Welcome all, to another season of Throwback Thursday! As I said before, this time we are covering Kemono no Souja Erin, also known simply as Erin, a 2009 fantasy drama from Production I.G. and the same creator who wrote Seirei no Moribito, a personal favorite of mine. Before we jump in, a quick word: This is a long series. 50 episodes! As such, I’m going to try to do 4 episodes a week. However I make no promises about being able to keep up that pace. As such, some weeks will be 4 episodes, some 3, some might even be 2 if I get particularly busy with Grad School. I apologize, I will try to get through this in a reasonable pace so we can get to The Big O, but it’s a long god damn series. So with that out of the way, on to the show!
So first up, let’s talk about Erin’s production. My initial impressions are that… It’s fine? There’s nothing particularly impressive about Erin’s visual style to me. The character designs especially feel a little off-putting, with faces leaning more towards an anime aesthetic then say Seirei no Moribito’s more realistic one. In fact there’s really only 2 things that stand out at all: The backgrounds and the stylized Touda sequences. The backgrounds are these nice, large watercolor-like spreads. They aren’t tremendously detailed but they are rather stylized, and I think they help cover up some of Erin’s compositing issues, both 2D and 3D. As for the stylized Touda sequences, these are rare but when they do happen they are quite striking. Bright colors, sharp lines, styled almost like ancient cave drawings of monsters. They really fit the beastial Touda. Overall while Erin isn’t to impressive visually, I wouldn’t say it’s bad either.
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