Colors and Cinematography in SSSS.Dynazenon

The opening shot of SSSS.Dynazenon is purposefully reminiscent of its predecessor, SSSS.Gridman. Anyone who has watched Gridman immediately will recognize the sequence of shots. This time, these snapshots begin with a nod to students’ various backpacks, which were used to define and color-coordinate characters by their tokusatsu archetypes (or defy them) in Gridman.

With that visual language brought over from Gridman, Dynazenon and director Akira Amemiya and staff are moving beyond an homage to kaiju and tokusatsu series past and looping in their own universe and visual language established in Gridman.

(major spoilers for SSSS.Gridman)

[Three] Akane Shinjou wakes up — SSSS.Gridman

Building castles in the sky is a forte of mine. From a very young age, I immersed myself in books, reading everything I could get my hands on from local library recommendations to my mother’s romance novels (which I really shouldn’t have been reading at that age and definitely didn’t understand until I was much older). In junior high school I found anime through Sailor Moon and never looked back. This coming April I will have been blogging about anime here at Atelier Emily for six years. Anime obviously means a lot to me.

It was all too easy to become lost in the media I consumed. Walking down the street with a pair of headphones, I could suddenly imagine myself figure-skating an olympic-winning routine. At night, I could re-read one of the many books stashed underneath my pillow and imagine myself as someone who wasn’t cold, awkward, and ugly. Instead, I was gregarious, beautiful, and warm.

Sometimes, you have to wake up.

In the Summertime: yet another post on the cinematography and atmosphere of SSSS.Gridman

Winter has always been my favorite season, followed closely by autumn. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in the northeast. Perhaps it’s because my parents love to tell an anecdote about how my father had to shovel nearly a foot of snow to rush my mother to the hospital on the day I was born. Perhaps I just love the holiday season. There’s something calming, comforting about chilly weather that invites warm food, soft ambient light, and the coziness of blankets.

Winter can also be bleak and oppressive at times, as the days blend into each other with what little sunlight available casting long shadows in the afternoon, the dull thudding of ice breaking, or the eerie silence of snowfall. One of the best anime examples of this winter atmosphere is The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, which portrays it perfectly through cinematography, lighting, and highly-specified attention to detail. The warmth of breath materializing in the cold air and disappearing, the city lights a backdrop to softly falling snowflakes that melt in Yuki Nagato and Kyon’s hands — even in the cold of winter, warmth can be found.

By contrast, summer is oppressive. The light and heat bears down with palpable weight as cicadas sing a constant, droning chorus in the background. In winter, you can escape the chill with a blanket, a crackling fire, or a warm mug of hot chocolate. In summer, you cannot escape the heat. It makes you lethargic, bringing with it doldrums that limit activity.

[Seven] Metamorphie Faciesse! A visual love letter to Akko’s growth. (Little Witch Academia)

Viewers of Little Witch Academia the television series will inevitably hear “Metamorphie faciesse!” in Akko Kagari’s voice, even when reading the words on a computer screen. This spell is repeated countless times in the span of a single episode and then revisited upon multiple later occasions as a key spell in Akko’s limited inventory. Akko’s transformation into a somewhat capable witch is a slow process. So slow, that it caused a subsection of initial viewers to stop watching the show, with the complaint that her growth was too gradual.

The series penultimate episode and finale shed light on Akko’s magical struggles. It gives a concrete, physical reason as to why her development took so long — although her flighty personality certainly doesn’t help speed things up — that makes sense and even ties into greater questions the series has regarding art and anime.

Little Witch Academia on inspiration (again), Panda and the Magic Serpent, and Episode 22

“There is the story about Hayao Miyazaki entering the anime industry because he was moved by Panda and the Magic Serpent.

Then he watched the movie again afterwards and was disappointed by how bad it was. Yet, even if it’s actually not enjoyable at all, it can be irreplaceable for that person. What’s important is the feelings you got from watching it, and the fact that you had admiration for it. That’s the theme we were looking for.”

–Yoh Yoshinari, creator of Little Witch Academia in an interview with AnimeStyle (2013)

I’ve never personally felt betrayed by by a piece of media, but I can identify with the feeling of being inspired by something that just isn’t good.

Most recently, I experience this feeling after returning to Digimon Tri.  Disappointed, the latest episodes prompted me and a friend to return to the original series, where we made a shocking discovery as lifetime Digimon fans.

The first two episodes of Digimon . . . just aren’t good.

There is barely any animation, and what little animation these episodes do have — along with still frames themselves — is often recycled within that same episode. No, this isn’t an English dub or fault of U.S. distributor Saban Entertainment, it’s a reflection of how low-budget this series was when it first aired.

This is to say nothing of the story’s merit — and Digimon will always have a special place in my heart as the first online fandom that I really became involved with — but the actual animation is awful. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed how bad it truly was when I first watched it, and I’m not certain that I’ll be able to watch it again.

Little Witch Academia‘s emotional narrative is centered around the strongest iteration of this exact feeling.