FLUXIMATION

DESCRIPTION

REVIEWS

• 

  GreenRevue

  70/100
  A mixed bag, but has multiple gems in it.

  I found this drastically variable in quality, with some entries amongst the 14 short music videos which I just straight up did not like. My favourites were 1, 2, 9 (all Kouji Morimoto), 11 (Atsuko Fukushima), and 12 (Tatsuyuki Tanaka), in no particular order. The Chief Director is Kouji Morimoto, and while the other 2 small works I saw from him outside of this didn’t particularly inspire me, though not without things I liked in them, this has definitely made me very interested in checking out more of his stuff.

  Episode 1
  8.5 or 9, Direction by Kouji Morimoto
  A gorgeously atmospheric piece of animation, with beautiful line work and shapes, fluid yet distinctly evocative animation, and strong accompanying atmospheric music. It also has great camera work, and exceptional edit timing. Creating a beautiful flow. Truly a great little pocket of animation.

  Episode 2
  6.5 or maybe just a 6, Direction by Nakazawa Kazuto
  Pretty cool little short, the colour usage is fairly fun, the visuals seem random but may not be, and they are interesting at least, and there is some nice shading/ inking in places, resulting in some of the drawings being pretty aesthetic.I like Hikaru Utada’s voice, but the song itself here doesn’t hugely appeal to me personally. Also wasn’t convinced by the use of boxes/ paneling.

  Episode 3
  8 I think, Direction by Kouji Morimoto
  As with the other episode he handled, this has gorgeous shapes to it, just really aesthetically pleasing animation and character art. The setting is also pretty interesting, and I quite like this little vocal song this time. I quite like the lighting style that seems fairly common across the Morimoto stuff I have seen so far as well. Wasn’t particularly a fan of the ripple effect this one ended on, but didn’t hate it or anything, it worked well enough.

  Episode 4
  5, Direction by Nimura Hideki
  Didn’t care for this, felt like just a barrage of semi-abstract colours and effects, did very little for me. Kind of fitting for a song named ‘workout’, but nevertheless I was not inspired at all and it was a very big disappointment for me compared to the previous 3, though decent in some ways as a shift in style, and some of the colours looked nice together.

  Episode 5
  4, Direction by Kitakubo Hiroyuki
  Did not like this one..An earlier Eezy Breezy it seems haha, before Eizouken’s OP and not nearly as good. The song did very little for me, the video was fun in some ways, and I appreciate the detailed character art rotoscoping, but personally I didn’t find it successful. Compared to the uncanny valley of Aku no Hana, and the vibrancy and fun of ShiShi Yamazaki, among other examples, it felt weak to me. Detailed but lacking in some fluidity and impact, and with changing backgrounds and colours that were not quite interesting enough for me. Plus the shifts to actual 2d (with odd character designs in my opinion) felt very jarring and made me go from uninterested to mildly disliking.

  Episode 6
  6, Direction by Kanai Jirou
  Something tells me the guy who made this might have seen Texhnolyze or something, but I may be wrong haha. It has a fairly strong black and white aesthetic, working off of the contrasts and integrating a gritty video effect to the images on top of that, as well as using a strong blue colour pop as well for a fairly striking shot and a red and green one as well which was pretty good. Additionally, there are a couple decent, if maybe a bit too aggressive in my opinion, camera movements in this, and the animation felt a bit much at one point. I also quite like the black and white stripe part. Not quite sure about the narrative in this one..

  Episode 7
  6, Direction by Ashino Yoshiharu
  Fairly nice aesthetic, grey and white with a red that pops. I found the character line work far too aggressively thick for my liking though. Parts of this visually reminded me of both Lain and Texhnolyze again, but the comparison isn’t too strong. The first use of the blue dancing hologram I found effective, nicely placed right in the foreground, with hints of the background setting coming through, and the last use of it. Disliked the song a bit here.

  Episode 8
  5, Direction by Nimura Hideki
  This felt like it did very little of interest to me, tempted to rate it lower than a 5 to be honest. It’s pretty inoffensive though, a bunch of colours and a semi-interesting looking heart mascot thing. I liked the animation which linked to the title card though, that was fun. Overall, I just think the style of this one (and 4) is maybe less my thing, and I imagine others will appreciate it more.

  Episode 9
  7.5, Direction by Kouji Morimoto
  A very good one. Really nice shapes and highly fluid yet distinct animation once again. Nice colour work as well. Overall, a very aesthetically pleasing one, although I didn't care much for the song. Morimoto’s work definitely pleases the eye in these.

  Episode 10
  6.5, Direction by Aoki Yasuhiro
  Pretty good, almost a 7 and tempted to give it one. The animation is pretty interesting, but feels like it never reached (close to) as far as I thought it could and hoped it would. The aesthetic itself is relatively nice. I did really like the water animation when the character hits/ goes through the wall though, and the shot of debris coming up after a footstep was a fairly nice add on to the appeal of that water shot. Music again did not inspire me, a shame as I do like several Hikaru Utada songs.

  Episode 11
  8.5, Direction by Fukushima Atsuko
  Loved this one. The character designs and overall aesthetic is really good, the colours are lovely, the sketchiness of parts is lovely, and the warped animation, of characters and of backgrounds, really appealed to me here, it looked great. Heavily stylised and heavily likable. Also I have no idea what the narrative is, but the transition from the initial character design to a goldfish was very amusing, and then it starts dancing for the last few seconds in the background, and yeah, this was really great.

  Episode 12
  8 I think, Direction by Tanaka Tatsuyuki
  Really cool character animation in here, utilising the same background throughout, with initially very detailed and stylised character designs followed by an amusing shift in the character designs. Highly likable, and enjoyably synched to the song through the singing. Music was alright this time.

  Episode 13
  7 I think, maybe lower, Direction by Nakayama Daisuke
  Loved both styles of character design in this, they both look fantastic in different ways and feel complementary because of it. There is some strong colour use in places, but it also feels like way too much is going on here visually, too many foreground effects and such for my liking, just too much. I feel it should’ve toned back a lot in several places.

  Episode 14
  7.5 or maybe 7, Direction by Aoki Yasuhiro
  Some nice colouring in here, and I found the execution of this one incredibly interesting. Only focusing on legs/ a lower camera for every shot, and using those shots to show very different events. I found it quite an interesting technique and idea, and it felt well executed, and I liked that it contrasted from funny for some of the events, to grim for another. The letters that were translucent and moving, covering the whole foreground, were extremely distracting in my opinion, however, and negatively impacted my enjoyment.

  Overall I think this collection of music videos just gets a 7/10 from me.

  It is a mixed bag for sure, at least in terms of my personal enjoyment, but one with plenty of creativity and multiple gems within it. It is one I appreciate on an artistic level. I will definitely try and check out more from Kouji Morimoto at some point, as he made several of the best entries and was overall chief director. I also may check out more from Fukushima Atsuko and Tanaka Tatsuyuki if I can find things.

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