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Kuromi is still at Studio Petit but now has more experience. Unfortunately, this time around she has been given an impossible task: act as head of production for three anime series at once, all done by Studio Petit, with no corresponding increase in staff. As usual, most of the animators continue to make excuses and leave before all of their work is done. There's no way they'll manage to simultaneously complete three series when they could previously barely manage one.

In steps veteran producer Takashimadaira to show Kuromi how to handle the situation. Unfortunately, his way of doing things involves drastically speeding up the schedule and cutting lots of corners. Everyone at the studio is unhappy, and the animation quality is suffering. Is there some way the situation could be saved?

I first watched this back in 2009, shortly after watching the first Animation Runner Kuromi. I recalled disliking it, but I must have been in a reviewing slump or I got behind on my reviews, because I never wrote anything for it.

This didn't seem to be quite as terrible the second time around as I recalled it being when I first watched it, but it definitely wasn't as good as the first Animation Runner Kuromi. This entry in the series aimed for more drama and even more exaggerated humor than the first, and I don't think it worked as well.

That said, it at least worked as a glimpse into the kinds of things that can lead to shoddily done anime, like series with scenes so bad that they literally have to be redrawn before being released to disc (or that are just released as-is) - you can see a few examples here. Takashimadaira was painted as a villain, willing to sacrifice quality in order to increase the studio's output. He was part of the problem, sure, but so was the boss who agreed to have his studio handle three series at once without adding to their overall staff. And based off of some articles I've read over the years, the economics of anime were also probably at fault - I don't know how so many studios and animators manage to limp along considering how little many animators get paid.

Again, though, the focus here wasn't on all of that, but rather on terrible producers - really only a part of the overall picture. And although the anime had a happy ending, what the studio managed to do clearly wasn't sustainable - they'd probably have to rely on Takashimadaira's solutions again at a later date. Or, you know, die of overwork.

I found it somewhat ironic that I spotted some corner cutting tricks in this anime about animation corner cutting. For example, some characters didn't always look quite right, and the scene where Kuromi was somehow gasping for air despite her mouth not moving at all was downright odd.

I didn't regret the rewatch, but I don't know that this needs to stay in my collection. I liked that it provided a slightly different view of the Japanese animation industry than the first Animation Runner Kuromi, but it wasn't nearly as much fun or as funny.

Extras:

The anime itself may be short, only 45 minutes, but there are lots of extras: an alternate angle storyboard feature, an interview with Akitaroh Daichi (the director), "A Day in the Life of Kuromi" (featurette starring Kaori Asou, the voice actor for Kuromi, and Koji Ishii, the voice actor for the president of Studio Petit), an art gallery video with stills from the anime, a sketch gallery video with production sketches, and various Kuromi trailers.

The "A Day in the Life of Kuromi" featurette was okay, although I wondered if some of the animator folks wished they could just be left alone to do their jobs. Kaori Asou and Koji Ishii ran around and spent a day doing the kind of work that Kuromi would do in the anime. The bit that made me laugh was when they went to pick up the background art and brought a tub, because they thought it would be big and heavy, and were instead handed a CD.

The interview with Akitaroh Daichi was pretty good, and confirmed my suspicions that several of the characters, and character affectations, were based on real people. I wonder which producer Takashimadaira's funny walk was based on?

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
… (mehr)
½
 
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Familiar_Diversions | Aug 13, 2020 |
Nanami is an ordinary 17-year-old girl whose life is turned upside down after her horrible parents abandon her and she’s kicked out of her home because of her dad’s gambling debts. While trying to figure out where to go from there, she helps out a random guy who was chased up a tree by a dog. That guy turns out to be Mikage, a land god who abandoned his shrine 20 years ago. He gifts Nanami with both the powers of a land god and his shrine. Later, Nanami also acquires his former familiar, Tomoe, sealing their new contract with a kiss.

At the beginning of the series, Nanami listens to a few prayers and engages in some of the supernatural matchmaking that is her duty as the new god of the Mikage Shrine. However, most of the series is devoted to her various encounters with other supernatural beings (several of whom are hot guys who develop an interest in her) and her growing love for Tomoe. Unfortunately for Nanami, Tomoe is dead set against romance between yokai and humans.

I reviewed the first volume of the manga way back in 2013. I wasn’t terribly impressed with it - the power imbalance in Tomoe and Nanami’s relationship bothered me. Their relationship was the result of a kiss that Nanami forced onto Tomoe, and their contract meant that he was essentially her slave. He had to do whatever she ordered him to do, whether he wanted to or not.

Those problematic elements still existed in the anime, although there were a few things that helped make them more bearable for me. First, it didn’t take long for evidence that Tomoe cared about Nanami to crop up - as early as the second episode, I think. Second, in episode 5 their contract was broken, and this time it was Tomoe who sealed it again. The contract still left him unable to disobey her, but at least it was clear that he was willingly Nanami’s familiar.

Unfortunately, this series quickly outstayed its welcome. I’ve seen it compared to Fruits Basket, and I’d have to say that they’re similar only in the most superficial sense. Fruits Basket was a delightful mix of character relationships, humor, supernatural elements, and romance. In Kamisama Kiss, the romance overshadowed everything.

Because I’m silly and overly optimistic, I initially thought that this series would feature Nanami trying her best to fulfill her duties as a god while her relationship with Tomoe steadily deepened. Instead, Nanami was barely shown doing her duties as a god - the shrine might as well have been a regular Japanese-style house. She spent most of her time at school and dealt with the new supernatural aspects of her life only because they were impossible to ignore. Her renewed interest in the shrine, right at the end of the series, seemed to come out of nowhere.

My impression of the romance between Nanami and Tomoe steadily went downhill. It was frustrating, because I spotted several moments when things could have been turned around and improved.

When Nanami realized that she was in love with Tomoe, her new friends at school encouraged her to go on an official date with him and capture his attention by being as cute as possible (another difference between this series and Fruits Basket: Tohru’s friends were far more than just cheerleaders for her potential romance). Nanami went way overboard, to the point that Tomoe felt he had to put a stop to things. Nanami was so heartbroken at his rejection of her that she very nearly ordered him to let her fall to her death. I wanted to shake her, but I was hopeful when she had an epiphany later on in the series. Would she realize that, whatever her feelings happened to be, she wasn’t entitled to Tomoe’s love? Would she start to come to terms with the idea that she had maybe mistaken a familiar’s devotion to his god for romantic love? It could have been really interesting, seeing Tomoe come to the realization that he loved Nanami after Nanami had already adjusted to him being nothing more to her than a loyal and devoted servant. I think I’d have liked to see him try to convince her that he loved her in a romantic sense.

Unfortunately, Nanami’s epiphany was that she needed to more actively pursue her love for Tomoe. Instead of crying over his rejection, she should work harder to convince him to love her, even after he’d repeatedly told her that he wasn’t interested in her that way and that he believed romance between humans and youkai was doomed to fail. Nanami’s renewed determination was more horrifying than endearing, especially considering that Tomoe was magically bound to her and literally could not get away from her. (No, I don’t think he’d have wanted to - from the audience’s perspective, Tomoe pretty clearly liked her. But if that hadn’t been the case, Nanami could easily have made life hell for him.)

Although the final episode ended with Tomoe asking Nanami if he could kiss her, leaving the romance in a relatively satisfying place for viewers who weren’t, like me, already turned off by it, lots of other things were left unresolved. For example, Tomoe still didn’t remember his past romance with Yukiji, there were various other huge gaps in Tomoe's past, and the series never explored the fairly strong possibility that Nanami was the reincarnation of Yukiji. Also, Mikage’s reason for abandoning his shrine was never given.

While doing a little googling after finishing this series, I discovered that it was not, in fact, the “complete series” (although it might have been when these discs were first released). A second season has since been released. That season might flesh out some of the things that this one left unresolved, but I don’t know that I care enough about the characters and story to want to shell out the cash necessary to get it. Still, the completist in me is annoyed.

Extras:

- Episode 1 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director) and Tia Ballard (English dub voice actor for Nanami). I hate to say this, but listening to this commentary was a waste of time. I did appreciate that Ballard also noticed that Nanami rarely performed any of her new duties as a god. The best quote, said by Jerry Jewell: "Why would you want to help people when you can find a boyfriend?"

- Episode 6 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director), J. Michael Tatum (English dub voice actor for Tomoe), Tia Ballard (English dub voice actor for Nanami), and Sean O'Connor (English dub voice actor for Kurama). Unlike most commentaries, this one was primarily footage of everyone in the booth, with the episode playing in the bottom right corner of the screen. I prefer normal commentaries, but this one actually worked out fairly well, mostly because no one let the conversation die out for too long. It didn't touch too much on behind-the-scenes info about voice acting for the series, but it was still more interesting than the first commentary.

- Episode 12 commentary with Jerry Jewell (ADR Director) and J. Michael Tatum (English dub voice actor for Tomoe). Again, not too much behind-the-scenes info, but still not to bad. I'd say it was the second-best commentary in the set. This one went back to the ordinary commentary format of just an audio track playing over the episode, and they did a great job of remembering to talk.

- Textless opening, and all 13 textless closings. I disliked the opening and closing songs enough to skip them almost every time, so I didn't bother watching these.

- U.S. trailer for Kamisama Kiss.

- Trailers for several other series.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
… (mehr)
 
Gekennzeichnet
Familiar_Diversions | Dec 26, 2016 |

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