October 2017 – Fun Things Are Fun

I’m actually too lazy to talk about spoilers, so just assume that everything here is spoilers for everything. Be warned.

Let’s face it. Fighting is entertaining and can often make or break a show. One of the reasons I got into anime in the first place was because I thought the fights were amazing. Today I’ll be looking at how a show uses action scenes to elevate the anime it’s in. However, I’m only going to analyze the audiovisual aspects of the fights because while the other parts of the fight such as emotion, context, and stakes are important, ultimately that’s up to the anime as a whole and how it is written. I will, however, talk about how they portray those emotions through an audiovisual context. Of course these opinions are pretty subjective in nature but I feel that my preferences are shared by the majority of the others watching.

Choreography

I love, love, love fight choreography, and live action and anime can both excel at displaying how cool and powerful characters can be. Directors like Jackie Chan do some AMAZING things with their fight choreography, and have mastered the art of making fight scenes entertaining and fun to watch.

So to start off, generally fight choreography is terrible when you watch two buff guys just clashing weapons over and over again on the same plane. What elevates fight choreography is the variety that different techniques can produce in a fight, and how the fighters in question use their environment to gain the edge over their opponent.

So first, let’s watch one from the master, Jackie Chan.

This scene is so cool because Jackie uses every prop possible to fight with, creating a much more varied choreography that always feels fresh. The way he and his enemies interact with objects is eternally entertaining. If you want more info on how Jackie produces his fights, look on Youtube or in my more info section down below.

I think every good anime fight requires good choreography, and the final fight of Sword of the Stranger definitely delivers. Note again how they use their environment – snow, planks, ledges to straight up go for the kill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csvfN3rLos8

Samurai Champloo takes the rhythm of jazz into its fighting style, with its participants using the environment to interact. Additionally, the strikes perfectly use the idea of space – it always feels like if it were not for the dodges or blocks from the other fighter, that they would instantly be slashed. This idea of spatial relationships is crucial for fights.

Cinematography, Fluidity, and Pacing

The editing of a fight is CRUCIAL to how the fight feels and the impact of the blows. If you don’t believe me, watch how Netflix’s Iron Fist botches a fight scene with 56 cuts in a 35 second fight scene. (Since streamable shows up as really small, you’ll have to just go to the link. Sorry.

(https://streamable.com/cmctg)

Not only is this fight scene messy, chaotic, and I literally can’t tell what the fuck is going on, but it’s a supposed superhero versus a nobody. This fight should have never been this difficult for him.

Now cuts aren’t bad, and in fact, they’re essential, but good editing should not destroy the flow of movement in a fight scene. Here’s some fluid animation from Attack on Titan.

What I think makes this scene so nice is how there are very few cuts (this is the modified version, the original has two cuts showing Mikasa’s target), but also how cleanly her body moves along the walls and with her gear. The camera follows the character instead of mindlessly cutting around to destroy the fluidity of the shot.

Another amazing example of fluidity is the hallway fight scene in the fifth movie in the Kara no Kyoukai series. Here we see the main character, Shiki, effortlessly slicing her way through a horde of zombies. In the two shots of her running through them, the camera does not cut at all, instead following her figure as she dashes through the hallway.

Special Effects

There’s not really too much to talk about here, except that special effects can elevate a fight to the highest, and even cover up deficiencies in other areas of the fight. If you want anime fights to spark and glow, watch ufotable’s animation of Fate Stay/Night: Unlimited Blade Works.

While I find choreography and cinematography more important than the usage of special effects, no one can deny that this stuff is orgasmic for the eyes.

The Rule of Cool

So I’ve gone over important characteristics of any fight scene, but what makes anime fights so appealing? Probably the major advantage is simply that animation can get away way with way more than live action ever could, just by suspension of disbelief. Seeing live action characters acting out these scenarios would just look simply ridiculous.

For example, the 3 Dimensional Gear used in Attack on Titan is physically impossible and looked pretty dumb in the Japanese live action.

https://vimeo.com/149594621

(Go to 3 minutes for more exciting action)

And this fight would also look straight stupid in real life – two superhumans flying around at the speed of light with punches and light and debris everywhere. It’s completely ridiculous but in the context of the show, One Punch Man, it’s just a normal day. Also I’d like to note that the fluidity of the animation is amazing here.

If you weren’t convinced by the previous two fights, how about magical girls flying around pulling guns of varying size literally out of their skirts, shooting each others’ bullets out of the air, stopping time and using rifles to fight with in hand to hand combat. This is Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and the whole package is amazing.