Anime 25835 Shirobako Reviews Filter Check 2

Yeah, I know Shirobako is going to go on for another cour. I saw the advertisement that promised to introduce more characters and more problems. Still, there's a reason this show isn't popular on Nano and it doesn't help that nobody wants to read the words of a man who hates their surprise-darling show of the year each week. As such, this will be the last I'm going to write about it, because after watching twelve episodes, I have to accept the fact that Shirobako (and PA Works stuff in general) is never going to appeal to me and move on to hating Ikuhara's new ... thing or something. But before we part ways, I want to finalize some thoughts regarding why I'm not into this thing.

Obviously, I didn't expect this show to explode in popularity (relatively-speaking) the way it did. But I sort of get why Shirobako appeals to the blogosphere. It has adult characters, which is considered rare in anime. It has snappy direction by the guy who made Girls Und Panzer, another critical darling that I don't really care about. It's about anime, and considering we're anime fans, that appeals to a lot of us. And considering that a lot of us have jobs or are struggling to get jobs, it's nice to see an anime that reflect that part of our lives.

But here's the thing, I'm not like most anime fans. Because you see, I "do" try to interpret things for basic enjoyment. I "do" want my fiction to not spoon-feed me what's going on. Even though I am capable of liking summer blockbusters and laugh-out-loud comedies, what separates the good ones from the bad ones tends to be elements that tickle the mind. And when my mind isn't tickled, it tends to shut off completely.

Obviously, there are limits to that sort of thinking. I like Mamoru Oshii fine as a director, but he can be obtuse to the point of being impenetrable (Angel's Egg, Sky Crawlers). Still, I don't like Roland Emmerich's blockbuster trash and there's a reason why Ingmar Bergman is one of my favorite foreign directors. Now I'm not saying Shirobako has to be at the quality of a Bergman film. That's too much to ask. But for all you fans of the show, answer me this: what exactly is in this anime for thinkers like me? Because being educated on anime production doesn't really leave much to the imagination.

"What about how anime production affects the employers who make it? After all, that's what you enjoyed about that one Paranoia Agent episode, isn't it, Mr. Flawfinder?" It sure is, but here's the thing: the employee died at the end of that episode as a consequence of his production fuck-ups. Shirobako's biggest problem is that it never goes beyond threatening the characters' work positions. That's not an inherently bad thing, but that's only intriguing depending on how the employees deal with said threat, and I'm not seeing anyone rob a bank in desperation. I'm not seeing anyone contemplate suicide. I'm not even seeing anyone make any kind of sacrifice to keep their job. I see people spouting textbook lines and...that's pretty much it. This isn't mind-racing. This isn't even a plot. This is just fanservice without purpose, and I don't do fanservice without purpose.

"But wait, Mr. Flawfinder! Considering who's directing the show, surely you must be laughing at some of the jokes..." Okay, I'm going to have to stop you guys right there. Aside from You're Being Summoned Azazel-san, Mizushima hasn't directed anything I've really enjoyed, and the reason the former appealed to me so much - or at least the first season did - is because it was mean. It subverted my expectations in clever ways. It was borderline offensive. None of his other works do that, and Shirobako in particular isn't even close to being mean. In fact, most of the humor comes from in-joking, and I hate that sort of stuff when it's the crux of your humor. Hell, I found it (along with the lack of intriguing plot and character) painful in those Expendables films, and those movies are supposed to appeal to action fans like myself. And if I can't like an action movie that's pure purposeless fanservice, how do you expect me to like a slice-of-life anime that does the same thing?

The characters aren't appealing to me because without good comedy and a good representation of anything I can sink my teeth into, there's nothing else they've got going for them other than their character designs and the fact that some of them are parodies of real-life anime staff (and we all know I don't care about those). There's no actual plot that goes beyond the characters living their lives. It's not even doing anything all that bad. It's just "there", and what am I supposed to say about something that's just "there"? Psycho-Pass 2? Whether you hated it or not, at least it was upping the ante regard its crazy failures each week. Amagi Brilliant Park? That's a highly-exaggerated comedic take on what Shirobako does, and yet I've written about every single episode despite only finding it decent at best because at least each episode succeeded or failed in a way that was fresh. Your Lie In April? It's one of the worst dramas I've seen in a while, but at least it's coming up with new ways to be tastelessly boring as it goes along - albeit not every week - and it's overall failures are fun to discuss.

So if nothing is appealing to me in a good way, nothing is appealing to me in a bad way, there are no hints to indicate that this will change with the show's second half, and it's not even giving me good views, what else is there? Appealing to me in an average way? Yeah, that's not my style, guys. Wake me up when PA Works makes an anime out of Jun Maeda's new thing. At least that has a good chance of boring me in a way that's fun to talk about.

Shirobako is a good choice for you if you want to have a look into the anime industry but without events and characters seeming like they progress in a natural or realistic fashion, but still giving you somewhat of a decent insight into the industry regardless.

You see, Shirobako does do a good job at putting on the line some of the goals and aspirations the characters want to do, even if it's half corny and generic safe responses and the other half is mostly what would feel natural for someone that has entered into the industry making a decision that fits their original goal presented ... in a situation that makes sense. Well maybe it's more like, 60-40%. Well... maybe... erm...

Anyway, what it absolutely fails to do is present the situation of the working space in a believable way. You see there is this director who is, putting it mildly, the absolute worst thing in the world. He constantly procrastinates, he is usually indecisive and he had no sense of direction to the point that when he was asked what he wanted to do with his series, his answer was simply "moe". That was his answer for why he created the series and where he wanted to take it. I'm sure anyone, despite however rancid might think has gotten and maybe wanted to capitalize on the moe factor, if that was at all the case in this director's case, would have at the very least an idea on how to capitalize on moe and give a different answer. But, no, he said that because he was asked what were his original intentions with the series in order to get help from another writter, and that was his answer. And he's already known in the industry for his poor direction and what not, because he had failed on directing another original work called "Jiggly Jiggly Heaven" which is exactly what you're probably thinking. I won't represent him as antagonistically as I can, but trust me, he seems very unqualified all throughout the first cour.

The reason I'm mentioning all this and I'm stopping here is because I want to ask you the following questions:

Would you work under him?

Now think a bit before you answer because these are the guarantees of your job: you will probably be forced to take a lot of retakes due to his indecisiveness and work under a very limited timespan due to how much he's delayed writing the storyboards due to him procrastinating, which would make the retakes that much more difficult. Also keep in mind that he has a terrible reputation and if you're there and he fails he probably is going to drag you down with him as well. Maybe you're asking yourself how would I have known which, okay, good point, then I'm gonna ask you the following question instead.

What would you do when you found out he's this way?

Would you continue working so the anime won't be a permanent stain on your resume and make it as great as possible, would you bail because as soon as you could before you would be able to have it as a permanent stain on you or would you have an outburst at the director and tell him to get his shit together? Or would you simply just quit as soon as the project is done? I mean, you would feel at every point like you're in a sinking ship, right? Or maybe if you wouldn't, someone else at least would?

Except that's not what happens. Most people continue working so the work won't leave a permanent impact on their reputation in the industry but there is absolutely nobody, except one guy who downright forces the director to work. There's nobody that expresses any sort of frustration at the chaos the director has caused at things that are completely his fault. They had opportunities to do so with a bunch of characters, but no, they instead chose this path with this character: "Everyone struggles until the asshole finally fucking gets some inspiration and then everything ends fine and dandy." I can't imagine in a realistic situation where there wouldn't be at least one person lashing out or at the very least talking the director behind his back for being this pathetic at what he's doing, hell, I barely can imagine someone being this tolerant in a fictional scenario built in my mind. Instead people just take it and do their work and eventually the director stops fucking around. You could've given the director some motivation to correct his ways through consequences of his work force simply not accepting what he's doing by lashing out at him or quitting or anything. But, no, that would make too much sense. Lets instead have his actions have very little voiced consequences and everything ending up pretty much okay.

And this is the main problem with Shirobako, whenever there is a problem, everything ends up okay in the end, to the point where you get to the content of the second cour, where everything works even better in the project and the director isn't even a problem anymore, whenever a "oh my god a setback" happens there's no sense of urgency behind it and the tension from this type of situation is pretty much gone. There's no consequence to things going wrong other than, okay, lets work a little bit harder mkay? Okay. You're writing a story about an industry, there's always a risk for someone doing a bad job, but quitting and being fired are totally natural responses a person or a company could take in these situations. Failing a deadline or the work suffering a drop in quality are also possible consequences of incompetence or simply harsh conditions. As a result of this, none of the events happening in Shirobako have any dramatic value, despite trying to build them up and failing spectacularly at them. You know they will strive to make things in the series as optimistic as possible while creating tension with only one result, you feeling relieved it worked out.

It looked like all the characters were pulling punches in the hopes that things will work out and they will somehow manage, which made me feel very cynical about the whole experiences they've went through.

That was what mostly almost kinda made me drop the series a bunch of times but instead I continued watching the series because quite frankly, I enjoyed the parts where Shirobako presented the motivations and ambitions the characters had in the industry, or their loss of motivation and how they got over it. It does do a genuinely good job with that whenever they don't go on the safe route and offer some sort of insightful advice through a conclusion you could draw out from what the characters experience which is a good thing to see. Like what happens when you lose inspiration (no, I'm not talking about the director) or when you are stuck in a loop where you don't get any experience that would help you improve in the future. If the story focused more on this aspect of what it was trying to do while creating tension and focusing more on how to get over yourself and how you've achieved that and what consequences this could have not only on you but also on the team, I'm sure this could've been quite good, but it wasn't. I thought this aspect was enough for me to second guess calling this show bad, but I can't say it's fine for the lack of repercussions for every problem in the series that has appeared in it and making it seem quite unrealistic.

The art style of the show is generally good, given its a show about creating anime and animation plays a big part in it, most things are animated well. Everything looks well put together and you could technically see the process behind it too, which will probably help you have a better appreciation of it. The art style is a bit too cutsey for me but, I can say that it looked good regardless. The sound was generally fine too, although if I caught a glimpse of either the intro or ending I would immediately get turned off because I hate j-pop, and there are some downright cringy moments in the series that are meant to be heartwarming when the main character along with her friends go on and say this: "DON DON DONUTS LETS GO NUTS!". Ugh.

As you might or might have not guessed from what I've already said, the purpose of the characters is mostly to display one aspect of the industry or that area of expertise through either shared wisdom or experience or the difficulty said person might have in their area. The situations presented by them tend to be hit and miss but they usually are enjoyable enough for what they're trying to do and they tend to have some insight into them.

If you think you'd be frustrated by the lack of consequences the problems in the series, like the poor direction or the problems created by the staff itself, having little to no consequences to the overall quality on the series could be a hurdle for you, or the fact that the interpersonal relationships of the series being treated so casually is a really bad thing just like me, I can't recommend this series to you at all. But if you think some of the insight Shirobako might provide into the industry might be worth it, although I would suggest looking for some documentaries that might offer the same insight into the industry from real people talking about real experiences, you could have a look into it. As I've said, it does present some insightful situations and how people get over their own hurdles, which might be something you want. But I don't know if that would justify it as a good series for you, given it's possible you could get the same feedback from different sources. I managed to enjoy Shirobako enough to finish it and thought it was an okay enough experience, despite the hurdles, but I can see them being too much for other people as well.

Shirobako is a very good anime. It takes a behind the scenes look at how anime are made in real life and portrays its characters realistically. Each of the five main characters (with the possible exception of Imai Midori) get good growth over the course of 24 episodes. The episodes themselves are beautifully realized. If you ever wanted to look at how anime are made in reality then Shirobako is it. It deals with a wide range of issues ranging from a director making last minutes changes to the script, to dealing with elusive authors and satisfying them. There is even bit of cozying up ... to the right people to get good contracts for the studio. Shirobako covers it all. It takes a realistic and non-romanticized look at anime production. It does a good job of portraying characters who aren't inherently good or bad but are all working towards the same goal. The path to the goal does not always match but the goals are the same.

The aninme is an enjoyable watch for what it is. And I would have rated it very highly if the narrative was not so skewed. From start to finish, the narrative has a single mission in mind and that is to push a feminist ideology where all the men are essentially losers and the women in the business are the ones behind the scenes working hard to make anime successfull. With no exception all the major main male leads have issues dealing with pressure/doing their job properly. Almost all of them need a woman's touch to get their shit together. Contrasting that are the female characters who face their fears/doubts by themselves and grow in the process. Let us look at some of the leads for example to illustrate what I mean.
- Seichi Kinoshita who is the director in the anime. A wishy-washy guy who is potrayed more like an otaku than as a serious face. Used mostly as a comic relief. Finds it difficult to really make up his mind. Eternally needs Miyamori's help.
- Masato Marukawa, president of Mushashino. Happy go lucky guy who cares more for the food he is cooking than the anime his studio is trying to put out.
- Yutaka Honda, production manager who is ever out of ideas. Partners with the director in the first half to provide comic relief. Leaves the team in the second half.
- Hiroshi Iketani, episode director who it is implied lives in poverty. Tries to run away from work every opportunity he gets. Used for comic relief.
- Tarou Takanashi, a production manager who is just about the most useless and inept person you would ever see anime or otherwise. Used for comic relief.
- Ryousuke Endou, animation director who appears to have grudges with everyone. Throws a childish tantrum early on in the series to add some drama. Used for drama.
- Shimeji Maitake, supposed scenario writer. Implied to be very slow in writing. Essentially acts as a foil for Imai Midori to grow. Delegates all his work to Midori later on.
- Daisuke Hiraoka, a PM who replaces Honda. Shown to be extremely disinterested in work. Included to add unnecessary drama towards the end. Also portrayed to be sexist.


Even relatively minor characters like the publishing house editors are shown to be extremely disinterested in their work who would rather play golf than sit down and talk about an anime production based on their publication.

Contrasting all this are the female characters. Almost unanimously, they are all hard workers and work with 10000000% diligence 24x7. Almost all the problems they face are due to them not having the skills necessary and all of them have their own growth moment where they face their demons and succeed. Even supposedly shallow female characters like Sara Satou are potrayed as hard working/diligent workers towards the end.

The anime is a good story. However good the story is however, this is nothing more than a feminist narrative. This culminates in the final episode where the main character Aoi Miyamori is celebrated as an unsung hero. Miyamori wasnt even a hero in the production chain, that goes coincidentally to another female called Erika Yano, but fuck logic amirite?
Overall a good anime which could have been great if it hadnt been highjacked by a "wimmen are awesome" narrative.

This anime is really a hit or a miss I think.

I notice how there's a lot of people that really like the anime, but then there are some that don't really like it; like myself.

I didn't really enjoy it because it was a bit too slow, and a bit boring for me. For some reason I like Bakuman but not this, maybe it's because of the artwork or something.... For those that might not know, Bakuman is an anime about making manga, and Shirobako is an anime about making anime.

Nevertheless, I can see how this anime might appeal to people who are interested in anime ... production, but I actually only wanted to watch a funny anime and this was listed as comedy (it wasn't funny). I decided to give it a shot anyways but I felt the pacing of the anime was really really slow.

If it was something like K-ON and had anime production inside a school setting, maybe it would've been more interesting. It's unfortunate but I didn't enjoy it despite liking the VA's, the artwork, and the sound.

Just didn't tick for me.

Shirobako is the perfect anime for those who wants to learn about what happens behind the scene in an anime studio. It's the perfect "Slice of Studio Life" anime. It gives us a glimpse of the busy life of the Character Designers, Production Managers, Directors, Voice actors etc.

STORY:
The story is nicely paced and simple to understand. It wasn't boring but wasn't too interesting either. Everything were predictable. Some parts were boring such as at the beginning they talk about many studio things which normal audience wouldn't understand. One doesn't have to understand these to understand the main story anyway. There aren't any filler episodes. ... There aren't any recap episodes either. The story was told from the perspective of different charecters. Some jokes were funny and made me laugh. While watching this, I couldn't help but compare it to "Bakuman." which is a popular manga about the life of two mangakas. I hoped that, Shirobako would be as enjoable as Bakuman but instead it concentrated solely on the studio life.

ART:
The art style is realistic and the backgrounds are nicely done. It goes with the anime perfectly. Charecters are designed nicely too. Charecters' expressions were fun to watch. This is an anime about making anime. In this anime, we see two anime being made and both have different art styles. Iliked the art of those too.

SOUND:
Background music wasn't anything memorable. It was OK. It fits with the anime but it could be better. I didn't like the OP & ED that much. None of them are notable. Voice actors were fitting for the charecters they had potrayed.

CHARACTER:
Charecters are the best point of this anime. Though the PA Aoi was the main character, about 10 or more characters were under the spotlight. As the story was being told from different characters point of view, we can see all kinds of characters including voice actors, director, production manager and assistants, character designer, keyframe artist, CG artist, script writer etc. Through the characters, all types of jobs were explained nicely. There are so many characters that the anime displayed the character names at the beginning of every episode upto the midpoint of the season.

ENJOYMENT:
I don't think non-anime or manga fans would like this anime. Only those who are regular anime watchers and want to know more about the industry would love this one. Don't think I will rewatch it, cause there are nothing more to find out after watching it one time. I don't want to own this series. This anime was informative indeed but not so memorable.

If you want to learn more about anime, or more specifically learn how anime is made then Shirobako is surely an anime that will suit you. I will say this – it’s quite interesting and the set premise is something I’ve not encountered before. An interesting premise and a rather educational anime about the makings of anime.

I liked Shirobako for most part but unfortunately could not finish it. It is interesting to watch a group of friends struggle in the anime industry, trying their best to pursue their dreams and whatnot. During certain sequences I really felt the pressure put on our main heroine ... – Miyamori Aoi. She struggled with directing and helping everyone in the team whilst also being relatively new to her job. It’s a rather realistic take on employment and truly shows that not everything aligns with your dreams; there are hardships to face in any industry. Shirobako is a slice of life anime about a mundane 9-5 job with cute anime girls – that is Shirobako its purest form.

Even though I liked it I could unfortunately not bring myself to finish it. While the concept is quite refreshing, directing and pacing feel off. To give an example of this, in the first three episodes there are quite some issues that our animation studio is experiencing: things are not done, people are working overtime, someone has to put more effort than others and so forth. This was a realistic take and they even showed that our heroine was getting really tired from her job due to stress and not eating properly throughout the day.

Everything that follows after those three episodes gets quite boring as you’re not really in for the cute anime girls anymore, you’re more interested about the job and how it’s done – at least that was the case for me. There’s something really peculiar with the anime industry and how everything works there and this is why I think it’s more important to establish each character and their job first, and their attempts in the anime industry. Change perspectives, give each character a distinguishing trait aside from their job position in the industry. In all fairness, I believe Shirobako does attempt that. Despite that fact, having cute anime girls drinking beer is obviously more crucial than actually showing each character individually and giving them some screen time.

I don’t think I’m the target demographic for this show and I don’t believe I’d be able to finish it off, SoL’s consume a lot of time whilst giving bare minimum back. There may be witty comedy and something fun every now and then but generally speaking, SoL’s do take up a lot of time without providing sufficient amounts of entertainment back to the viewer. That’s my experience with it at least. If you like a group of friends, or more specifically, a group of cute anime girls working in the anime industry whilst also being cute and teaching you the ins and outs of the very industry we love, then this anime is definitely for you.

This anime will teach you quite a bit about how anime is made however the story isn't that great which is quite a problem for a slice of life anime leaving this show extremely boring.

This is a anime about making anime. If you want to learn more about what it is like working in the anime industry, you will find that here. Aside from that, there isn't much more I can say about this anime. Slice of life anime's live of of their story. If the story in a slice of life anime sucks than there is pretty much nothing left as it would be ... really hard to save it with art and music. The art and music in this anime are not bad, they are not anything special and are defiantly not good enough to save the show.