Studio: P.A. Works
Director: Mizushima Tsutomu (Girls und Panzer, Kobato)
Writer: Yokote Michiko (Valkyria Chronicles, Kobato)
Main Cast:
Kimura Juri as Miyamori Aoi
Oowada Hitomi as Imai Midori
Chisuga Haruka as Sakaki Shizuka
Takano Asami as Toudou Misa
Yoshimura Haruka as Yasuhara Ema
Animation: Sekiguchi Kanami (Hanasaku Iroha, Canaan)
Music: Hamaguchi Shiro (Girls und Panzer, Hanasaku Iroha)
If there were some sort of industry award for anime, like the Oscars or the Emmys, Shirobako would be seen as bait. Because nothing gets an bunch of industry people riled up like a show that makes them into the heroes. And that’s exactly what Shirobako is, an anime about making anime. The story is centered around a studio that is producing a idol-magical girl series called Exodus. For anime fans, it is a chance to look behind the scenes and see how the sausage is made. I have to say though, that it is almost certainly a highly sanitized version of how an anime is produced, I think it gets reasonably close to that showing the process.
I say that it is sanitized because there are some remarkably unrealistic things in this show, like an animator able to live on her own. That ain’t happening with the kind of salaries they pull down. But, what Shirobako does do is portray is the feeling of controlled chaos that is probably accurate for the average anime production. Anyone who has ever been in a group production, be it a student project or a local play, can relate to the characters on the production team. There are dozens of steps that have to happen, in a specific order, for an episode to be successfully produced. The same person can be working on multiple episodes, all in different stages of production. They are relying on different people to get every detail perfect, and it can all get blown up at the request of the director. Because of all that is going on, the show moves at a rapid pace, and as it goes along it is difficult not to get swept up in everything and root for the team to finish their episode, no matter what obstacles come up. And since that’s one of the main goals of Shirobako, I count that as a major plus.
As for the people that make up that team, there isn’t a lot of time to explore them as people. The cast is huge, and they spend so much time rushing around and spouting off animation jargon that there is barely any time to breathe. And yet, the personalities of the staff are strong enough that I can get a feel for them by watching them work. I can tell how serious and passionate they are, but I can also sense who they enjoy working with and who annoys them. In short, while I don’t know any characters on a deep basis, I have a basic understanding of them. Which is pretty much how I feel about the majority of my co-workers back in the real world. There is a main character, Miyamori Aoi, a female production assistant whose work is the center of the show. She has a group of friends she went to high school and formed an animation club with, where they produced their own short anime work. But, because of her busy job, she doesn’t get to see them very much. Aoi is easy to root for and fun to watch, especially when she is about to snap under pressure and the plushies she keeps at her desk start talking to her. And this works to set up her triumph when she battles back and overcomes the obstacles in her way to get her episode completed.
If my last article was about the best show of the season, Shirobako is the biggest surprise of this season and an easy pass. It is a show that would be easy to screw up, but thankfully it wasn’t. While I enjoy the frantic pace the show has set thus far, I’m hoping it slows down for a bit soon. It would be easy for the show to burn itself out if it keeps up that pace and I would like to get to know some of the characters at some point. It is one thing to root for them as a team of people who I see working their asses off to finish a job, but I want to root for them as people as well. And if that’s my biggest complaint thus far, then the show is doing a just fine.