Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 5 [An Iron Giant Appears!]

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.

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Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 3 [Let’s Accomplish Something!]

Another week, another fantastic episode of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! This week we continue to dive in to the technical side, as our crew begin to produce their first animated short. Learning about short cuts, time and business considerations, and just creative freedom. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Starting off, this week Eizouken gives us our first major goal, the Budget Committee! It’s a nice and manageable one I think, a way to get the ball rolling, and lets Kanamori strut her stuff. As this first goal, with its set deadline, really lets the time/business aspect of anime production shine through. For instance I loved how Kanamori just broke down how much effort a 5 minute shot would be, at a simpel 12 fps. Resulting in a 3600 frame count, along with all the other overhead. While its pretty obvious, and something anyone could figure out, it’s also something anime fans ignore a lot I think. The sheer amount of effort that goes in to a production, the sheer number of drawings that have to be produced for a single minute of footage. And yes, there are shortcuts as Eizouken shows us, but its still work.

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Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – 2 [The Eizouken Takes the Stage]

Welcome one and all to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, the first of the new series I am covering! I’ll be honest, i’m excited about this one. Eizouken is looking to start the year off strong. Giving us a lovable look in to the animation industry we haven’t seen since Shirobako. So let’s dive in!

Right off the bat, Eizouken reminds me of these old cartoons I used to watch as a kid. Ones like Kids Next Door or Ed Edd n Eddy, which are just kids being kids. Hanging out in their day to day lives, using their imagination to make every day an adventure. It brings a sense of nostalgia with it that other highschool centered anime just lack. Most likely due to what they focus on vs Eizouken. Its this focus that, while the two previously mentioned showers were just good, sets Eizouken. As it manages to be both entertaining and informative, a sort of edutainment if you will. But while it manages to shed some light on the Animation process, that doesn’t feel like Eizouken’s purpose. More a consequence of Yuasa’s goal of telling/showing the viewer his, and others, passion for the medium. And I can’t wait for more.

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