Category: Now And Then, Here And There

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Now and Then, Here and There! This is normally where I say something snappy like, “You won’t believe how dark this week got”. Or maybe “This is the darkest week yet!”. But I’m pretty sure you all know this show better than I do, and that we can also get so much darker. So instead this week I’ll just say… Oh god. Now lets jump into it.

Once again I feel the need to point out just how bad the lightning in Now and Then is. I don’t do this to rag on the show, I’m… Ok enjoying might be the wrong word but lets go with it for now, I’m enjoying my time with it. But some shots are just so incredibly hard to see through, or just look like ass. Take the opening shot of the episode in Abelia’s room for instance. What is this diffused filter? Is it supposed to tell me its early morning or something? Everything just looks foggy. Meanwhile the nighttime hallways, like the lynching, are once again impossible to see in. Outside of the, admittedly gorgeous, wide background shots there simply isn’t any complexity or care put into how it shows on screen. And I think that’s a damn shame. Enough about lighting for the nth time though, onto story!

Continue reading “Now and Then, Here and There – 4 [Discord] – Throwback Thursday” →

Welcome everyone to what is a very late episode of Now and Then, Here and There! The only excuse I have is Elden Ring which, in my defense, I have put 66 hours into since it came out. Such a great time. That said these posts wait for no man and have to get written eventually. So without further ado lets dive into the episode!

Starting off with a quick non-spoilery mention of the production: This week was largely fine. It seems this is going to be our standard level of animation for awhile. Episode 1 was probably an outlier to get us hooked in. That’s probably OK since Now and Then doesn’t seem like a particularly action heavy show, much more character, scene and atmosphere driven. However I do have one major bugbear that I’ve noticed across all 3 episodes: The backgrounds are way to dark. I get it, they want some stark contrast in lighting, and that does often look good. But more often than not it’s made scenes very difficult to actually see. Characters become hard to make out from the dark backgrounds, the slight differences in shade make it annoying to figure out what exactly we are looking at. They need to increase the contrast in their darks just a bit.

Continue reading “Now and Then, Here and There – 3 [A Feast in the Dark] – Throwback Thursday” →

Welcome one and all to another season of Throwback Thursday! We’ve been on a run of good shows recently, what with Haibane Renmei and The Vision of Escaflowne, so I’m hopeful Now and Then can keep that going. We have a lot to talk about so lets skip the rest of the preamble and jump right into it.

Starting with production, Now and Then looks alright. Color and design wise its pretty basic. Lots of flat colors with little in the way of complex lighting or color blending. Coming from The Vision of Escaflowne, a series released 3 years prior, that’s a bit of a step down. The same thing can be said for the character designs which, by and large, are lacking in complex details and linework. However for all that may sound like a criticism this does give Now and Then one very important benefit: It’s a lot easier to animate. And we can see that in just how much animation it actually has. Like seriously, the amount of small details in these shots, the expressiveness of each characters body and face, is great! I love how every motion is a full-body event. Hopefully it can keep this subtle movement going for its entire run.

Continue reading “Now and Then, Here and There – 1 [A Girl Admiring The Sunset] – Throwback Thursday” →