Comments on: Haibane-Renmei: Thoughts Before Episode 1

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:18:51 +0000

I think I understand about the focus, but I still have trouble seeing where one thing beings and one ends in the artwork of Kuu and Rakka above. Well, that’s just a weird thing about how I see things =P

This is the only work of ABe’s that I’ve seen, but from what I’ve read about how the story was put together, he’s definitely got a lot of training to him. He’s able to put together a wonderful thing, but at the same time the writing is much like the artwork: anything we shouldn’t focus attention on doesn’t get a big spot in the story. There’s nothing leaving the viewer uncertain of which elements to keep following, and which to let vanish into the background.

At least, that’s how I see it.

By: Wraith

Wraith — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:47:26 +0000

Well, I’m late responding to these, but for this series…

Anyway, your take on the art is interesting. ABe has exactly the opposite view you do. Where you want the sharp outlines and high contrast colors, ABe has stated that he doesn’t understand why so much anime art uses things like that. From his perspective, he says it makes it hard to figure out where the artist wants you to focus your attention. In this series, Reki’s painting of Kuramori is a good example of how he uses color for emphasis.
Of course, he’s trained in classic Japanese painting, and wasn’t allowed to read/watch much manga or anime as a kid, so he doesn’t approach it with the same background as most anime artists do.
Personally, it’s my favorite art style. Serial Experiments: Lain was the anime that really got me hooked on the medium, and the unique art style was part of that. Since then I’ve been following everything yoshitoshi ABe was involved with.

As far as the pamphlets go, the US release doesn’t get them all. The Japanese release had a booklet with each DVD release, and a total of five DVDs. The US one takes pieces from all the books, unfortunately including some spoilers.

No comment on the dub. Since I followed the original airings and bought the Japanese first pressing DVDs, I had already seen the series too many times to be able to watch it without the English voices feeling wrong.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:51:04 +0000

Laputa is one I enjoyed (it's one of the first anime movies I saw, after Nausicaa, Totoro, and Grave of the Fireflies). Not necessarily a genre of choice for me, but I think it appealed to me because of the young age for the two main characters. That, and the story was nice with a good number of parts of scenes simply followed the characters without directly relating to the overall story.

By: Author

Author — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:25:48 +0000

I think Laputa is the best of steampunk, but it’s a movie, not series.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 23:13:54 +0000

Evangelion was certainly something of an experience for me to watch. Waaaay out of my comfort zone there. If RehXephon and Evangelion can easily be spoken of side-by-side, then I might wait a little before looking into it. Next on my "genre I never watch" to watch will be in the "steampunk" genre (whatever that is!), but that won't be until sometime next year (too busy with Aria, Loki, NaNoWriMo novel writing, etc. to get to it any sooner =P)

By: Author

Author — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 22:14:38 +0000

IIRC, you watched EVA, so RahXephon is not too far fetched, being essentially a vastly improved EVA.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:51:07 +0000

Clearly I am insane, then =) All I can say is I have trouble “seeing” what’s in artwork like this.

A quick look at RahXephon on Wikipedia (looking at the first paragraph), it doesn’t sound like something I’d watch, but if I ever see it as a box set for a low price, I might pick it up just to explore something out of my genre comfort zone. I’m especially eager to see whenever a dub is done right. Thanks for the recommendation!

By: Penguin_Factory

Penguin_Factory — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:25:51 +0000

The Haibane Renmei artwork is like paintings from God. Clearly you’re insane ;)

I love Haibane Renmei so I’m going to follow along with these blog posts.

(BTW, have you seen RahXephon? If you haven’t, watch it in english- best dub ever)