Well last episode if you remember I was extremely disappointed as the voice actor girl did not get the role after 14 episodes of waiting. And I thought to myself, well, hopefully THIS episode we’ll learn that she got some kind of role. And of course she wasn’t in the episode. Because you know that would be too much to hope for. What do we get instead? We get a flat out CLASS of the number of meetings that anime makers have to go through. and when I say class, i don’t mean the usual episodes where they intersperse lessons with story, no, i mean flat out LESSONS. Here. let me explain.
The episode starts up with the anime company having a party for their anniversary and introducing a few new assistant to the mix.
“yep…yep sure is”
The rest of the episode is nothing but a list of different meetings that are explained by miyamori’s stuffed bear and doll. that’s literally all this episode is.
Production meeting? Explanation by doll and bear
Script reading?
Explanation by bear and doll
looking on site for references?
Doll and stuffed bear
and pretty much, that’s the entire episode. We’re 15 episodes in, and they’re giving us lectures on the meetings that take place in order to create anime.
Aside from mohawk guy showing the newbies the ropes, the only other interesting thing in this episode is at the way end we discover, despite the fact that they’re knee deep in production, the author wants to completely have the characters from the anime and they have start from square one.
I know i’m a little scatterbrained for this review, but I have to say, i’m extremely disappointed with this episode. While last episode was about stuff happening and i was just mad at the result, the follow up episode is nothing but a place holder.
One of the things i’ve really loved about this show up until now is how they manage to commingle the plot with the way that anime is produced. You learn things about the industry, but at the same time you are following a story. However, for this episode, it literally comes to a DEAD STOP as it just dumps info on you for the entire 20 + minutes.
They use the introduction of new production assistants as their reason for doing this, but that’s not good writing, that’s just lazy.
“Hey bob, we need to tell the audience about how there’s a lot of meetings.”
“that’s fine, throw in some new employees and have the bear and doll talk”
“aren’t we 15 episodes in?””Shut up bob”
All right. I’m going to say something that I KNOW people are going to disagree with, but what the hell, i’m a glutton for punishment. I do not think it’s funny, nor do I like it that this show keeps crapping on mohawk guy. Is he kind of annoying? Yes. Is he full of himself? Yes. But goddamn it. At least he’s ENTERTAINING. I want to see him learn and grow. And unlike Miyamori, I can actually stand to be around him.
To me, honestly, I do not care, nor want to see Miyamori anymore. At least Mohawk guy is entertaining. Miyamori is just…not. She’s bland, blah, and kind of whiny. If it were up to me, this guy would be the main character over Miyamori. Well okay, first the voice actor girl, THEN this guy. There’s a reason she was on my top 10 worst characters.
At its worst I at least could never say that this show was guilty of info dumping with no plot relevance, but this episode broke that streak. I have never been so disinterested in an episode of this show then I was this one. This sort of information has to be interspersed with plot and character development. Not just dumped on us. And this time, I have to say, Shirobako really dropped the ball.
However, I’m willing to chalk this one up to just a bad episode. I will say though, if you were ever thinking of skipping an episode, this is the perfect one. There is nothing here of value and nothing will be lost. I’m sure in a few weeks i’ll forget this episode even existed and will have to use the search feature on this website to simply remember what it was about. Because lord knows i’m not watching this episode again.
Ah well…maybe NEXT week will be better.
Episode 3/10
-Hideki