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REVIEW: Mushi-Shi DVDs 3 and 4

Whoa, wait a second; how the hell is the animation only a "B+"?! Mushi-shi has the best animation that any anime television series has ever received.

These volumes spin eight more stand-alone tales in the same style as the first eight.

Well, I don't know about best ever. It's certainly beautiful. The overall art direction and the animation itself aren't one and the same.

Thinking back on it, I can agree with the B+ grade on animation. The artwork is quite gorgeous, but let's face it: still frames are still. Granted, they are very pretty still frames that work great for the atmosphere and the sedate mood of Mushishi, but that comes as a tradeoff for not being as dynamic as other more highly-rated series. (No, Mushishi is not composed solely of still frames, but there are many of them.)

OK, time to add my two cents to this love-fest, even though it's almost 3 in the morning and I have to work tomorrow. I have to get this all out now before I forget.

First of all, I have to say I'm very impressed with the over-all quality of both the production and the story of Mushi-Shi. I'm very, very stingy with my "Masterpiece" ratings (16 in almost 400 seen-all), but I could see Mushi-Shi easily joining the ranks of Arjuna and Mind Game by the time I'm done watching if it retains this level of quality. It's extremely well-executed in all aspects. For now, though, I want to give my thoughts strictly on the animation, since I suspect that's what you guys want to hear most from me.

These comments are for Episode One (I'm too tired to go any further than that tonight).

The animation quality this episode is superb. A bit of frame-by-frame on the remote control revealed that almost all of the character animation in Mushi-Shi is animated on twos, as opposed to the standard threes for most TV anime (for those unfamiliar with animation production, this means that at a rate of 24 fps, Mushi-Shi uses 12 drawings per second as opposed to 8, which results in a slightly fuller, more fluid look to the animation). The mushi themselves are animated on ones, the full 24 fps. This in itself gives the series a cinematic feel rather than a television feel, since you rarely see these types of frame rates outside the theater.

While I'm unfamiliar with the production studio Artland, they've made the wise decision of gathering a pool of very talented and notable freelance animators. The animation director (and a key animator as well) for this episode is an extremely respected and well-known sakuga animator named Yoshihiko Umakoshi, whose specialty is full body motions. His animation in this episode is much more subtle and low-key than you normally see from him (check out this sweet reel--a feast for the eyes--for mere a taste of what Umakoshi has animated), but his careful attention to the nuance of movement is still very apparent. He obviously excelled at keeping the drawings on model as well (the primary job of an AD). There's really no better choice for AD in animation like this, which relies primarily on character acting to carry its heart and emotion.

There's a very nice throwaway shot near the beginning, for instance, at about 3:25 or so, of Shinra clamoring to his feet and chasing after the flyaway mushi (I suspect this was keyed by Umakoshi himself but I'll need to do a bit of research first before I'm certain). Just the way the body moves and the cloth of the yukata falls in response to Shinra's movements is mind-blowingly accurate to life (but there's enough of the "animator's touch" there to tell it's not rotoscoped). It's little nuances like these, barely noticeable to the untrained eye, that raise the bar of production quality. Looking at the list of keyframe animators in the encyclopedia, it's a smorgasbord of talent. I can't wait to see what these talented people create in future episodes.

Animation quality: A well-deserved A

I just got the 4th DVD. The animation is pretty good but the is weird sometimes, like small glitches/fuzzines when viewing a forest scenery on hi-resolution (720P or 1080P). The B+ is a pretty accurate rating.

I feel as though that this is consistent with Theron's curve. I remember people recently complaining how Tokyo Majin got a C+ (Welcome to NHK also got a C+) for animation. On the other I can't think of a time when anyone has told him he has given a DVD a higher grade than it has deserved for animation.

I think reviewers consistency is important since you can judge titles relative to each other. With this in mind most of the titles that Theron has given an A- (only Noein comes to mind) to does have amazing animation compared to even Mushishi which gets a B+ much like Ergo Proxy.

darkhunter wrote:

I just got the 4th DVD. The animation is pretty good but the is weird sometimes, like small glitches/fuzzines when viewing a forest scenery on hi-resolution (720P or 1080P). The B+ is a pretty accurate rating.

It's not a source material issue. FUNimation is notorious for having problems with the video quality on their releases. Check out AoD or a few detailed posts/threads on here for more information on the history of that issue.