this is gonna be an insane thing to talk about to but one of the things that makes bmj so enjoyable to watch even as a very obviously limited animation kids show from the early 2000s is that it often surprises me in how colorful it is. one of the most consistent artistic elements of the show is the delicate mix of saturated nature tones combined with the often duller mechanical/alien ones, which bring to life a kind of washed, cel-like feeling to even some of the most mundane shots. see below
This is a kind of color grading and production quality that wasn’t even seen in a lot of more elaborate, higher budget productions in the 2000s. the transition to “digipaint” anime (aka digital animation over cel animation) often left many anime with drab, flat, and what I can only describe as “sun-bleached” colors in their final masters, which while probably deliberate for some productions, rarely looked good and resulted in a homogeneity of digital production stuck in the transition to new technology
Note the muted palettes, the lack of saturation in the skin, the grey shadows, the sometimes weird green color grading, etc.
I’m aware that this kind of groddy digital look has a place in anime history and also in the nostalgia and fondness of many people who watched anime in the early digipaint era. it can look good after all when the artists are more aware of color theory and how to properly utilize a more “degraded” color palette, such as the iconic soul eater:
But bringing this back to BMJ it’s just another of those subtle notches of effort in the show that peels back the love the artists put into the production. It gives a life life feeling to the characters and the lens through which the audience views the entire scene of events, a narrative steeped in automatic identities facing off against autonomy becoming itself and moving not just past grief but through it.
also it just looks nicer than 80% of the shows in the early 2000s and I think it deserves its chops
So I have this notebook to be my year's bullet journal, but I didn't really like this quote on the cover (I wanted a "get sh1t done" one for it sounded more accurate lel).
The quote:
So I have decided to put this alien sticker combined with the 'awkward' one.
When I showed it to my friend Brian, he immediately reminded me of Daibon's catchphrase: I'm an awkward man. I thought that was brilliant and decided to edit and print a Daibon polaroid and here is the result!
Spoiler warning for like, the entire thang. Heed my warning or I’ll be forced to bash ya until you forget so you can experience it properly.
I feel like I should also warn for movement, it might strain your eyes, but I didn’t think it was too bad.
I don’t usually do edits but this has been bouncing around in my mind for ages now, so I decided to give it a go. Was limited by free tablet apps but honestly all things considered I did pretty well, I think. Editing audio in iMovie is a pain.
Also, the editing file had absolutely no business taking up 7GB. SEVEN. SEVEN WHOLE GIGABYTES. MIGHTY WAS HUNGRY I GUESS. DAMN. A full 5% of my disc space 😭
I thought this song really fit him with the lyrics yah gah