Bekerja rapat, pengarang asal City Keiichi Arawi dan pasukan animasi Kyoto yang dibina di sekitar taiichi ishidate menentang norma-norma penjadualan animasi TV, trend gaya, Perlu diulangi secara teratur ialah, bertentangan dengan kepercayaan popular, studio tidak mengambil masa lebih lama daripada norma untuk membuat kartun. Kakitangan mereka tidak mempunyai kerangka rujukan terbaik dalam hal itu, kerana majoriti hanya pernah bekerja dalam projek mereka sendiri, tetapi ia adalah perbandingan bahawa ahli veteran mereka dilengkapi untuk membuat. Tertakluk, yang lewat Yasuhiro Takemoto -Aaktif sebagai pengarah di era di mana Kyoani adalah studio sokongan yang luar biasa untuk orang lain-menunjukkan bahawa mereka menghabiskan masa selagi syarikat lain menyatukan satu episod. Walaupun mereka telah memperlahankan output mereka selepas pembakaran tragis, yang memberi mereka masa ampler secara lalai, ini tetap pada dasarnya benar hingga ke hari ini. Isu yang paling biasa dengan jadual anime TV adalah mampatan; Episod awal akan mengambil masa selagi dirancang pada mulanya dan kemudian beberapa, tetapi dengan tarikh akhir sering enggan cukup untuk mengimbangi itu, kebanyakan episod berikutnya akan dikorbankan dalam beberapa cara atau yang lain. Sama ada membelanjakan sumber yang lebih sedikit (masa, perhatian kakitangan dalaman yang paling berharga) atau jenis penyumberan luar: proses subkontrak sebahagian daripada kerja ke studio lain. Penyumberan luar separa sangat biasa untuk tugas-tugas seperti animasi utama, pewarna, latar belakang dan suka, tetapi kebanyakan anime TV juga mempunyai contoh penyumberan luar penuh (グロス) di mana satu episod dikendalikan sepenuhnya oleh studio yang berbeza. Itu murah dan cepat dengan reka bentuk, sudut-sudut tersebut sentiasa dipotong atas nama keutamaan… dan dapat menyelesaikan projek sama sekali. Tetapi dalam persekitaran di mana hampir segala-galanya akan dicipta secara dalaman oleh rakan-rakan yang mahir, fenomena ini hampir tidak wujud di Kyoani. Betul tentang setiap episod akan mengambil masa kira-kira 3.5 bulan untuk bernyawa, dengan tiada seorang pun daripada mereka yang dibuang di bawah bas. Oleh itu, untuk sentiasa memimpin jawatankuasa pengeluaran, terasa agak. Jangan salahkan saya: itu adalah sifat positif, kerana studio merampas kawalan jadual pengeluaran cenderung agak membantu, tetapi keputusan ini adalah sesuatu yang mereka capai lama sebelum mereka menetapkan peraturan itu. Jadual-jadual ampler tidak dapat dipertahankan juga positif, tetapi episod yang dihasilkan lebih lama daripada masa yang dibuat di studio ini sentiasa disiarkan dengan hasil yang lebih buruk. Sebaliknya, ia adalah komitmen mereka yang tidak dapat ditandingi untuk mentoring dan persekitaran dalaman yang sangat mahir, sangat saling berkaitan yang akan membantu anda memahami kejayaan mereka.
Mengapa membawanya sekarang, walaupun? Untuk memberitahu anda bahawa ia tidak benar ketika datang ke City . Untuk membuat rancangan TV satu-of-a-kind ini, walaupun pasukan yang sangat cekap ini telah (dan gembira) untuk menghabiskan masa tambahan mencipta sesuatu yang istimewa.
projek-projek yang tidak kemas dengan beberapa iklan utama telah meningkat dalam jumlah; Moreso daripada pengarah animasi biasa, tugas mereka adalah untuk memastikan watak-watak kelihatan seperti yang mereka sepatutnya. Konsistensi adalah matlamat mereka, yang mereka akan menguatkuasakan sebanyak yang mereka mahu (dan boleh). Tamami Tokuyama . Walaupun aspek lain melalui proses reka bentuk yang lebih menyusahkan, watak-watak itu sendiri agak mudah. Yang mengatakan, mengambil kejayaan ini kerana persamaan antara pendekatan mereka dan karya seni asli Arawi akan menjadi kesilapan yang membawa maut. Ia adalah kewajipan Tokuyama untuk mencari cara untuk berkahwin dengan kedua-dua, kali ini dari kedudukan yang lebih dekat ke Arawi daripada studio yang diambil semasa Nichijou. Untuk kejutan walaupun rakan-rakan yang meletakkan kepercayaan mereka kepadanya, dia menariknya seolah-olah ia adalah semulajadi. Ishidate mencatatkan bahawa, sebagai pemula dalam peranan sedemikian, dia melakukan yang terbaik untuk mengikuti nasihatnya awal… tetapi penghormatannya terhadap gaya Arawi dan pemahaman ghaib tentang kerumitannya menjadi hampir menyeramkan untuk menyaksikan dari sisi. Dia dengan cepat menetap pada bahagian yang lebih padat daripada apa yang lewat futoshi nishiya telah dilakukan untuk Nichijou, dengan lebih banyak anggota segi empat tepat dan jari yang membengkokkan realiti dengan cara yang merasakan dia mengintip terus ke dalam minda penulis. Tugas terakhirnya terlebih dahulu adalah tepat di samping Ishidate, sebagai pasukan di belakang Episode #09 . Oleh itu, sekitar musim panas tahun 2023, City menjadi tugas utama bagi bilangan orang yang semakin besar di studio.
Dengan kejatuhan, adalah adil untuk mengatakan bahawa ia sudah sepenuhnya bergerak. Jika anda menjejaki artis di Kyoani, anda mungkin telah mengambil beberapa petunjuk yang merujuk kepada itu. Khususnya, beberapa orang yang meninggalkan studio sekitar November 2023 dan April 2024 (seperti yang disahkan oleh penerbitan sekali-sekala senarai pekerja penuh mereka) telah dikreditkan untuk penyertaan mereka sehingga peringkat pertengahan siri, dengan satu orang yang menjadi bebas pada musim gugur 2024 telah bekerja di episod terakhirnya terlebih dahulu. Walaupun blog kakitangan cuba untuk tidak mendedahkan terlalu banyak maklumat terlebih dahulu, Veteran Noriyuki Kitanohara -Storyboarder dan pengarah episod untuk City #02, #07, #12-untuk selalu memasukkan panggung semasa tugasnya yang mudah untuk memusnahkan dalam retospektif. Rujukan tertentu untuk mengerjakan episod dalam tahap pengeluaran maju, Kembali pada bulan Jun 2024
Daripada hanya menunjukkan bahawa bandar dibuat lebih awal, tarikh-tarikh ini merujuk kepada titik yang kita buka ini dengan: setiap episod, setiap langkah proses pengeluaran, mengambil masa yang lebih lama daripada norma studio kerana semua orang sangat tidak cekap. Tugas mereka untuk membina semula 13 jilid ke dalam bilangan episod yang sama adalah rumit. Pasti, mereka mempunyai sokongan idea-idea pengarang asal dan galakannya untuk pergi balistik dengan jumlah yang sederhana dan bukannya menjejaskan mereka dengan kekuatan yang lebih rendah, tetapi projek ini bermula kerana pengarah suka manga-sudah tentu dia akan cuba menutupi banyak bab yang mungkin! Penyelesaiannya? Panjang episod yang tidak standard yang membolehkan mereka melampaui piawaian anime TV begitu banyak, dengan beberapa episod yang masih tinggal, siri ini telah menerima rakaman tambahan dua episod; Keajaiban yang boleh dicapai, untuk permulaan, kerana siaran Kyoani disertai oleh iklan studio sendiri, jadi mereka hanya perlu menggugurkan iklan mereka sendiri. Pilihan yang sangat baik untuk persembahan, tetapi satu yang meningkatkan beban kerja mereka dengan jumlah yang saksama.
dan sekali lagi, matlamatnya tidak pernah memasukkan lebih banyak kandungan untuk kepentingannya sendiri, tetapi untuk pergi ke atas dan di luar setiap masa. Jumlah pergerakan dan keseimbangan yang halus (IM) dalam animasi watak meletakkannya di kalangan kerja-kerja yang paling mencabar studio, dan itu sebelum pemfaktoran dalam setiap pilihan kreatif yang telah mencabar norma-norma pengeluaran yang telah membuat hasilnya lebih menarik, tetapi prosesnya lebih mahal. Setiap episod telah berada di tangan 5 unit kecil 4 ~ 6 animator utama dan satu pengarah animasi tunggal, yang membolehkan kemajuan multithreaded dan sangat meningkatkan perpaduan dalam hasilnya, namun juga mempercayakan setiap individu dengan beban kerja yang menuntut banyak masa. Walaupun penonton akan melihat buaian Wilder seperti episod #05 yang paling banyak, tidak ada bandar kedua yang tidak menentang status quo. Secara harfiah begitu, kerana ia berulang mengulangi bagaimana setiap bingkai yang anda lihat pada skrin akhirnya ditarik dengan pena berus yang anda tidak dapat memadamkan. Ini telah mengadakan unit-unit di antara studio, yang dikumpulkan bersama dalam 3 kumpulan bergantian yang besar di mana banyak veteran yang berkebolehan boleh sentiasa mempunyai orang lain.
Langkah terakhir untuk memahami leanings artistiknya dan dinamik pengeluaran di studio adalah mudah: anda hanya perlu berfikir tentang akhirnya bertindih dengan Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid: A Lonely Dragon mahu disayangi . Filem Maidragon baru-baru ini difahami mencapai peringkat pengeluaran sepenuhnya selepas bandar; Manakala penyesuaian kerja Arawi sedang dijalankan sementara Eupho S3 masih dalam pembuatan, filem ini terpaksa menunggu sehingga itu berakhir untuk pengarahnya dan papan cerita tunggal untuk bergerak ke sana. Namun, ia juga selesai sebelum City, kembali pada bulan Februari 2025. Seperti yang ternyata, sebuah filem untuk siri yang mereka sudah biasa dengannya kurang rumit untuk mengendalikan daripada kegilaan Ishidate cuba untuk memohon untuk televisyen. Ramai, tetapi penting, tidak semua. Adalah perkara biasa bagi orang-orang Kyoani untuk membahagikan perhatian mereka seperti itu apabila projek TV dan teater bertindih, yang membawa kepada semua orang tetapi individu-individu di teras setiap kerja yang berterusan-seperti ketua pengarah mereka-bekerja di semua produksi. Dengan Maidragon yang diperintahkan oleh pengarah veteran mereka yang paling banyak, diberi bahan yang dia agak akrab dengan pada ketika ini, hampir setiap pengarah dibenarkan untuk tetap fokus pada bandar sebaliknya; Kecuali dua orang yang berfokus pada tindakan, yang meminjamkan tangan mereka untuk aspek filem itu. Walaupun mereka biasanya berkongsi tanggungjawab juga, beberapa animator yang paling terkenal, yang berkemampuan secara teknikal juga tinggal dalam siri TV tanpa menyentuh filem Maidragon.
Di satu pihak, kita mempunyai bandar: jadi memberi tumpuan kepada pergerakan dan ekspresi tradisional, ke tahap di mana mereka sentiasa berusaha untuk mengembalikan konsep moden ke dalam lapisan animasi yang tidak pernah menyatakannya. Akibatnya, apa yang ditunjukkan di sisi lain adalah versi Maidragon yang menjadi outlet untuk pasukan digital studio, menggunakan kemahiran mereka untuk memberikan oomph tambahan kepada peristiwa dengan cara mereka sendiri. Dan, ketika datang ke animator 2D, ia menjadi alat untuk menyelesaikan proses yang telah dimulakan oleh City. Pelatih 2024 studio cepat menyelesaikan latihan mereka dan, terima kasih kepada proses yang panjang untuk menyelesaikan setiap episod City, dapat menyumbang kepadanya sejak awal. Seperti yang telah kita nyatakan sebelum ini, ini adalah proses yang lebih rumit, lebih tinggi daripada norma, dengan animasi yang begitu banyak yang memerlukan garis pen yang yakin. Dan yang nampaknya telah menjadi latihan yang berkesan, kerana 6 daripadanya dibenarkan untuk meningkatkan dan menyertai kumpulan kecil (22 jumlah) animator utama dalam filem Maidragon, membersihkan LayoutSlayouts (レイアウト): lukisan di mana animasi sebenarnya dilahirkan; Mereka mengembangkan idea-idea visual yang biasanya mudah dari papan cerita ke dalam kerangka animasi sebenar, yang memperincikan kedua-dua karya animator utama dan artis latar belakang. Daripada rakan sebaya mereka yang lebih veteran.
Dengan asal-usulnya, falsafah pengeluaran, dan peranannya dalam studio lebih jelas, kita dapat melihat lebih banyak maklumat mengenai persembahan itu sendiri. Walaupun kita harus melangkau episod pertama seperti yang telah kita sampaikan itu dalam artikel pengantar kita, yang kedua adalah sama baiknya dengan mikrokosmos penyesuaian anime City. Ia mempunyai Kitanohara yang disebutkan di atas; Secara keseluruhannya, dia menjadi salah seorang pengarah yang paling aktif dalam projek itu, sebagai animator yang bersemangat dengan pertalian yang sangat baik untuk bahan yang telah ditunjukkannya di Nichijou. Dunia kota, begitu lancar sehingga penciptanya kadang-kadang harus berfikir keras tentang jabatan yang menghasilkan setiap bahagian, tetap bersatu dengan sempurna. Namun, terdapat lebar yang ketara kepada pelbagai animasi yang paling dihargai di bawah arahan seorang artis seperti Kitanohara. mengejar di universiti menggabungkan beberapa kesan pada 1S, artikulasi tradisi Mengenai animasi karakter yang sering kita lihat, pelbagai). Dan mereka akan betul: ada di spades , Tajuk-tajuk mempunyai pergerakan dan stylizations yang unik yang sesuai dengan kandungan mereka, dan onomatopoeia adalah peserta aktif dalam urutan animasi gila . Sama ada besar atau kecil, selalu ada sesuatu yang menggembirakan di skrin.
Terdapat aspek lain yang boleh anda sorot dari episod kedua ini sahaja. Terdapat, untuk satu, pintu yang membuka tahap stylization; Gaya dunia yang berwarna-warni dan berwarna-warni membolehkan abstraksi semulajadi dari latar belakang yang bergerak, yang pada gilirannya membolehkan Terdapat juga komposisi komposisi siri yang agak dikira (シリーズ構成, siri kousei): peranan utama yang diberikan kepada penulis utama siri ini. Mereka bertemu dengan pengarah (yang secara teknikal masih mengalahkan mereka) dan kadang-kadang pengeluar semasa pra-pengeluaran untuk merangka konsep siri ini, datang dengan peristiwa-peristiwa utama dan memutuskan betapa pantasnya. Not to be confused with individual scriptwriters (脚本, Kyakuhon) who generally have very little room for expression and only develop existing drafts – though of course, series composers do write scripts themselves.. The writing is happy to appear casual or even random when it comes to the everyday gags, yet it can hide the thoughtfulness in the placement of emotionally significant events, such as the relationships between Niikura and Nagumo or the beloved middle schoolers Ecchan and Matsuri. Since there are more layered examples of that a bit later, though, I believe that we should discuss something more fundamental as we move to the third episode: the appeal of CITY: The Animation.
Nichijou was happy to be consumed as self-contained, surreal bursts of madness. That is its legacy within most online fandoms, to the point where it’s erasing the fact that its anime adaptation fundamentally changed its narrative; another topic we’ve written about in the past, of course. Creating an arc for Nano rather than immediately placing the funny robot girl in school gave the TV show a throughline, which ultimately makes it about finding a place to belong. CITY, on the other hand, was born as that place to belong—for everyone. Arawi created it with a sense of place missing in its predecessor, which gleefully leaps between locations that are more hazily defined. The anime further emphasizes that with its seamless interconnection of assets and characters, all placed in the same curiously chill town. In a weird that was never true for Nichijou, which simply focuses on other aspects, the atmosphere that brews from that setting is one of the main points of appeal.
There is plenty more to appreciate in Yamamura’s work. Although the solemnity of Tsurune S2’s excellence has him broadly pegged as a refined, quiet director, the truth is that he’s always been fond of using involved camerawork for emphasis. This third episode is full of shifting points of view, be it to track a new recurring cast member or to literalize a frog in a well metaphor. And, through sheer accumulation in a show that already pulls such tricks on the regular, this further solidifies the feeling that everything is connected—a swing of the camera will always lead us to a face we recognize. Even without the same technical range to the animation as the preceding episode, it’s also worth noting that Yamamura and animation director Kayo Hikiyama emphasize the characterfulness in the types of movement. Be it Riko’s sleepy floating form or the carefully depicted demeanor of the two kids, watching the inhabitants move around feels charming on a more personal level this time around.
In contrast to Yamamura, who has already solidified himself as one of the new leaders at the studio, episode #04 comes by the hand of someone that only avid followers had been keeping track of; though given his work in the show, that may be about to change. To put it plainly, this is the first episode that Ryo Miyagi ever storyboarded and only the second one he properly directed.
Back during the production of Violet Evergarden The Movie, when he was a key animator making a name for himself, Miyagi called dibs on a particularly tricky, climactic sequence. It took him a while and he had to consult multiple seniors along the way, but it eventually reached a stage where he felt confident about the result. When he showed it to Ishidate, the director said that it indeed was looking good… but watching it inspired him, so he came up with a new idea where tactically deployed wind would amplify the emotions at play tenfold. Since properly doing so would require an essential redo—try standing in wind the same way you do when it doesn’t blow—he asked Miyagi if he was up for the task, undoubtedly readying himself to animate the sequence. Miyagi, who felt like this would demonstrably improve the scene, took up the challenge with the feeling that commercial animation production is something one must do in a team. On his own, he felt like he might’ve not come up with an idea like that.
A few years later, he continues to work in a team, but now he is one of the staff members coming up with such enhancements. Ishidate clearly took notice of him as well, because this progression has continued to occur under his wing; remember the fifth episode of Eupho S3, which teased CITY’s core staff with the Ishidate/Tokuyama duo? That was also the one where Miyagi finished his training as episode director, having passed the internal test beforehand. After directing the show’s eight episode as well, Miyagi moved on to CITY with such confidence that people who don’t keep track of staff wouldn’t ever guess he’s a rookie.
Perhaps due to his position, Miyagi seems to take note of the style set by his predecessors rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, though he does so with so much enthusiasm and ingenuity that he can escalate the already exceptional. We highlighted how episodes like Kitanohara’s exploit the background art style through occasional abstractions that increase dynamism, and that they also manage to sway the grounded thoroughness of the studio’s character animation in the direction of Arawi’s cartoon logic—weighting it toward the latter, but without erasing the former. Within just one butlerian attempt to capture the protagonist (a common happening in CITY), we have some of the best examples of those dynamics. And what about the characterfulness of the comedic animation that Yamamura had emphasized? Watching Tatewaku move so distinctly (and so anxiously) under the lead of Miyagi and animation director Nobuaki Maruki should tell you that this aspect is stronger than ever.
The real highlight of this episode, though, is in the calculated chaos that begins with the series compositionSeries Composition (シリーズ構成, Series Kousei): A key role given to the main writer of the series. They meet with the director (who technically still outranks them) and sometimes producers during preproduction to draft the concept of the series, come up with major events and decide to how pace it all. Not to be confused with individual scriptwriters (脚本, Kyakuhon) who generally have very little room for expression and only develop existing drafts – though of course, series composers do write scripts themselves. choices. While many admire the astonishing episode that follows it, the buildup in the preceding one is essential to its success—and also, it’s something largely original to the anime. By grabbing snippets of different skits and coming up with new situations, CITY: The Animation can begin channeling its massive cast in a singular direction before the episode that culminates in everyone’s meeting. Of course, it’s easier to put this on paper than bring it to life, hence why much of the credit ought to go to Miyagi regardless. His connecting pathways extend to the crossroads in the eyecatches, and the casual ways in which so many characters come and go with their own agendas make the final minutes one hilarious rollercoaster.
While the flow of the most trepidant moments of action is what will catch attention, I’d point to something else as the best example of Miyagi hitting the ground running as a storyboarder. At one point, Niikura’s improvised pole vaulting goes wrong and the animation slowly suspends her in the air. Niikura, with her blue pants, set against the blue sky, waiting for her doom. You anticipate the fall and it does come… but the blue thing that drops is Wako’s penguin onesie, because once again she’s in her own world and not particularly aware of other people’s stressful ordeals. This simple way to give physical continuity and emotional whiplash at the same time is what an excellent, seasoned storyboarder would do. And also, it’s what an absolute newbie like Miyagi did.
If the fourth episode shines in such details, CITY: The Animation #05 is the show at its most overwhelming, grandest excellence. An entire volume dedicated to countless plot threads converging into one party asked for a bold response, but under no circumstances did anyone foresee what we’d eventually experience. That also goes for Ishidate himself, who after witnessing what the ideas were shaping up to be, told the episode director that they could at least relax when it came to the animation. Of course, their reaction was doing the complete opposite, resulting in an episode that will go down in history. Regardless of their degree of experience, no one involved had ever seen an episode that required multiple sets of storyboards to tell all the concurrent stories through constantly shifting panels, and chances are that they won’t see such a thing again.
One of the reasons why it was so important to carefully go over the show’s production schedule and how it differs from KyoAni’s norm, let alone from anime as a whole, was that episodes like this take outrageously long to animate even in the best environment possible. One unique aspect any viewer will immediately notice is that the mansion where all the events are set is a real-life, articulated diorama that they carefully incorporated into the animation. Tweaking those aspects is no easy feat, but do you know what’s even more work? Making it from scratch; to be precise, and according to Ishidate’s recent words to Animate Times, it took 3 months just to assemble this one part. The director loves how the result feels like a manifestation of Arawi’s ideas into a new dimension, retaining a handmade, warm appeal that you might associate with educational programs. Critically, that’s a vibe he feels is very compatible with the author, whose inspirations in classic manga like Fujiko Fujio’s works give him a childhood flavor to anyone who grew up in Japan. But for as much as he liked it, as much as the team creating the diorama had a blast, such things require extraordinary schedules.
That much is true of the 2D animation in the episode as well. Earlier, we noted that the Maidragon film was entirely skipped not just by some directors, but by ace animators who’d never miss it under regular circumstances. That very much includes CITY #05’s director and storyboarder Minoru Ota, as well as the leader of their Osaka animation team, Tatsuya Sato. The sheer complexity of the episode demanded Ota’s attention for a long time, and Sato’s workload wasn’t any less challenging. While drawing number isn’t always a useful metric, as elements like 2DFX can greatly inflate it and it says nothing of the actual quality, the 16k drawings sported by this episode (effectively, multiple episodes’ worth) feel earned and meaningful. When you consider how many sequences within it would already be excellent on their own, without that maddening context, it becomes an incomprehensible achievement. And within that massive workload, Sato appears to have personally handled around half the cuts in the episode, putting the longest break he’s ever had in-between appearances to excellent use. His snappy timing is everywhere, further enriching what was already a stunning experience.
In such a packed episode, the technical finesse is simply mind-boggling. You can lose yourself in endless rewatches not just of the narrative and character details hidden everywhere, but on the usage of panels themselves; they change shapes according to the setting and to maintain momentum, acting as parts of the animation in and of themselves. This reaches its catharsis with the equivalent of Arawi’s original spread illustrations, becoming a dynamic collection of character bubbles encompassing the entire population coming together—as officially confirmed, something drawn by a single key animator. It’s a technical marvel in ways few episodes have ever been, and somehow, that’s one of the least important parts.
The sheer scale and precision are so overwhelming that it’s easy to miss the endless details about each character’s quest, many of them original to this episode. While the manga eventually calls it quits and manifests everyone in the final destination, the anime imagines what everyone would be up to across the entire runtime. It doesn’t need to be particularly complex; in fact, the adaptation understands that Nagumo’s own quest was amusing because of its repetitive pattern, hence why it feels confident in diverting attention onto other citizens. What it needs to be, though, is always representative of what each weird individual could be up to—and that much, it greatly accomplishes. That character tightness is matched on a thematic level, once again with fun surprises. Arawi opens the series with silly mythology that, somehow, captures the vibe of the setting. And in another original sequence, this special episode’s ending also imagines how such amazing towers could have manifested in the region, ultimately making it about the collective joy that CITY represents.
And, at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about: imagination and surprise. It’s what it took to come up with such an outrageous idea, and what it sought by including such a discordant element like the diorama in what had otherwise been a homogenous visual style. One of Ishidate’s most recurring thoughts across all interviews is that Arawi’s humor has a specific brand of intelligence to it. He doesn’t mean it in the often-mocked sense that it is simply too intellectual to be understood by the masses, nor as an allusion to the construction of the jokes being intricately planned. What the director perceived is Arawi’s ability to stimulate your curiosity—to make you imagine through the many surreal details in his world. The reason why the team didn’t want to nudge the viewer more aggressively toward punchlines is that, in talking with Arawi and experiencing his work, Ishidate felt like it’s something you should chuckle through, ponder about its ridiculous implications, rather than bursting into laughter that may make you miss more details. Incidentally, that’s a reason why Amazon’s subtitles missing an endless amount of signs is kind of a crime. There’s so much surreal charm in those!
Much of this philosophy carries over to episode #06, directed and storyboarded by Taichi Ogawa. The first aspect that stands out is the animation, which ambushes anyone who expected a quiet time after the preceding madness with the exuberant, adorable, cartoony introduction to an entire family. The individual key animator in charge of it was likely also in charge of not just much of the following gag as well, but also a heap of delightful Wako animation for this group’s reappearance in episode #11. Chances are that they were handled by the reliable Yurika Ono, new animation superstar Tomomi Sato, or the very promising Uno Nakata—three women, one answer that we hope to get out of production materials soon. Regardless of its authorship, moments like that and later showcases of the family are a great example of that emphasis on imagination.
Ishidate conceived CITY as a broadening of horizons for animators, especially those maturing in an era where supposed technological convenience risks atrophying specific muscles of expression. In a way, that’s a way to foster imagination as well, and it has a broader reach than just those young members of the studio (and of course, the audience). The person he entrusted the making of the diorama to was Joji Unoguchi, who has been at the studio since the 80s. He began in the in-betweening department, transitioned to background art when they created that department a few years later, and has handled everything from art direction to his now common role of 3D art designer/director/artist. But do you know what he had never done? Crafting a diorama for work, even though that’s related to a personal hobby that Ishidate knew of. In a way, getting such veterans to try new things is even more impressive than doing so with young staff members.
Speaking to Mantan, Ishidate compared Arawi’s appeal to that of Chaplin’s silent films. He didn’t mean that Arawi’s works evoke the mannerisms of the legendary director in a direct way; at least, that wasn’t all he meant. Ishidate could have made the association to Buster Keaton, for example, and his point would be exactly as sound. Certainly, setpieces like this have a physicality to the humor that is shared with such directors, but the more fundamental quality is that they aim to tickle your curiosity and make you wonder how such ridiculous events could come together. While reading Arawi’s work, you continue with a smile while somewhere in your head, you wonder what the incomprehensible store you only saw the sign of could entail. And in the original author’s own words for the latest issue of Newtype, his hope for the anime was that people would watch it while chuckling, wondering (and growing curious about) what the hell its creators were even doing.
Given that Ogawa directed it, episode #06 is also quite good at… well, many things. Brilliant storyboarding that somehow uses text in a more involved, original way than a source medium where words actually belong? We’ve got that. A beautiful, cel-forward experience? No doubt about it. The original author making an appearance as a music composer, within a short skit that also shifts to a style even more reminiscent of his personal animation? Somehow, we have that covered as well. But let’s be real: people associate Ogawa so much with character drama that he gets teased about it among his coworkers. There was no doubt that his first episode would be a turning point in the most emotive relationship within the show, the type of content suited to his direction and the ability to twist the knife.
And yet, even such moments don’t escape the anime’s focus on fostering the viewers’ imagination. The choice to use a hollow pumpkin to hide your feelings while bidding goodbye to your partner comes straight from Arawi’s manga, but a subtle change in the delivery represents their intent in a brilliant way. In the manga, the idea of using a pumpkin for a breakup had been pitched by another citizen beforehand, making this an amusing delayed punchline amidst that painful moment. CITY: The Animation, instead, shows you this emotive yet slightly nonsensical scene first. A new viewer is emotionally affected all the same, but somewhere in their mind, they may be left wondering about that detail; was it for no reason? It certainly feels like the hijinks that those two constantly come up in the spot. In a later episode, the skit that motivated the pumpkin plan is brought to life, also serving as a delayed punchline—one that sparked your imagination in between those two points, reinforcing what the series really wants to do. And that is to think about silly stuff, hopefully without getting hit in the face by a football.
Kitanohara’s second episode, CITY: The Animation #07, feels like a good time to bring up another unique point of appeal in the series. The episode has the director’s fingerprints all over it, sometimes literally so; despite not being credited on it, and even having alluded to “checking” the cut, there’s no way he didn’t personally key animate moments like the background animation as Niikura succumbs to late-night hunger. It’s no secret that, like multiple directors at the studio, Kitanohara sets aside certain sequences for himself and draws them uncredited. This is so casually known that, in a recent stage event for the Maidragon film featuring Ishihara and him, they casually mentioned that Kitanohara was a key animator for a movie in which he only appeared in the credits as unit director (even the studio’s official report of the event mentions it!). Amusing, though ultimately, not all that important a detail. For creators who only ever work for one highly reputable studio, and who’ve already reached the status of director, there’s no need to stuff their resume—they’re already renowned figures.
Witnessing him animate sequences like that brings to mind Nichijou, where he already penned some truly memorable chases. For someone with a blunt, animation-focused appeal, some of his traits are also distinctly more detail-oriented and modern in their execution. Kitanohara pays a great deal of attention to the physical properties of objects, often trying to use them to express psychological aspects of the characters. Since modern anime will rely overwhelmingly on the compositing team to handle concepts like reflections, that much ends up being true of Kitanohara’s work as well; not to the degree that the traditional 2D drawings don’t play a role, since that’s the core of his vision, but deeply intertwined with digital tools. And that’s where we turn to CITY’s one-of-a-kind commitment to a level of technology.
We’ve talked about Ishidate’s desire to make CITY into a perfectly unified, comic-like screen that emphasizes the cel feeling—as both an attempt to capture Arawi’s magic and a training, horizon-broadening exercise for the studio’s members. Because of that, every effect on screen must be drawn by an animator… or, on rare occasion, accomplished by other departments in a way that looks like the former did it. To say that it brings back anime to its analog era wouldn’t be accurate. The fact that it’s all drawn on paper isn’t even relevant, as that’s true of every work at the studio. Instead, it’s about that idea of cel as an absolute, inescapable truth of CITY. The show showcases all sorts of effects that, even during the actual celluloid era of animation, would never be drawn; instead, they’d be accomplished through photographyPhotography (撮影, Satsuei): The marriage of elements produced by different departments into a finished picture, involving filtering to make it more harmonious. A name inherited from the past, when cameras were actually used during this process. and lighting tricks.
It’s precisely those tricks that every episode director in the series has emulated and expanded on in their own ways. Ishidate’s first episode proposes the idea of replacing linework with short diagonal lines to convey that something is out of focus, showing that they could also adopt modern photographyPhotography (撮影, Satsuei): The marriage of elements produced by different departments into a finished picture, involving filtering to make it more harmonious. A name inherited from the past, when cameras were actually used during this process. ideas as long as they embraced CITY’s toolset. Every director we’ve seen has stuck to that rule, finding their own tricks in the process. One aspect that is very eye-catching in that regard is the distortions, often used to transition between scenes, which the show entrusts to animators rather than achieving them through filters; Yamamura’s episodes stand out when it comes to that, doing so in multiple ways that reach their peak with the abstract transitions during Riko’s skits. Given Kitanohara’s interests in various phenomena, he’s of course among the most active in this process of reimagination. Watching how his usual ideas become CITY-fied is frankly fascinating.
The eighth episode, marking Yamamura’s second appearance as director, is charming in ways that are all too familiar at this point. Even without his craziest usages of the camera, the flow is remarkably good. Be it using silhouettes and cute abstraction to stylishly transition in and out of flashbacks, flipping the orientation of the drawings to relive the experience of nearly falling into a whole, or subtler touches like connecting cuts in a way that informs us about the direction of a character’s gaze, it’s the type of episode that progresses so naturally that it feels like it naturally spawned in this form.
Its highlight is an excuse to talk about another brilliant side of CITY: the voice acting. The performance of the Tekaridake troupe that the show had been building up to on the side—starting with Yamamura’s previous episode, which gives it a sense of continuity—arrives in a form that is as delightful to watch as it is to listen to. The show’s voice acting is, on the whole, simply excellent. From the interviews preceding the broadcast to the weekly VA watchalong videos on the studio’s Youtube channel, it’s easy to appreciate that the cast was more motivated than ever by a series sporting visuals like they’d never seen before, which they got to act over in already polished, finished form.
Although right about everyone’s performances have been great, there are two individuals who even their peers pointed out as extraordinary beings: Niikura’s Aki Toyosaki, and Tekaridake’s Jun Fukuyama. They were so impressive in their recordings that, even when they had already finished their parts, other actors would stick around the studio to watch them voice their wacky characters as if they were possessed. Toyosaki wowed everyone in moments like the epilogue for the second episode, as Niikura faces her many inner demons; all of them voiced by her in a single take, which also happened to be the very first one. Meanwhile, FukuJun’s crowning achievement is his enthralling delivery of a classical play in the form of a breathless rap. It’s worth noting that this twist in the delivery was actually pitched by sound director Yota Tsuruoka, and that it was planned at such an early stage that Yamamura assembled a video storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime’s visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. incorporating the beat he’d come up with, ensuring that the animation was in rhythm as well. Once again, these achievements are collective victories.
Speaking of collectives, the return of Miyagi for episode #09 is another special occasion that gathers essentially every citizen. The race was one of the events that everyone who’d read CITY was looking forward to, and the execution certainly lives up to that. While its storytelling is more streamlined, it’s rather reminiscent of the already iconic fifth episode. Much like that one, it’s complemented by details that weren’t even in the original work, yet feel organically Arawi-ish. Miyagi brings back his usage of the eyecatches in a purposeful way, but by turning the positions in the podium into vignettes, it channels the usage of paneling to enrich the flavor that #05 relied on so heavily. And just like that episode, KyoAni’s ace animators went absolutely ham on it. The work of Kunihiro Hane is all over CITY #09, most noticeably when he strays a bit away from his Ishidate influences and employs looser, more liquified smears.
Once again, its structure builds up to the eventual meeting of every character into a chaotic showcase of masterful animation and storyboarding. If episode #04’s climax was impressive in how a rookie storyboarder threaded together so many concurrent adventures, the way that the now only slightly more experienced Miyagi translated Arawi’s fun spread illustrations into one nearly uninterrupted cut is astonishing. He manages to capture every incidental detail in Arawi’s surreal world and somehow adds more visual gags to it, like Niikura’s realization that she’d been chasing the wrong pendant, without interrupting the flow of the scene. And it goes without saying, but the animation itself is incredible too; I would assume that, just like the climax of #05, it’s a single key animator’s work. Perhaps the veteran Hiroshi Karata, already responsible for iconic KyoAni running.
Following Miyagi, we have an even more curious newbie director. The regular trajectory of staff members at the studio, if they choose to take the test for upper positions and manage to pass it, is to do so at relatively young ages and then commit to that path; which is to say, separating between the director and the animation supervisor ladders. Okamura is hardly old, but he has been an animation director for 10 years, having reached the stage where he’s trusted as chief animation directorChief Animation Director (総作画監督, Sou Sakuga Kantoku): Often an overall credit that tends to be in the hands of the character designer, though as of late messy projects with multiple Chief ADs have increased in number; moreso than the regular animation directors, their job is to ensure the characters look like they’re supposed to. Consistency is their goal, which they will enforce as much as they want (and can). and character designer on occasion. Most notably, with Free!, where he has replaced Nishiya in recent entries. And yet, seemingly out of nowhere, he has decided to give direction a spin. It was the final episodes of Euphonium’s first season that saw his promotion in one field, and the finale of its third, final season where he finished his training in another. It’s worth noting that, as early as Eupho S3’s bluray specials, we’ve already seen him pivot between episode and animation directionAnimation Direction (作画監督, sakuga kantoku): The artists supervising the quality and consistency of the animation itself. They might correct cuts that deviate from the designs too much if they see it fit, but their job is mostly to ensure the motion is up to par while not looking too rough. Plenty of specialized Animation Direction roles exist – mecha, effects, creatures, all focused in one particular recurring element. at will. It’s possible that, with time, he’ll take up the challenge of handling it all at the same time, as the studio hasn’t seen since the earlier days of the late legend Yoshiji Kigami. Or perhaps, one day he’ll get to direct the original dancing battle animation he internally pitched. Who knows!
Although it’s not confirmed like it was for episode #05, the climax for #09 was likely key animated by a single person again. In a way, it’s inevitable: if a handful of artists split episodes that are noticeably longer than the norm, everyone is going to be entrusted with several minutes of footage. Regardless, Miyagi’s ability to synthesize these events through the storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime’s visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue. blows the mind for someone with barely any experience with that task.
With such a versatile director still figuring things out, CITY #10 is a bit too early to figure definitive aspects of Okamura’s style. I can say for a fact that the episode is playful in its usage of color even by the standards of such a lively show, that he nails the idealization of nostalgic memories as wacky old men reminisce about their past, but I believe we’ve yet to see what he’s truly capable of. For now, all we have is one amusing episode that just so happens to end with maybe the most contentious trick the adaptation has pulled off—the abbreviation of an entire volume into an endless series of fake previews to a somehow real adventure.
The residual discourse about CITY’s faithfulness to the source material feels like a depressing product of our times, where reactionary, thoughtless complaints on social media are greatly overblown. It spawns from the lie that it’s at all changing the story (something that Nichijou actually did without facing such criticism!), gleefully ignoring Arawi’s role in every creative choice to instead champion the sacred status of the source material as it was originally published. Does it ever consider neat details, like how key dialogue was changed between its magazine and compiled volume versions? Of course not, because it’s not motivated by a deep, thoughtful engagement with the work. In a trend that greatly transcends this one show (and that is way more toxic surrounding other projects), cynical, vapid appeals to the honor of “original authors” is directed to the idea of them rather than the actual individuals, the ones who speak out publicly about their stances. In this pointless argument, the concept of source material merely means the way that individuals who only want something familiar first experienced it.
Mind you, I’ve been sad that some skits I love have been cut. To some degree, this includes Riko’s sleepwalk as well. But at the same time, there is both intent and authorial approval to all these choices, which feel very easy to justify in this instance. Although that’s a fun volume, it’s a fundamental departure from CITY’s ensemble cast focus and the links to its physical setting. Sending two characters to a wacky island is plenty amusing in the moment, and can be accepted by the reader as a change of pace, but it’s easy to see why it might’ve been on the chopping block—especially since it has little to no reaction to the overarching theme of dreams.
What it does accomplish is widening the world of CITY, showing the even weirder creatures and situations out there. And that much is also achieved in the form that the anime presented it, which also doubles down as a gag that only becomes funnier the more they double down on it. If all you want is the exact same events as the manga, it remains right there on your shelf, or in a wiki’s list of chapters if the presence of content is what truly matters to you. But that’s not what mattered to Arawi, who repeatedly (as he does with everyone who approaches his work) told the team that they should be trying to surpass him instead; to do more with what they include, not to include more. And c’mon, we haven’t had fake previews this good since Katanagatari pranked the entire world. It was sorely missed.
Apart from every chapter determined to have narrative or thematic importance, the initial writing camps attended by all sorts of staff (including Arawi) also turned into a way for them to vote for skits they wanted to include no matter what. Ishidate doesn’t hide that at one point he threw a tantrum to include the three old men’s adventures like Oyaji Summer, even knowing that this type of thing isn’t broadly popular. He only feels slightly remorseful about it.
To wrap up on a more positive note, before we eventually return to the series for a final write-up, we have yet another joyful episode led by Ogawa. In fact, it might be the most joyful episode by him, as if he was happy to fight that reputation as a very effective but depression-inducing director. Even by CITY’s standards, the way it presents its visual (with a plethora of background animation) feels exciting and original, in a way that you’ll never be able to guess what will be on screen next even if you’ve grasped the flow of the gag.
Although Ogawa is particularly good at his job, it’s fair to look at this episode as a microcosm of all the qualities we’ve been highlighting. Some gags have small additions that feel like they were poked straight out of Arawi’s brain; and given his continued presence, that could be the truth in certain cases. The excellent animation is matched by equally inspired voice acting, and that celification of effects that are now overwhelmingly digital continues. Even trends within the studio itself, like the attention to capture the amateur quality of non-professional art, rear their head in this episode.
But above all else, the highlight is a skit that sums up so much of the show’s appeal that you should be able to tell you whether you’re compatible with CITY or not from it. And that is the story of how, after greedily becoming youtubers, Niikura showcases her incomprehensible faith in Mambo Number 5 as the panacea that makes any crappy video funny. Or maybe she doesn’t believe it anymore, sorry Nagumo. Regardless, if you laughed like a madman or merely pondered what the hell is wrong with her with a smile, then congratulations—you’re as compatible with one of the most impressive TV anime ever made as I am. If you didn’t, my condolences, you won’t even get to enjoy the ending they edited in-universe to the song.
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