I picked this up from Manami in Japan. I had asked her to help me buy before my recent trip because I wanted to safe on shipping but she very kindly gave it to me as a gift. Really awesome of her. :)
Okay... let's cut to the chase. This is the first of a series of six art / animation books released by Magica Quartet for their hit anime series Mahou Shoujo Madoka. This is unlike the Production Note (link is to my unboxing post) that was released last year. That was more like an artbook and included concept art, sketches, final artwork etc. The Key Animation Note series concentrates mostly on the art in the anime itself. And if you're an animation student or have done animation before, especially traditional animation, you might find these volumes of greater interest than the average person.
Volume 1's focus is on the opening theme song's animation. Those familiar with storyboards and traditional animation will recognize the layout of the pages and the registration peg holes. I think most people don't shoot animation the traditional way anymore. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the animation industry since I've mostly worked in broadcast tv and live-action films so I'm guessing when I say that they drew the anime on animation tracing paper (sorry, don't remember the correct terminology) and instead of shooting them on an animation stand, they scanned them into their computers to work out the timing of the shots etc. They have a page devoted to explaining how they did it, I think. But I'm too tired to try and use my limited knowledge of Japanese to work my way through the written Japanese right now.
Volume 1 includes the key poses from the opening theme, storyboard notes and a few pages devoted to the key visuals and some concept art. If you flip through the book, you can get a sort of flip book animation thing going. Kind of cool. :)
The above scans are of the front and back cover of the animation note. The cover is very, very shiny and it's a bit of a pain to shoot photos of it.. I kind of like it but it's definitely a magnet for finger prints. If the scans are place side by side, they almost form a seamless big picture. But almost only since the spline of the book doesn't continue the visual.
The photos of the cover sheet covering Vol.1 gives you a pretty good idea of how shiny it is.
Kyubey graces the actual cover of the book when the shiny cover page is removed.
The binding is pretty standard and it's decent enough.
These are the freebies that are included with this release. I think one of them is some kind of mousepad and the other is a 3d card.
Here are more sample photos of the contents of the book.
I rather like this release partly because I have done some traditional animation in film school and storyboards and cell animation artwork etc interest me. I was not particularly good at it but I enjoyed learning how to do it and the process of making it. It really does give you a very healthy respect for the guys who make animated films.
I'm not entirely certain that this release will appeal to the casual Mahou Shoujo Madoka fan but I think it will appeal to those who fans of the anime and who like the artwork in the series. While it's certainly not as fancy or as nice a release as the Production Note, still it is a pretty nice release and it isn't quite as expensive as the Production Note. The paper and printing are all good quality stuff and if you're a fan of the series and it's art, I really do think it's worth considering this purchase. But do bear in mind that this is merely vol.1 of 6 volumes and if you're the sort of person that must have complete collections, this may eventually cost you a pretty penny if you're not all that interested in getting all 6 volumes. I got mine from CD Japan and will get the rest of them from this online store too. If you're interested in getting them from the same place I got mine, here is the link.
Okay... I'm going to try and squeeze in a Kalafina related post and then go to sleep. :)
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