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Aku no Hana (may contain manga spoilers under tags)

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TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#26: Apr 9th 2013 at 4:50:26 AM

I'm really digging it. The first anime whose characters look actually Japanese!

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Demongodofchaos2 Face me now, bitch! from In a Cultivation World (Ancient one) Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Face me now, bitch!
#27: Apr 9th 2013 at 6:11:37 AM

... Not really.

A lot of Educational videos in japan using anime style makes sure to do the same, without terrible rotoscoping.

Watch Symphogear
kyun Since: Dec, 2010
#28: Apr 9th 2013 at 8:51:18 AM

............

What the **** am I looking at!??!!?

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#29: Apr 9th 2013 at 9:13:18 AM

[up][up]Well, there's defnitely not enough frames, and each frame could definitely use more work. What were they thinking, releasing a half-baked product like this?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Savoie Since: Mar, 2010
#30: Apr 9th 2013 at 9:29:27 AM

Aku No Hana should have been a J Drama or an anime, not some hybrid monstrosity.

UltimatelySubjective Since: Jun, 2011
#31: Apr 9th 2013 at 9:31:20 AM

Half-baked

Aku no potato it is.

By the way, I've seen some people compare this to School Days. Is that a worthwhile comparison? Perhaps it mostly just lets you know what you're in for?

RJSavoy Reymmã from Edinburgh Since: Apr, 2011 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Reymmã
#32: Apr 9th 2013 at 10:11:24 AM

I know nothing of the manga, but I'll say this episode really intrigued me. First time in a while that I watched without pausing for twenty minutes. It helps that I'm an instant fan of anything that makes an effort to be different and innovative, even if it fails.

It's conventionally ugly, but that feels appropriate. It gives an atmosphere of gritty reality, but also of unspoken troubles building up. I should have realised it was rotoscoped.

It reminded me of The Illusionist; that film deliberately hides and obscures everyone's faces, and even more so their eyes, to give a sense of alienation and mutual coldness. Usually faces are exaggerated, lit up and in the centre of the screen precisely to endear the audience. This show doesn't do this in the same way, but the feel is similar, especially when the faces disappear. A few frames were very off-model, but I didn't find it to be a problem. They fitted in.

I don't want any spoilers, but I have to know: does the story have anything to do with Baudelaire's poetry? I read some in school but never took a liking to it. "Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux..."

A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#33: Apr 9th 2013 at 2:58:59 PM

http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2013/04/09/the-faces-behind-flowers-of-evil

This article includes pictures of the actors behind the rotoscoping. It also has some fan parodies. It does explain the character design differences.

edited 9th Apr '13 2:59:59 PM by Zendervai

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#34: Apr 9th 2013 at 3:08:40 PM

I actually watched the first episode.

The screenshots were weird. The animation is horrifying.

I think the problem here is not that they (the animators/producers/etc) used rotoscoping, but that they used rotoscoping on less than attractive people.

Honestly though, I think going with a live-action J-Drama would have worked too.

edited 9th Apr '13 3:12:30 PM by dRoy

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
Savoie Since: Mar, 2010
#35: Apr 9th 2013 at 5:39:19 PM

A huge problem with the rotoscoping is that they did it at 10 FPS.

[up][up][up] I admire (some) pretentious art that deliberately compromises its appeal to deliver a message, but anime is the wrong medium in which to do so.

edited 9th Apr '13 5:39:51 PM by Savoie

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#36: Apr 9th 2013 at 6:20:53 PM

You get other anime like Gankutsuou which is hideous sometimes and some people actually can't watch it, but it conveys the incredibly gaudy feel of the society where it takes place. I would say that you can do interesting things with anime, as that's what animation is about, but if you are using a technique, make sure you use it well.

Bunai Space Bunny from Jupiter Since: Oct, 2010
Space Bunny
#37: Apr 9th 2013 at 10:48:01 PM

It looks interesting.

Ever9 from Europe Since: Jul, 2011
#38: Apr 12th 2013 at 12:10:21 PM

It's animation is just as unpleasantly ugly and disturbing and controversial as I would expect from something titled "The Flowers of Evil".

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#39: Apr 12th 2013 at 12:19:50 PM

Evil animation for an evil series, how appropriate.

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
Arilou Taller than Zim from Quasispace Since: Jan, 2001
Taller than Zim
#40: Apr 12th 2013 at 5:39:19 PM

I do wonder how far they're going to go, considering they seem to be going pretty slowly. End it at the double suicide attempt seems like the most natural fit but I'm not sure they'll get there?

I don't want any spoilers, but I have to know: does the story have anything to do with Baudelaire's poetry? I read some in school but never took a liking to it. "Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux..."

It's definitely referenced. Whether or not it's meaningful or just in an attempt to seem "cultured"... I dunno :p

but that they used rotoscoping on less than attractive people.

Well, it is a story about less than attractive people :p (in many different ways)

edited 12th Apr '13 5:43:58 PM by Arilou

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
Savoie Since: Mar, 2010
#41: Apr 12th 2013 at 8:06:44 PM

I have decided that this may very well be the cour's best comedy. Everything is just so goddamned hilarious that I can't help but keep watching.

Arilou Taller than Zim from Quasispace Since: Jan, 2001
Taller than Zim
#42: Apr 15th 2013 at 3:43:26 PM

So, new manga chapter No way this is going to end well.

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
RJSavoy Reymmã from Edinburgh Since: Apr, 2011 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Reymmã
#43: Apr 15th 2013 at 4:30:39 PM

I think they refined face art a tad in the second episode. And the story is going slowly but it still had me to attention throughout. I could feel everything going through his mind. The biggest problem was that the Thanks for the Mammary scene looked fake, because it was too true to life. Those things only work with some artistic license.

The rotoscoping definitely gives a unique bent to the atmosphere. The constant movement suggests restlessness. It has the grittiness of live-action, but the animation gives it that "anyone anywhere" feel that Roger Ebert, PBUH, identified. And the redhead looks very alien and grotesque yet still entirely human.

It is also ugly without even being a special sort of ugly, and the characters have nothing distinct to them. I don't wish for any other show to go this route, but I do hope it encourages some breaks from the cutesy style that is so dominant.

And I think Baudelaire is in it simply because his poems have asimilar tone and meditate on what makes people do evil. Maybe it will make me read some.

A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.
Savoie Since: Mar, 2010
#44: Apr 15th 2013 at 4:37:21 PM

It won't encourage people to break from that "cutesy style"; for that to happen, it would have to prove that it can still appeal to the masses with this unconventionality, something it isn't even trying to do. You can keep trying to spin this as a good thing, some sort of anti-moe messiah, but you're just deluding yourself.

An exploding space shuttle isn't a boon for space exploration.

fillerdude Since: Jul, 2010
#45: Apr 15th 2013 at 9:46:59 PM

[up] So much this. If you wanted non-moe designs, go the Naoki Urusawa or Takehiko Inoue route.

dRoy Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar from Most likely from my study Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
#46: Apr 15th 2013 at 9:50:41 PM

Or Kara No Kyoukai and Fate Zero.

Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
Savoie Since: Mar, 2010
#47: Apr 15th 2013 at 9:53:05 PM

Honestly, the list of "anti-moe" is so damn long and varied that it's very hard to sympathize with the complainers, who appear to be nothing more than malcontents in search of something, anything to bitch about. Loudly.

Arilou Taller than Zim from Quasispace Since: Jan, 2001
Taller than Zim
#48: Apr 16th 2013 at 3:57:58 AM

[up] Pot. Kettle. Black.

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
RJSavoy Reymmã from Edinburgh Since: Apr, 2011 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Reymmã
#49: Apr 16th 2013 at 9:08:47 AM

I rather like moë and the big-iris style, but the exact style gets copied to where a lot of franchises are indistinguishable in art, and far too many have characters that only differ in hairstyle and eye shape. It's partly that Japan's creative culture prizes adhering to stylistic norms (while in the West verisimilitude is more important), partly to market to the otaku demographic (seen as a reliable source of sales, correctly or not), and partly simple institutional inertia. This style here wouldn't be so entrancing to me if it were less of a change.

It's true that it's unlikely to have much influence. But I thought watching it that inserting this into normal animation could be genuinely frightening. Imagine an animal like a wolf rotoscoped and kept in shadows so you don't see the shifting details; the realistic movement should make it look like something alien in the picture yet familiar to us.

The style I hoped would make more of an impact was that of Kuragehime, one the most moë things I've ever seen, which was animated with a distinct art style that differentiates all characters, expresses plenty of traits, and still looks very cutesy.

(The art of K-On! is very distinct, but only distinguishes faces by a brute-force approach of fine details in the hair, top lines of the eyes, and movements. Same can be said for Bakemonogatari. The ideal character design is one you can reduce to a few shapes and is still recognisable.)

I think the only Japanese series that fits the messiah mold is Evangelion. Besides being daring and innovative, it was iconoclastic, judgemental, self-important, sometimes intellectually dishonest, actively hostile to its followers, and in perpetual poverty. Very much like the real messiah.

In the end, I think the biggest flaw in Aku no Hana is that it is so mundane. Animation is the best medium in which to be innovative and imaginative, and I know a few works that blend surrealism and normality very well. But not here.

A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.
Arilou Taller than Zim from Quasispace Since: Jan, 2001
Taller than Zim
#50: Apr 16th 2013 at 10:29:16 AM

[up] Oh I agree, Aku No Hana is a fun (well, for a given value of "fun") little story, but it is not particularly suited to animation, and would not particularly stand out as live action. It's unusual precisely becuase it's animation about the mundane.

"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent

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