Admittedly the year 2012 was definitely one of the best years in anime, in that I would characterize it as a mini boom within the industry. As numerous great productions aired during this time, where I find that the slice of life/melodrama genre really started pick up serious traction, with shows such as Kyo Ani's seminal Hyouka anime, Tari Tari from PA Works, the ever cry worthy Sakemichi no Appollon by Mappa and the legendary Shinichiro Watanabe, Kokoro Connect from Silver link & finally Chihayafuru by Madhouse, some of which are my all time favourite shows within the genre. Not only that but action blockbusters such as SAO made their way on to the scene, in addition to personal favourites such as Jormungand & Fate/Zero's 2nd season, in addition to Psycho Pass. Suffice to say it was one of the most lucrative years in anime history, as even long running anime such as Naruto Shippuden & Fairy tail were still in the midst of airing. Shinsekai Yori was also in the midst of the boom, at the tale end of the year where it aired in september, I mean it really was such an amazing time where you really didn't have to scrape every nook and cranny to find something good to watch.Thankfully the imagery within the novel swelled beautifully into it's animation & art direction, thanks to Chikashi Kubota's conservative sensibilities in designing the minimalistic and elegant character models, along side Art director Saho Yamane & the animation directorial department. Not only that but Shinsekai Yori was also a force to be reckoned with thanks to having some of the best soundtracks in anime ever, as Shigeo Komori's work is an outright masterpiece on here. In that Shinsekai Yori was one of the earliest notable works from the Aniplex's subsidiary A-1 pictures where I find they really started to shape their identity into an animation powerhouse with series such as Black Butler (2008), Tetsuwan Birdy Decode & Fairy Tail (2009), alongside Sora No Woto (2010) & Anohana (2011) to which we all love.
As in my eyes over the years the young production company proved to be one of the most diverse & proficient animation studios in this era of freelancers, solidifying their identity with both high art production values, along side mega popular franchises such as Fairy tail and SAO. They're one of the few forces within the animation industry that really can do just about everything, almost always having something for everyone to watch due to their widespread diversity & standards for quality, even if their quality of productions has dropped a bit in the last two years.
Cinematography | Perspective & Delivery
Masashi Ishihama & his team of story boarders & episode directors really opt for a particularly tight set of staging compositions and spurt-ability evident in the cadence and tempo in the editing. In that almost every scene within the series has a sort of underlying tension the expands across the entire series. You realize this because of how adamant Ishihama's team is in creative utilizing the maximum amount of space within the parameters of the set geometry, very loosely utilizing the basic shot reverse shot patterns & introducing tight angles around subjects to keep a appropriate amount of fear and dissonance in each segment of the story and conversation. As I've touched on before, instead of staging the story strictly from Saki's perspective, Ishihama's team took it upon themselves to make the delivery far more neutral/objective and as a byproduct they omit quite alot of Saki's personal inner dialogue and soliloquy, in fact it's pretty much non existent, asides from the older Saki's narration at the end and beginning of episodes.
While I did lament some of my concerns earlier on this does have an advantage, being that the story is quite a bit more unpredictable and at times jarring, really adding a sense of long term tension that's suspended throughout the entirety of the story. It's a drier sense of presentation, as the show is heavily diegetic & strictly separates it's other style's and characters exclusively for expressing more high fantasy ideas and motifs having to do with Karma Demons & Fiend myths, with the main story itself existing in it's own isolated artistic continuity - It never tries to meld it's reality with it's fantasy elements or styles, but tries to capture it & utilize as a narrative device.Context & Presentation | Staging & Composition
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| Masahi Ishihama [Director] |
As the time spent on a series of tight angles and coverages is rapid & quick as the conversation is, as we often time settle at very pulled out establishing shots and very forward framings. Where they have a specific balance between frontal & central shots with off center & off axis shots, that flows with the string of conversation and subjects involved. Being that the shot flow is a balance between group shots to capture committee reactions and individual shots for more biased shots. However I think one of my main criticism with their work here is not really being able to isolate their subjects in the first half (You'll see why this is not as much of the case in the later half of the story) regarding staging patterns, framing & composition. Being that there's such a wellspring of subject matter in the source materials subtext that you could easily parse through & depict as such, with Yusuke Kishi's work being particularly interpersonal & rich with melodramatic conflict & such. Really there's so many opportunities to play around with telephoto shots & the level of intimacy regarding distance to do such. As vertically speaking, due to the short time spent in distant framings & establishing long shots, along side not really wanting to isolate subjects, high & low angle tilts are very sparingly used as well.
Being that staging patterns relatively speaking are kept in a general circle of action so to speak, so character interaction rarely ever spans the range of a couple of meters, unlike say the Kara No Kyoukai films & how much the relative distance between subjects as well as the camera is emphasized, where they'd take advantage of really long lines of sight. As such there's a very clear distinction between characters in the "foreground" & "background" whereas this definitely is not the case with Shinsekai Yori. You could argue that the series feels somewhat complacent and passive because of it, however I will admit that it'd be somewhat harder to so with the frequent amount of group situations & whatnot. In that Ishihama is very resourceful in utilizing individual shot to house multiple actions, where they'd use depth of field transitions, deft editing & and actor choreography when cueing cuts & camera movement based upon the look &/or movement, to which there's frequently quite bit of.And really instead of being economical with the animation cuts by just having thousands of individual shots of OTS shot reverse shot patterns, they go out of their way to make each segment within the story spliced with lots of visually dense information in regards to staging and camera choreography. In this manner they really do play a lot with spatial relationships, as there's a particularly jarring & transient sense level of intimacy that's particularly detail oriented and invasive, where subjects frequently can enter a depth of field that's not in focus or entirely on screen. Being that you'll find quite a frequent amount of E/CU', where Ishihama's team will often isolate different parts of the body or perhaps even the face, in an effort to omit other aspects and emphasize the newfound point of interest.
As I find the distance of the shot strictly separated, with distance transitions not being gradual, but often times rather steep. However I find that since the framing composition is done so well, it really does help supplement a lot of the give and go tension you'd find in a given scene. As there's always a discernible curve or axis that connects the individual subjects in clear and well established way, regarding the symmetry and proportional distances shown within the frame, as I find they're quite good at staging subjects relative to the set geometry regarding adjacent lines and the concentration of positive space. However I will say that the lighting utilized to stage subjects specifically seems flat, and I suspect that to be the case due to the objective/neutral approach the staff often takes to supplement the more dissonant and mystery aspects of the series. Though staging subjects to correspond with differences in light within a frame can help make a subject or point of interest stand out more or less, something that really wasn't done as much in the Shinsekai Yori production.The Camera & Film | Verisimilitude & Momentum
The sense of momentum & in scene verisimilitude is impeccable. In that surprisingly, more so than others Shinsekai Yori has quite a fair amount of camera movement & tracking even in it's dialogue scenes. As it's especially interesting when Ishihama utilizes zooms to emphasize on screen movement, something I find quite clever. Where asides from the panning motions (which they are frequent) almost every move from the camera & cut is motivated by the action & other diegetic elements, instead of it being the other way around which is one of the most common mistakes in making camera movements seem rather gimmicky and deliberate. Ishihama's team is quite perceptive in how to create and move the point of interest on screen. Being that it's rare to feel that you could turn the camera & there'd still be a world to explore offscreen, especially in an anime. Since they surprisingly use a fair amount of POV shots in addition to this, even though the Ishihama's team tends to opt for more objective framings & such, which again I guess is why POV shots are really not limited to any specific person.
As a byproduct however due to the upbeat & transient cadence of the sequential editing & shot flow, I almost feel as if there's just slightly not enough time for the some of stories best moments to swell & sink in, being that the source material is already quite bitter sweet. Though the minimal amount of transitions used are actually quite appropriate to how the original source material is relatively visually and detail oriented, as the passage of time is often by the second on an event to event basis, with a series of jump shots/temporal leaps to connect these segments, not to mention the nature of the story is almost entirely diegetic. As such the standard cut is often the choice here, and perhaps the occasional dissolve in the rarer psychedelic segments within the story.
The use of lenses is similarly simple, with standard, telephoto & macro lens being the creme of the crop here, in that it's often quite rare to see the use of wide angle shots even with the the frequent amount of establishing long shots within the series, let alone a fish eye lens. While the series is relatively conservative, often times foreshadowing & flashback scenes are differentiated by the use of film grain, a bloom in lighting, an inversion of colour or perhaps a blurred lens & a light vignette effect applied. Which of course is pretty standard business on the anime side of things. Though the series does have it's fair amount of more psychedelic & illustrative cutaway segments detailing the mythology of fiends & karma demons or perhaps Saki's dreams, where the style of art is distinctly stripped down to more basic colour and design elements to make up for more negative space to supplement the more surreal tone.Animation & Art direction | Presentation
Definitely one of the highlights of the series, as the principle character design & art direction was splendid to say the least.With Shinsekai Yori being set in a post modern society where they live in the relative wilderness in the safety of the villages, the visuals are distinct, but the colour palette is somewhat muted though diverse, thanks to the likes of Saho Yamane as the director of Shinsekai Yori's art department & Chikashi Kubota as the main Character Designer.
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| Chikashi Kubota [Character Designer] |
That being said however, due to the setting in which the Shinsekai Yori takes place electrical lighting within the story is practically non existent, which does explain the often times generally broad indoor scenes and such, where lanterns are one of the only few artificial light sources. Though it's really quite an adventurous trip we take while watching Shinsekai Yori, so there's ample opportunity that A-1 pictures art department were able to work with creatively speaking, as they absolutely nailed some of the most beautifully photorealistic outdoor imagery that more than compensates for the series initially muted and conservative look. Really with the best of it saved for the more climatic episodes during the series. It has a very elegant looking presentation, that's very clean & sophisticated, in the balance between positive & negative space, and with how careful the colour composition is as well.
Thanks to that a lot of diffusion is utilized in post giving a bloom to the imagery regarding lighting, without much of the principle design loosing it's sense of sharpness, since the line work & designs are quite sophisticated and cleanly drawn. In that thanks to Director of Photography Haruhi Goto it really gives the series a sense of photorealism & depth thanks to the carefully subtle lighting. It's a beautiful dynamic since the visuals can really bloom & open up as the series progresses into it's more seminal parts, but be subtle enough to capture the nuances of the more placid day to day scenes. Whether it's Saki's pure and youthful childhood, filled with mystery, fear & adventure, her rose coloured teen years, to the serene bitterness of sorrow in her coming of age to adulthood.
Pictorial Aspects | Rendering, Composition & Design
While rendered quite well most of the time, I did come to notice some of the shortcuts taken particularly in the more indoor scenes in Sage academy, especially if you pay attention more so to the wooden beams & arcs. Being that the detail within the individual grains of wood is often times skimmed over for like other objects that are supposed to be textured & detailed. As the sense of weight at times can feel somewhat buoyantly awkward, smoothed over & seemingly artificial. However the atmosphere rooted by the core design & composition is very much on point, as it's more so on a micro sense that the series tends to show some noticeable flaws & artifacts. Though be that as it may, they undoubtedly still cover all their bases, and as a result the art department has no choice to spread themselves a little but thin, along side their standards of quality. Though even at it's lowest, Shinsekai Yori's composites are still very respectable comparatively speaking.
As such with Shinsekai Yori, it's only missing that last 1 or 2 steps for it to be a true film tiered animation really, which is quite generous enough for a 2 cour animation. Since Shinsekai Yori has slightly longer episodes than your average series due to the absence of an opening theme. As Shinsekai Yori regularly has fairly layered composites, with a decent finite amount of detail and attention paid to render colour gradients & textures. Colour composition is quite gradual & progressive thanks to Nagisa Abe's more subtle design choices & sensibilities. While the story is general very grounded with a sense of reality, having it's fair share of placid indoor scenes regarding day to day matters. Abe is also able to embody the stories more oblique, stark & psychedelic moments as as well. In that she's able to capture the nuance in each progressive phase the story goes through with a keen sense of colour design that gets more lush & vivid as the story swells & grows more saturated.It's something that definitely caught me off guard, as initially not knowing what the story was about, the first few episodes seemed inconspicuous & placidly ordinary, however there's a specific progression there that Abe is able to keep up with & really surprise you with. It's a perfect example of how one's work on colour design can progressively effect the nuance & flow of the story. As every seminal moment within the series has it's own definitive colour profile that you can't help but remember, with how much they differ & contrast one another so greatly in how unique they are to each segment or moment within the story.
I also fell absolutely in love with the costume design in the film, as it's rare to find an anime such as this or perhaps The Monogatari Series changing up the wardrobe & even the hair styles of their characters in such a fashionable but subtle enough manner. It really sort of breaks through the monotony you find when watching an anime, by showing off a characters individuality so to speak through their style in clothing choice and such, which sadly isn't a practice that hasn't taken off due to the inconvenient & uneconomical nature by doing so. Specifically speaking, In Shinsekai Yori's case I love the loose articles of clothing and the soft complimentary mid tones used both for their uniforms & personal clothing in hotter months. Though their clothing gets more layered, bundled up & mutedly darker as they head into the colder months. As I'm particularly happy with how it changes with each corresponding season in the story. And really it's microcosm of the larger design sensibilities you can find just about everywhere throughout the series.
In that the archaic Japanese architecture of the early century is in full effect in setting the tone here, with the minimalistic & sophisticated design. As the interior designs traditionally compose of the foundation of wood craftsmanship & furnishings, with the plastered walls & sliding paper doors, along side earthen & wooden floorings, with of course plenty of tatami mats. In that quite a lot of the architecture is particularly open aired, as the exterior infrastructure often consist of similar materials such as wood & plaster walls, but also with stone & tile walkways & straw thatched roof tops. In these situations it's quite common for the colour palette to consist of broken schemes or no recognizable one's at all, often making for a relatively muted & placid look.However Shinsekai Yori's outdoor scenery is probably quite a bit more of a highlight, as it's in these situations where the sonic range & imagery really opens up. For me personally how the vista's & skies are rendered is what I found particularly interestingly well done. In that the primary base compositions is really built around the mood that the sky sets, relative to it's composition. As the composition of colour is particularly nuanced & gradual in capturing the more resonant & subtle details of the lighting & clouds, really becoming a primary go to mood setting device that's frequently used to spice of the visual information relative to the story, where analogous & split complimentary schemes take precedent here.
In that daylight scenes usually consist of low intensity blues & greens with brown accents that vary between wooden & the earthen variations consisting of tertiary & secondary colours for the most part. However noon & twilight scenes are as you can imagine the most interesting of which, where they begin to flirt with more saturated hues that are more primary & secondary based, with some tertiary accents. Though due to the more abstract & conspicuous scenes in Shinsekai Yori, it offers a pleasant twist in the atmosphere, making for more arty visual segments within the story. As these often consist of more pale & darker tertiary hues that emphasize the particular ambiguity of these given scenes, with the colour composition becoming much more scheme heavy & dissonant utilizing broken four colour schemes, along with triadic & split complimentary schemes. In that there's a focus in selecting more stripped down & higher contrast schemes as the visual language gets more intense, but still diffused enough to keep it consistent with the general overall presentation.Animation & Character Design |
Since Shinsekai Yori takes place in 3 different times periods, it was really important to nail the core design concepts throughout that progression, and thankfully Chikashi Kubota & his assistant Mamoru Sasaki (EP 9-13) did an excellent job in adapting YORI's originals (Illustrates as a hobby). The largest part of the overall presentation of course would have to be the character animation & design. As YORI's originals I felt captured the more muted but complex parts of each character, which she has a rather wayward sense of design with her line work and outlines having a flatter sense of dimension, though being quite nuanced & soft at the same time, where the same can be said for her diffusion in pale colour gradients & use of negative space. However it's beautiful how Chikashi Kubota was able to realize the concept art and bring it to the screen, as I find he was able to make the design more focused by bringing a sense of clarity to them in how he made them sharper and more streamlined, while still preserving the rather intricate & nuanced aspects of the core fundamental designs.
As I find the Saki & her friends physical maturation to adulthood seamless, where generally speaking there's a beautiful balance between how elegant & simple they are, and how Kubota was able to also capture the more intricate & realistic side to them as well. Where I think how they very clearly depicted the developing body & facial proportions of the characters was really key, in that the way they realistically captured how the jaw, cheekbone & forehead structure develops in particular was quite well done as we went through the motions of the story. As they indefinitely were able to preserve the discernible integrity of each character as each change seemed subtle but very well developed.
Due to the realistic delivery of the story, the range of expression regarding facials & choreography is also entirely conservative & entirely consistent in it's basis of reality. Although this is an anime, the style of animation is singular meaning that you won't find the fluctuation animation style you'd come to expect found in the more casual & comedic shows, such as the use of exaggerated facial expressions & emotes often found in the exaggerated reality of a manga or cartoon. To that respect it makes you take the story far more seriously & because of it series feels more closer that much closer to a film presentation, and as a byproduct reality.However due to the lack the proportional amount of negative space, the designs come off as a little bit dull due to their somewhat flat nature. As hair in particular while quite a bit more intricate in the fundamental layout composites, only have a single colour gradient where the actual scene lighting is taken care of post production to give the scene a sense of dimension.
It's indefinitely a more efficient way to animate, however they don't nearly match the level of the sense of volume & depth with designs from the likes of Kyo Ani can have, where it's common for them to have 2-3 & in some cases more where Sakuga is applied, being that they work lighting and gradients into the practical animation process & don't just leave it to post production. In that the entirety of the character models are drawn & rendered in the same manner, which always makes the lighting feel soft even in the most dynamic of situations. Since they aren't the busiest designs colour or lighting wise, while they are more intricate in terms of the line work, with short cuts taken you'd really expect the animation to be entirely consistent, which they are in terms of frame by frame consistency since the animation department doesn't have to bother with different highlights and accents.
However there are noticeable slips in quality regarding character animation in terms of actually being on model, as there are times a given character's facial complexion & proportions seem off at times, with episodes such as #13 being the biggest culprit. As even the later episodes where Saki is 26 in the third volume of the story, while she initially looks like an adult with her more developed facial features and such, the animation department slowly looses their grip in preserving those key differences between 14 year old and 26 year old Saki regarding her facial proportions.Surprisingly while the animation is rather conservative looking, there is still a minimal amount 3D animation in here as well. This is because as you might imagine due to the fair amount of camera movement that's not a simple zoom, pan or dolly shot, it's common for small aspects of the foreground scenery to be 3D CG, with most of it being reserved for objects that need to ostensibly move but have a fair amount of complexity in it's texture/design or perhaps to numerous that it wouldn't be practical to do it the normal way. Though it fits since the series already is clearly done digitally anyways & where they occasionally reuse pre made assets & such, instead of individually digi painting each given composite or frame, particularly when any sort of architecture is involved as it gives the series a slight artificial tinge at times. However that's not to say that there's no issue here, in that just like almost any other series that uses 3D CG & practical animation together, there are problems with incorporating the two elements together, as there's still a discernible buoyant & rubbery feel to the 3D CG animation thanks to 3D CG director Ryuta Undo. Though he had this to say in his interview on his staff page on A-1 Pictures official website -
" ~ I make it so that CG is not too conspicuous, in the direction to make it not to float as much as possible in the work, and I think that there are many people who do not know where CG is even if you look at the picture. ~ " - Ryuta Undo on the commitment to the work done on 3D CG
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Article Contents - Comments Section
- Plot & Narrative Aspects [The Novel & The Anime]
- Character Analysis
- Production Aspects [Cinematography | Animation | Art Direction]
- Voice Actor Choreography
- Sound Direction & Original Soundtrack
- Addendum
