Series composition – Going beyond studio pedigree
You know you are leveling up in anime-geekery when you stop referring to a series as 'a Kyo-Ani production' but "directed by Tatsuya Ishihara". Someone has posed the question before - "Why do you even need to know the animation studio?" To which I had answered, "to anticipate the quality of the series." There is just too many anime for us to sample and feedback from trusted anibloggers and studio pedigree thus become important factors in a series uptake. However, the latter is becoming less pertinent of late given my emphasis on story integrity and plot coherence which fall under that purview of series composer/script writers who may or may not be staff of the animating studio.
I may have been watching anime for years but am still clueless when it comes to the mechanics of anime production. Which was why the interview with Jukki Hanada (that came with my Rozen Maiden Traumend DVDs) was so educational. Hanada san was the series editor (composer) for Rozen Maiden and Traumend and the interview granted great insight on how the plot of an anime is put together. For those interested here's a brief on the process.
1. Series Editor gets request to produce the script for an anime.
2. Series editor aquaints himself with the story material via reading the books/manga or playing the game.
3. Series editor meets director and relevant personnel of the source material (mangaka, eroge script writer etc) to chart the direction, feel and arcs they would like the anime to take.
4. Series editor drafts an overview plot of the series, broken down into episodes.
5. More cycles of discussions with director and original writers.
6. Series editor finalises the plot outline and tasks writers (not so uncommonly himself too) to come up with the script for each episode.
7. Several more cycles of script refinement with Director and original writers
8. Completed script is handed over to director and story editor/script writer's involvement with the production ends.
Hanada san confesses that he'd only know how the script has evolved upon watching the completed work on TV. Of course I suspect the degree of involvement for the editors and openness to deviate from the script varies from studio to studio.
Anyhow the interview thus solves a few mysteries about the inconsistencies of anime.
1. Great overall plot coherence but bland episodic execution - Good series editor, crappy individual script writers.
2. Charming characters with great episodic fun/entertainment but overall an unsatisfying tale that is neither convergent nor consistent with character development or plot elements - Superb episodic writers meet substandard story editor.
I greatly appreciate anime series that tell coherent tales that its plot development interacting intimately and symbiotically with character development. Thus besides the director, I think the series editor deserves the credit for putting together such masterpieces.
Coming up next, a tribute to some of the finest series compositions in animedom.
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August 11th, 2008 - 00:55
Great piece. Writers are so important.
I haven’t seen the interview, but that sounds like what I expected the process to be like. For each episode, I’d add the storyboarder, who is sometimes also the episode director, but usually not. As I understand it, he/she sketches something like a manga of the episode, in some places almost frame by frame, other places a bit more general. So he/she is another influence on the finished product, especially how the scenes and angles look and flow.
I am with you on the importance of individual staff members as opposed to the studio as a whole, but I have come to realize that what a studio has is established ways of working and a core staff that helps give it a style.
August 11th, 2008 - 02:56
And then you have Gundam SEED Destiny where they apparently just made stuff up as they went along.
August 11th, 2008 - 03:53
I’ve muttered in a very theoretical way about this before. It’s good to see some actual, practical information about how some of the different roles might interact. It would be interesting to know how the process might be different if the anime was telling an original story rather than adapting a game, manga or novel (light or otherwise).
August 11th, 2008 - 07:16
I always check the studio for an anime to get a measurement of how good it might be. Mostly because of the reason you wrote this blog post. You can’t just go after the director and what he has done. Nor can you solely think of the series editor or both the director and series editor. There is a whole team of scriptwriters, animators quality checkers, background painters and so on.
So going with that argument, I’m still going to refer to shows as a “KyoAni production” and so on
August 11th, 2008 - 07:43
Yeah, this was a good reminder. A lot of people think that since film is a very director-centric medium, TV is also that way when in actuality, it’s mainly writer and producer-centric.
August 13th, 2008 - 09:27
Hashihime: Thanks for highlighting the storyboarder. In fact, every time I talk about ‘anime cinematography’, it actually really boils down to the storyboarding (as you have mentioned) how the camera pans, the angles of the shots etc which in turn works to accentuate the mood of the scene or the theme of the series. This, I believe, is the basis of art in animation.
Evirus: LOL! I suppose it’s hard to plan ahead when one’s plot has to react to gunpla sales.
IKnight: Indeed, it’d be interesting to see the production of ‘original’ anime. Although I’ve noticed that many of the original series have their directors as co-writers. That would solve more than just a few interfacing or concept dilution issues. After all, a scene envisioned by a script-writer could be very wrongly translated into 2D by the animators and in that losing its very thrust. I suppose that’s why the director is around to hold everything together
flaskis: Heh, I’m very much guilty of it myself. For example despite their H20s and rental magicas, I’ve still a staunch supporter of ZEXCS and am catching Wagaya no oinarasama. However, I’m further assured by the involvement of Yoshida Reiko who worked on Angelic Layer (script) and Scrapped Princess (script supervisor) and directed by Iwasaki Yoshiaki who was the director for Sky Girls and Love Hina and Zero no Tsukaima (S1). Notice that even though it’s a ZEXCS production, the series composer is respected by me for her work in BONES production and the director for JC Staff involvement. That’s how fluid the anime production industry is I suppose and looking at studios alone may not be an accurate a gauge as the talent behind them.
jpmeyer: Ah ic… that’s probably explain why ‘producers’ seem to have more bearing than ‘director’ in TV series’ credits