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Most Aesthetically Daring Tournament: Nominations (ABOUT TO START)

Nominating: Bobby’s In Deep

This is a 45 minute OVA from 1985, and much of it is done in a pretty conventional style of that time period, but it has some segments of pastel watercolor stills and intentionally low-framerate live action with an odd effect filter. These moments are interesting and noteworthy, but the OVA only really goes all out toward the end:

In the final 5 minutes, there are extended cuts from the first person perspective of Bobby on his motorcycle as he drives along the road, flying past his surroundings at breakneck speed. Animation from a first person perspective is not very common in anime, and almost completely unheard of elsewhere. Bobby’s In Deep pushes this to its limit by having extremely long uninterrupted cuts of this, the longest clocking in at a whopping half minute. In these sequences, the trees warp and bend surrealistically as they speed by, road signs and buildings come at us in space, and telephone wires zigzag across the road overhead. The perspective and parallax are incredibly well observed, the whole thing ringing true and familiar to anyone who’s driven down the road, but everything is impressionistically warped with speed. We also see reflections of the glaring sun in the scratches on Bobby’s helmet, and during the sequence, we see through his eyes as he looks up at the glimmering lines and crosses that seem to be suspended in the air, all while the scenery continues to move toward us. It’s really something incredible to behold.

Towards the end of this sequence, the medium changes from painted cels to charcoal drawings, and everything takes on a much more raw appearance, the trees flickering with their dark shading.

Here’s the scene

Nominating: Yozakura Quartet :Hana no Uta / Hoshi no Umi

What distinguishes Yozakura Quartet, especially in this day and age, is its masterful display of varied, well composed, extremely kinetic drawn animation cuts. Objects that collide convey that they have mass and momentum, explosions and bursts of energy are violent and forceful, and any fluid that flows does so with an accurate representation of its mass flow rate, erosion rate, and differential path through objects and space. In this sense, a supernatural clash of ability can feel truly epic. Titans shake the earth, objects of all shapes and sizes are brought into existence with varying momentum and properties, and even smaller humanoid characters display their impressive strength through martial arts and staff fighting, delivering impulses that clearly contend with the opposing forces. The storyboarding and shot composition for these scenes enhances the effect of the motion, allowing for fluid transitions between scenes and camera cuts which always give a clear indication of what’s going on and where the characters and structures are in relation to each other. While other productions which share animators with it have dabbled in its unique style, Yozakura Quartet is fully immersed, from its spectacular action scenes to low key motions like walking or hair tossing.

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Well, this certainly wasn't the kind of tournament I wanted next. I'm honestly not too big on artsy fartsy stuff. It just has to look good, not unique.

I'm predicting Flowers of Evil and any given SHAFT show are going to dominate this.

^
Well, they have to be nominated first, so get crackin'. I can only nominate so much on my own.

I hope that specific moments or episodes withing TV shows are allowed for the entry.

Nominating

Noein ~to your other self~

Noein, a past tourney nominee for other things, is a 2005 series by Satelight involving other dimensions and potential space-time annihilation.

While the character designs are already a bit strange, things tend to go really weird during fight scenes, with a stronger focus on movement than characters being on model at all times. This is clearly done as a deliberate move, however, and this style of fight scene starts at episode 1.
Another time of interesting animation happens whenever time freezes around our main character, Haruka. The background goes red and things tend to float around her. People will be frozen, but she alone can move in this oddly colored world. It generally wears off after a few in-series minutes, but it's cool while it lasts.

Fight scene example
Time freeze

And I am predicting that you're going to be wrong, because SHAFT and FoE are far from the only daring-looking series out there; in fact, the only SHAFT series I really think are worth nominating are Bakemonogatari and PMMM. (The rest of the Monogatari franchise are just copycats of the original.) They have some very potent and popular competition, some of which I will nominate on Sunday if no one else does before then. (I am away at a gaming 'con for the next few days.)