We've already found this season's controversy! Is this a new record?   Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way first; yes, I agree that the rotoscoping animation is ugly and horrible to look at. I wish that their faces had shadows and that their eyes and mouths wouldn't pop in and out of existence depending on how far away they are from the camera. The result is a style that's closer to life than what most people think of as "anime," but far enough from realism that we end up right in the middle of uncanny valley. If this style makes it too strange to watch/too funny to take seriously (I've seen both of these reactions pop up), that's perfectly valid. However, the backlash against the anime for not being a 1-to-1 visual adaptation of the manga confuses me.   I'll probably write a longer post on this another day, but I don't have a problem with adaptation changes that bring something to the work. Before this aired, all I heard about the manga was how messed up and unsettling it was, and the rotoscoped animation did that job very well. The episode itself is basically "a day in the life," but the creepy animation and the somber music just kept building a sense of dread that I couldn't shake. The ED sounds like it should be in a horror movie. I still don't know how far I'll be able to get through this, but the reaction to it is making it a show worth following if only to see if this descision pans out. There's a good post here that translates an interview that describes some of the thoughts behind this adaptation, as well as the mangaka's views on it. For those of you who had an immediate negative reaction, I'd like you to think a little bit more about why you felt that way. Was it because you were caught off-guard and unsettled like I was? Is it because you don't like the way elements in the story are being portrayed? (I've heard an argument that Nakamura was creepier when she was cuter because it was more unexpected, which is interesting to think about.) If your reason is "because it's not moe," it may be time to take a break from the Internet for a while. Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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