The Reflection -1 [Ceremony]

Its a bit late in the season, but The Reflection is just getting started. Sadly, it feels like more time in the oven was yet needed. Thought up by Stan Lee and directed by Hiroshi Nagahama, lets dive right in. Because of the substantial difference in quality between them, I am going to break this first piece into 3 sections. Those sections being Art, Direction/Animation, and Story/Characters, so lets dive right in.

Art

If there is one thing Reflection does right, its the art. The style is unique, minimalist and reminiscent of comic books. Lots of bright solid colors with no shading, thick black lines and 3D/Rotoscoped backgrounds. In stills and quieter scenes its quite striking. Simply look to the opening lantern scene for proof of that. Director Nagahama, his prior work including Mushishi, once again brings a unique style to a season. It reminds of Ping Pong, which had a similar comic-like style yet much more faded colors.

Because of this unique, simplistic style, the animators can also use 3D to very good effect. Very similar to games like Borderlands, this comic book style allows for cell shading and rotoscoping on the 3D buildings. The 3D lanterns in the opening scene, and later the buildings while I-Guy soars through the air all look like they belong. They fit with the art and the world, unlike most 3D in 2D anime. If nothing else, Nagahama deserves recognition for what is no doubt an iconic style. If the animation was better, Reflection would be a standout of the season in this respect.

Direction/Animation

Having mentioned it, lets focus for a moment on the animation. Wow. There are things worth praising here but far more to criticize. To start, there are a lot of interesting ideas put into practice here. The opening lantern sequence was beautiful, the 3D lanterns making full use of this art style. Then there was the spin transition, with all of the monitors becoming turning into a space-scape. I re-watched that particular sequence numerous times, because it looked quite special. With this minimalist art style, animation should look fluid and easy to follow. Sadly, shots like these were in the minority and it was anything but fluid, edits and still shots littering the field.

This opening episode was plagued with questionable edits, motionless animation and less frames than your average power-point presentation. It moved at the speed of a glacier. There was a full one minute segment where there were perhaps 5 frames. This caused a number of scenes to look jumpy as there were few smooth transitions between frames. This low frame count also gave almost 0 impact frames, leaving blows between Hero and Villain feeling weightless. A manhole cover floated through the air like it was styrofoam. Couple that with multiple still shots, jumping from face to face, and you would be alone in thinking the episode was buffering. I can only think Nagahama erred to far on the comic book side of “Animated Comic book”.

Story/Characters

With everything in Reflection screaming “comic book” at us, no one should be surprised by the comic book story we have. There was little mention of the over arching story for most of the episode, Nagahama possibly going for the “Show don’t tell” method. What we do manage to learn however is that it has been 3 years since an event called “The Reflection” took place. Now, suddenly, villains and costumed heroes have appeared in public with few having any idea why. The government however apparently has their hands in it, with an official coordinating with X-On and I-Guy. The villains apparently have their own organization as well, as those captured in the first half are set free in the second. This alludes us to some over-arching plan, with some characters comments leading me to think this will be a Magneto/X-Men style story.

I say this because of the sort of racial tensions that were said to be popping up between the Reflected and normal people. In the X-Men, another Stan Lee comic, the villain Magneto constantly pushed for Mutant superiority of regular humans. The Villains in Reflection give off very similar vibes to this story wise, but we will have to wait and see. Hopefully the animation in this episode was a one-off. We still have the rest of the season to go after all.

See you next time folks, and as Stan Lee says excelsior!