Director Masaomi Andō has quietly created some of the best series in the last decade. His latest outing is SHY, a superhero action series starring a hero with overwhelming anxiety. Steve and Nicky look back at his past work to see how he utilizes different tricks to create engaging entertainment.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.
The series mentioned in this column are streaming on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE.
Steve
Nicky, with a new anime season, comes an opportunity to do one of our patented director spotlights, the feature I think we’ve done exactly once so far. But if we want to keep this up, we’ve got a whole cornucopia of creative voices to work through, so there’s no time like the present. And this time, I thought we’d highlight the director responsible for bringing this high-strung bundle of anxiety to our television sets.
Nicky
One of the nice things about being an anime fan for so long is that you don’t always know when one of your favorites will show up or when a director will become your favorite, but it’s a pleasant surprise. I think today’s subject fits nicely into that description. As a director who mostly makes adaptations, I never know when Masaomi Andō will show up, but his career has cultivated quite a list of cult hits from Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun to Astra Lost in Space, Scum’s Wish and School-Live!, to name a few. The recent SHY would’ve flown me by if I didn’t figure out he was attached to it.
He’s a fascinating figure! While I wouldn’t have put him near the top of my favorite directors list before digging into this column, looking at his oeuvre has refreshed my perspective on him. He’s not, for instance, as idiosyncratic and brash as our prior feature subject, Mamoru Hatakeyama. Andō does, however, certainly have a set of visual hallmarks and stylistic quirks that he’s developed over the past decade. Moreover, he’s helmed quite an eclectic collection of shows, and I enjoy many of them.
Most of my encounters with him have been based on his choice of projects, so it wasn’t always that I was seeking him out, but having seen plenty of his stuff, I feel a sense of security seeing his name attached to something. Not only does he have excellent taste, he can bring out the best of the material he works with. His work isn’t always flashy, but he’s very dependable when bringing some of my favorite manga to life!
I might sound crazy making this comparison, but I honestly found myself thinking about Osamu Dezaki a bit when analyzing Andō. Not to say Andō has produced anything as iconic (or melodramatic) as Dezaki at his peak, but both dudes applied themselves to a diverse range of genres with broad success. That’s neither a small feat nor an easy task.
I think that’s apt. We need to think about what being a director means as an individual artist with their ways of expressing themselves, the reality that it’s also a job, and the limitations of such. Dezaki was very prolific in his time, and even then, he mostly did adaptations and a lot of work to put food on the table.
Another parallel is how those limitations breed creativity. So much of Dezaki’s artistic legacy, from the postcard memories to the triple takes, was born from trying to make an anime look as good as possible with the minimal resources he was afforded. I feel like Andō found his voice by way of similar constraints. Like, probably his most iconic calling card is his use of paneling. Whether it’s cut-ins, insets, or quick gags, he frequently divvies up the space onscreen. It stands out, but it also cuts down on the amount of animating needed—it’s easier to redraw a part of the frame than the whole thing. You see this all over in SHY.
I’ve also noticed a trend that there is a surplus of anime adaptations that are a little too faithful to their comic counterparts. Some anime are just 1:1 pages and panels that you can tell manga has been used as a replacement for good storyboarding, with very little attention drawn to the actual movement. This is part of why we praise anime for having its own flare and originality! However, Andō’s use of panel-like frames is clever in capturing the likeness of manga to make the moments of his anime more dynamic.
The Scum’s Wish anime is an excellent example, as he captured the intimacy of Yokoyari’s panels within these closed little boxes.
It’s a technique he applies with plenty of purpose. I love the moments of Scum’s Wish, which start resembling a Brian de Palma film, watching a scene play out from two different simultaneous angles, so we get a wider breadth of the action and emotion between and within these characters.
It also aids the sensationalist/voyeuristic angle to Scum’s Wish compelling trash heap of relationships.
I love the sad trash children so much. The story of a group of people who think of themselves as unlovable, hoping for reassurance through any means of affection, is inherently problematic and tricky to portray. Scum’s Wish‘s redeemable qualities lie in how it displays the characters’ interior selves in a way that finds beauty and sympathy beyond their objective flaws. It’s delicate and dangerous, like the thorny roses littered throughout the opening. It was not to everyone’s taste, but I was impressed that the adaptation elegantly kept the audience at the appropriate distance for what was being shown.
I am a huge fan of the manga, and I am glad the anime did it justice. You can trace the adaptation’s roots back to White Album 2, which Andō also directed. There, he works in similarly nostalgia-tinted, melancholy high school romance hues. Still, you can feel Scum’s Wish contort that veneer into something more appropriately twisted for its content.
While Andō wouldn’t be my first pick to direct a show about superheroes, his visual senses certainly haven’t dulled. Episode 2 of the superheroine-led SHY impressed me. The visuals go all out to show the one character’s internal darkness that the main villain’s plot has manifested, it’s both a sad and horrifying scene that ends beautifully when she is “saved” by Shy. You can feel that this is someone clouded by the pain and sadness of their trauma.
I love the creepy storyboards for Stigma’s debut, too. Now, that’s how you introduce a villain. Kōsaku Taniguchi, not Andō, did these, but that just goes to show you that he put the right person on the job.
Being able to work with the right people is a big part of an anime director’s job, too! When talking about directors, we often praise their various connections and ability to bring many talented people together.
As anyone who watched Shirobako could tell you, anime is a highly collaborative (and scarily ad hoc) process. The series director’s role will differ from person to person, from show to show, but they’re there to ensure the ship is sailing in the right direction. It’s a juggling act of everything from behind-the-scenes logistics to onscreen themes and consistency. And Andō’s ability to keep those balls in the air was arguably most important regarding the ridiculous balancing act that was School-Live!.
TWIA behind-the-scenes moment here: Steve and I discovered that we both had made the same grave error when conceptualizing this article. Despite hearing much-hushed praise, both of us had missed the bell on School-Live! and had it crawling around our backlogs since 2015. So, we both took the opportunity to confront it in honor of the Spooky Season. Think of it as our very own test of courage!
‘Tis the season! And you know what? I’m glad I could finally knock this one back. It takes the absurd marriage of slice-of-life club comedy with zombie horror, and it makes it work. There’s zero chance a creator could stumble into making that happen. The execution here was precise, and it paid off.
It also helped that I was mostly unspoiled even after all these years, so I’d advise anyone scared of spoilers to cover their eyes or run and watch the show because it’s difficult to discuss otherwise. The manga and anime for School-Live! rely on not knowing what to expect or picking up the hints. On its face, it’s simply another cute show about girls living at school, but in reality, it’s the struggle of a small group of girls doing their best to survive. The first episode turned a lot of heads for its initial reveal, but the horror doesn’t end there.
The main character, Yuki, is the only club member unable to cope with the situation, and her deep mental illusions make her a bit unreliable.
That’s what makes the premiere such an incredible exercise. It’s a deft breadcrumb trail of weird details—breakfast spaghetti, desks piled in the hallway, shovel girl, blotchy figures shambling around the schoolyard—that eventually coagulate into a twist that, even when you know it’s coming, hits with plenty of impact—lots of credit to Andō for the playfulness and artistry on display there.
Like, I think people tend to frame the show around that “gotcha!” moment, but the whole package is pretty upfront about its intentions, and I came out the other side respecting the audacity of it. It even got me right in the feels in the end. Good anime.
When it goes hard, it goes hard. There’s still a lot of jokes, but there’s a real sense of unease. Being cut off from the world at large, both the audience and the members of the School-Living Club are entirely in the dark regarding information. There are a lot of unknown factors to keep you on your toes, and much of how we got here is revealed slowly. The fact that these are just average high schoolers heightens the zombie-induced tragedy.
Yet, that’s also why the jokes and Yuki’s antics become an interesting sort of levity and not just a nuisance or a liability. Acting like cute girls keeps the cast grounded as they’re all put through not-very-cute things.
It’s a high-tension thriller where they also find time to do a pool episode. That’s art.
Also, the comic-styled gag cards for specific objects are both weird and cute.
That also lets me segue into another Andō-directed thriller that isn’t afraid of cutting to a dumb visual gag.
Astra Lost in Space packs a lot into its 12 episodes, and I’m glad some of it is very stupid.
The manga is by the same author as the currently running Witch-Watch. It’s an incredibly tight 50 chapters about good kids dealing with the horrors of space but in the same vein as the nostalgic memory of when you and your friends ran from a bear that one time at summer camp.
It also has plenty of examples of that Andō flair. The most obvious choice is how he letterboxes all of the scenes except those in open space. It’s a little gimmicky, maybe, but it’s a neat way of using form to communicate the enormity of what these kids are up against.
Of course, you’ll find more panels, too, which the show utilizes smartly, given the size of the main cast.
They’re also just my perfect dumb wholesome space children, like the opposite of how I feel about the Scum’s Wish cast but with equal fondness. It’s very close to the manga, but having the visual elements plays into the grandness of deep space and the mysterious planets within it. There is a lot of bouncing off between characters and twists that make this a fun, adventurous, and memorable little ride.
To reiterate my earlier point, we’ve discussed a sci-fi thriller, a slice-of-life horror, a psychological superhero story, and a couple of romance anime of varied trashiness. In each case, I think Andō brought something invaluable to the adaptation. He’s quite the cosmopolitan director.
For each example, I felt like the team working on them examined the source material and questioned how things needed to be told rather than just copying what was already there. Not all of these examples looked the best, but they are solid works that make do with what you can bring out of an existing material with just a little color, light, and timing.
Many of these were done by Studio Lerche, who has a reliable track record for good anime with mid-tier productions. They’re not exceptional; they’re dependable. But occasionally, a voice like Andō’s can squeeze more juice out of them. Look how much style was stuffed into Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun.
Hanako-kun also had a pretty excellent illustrated-style ED, probably my fav of that season, and the various school urban legends make for an exceedingly colorful and creepy time. Another great Halloween pick!
I love how much it leans into all of its stylistic choices. It’s committing to those palettes. It’s throwing that line weight as far as it can go.
I should also note that there was a rumor the Hanako-kun anime would be “restarted”. I don’t have much information on it and what that’s supposed to mean since it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of an anime getting remade so soon. I’m curious whether or not Andō will still be involved since I think much of the existing anime is solid.
It seems like much of the work hasn’t been forgotten, though, since the currently airing short After-School Hanako-kun shares much of the same aesthetic DNA as the previous season and was a charming and fun way to refresh myself on the characters for this column.
Also, bnuys.
And on the opposite end of the spooky spectrum, Hakumei and Mikochi is all laid-back storybook vibes lifted from the illustrations in a children’s fairy tale. Just a couple of tiny women eating food and enjoying life. This, too, is something Andō’s adaptation fundamentally understands.
I have yet to check this out, but maybe I should because I am also a tiny woman who eats food and enjoys life. Maybe after the spooky season has passed, and I get closer to the Obligatory Family-Oriented Food holiday. It seems like something I’d enjoy after overeating turkey.
Good call. I also think it was a good call covering Masaomi Andō like this. He doesn’t stand out as much as some other directors because his adaptations aren’t what I’d call “transformative.” But he is good at honing the essence of a work and transposing it onto the screen so it can speak for itself. I think that’s a pretty rare gift that tends to be undervalued.
I’ve always felt he was severely underrated. He takes on interesting projects, which are often niche and can take a while to be appreciated or discovered. On top of that, not everyone knows who directs what and might not have connected these titles with a single director despite having already enjoyed much of his output. Or you could even be like us and still have one of these series in your backlog despite hearing nothing but good things about it!
The backlog, sadly, is eternal, but that’s why I’ll always appreciate people like Masaomi Andō for keeping it stocked full of gems waiting to be discovered—when it’s not staring daggers into my soul, that is.
