A giant robot comes to save the day yet again.
What They Say:
Episode 6: “Idepon Miyamori: On the Move”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As we’re coming into the midway point of the season, the show is at a vital junction. The show-within-the-show is also at a potential breaking point. If Endou, the animation supervisor for episode 8 and key animator charged with creating an extremely important scene that caps off episode 8 and leads directly into episode 9, cannot be brought back on board, having quit largely because of production assistant Takanashi’s inability to interact with others (which is unfortunately a very important role for every production assistant), the production might well come to a standstill. Kinoshita, already famous for a recap fiasco tied to an earlier work of his, could well sink Musashino Animation because of his dithering a couple episodes ago.
The sinking of the studio is not an outlandish possibility. Studios are constantly competing with each other not only over commissions (as few originate works themselves: they are approached by a production committee to produce the animation on commission), but also personnel. We even see one of the presumably more senior production assistants at Musani, Tatsuya Ochiai, speaking to a producer from a rival studio, Studio Canaan, offering the young man a promotion to production desk (Honda’s job at Musani), if he will jump ship and move.
For the show Shirobako, the question is whether we’re going to simply wallow in the shallow waters of production crises and the false drama created by them or will we move ahead. Fortunately, we see things move ahead. While Takanashi thought the ostrich method of burying his head in the sand (or perhaps some other, more smelly, dark place) would make things go away, Aoi does what that moronic plot device Takanashi should have done from the start: talk to Honda, who is basically the general production supervisor. Honda decides that that director needs to decide what to do…but Kinoshita has escaped his jail cell. This might seem like water-treading but no, the resolution of this forced crisis does continue to move forward. That is thanks to Aoi, who has been our rock, even if she has her own doubts about her ability and competence.
The show enters a slightly more contemplative state when at the office Aoi has a little chat with Yano, the more senior production assistant. It’s a very important conversation, one where the real world show’s team slip in some important observations about the current state of anime. The amount of animation is increasing and with limited manpower and the ability to maintain quality control, along with the greater speed and efficiency of 3D animation…Yano basically says that the writing is on the wall. There will be more 3D. That does not mean traditional hand drawn animation will disappear, but it may be that “only people with talent and passion can survive.”
The other side of the coin is explored as Aoi explores what lies at the root of Endou’s stubbornness, something she needs to understand in order to resolve the mess caused by Takanashi’s incompetence. While the 3D staff don’t really care if the scene at the end of episode 8 is done in CG or key art, Endou needs to be brought back on board if it’s going to be key art for the whole scene (and we know that Hotta, the key animator for the second half of the scene at the beginning of episode 9, has already completed it in key art). Aoi wonders why Endou is being so stubborn about the issue. She gets a little insight from her high school friend Misa, the aspiring 3D animator, who notes that perhaps what Endou sees is 3D catching up to hand drawn art. She says this since this is how the 3D side of the divide views matters: they are trying to catch up to what traditional key art can accomplish in terms of expressiveness and impact.
And all of this in just the first half.
The second part does divert our attention slightly, by sharing some focus again with Shizuka, the aspiring voice actress, who is nurturing her own doubts about her career’s viability. She gets some support from her old acting coach, Tateo, who turns up at the small restaurant where Shizuka works her part-time job. They note in passing that most of Shizuka’s fellow training school graduates have moved on from voice acting work. Sensing Shizuka’s loss of confidence, Tateo invites Shizuka to a rehearsal of a play she is involved with: a gender-swapped version of Waiting for Godot. It’s just the thing Shizuka needed and that was the idea, of course: to buck up Shizuka’s flagging belief in her own acting.
The strange title of this episode finally makes sense at the end. There is an exhibition for an old giant robot show called Idepon. Aoi hears from Segawa, the key animator and animation supervisor that we’ve met several times before, that Endou is a big fan of Idepon, so Aoi thinks that by getting him to view the show (Musani either was given or purchased a number of passes to the show for the staff), it might inspire him to come back to work. It so happens that at the exhibit, Aoi and Endou meet Shimoyanagi, the 3D animator who worked up the 3D version of the explosion scene. You might think a different kind of explosion might be in the works, but no…both Endou and Shimoyanagi are big fans of Idepon. It would appear that both were inspired greatly by it and through bonding over it, see that they don’t really have any beef with each other. Endou is inspired now to do the key art for the explosion scene.
Some might complain that for all the stormy excess of the “Endou crisis” as we might call it, the ending is too pat, too easily settled, all wrapped up prettily with a bow. But I don’t have a problem with this. Some crises end not with a bang, but a whimper. Even the problem caused by Kinoshita’s delaying over the storyboards for the final episode is resolved as he finally bears down to the task of finishing up the storyboards. Crying, yelling, and histrionics will not get the show made. Sitting down quietly and doing the work will. So that is what both Endou and Kinoshita have to do in the end.
We also get further testimony that Aoi really is suited to the work of production and see how it is meant to be done (Takanashi is obviously the warning example of how not to get production work done). The main task of an assistant is to navigate around the egos and personal quirks of the staffers, making sure that the work gets done on time. Everything else is secondary. This is something Aoi can do. It’s also important to bring problems up the chain of command: Aoi’s speaking to Honda was in its way central to ending the crisis. Not that Honda could fix it himself, but with the problem out in the open, she was no longer held in paralysis, unlike the useless Takanashi who paralyzed himself into doing nothing (nagging Endou to come back without offering any reasons why he should just annoyed Endou further; Takanashi would have spent his time just as productively by banging his head against a brick wall). She was able to move on and work on a solution, with the confidence that those higher up the chain were aware of the problem and would provide help where necessary. Forward momentum is required.
And that applies to Shirobako too. The show as well started to build forward momentum as we see Aoi’s growth and development, with the acknowledgment by her senior colleagues, Yano and Ochiai among others, that she has the talents and abilities necessary for production work. I hope that we can see this forward motion maintained and do not slip back into the “crisis of the week” melodrama alone. The sideways glances at Shizuka’s career helped too.
In Summary:
After all of the commotion surrounding Endou’s withdrawal from the show, Aoi manages to get things back on course through reminding Endou of what it is he loves about animation. Reinvigorated by an exhibition on Idepon, an old show that inspired him to become an animator in the first place, Endou returns to work and completes the key animation for episode 8 of Exodus. So, the crisis ends. Aoi herself shows some growth as she manages to overcome the paralysis that had held Takanashi into doing almost nothing to resolve the situation. Forward motion was lacking in the last episode. We get some in this episode.
Episode Grade: B+
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
