I find it hilarious that people can still be surprised by the versatility of Microsoft Word and it's graphic design capabilities.
Alternative Names: Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!, Hands off the Motion Pictures Club!
Score: 8/10, 5/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Job Shadow, Drama, Comedy, School Life
Availibility: Available on Crunchyroll, HBOMax
When you've been following and enjoying a certain form of media for as I've been a fan of anime, I've found that it's shockingly easy to forget the feeling that "someone made this." Especially when you've grown up on said media, you think about the characters, the story, and the general feel of the work more than the people who made all those things possible. Now, perhaps this is just my privileged disassociation making itself known, but I feel like too little attention is given to the people who make our media possible outside of those few auteurs who are given acclaim and renown along the same lines as American celebrities. Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, Hosoda Mamoru, and most recently Yuasa Masaaki all celebrate a great deal of fame and acclaim for the work they put into creating and leading the shows and movies we love. Under the umbrella of those names, though, we can be sure that there are dozens of talents and professionals who are no less important to the project--too many to ever give credit in a review--yet nothing has ever compelled me to think about those people and the important work they all do. From producers and animators (digital, key, and in-between) to sound designers and scriptwriters, all these roles and so many more are essential to the process of making anime. Yet, despite how many roles and people are involved, Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! (Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!) manages to draw attention and pay homage to their efforts--giving all the creative talents in those roles the recognition they deserve--forcing me to remember the simple fact that all the shows I've loved over the years came from the efforts of those same, countless individuals. Put more simply, this show is nothing short of a love letter to the people working in the anime industry.
Albeit one that oozes Yuasa's brand of quirky charm.
Of course, it would only make sense that Sumito Ōwara's (original writer), Yuasa Masaaki's (Director), and all the staff's love letter to the anime medium with that medium itself, instantly making it a more accurate reflection of Sumito's vision than his original manga. More than that simply using its ideal medium to effectively convey its ultimate goal, though, Eizouken is a series that succeeds in gets its point across as, from the top down, it focuses on showing, not telling. Let's take, for example, how the series opens and introduces us to the first of our three main characters, Asakusa Midori. Having just moved to town as a young child, we see a very young Asakusa relish the challenge of mapping out and exploring every inch of her new home--a town that is just as quirky and eccentric as our main cast--filled with housing units Tetris-ed into place over older streets, canals, and roads. As the young explores her new home, though, we can actively see her imagination running wild, like it often does for young children, as she sketches out everything she sees and thinks about what every obscure nook and disused cranny might have originally been. With this intro, we instantly see and understand how this young child's boundless curiosity and predisposition to creativity will eventually lay the groundwork for her future creative endeavors the same way that The Legend of Zelda creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, translated his childhood love of exploration into a beloved video game franchise. One key difference between the young Asakusa and the Representative Director of Nintendo, apart from the obvious age gap and years of experience, is that she has not yet found the spark that could turn her childhood hobby into a creative passion.
As it often does, though, that spark is struck from the most mundane and unassuming source possible.
In a scene many children know all too well, we see the exact moment when Asakusa's future as a designer and director went from being a mere possibility to something inevitable. Left home alone during a strong storm, Asakusa decides to spend the night as comfortably as she can. With the lights turned off and wrapped in a large blanket and a cup of cocoa, she settles in and turns on an equivalent to Netflix and starts to binge Future Boy Conan, a series headed by Hayao Miyazaki before he went on to create Studio Ghibli. Yet, rather than just sinking into her blanket and zoning out as the cartoon started to play as most kids do, Asakusa quickly finds herself captivated not by the story or characters but the weight and slow of the animation and the effort put into making the series' world feel realistic. It is in this moment, as we can visually see it happening, we hear the voice of an older Asakusa say that this was the moment she "realized that someone made the anime [she] watched." As important as this revelation might be for the establishment of Asakusa's character and where her life will eventually lead, it also serves as a poignant reminder that the same is true of this anime. Starting this series with the simple but necessary statement that this series was made by creatives like the characters we'll eventually grow to know and love instantly primes us to be more aware, appreciative, and critical of everything the show has to offer. It's a bold first step for a series to encourage the audience to be more aware and critical of a series as a product but it's one that makes perfect sense for a love letter to a medium.
After all, isn't love all about taking the good with the bad?
From this scene, we then fast forward a few years as we are introduced to an older Asakusa as she explores the options available to her at her new high school. Rather than the adventurous and bright-eyed kid we met at the start, though, this Asakusa has the awkward, cautious nature that social norms and self-awareness will often inflict on creative types as they grow older. Partly because she's afraid of interacting with people and partly because of her old habits, we meet this new Asakusa while she distantly observes her school club recruitment fair and sketches down how her classmates down below as they rush and flow through the waterfront campus. As intensely introverted as this scene makes her out to be, though, her distant act of creativity shows us that this older Asakusa still carries that same passion for anime we saw in her youth. Yet, in Asakusa's defense, it should also be said that she's not entirely alone on the roof overlooking the event. Joining her in her people-watching is the second member of our main trio and Asakusa's partner-in-crime /comrade, Kanamori Sayaka, whose nose for business opportunities is as strong as she is tall. Despite being hesitant to call each other "friends" and utterly lacking any shared interests, Kanamori's inserting herself into Asakusa's business and their easy-going banter quickly and effectively displays the fact that the two have known each other for a while and are more-or-less inseparable. From their banter, though, we also learn a couple of things that're meant to catch us up to speed. Namely, Asakusa has all but given up on actually making an anime and decided that she might as well join the school's "anime club" which is focused on anime appreciation, rather than creation, and just let her passion for worldbuilding and design remain nothing more than a hobby. This bout of melancholy is mainly born, she admits, from the understanding that she simply won't be able to make anything more than a very basic animated short on her own which she feels would just be a waste of time. Despite her resignation, though, she also doesn't want to submit her application to the anime club by herself and begs Kanamori to come with her to the club's screening as emotional support. Though she initially bemoans Asakusa's lack of ambition and annoyance at basically being the girl's chaperone, Kanamori readily relents to the unreasonable request--hoping she might be able to change Asakusa's mind before it's all a done deal.
Is it any wonder that people say Kanamori is "best girl?"
At this screening, Asakusa and Kanamori meet and we are introduced to the third member of our trio, Mizusaki Tsubame, as she breaks into the screening in what I can only describe as "the most Ghibli way possible"--fleeing from a pair of black-suited goons and begging our established characters to hide her. Within only a few moments of their meeting, Asakusa and Mizusaki instantly hit it off as they both start gushing over the finer details and animation present in the film the anime club is screening. As their gushing grows more and more animated, though, the trio is quickly spotted by the goons and agree to run away as a group so they can free Mizusaki from her handlers and keep their conversation going. Once free, the three girls decide to, quite literally, swap notes. In Asakusa's notebook full of sketches, we start to see the world as she imagines it--where every hidden nook is the doorway to a mythical world and every odd outcropping is a just a piece of some great, titanic mechanism. In Mizusaki's notebook, however, we see the other half to Asakusa's talent for worldbuilding. Instead of places and things, we see glimpses of the people that might use them. Character designs, technology, and a variety of studies in movement fill the pages, revealing the heart of someone with a passion for animation over storytelling. Then, in a spark of inspiration, Asakusa starts to layer pages of their notebooks over one another, showing both them and us how well their styles match. From there, the two start pairing yet more concepts and characters until they move on to full-blown collaboration and Asakusa takes a random sketch of a vehicle that Mizusaki drew on a whim and breathes life into in. With only a few additions, she fleshes out the vehicle a little more and the series suddenly transitions into a shared, imaginary world where the three of them build the vehicle and the world it inhabits in real-time. All the while, as more and more thought and detail goes into this minor exercise in collaboration, the art, animation, and sound quality all steadily increase until we, both characters and audience, get swept away on a brief but grand journey.
And this is just the show's first episode.
With its main characters and a general goal to make anime established, the series then proceeds at a pace and level of intrigue you'd expect of your basic club anime. Namely, each episode occupies itself with watching the girls mess around and slowly work toward a singular goal that will eventually be a part of their larger, series-spanning agenda. Then, in response to that established goal, the powers that be intervene or attempt to hold the girls accountable when they inevitably make a mistake or overstep their bounds. It's a song and dance that everyone should be well-acquainted with by now. What makes Eizouken stand apart from its genre peers, though, is how it weaves in yet more imaginative displays as the girls inevitably geek out at the littlest things and let their imaginations run wild. As simplistic as that established gimmick might sound, the introduction of this running gag does a great deal for the show as the group transitions from simply imagining into taking on commissions and actually creating. From simply bringing life to a random concept to visually hashing out how a "realistic" mecha might move and operate, this simple gimmick gradually turns into a surprisingly effective way to show us how the girls are steadily improving. More than that, though, it offers the audience a glimpse into the actual process of making anime. Starting with sketches and concepts, we watch them go through the steps of deciding where they want to go and what they want to do with those concepts before moving onward to animation and effects design.
Oddly enough, this process of "showing us how the sausage is made" steadily proves to be one of the series' running themes as more and more aspects of this show's typical school club aesthetic start to reflect various aspects of the anime world and the challenges creators face regularly. The show's primary antagonists, the school's student and teacher councils, are one such example of this. While similar groups exist and serve the same function in other series, the ones in Eizouken are more representative of a publisher's board of directors and legal team than an actual student council. Quashing any redundant projects, rogue elements, and anything that might damage the school's name or finances, the school councils also work to protect the interests of both their students and those of the school itself. For a school, such an authoritarian rule of government might be seen as extreme but it makes perfect sense when recognized as a reflection of the corporations that fund and publish anime. I've complained in the past, multiple times, how such corporations appear to be all too happy to ax a series prematurely or simply sit on a property until it dies and Asakusa and the team are all too willing to fall into that same trap of categorically labeling their antagonists as "evil." What Eizouken eventually acknowledges, however, is that, while these councils and the individuals that make them up are certainly a nuisance and an obstacle to creative expression, they're anything but evil. While their harsh and potentially cruel decision-making can feel unfair, the show also claims that they are trying to protect their students and exist as a kind of shelter where kids are free to make the mistakes that would ruin an adult. In other words, while a corporation might crush creative potential before it can even get off the ground it also works to protect their creatives from the public. After all, it's harder to harm or blame a cog in a machine or an individual employee of a massive company than it is a solitary individual whose actions and the consequences of those actions are entirely their own.
I might not be willing to change my own tune when it comes to the anime industry as a whole
but I'll be damned if Eizouken didn't convince me that they might be a necessary evil.
On a lighter note, this same process of showing how anime is made also makes itself known as we get to learn a little more about each of our main characters. Namely, through them, we catch glimpses of why someone might join the anime industry in the first place. Kanamori, the shrewd businesswoman and no-nonsense taskmaster of the group, is a shoo-in for the role of an Executive Producer. From scouting business deals, managing finances, and keeping the teams in charge of each facet of production on schedule, the producer of a studio more or less functions as the non-creative head of the project. On top of all that, the Producer is also in charge of making sure that the studio will make a profit on each of its projects. Due to her frank obsession with making bank, this last point feels more describes Kanamori's role to the group than all of her other duties as the de facto producer. Yet, while it describes her, this obsession with monetary gain can easily paint in a negative light, making it look like she's in on this project purely to satisfy her own greed and self-interest. This just isn't the case, though. As the series goes on, the show steadily teases and eventually reveals that Kanamori's obsession with monetary gain is fed by a philanthropic desire to keep her hometown alive. With the creation of an anime studio and her role as its Producer, Kanamori sees an opportunity to save struggling businesses and spearhead a community advocacy initiative. From partnering with local organizations to promoting struggling businesses, Kanamori's goals offer both a solid explanation for why she'd want to take on the role of a Producer despite her lack of interest in anime and an equally solid example of the good the anime industry can do for their and other towns, businesses, and people.
Of course, working toward this goal also means that Kanamori would earn considerably more social clout.
So, I don't know, maybe she really is just in it for the money?
The functional inverse to Kanamori's goals for the future, Mizusaki's character depth and her example of the good the anime industry can do can be seen in her past and everything that led her to take an interest in animation. Like Kanamori, though, Mizusaki is yet another example of a character who could be easily examined in an uncharitable and not entirely inaccurate light. Established early on as some kind of wunderkind, Mizusaki is an established and highly successful model, the daughter of Hollywood-class talents, and a talented animator on top of all that. In other words, she's introduced to the story as your basic, pampered and perfect rich girl. What's more, her talent and desire to make anime seem to come from a source of bratty teenage rebellion--a hobby she picked up only because mommy and daddy dearest told her not to--hence why her family's goon squad tried to force her our of the anime club's screening at the start. It's an all too familiar song and dance that instantly paints Mizusaki to be shallow, unreliable, and the last person you'd want to bring into a budding, passionate team of creatives. Yet, just as quickly as that interpretation of her character is established, the series makes every effort to show that Mizusaki is just as passionate and creatively inclined as Asakusa, whose love and dedication to their newly-formed studio are unassailable. Always pushing to challenge herself and improve her technique, Mizusaki actively tries to avoid taking any shortcuts that would limit her ability to do everything by hand--much to Kanamori's chagrin. Where this passion comes from, though, is revealed when we learn that she isn't pursuing animation in spite of her parents but, rather, because of the good it did for her grandma. Suffering from severe arthritis or some other debilitating illness, Mizusaki couldn't bear to see her lively and loving grandmother bedridden and suffering. Drawing the connection that her joints were causing her pain, Mizusaki blended her love of performative dance and art to study the human body and planned out a way the body could move without putting as much strain on the joints. Through this study, Mizusaki managed to turn the art of animation into an avenue for physical therapy and helped her grandmother get back on her feet. Having proved at a young age that her art could help or save people, it's no surprise that the naturally caring and dedicated Mizusaki would be set on becoming an animator.
Funny how our perspective of a character can change when we get the full picture.
If there's any real downside to this goal of showcasing the good anime can do, it'd simply be that Asakusa isn't given the same chance to shine and be the force for good that her companions are. Wanting nothing more than to make anime because it fascinated her as a child and set her already overactive imagination on fire, her reasons lack that same impact and feel much more selfish in comparison. Yet, as I've explained with each of the other characters, this uncharitable reading utterly misses the point of who Asakusa is and what her journey is meant to convey. Namely, her story is one of personal growth, empowerment, and the effects that growth can have on other people. Starting the series as a shy, insecure, and innately defeatist nobody, she is set to simply abandon her dream because she acknowledges that it'd be impossible for her to do all on her own. Once she makes a real connection with her fellow creative, Mizusaki, and is less-than-gently nudged forward by her time-tested friend, though, we watch as Asakusa steadily grows into the creative lead she was destined to be. Each time they manage to overcome a hurdle placed in their path, she grows just that much bolder. And with each project their studio completes, she feels a wave of validation as she sees other people experience that same feeling she had as a child while watching something she and her friends made. By the series end, we see an Asakusa who has grown strong enough to fight for the things she wants and, thanks to this newfound strength, she becomes a platform for others to make their dreams a reality. As her friends worked to lift her up, she lifts them and others like them up enough to pursue even more ambitious projects. More importantly, though, we see that she has grown into the same kind of passionate, creative person that made the anime she grew up on meaning that her works might just go on to inspire the next generation of directors, concept designers, animators.
Obviously, the next generation of Producers will just go wherever the money or their interests lead.
Now, with everything I've just said, I won't deny that it feels odd to state that one of the best things about Eizouken is that it manages to express everything I just discussed through the practice of "showing, not telling." Throughout the whole of Eizouken's story, we witness how each of the characters connect, with the story's larger themes, and how they grow as individuals and professionals. Rather than simply having a character go to bat for Mizusaki and Kanamori to explain why they're both such good girls, we are given little scenes here and there that steadily prove that point. The same can also be said of the school's near-tyrannical system of rule. While it'd easy to simply look at what the administration says and does and label them "evil" for getting in our characters' way, doing so would only mean that we missed the point. Through small moments and smaller, subtler movements, both we and the cast are given enough clues throughout the series to piece together the fact that these people might be more complex than the labels we lean into. This practice of showing and not telling is precisely why I think Eizouken works as well as it does. Where a light novel would only be able to tell and manga would try to strike the best balance it could, the anime adaptation relies on using art and animation to tell its story and show us why both it and its characters love the anime industry so strongly. That's why I call it the best "love letter" to the industry I've seen yet. It might not be perfect--the generally toothless drama and inconsistent levels of quality are enough to kill that possibility--but it was easily the most entertaining and compelling look into the industry I've seen yet.