Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken manages to pull yet another rabbit out of it’s hat this week. As we take a look at a dying genre, studio/client relations and yet again more animation techniques. Without further ado, let’s dive in!
Starting off, I was expecting Eizouken to tackle a lot of things this week. However the final death kneel of a genre was not among them. It was and continues to be a very fascinating topic to look at actually, the waxing and waning of genre popularity. Go back a few decades and Mecha was the shit. Yet in modern times it has been subsumed by battle shounen and Isekai, and Eizouken takes a small look into why. How the world has changed around the industry, and how that affects the passions and interests of viewers. Those inspired by Mecha grew up to realize that such robots were impossible or impractical. Inspired by them, yet disillusioned by reality. Meanwhile, man has made it to the moon, we have the ISS. Space is no longer so mysterious, and so Mecha and Space Opera’s have fallen away. It’s tragic, in a way.
Of course, Eizouken doesn’t deep dive into this. It doesn’t go in to explain the generational shift, how the appeal of defending against an outward foreign invasion doesn’t resonate with a modern audience. Or how the genre has been around for so long that it’s starting to be difficult to innovate on meaningfully. Eizouken prefers to keep it much more optimistic and light hearted, instead focusing on the aforementioned passions and how there is still that dedicate fanbase. Going so far as to effectively have a Mecha fan group in the Robot Club. Even having a small bit of history dating back hundreds of years, to show humanity’s obsession with what are basically giant robots. Still, there is room for Eizouken to take a deeper look into it, as this looks to be the start of a new arc. Meanwhile, we did get an interesting peek into client/studio relations.
Up until now, Eizouken has largely viewed making anime as a passion project. Making something original, getting it ready for a presentation with the committee, etc etc. However now it is starting to tackle the idea of making an anime for someone else. The idea of working for a client, and how ultimately it is their vision that matters, not your own. And all the difficulties that come with that. For instance throughout we see Asakusa arguing against certain aspects of the Mecha, how tanks or machine guns are more effective at small sizes. Meanwhile giant robots physically just don’t work well, all the previously mentioned digs at the Mecha genre. However the fact is that the Robot Club is paying for an anime to be made, and they get the final say. They best they can do is make suggestions, and give reasoning behind them.
Not surprisingly, we see most of this attitude in Kanamori, the eternal realist of Eizouken. Kanamori really drives this point home early on, when she states they are getting paid to deliver a product. And with that pay comes an expected, baseline level of quality, even if the animators in question aren’t passionate about it. This isn’t shown in a soulless, corporate greed type of light though. Instead as a sort of necessary thing to help fund their passion projects. To get their name out there, to get projects under their belt as proof. Basically, its resume fluff, but for a studio rather than an individual. And while it would have been interesting to see Yuasa’s commentary on such an environment, I don’t think it would fit Eizouken’s general aesthetic. That being this positive, bright, passionate demonstration of a budding animator.
The only major issue I had with Eizouken this week is barely even an issue. And that is how I wished we had seen more pushback from the Robot Club. More of a creative battle for control of the project, to really drive home how working for a client can affect the final result of an anime. Of course, like I said earlier, this doesn’t really fit Eizouken’s general feel though as a more upbeat and positive show. And it’s not as if the way Eizouken resolved it was poor either. With them finding a common ground in their passions and both wanting the best out of the project. It was sort of a “Best Case” scenario for the whole thing, which fits the series. All that is left is to see how Eizouken sticks the landing for this particular arc.
All that said, Eizouken still felt like it had a lot of heart, like it does every week. Once again, Asakusa give’s us a glimpse into the animators head as well. As during their little scouting trip we get a few nuggets of wisdom. Such as “Personal experience leads to originality”, how seeing things for yourself gives you your own perspective on them. I enjoyed seeing them map out the fight in the environment in their heads. Imagining where the creature could come out, or beams that could collapse, that sort of thing. Talking about how best to use the location for the fight, rather than just a blank and empty room. Once again, the best way to describe it is Ed Edd n Eddy, the episode where they imagine playing in a cardboard box. An old childhood classic. I loved it.
So all in all, Eizouken was once again great. A few minor nitpicks here and there. The kind of things that only come up when you lack any real criticism of a work. It’s managing to keep things fresh, tackle new subjects within animation, without jumping any sharks. Of course the base idea of the show, imagining things and changing the artstyle to suit those imaginations, is really helpful for this. Like how the world is almost black and white during Asakusa’s opening mystery with the robot, popping into color the moment everyone else get involved. Or the rough style of their imaginary sketches. It all just works really well and draws a clear line between the exaggerated reality of the show and the characters imaginations. I can’t wait to see what they do with this robot short either.
