Hello friends, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we might sneak our way back to Green Gables, and check in on the continuing saga of Marilla’s amethyst brooch. Marilla claims Anne lost it and Anne claims she did not; with two such stubborn characters as these, that’s basically all it takes to erect an insurmountable impasse between them. Truthfully, it seems most likely that Anne forgot to remove the brooch before heading off to the Idlewild, and thus it’s nestled safely somewhere along their woodland passageways. But while this conflict’s resolution will likely be simple enough, the course of its drama is serving as an enlightening referendum regarding Marilla and Anne’s feelings towards each other.
On the production front there is much cause for rejoicing, as this episode features the return of Yoshiyuki Tomino on storyboards, as well as Takahata himself on scripts. Tomino’s storyboards for Anne’s first day at Sunday school greatly elevated one of this show’s first emotional climaxes, offering a mixture of evocative symmetrical layouts and scenes where character blocking skillfully amplified emotional intent. That episode’s final reconciliation between Anne and Marika might be my favorite moment of the show so far, and so I expect great things from his execution of Anne and Marika’s latest dust-up. Let’s see how our friends are faring as we return to Green Gables!
Episode 12
This portion of the OP with the horse running forward into the woods remains a stunning articulation of movement into depth. Generally such effects are largely illustrated via an illusion of parallax movement created by shifting the individual elements or layers of the composition – closer objects move faster than further ones as they’re all shifted down or sideways, creating a sense of objects reorienting themselves visually as you pass by them. But here, each individual tree is treated as a part of a collective whole, with the entire background composition reorienting itself around Anne as she passes through, while the camera actually departs from Anne’s shoulder to capture her exit from some distance behind and to the left. Executing that effect requires countless, continuous redraws of the entire background scene, with the only concessions to practicality being the reduction of the forest into a full-color fill line of trees, and that brilliant trick of having the sunlight make a still canvas of the forest’s far edge
I feel like you saw ambitious tricks like this in more unexpected places back when the lines between prestige and promotional productions were less formalized (like all those wild tricks in Ganso Tensai Bakabon). Nowadays all the best animators tend to be poached for specific major properties
Really, this whole OP is an exercise in how a lack of shading need not imply a lack of volume. There’s a clear sense of volume and weight to Anne’s dress as it billows in the wind, in spite of the lack of any shading
“Anne’s Confession”
An unusually pensive song sets the tone as the sun rises on a perfect Wednesday, the early light casting its own lime-green pale on the buildings of Green Gables. God damn is this show generous in its background art
Anne announces she is ready to confess
Her recounting of the brooch-taking is accompanied by a melody that possesses that tinny, tinkling quality of a music box, evoking a tone of both whimsy and slight menace
Upon pinning the brooch to herself, Anne simply could not resist the temptation to take it to the Idlewild and pretend she was Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald
“I imagine it would be much easier to imagine I was Lady Cordelia if I was wearing the brooch.” Well, that only stands to reason
As expected, Tomino’s layouts are already going above and beyond in illustrating Anne’s journey. Love this cut where we pan from Anne dancing through the woods down to the waters below, where her reflection is bedecked in all the finery she’s imagining. Along with simply being a clever visual illustration of her mental image, it’s also just a formally beautiful composition, with the clean lines of the reflected trees and riverbank perfectly accented by the circular ripple emanating from Anne’s face, as if her royal presence is literally reverberating off her in waves
And another uniquely evocative composition, one that dispenses with realistic perspective in order to illustrate Anne as almost parallel to the lake’s surface, offering the amethyst like a gift to its watery gods
And so the amethyst fell into the Lake of Shining Waters, and Anne was returned to being a regular girl
Marilla states Anne is the wickedest girl she has ever known, and Anne readily agrees
And of course, the punishment is that she can’t go to the picnic. Anne is shocked and outraged – “Think of the ice cream!”
Incredible wail of despair as Anne loses all hope for the future. Some of the show’s best character acting so far as well, really leaning in to how her body contorts with grief as the thought of not eating ice cream
This remarkable cut ends on a slight dash of humor, as Marilla seems so shocked by Anne’s outburst that she swiftly flees the room
“I believe the child is crazy.” Marilla, you are so majestically unprepared for the rigors of parenting. Anne’s not even a particularly difficult child!
More nice dynamic layouts as Marilla distracts herself with housework. I like this composition where she throws out this dirty water directly at the screen. With Tomino, it seems you can always expect just a hint more active integration of audience perspective into the narrative drama – he’s not just illustrating a series of narrative sequences, he’s always thinking about the most impactful spot to place the viewer’s eye
It’s fitting that he’s boarding an episode where so much is conveyed visually, as in this morose montage switching between Marilla and Anne’s perspectives
Matthew enters the house with great trepidation, sees that Marilla is in A State, and quietly waits for the news
“My heart is broken. You’ll feel remorse of conscience someday, I expect, for breaking it, Marilla.” Oh my god Anne
Anne’s return to her room is captured through a more conventional mid-distance shot, which here serves to emphasize how bereft of personal affects her prison cell is
“Don’t you think it’s pretty rough to not let her go to the picnic when she’s so set on it?” Matthew, you dear sweet man
Another effective background joke here, of the stable hand Jerry just noisily munching through his lunch while Marilla and Matthew argue about child-raising. I feel like Tomino appreciates a hint of comic absurdism in his work; Turn A Gundam frequently deflates its melodrama with a touch of absurdity
A shot from outside Anne’s window uses the frames to again evoke a sense of visual entrapment
Marilla continues to angrily clean up the house, but also bakes a set of cookies during this interval. Marilla rarely speaks of her more charitable, sentimental instincts, leaving it up to excellent storyboarding to illustrate her softer side
Upon going to mend her shawl, Marilla finds her amethyst right there in her case waiting for her. A thousand curses upon you, Marilla! Anne only confessed because you demanded a confession! She was innocent all along!
And so Marilla hurries as fast as her legs can carry her, urging Jerry to ready the carriage. “It’s an emergency!”
“I thought out a confession last night after I went to bed, and made it as interesting as I could.” Oh my god Anne. Of course, even this is just another opportunity to practice her powers of imagination
And Marilla actually laughs at this. She’s at last starting to appreciate Anne’s uniquely skewed perspective, and not just grimly tolerate it
“Be careful, don’t hurt yourself!” No longer fatigued commands, just earnest concern for her daughter
And at last, the fabled ice cream arrives, and it is everything Anne dreamed of. Just like with Marilla’s anger, this sequence of Anne enjoying the picnic is conveyed almost entirely without words, letting the dramatic rise and fall of the on-screen action carry us through Anne’s elation and into warm, peaceful contentedness
“It would have been such a romantic experience to be nearly drowned!” I love this ridiculous child
And Done
Ah, what a terrific episode! A thoroughly satisfying resolution to the tale of the amethyst brooch, and a wonderful sequence of progression in the relationship between Anne and Marilla. Being humbled by her own mistake certainly seemed to warm Marilla’s attitude towards her ward; though she’s previously treated Anne’s flights of fancies with suspicion, she seems to now understand that Anne’s imagination in no way means she’s a frivolous or untrustworthy person. And in Tomino’s hands, this episode offered a wide array of distinctive layouts, perfectly evoking the emotional twists of a conflict illustrated largely without words. Congratulations on your ice cream, Anne, and I hope you enjoy many picnics to come!
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