I recently revisited Hideaki Anno's 1988 debut as an animation director, Leap to the Top, and the first time I watched it was when I was in college, when I didn't know anything about the background of animation, nor did I know more about animation... There is also a lack of basic respect for animation, and watching animation is basically to look at the flowers, that is, to figure a music, casually look.
Now with some basic knowledge of animation, I understand the background of the creation and revisit it, and the feeling is of course very different from that time. Share it here.
This work has a large number of titles, I will not repeat it, although I have just revisited the earlier "Mobile Suit Gundam z" such a landmark classic, I think "Leap to the Peak" still has a lot of slots, its status and classics should still not be able to surpass the latter, but I have to use Li Yunlong's lines to praise Hideaki Anno who made such a work for the first time as an animation director: You xx is really a genius!
This work is a hard science fiction combined with the routine of the beautiful girl, the human design enabled the "Time-Lapse Fortress" In the United States Kikimoto Haruhiko, so the beautiful girl even if it seems to be old-fashioned now, but it is still very attractive, at least this shot of the op I can ... It is said that this work was a work of a bang after Ganax tried the failure of "Wang Li Cosmic Army", and he thought that since that kind of serious animation could not succeed, it would be better to make a science fiction that combined the elements of a beautiful girl, and perhaps succeed like "Time-Lapse Fortress". It turns out that his vision is in place, or his strength is enough to support him to realize his dreams, admiration and admiration.
The positioning of this game is ova works. At that time, the Japanese animation industry launched many animations that were not broadcast on TV stations and were released on CD-ROMs and DVDs, which were well-made and of quality far exceeded that of TV stations, and many classics were born in this category. The production of "Leap to the Peak" is also quite sophisticated in the ova, and the character painting will never lose any beauty in the shape of a beautiful girl, so even if the picture is very old, it is quite eye-catching.
About the mechanical painting part, I have to say that the 80s are really yds, this mechanical painting details do not say the 90s, that is, now, can be surpassed, you look at now, "Gundam Flash Hassavi" body is directly with cg, I complained a few words, some people say that the mechanism of the great white goose is too complicated, the whole hand painting is afraid that it is not a tired painter. Then you look at the mecha painting of "Leap to the Top", is it better than the later "Gundam" theatrical version? Of course, I didn't mean to black Gundam, and the Gundam ova painting of that era was also very powerful... For example, "Gundam 0083", I just want to complain that "Flashing Hasavi" is not fully hand-drawn...
Ah, here is an interjection, as a hardcore picture quality seeker, the first few episodes of "Leap to the Top" and the last two episodes of the picture quality has a significant gap, the survey found that the first 4 episodes are completed with 16mm film, the last 2 episodes are completed by 35mm film, those who say that the resolution corresponding to film can be "infinitely enlarged", really can stop ... The larger the size of the film, the more sharp it can be converted into enough clarity, and the resolution of 35mm film is about 1080p today... Therefore, the clarity of the last two episodes has been significantly improved, and as a picture quality party that has had festivals with many painting parties before, it should be mentioned here.
The great thing about "Leaping To the Top" is that it breaks the common structure of Japanese animation in the 80s at that time, and the idea of hard science fiction + beautiful girl + time and space travel is more breakthrough. But the disadvantages are also more obvious, I think get not the point. In the early days, I thought I would go through a college story about sisterhood, but in the middle of the period, I brought out a sad atmosphere caused by the time difference... And the ending also uses this point to sublimate the story, but at this moment, it killed the life and death love of the coach and the sister? The core of the story can not be mastered smoothly, coupled with the accumulation of hardcore science fiction elements, it eventually becomes a story where the fusion of hardcore science fiction and beautiful girls is not particularly natural...
And the whole story of "Gundam Z" is firmly around the sad theme of "people can't really understand", Camus repeatedly went to persuade the enemy, hoping to persuade the enemy, did not want to end the situation of fighting on the battlefield, and as a result, he also realized that even with the new human ability of superpowers, "the only thing that can be done is to kill people...", this theme has been haunting the whole story, and finally it is simply depressed by the atmosphere of the story... Obviously, Anno is not bald, and the atmosphere of "Leaping To the Peak" is still relatively active, because the heroine Noriko can be described as a very innocent and lively character... And quickly grew to the point where she could withstand everything and even encourage her sister to fight in turn. Yes, the unnaturalness of growing up too fast stems from the inability of the amount of 6 episodes to unfold the emotional accumulation of the protagonist, which is also a major drawback of "Leap to the Peak". If it is made into a 12-episode cartoon, I am afraid that the probability of becoming a "god work" will increase greatly.
And episode 6, which is completely black and white, presents Anno's bold attempt at animation performances... The sixth episode in black and white deepened the impression of many viewers, and used a lot of still drawings in the key fleet battle part... Isn't it a bit of an "eva" flavor
So you say that the success of EVA is not accidental? I think there are indeed factors in the background of the times, but Hideaki Anno can see through the needs of the times, accurately link the beautiful girl factor with robot science fiction, coupled with his breakthrough performance methods, which has created the foundation for the success of "Eva", although the 6-episode "Leap to the Top" may still seem to have some flaws, and it seems incomplete... But I think "Leap to the Top" is indeed a work that can be seen in Hideaki Anno's strength and ambition.