Director: Akitarō Daichi
Screenplay: Tou Nagatsuki (OVA 1) and Aki Itami (OVA 2)
Voice Actor: Kaori Asoh as Mikiko "Kuromi" Aguro; Reiko Yasuhara as Hamako Shihonmatsu, Yoshiro Matsumoto as Hassaku Hozumi, Eiji Ito as Mizuho Tanonaka, Kazuya Ichijo as Seiichiro Haryu. Akemi Okamura as Aoi Fukami, Mayumi Misawa as Mai Horiguchi, Masahito Yabe as Masato Oppama; Koji Ishii as Rei Takashimaidara
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles
An early 2000s OVA, Animation Runner Kuromi sadly, for all the cheerfulness and ska instrumental theme, does have to be spoken off separate but still in context to its director Akitarō Daichi. He is famous for many titles especially in the early 2000s and including in the West, such as the original 2001 Fruits Basket series, but sadly we have to separate the man from his work due to allegations of sexual misconduct brought up in 2019. It comes from a "tell-all story" from voice actress Hiroko Konishi where she talked of being coerced into going to a mixed bathing spring alone with her manager and an anime director, and that she was blackballed for refusing to get into the bath with the director at the time, the director identified as Akitarō Daichi1. This sadly, as someone who got into anime at the time fo the likes of Fruits Basket, has not been a pleasant thing to realise; as someone who does believe in seperating the art from the director, I am not however ignorant of the fact some will find it impossible to do so, and does not stop me from lamenting a person staining their talents from objectionable behaviour.
What has probably not helped either, but by accident, is that for a light hearted tale of a young woman named Mikiko, nicknamed Kuromi, working in a small animation studio is that, whilst it does deal with the hard work and strain of the career, it still sugar coats an industry which has been revealed to be much more problematic in its treatment of staff. This is all a bleak way to begin a review for what is actually a fun pair of OVAs, but the same year of 2019 was when Madhouse studios, for an example that comes to my mind, were accused of having staff working over 200+ hours of overtime2. Suffice to say Animation Runner Kuromi looks like a title from a different reality, but let us not forget these details beforehand even if what I am going to talk about was a joy.
Let us now step away from this grim reality, as if two OVAs could do with a rediscovery, even in spite of its director, these were a fun pair worthy of that. Mikiko is established as not even being an anime otaku either, having seen when she was younger a show in this world, a pastiche of the Lupin IIIfranchise, that encouraged her to train as an animator and want to work at a small studio. On her first day, in this exaggerated tale of how difficult the career is, a key staff member is hospitalised for a stomach ulcer and she is shoved into the role of the animation runner without any prior information of what to do or warning. Her work, the first OVA her grinding through and overcoming even lack of confidence in herself, is to manage the schedule for the production of an animated series they are working on, specifically there to manage the creation of key frames from the animators and collect it, a reminder even in this softened take on the industry a reminder one episode around twenty four minutes will require so many painstakingly illustrations to be drawn. And this is not even the end of the production, which she needed to collect, because they may need to be corrected for any mistakes and then shipped overseas to the company (likely South Korea as in real life) to actually be animated.
It softens the blow, but Kuromi does still show the nitty-gritty of this career even after the industry switched to computers than hand drawn animation. Imagining Animation Runner Kuromi itself, a forty minute OVA, you have to think of the animators having to draw each shot, each moment and transition needed to make Kuromi herself have an elasticised and exasperated reaction to her stressful work. All the key frames and animated transitions needed for this show would have to have been many, which needed to be compiled and created into the final animation. Paranoia Agent (2004), Satoshi Kon's sole television series, had an episode showing the agony of the anime industry which was incredibly dark humoured in its exaggeration, in a story where the production staff were literally dying off or hospitalised one-by-one, parodied with an agonised humour the pain of working on animation. This OVA does have a more positive conclusion, of the hard work paying off and to be proud of, but poor Kuromi, dragging herself home each night on a bicycle, has to drive around in the company car and deal with the animators, all stressed themselves. They are exaggerated but the joke is still there, between one freelancer hired for a motorcycle scene more interested in surfing than doing the work, or that one guy who is handsome and well dressed that, despite getting so much work done, is also so bad at drawing a child could do better.
The first OVA, with its shorter length, is more of an establishment of the world and its characters, as the jokes tend to lean on Kuromi in her stressful new work, what between an otaku animator who gets distracted in his home by his walls of games and merchandise, or the newly wedded female animator continually stressed by her day-to-day. Whilst the second OVA really pushes this, offering what feels a more concerted exorcism of the difficulty of the business, the first if it was the only one made still had a profoundness that, whilst the reality is more horrible as a career with very little pay, the ideal is that no matter how arduous animation is, one gains pride when it is completely. Kuromi even in her role, still vital, feels the weight but also the encouragement to help. The one person she looks up to is the director, a woman Hamako who was in her shoes once before. Narring in the second OVA where her attempt to quit chain-smoking leads to anxiety and accidentally trying to light a pencil, she is cool and collected even in the more harsh of moments, a friend to help Kuromi through.
You can argue that this sweetened, funny take sadly has been marked by the reality being as harsh and awful as it is, as well as the philosophy that no little pay and too many long hours is not justifiable even for the pride to work on a larger project, especially if you were an animator rather than the director. Animation Runner Kuromi is not a show to attempt to tackle this unfortunate real issue. Even here though, even as incredibly bleak humour, there are still jokes that the real pain is found in the producer and their managers on these productions than this animation team, especially when the second OVA is entirely about them being told to make three shows at once (once a horror zombie show, one a superhero parody, the other a cute girl fantasy comedy).
Kuromi is anything is on the side of the people who punch their cards and animate the material, the broad tone charming and earnest. Details like the ska theme, a very idiosyncratic and catchy instrumental, come like medicine to prevent this story from getting too grim. Personally the second OVA, made two years later but set just after the first when the animation team succeed, is better. Our cast are established and, slightly longer, the new detail being that, dealing with three shows at once and the strain that is causing, the head above hires another producer to get involved. He brings in two elderly animation veterans, one who hates highlights in character designs and removes them from the art, but also has the idea of cheaply producing the work quickly and without checks, even without actual director involvement, which produces awful work.
When a lot of anime reaching physical media is perfectly cleaned up, you forget (unless you watch direct streaming premieres) that as programming screening usually every week, television anime has a quick turnaround and mistakes have appeared. Most are probably not due to cutting corners, but you can get infamous examples. One like My Sister The Writer (2018)because notorious for it, whilst one of the infamous for being cheaply made was Musashi Gundoh (2006)3. Even with great shows, however, you could find a mistake that sneaks into the original broadcast which, if you were to see or find a screenshot of before being untouched, would be striking in seeing how flawed the conveyor belt is due to no one's fault. If anything, a veiled metaphor can be made for how unrealistic expectations are in terms of how much has to be made; Animation Runner Kuromi was making three shows for a tiny studio a major plot point when animation production was increasing per year in the 2000s, only to get more larger into the 2010s.
It would be a disservice to ignore this as a comedy. Sadly as mentioned Daichihas become a figure difficult to accept for good reason, which is tragic as his type of comedy in his work was a distinct and effective one, broad but never becoming obnoxious. An anime like this in general, whilst looking of its time in the transition to digital animation, has a whale of a time in the cast having to perform vocal gymnastics and the animators finding new ways to show Kuromi's exasperation or Hamako's meltdown trying to give up smoking, daydreaming of cigarettes in the midst of a hellish schedule. Running gags also thankfully never get old, no matter how repeated they are, never get old, so we find new ways for the animator Mizuho, who as mentioned dresses very professionally but cannot draw, to not be one note among everyone else. The length of a theatrical film altogether, Animation Runner Kuromiwas a fun blast to see finally.
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1) The full story is talked of, alongside her other damning comments about how voice actresses are treated, in mind to the #MeToo movement, in this article HERE. It does not paint a good picture in the slightest.
2) As reported HERE.
3) A Monkey Punch adaptation so bad in its animation quality, among other details, the Japanese audience ironically feel in love with it and bought the original broadcast versions with mistakes in their physical release. This show's bizarre story, finding this fascinating article whilst working on this review, can be found HERE.