Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Traversing the Emotional Themes in Naoko Yamada's Works
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dm
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Did Yamada have anything to do with the Lucky Star opening, with that bit where the girls are chattering and all you see is them gathered together from the waist down?
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dmanatunga
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I was devastated when basically no theater near me was showing this movie. It was really weird given that I had tons of showings for Look Back and the A Silent Voice re-release.
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Beltane70
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According to the ANN encyclopedia entry for Lucky Star, Yutaka Yamamoto was the director of the opening animation. |
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BlueFutureGardens
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I was ecstatic to see that Yamada was hosted by both Criterion and Letterboxd, and within such a short span of time. Her picks were characteristically interesting, too; more homework for me. GKIDS even took her vinyl-hunting in addition, and she bought Damned Damned Damned by The Damned, which is exactly as many iterations of the word necessary to describe my surprise and enthusiasm (she's a fellow Buzzcocks and PIL fan, too). The last few months have been a great time to be a fan of Yamada; The Colors Within has been generating a fair bit of attention and it's exciting.
I admit to sharing the feelings stated in the article about wanting some kind of fan credit for having come up alongside the niche/anime-centric era of her career, but at the same time it's vindicating to see the perception of Yamada evolving from "anime director" to "film director". It's been clear for a long while now that her reach is broader than anime alone, and cinephiles beginning to embrace her as well is the just course of things. I look forward to her becoming the face of Japanese cinema altogether. I adore everything she's ever done and I strongly recommend both Tamako works if you haven't seen them. Tamako Market grew out of what was initially pitched as a third season of K-On!; nothing of that origin remains in terms of premise/setting/etc., but the atmosphere, themes, and style are very similar, so I imagine you'd find the same things to enjoy in Tamako Market as in K-On!. The show is uneven, however, and it has some pacing and character issues that K-On! did not have (this unfortunately includes the bird). If you get discouraged by that, Tamako Love Story can be enjoyed as a stand-alone work, and it's maybe my favorite of hers after Liz and the Blue Bird (I'm still calibrating The Colors Within). Aside from just being a masterpiece on its own, it's also what you might consider a bridge between K-On! and Euphonium, or even to A Silent Voice. I happen to share the snobby opinion that A Silent Voice is one of her lesser works - Liz, K-On!, Euphonium, Tamako, The Colors Within, and The Heike Story are all just so good there's hardly any room at the top. But all of my issues with A Silent Voice are story-related, and I consider it a huge improvement in that regard over the manga, which I have mixed feelings about; in terms of style, it's absolutely perfect. This is still a 10/10 favorite for me even if it's not quite as satisfying as the other 10/10, 11/10, and 26/10 favorites. As an aside, I don't believe the estimate of her age is accurate - 1984 is cited as her birth year in a few different places, but she joined Kyoto Animation in 2004 after attending a four-year university, so 24 seems unlikely. There are a couple of interviews floating around where she comments on having seen this information stated before and needing to correct it at some point (which she does not then do, but it's not crucial anyway). It is still true that she was one of KyoAni's youngest directors and her rise from in-betweener to (massively successful) series director in only four years is an incredible degree of advancement.
I'm always tempted to make the same association myself, because it seems so familiar, but it seems unlikely given that, as was pointed out, the OP was storyboarded by Yamakan. Yamada's role on Lucky Star was limited to key animation until the OVA, when she served as unit director. |
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