Rotoscoped or not, cheap or not. Here is the thing: Aku no Hana so far has gotten the biggest emotional response out of me out of the entire season. This second episode, it was even better than the first in which we just saw the emotional breakdown of the male lead, and all of thewalls he ran into in order to get out of what he did. It’s not like I automatically like things because they just happened to be different (I hated Inferno Cop for example). It’s just that this method of animation works brilliantly for getting a really big emotional response. The reason I like series that are different is because there are many different ways to make something awesome, but it’s very easy to get caught up in the tried and true formula and I love series that think outside of the box. As long as it works, obviously.
That’s also my opinion about the huge change in art style compared to the original source. Personally, I don’t care how faithful it is, as long as it works well. In the same way, Shingeki no Kyojin could turn into this magical girl series for all I care, as long as it manages to find a way to be just as epic as the manga chapters that I read of it. With that said, Aku no Hana is amazing. The atmosphere over the first two episodes was just brilliant.
Probably my favorite parts of this episode was when Nakamura invaded Takao’s personal space so closely. He was busy setting up all of these walls for himself, and she just forced herself right through them with that evil smile of hers. Her voice actress really was great for that. In fact, every voice actor here really works. Everyone here sounds very sincere and believable. For me this series also has the best voice acting of the season.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)
How can you NOT like inferno cop? 😀
Jokes aside, it is indeed a pretty good parody, though it probably doesn’t suit everyone’s tastes. Still, it’s really short, so it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. The Evangelion parody in the last episodes is just brilliant.
Inferno Cop was the best series of Winter 2013.
Hell, Inferno Cop was the best series of 2013.
I think that the reason why the voice acting sounds so good is that I’m sure that alot of the voices are recorded from the rotocope filming sessions, and so it’s more like traditional acting.
But yeah, very creepy … especially that last scene where Nakamura does a final test on his resolve to confess was REALLY cruel!
The VAs and rotoscope actors are different, except for kasugas.
Love the potshot you took at Shingeki no Kyojin. Seriously though, if this anime went through normal procedure than being rotoscoped, it would have made much less impact and would have been treated like your average mature anime to watch and much less attention. This episode really had that haunting vibe throughout watching it made for an unsettling experience. One thing I still haven’t got used to is main character’s voice, I suppose all in due time I’ll get used to it.
I agree about the great voice acting.
But the only thing I have to add to this (honest and true) review is…
The sound quality sucks.
It’s teh only thing really distracting me from the realism of the animation, acting, and storytelling…
Maybe you just saw it with poor quality? Honestly the quality of the OST and the voice acting was one of the things that stood out the most for me.
I have to disagree with you on the animation. The rotoscoping here is distracting and takes away from the emotional impact for me. I have a couple examples:
– When he first messes with the gym clothes and crouches, you can see the animation jitter unnaturally, an obvious side-effect of the rotoscoping process. Any very subtle motion is ruined because of the focus on tracing over movement.
– When Nakamura gets on the bike with him and they close-up on her face there’s a huge disconnect. Since she’s obviously a real person, my mind tried to fill in the gaps in her appearance, but I never really managed to. This left me feeling like she was some sort of mannequin, and I couldn’t get any real emotional impact out of it.
One of the main advantages of anime is that you can create emotional symbols, which help you illustrate feelings accurately while using a hand drawn style. On the other hand, the rotoscoped animation is never detailed, quick, or impactful enough for me to ever connect with any of the characters. I feel that this series would have been better off using the source footage, skipping the costly rotoscoping process altogether.
I can’t quite buy the emotions argument. Visuals aren’t the only emotional cue for you, are they? Are you telling me that a lame story point, bad bit of voice acting, or bit of QUALITY animation in a more typical production isn’t just as jarring?
I think it’s really just more noticeable here, because it’s not able to get away with the usual mistakes we’ve come to expect. Maybe we’re equally to blame for letting animation studios get away with bland productions as long as they have a lot of ion-model in-between animation and artfully traced backgrounds.
It’s quite possible (though I admit I wouldn’t know) that the style was chosen to get precisely this effect from viewers. Otherwise they probably wouldn’t have chosen it, precisely because it’s so costly, atypical, and otherwise abhorrent to a lot of people.
Sometimes, being pulled out of the familiar and forced to try to find the beauty of something is more effective than the use of familiar cues to get the same point across. Whether that’s a dumb thing to try is entirely up to you, of course.
Shingeki no Kyojin + Magical Girl sounds pretty epic
and we all know psgels would dig it
I see a lot of hate for Nakamura’s weight gain. “Oh no slightly above average sized teenage girl, stop distorting my ideal image of beauty. Go back to looking 10 and having an abnormally large chest.” Ugh. Hardcore otaku fans love Nakamura because she resembles them. Hate filled, lonely, and hating on others for actually living a normal life.
I’ve read the manga and I still really enjoy this show’s animation style. It creates the atmosphere incredibly well.
Ugly, creepy, serious.
Wow…
Go read the manga. If you think the anime gave you a good emotional response, then your mind will be blown if you read it…
I read the manga. I thought that in the anime you can take the character’s emotional responses more seriously because they aren’t badly drawn. Unpopular opinion: the manga art was really awkward in the beginning and is nothing to write home about even in later chapters.
I have read the manga. It is certainly disturbing, but not that far from your typical ecchi plot.
I always think that for an adaption, it is the job to recreate the world again. Therefore I found little to no reason to watch adaption that is too loyal to the original work, Monster anime for example. I love the manga but why should I have to sit through a long anime which translate the manga panel – to -panel? Directors and studio should always be encouraged to try something else. It might be hideous, they might fall, but that is the point of experiment. The manga artist gives his approval, so why should we bother, asides from the part that the anime turn your big eyes anime girls into…normal girls I guess.
So instead of blamming the studio for ruinning your waifu, I think we should all realize their effort and bravery to venture into a new area, especially with a lot of financial risk.
The problem is, the anime industry follows the rule of adapting manga or light novels with a similar artstyle and mood. And series that don’t follow that standard, fade into obscurity.
Take this as an example. The 2 most awaited series this season *Shingeki no Kyojin and Oreimo* Are the anime adaptations that created the world exactly how it looks in the light novel and manga. That’s why they have such a huge following.
On the other hand Aku no Hana, brought a lot of controversy last week, all the pre-orders for the first BD release were cancelled. You talk about financial risk, but anime is an industry, risking is not a luxury you can take. If this series fails to sell *which is doing it right now* it will be a failed experiment.
You never experiment with stuff that its not yours. That’s why original anime exist, you take the risk without the chance of ruining a story that doesnt belong to you.
It’s quite sad to have it spelled out that way, but it’s the truth. People are shallow. They want their adaptations to be the source material, and their animation to be the same as everything else.
Is there a rule like that? Just treat the anime and the manga as two different stories that share the same title and characters. The story and the character designs can change. I don’t get why people cannot accept this.
That’s not the problem. At least not for me. The problem is the character designs look so ugly that instead of being disturbed, I am laughing my ass off.
Never read the manga, but I’m totally diggin this shows weirdness.
Maybe it’s time to start reading, instead of intetionally watching in order to exalt every visually disgusting adaption 😉
Voice acting from rotoscoping just pisses me off for some reason. Yes it is unique, but inherently better than the work in other shows? Come on.
Jeez. Are people really getting all in a hot tizzy just because the art is different from the manga? Sheesh! People need to shape up nowadays! Not everything is perfect, y’know!
The manga is better. This adaptation will be proably incomplete, since the manga is ongoing.
Im not edgy enough to like this.
Still i believe, a live action was a better idea.
I’m still not a fan of the animation and the character designs, but who cares? Everything else is done really well.
The only reason I tried this was because psgels said it was good. And I’m not disappointed. Checked the manga soon after that and I don’t really find the anime to be as insulting as others have stated. In fact, I’m so hyped up with the next episode now. The flame war about the whole animation is… interesting though…
Also, dat ED. I love it so much I can’t get it out of my head.
You don’t know how happy I am that you like this anime, psgels. I don’t know what makes me really like the anime version compared to the manga although I’ve read it weeks before the first episode aired. I found the manga style mediocre (not bad, it just doesn’t give that much impact) but I know the author tried to tell a pretty disturbing story with whatever talent he has at making comic and the anime did a pretty good job interpreting it and take it to a whole new level.
But it came as a shock when my friend who I thought have more ‘experienced’ in anime blatantly called Aku no Hana ugly. We have pretty similar taste for anime but it’s just this one anime where I found clashing opinions from both of us. I honestly pick this anime as my favorite this season so far in a heart beat. I think the differences came from my preferences in visual media entertainment not just limited to anime and manga, while she’s clearly more interested in Japanese visual media culture.
Or maybe I’m just turning into edgy hipster anime fan, who knows.
“But it came as a shock when my friend who I thought have more ‘experienced’ in anime blatantly called Aku no Hana ugly. ”
I don’t get it, where does anime experience come into this?
Sorry, that’s not actually really accurate way to said it, What I meant was my friend knows more and watches a lot more anime and other Japanese visual arts (manga, films, video games, etc) than me that I thought, subjectively, she would be more open-minded with uncommon style of Japanese animation.
But that doesn’t really matter anymore, she said lately that she’s warming up to the animation style and can appreciate it more considering the context of the anime.
I don’t think the manga is mediocre in it’s art style, just that the setting wasn’t as present as in the anime. I think and hope that the anime will tell better the story since it’s getting a bigger reaction than it’s source material. Also I like how up until now most of what has been shown could be told without dialogue because of how expressive is the body language. Still I have to look away when they talk up close since the lip sync is very disjointed.
Oh, ok… I hadn’t spotted that out because I have not watched it long enough.
So, to sum it up, it’s ugly, it’s gloomy, it’s slow, it’s behind closed walls, it’s humorless, it’s introverted, the teenage characters look like thirty-something failures, and … the lip sync is disjointed.
Is there anything else ?
I’ve just started watching Aku No Hana – and I think it might be the coolest thing I have ever seen.
Im up to episode 3, I love everything about it, the music, the sound, definitely the rotoscoping / animation – I think the art work is incredible.
I honestly cant say this enough, I would love to get a message to the creators because I know people have been bagging it on the internet, but it is seriously one of the best things I have ever seen in my life.
Personal opinion here obviously
Its incredible and it will go down as a classic piece of art from this generation.
Its up there with Akira.