2016-12-20
Bubuki Buranki shows that CG anime has a bright future
Let me admit something that I didn't really say at the time: neither Arpeggio of Blue Steel nor even Knights of Sidonia looked particularly great as anime shows. Arpeggio was serviceable; Sidonia did better, partly because it leaned into its particular gritty SF aesthetics, but that trick only works for a certain sort of show. Based on these shows, you would not be particularly enthused about the future of CG-based general anime.
The good news is that we don't have to worry about that now, because Bubuki Buranki shows that the future of CG anime today is actually pretty bright. I say this due to three things that Bubuki Buranki demonstrated over the course of its run.
First, it simply looks good. Sure, CG anime is not 2D anime so the two look somewhat different, but Bubuki Buranki's visuals go a lot beyond the merely serviceable. They are perfectly good and occasionally great, both in static screenshots and in motion (although the show undeniably improves over its run, with earlier episodes more clunky and less attractive than later ones). But merely looking good is just the minimum requirement in a visual medium like anime; it's table stakes. CG needs more than just that alone.
(You can see examples in, say, Evirus's Bubuki Buranki category and here. The latter shows some first-episode moments where the CG is, well, at least a bit obvious.)
Second, the show consistently exploited being in CG to do things that normal 2D shows either can't pull off at all or can only do sparingly. While the show went in for intricate character and costume designs that wouldn't have worked in 2D anime (cf), for me what really stands out is how expressive it made its characters. Even in ordinary situations, people were often making various sorts of faces at each other; over and over they actually had expressions (sometimes exaggerated ones because hey, this is anime).
(And more subtly all of this carried through into background characters, long shots, and other low-resolution situations. 2D anime often collapses into wacky faces when the animators have to draw characters at even moderate scales, much less small ones; Bubuki Buranki never did that I noticed. This is obviously much easier when you have CG models for everything and just have to make sure that nothing bad happens when you render them smaller.)
To be clear, this doesn't make Bubuki Buranki's CG better than normal 2D anime. It just means that the medium of CG has its own advantages for anime shows, which is nice; if we have to have CG shows (and all the evidence is that we're only going to see more of them), it's good that we're getting something for giving up 2D.
Third and perhaps most important, the show has convincingly demonstrated that it can combine traditional 2D exaggerations and other animation tricks with its CG. I'm not sure if these were actually CG renders styled differently or occasional moments of 2D drawings (or a combination of both), but however it was done the result was both seamless and anime. Here, have some screen shots to show what I mean.
2016-12-19
The spear-point in Thunderbolt Fantasy
(There will be spoilers.)
Under the surface, Thunderbolt Fantasy has an unusual structure. Although it has the expected big spectacular ending in the last episode, the real high point comes a bit less than half way through the second-last episode. The rest of the show is interesting and necessary, but it's also all denouement with a kind of inevitability to it and little real tension (cf). You might wonder how this can be.
Jo Walton has written about what she calls spear-points, which are moments that take on their power because of the weight of the story behind them. To quote her:
When Duncan picks the branches when passing through trees, he's just getting a disguise, but we the audience suddenly understand how Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane.
The climactic point in Thunderbolt Fantasy is such a spear-point; it discharges a huge central tension that the show steadily built up over its run. That central tension is the question of Shang, our protagonist.
All through the show there's been a mystery building about Shang. He's not notable or obviously incredibly skilled in the way that other characters are, there are weird things about him, and people go back and forth on how powerful he actually is (especially after he does not so great in one fight). Also, there's a scene where Lin Xue Ya gets to examine Shang's sword and exclaims that it's a terrifying sword, although of course he doesn't say why. So the show has built up all of this tension surrounding Shang. How good is he, really? When is he going to show what he can really do?
Then, part of the way into episode 12, in the middle of a fight, Shang throws away his sword to save Juan and we know the time has come. We're about to get answers at last. Shang is going to have to cut loose.
Thunderbolt Fantasy doesn't disappoint us and it doesn't waste the opportunity. First, Juan exclaims over Shang's sword, finally revealing to us what's so unusual about it so we can understand and believe in what's coming. Then we get a showy wuxia fight scene that's used as an excuse for Shang to show off, lecture us, and demonstrate his real power by curb-stomping everyone involved despite having thrown away his sword. When the dust settles we have answers, a named villain has gone down in a dramatic scene, and Shang has finally revealed himself as a badass.
That sequence, that revelation and its aftermath, is the big whoop it up, fist-pumping moment of Thunderbolt Fantasy. Not because it's the most spectacular or epic fight or the most tense moment, but because it's the scene where the spear-point finally lands, a spear-point that we've been waiting for practically from the start.
(Thunderbolt Fantasy understands how climactic a moment it is, too. For example, the show switches from ordinary fight music to the big main theme fight music when Shang's curb-stomping starts.)
(This is a 12-days post.)