Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na!

Midori Asakusa sees the world a bit differently. Always having her nose in a sketchbook, Asakusa draws detailed landscapes and backgrounds of both the world around her and the one within her boundless imagination. Even the simple act of doodling on a wall evolves into an emergency repair on the outer hull of her spaceship. She is only brought back to reality by her best friend Sayaka Kanamori. The pair are stark opposites, with Asakusa's childlike wonder contrasted by Kanamori's calculated approach to life.

After a chance encounter where the two "save" the young model Tsubame Misuzaki from her overprotective bodyguard, a connection instantly sparks between Asakusa and Misuzaki, as both share an intense passion for art and animation. Whereas Asakusa is interested in backgrounds and settings, Misuzaki loves drawing the human form. Sensing a money-making opportunity, Kanamori suggests that they start an animation club, which they disguise as a motion picture club since the school already has an anime club. Thus begins the trio's journey of producing animation that will awe the world.

From the brilliant mind of Masaaki Yuasa, Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu na! is a love letter to animation, wildly creative in its approach, and a testament to the potential of the medium.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kanamori, Sayaka Main

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Asakusa, Midori Main

Itou, Sairi Japanese

Mizusaki, Tsubame Main

Matsuoka, Misato Japanese

Doumeki Supporting

Hanamori, Yumiri Japanese

Sakaki, Sowande Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Fujimoto-sensei Supporting

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Kubo Supporting

Murase, Michiyo Japanese

Okamoto Supporting

Takagi, Reiko Japanese

Kobayashi Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Dotonbori, Tooru Supporting

Kawasho, Miyuki Japanese

Choi, Eun-Young Producer

Tsuruoka, Shinya Producer

Okamoto, Junya Producer

Yuasa, Masaaki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Planning, Series Composition

Reviews

Mar 22, 2020

Stark700

Recommended

Being an anime fan, the question of how animation is made is probably one I’m sure most people have asked themselves before. Before Eizouken debuted on TV, we have to remember that creating anime isn’t an easy task. It takes an immense level of commitment, passion, and expertise to make what we see on the screen. It’s not a program that follows a specific code as every anime is different, in shape, in form, and in seeking its ways to entertain the audience.

Masaaki Yuasa is no stranger when it comes animating and storyboarding in his past projects. With decades of experience, he’s been progressively adapting ... and evolving his techniques in the field of animation. From unique sports show Ping Pong: The Animation to the wildly space odyssey of Space Dandy, he’s here to show the world once again that animation has an unlimited realm of imagination. Starting off, we meet Midori Asakusa, a girl who is fascinated by how animation is made. It doesn’t take long for her to form a trio with Sayaka Kanamori and Tsubame Mizusaki, two high school students with similar interests. As a club together, they are united under the passion of making anime, a dream they hope to share with others.

Despite the realistic idea of making anime, this show follows more of an artistic adventures together as the Eizouken Club. But know this, we are also introduced about the fundamentals of the anime industry. It’s something similar compared to P.A. Works’ Shirobako. However, Eizouken has enough confidence to be its own show. With our trio of and the right hands, they embark this journey to not just make anime but also learn about what it really takes to be an animator. It’s like following a boyhood dream together and see how far their journey takes them. Interestingly, the show’s setting offers a technological advanced setting, one that is believable but also not too farfetched to be unrealistic. What this means is the series can open many opportunities for the trio to experiment with whatever ideas they come up with. But for starters, we have to understand what making anime is not easy. It is a tedious job that takes expertise in the field, dedicated minds to create something unique, and knowing when mistakes are made. They’re humans after all and learning from mistakes is important so they can rise above them. The group makes mistakes early by setting expectations far beyond their standards. This creates tension in the club to the point where one of its members feels they may not be good enough. Plus, let’s not forget that making animation demands meeting timely deadlines so there’s no doubt the club runs into crunch time issues. Luckily, the club has support between themselves and this is thanks to Kanamori’s ability to compromise and create an environment where they can express ideas freely. And that’s the beauty of this show. It chooses to be free by using ideas of various genres and expressing them. Then, these ideas are created to become an anime project to showcase the world to see.

But like most animation projects, the group faces challenges that they must overcome together. These include budget funding and securing the resources they need to make their dreams come true. And sometimes, the trio realizes their club needs more help than they realize. For instance, making an animated work isn’t enough if they can’t promote themselves. Marketing is a new field that the group wasn’t equipped to handle given their lack of experience. Luckily, they receive help from the school’s secretary. Later in the show, Eiozuken is also joined by Parker Doumeki, a girl interested in their audio files but takes a role to help their sound department. Together, this club grows more and more as we witness their transformation from a dream to a reality.

Another important part of what makes this show special also refined to the close relationship between our three main leads. They start off as friends but by the end of this show, the trio looks more like a family. At the same time, each individual member has their own skills that are imperative for the club to succeed. This includes Kanamori’s business knowledge and negotiating, Asakusa’s talent for drawing, and Mizusaki’s skill of planning and observing. When you put these skills together, there’s immense potential to succeed with the right hands and tools. However, it’s also not to say to say that the trio does want to get some fame and fortune. A running gag in the show involves Kanamori’s love for money and hopes to make maximum profit. Other running gags in the show deals with how the trio runs into trouble with the law. If we talk about realism, this show sometimes negates that element as the problems the club runs into could’ve easily resulted in its destruction. But let’s get too far ahead of ourselves. This anime is designed to showcase the love of a club to fulfill their dreams rather than just showing the consequences of the anime industry. I’m sure the more fans watch this show, the more they’ll come to that realization.

Like some of Yuasa’s other works, he likes to experiment and adapt this free style of animation. In this particular anime, we get simple character designs and animation that can be deceptively complex. This is easily told through the storytelling and brainstormed ideas from our main leads. In some segments, the animation tosses common logic out the window and transcends into daydreams. The audience will notice this by the stylish art shifts and occasional picture frames that seems out of reality. It’s one of the positive perks about this show as it allows art to be experimented beyond its usual structure. So bravo once again to Yuasa for gracing us with his brilliant designs. Speaking of designs, the main character cast are distinctive such as Midori’s short height, Mizusaki’s fiery hair, or Kanamori’s buck teeth. It’s also noticeable the producers gave each of them the school type look to show that they are in a stage of growing up. Being at school means to learn and together as a club, Eizouken is eager to show their potential. Finally, I really want to give props to the unique animation of the OP song. It’s something you don’t see often inspired by pop culture but translated into anime medium.

I’m going to miss the weekends. I really am knowing that this show is over after gracing us with its fabulousness. When watching anime, you don’t often think too much about how it came together but every episode in this show convinced me a different story. And with 12 episodes, this is a type of anime that is inspirational as I’m sure there’s a little bit of Midori Asakusa inside all of us.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 14, 2020

ChrissyKay

Mixed Feelings

It feels wrong to swing the hammer at a show made by Masaki Yuasa. Everything the distinctive director has been responsible I've enjoyed immensely, and even his messier works like Kaiba and Kemonozume were full of heart and punch.

Eizouken was different though. I had to drag myself to the finish line on this one, forcing myself through the final few episodes. It really shouldn't have been this way. Every PIECE of Eizouken is incredible: the animation is distinctive and evocative, switching styles with a grace that demonstrates great understanding of the medium. The central trio all have powerful, unique personalities not often found in anime--Asakusa, ... the imaginative gremiln, Kanamori, the stern pillar of willpower with a love for money, and Mizusaki, the bubbly, popular idol who really just wants to make anime. Their dialogue is well-written, their various strengths and weaknesses well-defined. And if you look at Eizouken at a glance, the story is completely functional, following our artistic trio as they embark on their maiden attempt to create their own anime. It's an informative and passionate tale of the many challenges faced by budding creators, and a lot of the specific aspects that go into making an anime.

So what's the issue, you ask? Well, at first I wasn't sure. All I knew is that by the time I got about halfway through I was bored. Even though the quality of the show hadn't dipped, my interest had plummeted. After thinking about it a bit though, I noticed a pattern that hung through to the finale.

Every conflict in this show has an immediate, easy resolution.

There's no tension! The show throws a non-stop barrage of problems at our protagonists, but they shrug off every single one after a minute of deliberation. Eizouken sometimes starts an episode with the group being presented with a conflict: a lack of funds, a story idea that hasn't come together, censorship from the student council, whatever it may be. Then, Asakusa will go on a walk, or see something neat, have an idea, and that idea will fix the problem. Queue fifteen minutes of the main characters going to the baths, or wandering around looking at the town. Look, I have no problem with slice-of-life stuff, but even this show's fucking title is aggressive: Keep Your Hands of Eizouken, a bold challenge towards anyone who would meddle with our trio's project. I can only assume this title is supposed to be about the student council, who consistently attempt to stand in our protagonist's paths, but rather than building towards any sort of meaningful conflict where the practical nature of the administration clashes with the creative-driven soul of Asakusa and Mizusaki, the student council functions more like the show's Team Rocket, popping in to stir things up and then easily being bested, often off-screen.

All throughout the show Eizouken provides signs that it wants to be about creative perseverance, not simple, easy living. The show brings up the financial viability of anime, the social taboos of being implicated in creating it, the restrictions imposed on the mobility of minors, the struggle of working for a deadline, and more. But rather than delve into these roadblocks the show seems content to wave them aside with ease. None of our main characters are forced to really grapple with anything difficult. Everything they do takes two sped-through tries, if not one. Asakusa is supposed to be lazy and easily distracted, a fatal flaw for the director of a production, but everything gets done on time anyways and she's never forced to face it. Mizusaki initially worries about how to not disappoint her high-society profile while working on anime, but then everyone just immediately accepts it and she moves on without having to make any difficult choices. Kanamori resolves financial problems by waving her hands. Where are the sparks? Where are the moments where the characters fail and face consequences, or have to take a real step back to dig deep and do some growth? We keep getting told that the club is always on the verge of being shut down, but they continue to do whatever they want and nothing comes of it. It's an ethereal threat, just like the rest of the threats in the show, one that has no weight, and as the show goes on and the audience starts to realize that none of the so-called conflicts have any bite behind them and the show gets boring. This is the A-grade Yuasa show equivalent of a maxed-out shonen hero who always wins easily.

I could see an argument that the merits of this show outshine any issues with lacking tension: after all, it's a show about making anime first and foremost. But the fact that a show about the conflict of creation lacked any actual tension feels pretty damning to me, and the fact that it was straight-up a chore to watch by the end when it should have been magical and addicting... well, I can't really overlook that. I love Yuasa and even in this project you can see many of his countless strengths exemplified, but for Eizouken in particular...

I guess it was just too goddamn Easy Breezy after all.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 22, 2020

ExemplarCayman

Not Recommended

I really wanted to love this show, it’s just there is nothing to love, because there is nothing, period. It is entirely devoid of substance.

The series is a monster-of-the-week about three aspiring anime creators, the “monster” being them imagining their various everyday happenstances as fantastical animated dream sequences. There is some glimpse of a plot about their anime-making school club, but that’s not the point, the point is a love letter to the medium, celebrating the creative power of animation. These imaginative scenarios are indeed creative and pleasant to look at. You know what else is creative and pleasant to look at? Actual anime, where ... cool pictures have context and substance behind them. The very first episode of the show illustrates it already: it includes an entire meticulously recreated by hand sequence from Future Boy Conan, complete with the characters being awestruck by how cool it is. Ok, Future Boy Conan is cool, so why don’t I just watch Future Boy Conan? What’s the point of watching a fictional equivalent of a youtube reaction video? Recreating a scene from an old anime without adding anything transformative to it isn’t an artistic achievement, it’s just copy pasting. It’s a rather unorthodox case of failing the “show, don’t tell” principle - the show tries so hard to tell you how cool anime as a medium is, it fails to be an actual anime that is cool by itself. It also tries too hard to be artsy, coming off as artificial, insincere, and pretentious, because the “artsiness” is not supposed to be deliberately constructed. Just listen to Yuasa talking about how they’ve made the main girls ugly on purpose, “to subvert the moeblob trend” - nevermind that one of the girls is supposed to be a photo model - it just reeks of pretentiousness.

And outside of the “I fucking love anime” the series offers nothing. The plot is an excuse for the sakuga moments and the main trio are one-note plot devices devoid of any actual character. There is nothing to care about, empathize with, or be invested into. Nothing to look forward to either, if you’ve seen the first episode, you’ve seen the entire show. There is Yuasa’s art and direction, but again - there is plenty of actual anime also directed by Yuasa, where stuff happens and things matter. The informational tidbits about the technical aspects of the animation process are theme-park level, you’d be better off watching Shirobako for that (and by “that” I mean wanking over how educated you are because you watched a cartoon, someone who genuinely wanted to learn about the real life process of creating animation should watch documentaries). Even the imagination sequences quickly get repetitive and boring because there is only so much fun in watching substanceless moving pictures.
This is not the worst show in the universe, and it’s not like it does something monumentally awful. It’s just there are hundreds of better shows that are more deserving of your time being invested into them.

4/10 for “don’t watch anime reaction videos, watch actual anime.”

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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