scene with the Fishing Chief and his daughter even though they share the same frame they're being shot in long-shot suggesting an emotional distance so even though they both share the same frame here:

There's still a distance between them, especially on this sensitive matter which the Chief obviously doesn't want to discuss in detail with his daughter. In fact, as soon as the matter is brought up with the Chief they start to occupy different frames:

Also note how both characters are off centre in their frames suggesting a lack of stability around the issue. It's also important to point out that he's framed in black, and she's framed in white. There on literally two different sides of the issues. Of course, the visuals tell us that this daughter and father show a slightly better relationship than the other father/daughter relationship in the piece but it's still a strained one.

Another thing in this set of frames, and throughout the episode as you screen caps show, there's lots of instances of characters looking down/away from each other and their eyelines don't match. They aren't seeing eye to eye, literally until:

This is easier to show with eye-lazers!

Characters not seeing eye to eye:

compared to:

Also, you brought up the symbolism of the seashells, and correctly noted that they were important, but you didn't really dig any deeper. All the mushi that reside in the seashells are distinctly isolated from another by the shells themselves. They're separate. Then,

Spoiler

at the end of the episode when the village is reunited with the family on the cliff, you see all the mushi take flight together as a flock, they're no longer isolated from one another.

So yeah, pretty good work for a first attempt. Well done!

 

[Theonik]

Fundam Build Fighters 08
And so another challenger appears. A hint of Nafe.

Gundam Build Fighters 09

💗

Bear Guy is the cutest thing. Also I think I found the best GBF side girl Why are you trying to kill me show?!

Gundam Build Fighters 10

Yo. DAMN.

 

[OceanBlue]

I don't really think this needs to be edited down too much as it is, except for posting in an actual thread because obviously it contains basically a summary of the entire episode. Which isn't really a problem form an analysis point of view. It's just a shame that GAF doesn't have an option to spoiler whole elements of posts (pictures included).

As for the analysis itself, everything looks to be pretty much on point. I was actually planning to do a write up on this episode with a similar focus but you've pretty much covered all the major points re: framing and the episode itself was clearly about outsiders/the group as well 'distance' (in the emotional sense). As you can see, the visual storytelling in the episode is very clear in terms of the way the frames tell the story.

There's just a couple of points I can add:

- In the scene with the Fishing Chief and his daughter even though they share the same frame they're being shot in long-shot suggesting an emotional distance so even though they both share the same frame here:

There's still a distance between them, especially on this sensitive matter which the Chief obviously doesn't want to discuss in detail with his daughter. In fact, as soon as the matter is brought up with the Chief they start to occupy different frames:

Also note how both characters are off centre in their frames suggesting a lack of stability around the issue. Of course, the visuals tell us that this daughter and father show a better relationship than the other father/daughter relationship in the piece but it's still a strained one.

Another thing in this set of frames, and throughout the episode as you screen caps show, there's lots of instances of characters looking down/away from each other and their eyelines don't match. They aren't seeing eye to eye, literally until:

Also, you brought up the symbolism of the seashells, and correctly noted that they were important, but you didn't really dig any deeper. All the mushi that reside in the seashells are distinctly isolated from another by the shells themselves. They're separate. Then,

Spoiler

at the end of the episode when the village is reunited with the family on the cliff, you see all the mushi take flight together as a flock, they're no longer isolated from one another.

So yeah, pretty good work for a first attempt. Well done!

Wow, the seashells thing never even occurred to me! It sounds so obvious in hindsight, but I feel like my lack of literary experience and exposure to metaphors has been exposed lol.

The long shot in the example with the chief bothered me, but I couldn't figure out a reason why and just kinda shrugged it off. Same with the line of sight thing. People's lines of sight are something that was really heavily emphasized in the articles you linked, but I guess I didn't fully consider the importance of them as a visual device. The concept isn't really intuitive for me since I'm used to (high-school) literary analysis, but it seems like something that's really important to pay attention to.

Overall, it was a surprisingly fun mental exercise. It took a lot of time, but I feel a lot more invested into the episode and the emotions feel a lot stronger to me. It's definitely something people need to try at least once. Thanks for posting those links in the thread, and thanks for pointing out things in my analysis! Honestly, when I started I didn't think I would have too much to analyze because I was looking down on anime, but I'm glad to be wrong. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Basileus777]

Maison Ikkoku 38

This just makes me feel bad for Kozue. Godai has been stringing her along for what, over a year now? It's one thing to be indecisive, it's another to make someone else falsely believe that you're in a real relationship with them. The show wants to be sympathetic to Godai, but he can be a pretty awful person.

 

[amishpriest99]

Overall, it was a surprisingly fun mental exercise. It took a lot of time, but I feel a lot more invested into the episode and the emotions feel a lot stronger to me. It's definitely something people need to try at least once. Thanks for posting those links in the thread, and thanks for pointing out things in my analysis! It was a lot of fun.

I should really try this...I just have such a hard time articulating my points and tend to get self conscious about it. I certainly do like reading a well thought out analysis such as yours.

 

[Jex]

Wow, the seashells thing never even occurred to me! It sounds so obvious in hindsight, but I feel like my lack of literary experience and exposure to metaphors has been exposed lol.

The long shot in the example with the chief bothered me, but I couldn't figure out a reason why and just kinda shrugged it off. Same with the line of sight thing. People's lines of sight are something that was really heavily emphasized in the articles you linked, but I guess I didn't fully consider the importance of them as a visual device. The concept isn't really intuitive for me since I'm used to (high-school) literary analysis, but it seems like something that's really important to pay attention to.

Overall, it was a surprisingly fun mental exercise. It took a lot of time, but I feel a lot more invested into the episode and the emotions feel a lot stronger to me. It's definitely something people need to try at least once. Thanks for posting those links in the thread, and thanks for pointing out things in my analysis! Honestly, when I started I didn't think I would have too much to analyze because I was looking down on anime, but I'm glad to be wrong. It was a lot of fun.

No problem. It does take a while to do at first because you're not used to doing it. But now you have the analytical tools to do so you can apply them to whatever you happen to be watching, or even playing as games make use of this stuff a lot as well.

Of course, in a way you're right down to look down on anime because a lot it is made in a very workman like and route fashion. Mushi-Shi, however, is not!

 

[Jarmel]

Another thing in this set of frames, and throughout the episode as you screen caps show, there's lots of instances of characters looking down/away from each other and their eyelines don't match. They aren't seeing eye to eye, literally until:

This is easier to show with eye-lazers![/SPOILER]

I would say that's more indicative of the Chief's guilt rather than a POV thing. The Chief knows he's at fault for the entire situation and so looks down as a way of not facing up to the other parties.

Also, you brought up the symbolism of the seashells, and correctly noted that they were important, but you didn't really dig any deeper. All the mushi that reside in the seashells are distinctly isolated from another by the shells themselves. They're separate. Then,

Spoiler

at the end of the episode when the village is reunited with the family on the cliff, you see all the mushi take flight together as a flock, they're no longer isolated from one another.

Spoiler

The mushi aren't really separated though as they connect with that warning song. I guess they're supposed to be analogous/an ideal to Sakichi in that while he's isolated, he's still part of a community and can still help. The mushishi

Spoiler

took away the daughter's ability to speak, similar to how Sakichi silenced her by restricting her movement and freedom

.