Uses Resources: 2D Animation with Interesting Settings - Secondary Research

2D Animation with Interesting Settings:

The first 2D Animation I am going to analysis with which I feel has an interesting setting is:

Full Metal Alchemist

Opening #1 of Full Metal Alchemist in Japanese:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4e7AUTMps (Accessed 14/01/2012) - RELIABLE

Why I've decided to research Full Metal Alchemist is that, in the introduction you can see several shots of a cityscape/urban environment. Considering most of my animation will take place in a cityscape area, with some more rural areas in the beginning of my animation, I thought it was fitting to research Full Metal Alchemist's environments. When I was thinking about my animation, the environments I was thinking of were heavily inspired by this anime in my mind so there isn't really any better source than the original itself to research on.

It has a more realistic tone than my other example and detail is subtle and I really like that and it's something I want to incorporate into my own. Whilst it might seem like any other cityscape in an anime, to me, I find it interesting and it reminds me of Venice or other cities in Italy. I thought looking at this anime would provide as being useful as it's the closest thing to my imagination of what I imagine the setting of my animation to have. It looks stunning and having some of the rural environments in the background of the ever-glistening cityscape is a nice touch.

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The second 2D Animation I am going to analysis with which I feel has an interesting setting is:

Yu Gi Oh

Opening #2 of Yu Gi Oh in Japanese:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXQpzD5pwv0 (Accessed 14/01/2012) - RELIABLE

Why I've decided to Research Yu Gi Oh is that it features many cityscape environments, which you can see in this opening of the show. As mentioned before, a cityscape environment with some rural areas is what I want to feature in my animation but why I decided to research Yu Gi Oh in particular was being it's more expansive. The city looks a lot more exaggerated than Full Metal Alchemist and whilst the show has a lot of Egyptian themes and environments, the city and the fictional company known as Kiba Corp play a big role in the story.

This prove useful because not only does it make me think that glorious, tall buildings that are heavily exaggerated can be very effect but it makes me think that the setting can play just as much into the story as the characters if done right and there is something I might like to incorporate into my animation. A good example would be if the boy from my idea had to run away from school and have the next scene of a shot taken further away but in the distance you can see the other pupils of his class look out of the window to see him run out of the entrance of the school.

This also proves useful as not only does it make me consider story integration into my animation or exaggeration but that a clean look can look very nice and make the animation seem very modern and high class but it could lose some of it's character and feel like a generic city with very tall, white or grey buildings with no scratch or graffiti on them in sight.

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Reasoning behind not including Western 2D Animation Settings:

There is reasoning behind not including Western 2D Animation settings however. Whilst you could argue that because I'm looking for cityscapes for my settings/environments, it would seem suitable to look at Western 2D Animation as well but the setting I envision for my animation is a lot more anime based.

Western 2D Animations tend to stick very close to real life locales and counterparts and if they are to be very fictional, it is not something to my taste and because I want to incorporate Eastern and Western Animation themes, I think it's best to use Eastern 2D Animation's City Environments because that is what I want to focus on and use as a backdrop for my animation.  Eastern 2D Animations tend to feature settings that are a lot more exaggerated and feel a lot more interesting and appealing to me, so in that sense, it feels a little redundant in my view to look into Western 2D Animation's settings/environments when a more Eastern approach for a setting is what I'm looking for and leading towards as a goal.