While many fans of Kyoto Animation have heard about the KyoAni School, it’s very few who realize their initiative to train new generations of anime creators has been in place for longer than the studio has actually been creating their own titles. This is the story of a well-known but never fully appreciated aspect of KyoAni’s unique strategy—essential to their success in the past, and even more so in the future.
Now that Tsurune‘s past its halfway point, it’s time to return to the series to examine various aspects; how the staff want to balance the meticulous depiction of Japanese archery with entertaining experiences and characterization, the intent behind the storyboards, the state of the production as a whole, and so on!
The arc dealing with Violet’s loss and acceptance comes to an end with a spectacular set of episodes that could, and maybe should, be the show’s grand finale. Let’s examine the work of the talented directors involved and the ups and downs of this production, while waiting for whatever will come next.
Now that the introduction is done and the titular character has wrapped up her training, Kyoto Animation’s aces have come to deliver the strongest episodes of Violet Evergarden to date. We’ll look at the wonderful episodic stories storyboarded by Yasuhiro Takemoto and Naoko Yamada, explain how a new influx of young creators came into play, and try to make sense of this spectacular yet confusing production.
Violet Evergarden is a strong candidate to becoming one of the most impressive TV anime productions of all time, so of course we’ll be covering the show in its entirety. The first episode already showcased many aspects that make it a very special production, so let’s waste no time and dig into the secrets of this project!
This week we got no poignant thematic moments, but this straightforward story has many sweet moments – within the episode itself, and on a meta level too.
It’s time for another look at TV series and particular episodes handled by outstanding staff, likely to become highlights of current anime over the next month. Quite a lot of variety!
Surprise! To myself as well. Here’s some quick bullet point coverage of KyoAni’s latest TV series, which should be easy to digest even if you aren’t hugely into production matters. Direction, animation, backgrounds, the people behind the series, all that fun stuff nicely summed up.
I hope you like anime industry lessons and wondering about the roles of artists and audiences alike.