Toei Animatior Eisaku Inoue on Kemono Friends

"I'm sure many anime fans are going to get mad at me, but I think this kind of creation is even superior to the work of Makoto Shinkai or Mamoru Hosoda. His ability to tell a story with such cheap elements is sharper than those directors, and I even think that storytelling prowess could even reach the level of Hayao Miyazaki."

Other urls found in this thread:

animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2017-11-16/interview-eisaku-inoue/.124115
kemono-friendsch.com/archives/45225
kemono-friendsch.com/archives/45240
kemono-friendsch.com/archives/45236
sakugabooru.com/post?tags=precure
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2017-11-16/interview-eisaku-inoue/.124115

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See that's what I've been saying all along. Tatsuki is legitimately a genius at his craft.

His speculation about the whole Kadokawa situation is bullshit though.

>user claims to know more about japanese animation than japanese animator

>sleazy moe genre

He probably actually knows less about the situation than fans of the series who follow all the news and statements closely in all honesty.

>It's a cheap low-quality computer animation series that looks like it was made by a student during his free time.

He probably knows a lot more about it than you.

It's been a while since those anime first got released, but they are still considered major titles. Which newer series do you think could still be that relevant in the future?

Right now I'm experiencing theKemono Friends' phenomenon. I think it's a masterpiece. The series is getting many fans in Japan, but it looks like the opposite of what you would call a good quality or popular anime. It's a cheap low-quality computer animation series that looks like it was made by a student during his free time.

So why do you think it's so good?

Because it was basically conceived alone by its creator,TATSUKI, and despite its lack of good quality CGI, he compensated with a great plot, direction, and execution. Normally, when you think about animation, you think about about good quality and visual impact. But withKemono Friendsit's the opposite. The animation impacts you because of how bad it is. But when you start watching the series, you realize the excellent narrative and direction. I'm sure many anime fans are going to get mad at me, but I think this kind of creation is even superior to the work ofMakoto ShinkaiorMamoru Hosoda. His ability to tell a story with such cheap elements is sharper than those directors, and I even think that storytelling prowess could even reach the level ofHayao Miyazaki. The point is that people get surprised when they watch it, because you don't expect such a cheesy anime to be so narratively strong.

Well he does have 10 years experience doing this cg stuff; and more than a year to work on it. That fits in with the second part of the interview, where there's not enough time and not much risk-taking now.

>even superior to the work of Makoto Shinkai or Mamoru Hoshoda
That isn't really saying much

Probably not. It doesn't even read like he has read any interviews or the official statements related to the series to be honest.

>probably
>probably

He's only watching the show now. He doesn't know shit about it.

By the sounds of reading the interview he seems to think Kemono Friends is an original concept Tatsuki came up with that they then took to Kadokawa in order to get a wide audience.

>user gets his information from poorly translated sources
>user reads a poorly translated interview and thinks he knows more than what's happening in the industry

Whomst've are you quoting?

Guys, stop fighting and lets all be friends.

I don't know what you find so unbelievable about that. Being an animator doesn't make you an expert on every anime production there ever was. Anyone who has read half of the interviews about Kemono Friends production will know he is wrong. Interviews with animators and producers actually involved in the show, rather than some dude speculating on something he self admittedly only just got into.

If it gets you to post more anxious, desperate kaban then I'll gladly be angry

Did Mamimi retweet this one?

You are a terrible person, Kaban should always be happy and smiling.

I really find it unbelievable that any of you think you have any idea what's going on in the industry because you read poorly translated 2ch shitposts and animenewsnetwork articles.

What are you even talking about? I am talking about actual published Japanese interviews and official statements with the creators and from the producers involved in this anime that directly contradict what the interviewee is speculating about in this piece. Not "2ch shitposts" or "animenewsnetwork articles".

Why would a guy who draws things he's told to have any idea? He hasn't even read shitposts. He doesn't even know that Kadokawa owns the IP.

But the story kind of sucked

No, it didn't.

You're implying this isn't true. Look at Sup Forums, and the behavior of many anons who like moe-styled series.The shows tickle a certain, lustful itch in certain people, the output and behavior of the fandom is proof of it.

This is not to say that there are no perverts on the internet, or that people wouldn't sexualize female characters in anime anyway. You can look at the Fun Fun Pharmacy threads, or even the Precue threads and see that idea is wrong. Rather, shows/franchises like YuruYuri and especially Madoka know exactly who they're appealing to, and will pander to them with gusto. Kemono Friends only avoids this by a focused effort to be kid friendly.

What was good about it?

What was bad about it?

I liked it, though I can understand why it doesn't click with some folks. It takes its sweet time to do things, is highly simplistic, and may even be unbearably cutesy for some people.

But I liked that it kept things moving, showed things rather than telling the audience what was going on, creating the grounds for some nice sense of mystery and intrigue about the setting. Character development, though incredibly simple, was effective on me, and it just felt good watching it. It's a charming show. It looking cheap is something I liked about it, too.

Everything.

I think that is one of the shows strongest suits. It presents this relatively simple but well executed narrative over the top of and in contrast with a clearly fleshed out backdrop and world setting with real depth that it for the most part acts as if doesn't exist leaving the audience to fish around for small clues it occasionally drops to piece things together drawing you in further.

It's less outright terrible than it is simply lacking in anything good or interesting. There's not a single compelling idea here. Its revelations are obvious and corny. Characters don't amount to more than some joke derived from the animal they're based on. The entire worth of the show can be found in a Wikipedia summary of the setting.

>it's good PRECISELY because it's shit
Not even worth a bump or a (You)

>lacking in anything good or interesting
Let's agree to disagree.

>toei
>animation
Good one.

>Kemono Friends only avoids this

It avoids shit. It's the same thing. Boorus are full of KF porn. Pretending that this one is special while rest of the genre is sleazy is fucking retarded.

And half of LL fans are female for Christ's sake. I guess they are sleazy too.

>Kemono Friends only avoids this by a focused effort to be kid friendly
You are literally retarded.

>YuruYuri
Yuru Yuri is serialized in a magazine mostly read by woman.

Go to Pixiv. Ratio of ero pics are 10:1. Borou primarily posts ero pics anyway.

It isn't really the same thing as such, his examples might not be the best but there are a lot of shows with "moe" characters that are obviously made with shots that have "the male gaze" in mind. You can tell certain shots are setup to emphasise the physical attractiveness of the characters. That is almost entirely absent from Kemono Friends and any "lewdness" is much more incidental. The show doesn't ever really go out of its way to emphasise the characters as characters that are physically attractive besides perhaps the penguin dance scene despite the fact a couple of them wear quite revealing outfits. Fans sexualising it is something else entirely though, fans will sexualise anything no matter how innocent it is.

> This is not to say that there are no perverts on the internet, or that people wouldn't sexualize female characters in anime anyway. You can look at the Fun Fun Pharmacy threads, or even the Precure threads and see that idea is wrong.

I wasn't saying that it avoided being sexualized by fans, I said the opposite of that. I was trying to say that it doesn't actively and intentionally bait the audience, with one possible exception. I worded that poorly though.

That's hardly unique though. Shows like Non Non Biyori don't do anything sexy either. And some shows for girls do, like Sailor Moon.

But it's good because it's great

Some of the latest Kemono Friends news and info if anybody is interested:

kemono-friendsch.com/archives/45225
-Grey Wolf VA is going to be on the latest KF Expedition radio show

kemono-friendsch.com/archives/45240
-Apparently yet another KF radio show is starting hosted by Margay's VA, the first guest will be Aya Uchida.

kemono-friendsch.com/archives/45236
-Some info about the new run of the stage show in January, for some reason Margay will be playing Rocker.

Subs when

>rockhopper is still dead

I just can't be excited for radio shows. I care a lot about the characters, but not so much about the VAs.

Cute zebra.

Hey
sakugabooru.com/post?tags=precure

True enough it's not a unique property. But in the current climate, where much of otaku media is dominated by cute maidens (With totally no interest in boys save for (You)) frolicking with one another while winking at the camera/audience, properties that don't do that while still being about cute girls stands out pretty distinctly.

For a quick example, compare Kemono Friends to Kantai Collection. KC panders pretty hard to its fanbases' urges, and even has a "marriage" mechanic in game. Kemono Friends, while later implementing an affection meter, isn't quite as gung-ho on making their cast you waifu. Friends are Friends, and Kaban, the only human thing we get to know in the show, being a girl presses this idea to me further.

Or for a tl:dr example:
> Why is Kanna doing this?

>> Why is Kanna doing this?
Because Kyoani can't make good shows anymore, so they have to rely on fanservice, and the manga was already very lewd.

Good director with easy CG >>>>>>>> sakugashit, because director has to waste his time looking over the shoulder of animators so that they're not slacking off and producing QUALITY, instead of making good anime.

Literal nip animator doing sakuga himself said so, don't bother Nippon ever again, Sup Forums. They've seen the light and know that they're only wasting everyone's time.

Sexy stuff isn't rare, no. Sex sells, after all. But I don't think the lack of it is all that rare either.
Girls' Last Tour has girls the shape of potatoes wearing military fatigues.
Aho Girl only really used sexiness as a punchline. Princess Principal had Dorothy use her titties, but otherwise the girls were glamorous rather than sexy.

Sure some things pander that way. It's not an overwhelming majority though.

>toei buys out kemono friends and tatsuki

Can't be worse than Kusokawa.

is this still going or did it die?

>Why is Kanna doing this?
Because doragon meido tends to rub a character's element on the viewer's face. As if a character is supposed to be cute they'll remind you about it almost every scene giving a cute angle and a bright bg, if a character is supposed to be sexy then every scene has a degree of fanservice.
I actually liked KF because it builds almost every character's trait at least a bit (more considering that all they get is usually half or a bit more of an episde each) as first objective instead of focusing on straight fanservice.
I enjoyed both but KF left a better feeling at the end.

A good director is also sakuga.

Well, apparently, the mentally really simple chink otaku from chink-mainland like dragon maid a lot. They probably really need that cheap fanservice, whereas the nips have long since grown bored to it.

Sure you, the user I'm quoting, know more about the "industry" than everyone on Sup Forums right?

Because the dragon is a more lewd series than KF.

Why is Capybara so chill?

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Because they spend their lives relaxing in hot springs.

What are you trying to prove there? That ratio of only about 10% of the images being lewd is true for even Touhou and Kancolle, which barely anyone likes for anything other than their erotic art.
It's pretty fucking pointless for western people to try argue if Japan sexualizes something or not anyway because pretty much everyone this side of the world is a prude faggot who demonizes sexuality, unlike the largest part of the otaku culture in Japan.
Case in point. I'm not saying that you can only enjoy anime if you're a pervert, but if you really can't stand sexuality or even accept the fact that Japan doesn't care about your morals, then anime is not the right hobby for you.

It's not actually a matter of whether Japan sexualizes something or not. That they do it is not a question, but a fact and anyone with any sort of self-awareness knows this. This conversation wasn't started by a Westerner saying that moe shows are sleezy. Rather, it was a Westerner being annoyed because a Japanese person called them sleezy. They know what's going on and what certain shows appeal to, which I guess is expected for a person who's waist deep in animation and the culture around it.

I do agree that some level of desensitization is necessary to watch many anime though. That said not being 100% okay with middle schoolers having explicit make out sessions doesn't equate to "prude" in my book, as not being a pervert doesn't automatically make one a prude.

>I know exactly what she means by this.

That's quite the gutsy Friend.

Too bad Otokojuku doesn't allow women. She'd fit right in

It's been 2 fucking months, where the FUCK are the updates???

5 minutes.

I'm probably being very naive and optimistic but I'm hoping that no matter a positive or negative resolution to the Kemono Friends incident, this whole mess somehow sparks a chain of events that ends up improving anime production in japan.

90 seconds to weapon release.

>Person working in field x is all knowing about field x, and can't therefore be critisized by the public.
He just guessed about the situation, he himself has likely no more information than the average Kemono fan.

That does sound optimistic. The best I'm hoping for is that someone decides the good sales numbers were due to the lower price and follows suit. But even that seems unlikely.

Limitation inspires creativity.

If Kemono Friends was given a bigger budget and a real studio it would have just been another CGDCT anime and wouldn't have had the heart that drew us all in. At the same time the expectation of failure let the staff experiment and take risks not often afforded to other anime.

Preeeetty sure that's in reverse.

It is precisely because they were expected to fail, had no budget, and were not expected to please anybody, that they had unlimited freedom with the story and got where they are now.

Bigger budget is great but also puts a watchful eye on you

>superman have been cashed out continuously for nearly 80 years

They actually have good budget, just that some of the money went to the voices
Really though, if this is actually expected to fail they won't bankroll that many top tier VAs

Eisaku Inoue isn't a very good animator, though. Not sure why you would use him as a source for anything. Call me when someone with cred like Toshiyuki Inoue praises My Little Furry.

Haha no.
It died on 1987 and became a zombie franchise ever since. They kept on trying to revive him by making him edgy, authoritarian, and add new powers but to no avail.

And until a mudball sticks, Superman would continue to stick with Batman and Justice League to remain relevant

Only Kaban's VA was top tier. Everyone else was a first timer. The show never had any advertising to start with

Are you sure; of course kaban comes from LL, but the cast is half known (=good recognised girls) and the other half are literally whos - still needs some spare change to hire all those

>Everyone else was a first timer.

Serval, Arai and Fennec are fairly new, but most of the other Friends had veteran VAs. There are exceptions though, like Otter, but for example, Prairie Dog was voiced by Naomi Ōzora (Satannia, Chieri from Idolmaster), Toki's VA voiced Lavie back in Keroro and Culumon in Digimon Tamer, Tsuchinoko's VA is fairly famous too, Kanae Ito voiced Wolf...

Known does not mean "top tier". Most are lucky to have 1 or 2 leafing roles in a main anime. Most of the other roles were supporting.

I do agree they did spend a lot on the VAs. Most shows have a few main characters that carry most of the show and some other side characters. KF was different in that they had a lot of side characters but those characters needed to be skilled enough to carry an entire episode with Kaban and Serval.

If they really had a big budget, they would hire those VAs for Boss, Arai, Serval, and Fennec as they are the main cast.

>Boss
But they did cast a famous VA for him. She's called Aya Uchida.

My bad. Never checked him

I love Serval's voice. I'd like to hear her in more anime.

Same here.
But what I want the most is giving liberty to the VAs. The characters felt so much more alive and interesting by having their personalities built with the VAs in mind.

Weren't it reported that they prepared like less than 1600 BDs for all 6 volumes?

...

How many of the actors have grey backgrounds? I saw some risqué images of fennec, and I heard rockhopper's VA had some drama involving wrestling?

>Everyone else was a first timer
Did you seriously not recognize at least a few of voices?

>*action*
Go back to where you came from.

Considering the idolshit ep 8 was by far the worst episode Im guessing it was a kadokawa decision.

I still liked it.
But yeah, worst episode by far.

I still liked it for Margay and the song with the cute dance. And even the worst KF episode is still great.

I actually liked the idea of Princess's problem and how it was handled by the others, but it just wasn't executed well.
The pacing was all over the place and half the time I didn't know when a certain scene was taking place.

In YYZ defense, they probably didn't have enough time, considering that they had to present the setting of the episode, the characters, show the Gay interacting with PPP, presenting the problem and the solution, show the dance, and show what trash panda and her girlfriend are up to, all in a single episode.
And it probably was a bit hard to show some well executed drama in a show that had absolutely none in the previous episodes.