Episode Synopsis:
The repairs are (sort of) underway! With Kanamori plodding them along, Asakusa and Mizusaki make some progress on the club room’s roof. The trio find a poster giving a deadline for all clubs to deliver a project to the Budget Deliberation Committee. If your project is impressive enough, it could ultimately lead to funding and recognition as a real club. Given the time frame they are working with, there’s barely enough breathe room to eke out a 5 minute anime. Kanamori struggles to motivate the duo into making something that is both dynamic and practical within the deadline.
Episode Review:
Having sat through three episodes of Eizouken, my husband and I have decided…that this show is basically Muppet Babies, Anime edition. Our heroines run around and conduct their everyday lives
but then suddenly…adventure strikes!
Then the art changes to reflect the fact that their imaginations are taking over a situation. It’s fantastic and fun, and I am smiling from beginning to end. I’m always looking forward to whatever crazy new situation Asukasa and Mizusaki get themselves in next, all while dragging Kanamori along.
Speaking of “dragged along”…I’m realizing that is actually a poor description of Kanamori. Yes, she’s driven by future profits, but she’s also weirdly motivated to just…do right by the other two? She sets up the desks in the new club room, and plays Taskmaster in terms of getting the other two to fix the roof and clean up. She WANTS the club to succeed on a multilayered level, and I feel like one of those levels is a genuine interest in seeing her friends have fun. Nobody would stick around with these two crazies without actually having some fun. Also, she knows a little too much about animation at times for somebody who claims not to care about it. I wonder…
You know was else is crazy?! A girl fighting a tank!!! Good thing that’s where we are headed! As Scott stated in Episode 2, the girls oscillate between different states of being and this episode leans hard into the Muppet Baby imagination stage. There’s a space adventure to repair the ship hull (roof), a rescue mission (operation Toilet!) and then…a tank battle explosion palooza!
I absolutely love the Asukasa monologues accompanied by her (or her + Mizusaki’s) mouth Foley. This time around she talks about electrostatic paint, and then suddenly realizes…this is a fantasy! She can do whatever she wants! When she rattles on about the Personal Defense Tank I was actually laughing out loud. The care she (and thus the writing staff) puts into each of her creations is so full of excitement and joy. It’s infectious and you can’t watch this and not be happy to be part of this journey.
The animation we learn about this time revolves around character movement and dynamic motion in action scenes. They talk about how much effort it is to draw facial expressions, how best to move the camera to display motion or dynamic action, and ways to cut down time when making a scene look larger than it is (copy + paste explosions, and you too can have a larger than life scene!).
The whole sequence here is an illustrated conversation. You (the viewer) live out their animation constraints and solutions in real time, all while learning about the craft. The exchange between Asakusa and Mizusaki radiates positivity. It screams out “what if” and “but”, and answers in kind with “yes we could do that!” and “well let’s just change this one thing”! There’s no obstacle that can’t be tackled with YOUTHFUL PASSION. It was so cool to see two artists with completely different skillsets (Asakusa = backgrounds while Mizusaki = character animation) have to marry together to make a complete sequence. I can only hope real animators collaborate with this much enthusiasm!
As a final note, I want to take the time to complement the artists for this show on their talents. The art in this episode swings from the normal one for the show, to soft/pastel coloring for the imagination sequences, to freaking detailed AF sketch art for displaying a samurai in motion, to rougher sketch motion for thumbnail battle scenes. It’s really a treat to see.
Summary:
I am so excited for Sailor Fuku Nausicaä to battle Personal Defense Tank. I can only continue to hope that this show keeps up this level of quality and positivity. Will these girls be able to hack it by the deadline for the committee?! No worries, I’m sure it will be Easy Breezy. ^____^
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