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Compare two shows in the same genre that you thought positively about and explain why one show ultimately excels over the other.

Two shows in the Slice of Life genre that I thoroughly enjoyed were K-On and Slow Start. In my opinion, K-On excels over Slow Start by far. To keep this fair and to not introduce length-bias, I’ll only be talking about the first season of K-On.

Simply put, K-On achieves more in its 13 episodes of runtime than Slow Start does. Off the bat, it is worth mentioning that simply *achieving* more is not the golden pass to a show being better, but rather opening itself to greater potential. Whilst Slow Start certainly does achieve some of what it set out to do, it does fumble in the end. In contrast, K-On does exactly what it sets out to do with the broader scope of a coming of age narrative and the character arc of Yui Hirasawa. To give focus to this essay, I’ll be looking at the final episodes of both anime to convey the point I’m trying to make.

The final episode of K-On includes the band’s concert wherein Yui forgets her guitar at home on such an important day. On her way back to the auditorium she reflects back on what her first year in highschool was like. Through doing so, she realizes that she has found a place in the world that she truly belongs, a hobby, and friends that she loves doing this hobby with. A stark contrast from where she was at the beginning of the year. The concert proceeds as one would expect it to with expert storyboarding from Yamada Naoko, adorably hilarious comedic quips from Yui between songs (as written by Reiko Yoshida), and jaw-droppingly gorgeous lip syncing animation from Yoshiji Kigami (may he rest in peace). Though during this concert, K-On develops its themes even further and does so through airheaded Yui in a way that feels entirely in-character. “This auditorium is our Budokan,” is her way of bluntly stating that keion-bu was never about the music, it was about the friendships built, watching these characters grow and develop. It's a truly cathartic moment to watch Yui realize this and be truly content with herself and her friends. The point being made here is that K-On creates a climax to its story, it reaches a milestone with which the first season to end despite the fact that it is being adapted from an ongoing manga. Not necessarily every anime *needs* to have a climax, but what every anime needs to do is to go about tying itself together thematically in such a way that it is coherent to the viewer, regardless of source material. It may not be a particularly accepted opinion in the current paradigm of incomplete shows with ongoing source material hoping for a second season, but I’ll defend that opinion for any show.

In contrast, the final episode of Slow Start disappoints on a level extremely similar to what I just described. As a quick summary, the premise of Slow Start is based around our main character Hana starting high school a year late. She has heavy social anxiety but despite this is able to find friends that accept her and love her despite this. The overarching plot point here and the core of Hana’s arc is that she is unable to tell her friends that she was held back a year. She spends the entirety of the show getting to know these girls, and each of these girls has their own mini-arcs within the show, and we certainly see the same type of transformation wherein Hana is no longer the same person that she was at the beginning of the show. The journey was certainly executed, and it was set up to be an absolutely wonderful show. Except for the fact that Hana never tells her friends she was held back a year, and the show ends. Again, the journey was there and even I would agree that the journey is more important than the destination. Yet, I can't help but be left with a bad taste in my mouth that they weren’t able to tie it together. Some shows, even more commonly in the slice of life genre simply *do not need* this sort of emotional climax and I completely understand that. But the context of Slow Start demanded it in my opinion, and wasn’t executed on due to poor scriptwriting and mild hope towards a continuation as to not spoil the big climax. This is completely fair, but even so some thought should have been put towards the anime ending, even if it is the adaptation of an ongoing manga. Slow Start is still very much a show I thoroughly enjoyed for its reflection on social anxiety for these different girls, but was unable to tie itself together in a meaningful way at the end of the day.

The last point I would like to touch on in regards to K-On excelling over Slow Start is general production value. This may not be important to other people, but in my opinion, the production value and general look of the show is incredibly important to me when judging anime. Slow Start certainly had some of the most gorgeous character animation of that year, but sorely lacked when it came to other areas like background art(1) (most of it being very basic stock template art with bland monotone colors) and cinematography outside of its sakuga cuts. Inversely, K-On! Is a beautifully rounded out production. Granted, the second season looked *far* better by comparison, but all of the production elements of a fantastic anime were there: gorgeous aforementioned sakuga, meaningful shot composition and storyboarding, uniquely thoughtful songs for the girls to sing, and background art that looked *lived in*(2).

On the whole, I believe that K-On has a leg up on Slow Start due to it being able to tie itself together more completely and in a way that relates directly to the overarching message of the series. Not every show needs this, but in the context of these two specific slice of life shows, it was necessary for both and one was able to do so with flying colors, and the other was able to do so decently. In addition to this, K-On goes about its message with a more holistically fantastic production while Slow Start is only able to succeed in a single area.

1: https://i.gyazo.com/8eb9f2b764eef64138c4d9667e880fa0.png
2: https://i.imgur.com/dSXrmV6.png



Name an episode from an anime that you really enjoyed and explain why. This can include the production, writing, or anything else that contributed to your enjoyment.

An episode of anime that I found superbly meaningful and incredibly important to me was Flip Flappers episode 6. This particular episode takes a step back from what previous episode’s plot development and the general driving mystery behind Dr. Salt and Pure Illusion and takes a completely episodic approach to flesh out one of the side characters that had appeared before, Irodori-senpai. Simply put, what I enjoy about this episode is everything I enjoy about Flip Flappers all at once, but put into the neat package of an incredibly complete and easy to understand story that I also find supremely meaningful and cathartic. To give focus to this essay, I’ll be talking about the general symbolism and cinematography that this episodes puts on showcase in order to further the narrative and emotion of it, the way the episode connects to the overarching themes of flip flappers in the vein of the collective unconscious and the Jungian model of psychology, and finally the general foreshadowing and catharsis behind the narrative itself. I’ll walk through the episode in chronological order.

To start, the episode opens on Cocona’s recurring dream and her waking up to her grandmother, one of the overarching mysteries of the show. But in this context it becomes important as this episode heavily has to do with Iro’s ‘grandmother’, drawing a parallel between the two when we see her introduced later in the episode. Moving forward to the school, Papika and Cocona come into Iro’s art room where they see her painting with nail polish, with her name signed at the bottom (this is the first time we see that her name is Irodori). When asked why she doesn’t paint her nails, she asserts that she ‘doesn’t deserve to’. The opening scene of this episode is seemingly confusing the first time you watch it, but it provides incredible context to the rest of the episode when looking back on it. Moving forward, Papika and Cocona find themselves at an entrance to a type of PI they have never seen before. It is worth noting that this is where the first piece of symbolism that I’d like to point out is. The rock tied with a rope in front of the PI gate is referred to as *sekimori-ishi* in the Shinto religion. It has spiritual meaning, marking the entrance to a spiritual space that is ‘occupied’ or a ‘soft barrier’ warning the oncomer to turn back, which is telling in the context of what is about to come.

From here, the girls are whisked into a pure illusion and change colors, Cocona being orange and Papika being blue. We learn that Cocona is being referred to as Iro-chan, which is immediately a tip-off that the girls are living as Irodori-senpai in this pure illusion. We see how Irodori’s life was at this point in time wherein grandmother encourages her art from a very young age, but develops Alzheimer’s around this time. She is also the person who first gave nail polish to Irodori and let her use it to paint her art. Throughout the episode, the colors are played with in such a way to give context to the emotions being conveyed. The orange colors are meant to represent the ‘warms’, the good parts of Irodori’s childhood. The scenes with the grandmother are painted with these colors as positive memories. In contrast, the colder colors, usually blue, are meant to be the negative parts of her childhood, usually around her parents. It is worth noting that the only time that the episode breaks this color scheme is when Iro is watching her parent’s fight, at which point the scene is dyed red.

At the later points in the episode, after Cocona and Papika have switched several times between being orange and blue, taking turns doing so, the entirety of the world turns blue when the grandmother moves out of her house and into supportive care at the hospital. When Cocona wakes up, she finds herself in an orange world again, finding that grandma is still alive and she can see her. Since the grandmother has alzheimer’s, she doesn’t recognize Irodori and Cocona (as Irodori) runs away as the world fades to blue again. At this point, Cocona begs Papika to switch with her (as they’re different versions of Irodori) to which she responds that they cant, they’re both Irodori. This ties back into the overarching thematic idea of pure illusion, ‘the collective unconscious’. The derivations of Irodori are all Irodori. Despite encapsulating different parts of her, they are all still her.

To conclude the episode, we find out that Iro is unable to forgive herself for running away from grandma that day, despite saying that she would always be with her, she abandoned her when her grandma didn’t recognize her. The girls are then taken to a colorless void with just the grandmothers hospital bed, they join hands (representative of all of the derivations of Irodori now being on the same page) and introduce themselves to the grandmother once again as the world turns orange. The catharsis behind this shot would not have been possible without the cinematic motif of the usage of color throughout the episode and could have been lost on the viewer. Finally, the next day the girls seeing Irodori wearing her nail polish again, she has forgiven herself.

So to tie up, I think this is a fantastic episode for a multitude of reasons all surrounding the idea of forgiveness of past sins through self reflection. The idea on its own is a good idea, but not great without the context of the symbolism of the nail polish and little things like the sekimori-ishi can be dug into, making it feel though as the creation of every minor detail in the episode was incredibly deliberate. The cinematographic use of color creates an extra level of emotion, allowing the viewer to feel catharsis when the world is dyed orange a final time, and the general level of animation that is typical of a flip flappers episode (such as the morphing faces as Irodori’s parents argue, giving a feeling of uneasiness). Flip Flappers episode 6 is undoubtedly one of my favorite episodes of anime.




Which characters or cast of characters had good chemistry with each other? Explain why.

Two characters that I found to have superb chemistry with each other were Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki from Yamada Naoko’s recent film, Liz and the Blue Bird. For the sake of this essay, I’ll be focusing mostly on the latter half of the film wherein most of the character development and progress occurs, as well as on the clever use of symbolism, metaphors, and music to convey the emotions of these two characters in relation to one another.

The first half of the movie mainly focuses on characterizing both Nozomi and Mizore, whilst at the same time setting up the metaphor of Liz and the Blue Bird as the two girls decide which way to take their futures in music. From the start, the viewer is indirectly led to believe that the more quiet and reserved Mizore is the parallel to Liz, whilst the happy and outgoing Nozomi is the parallel to the Blue Bird. This never stated to be the case, but the viewer automatically assumes so because of the parallels between their personalities. Regardless of this, the film goes about characterizing the two girls in a very interesting way, in that it goes about it largely without the use of dialogue. I find this to be a pretty unique but also a great way to go about characterizing our main characters, rather than seeing them talk we see them interact without the use of dialogue, observing their little mannerisms in relation to one another and the general way that they carry themselves. An animated movie using animation to further its characters rather than traditional dialogue. Mizore’s trepid waves to Nozomi through the window, hoping that Nozomi will see her, and the genuine hurt on Mizore’s face when she doesn’t.

Moving forward to the meat of the chemistry between these characters is the performance and subsequent confession scene. Just before the performance scene is the big reveal in relation to the metaphor of Liz and the Blue Bird. Mizore has been characterized throughout the film as the superior musician, the one who will make it to music school and become professional, whilst Nozomi has been an afterthought, almost desperate to seek validation that she too should try for music school. Nozomi has to let Mizore go to achieve greater things, Nozomi is holding her back from her true potential, thus we learn that Mizore is the Blue Bird to be let go. And herein lies the flaw of Mizore’s character. Upon learning this, she goes and gives the best performance of her life without thinking of the repercussions that this will have on Nozomi (up until now Mizore had been holding back during their duet). The piece that they’re playing requires equal levels of commitment from the oboe and flute as they play a farewell song to one another, extremely fitting to the situation that the characters find themselves in. Regardless, Mizore drops the curtain and absolutely shatters the illusion that they were on the same level as musicians. If I had to put this into words, this is an extreme level of obliviousness but also selfishness on Mizore’s part. She is genuinely unaware of how her actions are going to affect other people, even the person she cares the most about. Granted, she shouldn’t have held back from the start but there was likely a more delicate way to go about achieving her potential. Furthermore, moving into the confession scene we see Mizore confess to Nozomi: Nozomi is everything to her, she loves everything about Nozomi. Again, failing to recognize how Nozomi might feel in this moment.

Shifting perspective to Nozomi, she feels broken, humiliated, defeated for even thinking that she had a chance to be half the musician that Mizore was. Of course, she had known this all along as she had been acting rather cold to Mizore for a generous part of the film (didn’t wave back to Mizore at the window, etc), but now that it was overtly shown to her and that Mizore has the gall to also confess to her at this moment, Nozomi has every right to be angry. What she wanted to hear from Mizore wasn’t “I love everything about you”, it was “I love your flute”, which is why Nozomi responds to Mizore’s confession with “I love your Oboe”. A fitting twinge of hostility and jealousy from someone who just had their dreams shattered.

But this is not what Liz and the Blue Bird is about. One of the recurring symbols within the film is the pufferfish. Puffing itself up and becoming hostile to defend itself, and deflating once the threat is gone. Up until now the film had been Nozomi puffing herself up as a defense, acting cold towards Mizore, certainly not the right course of action towards a friend who wants nothing but the best for you. And inversely, Mizore’s obliviousness isn’t in the vein of any sort of hostility or ill-will, rather it is just Mizore finally realizing that she needs to achieve *her* true potential. This is when the pufferfish deflates, both girls realize that they are in the wrong and correct themselves to be a little closer to normal. They laugh it off and hug, they truly care for each other and want to see the other succeed regardless of personal inhibitions or jealousy. Liz letting the Blue Bird go wasn’t in reference to their relationship as a whole, just to their musical relationship. The characters separate themselves from the storybook and create their own story to follow.

Therein lies what I feel good chemistry between characters is in the sense of a positive relationship. Both girls are flawed in different ways, but through interacting with one another they realize their mistakes, and become completely different people from who they were at the beginning of the film and move forward. The use of the metaphor of Liz and the Blue Bird, as well as the music and the symbolism of the puffer fish only exist to enhance the characterization and chemistry of these two characters, to put it in different terms as to help the viewer truly understand the relationship’s subtext and emotion. This is why I find Mizore and Nozomi to have fantastic chemistry.



What are the most important aspects of a character to you? Elaborate your answer by using an example of a character that you think excels in these aspects.

The most important aspects of a character to me differ greatly based on what the ‘point’ of the character or the show is. Obviously, the type of character that appeals to me in a comedic sense is going to vary wildly than the type of character that appeals to me in a dramatic sense. What I like about one character may not appeal to me about another character if done incorrectly tied to the themes or context of the show. Though, for the sake of this question I’ll try to draw the most broad ‘through’ lines and tie them altogether under a few key points. What draws me to most characters is believability of being a real person that I could see existing in the world, understanding of why they are the way that they are, and some sort of contextual focus in relation to one of the themes of the show that they are in. These reasons may sound rather confusing at first glance, but I hope to be able to explain myself by talking about Kokona Aoba from Yama no Susume as a character I enjoy in relation to these points.

As a way of quick summary, Kokona Aoba is one of the five main characters in a group of friends that enjoys mountain climbing. She is first introduced as a ditzy girl who needs help after the sole of her shoe falls off on a mountain climb, and befriends Aoi and Hinata. Off the bat, I really enjoyed the way that Kokona was introduced into the show. Whereas most shows of this type would opt for some sort of contrived school club to force the new characters in, Yama no Susume opts for a more realistic approach to meeting this girl. She just happens to be a person that they run into whilst climbing a mountain. Both are equal levels of ‘convenient’, but I appreciate a break from the cliche. It strikes me as a more *realistic* way to introduce a character, I believe that someone could meet someone else like this.

From here on, Kokona is part of this little group of friends that climbs mountains. One of the core themes of the show is having a group of friends to support you through your hobby (and also life), and Kokona does this wonderfully. If I had to describe her character succinctly, it would be ‘relentless positivity’. For example, in the big character arc of the show for the main character, Aoi, she fails to make it up Mt. Fuji. Of course all of the girls are extremely supportive of her efforts and they are all able to encourage her and assure her that failure is okay and a natural part of life. Granted, I did say that *they all* encourage her, which implies that I like all the characters (and I do), so why is Kokona my favorite of the four of them? Simply put, Kokona is *relentlessly* positive. All of the other girls have their small slips and stumbles where their will is broken (Aoi when she fails to make it up Mt. Fuji, Hinata in her arc in season 3, Kaede while studying for her exams), but Kokona is *always* positive, the first to reassure anyone, the first to have something nice to say. Always.

From the beginning of this essay I’ve explained Kokona’s character as rather static, and she is a static character in a show surrounding the development of Aoi Yukimura. That being said, I don’t think being a static character is necessarily less interesting or makes Kokona a worse character. And due to her backstory, I think it makes her character even stronger than Aoi’s. We first learn about Kokona’s home life in the beginning parts of season 2, learning more and more until it reaches an apex in episode 20. Kokona comes from a broken home. Her father isn’t in the picture and her mother works extreme hours just to be able to make ends meet. She lives in a tiny apartment (in stark contrast to Aoi and Hinata’s gigantic homes), and generally has very little time to spend with her mother due to these conditions. Episode 20 is Kokona’s birthday, wherein the sole focus is on her and how she chooses to spend her birthday. Her mom has saved up all of her money to get Kokona a birthday present (hiking boots) and Kokona decides to take the day to try them out in different spots reminiscent of her childhood. The introspection and cinematography in this episode are absolutely superb and are able to paint Kokona as completely content with her birthday, just being outdoors and visiting the places that are dear to her. Later, when her mother gets home after a long day at work, they are able to genuinely enjoy the little time they have together on her birthday before the episode ends. And this is why I so thoroughly enjoy Kokona’s character. Her relentless positivity is such a testament to the idea that her happiness is her own choice. She doesn’t have the greatest life, or is able to indulge in the types of things that Aoi and Hinata are able to, but she enjoys it to the fullest and is truly content with it. Comparison is the thief of happiness and Kokona has no such time for being less happy. On top of this, even being the least fortunate of the girls, she is still always the most positive, the first to reassure and encourage her friends. This is why Kokona is one of my all time favorite characters.

So, to tie Kokona Aoba back to my aforementioned points, she is absolutely a character that I feel is believable and real, or is at least one that I *hope* is real in the world. An unending beacon of positivity despite her less than optimal circumstances that wants to share her positivity with the world. Granted, we don’t necessarily ‘find out’ why Kokona is the way that she is, but rather I think the contrast speaks for itself and contributes to the idea that Kokona is happy of her own accord.. Finally, Kokona is absolutely integral to furthering the core themes of the show (quite literally the name of it): encouragement of climb. Kokona *is* synonymous with encouragement and positivity, she is the backbone of the show, even if she is a static character who doesn’t receive much development the way that Aoi does. That is how Kokona embodies the traits that I find important to make a great character.


What visual aspects do you appreciate the most when you consider the overall quality of an anime? Name a show that you thought excelled in those aspects and explain why.

The visual aspect that I pay attention to the most when considering the overall quality of anime is the animation. Simply put, animation is quite literally (by definition) what makes anime different from other visual mediums. If I didn’t care for animation, I wouldn’t watch anime to be quite honest, I could get the same sort of experience from manga, tv shows, or films. With that being said, I’d like to talk about the animation in Kill la Kill as an example of a show I thought succeeded and exceeded expectations in this specific visual area.

To begin, I’d like to talk about how Kill la Kill uses its animation to comedic effect throughout the series. Generally, these comedic quips feature limited animation and serve as a quick gag rather than what is meant to represent any sort of “technically impressive” animation. A prime example of this is Mako’s little skits throughout the series(1). The animation is generally very quick cut, with only a few key frames exactly where they need to be to convey what is going on. The jokes are usually double entendres based on what Mako is saying. None of the animation here is technically impressive, but it is very on purpose. In fact, director Hiroyuki Imaishi has gone on record as saying that he chose to re-animate the Mako skits himself because the way that they were animated before was “too smooth” and ruined the joke that he had in mind. This is how Kill la Kill looks *constantly*. The animation is always telling some sort of “blink and you miss it” sort of joke with this very specific type of limited animation. In some cases the animation is actually quite inventive in the way that it goes about doing so (such as the Mankanshoku family loading up their house on their truck, and driving away in a river of their own tears), and in some cases its just a quick joke, like when Sanageyama falls backwards off of a cliff like a piece of paper after he is beaten. This constant attention to animation to tell jokes is what I love about the way Kill la Kill is animated. The show is always moving around in an exaggerated way to tell a joke(2) and I absolutely adore it.

In addition to this, Kill la Kill uses its animation to further its narrative and tell us about the characters in the world through metatextual elements. For example, Nui is a character that can bend the fourth wall. The scene wherein she is introduced shows a split screen cut of her and Satsuki hundreds of yards away from each other (with Satsuki on her throne and Nui on the ground below). Nui reaches across the split screen and strokes Satsuki’s hair, implying the fourth wall break and that Nui can do whatever the hell she wants. In other instances, when someone tries to attack Nui, she just turns into a 2-dimensional piece of paper and floats away, dodging the attack. Not only does this help to characterize Nui as someone of incredible power and *somehow* above the laws of physics, its just fun to see unfold. Another instance of this is in one of the first episodes wherein Satsuki is still being characterized to the viewer. One of the initial points of characterization (and the first time she fights Ryuuko), she grows in the frame as Ryuuko shrinks as to not-so-subtly point out what a great force she is over Ryuuko and how intimidating she is and will be in the coming story.

Now that I’ve talked about how Kill la Kill uses its animation to further the characterization of characters and also how it uses it to tell jokes at *all* times, I’m going to talk about the bread and butter of good animation, sakuga. Kill la Kill certainly has no shortage of sakuga in addition to what I have already talked about. For quick example, Satsuki’s first transformation scene(3) animated by Takeshi Honda is absolutely gorgeous, but also par for the course when the show decides that it wants to look stunning rather than tell jokes. The careful attention to the hand animation as Satsuki flips the switches on the Kamui is stunning, as is the cinematography as the camera flies around Satsuki as she transforms. Finally, the use of squash and stretch as the Kamui eats Satsuki (also representative of the nature of Junketsu) creates for a beautifully coherent but also *loose* feeling cut. For another example, we could look to Takafumi Hori’s cut in episode 12, one of the more impressive hand to hand combat fighting moments(4). What I find particularly fantastic about this cut is the amount of *weight* you can feel that the characters have as they clash against one another. Furthermore, the perspective shot of Satsuki running alongside the wall is such a clever use of cinematography that I absolutely love it. And finally, the final clash and explosion effect is standard genius for Takafumi (as you can see in his LWA cuts). And Kill la Kill is absolutely teeming with this sort of animation talent; from Yoh Yoshinari to Sushio to the show’s very own Hiroyuki Imaishi. Kill la Kill is absolutely stacked with ex-gainax animation talent, and the principles that made that studio have fantastic visual production carried over to Kill la Kill.

On the whole, Kill la Kill is one of my favorite animated shows due to how integral animation is in enjoying the show, as well as its narrative and focus on characters. Simply put, Kill la Kill without its very specific brand of animation isn’t Kill la Kill. The extensive use and ways that animation is used in Kill la Kill absolutely makes it worthy of praise in my opinion.

1: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/18950
2: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/19086
3: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/6929
4: https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/18990




Pick an OST that you personally loved and analyse it. Make sure to include how it is used in the anime it belongs to.

One of the OST’s in anime that I have loved was the soundtrack to Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt. I’ll talk about the general tone of the OST and how it relates to the diametrically opposed nature of the two main characters of the show as well as a few standout tracks that truly elevate the scenes that they are a part of.

To begin, the music in the show is generally diegetic in the sense that the music that is playing exists for the characters in the show as it plays for the viewers. This isn’t necessary to create a fantastic OST, but it is incredibly important in the context of Thunderbolt because the songs playing are playing off of the main character’s cassette tapes and reflect their musical tastes. By doing so, the two main characters are able to be characterized through the OST, which turns out to be really neat. The first main character, Io Fleming, is a man that prefers the sound of free jazz. Chaotic, much like the way he fights in his gundam, he zips around through the battlefield through the dystopic space colonies that have been abandoned. He fights quickly and disordered, but still manages to come out on top because he truly does have a plan for everything to flow together, much like free jazz does. A great example of this is “Io Fleming’s Main Theme” which fits his character perfectly(1). It perfectly reflects how he fights, his personality, how he is as a person. It didn’t need to be put in words because hearing the music whilst watching him fight was already more than words could ever tell about him. In stark contrast to Io, on the other side of the battlefield is Daryl Lorenz. Daryl is the polar opposite of Io, both in preferred music and the way that he carries himself on the battlefield. Whilst Io prefers the chaos, Daryl prefers to sit back with his sniper and chill. Taking shots to win the battle from the comfort of the backline. As such, Daryl listens to more pop and bluesy-type music (with a hint of country influence). His opening track is “I’m Your Baby”(2), which feels odd in the moment, but when you come back to it afterwards you can feel as though it perfectly encapsulates Daryl’s character. Just a guy who prefers to chill in the background and listen to upbeat poppy music to distract him from the cruelty of war (but more on that later). These two different genres of music are a fantastic way to represent the two opposing main characters and their fight. Even further, during the bigger fight scenes the music clashes, switching back and forth and sometimes melding together between the free-form jazz and bluesy pop. A solid example of this is “Ronald Reagan Other Side” (3).

Now that I’ve talked about how the show goes about using its soundtrack to characterize the two main protagonists of the story, I’d just like to talk about an absolute standout track and scene that really hit home Daryl’s character, “The Dreaming Girl in Me” scene(4). From the beginning we’ve known that Daryl is a parapelegic, but hadn’t known the backstory behind it until this since spliced together with the present day and a flashback. In this scene Daryl is set up in his gundam for test purposes and told to run. As he runs, we see flashbacks of his life. As a soldier in a ground war he lost both of his legs to an explosion, since he was a kid he had loved to run along the beach and that was taken away from him as he fought for his country (colony?). This is the reason that he fights in the gundam, so he can remember what it feels like to run again, that’s his dream. The song itself fits quite well with the overall aesthetic of Daryl, being very bluesy and quite nostalgic. In addition to this it ties directly into the somber nature of Daryl’s past and the ‘dream’ he currently has so to speak. This scene specifically sticks out to me as the most emotional scene in the show, and wouldn’t have been possible without the nostalgic yet emotional performance by Yoshie Sakamoto.

And that is why I find Gundam Thunderbolt’s OST to be absolutely stand out. Not only does it simply have fantastic tracks with an overall tone to go along with the show, but it furthers the characterization of our protagonists and their personalities. Certain scenes are both elevated but made possible by the soundtrack and absolutely contribute, if not define the high points of the show.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrLvoyFpLGc
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeF8xLhQtu8
3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHTZeIG_aHU
4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJMJ-keBDjc




What do you think makes a voice acting performance stand out? Specify using an example.

In my opinion, a voice acting performance stands out when both the voice actor and the scriptwriter are on the same page as the character that is being portrayed. Both should be working in the same direction in terms of the characterization and mannerisms of the character as to sell that character to the audience in the best possible way. If the script is on point but the performance doesn’t have any passion or emotionality put into it, that character will fail to be believable or to stick with people. Inversely, I’ve seen several performances of voice actors pouring their hearts into characters that are delivering the most vapidly boring and unbelievable dialogue, these characters also fail. Thus, in my opinion, for a voice acting performance to truly stand out, the voice actor has to have a believable level of emotionality and cadence to lend believability to the character whilst delivering a script that matches that level of emotionality, all in relation to the character being portrayed and what that character is like. I’ll be talking about Aki Toyosaki’s performance of Yui Hirasawa in this essay.

Yui Hirasawa as a character is sort of a ditzy airhead who can do great things when she applies herself. The show follows this sort of trend with her comedic moments of vacant expressions and being genuine with all of her interactions, but just a little behind the curve. That being said, Toyosaki Aki sells this performance absolutely perfectly. Take for example, this quick little skit where Yui falls over1. It isn’t necessarily the words she says in this skit that sells the acting, it's rather the little noises she makes as she moves backwards and then falls over. It both sells the comedy in this skit, but also sells the viewer on Yui’s character as sort of an airhead goofball with these little noises. These little moments elevate my opinion of a voice acting performance greatly as it shows a sort of attention to detail that I don’t see in a lot of voice acting performances in anime.

Furthermore, later into the first season of K-On Yui gets a cold just before her band’s important school performance. Despite a little cliche of a thing to praise, I think Toyosaki Aki also nails ‘Yui with a cold’ perfectly. As shown in this clip2, her nasally impression of Yui does genuinely sound like Yui if she had a cold. Later into this antic, Yui actually does perform on stage, singing, while she has a cold, and it sounds absolutely hilarious. The level of skill to portray Yui *with* a cold while *also* singing is honestly pretty great and was well worth it for the joke being made. And K-On is filled with these sorts of clever little impersonation type jokes. The variance in emotionality between Yui proclaiming her lack of need for the english language, and her impersonating a sumo wrestler are all fantastic feats of voice acting in themselves, and K-On does it constantly. Of course, the voice acting is just a single facet of this next to the scriptwriting for these jokes and the animation being put on display like we saw in the clip of Yui hopping backwards slowly as she fell over. But the voice acting here certainly goes above and beyond and fully contributes to selling Yui as a character.

Therein lies what I think a good voice acting performance is, a solid script backed by a performance that makes sense for the character being portrayed, to sell me on the jokes being told or the dramatic moments for that character. Toyosaki Aki’s performance of Yui Hirasawa is my favorite role that she has ever done and quite frankly one of my favorite voice acting performances in anime.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdkvkyacIYw
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jGr8CG-jJg


What do you think are the most important aspects of an OP/ED? Elaborate your answer by using an example that executed these aspects well, as well as one that executed these aspects poorly.

In my opinion, the most important aspects of an OP are a general derivation from the agreed upon visual formula that so many OPs follow. In addition to this, I prefer the OP have strong visuals *while* distancing itself from that visual formula. And lastly, I prefer that OPs are able to contextualize the show that they are for, in some sort of meaningful way, whether it be foreshadowing, characterizing the characters, or signifying some sort of underlying conflict through inventive visuals. With that being said, I’ll be talking about Your Lie In April’s first opening, “Hikaru Nara” as an OP that I thought executed this well, and the third season of Boku no Hero Academia’s first opening, “Odd Future” as an OP that I find does these things poorly.

I’ll start with Odd Future because I feel as though this OP is exactly what I talk about when I say “typical OP formula”. It starts out slowly with character introductions, the music picks up and when the chorus hits it shows action scenes, before slowing down to an ending with some sort of nod towards what this arc is about. Repeat ad infinitum for every uninspired OP. For the sake of being fair I’ll run through the whole thing though. It opens on quick flashbacks of the journey so far: Deku meeting All Might, training, and he takes off running. We then see a young All Might standing opposite of his mentor (a subtle nod to the fact that we’ll learn about this flashback later except not subtle at all). The first 10 seconds honestly aren’t all that bad with the exception of the fact that the ‘journey so far’ shots were literally lifted from season 1 of the show (which is a grave sin in my opinion, NEVER use cuts from the actual show, the animation should be new). But this is where the OP goes downhill, just showing the show’s huge cast of characters...kind of doing stuff. We see All Might and Deku, we see the UA class (with noticeably janky character art for some reason),  we see the official heroes all standing together, and then we see the villains with Toga front and center. The animation that contains Toga’s introduction is honestly kind of neat, but keep in mind we are now 30 seconds into this OP and absolutely nothing of note has happened. We very briefly see a shot that might have the most meaning in the entire OP of All for One’s hand on Shigaraki’s head until we cut into meaningless action. Action that looks reasonably good, but absolutely meaningless to the context of the show. And that’s pretty much the rest of the OP, action that sort of outlines some of the fights that might happen in that season and looks pretty alright. What also sort of gets me about this OP is the complete disregard for syncing the music and the action. It genuinely sounds like I could put a random song over this OP and it would fit just as well. In my opinion, Odd Future is an absolutely bog standard OP that borders on bad because of how absolutely mediocre it is.

In contrast, Hikaru Nara is an OP that I feel excels in all of the aforementioned aspects, starting with distancing itself from the formula by concentrating its ‘visually impressive’ moments more evenly throughout the OP, rather than focused towards the climax of it. Straight off the bat, Hikaru Nara gets the character introductions out of the way immediately, 10 seconds and its over. Also notable is that Kousei and Kaori appear first briefly, before the whole cast appears, signifying the sort of ‘fate’ that the two share as both main characters and love interests, which isn’t something the viewer knows whilst this OP is playing (first cour). Further than this, Kaori’s character introduction is her slipping and falling into a pile of feathers as she mugs the camera, also indicative of her playful but quick to improvise nature. And the title card shows as Kaori falls through the frame (almost lifelessly or helplessly, also an actual subtle nod to her illness). Moving forward past some generally standard shots of the characters in different settings (the OP isn’t *entirely* perfect), we get some gorgeous watercolor-esque paintings of a depressed Kousei after his mother’s death and Tsubaki worrying about him before we cut to what is my favorite shot in the OP. Kaori resting in the music room while Kousei stares wistfully out the window, unaware of Watari and Tsubaki looking from the outside in at them. Another shot foreshadowing both Kaori’s illness with her need to rest in the room, along with the fact that Tsubaki and Watari will be outsiders looking in on their situation, there is definitely an amount of space between the two main characters as opposed to the four main characters.

Moving towards the second half of the OP, another telling shot is when Kousei runs to catch a feather but when he catches it he finds Kaori in his arms, possibly telling about her weight loss due to her illness or her delicate nature because of it. Finally, the climax of the OP hits and we see Kaori and Kousei performing as the stage they are playing on turns into heaven (we know this because this is where Kousei talks to Kaori for the last time at the end of the show). The OP is of their final performance in heaven as Kousei’s final goodbye. A quick flash of Kaori with her finger over her mouth indicates that she is hiding a secret, but is only on screen just long enough to be seen before we cut to three chairs (implying one of the four main characters will not be at that performance). And the last piece of foreshadowing is Kousei visiting a beach full of fireflies (fireflies being a symbol of the afterlife). All in all, Hikaru Nara is an OP with a ton of foreshadowing and meaning (so much in fact that this char limit isn’t going to let me talk about it all) and goes about doing so with gorgeous watercolor-esque artwork and derivation from the ‘typical’ OP formula with a fitting modern but still classic-style song.

https://animethemes.moe/video/KimiUso-OP1.webm
https://animethemes.moe/video/BokuNoHeroAcademiaS3-OP1.webm