Maybe not as vivid and extravagant compared to today's productions and digital colouring methods and such, though a closer look reveals just so much character and personality worked in to the character animations, and as far as I know it's some of the best of its time (Asides from full feature film animations that is). Though with that in mind, Samurai Champloo is relatively conservative in its film grammar as there is clear text book examples of the traditional continuity style at work here, however it's also juxtaposed with spliced in jump cuts and of course other abnormal cultural references - But it's that dryness that makes Samurai Champloo somewhat of an observational comedy as well, and like other comedies such as Konosuba, though to a lesser extent, facial animations and other charter emotes take precedent here. As Kazuto Nakazawa's character designs are absolutely fantastic and the animation is wonderfully consistent frame to frame, episode to episode, being that Kazuto Nakazawa is also responsible as Chief Animation Director - Though like any other animation you'll still be able to find off model tweening frames here and there, though I digress, since they are so few and far between, and the level of consistency in an animation produced in 2004, with the complexity of the given character design is nothing short of astonishing.
Cinematography
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| Kazuto Nakazawa |
While I will go on to say that Samurai Champloo emphasizes diegetic continuity, Watanabe's team's sense of cinematography and film grammar is certainly noticeable without a doubt - As he uses these breaks in continuity and suggestive film grammar, to add a certain surrealist and physiological element to the story - Whether it be through narrated illustrative cuts or freeze frames immortalizing moments in time, or perhaps adding neurotically low frame rate & blurred lens takes with film grain for dream sequences, routine funky rewind jump cuts, perhaps the obliqueness of charcoal & pencil animation or even using dissolves to overlay correlating subjects to emphasize a sense of parallelism - You can always notice the edit."It’s very sketchy looking, without polished lines, but it can have a very personal touch that is unique to the individual artist. That is so wonderful." - Shinichiro Watanabe (Matrix DVD Interviews)
[Sketch Animation Sequence w/ Charcoal & Ghraphite] - [Film Dissolve Overlay] - [Narrated Ukiyo-e Illustration]
It's all telling of Watanabe's personality as a director in these deliberate decisions he makes to tell a given story or sell a particular message. Watanabe is also no stranger in utilizing different lenses to spice up a shot and keep it interesting, be it a super wide fish eye lens, a wide angle shot or perhaps depth of field transitions with a telephoto lens, as the use of bokeh within Samurai Champloo can be found pretty frequently across the entire series.
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| Telephoto Shot With Bokeh |
Generally speaking Watanabes team of story boarders, including himself are traditional in their use of shot and reverse shot patterns, and it's of particular of use when framing confrontation or adversarial relationships - Also utilizing Dutch angles frequently in a relatively still sense of framing, as most camera movement is subtle in it's use of things such as slow panning, zooming or tracking motion. While it's necessary to use angles with shot and reverse shot patterns, Watanabe's framings are only somewhat off center, as he has a relatively frontal sense of framing, and as you'd imagine, it goes hand in hand with amount of reaction shots that they work in for animators to go to work on some really great facial animations and such. In this respect there's almost always a very clear and distinct circle of action in group dialogue situations, often utilizing triangular rotational patterned "Camera" setups, transitioning from shot to shot with dialogue overlaid to cue these transitions smoothly, in addition to cutting on the "look" (A new line of sight) and of course movement as well. Though despite having a mix of conservative and provocative film grammer techniques, Watanabe's team does really abide by the rule of thirds or the golden ratio all to often when it comes to framing for that matter, the former being a bit more common.
[Staging of a Primary Circle of Action] - [Shot Reverse Shot, Rule of Thirds & Golden Ratio applied]
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| Fish Eye Lens - Dutch Angle |
Consequentially though, Watanabe's team doesn't really make much use of zooms or extravagant tracking shots, but instead opts for editing cuts in series of "circle of action montages" if you will - As a consequence, Samurai Champloo can feel flat and static at times, as Watanabe much prefers to either move his subject within a frame or cut to another angle than anything else, rather than include extensive tracking shots or other perverse camera movement asides from steady and simple panning motion , though I guess that's just by design if anything. Though I'll also go out of my way to criticize the severe lack of variation and transition between the level of shot/angle as well as the general distances used - For example, almost every shot is usually a waist up medium shot when framing characters, or a long shot when introducing a scene. Although a fair amount of various vertical transition are used, I can't say much about the actual distances between the camera and the subject, as it makes Samurai Champloo seem a bit boring and stale, since Watanabe's team so rigorously sticks to these principles - In that you always feel you're kept at a "Distance" so to speak, and while it works great for provoking intrigue or producing gags, you don't necessarily feel closer to the character or a given emotion as a result.
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| Wide Angle Lens |
Animation & Art direction
As I've mentioned earlier, Samurai Champloo's character animation is pretty great, in both it's consistency and depictions of various expressions and caricatures. While more realistically drawn in normal situations, when characters such as Fuu react it's also not uncommon for the facial animations to be drawn in a more comical and idealistic way, as opposed to the expressions one could actually make in real life. Kazuto Nakazawa's character designs are beautiful combination of a fair amount of negative space, combined with an efficient use of few corresponding lines, that are effective in keeping things clean and efficient though recognizable, with as few lines as desired. In that, along with other character designers later on, marked a point where designers began to put together models that not only looked attractive, but balanced in their simplicity, and as a result were easier to draw, thanks to minimizing as much redundant line work as possible, so that models could be more geometric (Especially with hair). Though I say it's a mix because Samurai Champloo really has a little bit of both here, as Kazuto Nakazawa's character designs have a beautiful diversity to them, being that people of all ages appear in Samurai Champloo, as middle aged men in particular are quite common.
As a result, not every character's face is as flawless and idealistic as a character such as Fuu's, being that Kazuto Nakazawa really goes to other lengths to capture smaller facial details, such as dimples and cheekbones, or even wrinkles and loose strands of hair, and as a result, unlike many other Japanese animations, Samurai Champloo's characters actually look Japanese - Something that's painfully absent from the majority of anime. It just dawns on me that character design that's more realistic and gritty is simply disappearing as the process just continues to get more industrialized, therefore more idealistic looking and geometric as a result - As opposed to characters who look more real to life. These designs to me are really quite reminiscent of Madhouse's animations back in the day, such as Paradise Kiss or perhaps Beck, though it's just that Kazuto Nakazawa's designs are geometrically efficient, with more idealistic and comical animations. (Please visit Page 6 & Page 3 for various character model sheets & backgrounds as a reference) In that respect, Samurai Champloo is a really nice combination of both, and as a result the animation is wonderfully consistent from frame to frame (In terms of the given ratio) in fact it's one of the best I've seen so far in the given time period. Most off model frames you can find are of course usually between keyframes or when characters are either drawn at a distance, or in high action animation scenes.
Asides from the animation, the pictorial quality of series is fairly good for it's time, but it's just standard or below that of today animations or feature animated films throughout the given time period. What I like a lot about the backdrops and settings is that most of them are done traditionally with watercolour paints, so it of course it gives Samurai Champloo a relatively faded and timely look, reminiscent of animations within the past, as you can often tell being that it's easy enough to discern the grade and grain of the paper and the intensity of the light hues - It might seem familiar being that the person responsible for Mushishi art direction, Takeshi Waki is also at the helm for Samurai Champloo's Art Department, alongside Eri Suzuki as Colour designer or "Colourist" for this series. As a side note, although this series is available on Blu ray, I somewhat expect this series to be an upscale given the time of release (2004) and of course since Bluray only took markets at the beginning of 2006 I believe - So in all likelyhood Samurai Champloo is probably a dvd upscale, as the pictorial quality and rendering of details says just as much.
Though despite the given circumstances, while not great all round, there's quite a bit of detailed worked in, and the coloration of these settings were often careful and beautiful. Though it's just enough that in the macro sense, your able still able to discern various environmental details and pigments such as the moss on rotting trees, the grain of wooden furniture, or the various pigments of paper screen doors - Though things such as particle effects or lighting seemed quite dull and static. Though for me of course, one does have to realize the given time of animation, as in particular the quality of the dynamic range in the lighting is pretty poor, as illustrating software and computers was still in it's infancy compared to today's amazing illustrating software and computation speeds, as Adobe workflows and other similar illustrative software have only gotten better & better, and the industry of course has continued to integrate and optimize the said technology into their workflow.
Since Samurai Champloo is set in the Edo period, most of the coloration is low saturation, consistent of how dyeing methods of Japan in the 1800's were not as advanced as it is in more modern times, so fabrics or paint of any type usually follows this rule as well. In that respect, while Samurai Champloo is not exactly historically accurate, the art department is almost always consistent in making sure that the settings are depicted as accurately as possible. So in that, there's not really much of a particular pattern or colour pallet in use, because thanks to the changing environments that the story provides, the colour design changes as well to, with no real discernible pattern here. However thanks to the frequency of outdoor lush greens of the rocky mountain outcrops, the wooden architecture and furnishings of the Edo period, and the low saturation of artificially coloured paints or fabrics, we do see an inevitable though not really deliberate use of low saturation yellow hues, pale blues and whites, green outcroppings of plants and vegetation, or the changing lighting of the daylight and night cycles -
Making for some fantastic analogous compositions of yellow, orange, red and brown, or perhaps the erie navy blues of the night, the break of dawn and the use of purple and orange, and the artificial red and yellow lightning of street lamps in the "red light" districts. In indoor settings, we're occasionally privileged to ukiyo-e paintings and floral designs as well. Not the most extravagant in terms of colour design often times, though it's purposeful in the right moments, and that's just about as much one could ask for, being that it's not Supposed to be, given that the animation was supposed to be consistent, at least visually with the Edo period. Though if only Samurai Champloo was rendered as photo-realistically as the Kara No Kyoukai Films, it'd truly be amazing, being that instead of playfully brilliant colour compositions, one could compensate for the given settings with lush environmental detail, and the fine rendering of particle effects and textures within positive space, and the advanced digital lighting techniques that a studio like Ufotable provides.. Yeah not really possible for a 2004 T.v series animation, but one could dream!! Because just imagine the amount of time Fuu, Jin & Mugen spend in the outdoors, but only rendered that much better like an animation from Kyo Ani or perhaps Comix Wave, I at least think it'd be interesting anyway, due to the specificity of the environments, time period and location.
