Despite the difficulty of loosing key talents, Animators & Directors alike, having being forced to reboot the company with the remaining talents they had, in a shocking twist over the relatively short span of 2-4 years, the animation quality & art direction had actually improved quite significantly, as Madhouse productions now a days seem far more with the times. While perhaps from a directing standpoint not as innovate and experimental as in the past with Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue or Millennium actress, in the macro sense, the net improvement from feature films to regular TV animations all improved handily, there being far less of a gap between high budget productions & low budget production as was apparent in past years. Even after loosing essentially the face of Madhouse Masao Murayama, and being gutted of it's plethora of in house talent, development in raising the animation standard still continued in outputting a higher amount of quality in a more efficient weekly timespan in this shift, due to Madhouse's large transition into incorporating the digital realm of animation.
Not only do Madhouse productions of today such as Death Parade or No Game No Life seem more vivid & dynamic than ever before, character designs and animations are cleaner, acute and more distinct. While I'll forever miss the more real to life portrayals of more regular and distinctly normal character designs found in series such as Paradise Kiss from character designer Noberteru Yuuki (Though I understand his work still lives on through Studio MAPPA in series such as Sakamichi no Apollon - When animators actually drew noses!!), pretty much everything Satoshi Kon including paranoia agent from Character designer Masashi Andou, or even as recently as Tatami Galaxy's character designer Nobutake Itou. Madhouse however hasn't entirely revamped itself, as even from an artistic standpoint quite a handful of long time Madhouse staff and free lancers closely associated with Madhouse still remain, and are happy to still work with the studio. Some are afraid that Madhouse has abandoned it's identity as innovator within the artistic realm, just to make more populist smash hits and what not.
I'm afraid too! but I digress - It's balance, and always has been for Madhouse, because loosing Satoshi Kon & the incompletion of his unfinished work "Dreaming Machine" was a Major hit, not only from a moral standpoint, from a financial position as well. However one can't deny on the other hand, the leaps and bounds Madhouse has crossed in cultivating it's staff and young talent into refining their craft of animation to quite a fine eye point, asides from perhaps no longer being the animation powerhouse & a haven for auteur directors as they once were - In nearly every other aspect from an animation standpoint such as CGI - Colour Composition - Character Design/Animation - To Art Direction they've certainly improved for the better.Series such as No Game No Life, One Punch & Death Parade are Testament to that fact.
Cinematography
Though generally decent, and great in the most pivotal of moments, this at large seems to be my largest concern when thinking about issues that Death Parade has. You see, like I've mentioned before, I feel like while Yuzuru Tachikawa is actually has written a pretty interesting story and script, as a director he doesn't necessarily have the best sense of framing & shot flow. I mean at times his framings & use of camera movements are sometimes uninspired or perhaps unmotivated, often times using unnecessarily bold sweeping zooms and unconvincing 3D CG to complement it, to make seem these games or trials so to speak are more "grand" or larger than life than they actually are, to perhaps up the stakes. It's more or less seemed akin to what I'd see in a "Bayhem" film, more or less with these kinds of sweeping zooms, or exaggerated reaction shots. It really rubs me kind of wrong because it makes Death Parade sell itself short with these cheesy looking character emotes and reactions, and game show like camera movement, in a setting that's entirely in doors and narrow.
It's not all bad!! thankfully though he's able to pull through in the most pivotal & climatic moments. In addition to that you're usually kept on your toes, because even despite being a relatively drama oriented series, Death parade is actually quite action oriented as well & with the faster paced series of cuts & transitions to reaction shots & what not, Yuzura Tachikawa & his team of storyboarders are always able to keep it interesting with their nice sense of momentum & pacing, in addition to great pictorial aspects through the animation, great character designs & animations. Death Parade also has it's fair share of more unnerving moments, through intense action and confrontation, Tachikawa often sports a relatively angular sense of framing, often pattering group dialogue & discussions with shot reverse shot patterns, while splicing in some traditional close up distance transitions, as well as establishing medium long shots and playing with the vertical angle of shots with more oblique scenes with high angles. Also including low angles for confrontational, eccentric or perhaps inquisitive moments within the text/script, even including dutch angles in addition to zooms, and keen camera movements and subtle shaky cams for this purpose as well.
To that note framing is more traditional obviously, staying true to the golden ratio & the rule of thirds when framing subjects, the points of interest or perhaps when framing action. In addition to this Tachikawa also uses the space within wisely to voice opposition, often making use of profile shots, within the process. In addition to this, Tachikawa often makes use of lateral/horizontal panning and zooms in either direction to prevent shots from staggering moments, and to keep things interesting. Though I take issue with this because while I do like how cutting is done on movement to keep us guessing and how it's seemingly a more natural way to to cut or transition the point of interest, it often seems unmotivated and done with little significance or variation just the sake of attempting to spice up the shot.
Bold camera movements don't have an effect because often times we're unable to contrast that with the stillness of the moment or be surprised when it happens, I feel very similar in this respect to a series such as Attack on Titan, though in Tetsuro Araki's case, Attack on Titan was far more of an action oriented animation that benefited great from such perverse camera maneuvering, since displaying speed & the velocity of each situation was pivotal for it's high action formula of entertainment. However Death Parade is a drama series, and camera movement at times seems uninspired at that. Though I will say that the zooms used within scenes will always remain useful, and despite perhaps including too much camera movement to the point where it's predictable, also actually has it's own benefits to including them as well. I also find the that focussing techniques & bokeh showed a relatively limited use, as I found other directors are far more creative with it when switching the point of whatnot within a frame or whatnot. Though in the last episode directed specifically by Yuzura Tachikawa, this doesn't stand to be the case.
Due to the more curios & sometime oblique nature of the show, I feel if Madhouse was able to also commission veteran directors responsible for storyboarding more atmospherically still & oblique series such as Hamasaki Hiroshi who storyboarded an episode for Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent, as well storyboarding & directing both Shigurui & Stein's;Gate, Takayuki Hirao responsible for storyboarding part of Bokurano, and was director & story boarding artist for 2 Kara No Kyoukai films (The 7th & the 5th) & Sayo Yamato responsible for being an episode director and storyboarding a part of Ergo proxy, in addition to Samurai Champloo, all directors have which worked on and storyboarded Texhnolyze in one way or another I mean Hello... Madhouse what're you doing not offering a position to any one of these talented directors you've worked with before. Each of whom has the resume and right pedigree for being known to direct excellently unnerving and oblique shows.
Being that I often times find the inclusion of expository non diegetic dialogue to be distractingly corny a times, being that for a show that strives to be more intense & daring, Tachikawa persists in doing far more telling than actually showing. Being that some of the included internal character monologue & reactions I find to be entirely unnecessary - As it immediately takes us out of the moment, and sucks out any sense of mystery or urgency a scene can potentially have, particularly when Quinn Decim visitors are staking their lives. I think while Tachikawa was writing the script he failed to realize that his viewers have eyes, & there's such a thing of what's called visual story telling. In that there's just such an abundance of dialogue that could've been omitted, that would demand more of the said viewers attention or observational skills.
No I don't believe Death parade would be better if it was a completely ambiguous and oblique anime like Texnolyze is, however in conjunction with Tachikawa's amicable characters & touching story, I feel directors such as Takayuki Hirao or Hamasaki Hiroshi could create a really finite balance between the two and would be far better options for framing more ominous and ambiguous moments, along with the more uneasy confrontational one's as well. I can't help but imagine what they've could have contributed, as I'd imagine a far more interesting and idiosyncratic take on Oculus's conspiring & perhaps their ominous take on the rest of the arbiters who believe in the arbitration system & how cruel and unfair the process really is. Though for a series that's just 12 episodes, I suppose Death Parade as it stands today is perfect for it's short & sweet format, but man what the combination between Tachikawa's touching character story in addition to Takayuki Hirao's more ambiguous sense of framing & atmospherically layered compositions could do with a 24 episode series - It could be pretty great, granted I've seen quite a lot of people complain about how vague & lacking in devlopement Death Parade seems in terms of both it's overarching narrative & characters. With Takayuki or Hiroshi I feel as if they could perhaps add the right amount of complexity that some feel Death Parade lacks.
Another point where I perhaps take issue is the use of the dissolve or fade transition. A hard transition to pull off that goes without saying, and the team on Death Parade didn't really do it justice either. You see dissolves can look beautiful and comforting when pulled off, and in those situations they're often good at either showing the passage of time, emphasizing the temporal relationship between shots, and the use of parallelism, when points of interest both lines up with photo being dissolved, and the next image that lie beneath. It should be used sparingly since it's not a transition that functions similarly as a head turn, also being a transition that draws attention to itself. Like many other lame uses of the fade, are fade outs to foreshadowed memories, accompanied with a stereotypical sweeping sound effect and the overblown exposure and tinted look of the scene. In that respect the dissolve when used should be motivated for more provocative or physical means of displaying the passage of time to substitute the jump cut, parallelism or perhaps both.Animation & Art direction
Asides from the somewhat questionable use of 3D CG, the animation side of things seems pretty on point. I mean for mainly being a drama series, there are some excellent character animations through both high action & low action scenes. I always wondered until what figure skating in an anime would look like & it's beautiful to see in action - It actually makes me want to see Yuri on Ice from MAPPA a little, though as a dude, seeing other dudes in skating in tights is a bit of a turn off you know? In fact if shows such as Free! , Yuri on Ice & Dive were gender mixed I'd watch them in a heart beat - Just Sayin'Anyways getting back on track here, you see Death Parade also houses quite bit of action, thanks to the Quinn Decim's use of games to probe his visitors. In more back and forth situations, it's common to see more high action animation, in addition to players simply just loosing it & going berserk - Yeah lets just say that those cringe worthy (But in a good way) faces you see in a show like Kakegurui aren't entirely unique to it either, in my opinion I think it's great, being that often times even within the Japanese animation industry, character designers usually have very idealized character designs, often times not appreciating the beauty of regular ugly looking people (such as myself). It's also funny how nobody either criticizing or applauding Death Parade notices just how god damned consistent the animation is. You guys by now already know that I always go frame by frame when taking screenshots for an anime, and throughout the entirety of that process, I could only find a astonishing few frames that were off, I mean seriously, the character animation and principle drawing is on point! Thanks to Character designer & Chief animation director Shinichi Kurita, who's been a long time key animation director for quite a while, ranging from A-1 pictures productions such as Gate, Space Dandy & even Michiko & Hatchin. The times that these frames did show up were in far more high action scenes, so you wouldn't be able to actually catch them due to the density of frames per second, most other small inconsistencies you will find are when characters are drawn at a distance - The rest are beautiful & on model.
Shinichi Kurita's designs have distinct enough iconography to actually be able to pick out a character with just there silhouette, however are simple enough to clearly be efficient drawn, frame by frame. His character designs often opt to have somewhat slimmer characters, with balanced use of negative space/linework ratio. Asides from Decim's Assistant & other visitors, the arbiters of course often sport butler uniforms with black slacks & vest, with a white dress shirt & red tie underneath bow underneath, and of course black dress shoes. Though being that Nona & Oculus are authority figures, Nona usually sports black baggy pants, with thin shoulder straps in addition to brown sandals as well & Occulus wears Hawian shirts with khaki shorts & sandals. In addition to this arbiter's also sport cross shaped irises in a various selection of colours, the same goes for their hair as well. Not the absolute best I'v seen, though I'm a fan of the character designs, a nice amount of emotions from down the range were able to be worked into their animations, along with being proportionate & acute, not to mention fantastically consistent, even in transition. Though if I were to compare, Kurita's designs while decent, don't nearly have the sense of depth & dimensionality that'd you'd find in designs by Akio Watanabe (See the Monogatari Series) or Kyoji Asano responsible for Attack on Titan's Character designs, as in comparison they some off as somewhat flat, though just a tad.
Despite almost entirely being indoors, Death Parade's actually has some beautiful environments, from the subliminal indoor lighting, to the cooler colour pallet, the Quinn Decim bar in particular is actually quite stunningly designed. From the glass murals, to the tile or the vintage furniture and plaster walls, I feel the art department led by Satoru Hirayanagi & Colour Designer Yoshinori Horikawa went to great lengths into decorating & lightning both the Quinn Decim & other environments within Death Parade. The bar has a mix of incandescent and blue fluorescent lights highlighting the soft purples, magenta and blue mid tones throughout the setting. Often having a staple of vintage furniture and woods, with brown as a staple for the setting & archaic brick & plaster walls have decorative greenery and nature. Due to the use of sweeping zooms, I suspect quite a large part of the Quinn Decim is partly 3D CG, mixed in with regular 2D elements. As I've mentioned earlier the 3D CG definitely draws attention to itself with these bold camera movements, however like Konosuba, when it remains static, it remains impressively indistinguishable from other 2D elements, thanks to the special attention focussed into detailing & texturing environments on the micro level, as there not only able to depict a good sense of depth due to good lighting, but we're also able to discern a great amount of detail & pigments of colour say on any particular surface or wall perhaps, like the individual grains & pigments on a plaster or brick wall, or wooden chair.
Though on a side note having seen Shinegori Hirozumi's works as recently as Attack on Titan as 3D & CGI director, to me his work is actually quite questionable, especially when combined with bold camera movement or animation, Alot of people complained about the 3D CG Colossal Titan in S2 (Which he worked on) - Suffice to say, not really the best integration particularly on movement, between respective 2D & 3D CG elements. Colour composition is generally complimentary, being on the cool side of things. However we're also privileged on occasion to other various environments, such as Ginti's more traditionally Japanese, warmly lit bar, or perhaps Nona's personal abode with her white victorian house surrounded by archaic ruins, & natural greenery, sunlight & water at that. We also brought on occasion to the depths of this rather vague world into train terminals, Oculus's hideout with stony overgrowth, or often times the domestic memories of the lives of Japanese citizens who come to the Quinn Decim. In fact Death Parade's decorative & architectural sense especially regarding the Quinn Decim is almost entirely heavily influenced by Victorian aspects, along with some more squarely Japanese elements more found in Ginti's bar.
