'2nd_Life (茗记)' from L-Key Studio: Fans of Shinkai Makoto would love this

In addition to Fruit Lab. (which I wrote about earlier here), you fans of Shinkai Makoto out there may wish to add L-Key Studio from the PRC to your watchlist. I think I will let this video (with English subtitles) speak for itself:

I like the concept and the direction of this video, even though in terms of general style it tries too hard to imitate Shinkai Makoto and therefore loses out originality. The concept of 2nd_Life is that sometimes one processes and reprocesses a particularly memorable time in one's past that 'the past' becomes a kind of virtual reality. Certain unforgettable scenes in one's life just get processed into larger pixels with higher colour contrast ratio.

As much as I am pleased with this video (it shows that Chinese animation has come a long way), it nevertheless made me wonder if Shinkai Makoto, as much as his existing trademark style is widely admired, may have to evolve into another style if he is to distinguish himself from imitators. An artist typically goes through several phases of personal style in the course of his or her life. I wonder what the style of Shinkai Makoto will evolve into.

Comments

[Nick]

Ooh, nice! Thanks for the heads up!

I'm not too worked up at the lack of originality; every good artist I know started out copying someone else, then evolved from there. I do hope the Chinese animation industry does evolve into its own industry to, much like it seems the Korean animation industry is doing. Though for the Koreans, I've only heard of My Beautiful Mari[1], which I still need to get around to acquiring and watching the movie.

I do really like how _2nd Life_ flows; the feel is definitely Shinkai-esce. It does try to imitate Makoto Shinkai's visual style, but it does seem to miss when it comes to timing and lighting. Shinkai likes to use series of image changes timed to the background music at important points in his Movies, which makes sense, as his background was Video Game openings, which are largely glorified music videos (And nevermind the glaring example in Part 3 of _5 Centimeters Per Second! I do have a collections of Shinkai's shorts on my site[2].). Shinkai also has a fascination with light, something that I see is much more subdued in _2nd Life_. As a fellow blogger wrote[3]: " The thing that struck me the most about it was the way Shinkai is in love with light. He places the “camera” to capture the light in the most charismatic way possible, treating the light as if it were the main character in the frame." It might be expressed differently, but I'm not seeing this feel in _2nd Life_.

As if and how Makoto Shinkai will evolve his personal style? Maybe he already has evolved[4]....

[1] - http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/my-beautiful-girl-mari
[2] - http://anime.nickistre.net/blog/anime/2008/03/30/a-collection-makoto-shinkai-shorts-and-english-fan-site
[3] - http://www.haibane.info/2008/04/04/makoto-light/
[4] - http://anime.nickistre.net/blog/anime/2008/03/26/neko-no-shuukai-a-shinkai-short

[Wabi Sabi]

Whoa, you actually annotate your comment. ^-^

Anyway, thank you for the wonderful quote of light being like a main character on the screen of Shinkai.

I tried to Google more info about this Chinese studio but found nothing. The video is dated Mar 2008, and a gut feeling tells me that it was probably uploaded by the creators themselves (perhaps because I cannot imagine how else they would have been able to reach an audience - but what do I know). Still, it's just amazing that a studio that managed to produce such a work seems to have sprung out of nowhere...

[Shina Luna]

Thank you very much for this great Post!
I noticed there is a download of the Video in Full Quality on the homepage of the studio along with the BGM. (Which I really love.)

It definitely remind one of makoto Shinkai, since the story already is a bit similiar to the one of Shinkai's 'Byousoku 5cm'.
But I can still regard it as an individual work. Considering them being still amateurs, it is really a great accomplishment.

I have the feeling, that there will be more from this studio. I really hope, they will do more. Seems to be a group of very talented people. And if there is more, we will see of they evolve to something not imitating somebody else.

As for Makoto Shinkai's evolvement, I also believe, he did. But actually I don't like that it's going more ito teh direction of Gibli. (For some unknown reason, I have never found myself liking any Gibli productions. It's mysterious...)

Anyway, I hope there will be more entries on Chinese Anime! The Chinese Anime Market ist really rather unknown and it is really hard to find information unless you know Chinese (in which IÄm rather bad), let alone get to watch some Chinese Anime.

[Wabisabi]

Yes, I later learned that their website is here:

ttp://www.l-key.com/ck.asp?id=38

It seems that my gut feeling was correct after all - they did upload their video to Youku themselves.

I am guessing that this video probably started off as a student project. It also looks to me that the studio is an unincorporated association, so one wonders what would happen to the rights of this video should they choose to have the group wound up...

I would write about Chinese animation as they come in the pipeline - I always have more to write about than I have time to write them.

[Xcomp]

I agree it's got an interesting concept. Memories would kind of change overtime as one recalls them, wouldn't they? Depending on how one wants to remember them and who they are being told to.

Some of the artwork reminded me of 5cm too but it didn't quite capture my attention as quickly on the first watch. It just doesn't create a very powerful atmosphere as say Oukashou did.

Still, this is indeed good work from Chinese animators. I just hope this was just to test what they are capable of but will move onto developing their own style of artwork, something that suits them.

[Wabisabi]

Glad you like it.