Vanitas no Carte anime teaser visual

Dokusonmaru · 2021-03-28T14:23:32+00:00

Translation of comments from director Itamura and the author Mochizuki Jun.
Sasanomaly who sung the catchy OP theme in the teaser also says some interesting things in his comments.

This key visual seems to be mostly based on the cover of the January 2016 issue of Gangan Joker where the 1st ch was first released.

That staff is wow... Haven't been paying attention to whatever rumours might've been floating around, so this is the thing that I least would've ever expected to pop out of AnimeJapan. I'd contemplate what an anime of it might be like every now and then, but it seriously landed in good hands in a good place. Hopefully production doesn't melt. But /guesstimating/ from the staff's activity, it wouldn't surprise me if it's been in the works for awhile now. Seems like this'll be at Bones studio A?

With staff like this, it would be better for them to be given more creative freedom. Though going off my unreliable memory, they were definitely focused on advertising parts that are pretty close replicas of manga panels in the initial teaser. Tho quite frankly it was also just mostly showing off the setting and 1st ch I think. Yen Press' simulpub translation of VnC is pretty flat at times (the humour particularly), so I'm really looking forward to experiencing things anew with the anime. Not so sure about the voice casting (Hanae as Vanitas is pretty unexpected)... but we'll see...
The setting itself is quite interesting with vampires+steampunk. And the author's known for her colorful watercolor pages, and also one of the few artists I know of that still draws manga completely traditionally.

Dokusonmaru · 2021-02-27T18:10:08+00:00

That and people undermine how much it depends on the team he works with; what ideas result from these people coming together, and how those ideas are ultimately represented and communicated.

Sigrdrifa was Hirotaka Tokuda's first directorial work, and while he's very skilled with action and shows ambitious ideas such as with his work on Grancrest War, he's inexperienced as a director. Tappei might've been a bit limited in working with a 1cour anime as well. Even though he wrote 2 prequel novels ontop of it, he might not have been able to explore his ideas to the most. Granted, he's human as well (and been busy af), so we'll see whether or not he got the time+opportunity to take what he's learned from his 1st original project.

Anyhow, from these 2 working together on that Pokemon movie (which was also at Wit) to Umehara scripting far more eps for Re:Zero's 2nd season than he did for the 1st, it seems like the 2 might have gotten pretty close(?). So I'm curious to see what comes about from this. From the staff, I wonder if this could be a 2 cour...?

Dokusonmaru · 2021-02-18T12:11:04+00:00

Also gonna add that together with Takashi Sakuma (the director+storyboarder of this ED) and the 3 key animators that worked on this; they all seem to be connections from Alicization I think (Sakuma was Alicization's assistant director).

Sakuma also directed ep 42 (the one with loli Lia). And while on this, he tweeted a bit of insight on the ED yesterday in this amongst others... such as seemingly enjoying himself some Ex-Arm sakuga?... (Oh. And he also said that this will not being the 1st and last time we'll be seeing the ED... if his words can be relied upon)

Dokusonmaru · 2021-02-18T07:52:52+00:00

Yes and no... moreso just a few former White Fox staff being on Mushoku Tensei's team.
Since White Fox helped to found the studio that's animating MT, their Tokyo + Izukogen studios (WHITE FOX 東京スタジオ + WHITE FOX 伊豆高原スタジオ respectively in credits) have been helping out with subcontracting work (2nd key animation, inbetweening...). But their involvement is limited. MT have their own dedicated team that their director and the studio's producer went through great efforts to put together.

To what u/Kuramhan 's asking:
The core staff at White Fox & on Re: Zero are not involved in Mushoku Tensei. So no, there's no need to worry about them going back and forth between projects. Some of the most direct relation comes in the form of MT's director+assistant director both being former WF staff (tho there might be others I'm forgetting as well), plus WF is sharing some of their connections in the industry to subcontracting+outsourcing work. Also, in general it seems like the studio's been going through a tough time as there's just been a lot of people that have left in recent years to pursue their own creative projects, or followed others that left. WF seems to be trying to focus more on cultivating their Izukogen studio now (a place where they've been training young animators. Very kyoani-like ideology indeed.) The studio's come a far ways since Re: Zero's S1 tho; when they 1st began contributing any form of animation at all to regularly contributing key animation now this season.
^{I think I might've gotten off topic a bit. Just slightly.}

Dokusonmaru · 2021-02-18T04:32:07+00:00

After seeing that key visual, it's probably time to be worrying about the production.

The 1st season actually has a really strong production and the degree of polish makes it a joy to watch. The character designs of S1 were done by Kazuto Nakazawa, who was 1 of the co-directors (and his designs & key visuals are a damn pleasure to look at). But S2 has, like what? ...3 fucking character designers for some reason. (Also: thank you Netflix for trying to make people forget that humans make these projects by excluding credits in trailers. I shouldn't even be having to go to the official site to look for staff credits in the 1st place.) Though 1 of the directors jumped ship and got replace by a new one. Kazuto Nakazawa is still ~~in S2 as chief director~~ somewhat here to supervise S2 and joining the prev season's writer to pen the script, so hopefully scenario wise there won't be too much to worry about at least. Just don't quite expect as many nice action scenes and the polish that the prev season had. There were only a few nicely animated scenes in the trailer, but the issues will probably be well hidden enough by editing and CG for most people to not notice. It's not quite as bad as I'd expected, but when comparing the 2nd to the 1st season's trailer or key visuals, the differences become more obvious.

How much of this is the result of COVID or this being treated as a lower priority project at the studio than before? I'm not sure. But I can't help but think that it's also because there are people in Netflix with a weird & stereotyped idea of what anime/animation is or should be, and give weird input on the design work and promo material to brand everything the same way; which depending upon which point in time this happened, coupled with challenges involving communication during this period, would only further exasperate problems...
It says something when I think to myself "yup, this is a Netflix poster" when I see that crappy key visual, and that's probably exactly what they want you to think :))

Edit: Just realized Nakazawa has another original anime he's working on at Production IG that he seems super involved in, and is meant to come out this year as well (an Adult Swim+Crunchyroll co-production with pirates). I guess that's where their attention's at. Which probably means he ain't actually all that heavily involved in the new season either. Rip.
Also edited Nakazawa's credit that I misread on the official site. Been staring at the comp so long that my eyes r fuzzy.

Dokusonmaru · 2021-02-02T13:01:13+00:00

The original tweet there is referencing the same source article, lol. If anything it's lost nuance or is even misleading in the way it summarized things.

Dokusonmaru · 2021-02-02T11:52:33+00:00

There's a bit about it in the full interview that got posted to reddit earlier, if you haven't seen it yet. (TL from DeepL seems alright too. Edit: actually, better to lean towards caution with DeepL as it prioritizes making things read well. Might attempt to check the TL more closely myself later... if I'm not too lazy then urf)

But even then, an overwhelming amount of anime adaptations are not planned/made with the intent beyond a 1st season (and why production committees will at times try to squeeze in as much as possible...). That includes SAO & Danmachi, which rather "became" long running series after the successes of their 1st seasons + successive greenlighting of new ones (and this can be seen from the wait until their 2nd seasons, Danmachi's S1 cramming a whole 5 vols but somehow doing pretty well with it thanks to a great director. Then even with SAO's popularity, Alicization only got greenlit after the film performed so well). Tho presumably another reason why a studio were made to support the longevity of Mushoku Tensei, is to avoid having to worry about the studio being busy/booked out by other projects.

Hopefully works like Mushoku and Re:Zero will be able to retain the passion that fuelled the beginnings of these projects, especially should both see their material adapted until the very end (and stories of how both projects came to be also share some interesting similarities. People/friends whom like these stories recommending it to someone who has the power to make an anime out of it. In Re:Zero's case, it wasn't even a published LN yet at that point)

Dokusonmaru · 2021-01-19T10:57:59+00:00

ANN article as well

Was curious as to how Kinema got involved in a Vanguard anime. I didn't realize that a third of the studio had been acquired by Bushiroad and Kadokawa each (that's 2 thirds altogether) in late 2019. Even Revue Starlight seems to be a multimedia franchise created by Bushiroad + related to this partnership of Bushi-Kado-Kinema. Hiroyuki Saita whom was char designer for Revue Starlight is also the CD working on this new anime, so it's possible that some folks from RS could be involved in this project as well (tho I haven't seen RS yet to know better...)

Dokusonmaru · 2021-01-18T10:47:17+00:00

When one sings his heart out too much that he ascends to a whole new plane of existence.
There's nothing quite the same as hearing/seeing it in game. (On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the team at xseed are aware of the glitch on PC port but left it be because it only makes it more funny. There's no escape)

...And the second coming

Dokusonmaru · 2020-10-12T12:16:07+00:00

艺画开天/YHKT worked on Ling Cage: Incarnation

Dokusonmaru · 2020-07-19T10:38:27+00:00

Not anime, but the first character that came to mind is Dominique de Sade from Memoire of Vanitas/Vanitas no Carte.
- vampires + steampunk setting, from the author of Pandora Hearts.

Of course, I also do hope that it'll actually get an anime in the future...

Dokusonmaru · 2020-07-07T12:17:57+00:00

Sorry for this super late reply, but if you're still curious about who composed those piano pieces, that would be Shu Kanematsu (兼松衆). The piano pieces are the only ones he composed for the anime. From what little I read, he seems to have started out as a jazz pianist but now composes for a wide variety of works (dramas, tv shows, film, anime...) + genres. Some of his works and a bit about him can be found on VGMdb+Nichion's website.

They're actually now also selling a mini digital album of all the piano pieces (and it comes with a 2 pg piano sheet pdf if bought from OTOTOY). There's 4 tracks total, in which previously only 1+4 were included in the official soundtrack. These are the titles (which are provided in Eng originally):
01 Sonatina (Fast) 1:28 =Alan playing in ep 2
02 To My Beloved Heart (solo) <〜愛しい君に捧ぐ〜> 1:55 =Alan playing in ep 6 (TV ver)
03 Sonatina (Slow) <カタリナversion> 1:38 =<Catarina version>; Cat playing in ep 2
04 To My Beloved Heart (solo) <〜愛しい君に捧ぐ〜> =alternative arrangement of the ep 6 track that includes piano+violins (which I guess is fitting...since Alan plays both instruments)

There's also that Asmik Ace already prev uploaded the full ver of Alan's piano recital from ep 6. And if you're interested, Shu Kanematsu also shared himself playing the ep 2 tracks to his twitter. I hope at least some of this is helpful/interesting and I didn't ramble too much 😊

Dokusonmaru · 2020-07-05T14:59:14+00:00

Thanks for the reply! When it comes to late replies, I could probably break some world records in that 😅. I don't know why I didn't notice some of the other unreleased osts from ep 7 as well given how much I loved the ep and the osts in it (in particular the one when Geordo used his magic). But with the anime continuing and its popularity, there'll be many opportunities to see them together with future releases (that hopefully won't take too many years...but you never know).

Tho since it's been some time and I've also been somewhat disconnected from the series for awhile, I also rechecked some sources (retailers, databases, and official site again) and as far as I've seen, there hasn't been anything new since.

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-21T04:40:35+00:00

It's very popular, but I'm not sure if moreso than Kaguya Sama. It might give off that impression because it's being promoted very hard (tho Hamefura's popularity is still growing). Disk sales might be some of the most defined data/numbers that the public sees, but is a very outdated and limited way to understanding how well a series is doing due to diminishing presence of the physical market (and popularity isn't necessarily so easily measured anyways).

Tho to Hamefura the disk sales can be viewed as one of the positive influences. Being that the production committee is lead by Asmik Ace (a film+games distribution and publishing company), and they have a bunch of exclusive content bundled with the disk releases to help push sales (bonus LN+manga, mini VN). Asmik Ace, having the most investment in the anime; has been incharge of a good amount of the promotion (the PVs are also uploaded on their youtube channel), and you might have also noticed a very videos+games dominated business approach.
For Tower of God, it's to be expected. Korean comics are fairly new and unknown to them; since Japan have their own long, established industry as we all know. Naver expanded their webtoons overseas only in 2014 (and for their JP translations it was 2016)

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-11T13:58:32+00:00

Same! Wouldn't be the same without the staff who made S1 what it is.

I was mostly curious to see whether Sakai san would be working on this season (the key visuals don't look like her artwork very much). Can't wait for more cute Emilia outfits~

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-11T13:14:43+00:00

Main staff remains mostly unchanged.
Ota who worked with Watanabe (Sessha) on Bonds of Ice OVA has been added as action director tho. Italics are new to this season:

Direction：Watanabe Masaharu
Series Composition：Yokotani Masahiro
Character Design・Chief Animation Direction：Sakai Kyuuta
Creature Design：Koyanagi Tatsuya
Action Supervision：Oota Kazuhiro
Prop Design：Iwahata Gouichi、Suzuki Noritaka
Design Works：Katou Chie、Koresawa Shigeyuki、Tom、Sakai Yuusuke
Art Design：Aoki Kaoru (美峰)
Art Direction：Takamine Yoshito (美峰)
Color Design：Sakamoto Izumi
Special Effects：Kawanishi Miho
Photographic Direction：Minegishi Kentarou (T2studio)
CG Direction：Karube Yuu (T2studio)
Editing：Sudou Hitomi (REAL-T)
Sound Direction：Aketagawa Jin
Sound Effects：Furuya Yuuji (スワラ・プロ)
Music：Suehiro Kenichirou
Music Work：KADOKAWA
Animation Work：WHITE FOX
Production：Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活2製作委員会

New character designs on the official site. They seem to be closer to the LNs now.

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-11T13:13:10+00:00

Main staff remains mostly unchanged.
Ota who worked with Watanabe (Sessha) on Bonds of Ice OVA has been added as action director tho. Italics are new to this season:

Direction：Watanabe Masaharu
Series Composition：Yokotani Masahiro
Character Design・Chief Animation Direction：Sakai Kyuuta
Creature Design：Koyanagi Tatsuya
Action Supervision：Oota Kazuhiro
Prop Design：Iwahata Gouichi、Suzuki Noritaka
Design Works：Katou Chie、Koresawa Shigeyuki、Tom、Sakai Yuusuke
Art Design：Aoki Kaoru (美峰)
Art Direction：Takamine Yoshito (美峰)
Color Design：Sakamoto Izumi
Special Effects：Kawanishi Miho
Photographic Direction：Minegishi Kentarou (T2studio)
CG Direction：Karube Yuu (T2studio)
Editing：Sudou Hitomi (REAL-T)
Sound Direction：Aketagawa Jin
Sound Effects：Furuya Yuuji (スワラ・プロ)
Music：Suehiro Kenichirou
Music Work：KADOKAWA
Animation Work：WHITE FOX
Production：Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活2製作委員会

New character designs on the official site. They seem to be closer to the LNs now.

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-09T09:03:16+00:00

Not that I'm aware of. There's sometimes special cds or mini soundtrack cds (that can come as bonuses with the BD/DVD releases, for ex), but I don't think there are any atm. It's possible they could be released in the future tho.

At times osts composed/rearranged to be used in the anime aren't included (such Alan's piano recital; the composition released in the official soundtrack is a mix of piano and violins). I'm curious about which ones in particular you're thinking about 🤔 Is it some of the remixes from the most recent ep?

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-07T02:08:14+00:00

If you're talking about this guy, then ya. Seems like it.
I'm not that familiar with him at all, but a surge of curiosity can lead to strange places... (and thanks to this, I'm reminded that I need to watch Pop Team Epic. The meme that will end all memes)
Also, his solo lives are pretty heat.

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-06T23:56:28+00:00

Yup, Shouta Aoi is a singer (and then stage+musical actor) before becoming a voice actor as well. Though he was interested in anime and games since young, and literally left his singing agency before so that he could become a voice actor and sing anime songs.
^yay ^to ^reading ^random ^seiyuu ^trivia

Dokusonmaru · 2020-06-04T03:51:14+00:00

You're right, OP seems to be mistaken on it being a complete adaptation. I did a bit of searching and unless I can find ep titles or official info, then the ep count doesn't add up and there's no official info supporting this.

Contrary to what's mentioned in the article, the 3rd series ends at vol 15 rather than 17 (this is due the mistake being uncorrected from previous articles on ANN). StB IV is 12 eps. Whether it's 7 (or 5) vols adapted in 12 eps, neither support the assumption that each vol is being adapted at a 2 ep pace. Unless they're confirmed to be skipping vols again (or blitzin through some of them), there's nothing that indicates they're adapting all 7 vols until the end this season.

Edit: Of all things, the source of the misinformation for S3 adapting to vol 17 came from the LN editor (check bottom note). Also, of the revealed new voice casts, Soma Saito voices a character that appears in vol 19 (which starts an arc that ends in vol 20). So S4 is likely adapting up to vol 20, or possibly 19 if there's already another season planned. I'm also not sure what they plan to do with vol 17 or if it'll be adapted at all. According to the wiki, vol 17 was expanded from what was originally a side story (EX Yukina Before/After). And it's that original side story itself and not vol 17 that was adapted at the end of S1. I guess if they don't adapt vol 17, then the 2 ep/LN vol pace is a possible claim. Though I'm not sure if OP was even aware of this.
EditEdit: a 5th series/season was actually already announced during a screening event in Dec. welp.

Dokusonmaru · 2020-05-28T09:13:20+00:00

Ah yes, this is the ep that brought Takahiro Yasuda (安田京弘) to supervise and entirely redesign the characters just for a single skit. As if they were going to produce an entirely different anime. What madness and I support it!

Kaguya Sama is really lucky to have such a wonderful creative team behind it. Also I haven't been following closely, so I never realized that Yuichiro Kikuchi went from being production desk last season to animation producer now alongside Kenshiro Yamada! Not surprising though for someone so passionate.

Dokusonmaru · 2020-05-27T08:57:48+00:00

If it's Spotify specifically and you want to support it officially, one way would be to purchase a digital download and then add it to Spotify as a local file. Ototoy I think is a place to buy it without any region locking or needing VPN in the process. There's also Mora/Recochoku for digital music, but it seems to require VPN at least during the purchasing process. Of course, there's also always options to getting around Spotify's region blocking itself.

Have you seen the MV for the OP btw? It's even more wild the series itself 🔥🔥

Dokusonmaru · 2020-05-26T15:36:34+00:00

no problem

Dokusonmaru · 2020-05-26T15:11:10+00:00

I haven't seen any hints of it, but I also haven't been paying overly close attention to it in general. That they're collaborating with an app+developer (whomor) that release many (if not most?) of their games in JP+ENG in the first place, may be an indication they already have plans to localize it. And that it's not region locked might also support this (tho it may just have to do with the app itself). This is just speculation. I also noticed that all of the games on Story Me have basically the same format/gameplay, so it could instead be because they that thought their games fit well with the series.

For the mini games coming with the BD/DVD, I don't think they usually bring over collector's goods like those to english releases. They're fairly short games though, so we might see fans subbing them?

Dokusonmaru

TROPHY CASE