Shirobako’s back! and it’s a Miyamori episode! Wait…crap. Oh well. Maybe it won’t be that bad of an episode…. Well let’s see.
So the episode starts up and now that the episode is written it’s time to get to drawing the key animations. So Miyamori begins to ask everyone which cuts they can take and begin to doll them out.
However there’s an issue. Even after everyone takes up cuts, there’s still 20+ cuts that no one is doing so Miyamori has to go out and ask around for people to get some outside help. The only issue is, nobody’s available (hmmm…kind of reminds me of Animation Runner Kuromi 2).
Eventually she wants to go ask help from a guy at another studio, however, she sees one of the guys who works there and gets a flashback to when she applied for a job there and got intimidated.
The guy basically asks her why she wants to work in anime and flounders around. She blows the interview and gets depressed.
Cut forward to the present. Now it’s apparently come full circle and they need to hire people in her current anime company so they ask Miyamori if she’ll help with the interviews. They say it’s because she’s a “good judge of character”, but I say it’s for plot convenience.
Guy: boobies.
Miyamori: ah yes. boobies ARE awesome
After they go through a roster of people, she’s off again to look for more people unsuccessfully to draw the keys. Basically this scene (which is in the featured image) is a parody of “The Little Matchstick Girl” in which she looks in other anime company windows and find licensed characters which are um…blocked off as if they were hentai.
Meanwhile, back in the studio we find out that that blonde girl’s (in which I don’t know her name) father who was in the hospital ain’t doing so hot.
So they get the mohawk guy to drive her home because she shouldn’t be driving herself in her state.
To wrap up the episode, Miyamori has one more person she can talk to and it’s someone who works at their studio. As a last ditch effort she asks if there’s any animators he can introduce her to.
Luckily he’s at a mahjong game and one of the higher uppers says he’ll give her the address of the guy who headed up “Evangelion”. (Okay, the name of the show is “Neon Generation Avangaldon” But what the fuck do you THINK they’re parodying?)
He originally meant it as a joke but she takes it seriously and goes off to meet him. And that’s the end of the episode.
This episode was pretty good. I mean I really could have done without the Miyamori flashbacks and her continued “I don’t know what I want to do in my life” as if I care (I still don’t) and with the exception of a single short cameo from the animator girl, none of the other 3 girls made an appearance so it was basically an episode all about her. Oh boy.
Still though, some interesting plot points came up such as the girl and her father, and it looking like they won’t be able to find anyone to do the cuts in time. I mean, it isn’t as strong an episode as the previous 2, (especially with the Christmas shoehorned down our throats in this episode) but it was okay. It left me wanting more, so that’s always a good thing. Although, PLEASE GODDAMN IT. Can we PLEASE have another episode about the voice actor girl? PLEASE? I’m really excited and waiting for one of those. Oh well. Good things come I suppose. In the meantime I’ll just laugh at mohawk guy’s ridiculousness. I know I know, everyone, including the audience gives this guy shit. But I really AM interested in seeing this guy grow up and become a better character. I want by the end of the series for everyone to go “Know what? This guy is all right.”
All in all, good episode. Not great, but good. Albeit, I AM excited for next episode. So…good job I suppose.
Episode 6.5/10
-Hideki