Our story follows Aoi Miyamori, a new production assistant at the fictional Musashino Animation. Along for the ride are her four former animation club classmates – Ema, Shizuka, Misa and Midori – all either successfully in or attempting to break into the anime industry. Each of the five carry their own hopes and dreams though reality tends to stand in the way of them.
The show doesn’t take its time dishing out the drama revolving around the five characters, keeping the issues rolling in on a frequent basis. People are sick. People slack off. Above all, people make mistakes. As a viewer, I was constantly on edge. It didn’t take me long at all to build affection for this motley crew of anime workers. I badly wanted them to succeed and was riding on every little piece of drama.
Every problem in the show, no matter how big or small, feels like it has a huge bearing on proceedings. Whatever happens never affects one person, it starts a domino effect across the office, and sometimes it can even reshape the entire final product. On top of this there’s plenty of complexity to something as seemingly simple as a show set predominantly in an office. While our story follows Aoi in her role, there’s plenty of things always happening around her outside of her control. Musashino Animation actually feels alive.
It’s impossible to talk about Shirobako without mentioning its sizeable cast of characters and its impressive feat of making none of them feel like a waste of space. There’s the gluttonous yet nerve-wracked director Seiichi, the confident and obnoxious Taro, the no-nonsense Yutaka and the calm-headed, goth-clothing-clad Ogasawara to name a few. And I mean just a few. What P.A. Works have done is created a slew of side-stories utilising these characters yet somehow managed to not let that drag down the core story. All characters steer well clear of any negative and overused tropes. These are some of the most well written characters I’ve seen in almost any form of animation.
The show loves bringing up common public anime-related debates and casting them into the spotlight. The most notable of these is the issue of hand-drawn animation vs computer-generated imagery. Sometimes the pace is dialled back a touch when Shirobako chooses to take a look at these ideas to explore them in good detail. Characters bicker about, yet gain an appreciation for, each other’s methods. It tell us plenty of interesting little tales: Choosing the right voice actor means trying to meet a lot of different demands, a key animation retake can be more crippling than you’d think and a communication breakdown can have devastating effects. There’s a truckload of commentary on the medium and also a handful of lovely throwbacks to some of anime’s most influential shows and people.
Art-wise the show filled to the brim with a lovely selection of backgrounds and attention to detail – nothing we should be surprised about at all when it comes to P.A. Works. It’s even the small details that sometimes go unnoticed, like characters actually wearing a variety of clothing, that breathe life into a show and those within it. They go a long way to showcasing each of their separate personalities.
I feel it’s important to approach Shirobako with the right mindset and knowing what sort of depiction of the industry you can expect. You shouldn’t go into the show expecting a hyper-realistic look at topics like financial and/or social life problems that can easily affect workers in the real world. The show instead chooses to focus on the production hurdles, not the lifestyle ones, and I have no qualms about that. I’ve seen some rather hilarious criticism over some scenes which have intentionally been crafted by P.A. Works as over-the-top moments. Had the show still included these scenes yet gone for the aforementioned broader (and perhaps darker) depiction of the industry then they certainly would have felt more out of place. Shirobako tells us from the opening moments the tone it’s going for – a lighter-hearted and humorous one – so don’t take everything you see as gospel when it comes to the production process. The show maintains a level of silliness at times and it’s better off for it.
This polished work had me going on all ends of the emotional spectrum. Characters mad me mad and moments made me overjoyed. This is a special show and one that should be put on a pedestal in people’s ‘recommended anime’ list. It’s one of those shows I wish I could wipe the mind clear of just to experience it for the first time once again. Congratulations P.A. Works. You turned a show about making anime into one of my most treasured anime.
