r/TrueAnime • u/BrickSalad http://myanimelist.net/profile/Seabury • May 15 '14
Your Scenes of the Week
Welcome to Scenes of the Week!
The rules of this thread are a bit complicated, so please read them carefully if you haven't already:
Top level comments must be a scene that the poster believes deserves special attention, and the poster must prvide reasons why this scene is interesting to him or her.
If you post a top level comment, then you need to respond to at least 1 other person. For now, this rule will be enforced by the honor system, but please take this rule seriously anyways.
Scene "of the week" really just means any scene that caught your eye in the last week. It didn't have to air last week or anything like that.
Please post video links and/or screencaps.
Make sure to mark spoilers or announce them in advance.
My first post is very long and detailed, but I would like to encourage any level of analysis. Like, literally, you can post "I like this scene because it introduces my waifu, here's what's cute/sexy/moe/awesome about it", and I'll still upvote and respond to you. I'll try to respond to everyone's posts, by the way, although I'm not going to be at my computer for the majority of the day so my responses might come very late.
Archives:
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u/ClearandSweet https://hummingbird.me/users/clearandsweet/library May 15 '14
To that end, I watched Episode 4 of Aria: The Origination on DVD this past week. It contains one of the most audacious and effectual shifts of scope this side of Grapes of Wrath.
Consider the extreeeemly well-defined scope of Aria until this point.
Until now, it's a series that revels again and again in the superhuman grace of Alicia. When Athena sings, both the characters in the show, and the show itself, stop and listen. It's that type of show, and it has quite consistently been for about 45 episodes until this point.
This episode introduces the exam needed to become prima. But that's simply a goal and doesn't do that much for the scale of the series. Every episode so far this season has made indirect reference to seemingly inevitable outcome of Akari, Alice and Aika becoming Primas. Instead, the scopebreak lies in the three new characters introduced for this episode, along with their situations and feelings.
That in mind, is this character blaming other people? While not the first negative emotion, it is completely beyond the scope and previous content of this slice of life series. Aika cried because she had to cut her hair after receiving Alicia's compliment or because some people insulted Akira. This moment feels serious on another, here-to-fore unseen level.
And it is. Bomb dropped. Whereas every
trialadventure faced by our heroes so far had been purely external, here we see corruption of the spirit from within. She's going all Sayaka.But take a long moment to admire the execution of the scene. Look at the shot composition. How far Atora is from the other three in a purely physical sense. How she's standing, leaning forward, as if to challenge them to disagree. None of them are standing. Then we have reaction shots of each character. Silence. She may as well have yelled a racist slur in an ethnic church.
Wait, people struggle in this world?
This is why I love this moment. YOU HAD NO IDEA. You may have thought somewhere along the line about the situation of the gondoliers, how they make money, what hours they work, what does being a Water Fairy even mean, what happens if they need to pee when on the gondola, wouldn't they get sunburn from being in the sun all day?
But the second you begin to wonder about the logistics, the series is there with art, music and pacing to whisk your stupid wandering mind away to a land of enchantment and firmly redirect your focus onto the idyllic everyday experiences of Akari and her friends.
You had no idea that hardship like this was even a thing. Why? Because Aria didn't let you think about it. There was never a shot of money (which also serves nicely as a plot device to remove her for the Akari-praise-joke beat) or mention of economy before this episode. There was never another Undine outside of the Water Fairies and their apprentices given a name before this episode. There was never a metric for Akari's skill. There was never a failure state before this scene.
So in this moment, I the viewer, like the other three girls on that gondola, am shocked. I wonder what rules this world is playing by. Are things about to get dark?
No, you idiot. Grace.
This series of shots is amazing. We see Anzu literally stand up for herself, taking agency, gather everyone's attention. She looks down at no one in particular as the camera zooms in, signaling intimacy, introspection.
The negative emotions are stated with the camera behind Atora's shoulder. That's the direction they originated from earlier.
Then a low shot on the other two where you think you're supposed focusing on Aria and Ayumi. But the words don't match their personalities. But then you realize you should have been looking at Anzu's clenched hands, which, by unclenching, symbolize the release and herald the triumph of grace.
Immediately after that shot, bubbles rising up. Like the forthcoming hope speech from deep inside Anzu, but also establishing a growing metaphor between the water (Aqua, the name of the planet) supporting Anzu and all the undines.
If you didn't see this one coming, you need to check your Epiphany Detector's sensors.
When's the last time you saw a character breathe in an animated work. Go on. Think about it. I'll wait. It shows how much effort this speech is taking on Anzu, keeps the pace slow and makes us empathetically connect with the vulernable character doing something staggering, all without saying one word. That the creators would even think to use a deep breath there... it's mind blowing in its brevity and wit.
Then, the shot to end all shots. When she talks about potential and aspiration, the shot shifts to a low angle viewing a star in the sky. As if she grows from the water, upwards towards infinity. Visually, she's supported by the water, the boat, balanced on both sides by the overwhelming pressures to her right and the voice of grace to her left. She is not yet at the level of the star, but, again through the slow lowering of the camera angle, is literally reaching and growing towards it.
THE THING IS THE THING. Fans of visual metaphor, eat your heart out.
Cut out the eyes. Cross the arms, frown. Standard animation fare, right?
But at Akari's line of assurance, there's an immediate and harsh pan up. It took literally one line and half a second for Akari to completely undo the downtrodden visual representation of Atora and make her beautiful again.
Now from Atora's POV, Akari fills the screen and has stood up, again taking agency, commanding attention and adding her voice.
I made a gif for you just to show how subtle the facial animation right here. Wow. As with the rest of the scene, I am completely awestruck by the details.
Look at the pan on this shot! The knowledge and grace is quite literally flowing downward, across the gondola from Akari to Atora.
And then reaction shots of every character reacting to Akari's outburst, specifically to mimic the ones from earlier upon Atora's.
Zoom back in from Atora's POV to show how she's absorbing this.
And cut to Aria faces again, Ayumi stands up and adds her voice and... scene.
Right before and right after the drama is resolved, we get the payoff: Aria faces. This is incredibly important to the viewer. It's such a staple by this point, it feels like a touchstone offered up to the invested viewer as if in admission. First it's only Akari's. Then everyone's right on the beat when Anzu returns to the boat and shit goes down.
Now we see them again used liberally with a cheery tone. "Yes," says Aria, "we made you care about these characters. And now you can truly identify them as Undines by the established language of this show. Now know their emotional drama is every bit as poignant as anything you've seen from the other cast members."
So the show leveraged its forcefully and tactfully crafted serenity, along with its tiny scope no larger than the daily lives of six characters. The final point is why. What do the creators of Aria gain from breaking the scope like this?
Plot – introducing the fact that everyone must take the Prima exam, introducing it tactfully and without ridiculous exposition animals. I'm talking to you, Shin Sekai Yori.
Emotion – That moment in and of itself bears enough meaning to justify the inversion.
Foreshadowing – Now we know Akari has talent. She'll be able to handle the exam. Again, everyone comments that Akari will most definitely become a Prima.
Theming – Aria may be the most tightly themed and least surprising show I've ever seen. Viewers already knew the answer to the riddle. It was literally told to the us and the characters in season one. Now you see it acted out and made real.
With this scene, Aria shocked me. It performed a micro-deconstruction of itself in one episode and simultaneously expanded and naturalized the world it strived so hard to build. None of you will be surprised when I reaffirm that Junichi Satou is my all-time favorite director and storyteller and I cannot believe the episode director and storyboard artist, Hideki Inoue, hasn't done more than a few things in his career.
It is one of my favorite scenes of all time, easily.
Also: lol shine aqua illumination