Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be continuing our exploration of Studio Trigger’s latest production, the characteristically high energy Brand New Animal. BNA’s first episode had some clear strengths and weaknesses, and they broke down largely how you’d expect, given the staff involved. Hiroyuki Imaishi himself offered a dynamic storyboard, full of the angular, energetic compositions he’s known for, and elevated by Trigger’s remarkable collection of in-studio animators. It’s still a joy just to see this post-Gainax crew bring characters to life; their sense of cartoonish energy is second to none, and felt like the strongest part of that premiere.

On the negative side, this show is still being written by Kazuki Nakashima, meaning the plot felt simplistic and predictable wherever it didn’t feel disjointed or incoherent. Nakashima has handled series composition on nearly every Imaishi production, and his writing has disappointed me on all of them. He has no understanding of character writing beyond hot-blooded energy and basic tropes, he has only the barest understanding of narrative structure or momentum, and he never gives an indication that he’s thought deeply about anything, or grappled with the idea of thematic intent on a level beyond “wouldn’t it be cool if this happens.”

Nakashima has made it this long because he generally writes shows whose narrative is “what if the protagonist punched everyone,” so pairing him with a production that’s clearly attempting to discuss societal prejudice seems like an incredibly dicey proposition. But we’ll see how it plays out, as we explore another episode of Brand New Animal!

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re embarking on a fresh journey, through one of 2020’s most high-profile releases: Brand New Animal, a Trigger production helmed by the distinguished Yoh Yoshinari, and written by Kazuki Nakashima. Given my experience with both those artists, I’m fully expecting the contrast between them to more or less define my impression of Brand New Animal – an expectation that I must admit has been solidified by having watched the show’s first two episodes.

So the deal is, Yoh Yoshinari is one of anime’s greatest working talents. He contributed beautiful, remarkably weighted animation for Gainax classics like Evangelion, and since following Imaishi to Trigger, he’s directed the charming Little Witch Academia, which grapples with SSSS.Gridman for the position as my favorite Trigger show. The man is a genuine treasure, and regardless of how Brand New Animal shakes out, my love for Yoshinari will hold firm.

Meanwhile, my impression of Kazuki Nakashima is that he basically can’t write at all. He’s gotten by so far by partnering with Hiroyuki Imaishi, whose stories don’t actually benefit from scripts, but his scripts and stories have themselves been uniformly unimpressive – Gurren Lagann had bad writing, Kill la Kill had bad writing, and Promare had bad writing. His stories are defined by simplistic characters, conflicts and worlds with too little grounding to evoke dramatic tension, and perpetual veering towards new conflicts, in order to mask his inability to construct any coherent long-term dramatic structure. I know that’s not exactly a universally agreed opinion, but it’s certainly mine; I have never been impressed by any element of Nakashima’s scripts, and feel you could replace him with a monkey who’s been taught to type “EXPLOSIONS!” without any significant impact on the quality of his work.

So that’s basically where I’m at: Yoshinari’s a genius, Nakashima’s a hack, and I’m warily intrigued to see how those flavors mix. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading →