So I was watching Nurarihyon no Mago the other day, and I noticed two things: I liked the music, and I liked the backgrounds. I can’t really comment on the content of the show (I don’t yet have an opinion either way), but watching it did make me think back to a division of anime viewers into two general categories: the visual and the verbal. While usually I tend closer to the latter in how I enjoy a work, today I’d like to venture into the (for me) unknown. The title alludes to a common term for stretches where the visual aesthetic takes over almost entirely from the main narrative, and it is that I want to discuss/dissect.
This shot specifically is what inspired this post. The background doesn’t do anything here: The trees sit motionless while the characters converse. Yet, if you’re like me, your attention will shift from the uninspired character designs to their comparatively stylized surroundings. To the right, the sakura bulges with CGI; to the left, a much flatter, more traditional green. Consider also the flow of the light, which floods the upper right, while the bottom left drowns in shadow.
My inner analyst forces me to comment on how the background parallels the characters’ own situation. If we take light to symbolize the world of humans, and shadow likewise the world of youkai, then the background introduces a layer of conflict absent from the dialogue. Here Rikuo the human confronts, and rejects, Gyuki the youkai, a reversal of an earlier, darkness-filled scene where Rikuo proposed to lead those same youkai. Though I am certain that theme will continue throughout the series, I can only hope the show will retain such a keen eye for detail as here.
Rewatching this next scene from the first episode of Mouryou no Hako brought to mind a quote from Henry James:
“Her nature had, in her conceit, a certain garden-like quality, a suggestion of perfume and murmuring boughs, of shady bowers and lengthening vistas, which made her feel that introspection was, after all, an exercise in the open air, and that a visit to the recesses of one’s spirit was harmless when one returned from it with a lapful of roses. But she was often reminded that there were other gardens in the world than those of her remarkable soul, and that there were moreover a great many places which were not gardens at all—only dusky pestiferous tracts, planted thick with ugliness and misery.” (The Portrait of a Lady)
Here is neither ugliness nor misery, only one remarkable soul resonating with another. James speaks of introspection, but here Yoriko (to the right) takes a glimpse into Kanako’s inner garden. They’re actually sitting in a cafe; what you see surrounding them is a metaphor, even more so than above. The garden’s layout suggests a western style evocative of French impressionism, exemplifying the exotic attraction Yoriko feels toward her classmate. (Though I shall leave the nature of that attraction to the reader’s judgment.) This exoticization of the foreign repeats an earlier motif, where the teacher chastised the class for learning foreign things before the Japanese classics. Which side the series as a whole falls on, I can’t say, but at this point I expect my rewatch should answer that question.
Occult Academy‘s first episode gives us this establishing shot of the school. Though perhaps less rich than the above in terms of information conveyed, it still manages a proper sense of isolation, for beyond it lie naught but tree-covered mountains. Yet in its isolation, the school emulates its surroundings: the forest’s green in its roofs, its courtyard a simulacrum of the nature without. You might go so far as to say it tries to hide, to blend in.
It’s that last, the blending in, which intrigues me most, together with the simulacrum. To hide implies a seeker, and I want to know who that might be. And if the school provides only an imitation of its natural surroundings, might it not follow that it offers only an imitation of the supernatural as well? Seems this shot raises more questions than it answers, and as such I’ve less to say on it than the others.
This last one from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (the first episode of 2nd Gig, if you wanted to know) really could go just about anywhere. I’ve had the hardest time describing the Major in this shot: Is she falling? descending? what? But I think I’ve finally settled on “diving,” which opens up an avenue for explication. It could refer to the Major’s penchant for diving from the first film (which this scene homages).
Or it could refer to diving into an information-laden internet. The series on multiple occasions uses “diving” to refer to entering and surfing through the internet. But here she is not searching; she is vanishing. Perhaps it suggests the loss of identity in a sea of information? Or could it refer to her time spent in internet-limbo near the end of the previous season?
But compare her to the countless passers-by below, who drive past with no clue what’s taking place so very near them. However, I think I should stop now before I run out of straws to grasp, because (to stretch the metaphor past breaking) the ones I’ve got have started jamming themselves up my fingernails as it is.
To be honest I wasn’t quite sure where this would lead when I started it, but I rather like the results. Perhaps it was an excuse to look at (and use) the pretty pictures sitting on my hard drive. Can you blame me? It was very much an educational experience for me, though, and I hope to repeat it.
11 Comments
Having the right framing, the right background definitely changes the entire tone of the shot. They’re a huge part of the aesthetic look of a show, whether it comes across as “dark” or “light”, “realistic” or “stylized” – especially in terms of how the background reflects the ambient light.
I certainly don’t blame you and I hope you repeat it too
. Really enjoyed the Henry James quote too, so thanks for including that. Regarding the second shot, I find it really strange and jarring that the same show can have such gorgeous, detailed backgrounds, but such plain character designs. I just can’t think why, other than budget constraints, that would be the case.
In terms of the two categories to which you refer, I’m too impatient to watch something that I don’t find visually appealing to me, but also quick to drop it if the character and plot development suck. So I guess that makes me ‘between the two’. And finally, hadn’t heard of Mouryou no Hako before, looks (pun intended) intriguing, so I’ll look forward to checking that out too
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I can only suppose the character designs are just a carry-over from the original manga. I’m mostly surprised it’s a Deen production, though (must be using their good people on this one). Also, I cannot recommend Mouryou no Hako enough. Though it does get a bit convoluted when you don’t get the Japanese language stuff they mention. But it is very visually appealing and inventive.
(Also Henry James is one of my favorite authors, even if I haven’t read very much of his work.)
I agree with the above, that garden shot looks really picturesque, probably enough for me to check it out.
I am a very visual viewer, I love me some Makoto Shinkai and could just stare at those landscapes forever. While his plot’s are a tad on the weak side, the visuals make up and cover the plot holes, the entrancing nature of the visuals can be used to cover up some short comings of the writing or plot, a technique that should be used more often.
Actually, I wanted to include a Shinkai shot, but I didn’t have any of his films, or screenshots from them, handy, so I made do with what I had. Nurarihyon starts off on the average side plot-wise, but I hear the manga gets better, so definitely check it out.
This is an interesting post, and it’s cool to see someone else’s interpretations of different images. I’m a fairly visual centered person when I watch anime, TV, and film, probably the result of my experiences in film courses. In a lot of my posts since I started blogging I’ve made comments on the shot composition of certain scenes, so your topic definitely caught my interest. While I haven’t seen the series you included other than Ghost in the Shell: SAC, I thought your interpretations were really interesting.
On the Ghost in the Shell image, to offer my own interpretation I thought it suggested how she was blending back into the city, and the larger society in her own way. Being at the end of the series I saw it as the Major blending back into the cityscape below, that she was an integrated part of the future Japan that she and Section 9 operated within. She became invisible and thus faded into the cityscape, now a part of it. But given her ability to do so, and everything that she did in the series, it seemed like she was a part of it but a more important, more connected part of it than the majority of people. Few people are so integrated into that society that they know it and can blend into it like she can. In the same way that diving is used to access the information world, she can dive in and out of the larger society. She’s such a part of that society that she almost masters it and doesn’t even occupy a single point in it. She blends into it more fully than anyone else and exists everywhere within the society., able to surface anywhere within it.
Glad to hear you liked it. Your analysis of the GitS shot is certainly a good deal more coherent than what I said, and I appreciate your insight.
Everything you wrote here was really interesting, but what you said about the Occult Academy screenshot stood out to me, probably because I’m currently following the show. I love the idea of the academy looking so fascinating and ornate but still blending into its surroundings, and I agree – it does seem to be almost hiding. It’s only been one episode so I might be jumping the gun here, but I wonder if the nature of the academy reflects the nature of occult in the show: hidden (or attempted to be hidden) but most certainly present, beguiling, and almost inviting to explore.
Beautiful images, great post. I had a fantastic time reading all of this, so I hope you do it again!
That’s interesting about the school reflecting the nature of the occult; I like it.
I find the Nurarihyon screenshot interesting because despite Rikuo has a dual personality, but the CG cherry blossom doesn’t seem to really have any of those darker overtones. Rikuo may look like a pure character, but on the inside, the audience knows he isn’t. It’s an interesting disparity.
I have a different take on the Occult Gakuin shot. I feel that even though it tries to blend in, it just can’t. It still sticks out like a sore thumb amidst the landscape, and the ornate architecture does nothing to help it. I feel that it’s not supposed to belong there, and the occult research there defies nature, no matter how much it attempts to blend in. It is “supernatural”, in both the literal and defined meaning.
There are a lot of different ways you can read that Ghost in the Shell screenshot, though I do see it as the major disappearing into society. She doesn’t blend into society, but her presence is invisible to the majority of society, yet she plays an integral role in safeguarding them. There’s also a lot more that goes into this image, since I’m especially reminded of how the work that she does will never be known by society. Invisible but integral. A different paradigm from the “hero” mentality in fantasy shows.
Well, the cherry tree does cast a shadow, so there is that. But, on the other hand, Rikuo hasn’t really accepted that darker side of his personality yet, so the shot might be reflecting that.