猴houge on YouTube / @nian4111 on Twitter
I wanted to talk about this a week ago, but I didn’t have time until today. In fact, I still don’t have time, since I have something important to work on today, so I’ll keep this short.
For a bit of context, this animation was made by a dude and his friends over the past 4 years while they were still in college. Since everything is in Chinese, I can’t really talk about the story, so I’ll instead gush about the presentation instead. Shoutout to @nian4111 on Twitter for leading this project.
It’s clear that this is still an amateur project; the linework doesn’t connect at points, there are some low-quality artifacts, and the voice acting… exists. However, nian41 clearly did his homework over the past 4 years; you can tell he’s been studying only the best in the anime industry.
Yutaka Nakamura’s work seems to be the biggest inspiration for this project, especially from 1:50 to 3:18. The most obvious nod to Yutapon’s work is the almost funny abundance of cube-shaped debris, but I was more impressed by the subtle homages, like the jaggy smears or the ways objects melt. Even the fight choreography is clearly inspired by Yutapon’s work on Cowboy Bebop and My Hero Academia.
I also like how they aren’t taking this project too seriously, if you couldn’t tell from the music in the intro. During the main fight, you can see normal civilians trying to avoid the carnage, while one dog follows the action in the most hilarious way. Even before the main fight you can see a bunch of weird side characters, like a girl riding a giant paper airplane, or a dude just mooning the camera from a distance. For goodness sake, the ending is a Rick Roll of someone pissing on a flower.
You can tell this is a jumble of wild ideas compiled into one project, and I’m glad they can finally show it off to the world. I’m really looking forward to what this team will make in the future.
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