Ok, here goes... comments that have been simmering in the back of my brain for over a month. Prompt I am not. *hangs head*
First of all, to say I am new to watching vids is the understatement of the millennia. I had never watched a vid in my life. I'd added your journal to my reading list a bit before you posted this because of your Saiyuki links and discussion. I noticed you talking about vids, of course, and I was quite curious, and yet my brain jumps all over the place and drops things so I never got around to actually looking for vids to watch until *plop* you dropped this post into my lj reading and of course I had to check it out. In other words, this was the first vid I *ever* watched. Ever.
I had some vague expectations, but this blew them all away. Every single moment, every beat, was so thought out, every intricate layered part of the sound was echoed in layers of visuals and movement. I had no idea at all such things were possible. The framing and insets and flicker-stutter thingies that matched the music and mood perfectly, and of course the *colours.*
So much of it made me feel *yes* this is what the anime *should be.* You took the good ideas that they didn't implement so well, like the small frames on a mostly black screen and layering of images, and you make them work so well. And you took the things that they completely messed up (like the pink hair) and fixed them. And greatly minimized the really ugly art.
I had never heard the song before either, and on first watch, I was completely caught off guard by the happy-bouncy calypso-like music starting up over the darker lower sounds being juxtaposed with the splashing of blood and the first look at Gonou dying on the road. The contrast was like a punch to the gut in a way, so unexpected. And yet as soon as I recovered I realized how incredibly well done that was, the music coaxing the guard down just as such a painful and serious scene was shown, because Gojyo had his guard down then and what he experienced cut right through like a punch to the gut from a trusted friend he never knew he had. And then I realized how incredibly well done it was because finding Gonou, even dying, was the best thing to ever happen to him, and the single most important thing to change the course of his life from then on, and so the happy-bouncy music fit in that way too.
I really like how you used the frames not just to show division and lack of connection, but also show connections being made, like when Gonou and Gojyo are in separate narrow vertical frames far apart and then Gojyo's frame "grows" to go meet and include Gonou, symbolic of being isolated and then making him part of his life.
I loved the Gaiden moments, of course (being such a huge Gaiden fan), but I also liked that you didn't overdo it, that showing they knew each other before was enough, it was deja vu like whoa for them but not really anything they actually remember consciously or understand, and it is not really Kenren and Tenpou's story here -- their story is part of the larger story, yes (in the way that Saiyuki without Gaiden is not the full story), but not it is not the particular story you are focusing on here.
I wondered why you left Kenren's hair pink in most of that sequence, though, but upon later thought I realized that since the falling cherry blossoms (traditionally symbolizing "the impermanence of life" and "the beautiful but tragically short life of the samurai" if I recall) are the major understated point of that particular scene in the Gaiden story (besides introducing the characters) and that theme is even more important now at that moment when Gojyo and Gonou meet -- not just that they knew each other when they lived before, but they also died before and those lives are over and they are no longer those people, and so leaving Kenren's hair the close to the colour of the blossoms has its own message. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it? (I still prefer to think of Kenren as black-haired though. ~_^)
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First of all, to say I am new to watching vids is the understatement of the millennia. I had never watched a vid in my life. I'd added your journal to my reading list a bit before you posted this because of your Saiyuki links and discussion. I noticed you talking about vids, of course, and I was quite curious, and yet my brain jumps all over the place and drops things so I never got around to actually looking for vids to watch until *plop* you dropped this post into my lj reading and of course I had to check it out. In other words, this was the first vid I *ever* watched. Ever.
I had some vague expectations, but this blew them all away. Every single moment, every beat, was so thought out, every intricate layered part of the sound was echoed in layers of visuals and movement. I had no idea at all such things were possible. The framing and insets and flicker-stutter thingies that matched the music and mood perfectly, and of course the *colours.*
So much of it made me feel *yes* this is what the anime *should be.* You took the good ideas that they didn't implement so well, like the small frames on a mostly black screen and layering of images, and you make them work so well. And you took the things that they completely messed up (like the pink hair) and fixed them. And greatly minimized the really ugly art.
I had never heard the song before either, and on first watch, I was completely caught off guard by the happy-bouncy calypso-like music starting up over the darker lower sounds being juxtaposed with the splashing of blood and the first look at Gonou dying on the road. The contrast was like a punch to the gut in a way, so unexpected. And yet as soon as I recovered I realized how incredibly well done that was, the music coaxing the guard down just as such a painful and serious scene was shown, because Gojyo had his guard down then and what he experienced cut right through like a punch to the gut from a trusted friend he never knew he had. And then I realized how incredibly well done it was because finding Gonou, even dying, was the best thing to ever happen to him, and the single most important thing to change the course of his life from then on, and so the happy-bouncy music fit in that way too.
I really like how you used the frames not just to show division and lack of connection, but also show connections being made, like when Gonou and Gojyo are in separate narrow vertical frames far apart and then Gojyo's frame "grows" to go meet and include Gonou, symbolic of being isolated and then making him part of his life.
I loved the Gaiden moments, of course (being such a huge Gaiden fan), but I also liked that you didn't overdo it, that showing they knew each other before was enough, it was deja vu like whoa for them but not really anything they actually remember consciously or understand, and it is not really Kenren and Tenpou's story here -- their story is part of the larger story, yes (in the way that Saiyuki without Gaiden is not the full story), but not it is not the particular story you are focusing on here.
I wondered why you left Kenren's hair pink in most of that sequence, though, but upon later thought I realized that since the falling cherry blossoms (traditionally symbolizing "the impermanence of life" and "the beautiful but tragically short life of the samurai" if I recall) are the major understated point of that particular scene in the Gaiden story (besides introducing the characters) and that theme is even more important now at that moment when Gojyo and Gonou meet -- not just that they knew each other when they lived before, but they also died before and those lives are over and they are no longer those people, and so leaving Kenren's hair the close to the colour of the blossoms has its own message. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it? (I still prefer to think of Kenren as black-haired though. ~_^)
[con't]