After noticing a new piece of text being added to files — hi10p — I decided to look up info on it. There’s quite a bit of stuff being encoded in this new.. thing. I decided to install the latest, greatest, and correct filter/codec I could find to properly play these new files. Why the sudden upgrade? Anyone who’s been watching their anime in 720 and up certainly don’t complain that often, provided that their method of watching works. But I don’t touch 1080 files yet simply because I don’t have terabytes of space laying around.

So, I downloaded a 10-bit anime episode. Holy crap, I didn’t expect such a significant difference in file size. It is also rightly stated and observed that it has effectively removed banding from gradients. I especially appreciate this since there seems to be a growing trend for animation studios to use gradients instead of the traditional three tone shading I got so used to. This can really inflate a single episode’s file size. I could show off a screenshot, but what’s more important is the overall effect of moving to 10-bit.  The primary reason to move to 10-bit is for the higher achievable quality and potentially lower file sizes. It does eat more CPU cycles, and at this point only CPU cycles since most video cards do not have 10-bit hardware support. This is mostly a non-issue for me, since I have a quad core. (And soon to upgrade to hexa core. Mwahaha.)

I have obtained a 10-bit encoder to find out for myself what exactly is the butter zone for 1080 files, film or anime. Too bad I’m flying blind here. Having done zero encoding, the only thing I can do at the moment is read the full command list and keep breaking it until something produces a result.

-maserbeam

Really, it felt like they actually answered my wish. It was an episode mostly centered around Iori. And thank you P-san for making Iori blush. It was totemo kawaii. I wonder how many affection points were earned during that scene. The way the episode’s theme panned out was rather cheesy, but I guess it was par for the course.

Something really sidetracked most of my attention for almost the entire episode however, and it was Kotori’s face during her 4 second appearance. That unsurprised face tells more about her character than what most anime are able to do during an entire segment devoted to character development. I exaggerated.. but I really would like an episode dedicated to her since she seems like the one to make jabs at others rather than take it.

Mr. Producer in the background has some kind of magical cup with infinite overflow depth. I want one.

-maserbeam

Yayoi: “I really want to butt in and correct them on that detail about Chavez and Don Caballero…”

I paused the show to go get a drink, and this scene only had me imagining Yayoi wanting to correct them on something. That particular angle of someone’s head looking at something in the distance always seems to automatically evoke familiar anime norms. I could only hope that Yayoi has such taste in music, but I don’t know enough about Idolmaster. The only way to solve that would be to plunge straight into the games and attempt to read all the moon runes.

I think most people will understand why I’ve decided to join others in blogging about this episode. Episode 6 is rather early to show off your animation budget, but I’ve learned that A-1 Pictures has essentially redrawn the Smoky Thrill dance sequence from Idolmaster 2 for the xbox 360. I saw more animation in one minute than I did watching two episodes of Steins;Gate. I might be willing to pay a high price to see A-1 Pictures fully animate entire songs. Maybe bundle it with the limited edition Blu-Ray as an extra. It IS a show about idols dancing; indulge us a little won’t you A-1 Pictures? It’s not often we get to see such grandiose movement in our anime.

This only makes me more excited to see more episodes. And more Iori, please.

-maserbeam

Holy frijoles.

It’ll be obvious to a lot of people that this “4 girls doing stuff” setup is boring to a lot of people, but the consistency in the art production is rather surprising. No, that doesn’t mean the entire series looks like the above screencap. (But good lord that would be amazing. In a different way.) Taking a look at who’s doing the main animation production gave me more questions. There were so many secondary animation studios helping out in episode 1. Episode 6 is a milestone, because.. Chinatsu drew the above picture. I’m just reeling with omfg and anticipation as I was watching the horrid art proceed to the next frame. It really reminds you that sometimes it’s not how well something is drawn, but what it ends up looking like.

Speaking of art, Yuruyuri is a surprising contender for the Most Consistent Art Award. Squishes, stretches, and follow up animation still showing up throughout the show. It came with a few shortcuts here and there, but nothing to be all Minami-ke about it.

Minami-ke had three seasons. There, I said it.

-maserbeam

It’s a fresh anime! So it’s now time to look at new anime like everyone else has been doing. Do I have a unique outlook? Probably not. Give me page views, please.

Very clean and solid animation, thanks to Brains Base doing the production, so in terms of visual appeal it’s alright. I do remember there being a show of questionably and wildly variable quality done by Brains Base. (Looking at you Akikan.) It seems they’ve also smartly avoided unnecessary expenditures by drawing other humans as mere sign icons. Quite reinforces that clean look — I like it. It remains looking like a regular anime, but with a strong enough style that sets itself apart. As long as the show doesn’t try to ride solely on it’s initial inertia, I think it’ll do fine.

Wait. Nothing about the blushing girl?

-maserbeam