Alright everyone, we are bounding right back into Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. This show’s first two episodes were both dazzling marvels of creativity and charm, simultaneously succeeding as an energetic slice of life and a loving celebration of the animation process. From its gorgeous backgrounds and fanciful dream sequences to its endearing and endlessly expressive leads, Yuasa’s latest is an embarrassment of riches on all fronts, and also about as much of a Me narrative as he could have possibly picked. I love small-scale, affectionate character stories like this, and I also love stories that directly interrogate the creative process; seeing one of my very favorite directors working on something so close to my heart is an incredible feeling. Without further ado, let’s get back to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Episode 3

Asakusa and Kanamori are busy fitting the name of their studio above the club door, even though they’re still working out of a rusting shed with holes in the walls. That itself speaks to their creative attitudes – they’re just working on the parts of the project that inherently inspire them for now, and figuring the structural details will take care of themselves. Kanamori would not approve

Their noodle limbs facilitate such expressive posing

And yep, Kanamori’s here to tell them they’re getting ahead of themselves

Kanamori’s design suits her personality so well. Her height means she’s literally lording above her friends by default, and when she wants to condescendingly explain something, she can dip her head down as if talking to a small child

Kanamori well understands that getting your way is at least as much about browbeating and seizing momentary opportunities as it is about convincing people or steady labor. Strong negotiators understand the limits of fair negotiations

Having Asakusa herself provide all the sound effects for their fantasies will never get old. What a funny, endearing gimmick

Kanamori at last gets some inflection in her voice, and starts gesticulating to emphasize her enthusiasm, when it comes to the topic of making money

Frankly, all creatives need a Kanamori in their corner, as demonstrated by her two charges immediately getting distracted by a butterfly. Classic comedic timing here, elevated by the funny combination of their rambling chanting and low drawing count waving. If you want to make a character look ridiculous, low drawing counts plus weird posing will often do it

Nice pan up Kanamori here, again using her natural height to exaggerate her commanding presence and role in the group

“Asakusa is pretty great.” “Gross.” Kanamori is such a supportive friend

“Getting to play with a drill is fun to her, and that gets her motivated.” In spite of consistently dunking on her friend, Kanamori’s comments emphasize that she understands who Asakusa is completely, and accepts her completely as well, even if she bickers about it along the way. In fact, her directing influence likely helps Asakusa be her best self

And as Kanamori finishes her explanation with a smile on her face, reflecting her genuine fondness for her friend, she replaces it with a look of irritation, having realized they’ve probably already been out of sight long enough for Asakusa to get distracted

Meanwhile, Asakusa is in space

Asakusa’s creative passions are an interesting blend. She’s most interested in mechanical design and inventing new vehicles, meaning she’s often preoccupied with how to make technology work, but at the same time, she’s well aware that realistic functionality of invented technology is far less important than creating the dramatic and visual effect you actually want. Thus she’ll ramble about the technical features of her machines up until the exact moment she says Fuck It, it works because it’s my story

Terrific match cut from her space fantasy to her actual reality, crouching in the dirt with a bucket on her head

“Care to explain why you’re doodling on the wall while wearing a worn-out bucket?” Project managers can be pretty important

Kinda odd fade cut as they move this ladder. I wonder if that was an ad break

As soon as Kanamori says “no accidents please,” her companions jump into their space suits. Why did Kanamori think sending these two up on a roof would be a good idea

One more wonderfully intricate design document. This time, we get some visual intrigue added by this little Asakusa leading us around the document

I’m told Yuasa’s own preliminary design sketches actually look a whole lot like Asakusa’s. What a labor of love this show must be

“It has a bulbous bow like you’d see in a maritime vessel for wave resistance, but since that’s pointless in space, we’ll stick the radar in there.” Again, Asakusa offering some real “how the sausage is made” insights into the creative process. Compelling designs are in large part about audience resonance – they incorporate elements we’ve seen before, drawing on our existing relationships with those concepts to create objects that feel both new and familiar. Ships having wave-crushing bows doesn’t matter in space, but those bows are one of the main things that make a ship actually “feel” like a ship, and thus this design retroactively justifies its inclusion by randomly sticking the radar there. Resonant design comes first, functionality can be explained after

Asakusa gets lost in the weeds of design details, Kanamori shouts at her to get back on topic

Oh my god, Asakusa’s little “grrrs” for the drill sound are so adorable

Flash animation once again working its magic for the pan up the ship. It must be tricky to combine Flash’s tendency towards smooth, reliable linework with Eizouken’s deliberately rough-edged aesthetic

The girls find themselves in a genuine adventure, with hail falling and the ladder on the ground

This flat shot of Kanamori drilling the desk, held all through her conversation with the other girls, feels like an inherent joke about how she sees the world. Even the framing of her scene is strictly functional

Absolutely beautiful cut of her getting up to investigate, though. I love her swaying posture, how her limbs all move like she’s a tree in the breeze

And another phenomenal jump between fantasy and reality, as the cut that begins on Kanamori’s space shuttle firing down the tube smoothly segues into the real-life payoff of her breaking through the wall. Kanamori is not immune to the appeal of Asakusa’s fantasies, and likely wouldn’t have made such a costly choice if she weren’t wrapped up in the moment herself

Also a terrific fusing of animation styles. From the heightened, weightless movement of the space fantasy, we jump to Kanamori tumbling to the ground and then rising, a cut that emphasizes the tactile, grounded movements of her body. Animation style itself can convey storytelling

This long shot facilitates the punchline, emphasizing how little danger there actually was. Long shots are an excellent way to defuse tension

“Quality isn’t our prime concern here. We need to make a big impact with the least effort possible.” The natural creatives Asakusa and Mizusaki want to make every single project the Best Project Ever; in contrast, Kanamori understands the tactical importance of this particular project to their continued survival as a team

Kanamori lays down the facts: even a five minute animation is a truly absurd amount of labor

Charming little argument about train seating by Asakusa and Mizusaki. They are very believable teenagers

Asakusa’s apartment is actually pretty mundane, which makes for a nice contrast with the other worlds she explores

“Let’s avoid anything too complicated.” Another pragmatic truth of anime production – your settings are often limited not by your imagination, but by your budget

I love this “pan” from their cart’s entry into the scene down to a larger establishing shot. The four layers of the canvas here really give their adventure a nice sense of depth as the camera rises

The large empty portions of the canvas also emphasize the piecemeal nature of the creative process. At this moment, only so much of this world exists as to give the girls a general conception of its architecture and local flora. Stories aren’t constructed one completed frame at a time – they build element by element into their fullest form

SUDDENLY, A TANK. You can really feel Asakusa’s perpetual creative distraction

Mizusaki articulates her love of mundane, carefully realized character animation through a sequence of mundane, carefully realized character animation. This show is so good, and Mizusaki has excellent taste in anime

It is wild to watch a character in anime essentially proudly declaring their love for Kyoto Animation

Mizusaki defends her preference for subtle character animation as if she herself were raising a sword, and pulls us back to one of the “how it’s made” videos that likely inspired her own fascination with animation. As with Asakusa, the key moment came when she went beyond simply loving some work, and began to wonder at what kind of people created it

Oh my god, this rough cut of a samurai turning around is incredible

“I don’t just want to make anime, I want to make animation!” It’s all pointless to Mizusaki if she can’t embrace the kind of personal character acting that inspired her. She wants to see her own actions and feelings conveyed in motion, and though it’s impractical, if she’s not doing that, there’s no reason to be here

“Hurting the artist’s motivation seems unwise.” And Kanamori, being a good producer, realizes she can’t push Mizusaki on this. If she wants to harness their talent and creative passion, she must be willing to nurture it

And there we go: a schoolgirl fighting a tank. The actual narrative of their short is irrelevant, it just needs to be something that lets each of them express what they want to express through art

I love this. The “climax” and “victory” of this episode are not them defeating any external opposition, but rather arriving at a concept that will inspire both of them

I like the consistent use of the window with late-afternoon light as basically a magical space, the screen on which their dreams become something greater than anything either of them could individually accomplish

They suggest a machete over a katana: Asakusa likes the novelty, Mizusaki likes the realism

Asakusa dancing around to emphasize the machete girl’s movements is wonderful. I love how deformed these designs get

Dear lord this action sequence is beautiful. Who would have guessed the unfinished storyboards could be even more inspiring than a fully painted production

Incredible effects animation, and so many clever little conceits born of the format, like the girl literally jumping from one storyboard notebook to another

And Done

My god, that was unbelievable. That finale sequence might actually be the most beautiful trick Eizouken has pulled yet, and that only came after an episode already stuffed with visual wonder and thoughtful reflections on the creative process. This show is so rich in insight and character, and yet so light at the same time – it feels effortless, yet its craft embodies the greatest potential of animation. Eizouken could turn out to be one of Yuasa’s greatest achievements yet.

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