The main centre piece of any conversation regarding One Punch man would really have to be it's high octane and impactful animation style, rocking a brand quite reminiscent to american comics in regards to the use of BL shading and the heavy ink like rough brush stroke cuts, as well as the multiple special effects impact frames seen numerous time's throughout the series. One Punch Man really became an animation tour de force marking itself as a creative industry endeavour while still being loyal page for page to the manga, as it really goes to show you the calibre of the staff and the veteran industry freelancers they had in their animation department. Though one of the most notable things here is how fantastic the gritty and impactful frames actually came about from digital workflows as opposed to being done traditionally on paper with scans. As the sheer scale, high action animation and camera maneuvering was an incredibly daunting task to be done otherwise, and with that the level of consistency paired with the ambitious action choreography makes for an explosive combination, really hitting a fine eye point of how creative and large the possibilities for digital animation can be.“This time, we’ve gone digital, it’s not drawn on paper but on computers. and we’re coordinating the drawing with the camera work as we create, we’ll be able to reproduce the actions with more accuracy and speed.” - Shingo Natsume [Oct 2 2015 Viz Media Official Anime Behind The Scenes Sneak Peak]
It really is a testament to how apt Shingo Natsume is in selecting such a prestigious staff and the connections he's forged throughout the decade to assemble a team to craft such an sensational anime, that would become a raving centre piece in conversations between the community and those in the anime industry alike.
Cinematography
The one thing that'll probably strike you from the get go would really have to be the wide range of motion regarding camera maneuvering such as the perverse tracking shots, sweeping pans and even spiral shots. In that I feel Shingo Natsume and his team of story boarders have a real taste for the dramatic, in that each shot often has it's own sense of charisma and while lacking subtlety it's in exchange for the more provocative and eye catching subjective film grammar, instead of the dry and extremely distinct diegetic film grammar from say the "Kara No Kyoukai" film series. This of course goes hand in hand with the more instantaneous and comedic aspects of the the story, while giving the series a robust and dynamic feel with perverse tracking shots and continuous camera motion in high action animation sequences. As the visual tempo of each episode is quite up beat, in that the shot composition is pretty heavily edited and chopped up, having a real sense of tempo and grandiose visuals through the art of robust motion.
Shingo Natsume also has a really classic sense of staging and how he composes shots, with the typical confrontational film grammar that's perfect for a hero themed action comedy such as the dutch angle with a low tilt slow pan and shot reverse shot arrangement, also coupled with zoom cuts to close up reaction shots. Though the series is visually comical alot of the times, in that you can easily draw the parallels and influences that's reminiscent of both american comics and Japanese manga, such as the use of heavy BL shading with ink like outlines and things such as the focus line's you'd find in a manga, and how you'd also find the typical character over exaggeration in a manga is depicted in the anime in how a given character's facial expressions and emotes are far removed from reality. This of course goes hand in hand with the more subjective film grammar of the series being that Shingo Natsume's team frequently uses inner dialogue and accompanying music over the visual, such as a montage edit, an ongoing scene or perhaps the corny use of freeze frames and indulgent poses, along with slow mo's and rewind/repeat action scenes.
However you could say that Shingo Natsume's team on storyboards lacks alot of continuity regarding the shot flow composition, and while panning motions are used numerously throughout the series to gel shots together, the basic rules of cutting on motion or perhaps the look really wasn't applied to any great extent on a consistent basis. As the sequentiality of shots often seems disjointed and unmotivated by the action or the subject within the scene. The same of which can also be said for the camera maneuvering as well, being that often times the camera is motivating the action through calculated cinematic motion instead of the other way around, which is quite backwards in that it makes the cinematic quality of the series seem overly calculated and inorganic. It's really this large clunky waterfall affect that also diminishes the quality of the cut and their respective sequential editing compositions and patterns, and quite frankly can be quite distracting at times. As this even includes how respective sound information is cued in conjunction with the cut as well. However it's not all that bad as that sense of dissonance and disjointed cuts actually do compliment the instantaneous flow of the film and can give the tempo of a scene a lot of pop, which can make cuts unpredictable, aiding the more instantaneous slapstick comedy aspects through more unconventional means.
This also brings me to staging and shot composition, as the use of distance transitions and the 180 degree rule is seemingly thrown out the window here, and again it really gives the series an awfully random and clunky feel to it's shot flow. As the awfully drastic transitions between angles, coverage and distance are so awkward because there's really nothing in between to gel them together or a sense of when's it's appropriate to actually use or omit them. So the contrasting relationship between deliberately building tension and resolving into consonance is virtually non existent in this series, being that the flow of the shot is seemingly random and clunky most of the time.However it's quite strange in that the show can actually have it's moments of brilliance, being how they're able to hone in on the focus of a scene while actually applying the aforementioned fundamentals, alongside timely used zooms and panning motions. Having a shot flow composition and a selection of shot coverages that actually correlate and make sense, instead of randomly breaking the line of action and 180 degree rule just because they feel like it. As I find such episodes can have very decent counterpoint composition between how the sound and action of the scene can work in concert to cue the next cut. This of course goes hand in hand with splitting up the labour regarding the storyboarding duties, as it's bound to bring some inconsistencies to the show episode to episode.
Though one thing that I really like is how elaborate the set design can actually be, and thinking about how much space within a frame is used in a shot during high action animation sequences, it really has to be as without it you really can't get a sense of the scale of the scene or the action. As this also helps with how characters are staged in conjunction to the set geometry, using adjacent and converging lines along side subject to help draw in and focus the eye relative to the camera, in addition to using the golden ratio as well. As I also find that having large scale set designs and coverage of a scene really makes the series feel open and spacious, which is actually quite a welcome change compared to the typical amount of stale tripod shots with a triangular circle of action or shot reverse shot arrangements found say in your run of the mill slice of life series, however wild the sequences of shots, angle selection and composition may be at times. As for such a high octane action series many of Shingo Natsume's team on story boards have a lot of off balance/axis framings to give the individual quality of the shot urgency, both on the vertical and horizontal axis. However in more definitive and direct moments the angles tend to become flatter and on center relative to the subject or point of interest and the camera, as the distance between them also becomes shorter as well. Though on a normal basis they usually stage their subjects by playing it straight, as often times subjects are right in the center of the frame being that the series has a large amount of direct and instantaneous character acting cuts. On occasion though during the more confrontational scenes the rule of thirds is occasionally used, such as when applying the golden ratio to shot reverse shots.
However I'll never go to so much as saying this is some art house film or whatever that has awe inspiring cinematic qualities, being that since the original text being so simplistic, it's not as if the film medium can draw much more out of the manga that has already been established other than the action scenes, and that's totally fine because it's supposed to be a funny and silly story. And it really goes without saying that the emotional palette is really not as diverse as dedicated drama series, so while Shingo Natsume and his team really hit the mark regarding the explosiveness and sheer scale of action scenes and in addition to that staying faithful to the original intent of the manga such as the more dry comedic aspects, there just wasn't that much to play around with in the text for them to display really creative film grammar.
As relationships between the set and subject or the foreground and the background are just as basic and simplistic as the story is, which goes without saying that others aspects having to do with photography such blocking and staging techniques are also similarly basic. In that there's little but the standard contextual environmental information that correlates to the given scene or message, as One Punch Man's staff has very little to do with the art of subtlety and complex nuance. However surprisingly so, the director of photography Akane Fukuhara and Shingo Natsume's team actually make quite a bit of use of lenses other than the standard such as the wide angle and the telephoto. In the case of the telephoto, it's commonly used for depth of field transitions say in shot reverse shot confrontational sequences between two subjects, switching between the given subjects in the background to the immediate foreground, and occasionally used to isolate a character perhaps lost in his own thoughts for a more personalized and biased shot. Though the wide angle of course is used for the more atmospheric and broader psychological sequences, as the dissonance created by the wide angle creates a pretty surreal and overt quality to the given shot.Animation & Art direction
While the high action animation sequences are without a doubt impressive in how visceral and impactful they are, what personally caught me by surprise is how balanced and easy on the eyes the colour palette and distribution can be. With art directors such as Yukiko Maruyama and Shigemi Ikeda who've I recently reviewed his work in my Bokurano review, really honed in their staff to make the visual component and pictorial aspects of this series not only comfortable, but explosive and consistent in it's quality. With the initial eye test Ken Hashimoto's work on colour offered alot of consonant and pleasing compositions, and while not the wildest or perverse selection I've ever seen, what strikes me is how balanced and complimentary the series looks episode to episode."…People Like Satoshi Hashimoto, our colour designer, His colour choices and distribution are so pleasing to the eyes. We have a lot of evening scenes in the series, he paid a lot of attention to the colour subtleties that made it visually comfortable. It’s the attention to detail.. the smallest details. It’s great to have a staff that care about these things."- Shingo Natsume [Oct 2 2015 Viz Media Official Anime Behind The Scenes Sneak Peak]
Often sporting softer tertiary and secondary colour pallete's in addition to the more frequent use of broken tetratic and improvisational colour schemes to go for softer contrasts during day to day scenes and switching it up to the harder contrasts with split complimentary and triadic colour schemes in primary/secondary colour palettes in more intense high action animation sequences. As well darkening up a scene or perhaps character outlines during those more comical/oblique moments. I mean while this is an anime adaptation based off a comical hero story, Akane Fukuhara & Ken Hashimoto are also able to work in very subtle nuances into post production, because while most of us are aware of the more comical and over-exaggerated depictions of subjects through both lighting and colouring techniques, we shouldn't ignore how pretty detailed and well rendered the background composites can be at times in what they are trying to achieve. As depiction of light and other related effects is quite well rendered, regarding the fine gradients and depicting spatiality, in addition to the vivid contrasts that comes from things such as explosive special effects.
"The last step is photography, putting everything together with the composites, we have Akane Fukuhara on top of that and she has such a great feel for this work. she’s very young but talented. anime can become very routine, mostly it’s diffusion and there are those who think that alone will suffice, not with her. She’ll look at the raws and bring out the best in them. She finds the challenge in that process." - Shingo Natsume [Oct 2 2015 Viz Media Official Anime Behind The Scenes Sneak Peak]
As I find when the series transitions it's tone from segment to segment and how the visual runs counterpoint to the text is actually quite well practiced here. Whether it's the more oblique and confrontational sequences accompanied by harder contrasts through colour and lighting, or the more day to day evening scene's with softer tertiary hues and broken colour scheme's, I feel the visual design and department were reasonably distinct in keeping up with the tone and pace of the series. Be it whether it's the more grittier action sequences with particles and debris flying everywhere or the more pleasant walks throughout city when Saitama is grocery shopping. And as you might imagine with so much motion introduced to both the subjects and the camera, the background composites need to be just as meticulously layered as the movement is extreme and perverse, to keep the sense of relativity on the dimensional spatiality of a 2d medium, dependent on the amount of movement that's introduced.
Not only that but being set in a massive mega city, the depictions of the architecture and scenery were also well designed and quite detailed oriented, both on a macro and the micro scale. So much so that the background composites stay consistently relative to the large amount of motion that's introduced from scene to scene, in addition to the individual rendering of smaller textures and pigments. As on the larger scale the architectural and geometric set design is well done and believable, actually creating more framing opportunities for the camera by introducing things such as adjacent & converging line work to place the point of interest or given subject. However I will say that the the animation does lack that last bit of sharpness and resolution regarding it's principle animation and line-work, as this also applies regarding how definitive and clean lighting and colour is. Though One Punch Man is definitely quite decent and reasonably well above average.
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| Chikashi Kubota [Chief Animation Director] |
"Chikashi Kubota is doing the character designs, He’s done a great job of reproducing Murata sensei’s drawings, down to his little idiosyncrasies. He has stayed true to the characters in the manga and painstakingly transformed them for anime. …He’s a top class animator as well as a designer, so we’ve got someone very sensitive to art working on the character designs for the series" - Shingo Natsume [Oct 2 2015 Viz Media Official Anime Behind The Scenes Sneak Peak]It really is a treat to have high action animation sequences with such an explosive tempo, that also really considers the timing and suspension of energy to really burst into these incredibly orgastic action sequences, with such charisma and emphasis put on each of the individual key frames and effects - In that it becomes less about animation and cost efficiency, and more about the passion and love for the art itself, really being something that anybody would have to respect, as the animation stands for itself, that alone making One Punch Man worth watching at least once in your lifetime.
"When it came to cuts in the anime, there was a lot of meaning to each of them; cuts that would build timing, cuts that burst out with energy, etc. to me, not cutting corners was the most important step" - Shingo Natsume [Oct 2 2015 Viz Media Official Anime Behind The Scenes Sneak Peak]
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Article Contents - Comments Section
- Plot | Narrative | Character Aspects
- Production Aspects [Cinematography | Animation | Art Direction]
- Voice Actor Choreography | Sound Effects & Original Soundtrack | Addendum
