NEW YUASA NEW YUASA NEW YUASA. If you’ve been around this site long enough, you probably know that Masaaki Yuasa is one of my favorite directors, and frankly one of the most noteworthy anime directors by any reasonable metric. Yuasa’s works melt and weave between visual styles, embracing animation’s ability to convey a sensory experience through visual transformations. They tend to be both visually astounding and also far more compelling as narratives than most of the medium – Yuasa never writes down to his audience, and generally picks only the best source material to transform into animation. And here at the start of 2020, this animator’s animator is tackling an even more animation-celebratory work, as he adapts a story that overtly celebrates the miracle of animation, and the joy of collective artistic discovery. Let’s dive into the first episode of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
Episode 1
Even the curves of these initial shots have such an active energy to them. Yuasa’s works tend to make less of a distinction between character and background than most shows – he treats his settings less as physical sets than as malleable canvases, because that’s what they actually are. Of course, the difficulty of fully animating the entire frame, or creating a new background for every single shot transition, means most productions cannot match what Yuasa does
And here we have a van casually driving straight into the frame, a very difficult shot that demands all these redraws of the road and trees
“By the time I was in sixth grade, my dream was to be an adventurer”
God, I love these shots of her new home. This labyrinthian place seems ideal for adventure, already full of strange nooks and crannies. Beautiful colors for the river, too
You can easily see how her adventures translate directly into artistic inspiration. And then this lovely sequence where her sketches come to life
Remarkable how this sequence is able to create a sense of depth within the canvas, in spite of being literal pencil parks drawn on top of each other. The occasional, subtle camera spins help, something only possible because this was likely animated in Flash
Holy shit, she’s actually getting inspired by Future Boy Conan, one of the most important anime of the ‘70s, and the directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki. What a love letter to anime this is going to be
“That was the first time I realized that someone made the anime I watched.” Yep. One of the first steps to stepping behind the curtain, and becoming an artist
Kickass OP, as always. Yuasa’s productions always have the best damn songs for their OPs
The heroine’s mazes have evolved into intricate storyboards in high school
Asakusa is our MC. Kanamori is her tall friend
Asakusa feels awkward pursuing her passions alone
Wonderful passive body language. The lines seem rough, but they have so much character in their poses
This girl’s permanent teeth-grinding sneer is so good
Asakusa’s school is indeed a wondrous marvel
Hah, I love how Asakusa’s enthusiasm is conveyed by her shoving her notebook so close to the screen that we can’t see anything
They’re keeping us close to the action with a lot of perspective shots like that – another one as we get placed in Asakusa’s head at the screening
Oh my god, I love this breakdown of the kinetic strengths of Future Boy Conan. And they reanimated so much of the original show!
Tsubame Mizusaki introduces herself, inspired by Asakusa’s explanation
Apparently Tsubame is both a fashion model and the heir to a wealthy corporation. She gets chased out by black-suited dudes reminiscent of The Tatami Galaxy’s thugs
Great sense of depth in the cuts across this stage. Looks like Tsubame’s parents don’t approve of animation
This school already feels like Asakusa’s “incredible world,” full of weird alleys and hidden passages
And this chase sequence reflects Yuasa’s familiarity and fondness for the visual and narrative beats of children’s animation. Nice use of low drawing counts in their goofy escape here, in contrast with their usual fluid movement
Kanamori smells opportunity, and can’t keep that evil grin off her face
This world continues to be a wonderful maze, as they duck under an air conditioner to get inside a laundromat that’s apparently also attached to a bathhouse via second-floor walkway
As a sheltered rich girl, Tsubame is able to naturally match Asakusa’s inherent enthusiasm for the natural world. Meanwhile, Kanamori just wants to get rich
Tsubame’s drawings emphasize human movement – figure drawing and quick sketches of characters in motion. She’s a perfect compliment to Asakusa, who’s more about backgrounds, setting, and mechanical design
What a wonderful moment for Asakusa here, as her artwork is finally validated by someone who can understand what she’s attempting to do. The joy of finding an effective artistic collaborator is a rare and wonderful thing
And once again, when Kanamori raises the idea of actually pursuing a project, Asakusa dithers and reflects on all the ways she’s not qualified. It’s a fear that stops so many artists in their tracks – they keep planning on that one “big project,” but never feel prepared to actually pursue it. Fortunately, Kanamori’s not taking no for an answer
Aaaand here we go, flying off into Asakusa’s incredible world with a pan out across rough-sketched scenery and lightly dashed color guides. All of Masaaki Yuasa’s works are celebrations of animation in their own way, but I’m delighted to see him making such a direct and dazzling love letter to the art form like this
Oh my god, this sequence of them actually working on the engineering for their invented craft is so, so excellent. The joy of artistic creation translated into a format where hopefully anyone can appreciate the appeal of design work – actually building a craft from the ground up, discarding whatever doesn’t work, pursuing the most interesting ideas wherever they take you. Modern fandom often frames the process of worldbuilding as a process of “discovery” – of learning about things that were already there. But from the creator’s perspective, no individual object is sacred, and no setting is concrete; pieces will be mixed and matched eternally until you arrive at something that works for the story you’re trying to tell. And there’s a real joy in that process, a joy I hope this show helps illustrate for more fans
Aaaaah, I love that the sound effects for the craft are actually just the girls making noises
“There was a door here?” Kamanori asks. And it’s true, there probably wasn’t a bottom hatch on the dragonfly craft initially – but the story they’re writing demanded a bottom hatch, and so there it was
This sequence of them pushing the craft neatly echoes Asakusa’s earlier commentary on Future Boy Conan
What a wonderful, playful action sequence this is. And all of it likely just an easy metaphor for the incredible rush of getting started on a new creative project, and finding your ideas carried further by an effective collaborator
And Done
Ah, what a joy that was! What a beautiful, energetic, creative, clever, passionate spectacle! What a vibrant celebration of animation specifically, and of the incredible feeling of creating art more generally. I’ve loved so many of Yuasa’s works, and yet still feel uniquely bowled over by this incredible premiere, this dazzling tribute to the art form we all love. And the cast are so great, and the “greatest world” conceit lets them pull such magnificent visual embellishments, and the reflections on creative anxiety were so lightly distributed, but so acutely felt… my god, Yuasa. Eunyong Choi. All of their brilliant collaborators at Science Saru, and Sumito Owara, who first created this wonderful story. Thank you all for making anime such a special place!
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