Kagerou Project – Media interconnected

Recently I’m totally hooked on something called KAGEROU PROJECT! And it’s an interesting example for how different media can be used centering around one story.

The kind of media mix (not transmedia in its true meaning) used in Kagerou Project is already well known from other projects. In his talk at the Cartoon Museum in Basel on September 1st, Prof. Dr. Bernd Dolle-Weinkauff called it the media alliance, which is a cascade like structure showing how a story runs through different media formats in a set order. It usually starts with a manga, since it costs the least and offers a platform to see how the story works with an audience. If it proved successful, it can be adopted as a OVA first on a small market or directly as a TV series. If those were popular enough, a feature film often follows. There are other cases where TV series get adopted as a manga, too. It seems to me that the Japanese (market?) wants to enjoy a story in all it’s formats.

Games are an other common source for TV series and at least since the great success of THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA, light novels are a powerful member of that league, too, to the extent that some people start groaning: “Not another of those light-novel-adaption type anime!”

What is unusual about KAGEROU PROJECT is that is started with songs by Jin (a.k.a. Shizen no Teki-P) using vocaloid voices (mostly IA) but using original characters in the PVs produced by Shidu and Wannyanpu. And most importantly, with his songs Jin created a story and a whole universe that got adapted into a manga and a light novel series and a TV series has been announced as well which is to be produced by studio Shaft and directed by Akiyuki Shinbo (my absolutely favorite combination, so I’m almost going crazy!!!).

The links to the official site below:

http://mekakushidan.com/

I was surprised when I found out that there is an other project with almost the same CV: DEMISE PROJECT also started as a song series by 150P, picking up urban legends and shaping them into songs also using vacaloid voices. And it also got adapted into a novel and a manga.

Are these projects laying out the blueprint for how stories will be developed and produced in the future?

What’s the deal with Little Witch Academia?

A friend of mine asked me recently whether I knew anything about the anime LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA. As it happened, I had stumbled upon an article on this title, but hadn’t read further than the headlines since I had never heard of it before. Now I went back to look for the article – and here it is is!
The story my friend told me was that this short film had been very popular and successful even though it was “some sort of indie production”. Now, as a auteur film maker ourselves, anything indie AND successful of course draws our attention. After a bit of research i found out what that “sort of indie production” exactly was. The first confusing thing was that it was produced by a studio with some rather well known titles (Black Rock Shooter). And with 25 minutes it conforms with the regular TV episode length – which means the mainstream format. And then the keyword “Young Animator Training Project” turned up, of which I had heard before in connection with some other titles. And finally Wikipedia (as so often) come up with the answer: Young Animator Training Project started in 2010 and became annual in 2012 under the name of Anime Mirai. It’s funded by the government’s Agency of Cultural Affairs and supports 4 selected projects of all applications. It’s goal is to encourage projects executed in Japan that give young animators the opportunity to get on the job training by experienced animators. This became necessary because more and more work was getting outsourced to other countries e.g. Korea. Summing it up, these films are somewhat independently financed projects meaning not financed through the industry and with not entirely commercial intentions, but produced by mostly well established or upcoming studios (Production I.G., Madhouse, P.A. Works, A-1 Pictures, Studio 4°C).
I am somewhat surprised that from all, LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA has received so much attention and popularity. I admit that the animation is beautiful and the visual look is beautiful – in American terms. Because the movements are fluid and exaggerated, but differs from the philosophy which you can find not only in many other animes but also in other Japanese arts/sports such as kendo. I was lucky enough to be at a conference where Hiroshi Nagahama (director of MUSHISHI and just recently AKU NO HANA) talked about how in anime as in kendo you focus your energy to where it’s crucial and effective, to one spot, in order to achieve the optimal result. (I hope I can post the video of it as soon as possible). When everything is moving almost hysterically, as generally the case in classic American animation, you don’t know where to put your focus, which movement to follow, and lots of energy gets wasted on maybe beautiful but ineffective work (that’s exactly the feeling i got when I rewatched PRINCE OF EGYPT).
And concerning it’s visual look, it differs from the typical anime look. The lines are more curved, the basic shapes are closer to the circle as is so typical of Disney, and you could say it somewhat looks more “cartoony”. It goes as far as that I wouldn’t have been surprised if somebody had shown it to me saying it was an American production. It also reminded me of PANTY AND STOCKING, which is more graphic, though, but also very different from typical anime. Their connection is that the director of LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA was responsible for the concept art in PANTY AND STOCKING. All in all, I wonder whether the popularity of LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA does not actually just mean a greater popularity amongst American audiences which in turn is due to it being more familiar to them.

Mucha Takato Psychedelic

Yesterday I went to see the Mucha exhibition at the Bellerive Museum with Cesare and Manu. It’s officially titled MUCHA MANGA MYSTERY, but after having walked through the exhibition some I wonder how fitting the last two keywords really are.
There are some works that I’ve missed in the exhibition. The Mucha part was beautiful and complete with some film and sound documents. But besides the manga part having been researched very superficially (as Jane has noted correctly, who had already been to the exhibition before and has warned me about certain deficiencies), with some very questionable examples in this context (GHOST IN THE SHELL?!?), the third part of the title is even more puzzling. As Cesare commented fittingly, “psychedelic” would describe it much better than “mystery” regarding all the 60s and 70s record covers and posters that were exhibited. But you’re right, “Mucha Manga Mystery” just sounds better.
Two texts that I’ve missed from a Japanese perspective are first of all the opening of the anime series GOSICK with very obvious Art-Nouveau references (specially in comparison to GHOST IN THE SHELL).
And UTENA, that was also exhibited, is rather victorian in my opinion. Am I wrong?
And on the other hand not only, but especially Takato Yamamoto as a representative of Ero-Guro is clearly related to Mucha. Although in this case maybe indirectly, I admit, since his artwork has mainly been influenced by Japanese woodcuts which have also been a strong influence on Art-Nouveau. But some floral elements clearly are closer to Art-Nouveau than to Ukiyo-e.
While writing this article I started wondering why I couldn’t think of any more contemporary western examples in connection with Mucha. Surely you occasionally can find single graphics that follow in his tradition. But is it really possible that the East has been influenced more lastingly? Or can it really be drawn back to that the origins are in the Japanese print graphics in the first place? There were some examples of American comics displayed at the exhibition, sure. What comes to my mind additionally are the flowing drapings in SPAWN. But there surely must also exist some other examples from Europe?
If anyone has an idea, please let me know.

STAY at Dramaking weblog

Finally we get to show STAY at the students film club! One of my favorite films I’ve been waiting to screen for a long time!

Instead of writing lots about it, I’ll just put a link to a weblog (in German!) with lots of opinions and information, some even new to me. Of course I posted my own comment, too! o_<

STAY at DRAMAKING