I admit that PA Works (Progressive Animation Works) is one of my favorite studios besides Kyoto Animation not because of the high production values, but rather the types of shows they come out. The studio is more known for its original productions, some that I actually enjoyed.
After watching Glasslip, I was deeply disappointed and wondered to my self, why did it fail? It’s odd considering that they played it safe with a premise that they can’t possibly mess it up. Ultimately, we are proven wrong.
Compared to other studios, I think PA Works produces shows with varying levels of story quality despite having great production values. It seems that their shows tend to start rather weak and then progressively become better over time. Shows like Hanasaku Iroha and Nagi no Asukara comes into mind. Sure, there are some weak moments that kind of annoyed me such as Minko getting into a fight with Ohana over Tohoru and Hikari acting like a total jerk. Despite that, the endings tend to meet my expectations, especially the latter with the characters finally resolving their feelings, which in turn allow the sea-god to see how foolish he was by taking away the memories of the maiden he loved.
While I have mixed feelings about Okada Mari’s tendencies to emasculate male characters, I think she is a good writer that can make a good melodramatic story. The same can be said about Tari Tari, which is the 2nd best show from the studio in my opinion, which she did not work on. While it is not as ambitious compared to other works from PA Works, I really enjoyed the characters (especially Wakana and Sawa) and the cheerful feeling despite the school closing down at the end of the show.
Besides these shows and a few others, the rest of their shows can be considered middle-of-the-road or a complete failures. For instance, I find Red Data Girl and Angel Beats enjoyable, but flawed at the same time. Although they are not bad shows since they have interesting premises, I have a feeling that something is missing in the story that makes it somewhat incomplete. Of course, there are shows like Another and Cannan, which are considered by the blogosphere and critics as forgettable or bad. From the looks of it, it seems to me that PA Works is putting a lot of effort to make a masterpiece that would gain popularity, but their efforts always fell short. With Glasslip, they tried to play it safe like they did with Tari Tari by having a balanced cast and a premise focusing on glass making. Somehow, they messed that up really badly and I will explain the three aspects they messed up.
Little to No Character Development
When I watched the first episode, I felt that the story dropped the viewer into the story with a group of characters and called it quits. While the characters in Touko’s group receives some basic character development, it doesn’t go anywhere after a few episodes besides Touko and Kakeru. The lack of character development is bad because the viewers would not be able to connect with these characters and therefore, it will seem like they never existed. For instance, why should we care about Hiro having romantic feelings for Sacchi if they spend most of their screen time in her room? The same applies to Yuki and Yanagi slapping Kakeru. While the scene is somewhat dramatic, the emotional impact was superficial because Yuki and Yanagi never received enough development for me to care.
Considering that this is a character driven story, they should have spent more time developing the characters like they did with their previous works so that the viewers can connect with the characters. By throwing out character development or limiting it to two characters, it severely limits the impact of the drama while making the story feel like it’s not going anywhere. At this rate, they may as well make Touko and Kakeru the main characters and forget the rest of the group.
Fragments of the Future and Vagueness
From the start, Touko and Kakeru found out that they could see fragments of the future by looking at a piece of glass. While it’s an interesting idea, I felt that whoever wrote the story really messed up what this ability supposed to be by making it so vague. At first, Kakeru said that the fragments were about the future. Then, in the finale, Touko’s mom says it’s something else and she still doesn’t have an idea what it is. It seems to me that the writers want to make it vague so that the viewers can figure it out for themselves. Even so, why should the viewers care about it if Touko’s mom does not even know what it is? By having her say that, they basically made the whole show completely pointless.
Sense of No Progression
If the vagueness over the whole visions thing wasn’t enough, the production team thought it was a good idea to jumble in various subplots at the same time. Since there is no real character development, it’s expected that this kind of story telling would be dead on arrival. I understand that they probably done this to show that the group that Touko made is drifting apart. Unfortunately, it was badly executed for reasons mentioned earlier. They should have taken the same approach like they did with their previous works by giving each character the spotlight instead of going through the idea of subplots. At least with that type of story telling, the show would be halfway decent.
Conclusion
It’s very surprising and saddening that PA Works messed up big time with Glasslip by trying to experiment with several ideas in order to make the show feel ambitious and interesting. After watching the last episode, I felt that it was by far the worst show they made thus far. Perhaps they need to go back to their roots and do the same what made True Tears, Hanasaku Iroha and Tari Tari popular. I think Kyoto Animation realized that already and went back to adapting source material from Kadokawa with Amagi Brilliant Park after focusing on in-house productions for a year. From the looks of it, first episode is showing some promise. PA Works needs to do the same by doing things that made some of their shows successful instead of experimenting and messing up badly. Hopefully, they will learn their lesson with Shirobako, but I’m not holding my breath.
With that, what are your thoughts on PA Works? Do you think that they will recover from this failure and eventually produce a popular and well-received show? Feel free to share your favorite shows from them.
It’s like I told you good sir, the decision to not revolve the show around chicken was what led to its downfall. Also it was a sign that PAW needs to back of het rom-coms for a bit. Hopefully they learned from this mistake and will NOT REPEAT IT IN SHIROBAKO!
I have watched the first episode of Shirobako and it’s definitely an improvement over Glasslip, so you don’t have to worry.
Certainly hope not. If the het rom-com is as toned as it was in Tari Tari then we’re good.
I know you read my thoughts on Glasslip, but yeah, it was very disappointing. They really only had two things they needed to do in the series – explain the deal with Touko and Kakeru’s “fragments of the future,” and develop the relatively small cast of characters. In the end, both these things were left terribly vague and practically no different from episode 1 XP
But on a better note, I did like the first episode of Shirobako. I can’t say it’s gonna be great or anything yet, but episode 1 at least entertained me more than several episodes of Glasslip XD
It seems to me that PA Works don’t do that great of a job when it comes to romance Anime in general. Out of the series that sell well (over 3000k), with the exception of Angel Beats, Hanasaku Iroha and Tari Tari were able to break that and they were mostly light hearted shows with some drama with some to little romance. But in general, I can’t believe they couldn’t explain the phenomenon or even develop the characters. They may as well say the first episode is the last episode and call it quits as the 11 episodes were pointless.
On the flip side, Shirobako is definitely better, but I won’t get myself overhype and set myself for disappointment again.
PA may had some great works, but not all of their releases are masterpieces for sure, Glasslip may be one of their worst yet xD You touched on a lot of points which I would definitely agree as well, yet at the same time, it just feels like the anime’s trying to achieve something which it doesn’t really need – you can see at some point, it tries to be intellectual, thematic, and even classy (because well, classical music, which sounds awesome btw, though I’m not sure how relevant are they other than trying to make the show looks/sounds different than your typical anime), yet it never seems to fix it’s obvious flaws, like the ones you mentioned.
I do agree that Glasslip in some way or another is trying to make you think more about the fragments thing, but at the end it falls on it’s face. While I do appreciate the classical music and how they used it in the story, there are other shows that uses it better. To me, if Glasslip was just a typical slice of life romance show like Tari Tari and not try to do unnecessary things as you mention, it wouldn’t be that bad. Hopefully from the dismal sales of Glasslip DVDs/Blurays, PA Works will learn a valuable lesson on what not to do while making a show.
Having not seen any of the other recent PA Works series, Glasslip did not disappoint me like it did others. However, it had some major narrative flaws for sure, so I agree with you about that. The ending really made the journey somewhat pointless as well. I liked some of the drama, and the animation is wonderful, but it still disappointed in the end. Excellent review and blog!
By the way, you mention several series here, but which of the recent PA Works series would you recommend? I have seen Angel Beats, but that’s it.
-James
It seems that people have different opinions and think the show is enjoyable, but from what I have seen, it’s a small minority. In the end, the show was too confusing to be enjoyable.
If you want to know what shows are good from PA Works, I suggest reading my reviews on Tari Tari and Nagi no Asukara as I gave them pretty high scores.