aku no hana - 01
Yeah, rotoscoping sucks. I think there's a problem when the characters look best without motion, when the 'advantage' of rotoscoping is the translation of live movement into animation in a more . . . direct way. The characters just look unfinished at times; facial details popping in as they approach, the odd lack of detail at times during close-ups, etc. It's jittery and there's a sense of unease about the whole thing, which might be intentional, but this is anime so it's better to have low expectations. I wonder at the thought that went into going with this approach.
That said I do like how ugly everyone looks, when they're actually drawn fully. It's a nice (and purposeful, I suspect) shift from the appealing art of the manga, and the sheer revulsion of what's to come is going to be amplified with the 3D pig disgusting designs.
Despite that, though, I kinda liked it! Haters gonna hate. Wonderful background art that might suffer from too much recycling as we go. The repetitive, monotonous, bgm. And Nagahama as a director still has it. Some wonderful cuts, with the mirror--even if they reuse it twice in the same episode--being the most striking of them all with the framing of the amigos in their exit and their parting. The representation of his awakening as the seed trembling, reaching out, opening its eye. It's kind of depressing because there's a good show buried underneath the more than justified backlash.
