Shirobako – 10
More Donuts!
Getting started, sometimes you need to take a leap, or at least a few steps.
Meanwhile, Back at the Studio
Honda’s really leaving because he beat the director at sumo
This was kind of a ‘fill in around the edges’ episode. Exodus! is winding down, with only the coming hell of the final episode to go (in only 5 weeks when the other episodes all took over 9), but that hasn’t hit yet with the director just finishing up the storyboards. The staff is winding down, too, with episodes 10 and 11 having no problems. That gives us time for a little transition stuff, such as still thinking about the future. The big revelation on that front is that Honda is going to quit MusAni and become a baker. He must have been thinking about it a lot more than just a ‘dream’, because that’s a huge step to make (and personally, the kind of thing that I’d never advocate people doing, just because it’s a question of when, not if, it goes bad. Don’t people ever watch Restaurant Impossible?).
Misa Resigns
The other person who is on the way out with their job is NOT Tarou, unfortunately (btw, I read that Tarou is a bit of the director of Shirobako, Mizushima Tsutomu, poking fun at himself and the way he used to be). Rather it’s Misa, who has decided that she needs to move on to another company to have any chance of working on the things that she wants to. I have to say that I think she was quite a bit too hasty in her decision, and I think that the SMC president probably also thinks so. She’d probably be in a lot stronger position to find another job and move up if she’d stayed for over one year in the job, especially because she’s apparently doing well, and the company itself is doing well. She’d gain more experience, and she’d have time to line up another job, rather than just jumping out of what she’s doing with no plan. I don’t think that having another job lined up is bad, since we’ve seen that with the other PA Ochiai a couple episodes ago, and also the SMC President asks if she knows where she’s going. Of course, there’s the possibility that she’s now put a bug in the ear of the SMC President, and he’ll think about going back to his roots with a story-driven piece of work.
Learning the Periphery
Yay for crazy old sound guy
Another interesting aside in this episode was Aoi’s trip to the sound effect studio, and getting impressed into helping out the old guy (well, not THAT old) working there to help with some effects. I was kind of hoping that the message from that guy would sink in a little more, or get reinforced elsewhere, because I think it’s something that Aoi needed to hear: He didn’t really know what he wanted to get into, but after he had been doing it a while, he found he really enjoyed it. That’s that perspective I’ve been hoping to see, in and amongst all of the “follow your dream” messages that the show keeps pushing.
Ema and Segawa have a nice moment
We also got to see a few other parts of making an episode, since we’re on to one that we’re seeing from Storyboard to Delivery. A quick portion I thought was interesting for process was (I presume) cutting, when the different cuts were apportioned out to the key animators. It looks like Segawa is once again the Episode Animation Supervisor, and the rest of the group is Aoi, Ogasawara (goth-loli-sama) and Madoka, who I presume is the episode director for the final episode. It was another chance to see something that goes on in a quick format, and got the point across that there are a lot of key animators working on the episode in a short amount of time. It also gave us a chance to see an encounter between Ema and Segawa, something that Ema has been dreading after what she feels was her bad performance on episode 9. But we see the kind of person that Segawa is, in that she doesn’t dwell on the bad, acknowledging that Ema was hurrying too much on them, and then praising her for her study and work on the cat key frames.
This wasn’t the biggest episode in terms of things getting finished, although one thing that was finished was the after-recording (which I’m assuming is the main voice work session for the show). It seems that the actors were happy with the show and how it went, although I wonder how many times the voice actors for an anime think that the show went poorly? It’s true that the last episode is certainly better than the previous idea, and I kind of wonder where the Series Composition comes in when you have a situation like that, where the director becomes, essentially, the writer of the series. Is it a frequent occurrence? Or are we seeing something fairly rare here?
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Wow. I’m something of a fan of Foley/Sound Design. There is no other effects in film/television/anime that reinforces the artifice in the creation of a story. It gives us what we expect to hear. No mean feat.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Speaking of donuts, the NGNL 2015 calendar has Mr. Piggy Donut on it. :3 AAAAND it has two of the nude beach pinups as the pages. 😛
POWUH: 600-699 and LN Enthusiast with 623 comments
Misa really should have stayed for at least a full year in the company before quitting. Especially since she doesn’t have much experience yet. It will reflect on her job description and it’ll be harder to get a new job. Interviewers sometimes take that as a negative that you couldn’t stay on your previous job for a whole year so you might also quit on our company as well.
To make those sound effects for a sound director collecting sound effects, the sound directors of Shirobako also collected those sound effects. And seiyuus voiced anime characters which are seiyuus that are voicing anime characters.
2meta4me.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
*Inception horn sound*
POWUH: Novice (36-50) with 37 comments
As someone who works in the 2D/3D industry, I also think it was a bad move for Misa to quit her job so soon. Even if she did know where she’s going, what does she plan to do until she finds a new job? It might be different in Japan, but openings for people with less than 1 year of experience don’t come around as often as one might like. I’d have continued to work while searching for jobs on the side, maybe beefing up my demo reel with pet projects, and wouldn’t quit until I’d either found a new job or saved up enough money to hold me for a while. That’s not even mentioning how it might look on your resume, quitting after less than a year…
Luckily Misa is living the dream of knowing several people in the industry already, so I’m sure we won’t see her struggle too much. No panic of paying off student loans, getting help from parents or living off a canned-food diet for several months >.>
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yeah, we probably won’t see Misa struggle even as much as Shizuka is in breaking into what she wants to do. That doesn’t change the fact that her decision to quit seems rash and, let’s face it, a fairly obvious plot driver, rather than a realistic decision made by a person.
I don’t know about Japan, but from what I know in the West, it’s less problematic to change jobs in less than a year than it is to be without work for that same amount of time, as far as finding another job. It does seem like she’s gotten up on top of the curve as far as knowing what to do, but it’s hard to communicate, and she’d be starting at the bottom of the totem pole somewhere else. That’s actually a huge boon for whoever picks her up, since they can pay her novice wages but get some experience.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Add me as another who thinks it was a bad idea for Misa to quit with less than a year of experience or another job lined up. But it looks like the show is going to save her from herself with Aoi finding a job lead for her and the president of SMC possibly thinking he’d like to do something different. And if he does land work with a story for the company or decides to do one himself to prove that his company can handle that type of work, I’d bet he’s going to consider Misa for part of it. From last episode and his reaction to her quitting in this one, he seems interested in mentoring her. Although he may just be the type to do that for any of his younger workers.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Spammy!
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 140 comments
I know it would be an extreme long shot, but I would love to see Misa go to good old Murica. Anyone who reads Shonen Sports manga knows you go to America for your training arc (Eye shield). She could work for a false Disney like company that does feature movies in CG or something, then come back years later as a secret weapon or something while the others girls try to make their own anime. I guess this is a long shot?
I hope Honda doesn’t drop out of the show completely, though I assume Aoi will see him a few times to get advice.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 261 comments
Hmmm…Donuts! i was wondering! what is the flavor of that donut…and would rather to think more of donuts rather than…pancakes! (GULP!)
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
They looked just like cake donuts to me. Although given the travesty of Japanese pizza, I would hesitate to be too sure about what they’d do to donuts.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
So… I looked up the Mister Donut site, and looks like it would be just a basic cake donut. They don’t seem to go too crazy with flavors (maybe less so than, say, Dunkin Donuts does).