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"Yes, I am comparing his work on a romcom to his work on action shows." →
Of all the shows I listed, Toradora has the best action scenes.
The point of the series isn’t the action. I have a lot of trouble with this argument for the simple reason that you’re not watching Toradora for the odd scene where a character happens to flail about on screen for a reason—you’re watching it for the love story.
What I was trying to say was that different directors have different strengths—Kenji Kamiyama, for instance, shouldn’t even have considered doing Eden of the East for the reason that a romance/action/mystery of that calibre just didn’t seem like something suited to his existing portfolio, whatever GITS:SAC and Moribito both fall into. Or maybe he just sucked at creating an original work.
Your point about Nagai’s forte being action is dubious at best. Idolmaster Xenoglossia and Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel both aren’t exactly well-known for their action sequences, and while Railgun did it well, I think that Nagai’s ability lies a lot more in romance for H&CII and Toradora’s sake.
I’ll be getting to the novels soon, but a quick flip through the 10th volume shows a lot of significant alterations—there’s no almost-confession in the freezing water, no kissing on the bridge, Taiga’s present when the teacher announces that she’s quitting school. It’s almost as if Nagai had a unique vision of Toradora and tailored the story accordingly—the quality of the original material is a good point, I’ll admit, but there’s much to consider when adapting something.
Pacing, for one. How do you squeeze 10 volumes worth of manga into 38 episodes? (H&C), or 10 light novel volumes into 25 episodes (Toradora) for that matter? I wouldn’t go so far as to assume that the act of adapting something is a mere copypaste or an effortless task—in fact, I’d say it’s significant that I’d consider a director who made it adequately entertaining to be talented enough.
Let’s look at it from another angle. Note the following have been directed by Nagai:
- Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel: Original anime (From a pachinko game)
- Idolmaster Xenoglossia: Original anime (From an idol simulator game)
Now compare this to his admittedly superior works:
- A Certain Scientific Railgun: Adaptation (From a manga)
- Honey and Clover II: Adaptation (From a manga)
- Toradora: Adaptation (From a light novel)
See a pattern here? Nagai’s poorly received anime were all created from scratch, while his highly acclaimed anime were all adapted off existing works. It’s not a leap of the imagination, then, to say that Nagai does terribly when it’s an original work but excels at translating things to the big screen.
(Source: satur9)
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thebign said:
Xenoglossia has a pretty decent story, once you understand it’s Girl X Mecha. :P
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scarletmonochrome reblogged this from satur9 and added:
Have you Seen Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel? It’s really good. That OVA was why I got interested in researching Nagai (see my...
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satur9 posted this
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So I’ve been craving some kimchi, and since I was making the trek to the Korean mart anyway,...
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So much food
Have to keep eating -
but I feel like this is way more legible than before and yeah though I...
