Did Azuma really have all that much creative input into the anime?

The first episode was pretty disjointed. I guess they had to work in all the character introductions, but it did end up being animated 4koma at times.

>>211464
No idea really, although I remember reading somewhere that Azuma considered that making of the anime to be stressful which suggests his involvement.
One can also assume that he did participate in that anime's production because of the continuity between the two. The characters in both the manga and the anime all seem to have matching je ne sais quoi and there are certain more artful techniques which appear in the second half of the series and were absent in the first half and some of these new tricks mimic differences between the Azumanga Daioh manga and the later Yotsuba manga. One example of this would be the long, seemingly pointless, blank shots of scenery or clouds which may denote the passing of time or add a pinch of melancholia. The final shot of the series is unquestionably mono no aware and seemingly an homage or reference to Ozu Yasujiro's work or possibly to earlier Japanese theatrical traditions. Both of those are present in Yots, so it is not unreasonable to assume that they are Azuma's ideas.

>>211463>>211467

Oh, boy...

>>211467

>>blank shots of scenery or clouds which may denote the passing of time

You do know that most movies and shows and graphic novels use this, though? And that the anime, being based on the manga, would have similarities to it whether or not Azuma was involved in the actual production? Not to say he couldn't have been, but he was still drawing manga at the time and I think it's pretty rare that a mangaka actually works on animated adaptations.

>You do know that most movies and shows and graphic novels use this, though?

Not American movies :P

>>211476

>You do know that most movies and shows and graphic novels use this, though?

A lot of anime does make use of such artful techniques now, but if you go back a decade it was a lot more rare. During the 1980s and 1990s the great anime (Akira, Vampire Hunter D, Ghost in the Shell, etc.) was focused mainly on high quality animation and mindbending stories, but the filmmaking methods were very conventional and straightforward. There wasn't a lot of anime that was trying to be the equal of Jean Renoir or Sergio Leone. They were almost all more interested in being the animation world's equivalent of Speilberg. Otkao No Video describes this better than I can, I'm not really very eloquent.
In the live action film making world the technique has been used for a lot longer. Orson Welles had a handle on it in The Stranger and Ozu Yasujiro's use of it was actually a continuation of tradition that dates back to the Edo era.

>>211487

>artful techniques

Interesting term for "cost cutting cheats".

>>211497
this type of lowbrow philistine attitude is one reason effective esthetic use of negative space in this time based medium was not prevalent earlier, the assumption of a poor audience response. Traditionally, Japanese artists have always made effective use of negative space, but in anime it took a long time for that custom to become included in the artists' repertoire. The conventional wisdom held that the more every frame was filled with action and detail, the better. As fans of Azuma, we all realize that this is not the case, but its tough to challenge the conventional wisdom with someone else's money - and your own reputation and career - at stake.

>>One example of this would be the long, seemingly pointless, blank shots of scenery or clouds which may denote the passing of time or add a pinch of melancholia.

Although I like this technique and accept its power to express a mood, it occurs to me that another reason for its use may be that it's cheaper than filling those same seconds with actual character animation. Director Shinji Aramaki was at Anime Weekend Atlanta this month and got a question about why moe is so much bigger than mecha anime these days, and he said it's not just a change in taste, it's because moe shows are cheaper and easier to make. All you really need is some cute girls to stand around and do cute stuff, and 9 times out of 10 you can just grab them ready-made from a manga.

>>211504

Same reason why "reality shows" are so popular these days. It's much cheaper to film people doing what they already are doing than it is to hire actors, build sets, write scripts, etc. All you need for reality TV is a cameraman and some editing.

Anyway, as for "cost cutting cheats" in anime, you certainly see that in some titles but it's not prevalent everywhere. TV anime is usually low budget and as such it's filled with recycled shots and simplistic backgrounds. On the other hand, look at a big-budget title such as Ghost in the Shell or X and you won't see that sort of thing.

It's no different than movies or TV in the west--you've got a lot of lower-quality titles and some that really stand out.

>>211519
Not only that, but anime is getting made in places like Korea and China to the point where they are practically reliant on them. On top of that I read an article that Japanese are just not as interested in joining the industry as it's not paying off (consider that on an already low paying job).

>>211504

Sometimes still scenery makes its point, like in Stanley Kubrick's "2001, A Space Odyssey." There is also a manga called "Travel" by Yuichi Yokoyama which has absolutely no spoken dialog but instead shows three men walking through a train, showing what they see until they find seats and reach their destination.