Ever wonder how anime gets made? Want to know what it’s like to be an artist, struggling to bring a series of hand-drawn images to life? Want to really appreciate what goes into the anime you love while still getting an enjoyable story out of it? Well, good news! They made an anime all about making anime!
God, I love anime.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken is a show that didn’t explode onto the scene. Well, one character did, but that’s not the point. The point is that this show was yet another show that just came and went with the ever flowing tides of seasonal anime.
Which is total bullshit. This show is absolutely incredible!
The story is simple. Protagonist Midori Asakusa is an anime enthusiast who dreams of making her own anime. Together with her money-grubbing friend Sayaka Kanamori (best girl) and fellow anime-enthusiast Tsubame Mizusaki, she forms the Eizouken, an animation club disguised as a film club. Together, they aim to create an anime to fulfill their dreams.
In terms of narrative, this show isn’t anything amazing. The characters are likable but they lack anything truly compelling. The actual narrative itself is incredibly simple and doesn’t have especially interesting conflicts or stakes. Character development is scarce and the group dynamic, while fun and enjoyable, doesn’t grow or evolve in many interesting ways.
Thankfully, what Eizouken lacks in writing it more than makes up for in visuals.
This show has some of the most creative and visually stunning sequences I’ve ever seen in an anime! The OP alone is a masterpiece of creative animation. But when you combine that with the show itself, you get one of the most gorgeous shows of all time!
It’s especially interesting because you can see it all slowly come together. Each set piece where our characters get lost in their imagination is built up not through the narrative, but through the visuals. At first, it’s a simple pencil sketch. But as it goes on and they let their imaginations and skills run wild, everything around them slowly becomes more detailed. By the time these scenes reach their climax, it turns into a drop-dead sakuga fest!
It also goes into a lot of detail on how sequences like this are actually made. Do you want to watch an anime about how anime gets made? Watch this show. It goes into extensive detail on the subject and never once becomes boring.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken isn’t an especially complex anime. But it’s such a treat on the eyes that it’s well worth a viewing! If you have any interest in how anime is made, give this show a chance.
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