Besides instilling in me a newfound respect for how much time and effort goes into getting an anime from the studio to the screen, Shirobako is an astoundingly good show. Released by studio P.A.Works in the fall of 2014, it’s easily one of the best animes I’ve seen and one of the few I would label a “must-watch.” While Shirobako isn’t perfect, whatever issues it has are minor and easily outweighed by the sheer amount “win” contained in its 24 episodes and two entertaining OVAs (which I’ll touch on in greater detail below).
Be warned: Shirobako has an enormous cast. The size of the ensemble can be daunting for first-time viewers, making Shirobako a somewhat difficult show to get into. The first two episodes throw a lot of characters and information at the viewer, and it’s not until episode 3 that the pace slows down and the show settles into a more “manageable” groove. Each time a new character is introduced, the show helpfully provides a caption listing his or her name and occupation; however, trying to keep track of these captions while also following along with the dialogue subtitles can quickly get overwhelming. Shirobako does not have (and likely will not receive) an English dub, so if you’re not a fan of reading this might not be the show for you (indeed, I found myself pausing so much that it felt like I was watching the Monogatari series).
To mitigate some of these issues, Shirobako smartly focuses the story on five female friends who, as former members of their high school’s Anime Club, are all pursuing different careers in the anime industry (with varying degrees of success). These friends include the doughnut-obsessed Aoi (producer), the adorable Ema (2D animator), the resilient Shizuka (voice actor), the dissatisfied Misa (3D animator), and the perky Midori (writer). These characters give the story a sense of direction: viewers can sympathize with their struggles while rooting for them to achieve their dreams. My two minor complaints would be that Misa doesn’t get as much development as the other characters and Shizuka seems to disappear during the show’s second half; however, the first complaint is a nitpick and the second complaint is resolved by episode 23, which features the most moving scene in any TV show or film that I’ve watched (just thinking about this scene while I’m writing about it is making me tear up).
In addition to these five main characters, the overarching plot of Shirobako is relatively straightforward. The show is primarily centered on the inner workings of Musashino Animation, a fictional, down-on-its-luck anime studio looking to recapture some of its former glory. Shirobako, which unfolds over the course of about two years, depicts in loving detail the various trials and tribulations endured by Musashino’s staff as they work together to produce two anime series, Exodus! (about a trio of washed-up idols framed for murder) and The Third Aerial Girls Squad (about a squadron of female fighter pilots seeking to avert an alien invasion). As I mentioned earlier, Shirobako has two OVAs, which are in fact the “pilot” episodes for these two shows-within-a-show. While there are clips of Exodus! and Aerial Girls scattered throughout Shirobako itself, having a chance to see actual, full-length episodes of them is immensely satisfying, and I give major props to P.A.Works for going the extra mile to animate them in their entirety. It’s little things like this—along with providing the full OP for Aoi’s favorite show growing up, Andes Chucky—that convince me Shirobako is in a class by itself with respect to its attention to detail.
Shirobako also contains a ton of references to real-life animators and anime studios, and several of the snafus suffered by Musashino’s production team are based on well-known (and rather infamous) events in anime history. Most of these references went over my head, though I remember one episode featured a Hideaki Anno look-alike discussing his anime “Neon Generation Avangaldon.” Still, these references added to the show’s realism and tied in to the show’s ambition to provide a comprehensive record of anime as both a medium and a business. In addition, some of the references piqued my curiosity so much that I went ahead and researched them on my own, making Shirobako the gift that truly keeps on giving.
There’s a lot more I could write about Shirobako but, to sum up, it’s a magical show. To award it a 10/10 almost doesn’t seem like enough. While it can get confusing at times to keep track of all the characters and plot threads, the show never loses sight of its end-goal and manages to juggle all its competing elements with amazing aplomb. Furthermore, the myriad intricacies and nuances in Shirobako give it a high rewatch value, and I for one look forward to revisiting this series many times in the future.
