We’ve talked a little bit about this in the Anime thread but I’m pretty sure there’s a percentage of folks that don’t even wander into that thread and the show is good enough to call out beyond anime circles, in fact it’s made it on to both the New York Times and the New Yorker’s best of 2020 lists for TV shows. Anime cracking the US lists is a pretty rare thing.
So what is Eizouken? The show follows three students that start a rogue film club with the ambition to create anime. It’s a show about the creative process, it covers all aspects of anime production and is rather educational there, it’s about the animation process but also about compromise of vision to meet schedules and the importance of promoting one’s own work.
The characters are fantastic and distinct, the animation is lovely and imaginative as is the sound design that frequently uses onomatopoeia for sound effects.
There is no dub at the moment, so you’ll need to read subtitles but it’s worth it.
It’s on HBO Max, as well as Crunchyroll and other anime focused services.
I don’t watch lots of TV but Better Call Saul and Bojack Horseman are among my recent favourites so if it’s up there with them, then that’s enough for me.
I just finished Eizouken this last week and enjoyed it. Reminded me of New Game (though not as cutesie) and Lucky Star (though not as anime-culture-ish).
I really liked Eizouken, as I mentioned in the anime thread. I loved the characterization of the three main characters; I was somewhat convinced that it was biographical.
Thanks for the tip! And perfect timing, since we subscribed for a month of HBO Max when WW84 came out, and it would be good to make that more worthwhile.
I only just started watching this on HBO Max for 10 minutes, and I already love it. Just the combination of the style of drawings, the music, the motion. It’s like visual and audio candy.
(I know Wonder Woman 84 didn’t get good impressions here at Qt3, but it’s only on HBO Max for another 9 days, so I figured it’s a better method of seeing “Keep Your Hands off Eizouken” than VRV right now, so I signed up for HBO Max this morning).
Just reached the opening credits of Episode 4. Gosh, this is so good. I’m watching an anime about making anime. And that sentence makes it sound so boring, but it’s not! It’s so cool.
Edit: Now that I’m done with it, I recommend having the pause button handy for Episode 4. I can read fairly fast, but the subtitles go by superfast in this episode. If I hadn’t paused, the only thing I’d be doing in this episode is reading, and there’s lots of cool visuals to absorb as well, so I’m glad I paused and rewound for a lot of the scenes.
I’ve been enjoying this one as well (currently on ep. 8). It’s reminding me a lot of The Great Passage, in terms of taking a niche field and showing sincere affection for the people pouring their passion into details that most wouldn’t notice.
Episodes 4, 5, 6 all emphasized the role of the producer so much, I was starting to think this show was saying that artists are interchangeable. That what’s important is a Producer who knows how to keep the artists to a deadline and when to give them rope to do something and when to rein them in.
I was really happy to see that I was wrong tonight because of Episode 7. Producers aren’t the only important piece in the cog. Artists aren’t just interchangeable pieces Producers push and pull to make the final piece come together. Episode 7 finally focused on one of the artists again and showed that without dedication and passion from the artist, you won’t get a lot of the little details that really elevate a work.
I don’t think the show ever intends to imply that, it’s more that the producer is there to save the artists from themselves, to make sure they can actually deliver something and get paid for the work they do.
It’s not surprising, I suppose. There’s songs about making songs, comics about making comics, books about writing books, and soooooo many movies about making movies (good Oscar bait), so why wouldn’t there be a lot of anime about the anime industry.
Episode 9 is just fantastic. My favorite so far. I love it when the show really unfetters their imaginations and their version of brainstorming is just so darn cool on this show.
Yeah, it’s just that the producer’s role is sometimes not paid attention too. I love how crucial the producer is to the whole enterprise here. She would be the less appealing and less focused on characte rin another anime. Here she’s the glue. Completely uncreative and doesn’t even fully understand the craft, but understands the business and empowers the other two girls (and the rest of the school) to create.
A bit of trivia, the show generally uses an outlineless almost watercolor painted style to represent animation within the animated show. The anime they find so inspirational in the first episode is a one to one recreation of scenes from a real anime Future Boy Conan which was Hayao Miyazaki’s (of Studio Ghibli fame) directorial debut.
Look for another funnier Miyazaki tribute later in the series (as well as probably one of the better renditions of the Akira bike scene).
I finished it last night. I’m not sure what to think of the finale. I think the anime they ended up making would be very confusing to watch if they hadn’t already spent 3 episodes explaining what happens in it. On the other hand, maybe that can be appealing for the townspeople who are watching this anime about their town? Some mysterious anime with some ambiguous stuff going on that they have to interpret. Sometimes it’s fun to interpret stuff yourself and see if others view it the same way.
Excellent final scene though. Great anime. Thank you for the recommendation! If they ever decide to make another season I’ll be there, though it’s not needed. This was a satisfying ending to this tale. One of my developing pet peeves with @TurinTur’s recommended anime list is that it turns out when he wrote his list, most anime on his list were incomplete and still in progress. Even the volleyball anime feels woefully unsatisfying incomplete. And who knows if a lot of them will end well or not? But at least Eizouken ends well. Yay!
Btw, did anyone ever figure out what Eizouken meant? It’s always translated as just that word, so it must just be a proper noun. So it’s just a name they came up with for themselves? It must be a proper noun with other meaning though, since other people in the school were already familiar with the term Eizouken when they first heard it from our heroes.
