Day 4: Favorite Anime Production Studio?

Tedwin

T-Na is coming up with some hard questions…things I never really considered before. I just watched anime…I don’t really follow certain studios because many times…it is a hit or fail depending on their project and timing.

Thinking about it, generally the anime studio's releases will either be original work or adaptation from a source. Often time, the source material is manga, if not light novel or rarely video games or tv dramas.

A lot of times, the anime product will be well received if the source material is popular or if the original work is well-done. But it all depends the studio...they have to be true to the source material and have great knowledge on the trends to produce an original series. In addition, many time...the audience forgets that an anime studio is also a company where a lot different ppl are involved in the project. Thus, to produce quality work, the studio needs total cooperation from everyone involved and proper time management. I already touched base briefly on this in the introduction of the previous post.

OK...so lets think of a way to grade an Anime Production Studio then:



Animation: Has to be high quality with a lot of details in their scenes and able to portray certain actions...thus should have cool effects

Music and Sound: Use of appropriate music to compliment the scene. High level of detail towards sounds in the background....if there is a cat meowing 3 ft away, it should sound 3 ft away

Originality: Its nice to have a source, but it is really great to show off your own creativity with your own works too. Research trends and experiment...might hit gold

Blue Printing: If working from a source material, be true to it....read and study it. Now is not a time to be creative unless it has no ending yet...but that is where you start working closely with the author of the series

Directing: Must be an awesome way to put everything above into a visualization. It may add a certain style to the scenes...maybe it is better to focus there rather than here....show all this in the back, take that out.

The anime production studio that I have my eyes on now is Ufotable....not gonna say its my favorite because they haven't released anything original according to my knowledge...but the anime they do produced looks amazing. The high quality animation and their used of music/sound is what captured my heart. Their first work I watched from them is Kara no Kyoukai: The Garden of Sinners.  

For a 2007 release, animation quality is ahead of its time

[Kara no Kyoukai: The Garden of Sinners] Mikiya Kokuto finds himself intrigued by two things. The first is by Shiki Ryougi a beautiful, yet rather unsociable, girl and the other is the strange series of violent deaths that start occuring in his town. As he attempts to get closer to Shiki, he soon learns that the two are connected and that there are many supernatural forces at work which could very likely get him killed as well. Source: AnimeNewsNetwork.

T-Na

I’m not very familiar with anime production studios so I have no idea why I picked such a hard question for myself *lol*. 

Anyway, I do believe that the directing (such as camera angels, close up or a far away shot, and such) indeed play an important role in creating the atmosphere and feelings of different scenes. Like Tedwin said earlier, a studio have a lot of individuals that are involved in the making anime series. However, not the same group of people will be responsible for every single anime that the studio puts out. That’s why sometimes we get both good and bad animes from the same studio. Also, keep in mind that if the story is bad then it doesn’t matter if the anime have top notch animation and music -- it’s still sucks *ahem* Glasslip *ahem*. There’s nothing the studio could do about it...unless it’s their original work, in that case they should’ve know better! 

Due to the reasons above, I do not rank or compare anime production studios. However, I do have one particular studio in which I look forward to every season: A-1 Pictures Inc. Their animation  and soundtracks are amazing. Many of my favorite anime series are from this studio. Three of them turns out to be an original work from A-1 Pictures!

Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day - This is their original work.

Aldnoah.Zero - Another of their original work.

Tsuritama - Yet, another enjoyable original anime 

Many of the popular series such as SAO, Persona: Trinity Soul, Fairy Tail, Shin Sekai Yori, and Silver Spoon were also animated from this studio. All of which have very beautiful sceneries and pleasant soundtrack.