Category: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

This is it ladies and gentleman, the finale to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, my anime of the season. I was curious how our leads would respond to such a setback and Eizouken did not disappoint. So sit back, relax and let’s talk about anime!

Now there was a lot worth talking about this week, but I want to start with the short itself. While it wasn’t perfect, I really loved both the short and how it was presented. I loved how unlike the previous animations, which were large events with an audience, this one was incredibly personal. With our leads watching it alone in Asakusa’s apartment, a private viewing just for them. Meanwhile across the city everyone who bought their DVDs are doing the same. It simultaneously felt small and personal, but community driven, like a private event for the entire city. And the way it was setup, starting with the discs going in, made it feel like I was watching it with them. Like 4 friends watching what they made together, since we went on this journey with them over 12 episodes and 3 months. It fantastic.

Continue reading “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 12 [Shibahama UFO Wars]” →

Continuing my streak of “better late than never” this week, we have Keep Your Hands off Eizouken! Though this time with backstory, some dancing and more great Kanamori scenes. Lets dive in! And I promise, no more late ones, I should have things sorted now.

Starting off, this was a pretty straightforward week for Eizouken. Focusing in on a specific theme and tackling it from a variety of angles. However while the theme itself might not be particularly complicated, I think Eizouken did a great job portraying it. The idea of “Coexistence” was tackled from a variety of angles, from more professional ones in their club to the person in Asakusa’s flashback. Each one managing to both explore the characters while still building to a final peak. I will admit, at the beginning of the episode I wasn’t to enthused. I thought it was going to be another sort of montage filler episode. Which while it would still contain Eizouken’s usual quality, wouldn’t be particularly memorable. As the episode went on though and it revealed more and more of the primary thread, I came to love it. So now, let’s get to the details, yeah?

Continue reading “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 11 [Each Other’s Existence!]” →

Welcome all to another week of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Like the Runway de Waratte post, this one is going to be shorter, for very similar reasons. But where “more of the same” for Runway is a disappointment, for Eizouken its just a good time. So lets dive in!

As always, the animation and production of Eizouken is good, but this week I want to focus on something else. I want to focus on the meta aspect of it all, and how Eizouken cleverly uses its premise here. This latest episode actually gives me a perfect example of what I am talking about, ala how it visualize things. We see it when Doukemi, the sound club girl, is modifying the sound waves in time with the actual bell. Or when she is moving the sound waves around, layering and piecing them together. It’s a little choppy of course, it isn’t perfect. But I love the concept behind it and how Eizouken uses its premise and medium to depict it all. This isn’t the first time either, we have seen it throughout the series. This week just gave me a good chance to talk about it.

Continue reading “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 10 [Against Our Independent World!]” →

Every week I wonder how Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken is going to top itself. And every week it finds a way, it finds some area to improve or some new facet to explore. That is no different this week as we learn a bit more about Kanamori and explore the wonderful world of “labor costs”. Riveting. Lets dive in!

Starting off, I just have to gush about the character animation throughout this episode. Specifically, I want to call attention to Asakusa at the end, both during the sound effects and her realization. These were just some beautiful long shots, like the one you can see below. Really showing off how expressive Eizouken can be. Simultaneously keeping her on model while exaggerating the movements just enough to keep it energetic. I want to credit this cut to Izumi Murakami, but so far I haven’t yet seen any sources confirming who worked on it. Meanwhile you also have the general aesthetic of scenes like the Kanamori flashback. Turning the world into this almost watercolor or marker scene. It’s the same style used whenever they are imagining something out in the world, yet now its being used as a flashback, and I love it. Chibi-Kanamori is just fantastic.

Continue reading “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 9 [Aim for Comet A!]” →

Welcome one and all to what is my favorite episode of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken yet. I laughed, I cried, and I all around loved it as 25 minutes felt like it went by in 5. So enough preamble, lets just jump into it.

Right off the bat, I have to admit, I legitimately teared up during Eizouken this week. I could feel the passion bleeding through the screen throughout the episode. But the part that really got me, that hit the hardest, was the Robot Club President. I loved his run through the campus, you could tell that this was the best day of his life. Both from the VA work of yelling out the OP to their anime to the ugly cries of joy under the costume. Terrify the neighborhood with spine-chilling Scary Halloween Costumes. It was simply infectious. It was a moment bought not through some grand battle or terrible stakes, no one was in danger here. Rather Eizouken created it through the combined passion and works of its characters. All of them pushing towards a singular goal that, even when at odds, they all loved. And it culminated both in the video and in this run.

Continue reading “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 8 [The Grand Shibahama Festival!]” →

This was a pretty chill week for Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, as we focus more on our characters than the process. As this week gives us a glimpse into Mizusaki’s life, the continuing production of the Culture Festival movie and the best bathhouse ever. Lets dive in!

This week Eizouken mostly took a step back from the production side of things. Instead choosing to focus on one of our leads, Mizusaki. We got a look at her parents, her home life, her passion and how it all compares to Asakusa or Kanamori’s. For instance we saw about halfway through how Asakusa has to call her parents. How Mizusaki misinterprets that as control rather than concern. Which is rather interesting when you look at it because of how her own parents raise her. Giving Mizusaki free reign so long as she stays within their nice little box of a plan for her. Money, freedom, whatever she wants to do, so long as she becomes an actress. In a way, it’s more restrictive than Asakusa’s, and speaks a lot about how negligent Mizusaki’s parents are. Still, we know she has at least one positive figure in her life. Grandma!

Continue reading “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken -7 [I Have To Do It For Myself!]” →

Every week I wonder how Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken can top itself. What new approach it is going to take to the industry. How it is going to explore it through our three highschoolers. And this week, Eizouken does just that by dedicating an episode to Kanamori and her struggles in management. Without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, this week had a big focus on the business side, making it basically Kanamori’s episode. And personally, I loved how Eizouken treated Kanamori here. I have said it before, but I like how the series gives the business aspect of the industry a fair shake through her. Showing us how she treats and looks after her team, the effort she puts into getting them what they need. Whether that be setting up meetings with the art club, getting them a PC, or just the day to day planning and management. Kanamori clearly works her ass off, as we see early on just when she falls asleep in the restaurant. Not to mention her presence in basically every scene of the episode. It helps the scenes where she does have to lay down the law feel justified, rather than just bitchy, which is important coming up.

Continue reading “Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 6 [Let’s Do Better Than Last Time!]” →