Roving Thoughts archives

Link: Kumi Kaoru's fascinating analysis of Miyazaki's Nausicaa manga

"At First, I Wanted to be a Manga-ka": Analyzing the Nausicaa Manga by Kumi Kaoru part 1 and the continuation part 2 is a translation of Kaoru Kumi's fascinating visual and technical analysis of Hayao Miyazaki Nausicaa manga. Kaoru Kumi starts her analysis this way:

As soon as the serialization of Nausicaa began, manga lovers began to praise it highly. It seems like the two things you heard the most about it were “it’s quite cinematic” and “its style is dense and hard to read.” [...]

Putting that aside, what exactly does “cinematic” mean, anyway? [...]

She goes on to provide an explanation for what cinematic means in the context of a manga (drawing evidence from how films connect shots to other shots), give examples from other manga, and then analyze how Nausicaa itself does this. The result is a fascinating breakdown of how the manga works so well and genuinely feels cinematic, with a side discussion of how the same things would have to be presented in anime form in order to work well. In the process she mentions some fascinating details of manga, such as how the production process for commercial manga (with work split between the manga-ka themselves and assistants) influences how panels have to be composed, and how a fast or slow publication pace changes what sort of art can be in a manga.

This is just a taste and an inadequate summary. If this sort of thing is at all to your interest, read the whole thing. If I'm any guide, be prepared to set aside some time, because it completely absorbed me for the duration.

(Via Ogiue Maniax's 10th anniversary post, itself via Author.)

It officially is 'sleigh beggy' in The Ancient Magus' Bride

In The Ancient Magus' Bride, the protagonist, Chise Hatori, is a special kind of mage, and for a long time there's been some confusion over what English language term should be used for what she is. Specifically, there's been confusion and disagreement over whether she is a 'sleigh beggy' (the official Seven Seas manga version) or a 'slay vega'. Last year I wrote an entry about this, after Crunchyroll translated the term as 'slay vega' in the first episode of the OVA, partly because my personal preference is for 'slay vega'.

Since then, two things have happened. First, Crunchyroll is airing The Ancient Magus' Bride TV series, and in the TV series Chise is a 'sleigh beggy'. More importantly, we now have official confirmation from the mangaka:

@drewtnguyen: @EzoYamazaki00 HELLO! QUESTION! First, thank you for the signature at CRX! Second, how did you come up with the name スレイ・ベガ? Thanks!

@EzoYamazaki00: Hello！Thank you for coming. It is words of the Isle of Man.The words hint at a fairy or a fairy and a human child.

(Via @hikaslap. It's relevant to know that a 'sleigh beggy' is a relatively obscure type of faerie from the Isle of Man (see eg here or here, and also the discussion here).)

This pretty much settles any debate over the official English term for what Chise is. Crunchyroll has changed its translation (although its subtitles for the first OVA episode still use 'slay vega') and Kore Yamazaki herself has given us an unambiguous answer. The Seven Seas manga translation was faithful to the mangaka's intentions, wonky explanation and all.

(I do wonder how the Crunchyroll 'slay vega' translation for the first OVA episode came about (and if anyone got yelled at over it), but we'll probably never hear that story.)

I still stand by my view that it's an unfortunate choice, but it probably doesn't matter very much, especially for the TV series. Although 'sleigh beggy' does have a meaning, most people are going to read it as a weird arbitrary combination of words, just like they would have read 'slay vega'. Arguably it has less meaning that 'slay vega', because people would probably read implications into the 'slay' part of that.

(This is part of @appropriant's 12 Days of Anime for 2017.)

Kemono Friends shows that CG versus drawn animation is ultimately unimportant

Kemono Friends is made almost entirely in CG, and they're famously pretty janky and limited, with a stilted and awkward look (even when it tried). The show was made with so few resources that it took them until episode 7 to make the bus's wheels spin in the opening. Kemono Friends is also really good. Not 'good for its limited budget'; genuinely good, to the extent that it's likely to make any number of people's end of year lists (mine included). Kemono Friends has a depth to it that anime rarely manages, and the show does it without ever losing its lighthearted charm.

Would Kemono Friends have been better if it was made with adequate resources using traditional 2D drawn animation instead of scrappy shoestring CG? Probably; I'm willing to believe that all of the charm could have been maintained with better art and animation. How about a version of the show made in great 2D drawn animation but without the excellent writing and direction that Kemono Friends had? There are some people who would say that such a show would be better than the Kemono Friends we got because it would look much better, but I'm not among them. The greatness in Kemono Friends doesn't come from how it looks, it comes from what's in the show, and if you take that away it doesn't really matter how pretty what's left looks. A pedestrian but beautiful show is still a pedestrian show. As we've seen more than once, not even KyoAni's many talents can save a show from its own writing.

What Kemono Friends illustrates, once again, is that whether a work is made in CG or with drawn animation is far less important than what's in the work. While we've had illustrations of this before, Kemono Friends is extremely handy because it has such a gulf between its visual appearance and its quality of writing and execution. You almost never get amazing things that were made on a shoestring and show it.

This is what I mean by calling CG versus 2D animation ultimately unimportant. The difference between the two is not nothing, but moving from one to the other moves the overall quality and impact of a show far less than other things do.

(Well, for most people. There are people who care a lot about sakuga; for at least some of these people, CG is pretty much a deal killer in the same way that a mandatory English dub mostly removes my interest.)

As a corollary, that a particular show will be made in CG instead of hand-drawn animation is well down the list of things to worry about. You should be worrying much more about things like who is making it, under what conditions, what they feel about it, and what their goals are, because all of those are far more likely to change whether the end result is good or bad.

(This is part of the 12 Days of Anime for 2017.)