I always love when producers & anime studios alike come up with original productions, as this is also the case with Sora No Woto, an anime original by A-1 pictures back in their earlier days in 2010 some 7-8 years ago now. One of the strongest points of Sora No Woto as you might imagine would really have to be it's principle animation & character design, as it's a fairly beautifully rendered anime for it's time. With all the top notch flair in animations we would see become a standard only 2-3 years down the line and of course from the likes of Kyo Ani. Undoubtedly having some of the best animation I've seen during the early turn of the decade, speaking volumes of the calibre of the staff they had at the time for Sora no Woto. Especially considering how the Aniplex subsidiary was still a relatively new company with little experience comparatively speaking.
Cinematography
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| Mamoru Kanbe [Director] |
The labour for story boarding this time around was divided episode by episode with a team of story-boarders led by director Mamoru Kanbe, so there's no one person entirely responsible for the shot flow composition & cinematography of the anime. However for the sake of this review and seeing how Mamoru Kanbe is the director of this series, my comments about such will be under his name for convenience sake. Being that the series is quite temporally compressed, the film grammar for this series is largely biased/subjective towards one given character on a scene to scene basis. As a result, there also tends to be quite a bit of a montage of edits and cutting , where the music plays a frequent role in setting the mood and tone overtop the visual. This of course can be observed right from the first episode in Kanata's flashback of the past of particularly important memory and in the montage composition occurring shortly afterwords.
What I particularly like about Sora No Woto really is how the sequential composition of both the visual and sound component really operate in conjunction together to cue the next cut, adding a keen sense of awareness and spatiality to the scene, to possibly cue a head turn following a cut. This as you might imagine is also used for comedic effect as well, utilizing the sequential editing of cuts and sound information to craft gags to particularly good effect, usually keeping you on your toes by introducing sudden cuts to change it up a little. Another thing I like quite alot is how diverse staging and framing shots can be, as the shot composition never feels restrictive in any sense, nor does it feel repetitive. Even though textbook framings of OTS shot and reverse shots are used, it's only by occasional default as things are pretty frequently opened up and inclusive with the use of various establishing shots, with no particular preference towards flatter on center framings as opposed to adjacent one's. In that it's really is a handy mix of both, and it'd be a shame for all that great scenery within the anime to go to waste to repetitive Mid/CU shot/reverse shots.
I find that there's really no hard and fast rules within regards to framing as it's really quite the mix of subjects often either framed with the rule of thirds in mind and the golden ratio for shot reverse shot compositions, as well as on center or off center adjacent shots. In that even the distances used from shot to shot are quite diverse and dynamic in their transitions, typically utilizing zoom cuts in these situations in addition to also playing with the vertical level of shot as well. Utilizing high angle tilts for the more oblique scenes alongside those of curiosity and wonder. I also feel that Mamoru Kanbe's team has a pretty decent application of the practice of staging characters with the set geometry and scenery of the shot in mind, making for some beautiful compositions every now and then . Though at times I kind of think that the editing is a bit too chopped up as sometimes the timing of cuts are somewhat awkward with nothing really motivating cut before hand. As a rule, cutting on movement or the "look" is quite a textbook fundamental, and sadly it's not always practiced from a scene to scene basis in Sora No Woto.
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| Takaharu Ozaki [Photography Director] |
As you might've already seen it's quite a popular technique you've probably seen numerous times in any given anime, in that it's cost effective and it works. Though being a relatively happy go lucky series with very few tense developments doesn't really offer much creative headroom for the keen use of lighting with Takaharu Ozaki as head of photography. I find while decently lit, Sora No Woto lacks alot of diversity in it's subject matter to really showcase what could have been done creatively to compliment the atmosphere of the film. As the use of environmental factors to influence the tone and atmosphere of a shot is quite limited and basic, despite how wonderfully rendered it is.. The use of lensing and transitions here is similarly rudimentary as only the standard and telephoto get any real use here, and with regards to the telephoto shot it's not used in much of a prominent manner either, really only being used for basic depth of field transitions and occasional bokeh isolation shots. The use of transitions is similarly basic with only the occasional dissolve or fade, and not in really particularly interesting ways either. In that I find that an anime such as this doesn't really use many clever blocking and/or framing techniques regarding the foreground and background to really make any particularly effective use from depth of field transitions from a telephoto lens, and other photography techniques asides from the very basics.Animation & Art direction
With an animation staff department led by Toshifumi Akai, being both the chief animation director as well as being character designer, Soro No Woto first really began showing the potential promise of A-1 Pictures in what the relatively new studio was capable of. Toshifumi Akai being the same of which who drew up the beautiful designs in one of my favourite anime Kokoro Connect. Being set in the city streets of Cuenca Spain, or rather referenced from, Sora No Woto is pleasing on the eyes & with Misatoshi Kai as Art Director Soro No Woto was beautifully rendered, with resolving background composites that still come off as relatively modern looking even for something that's 8 years old now, thanks to the rendering of the wonderful colour pigmentation and micro detail you would need for depicting an accurate sense of texture and spatiality. In that despite perhaps not being entirely creative with it's use of lighting, it's none the less rendered pretty well, however basic the situations where lighting was applied.
That pleasing look I was talking about really comes from the soft consonant tertiary pastels and hues you can find about everywhere in the series, often opting for a more analogous look with colour designer Kazuko Nakashima at the helm. And as you might imagine like any good anime, the colour composition of a given scene really plays a huge role in depicting the mood and setting the tone. Whether it's spending late nights with nothing but candle light, watching lanterns float down the river in the peaceful midnight sky or perhaps the monochrome of a special memory, the series is beautifully fleshed out and aptly well done in terms of it's colour composition and keen enough in it's usage to really influence a scene's given atmosphere and tone.
Though the colour composition is without a doubt a strong point for the series, I also really have to give a nod for the spectacular principle animation & character design. As character movement and emotes are so meticulously well depicted, with beautiful frame by frame consistency and choreography, really setting a standard for A-1 pictures and the high bar for quality they'd adhere to from there on in the near future. This is also true for Toshifumi's character designs working off of Mel Kishida's originals, in that they have a beautiful balance between defining features and outlines, to the simplicity of a modest colour pallet and negative space. An optimal combination between good animation efficiency, that's flexible in the most demanding high action animation sequences, whilst looking beautiful in the process and fitting of each of their respective written characters. CG animation this time around was quite limited, only really serving to animate complicated vehicles such as the Takemikazuchi tank. |
| Mel Kishida [Original Character Designer] |
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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
