It's time for my personal favourite studio.
Surprisingly, SHAFT has been around for quite a while, since 1975. They started off solely as an animation studio and it wasn't until the late 80s that they got into production. They made some shows here and there until the 2000s, when they started off the decade by doing joint productions with Gainax to produce romance/harem comedies Mahoromatic, This Ugly and Beautiful World, and He is My Master.
In 2004, Akiyuki Shinbo joins the studio and gives the studio its infamous reputation and style that it has today.
And what is Shaft known for today? Fast cuts, strange angles, and extremely close shots are some of the atypical direction choices that they employ. Their distinctive style is a product of tight budgets. Things like solid and patterned backgrounds and heavy use of symbols and text also fall under this category, although even when they do have ample monies to throw around, it really is their thing now. Not related to budgets is their propensity for in-jokes and references, particularly in backgrounds and on chalkboards, leading some people to watch their shows with a finger on the pause button.
「さよなら絶望先生」 by 和田
People might point to Pani Poni Dash as the exemplar of Shaft's shows, but I think Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is much more in line with the type of stuff that they do. SZS shares a lot with PPD, like the school setting, direction, and reference-laden jokes, but where PPD is more random fun, SZS is much darker and functions as a sort of social commentary (for Japan, at least). It is very much for people who are familiar with Japanese society and obscure anime, and if you like weird kanji jokes, then even better.
by asasow
Hidamari Sketch is my personal favourite slice of life comedy. Yes, I think it is better than Azumanga Daioh. The reason is that I think it captures the dynamics of the life of a student living away from home pretty well. There's character growth over the three seasons as we see our first years be scared first years, get comfortable, and grow to become the second years taking care of scared first years. Also, I love the wideface.
「ef」 by パセリ
The full title of ef is ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two. Which two? Well, in a departure from the usual visual novel, ef is actually a few love stories told in parallel. Each of the stories revolves around the question of identity. Since each scenario is self-contained and intertwined with the others, there's no weird shoehorning in, like usual visual novel adaptations. ef is interesting because it's a show in which Shinbo's unorthodox style is applied to a fairly serious story. The heavy symbols work really well with the show.
「化物語」 by 葉山りせ
Bakemonogatari is a series famous for its wordplay and dialogue, as well as an injection of otaku humour. And the anime is what many consider to be the product of some crazy synergy, with Shinbo adapting a NisioisiN work. The writing and wit is really clever and almost from the first episode, I was sure that it'd become one of my favourites. While the characters are derived from your typical archetypes, they each have a clever spin to them that makes them incredibly entertaining.
Now obviously, this isn't every show that they've done. They do a show almost every season. A lot of them are your usual comedies, like Maria+Holic or Natsu no Arashi. Most recently, they did an adaptation of Arakawa Under the Bridge. They've also been repsonsible for the alternate Star Crystal storyline for Negima, as well as the recent OVAs (but not the horrid first anime) that adapted some of the later Negima arcs.
In general, they're a fairly divisive studio. There are those who love Shinbo's style and those who think it's cheap hackery. And the studio is also known for being plagued with production scheduling problems, leading to less than stellar episodes. Up until recently, the typical examples were the imploding of Tsukuyomi Moon Phase and the Hidamari Sketch x365 Mt. Fuji scene. However, Bakemonogatari made these problems really obvious, with the chronic delays of episodes 13-15 and the amount of missing scenes from Nadeko Snake.
I mentioned that they're my favourites. They're certainly not winning any awards for quality, but the uniqueness they bring to the medium and the type of shows that they produce are enough to win me over, in spite of not being able to finish episodes properly on time.
Preview (for the next thread)
That's no Zaku, boy, no Zaku.
Can't wait for the Sunrise thread!
