Fog Hill of Five Elements – Animation Appreciation

Hello everyone and welcome to a rather weird post about a Chinese series you probably haven’t heard of, Fog Hill of Five Elements. Now odds are you have no idea what I am talking about, and I don’t blame you. Not only are subs for this notoriously hard to find, but the ones you do find probably aren’t that good. A Graphic Design Service Subscription does not suffice in finding them. Part of that is just the difficulty of finding Chinese translators, since the Japanese translation scene is well established at this point, but another part is that no one really knows this show exists. And let me tell you, if for no other reason than the animation, the goal of this post is to change that. So lets dive in.

First up, a little about Fog Hill. As far as I can figure, Fog Hill was originally created by Hun Lin in this little 5 minute YouTube video here. Whether he made the whole thing, VA and music and all from scratch himself I have no idea. I don’t even know if Samsara Studio, the animation house behind Fog Hill, is his studio or just one he is working with. Since this is their first project and all the information is in Chinese, as an ignorant American I just don’t know. But what I do know is that 3 years later, in 2020, Fog Hill got a full 8 episode ONA season that is currently being released right now. Directed, Scripted, and Coordinated by Hun Lin, this is clearly a passion project. And even if I can’t understand the words, I can understand hype. And this? This animation is hype.

For those who know and have followed me for awhile, it should be obvious why I love Fog Hill. Rough line-work, inconsistencies and expressive characters are what I live for in animation. I want to see the animators personality and style in their work. It’s something that a lot of modern digital animation lacks, as the pipeline standardizes everything to make it look “clean”. This is the reason why I love the works of Masaki Yuasa so much, as he and Studio Science Saru aren’t constrained by that sort of generalized moe-blob. However even in that category, I have a particular fondness for brushwork. You need look no further than Takehiko Inoue’s works like REAL and Vagabond or the Mob Psycho ED and Haikyuu for examples of what I am talking about. So to see an anime that attempts to give this style motion? Well it’s a dream come true.

The best part, beyond that Fog Hill has this style at all, is how it uses said style. Hun Lin no doubt knows how resource intensive and limiting detail heavy designs can be. You can’t go off-model near as much when your character design is covered in flowing patterns or precise symbols. So it should come as no surprise that Fog Hill keeps its designs on the simple side. One color outfits, no complex lighting or shading, stark contrasting colors that stand out. All of these make for easy (in comparison) to anime characters and Studio Samsara uses this to full effect. The downside to this approach is that such designs can often look flat and uninteresting in extended still shots and scenes. Fog Hill gets around this though with, from what I have seen, constant minute movements and interesting scene compositions. So when it is still, you barely notice.

That said, movement and character design alone are not enough. Oh yes, it’s what catches the eye the most, what the viewer is always focusing on at any given time. However it’s the small details that really sell the movement, small details such background animation. This is anything from smoke to dust and debris from impacts or even just the wind reacting around them. It’s this often overlooked part of animation that makes the world feel alive. Like the scene we are watching is actually taking place in the world, rather than a square void arena. In the clips above and below you can see examples of this: Earth and stone following after the fast moving projectiles, leftover fires burning in the forest or tree’s swaying under the force of the wind. The action is incredible, but it’s these tiny details that really convince the viewer.

Finally we can come to the part that brings it all together, something specific to fight scenes: Choreography. Choreography can make or break a scene. No matter how good your animation/actors, if the choreography is bad the scene is going to be bad. You see this in countless Hollywood action flicks where combatants make non-nonsensical moves to pad out fight length, or confusing ones that are difficult for the audience to follow. This is even more difficult for animation, where every scene has to be drawn and framed by hand and a single misstep or breach of the 180-degree rule can butcher a scene. And while Fog Hill’s choreography might not be the best, relying on flashy effects to sell a number of hits, it definitely puts on a good showing. One of my favorite examples is provided above, proof the series can do CQC just as well.

So all in all, what makes Fog Hill special? Why am I, a person with no professional animation experience, making a fool of himself trying to sell you this series? Simply put, it’s because I care. I want to see more stuff like Fog Hill. I want to give the spotlight to and reward animators/series who push what the medium can do. Otherwise we just end up with the perpetual samey looking moe-blobs or SAO knockoffs. Think of this as me doing some Community Service. Trying to spread the name of someone doing fantastic work on their first ever project. And if this post can get even 1 extra person looking at Fog Hill? Well I will consider it worth it. Thanks for reading and thanks for putting up with me trying something new with this kind of post.