Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan

Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan is one of the strangest series I have ever covered, both in 2019 and in general. It's an interesting anthology anime where each episode can be divided up into 3 sections. The first is a 3-minute animated short. Each director is allowed to go in whatever stylistic direction they want and this results in most of the episodes taking a completely different visual approach from one another. The second and far longer section is a 20-minute interview with the episode director and the seiyuu of the main protagonist for said episode as they talk about the manga and the production of the episode. The last part is a showcase of an animator working on adding to one frame or storyboard that was given to them. In episode 1, you’ll see someone drawing on paper, but the episodes after that all have someone drawing on a tablet or working on the computer. This all results in a 26-minute episode that many did not seem to enjoy watching every week, which is probably a major factor in why its score is so low. Even I struggled with this one at first. Its appeal is niche for sure, but honesty, this is a title I appreciate.

The skits themselves do a decent job about establishing and expanding on Ekoda-chan as a character. Each skit tackles the various sides of her down to earth yet longing personality, the modest living situation she is in, and the kinds of hijinks and circumstances her wandering and often nude lifestyle puts her through. While she’s not a character I find especially compelling in some of the less interesting skits, she’s a very relatable and tangible person that’s easy to gravitate towards. These 3-minute shorts do a very good job at making her earnest and likable. Also, for some reason you don’t quite understand why she’s doing certain things like having sex with a guy who doesn’t care about her, the interviews are more than eager to highlight her personality and tell you why. Take that as you will. There isn’t any real narrative cohesion here, as it’s just a disconnected series of snapshots of the character’s life not told in any chronological order. Still, they do their job effectively at presenting our protagonist and that’s all that matters.

The few other characters present here come and go as they please and all really serve to highlight Ekoda-chan anyway, so there’s no need to discuss them here, at least until episode 8. This one episode gives us a snapshot of the life of M-san instead of our main protagonist who has basically taken up all the focus in this anthology. In just this one episode, she shows off this moody and frank personality that seems to have not only some kind of slight baggage with Ekoda-san, but a real friendship with her that is sold perfectly through their chemistry in the last minute of the episode. After episode 5 showed me how much fun the skits could be, I started getting on board with this show, and this served as the second major shake-up in the series that I was blown away by.

Audiovisually, the show is also very vibrant and charming. Not every style is very appealing to me, but most of them are vivid and pleasing to the eyes. The sheer number of ambitious styles allows for fun variety you won’t see anywhere else. For instance, episode 4 attempts to give the human body a sense of luminescence that the director admits would be far too intensive for a 22-minute TV series. Episode 7 makes use of photorealistic yarn in all sorts of creative and visually pleasing ways when combined with its art style. Episodes 1 and 2 might have a rough, crude art style, while episode 3 might imagine the entire cast as a bunch of animals. Industry veterans such as Ryousuke Takahashi (Flag, Gasaraki, Votoms) and Yoshimoto Yonetani (Shokugeki no Souma, Brigadoon, Tiger & Bunny movies) are given complete creative freedom with whatever styles they decide to explore, with episode 5, 7, 8, and 11 being my personal favorites in terms of both its visual art style and animation. We even get skits like that of episode 9 where we go into a first-person perspective. The sky’s the limit here! Not every skit will gel with everyone on a visual level, but it’s nonetheless impressive to see some of these skits and how very much unlike most anime they are. Ascension, Zero-G, and Creators in Pack were listed as the 3 studios involved with this production, and I have to give them credit given that these are practically no-name studios as far as the west is concerned.

The music is also rather relaxing. There are even some pieces in here that served as wonderful background music for when I was working on this review. The tracks that play during the interviews are in a set order for every episode and are nice pieces on their own, while the music that plays during a drawing showcase changes with each episode. The music for the drawing in episode 6 is probably my favorite in the entire show. Jun Abe and Mutou Seiji did a nice job with the music composition for this show. The myriad of ending themes don’t interest me so I won’t make any further comments on them.

It's a shame that the reception for this anime has been so dismal since frankly, this is one of the more ambitious and admirable titles of the year. I certainly respect this title more than I enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it has no entertainment value. The skits are vivid and varied, with some of the funnier and crazier ones being especially captivating. It's nice to see a cavalcade of directors and voice actors plant their own signature fingerprints on this show, discuss the source material, and comment on their experiences of how this all came together. On top of that, the show feels ever evolving, as the stylistic flourishes and risks taken become more ambitious over time. Episodes 5 and 8 were particularly stunning for me. By the time I was ⅔ into this show, I was wondering how the hell I went from trudging through the first 4 episodes to thoroughly enjoying almost every skit that came after and finding myself actively invested in the interviews. For its insights and what I got out of the more interesting skits, this show deserves more respect than it has gotten. If you're only here for the comedic or more slice of life type skits about a usually naked 24-year-old girl dealing with romantic issues, her wandering lifestyle, and whatever else gets thrown her way, then you might want to stick to those sections exclusively. However, if you care about animation on more than just a consumer level, Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan deserves your time and respect. I just wish someone more recognizable and knowledgeable than this amateur pseudo-critic would shine a light onto it despite how niche its appeal might be.

Also, seriously, how come AniDB is the only anime site that has the composers for this anime listed and even then, only if you look on the anime’s page and not the pages for either composer?

Written and edited by: CodeBlazeFate
Proofread by: Peregrine

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Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan is a nice short-form anime that is in an anthology format where each episode has a different director and voice actress for the main character. This type of format in my opinion, is a good fit for anime with a shorter duration and in Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan's case it certainly helps push it above a lot of other shorts that I've watched previously.
In terms of story, there is little to none given the nature of the show but by the end of the series I think the viewer can get a sense of how a narrative involving Ekoda-chan would play out, seeing that there were characters, topics and themes that would repeatedly appear throughout the skits.
As for the art, animation and sound, those are all down to the discretion of the directors and hence the perceived quality of these aspects may change from episode to episode. For me personally, it's always exciting for me to anticipate how each director would interpret the source material. Overall I think a good job was done with the art and sound.
Where there was a lot of variation with the art and sound, in terms of the character of Ekoda-chan herself, the essense of what composes that character remained more or less the same throughout the series. In this instance that's a positive since what's going on from skit to skit would vary it's nice that there is something for the audience to connect with in the form of the main character.
One thing that has to be mentioned is that although Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan is a short with a duration of 3 minutes, there is an interview portion that goes on for the remaining 20 minutes of the run time. That may be interesting or not to look at depending on the individual and it's something that I think could be skipped if it doesn't interest you.
Overall I think Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan was a decent watch although I don't know it's something I could easily recommend to someone to check out.

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Holy crap!! I can't believe how low this show is scored! I don't know what the overall bias is. I think it may be a youth bias, but people can certainly tell me if I'm wrong. As an older anime fan, I adored this, and also enjoyed the behind the scenes feature attached to each episode. If you just want shounen level animation for every show, then this definitely was not a show for you. Some people just want pretty things to look at, and that's a valid thing to look for in your entertainment. If you are looking for different experiences, watch this show. Give diverse work a chance!

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Okay. Firstly, I completely understand people who write off this anime as trash because it is basically just a 3 minute episodic short series with a bonus 20+ mins. of interviews with the director and seiyuu regarding the process of making their episode.

That being said, I actually enjoyed watching this show (currently still on episode 4) for 2 main reasons:

1. On it's own, I think the shorts are pretty hilarious and I immediately related with and empathized with Ekoda-chan as a character. (I think that may be in part because of the strength of the source material) Even though I am nothing like her, and disagree with her decisions, I can understand why she does what she does. She feels realistic, almost? (and like not to mention it's just so refreshing to see women portrayed like this in anime - confident and unapologetic but also sensitive and vulnerable - basically, human). And honestly I loved all the absurd little scenes and jokes and imagery. I love the fact that she's naked all the time! Like it's just this fun, absurd anime about a smart and eccentric but also flawed woman. I get that it's a bit off-putting because every episode has a whole different tone and feel and art style and everything can feel very disjointed and just not cohesive? But if you just take every episode and enjoy it for what it is, there's a lot that you can appreciate. Of course some episodes are going to be better adaptations of the manga - not all of them will be good. But I think it's worth it to see the really good ones (my favorites so far are episodes 2 and 4) that work really well and feel like a complete story in just 3 short minutes.

2. I personally find it interesting to hear about a director's process and vision when going about a particular episode and then watching their vision be realized. So, yeah I actually enjoyed the 20+ min. interview portion! We also get to hear from the voice actresses how they go about voicing their version of Ekoda-chan and I think it's really interesting to re-watch the final product with all these insights in mind. Although I will say it's disappointing that there are no women directors so far... I'm starting to lose hope that we'll see ever see a woman directing an episode. Which is really too bad, as I think Ekoda-chan is very... female perspective specific? like it's interesting to see how a man interprets this very female story and perspective... but I would have liked to see actual women (who can either relate to Ekoda-chan or not) make some episodes and also like bond with the voice actresses over shared experiences or something like that lol.

Tl;dr - I would recommend this series to anyone interested in the anime industry and behind the scenes stuff that goes into making anime OR if you like stories with a very unique, eccentric, but still really human main character + absurd humor + unique art + mature reflections on the nature of humanity(?) (pro tip: you dont have to watch the interview part if you don't wanna). The episodes are a little hit and miss (of course, since it's all done by different teams with different visions), but the episodes that do hit, are imo really good.

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