Archive for December 2008
Shinbo Akiyuki and Shaft in Magazines (December)
Taking a note here is Shinbo Akiyuki and Shaft appearance in a magazine for the past, or upcoming, few months. Description are gathered from places.
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Animage Original Vol.2
September 25, 2008 on sale. ￥1500.
Oonuma Shin conversation with Shinbo Akiyuki, primarily focus on ef but still with some information regarding the past works e.g. how Shinbo’s style changed a lot since SoulTaker’s days or how he directed the series by checking storyboards. Yamakan interview in the same issue provide a contradict viewpoint on a similar topic (in ironic way).
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Charamel Vol.7
December 25, 2008 on sale. ￥990.
The usual Shinbo’s Room corner, a conversation between Shinbo Akiyuki himself, a Pani Poni author, Hikawa Hekiru and the Pani Poni Dash character designer, Ota Kazuhiro. Mostly talk about Pani Poni Dash and the upcoming OVA. The column also reveals that Ota Kazuhiro will be a storyboard writer for the new OVA (the only past storyboard work he did was the Zessei Bijin ending of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.)
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Animation Note Vol.12
December 28, 2008 on sale. ￥1470.
Volume 12 focuses on “colors settings” in the anime. Feature a storyboard from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episode with a lot of Shinbo’s pen-marked notes and changes in places. Should be interesting to see how he directed the series by checking storyboards. Some stuffs in Nodame Cantabile in the same issue.
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Megami Magazine 2009 Vol.3
January 28, 2008 on sale. ￥780.
The long-awaited Yamakan conversation with Shinbo Akiyuki in Kannagi special report. Yamakan always has some kind of obsession in Shinbo’s works e.g. he always refers Shinbo in almost all interviews, and is probably the only person he hasn’t criticize. I think marking this a must read should worth it.
What went wrong with ef?
Only one episode left for ef – a tale of melodies to finally ended. Personally, it was a rather disappointing second season, a lot of things just can’t live up to its preceding series for several reasons.
In the first season, even though the show started out badly, they managed to make everything concluded beautifully at the end. The re-watching value of the show is high, you’ll notice a lot of things you didn’t noticed in the first time. That’s what made ef a great show.
Things are different for the second season, everything starts out beautifully this time. The sixth episode that was meant to be Miyako’s scene of the second season was well executed as one could expect. The whole show just went downhill from that point.
Let’s see what went wrong with ef – a tale of melodies, in my opinion:
Speaking through work
Back in January, there was an event for Shinbou Akiyuki called “Director Shinbou’s Work Feature That Director Shinbou Won’t Come” by Anime Style. As the name suggest, he didn’t come. Instead, The event featured two people of ef – a tale of memories. fame, Director Oonuma Shin and a scriptwriter Takayama Katsuhiko and Ooguro Yuichiro, the event producer and Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei scriptwriter.
Shinbou suggested to Takayama that,
You have to watch SoulTaker, Cossette and Nanoha before going to speak in my event!
As a creator, he seems to be expressing himself through his work; and he considered these three his masterpiece. I feel sorry for anyone who’ll have to watch The SoulTaker and Le Portrait de Petite Cossette in row, though. Let alone SoulTaker.
