How awesome! With this episode, there’s no mistake: the voices in Kurenai are recorded before the animation, instead of afterwards. Otherwise some of the conversations this episode could never have turned out as they did here, with characters who spoke right through each other, without having to worry about matching the lips. Seriously, more anime should attempt this style, because it gives the voice-actors so much more freedom. I think that by far the best example of this is the fight between Claire and her father in Red Garden. It was an absolute masterpiece, and it would never have turned out so incredibly emotionally intense if the voices were just regularly recorded after the animators did their work.
In addition, this episode was also a lot of fun to watch. Murasaki pays a visit to Shinkurou’s school, and for once Shinkurou wasn’t attacked by every single male in the school who was jealous of how he was living with a cute girl. I love how this series has been shattering clichés one after the other. A while later, we see a bunch of punks bully an old lady, and even though I dislike it when a series uses a bunch of punks as a random plot-device, it was probably one of the first time where the main character refused to save their victim. Murasaki tries, but it really looks like Shinkurou hates fighting. As it turns out, he only does his jobs because of Kuhoin (I hope that that was her name), who saved him after his parents were killed off. Makes sense.
The best thing about this episode was without a doubt Murasaki’s innocence, though. Both the comical and serious parts. I really laughed when Murasaki mistook a biology-puppet (how did you call these things again) for an actually live human, and yet her inability to understand why Shinkurou didn’t stop the punks really hit a spot, even without the amazing voice-acting. I can really understand why this series has become one of the most popular series of this season. It’s solid, it knows its characters, it’s fun and it’s got without a doubt the best voice-acting of all new shows that aired this season.
Haha, you like little girl chracters, don’t you?
well anyway, kurenai is okay to me so far…I just feel that the series lacks something more important
Ah, no, Kuhoin is Murasaki’s family name. Shinkurou’s master is Juusawa Benika. Though I haven’t seen this episode, so perhaps it is revealed that Shinkurou is tied to the Kuhoins in some way?
I knew it, the director really does use that technique on all his programs. The thing I’ve noticed with Kurenai that it looks very different from the manga which is more light hearted and more “shounen” but I think this slice of life/mystery aspect works great too. I’m looking forward to seeing this maybe top Red Garden. I don’t think the series is really lacking something like the previous commenter said, but it isn’t for everyone. I’m glad the subs for this are coming out quickly too.
I’m within the animation industry.
I must say that it’s normal for work recording to be done before the animation process takes place.
Yep, the dialogues were recorded beforehand. Shinkurou’s voice actress (who also voiced Claire in Red Garden, by the way) said she was glad the dialogues were recorded first, and after seeing that scene with Murasaki and Yuuno I can totally understand, it would have been a pain to record otherwise.
Chris, no it’s not normal for *Japanese* animation to record voices in advance. I also disagree with psgels about “speaking through each other” and “matching lips” because a lot of corrections and modifications can be done with software that is available to everyone. Not to mention that the text is already written so that it matches the lip movements (roughly anyway), so it looks fine if the start and end of each line is timed properly. If the voice artists don’t get it right – albeit it’s their job and they are trained for it – the sound engineer will fix it. Last but not least, something that happens simultaneously in the final product can very well be recorded and produced at different times. I must say I’m not that much of a fan of the US-American way of animation anyway because the movements and talking it all seems so excessively exaggerated. I find the somewhat reduced animation and gesticulation in Japanese animation isn’t just more “Japanese” it’s also more realistic and it’s maybe one reason why Japanese animation is much more versatile and not reserved to kids’ stuff.
I myself have always been a fan of the American recording process, like in some studios, they even let the characters adlib and stutter when acting in order to add a more realistic feel, plus the Disney-Pixar movies seem work just fine for me. I believe it just give the actors more freedom, and I know most Japanese anime aren’t voiced like that, just this one and Red Garden were since they were by the same director.
I’ve read a bunch of good reviews for Kurenai, and I watched the first 2 episodes, but I just couldn’t get into it that much…I did like the idea for the series, it’s a good slice of life show, and the animation is well-done. But it seems kind of hard to identify with the little girl, she’s supposed to be 7? but acts so much older. It’s kind of hard for me to get into the pace of the show, it’s pretty slow which is fine for everyday life, but then there’s those disjointed fighting scenes that seem like they had ideas for 2 different shows and put them together. Maybe they will link the two parts better, but it just seems it’s going to be a whole season of the guy bonding with this girl, kind of predictable- he’s had a rough past and is just waiting for someone to be his little sister- I need more suspense and plot twists!!
Chris, that has actually little to do with animation. It’s how “acting” is understood in the USA, especially Hollywood. US directors are supposed to find an actor that fits a role. In the rest of the world, actors are supposed to adapt to the roles they are playing. In the USA, actors are mostly playing themselves or some standard character that they master. Very few US actors are really versatile. You can witness the same principles in US animation, especially Disney productions. The roles are written for and adapted to the respective actors. While it make the characters smoother I also think it takes away from the actual story because everyone focuses on the actors instead of the actual story/play.
Hasn’t it occured to anyone to give Murasaki an alias? I mean, is it really smart for them to let her tell her real name to people, even people at Kurenai’s school, when she’s in hiding?