Visual Flights’ television anime adaptation of Shinya Komi’s Ex-Arm has been making waves in the industry recently with bold choices like putting a poorly animated 3D CGI character next to a 2D character and hoping no-one would notice and assembling a main staff unbridled by burdens such as any experience working on anime at all. Yoshikatsu Kimura directs his magnum opus, and its groundbreaking avant-garde approach has earned the attention and scrutiny of the anime community, as they struggle to comprehend the sheer stupendousness of it all.Questions were raised about the series recently when a kiss scene between two female characters appeared to be censored, with a bright flare of light appearing on the screen during the frames of the kiss. (Shown: a screenshot of the kiss from the anime, and a panel of the same scene from the manga).Calls went out on Twitter for Crunchyroll, which streams the anime as a Crunchyroll Original series, to respond to the perceived censorship. However, another possibility was offered by many of the show’s “fans.”Some proposed that the light was not intended to censor a same-sex kiss, but to disguise problems with the animation itself. Many have noted that the 3D characters in the series do not have animated faces beyond opening and closing of their jaws in a ventriloquist’s dummy-like fashion. Indeed, it may not have been an intentional elimination of LGBTQ content, but an attempt to hide distorted or nonexistent animations created by a staff so woefully unprepared and poorly managed that they were unable to deliver the scene properly.Callum May of the Canipa Effect explains “The extend of facial animation in EX-ARM is a single bone through the jaw that they waggle up and down… It’s not just that they had to cover up the lack of animation. Their noses are probably clipping right into each other.” Follow the Canipa Effect @CanipaShow on Twitter.Crunchryoll has not yet publicly responded to the accusations of censorship or the quality of the show’s animation. What do you think? An attempt to shield the eyes of impressionable viewers from disturbing content (to be clear the kiss, not the animation) or was it a lazy attempt to hide the complete incomitance of the show and much of its leadership?
Jan 20, 2021 • Subscribe
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