This is Part II of a series of thoughts on the new second season of Full Metal Alchemist. Read Part I, Seiyuu Politics: Full Metal Alchemist & Voice Actor Idolization.
This morning, I got a chance to listen to Anime Pulse’s podcast of Professor Ian Condry’s panel from Anime Boston 2008, in which he relates his research on the production of Japanese animation in his upcoming book. I’ve known the following sentiment for a fair while, but Ian recalls a feeling that many Japanese animators of anime have expressed for a fair while on the topic of digital animation versus older, hand-drawn productions: the former doesn’t show enough of the human behind the creation. Of course, it comes down to personal aesthetics. But Ian says, “I had an interesting moment when I was in a cab with a couple of anime producers, and we were just coming back from a studio visit, and we were talking about Shrek. And they just marveled at the ways that flowing hair and the kind of detail that could happen in computer animation was really quite mind-blowing. But then one of the producers said, ‘But, y’know, for all the technical sophistication, we feel like it lacks a little soul. Right? It lacks something.’ And I think that’s one of the things that they said… Hand-drawn animation will continue in Japan.”
I personally had this feeling after recently watching the new release of the first episode of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (aka. the second season).