Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is a love-letter to anime and, more broadly, the boundless potential of animation. It’s also really fun.
Plot summary
When youngster Midori falls in love with anime (haven’t we all?), her imagination starts firing like a machine-gun. A few years pass and she’s still as obsessed and only getting better at drawing. We learn that she wants to make her own anime and she’s now found couple of friends to share her passion for it. They geek out together and daydream funny ideas for a story.
Is it any good?
Heck yes. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! (aka Hands off the Motion Picture Club!) is a love-letter to anime and, more broadly, to the boundless potential of animation, where the only limit is the led in your pencil and the depths of your mind. It is director Masaaki Yuasa at his earnest, free-wheeling best, taking a pen in hand and letting his imagination run wild. I had so much fun watching this, and I suspect that’s only half as much fun as I’m sure the animators at Science SARU must’ve had drawing it. I love that, for once, this isn’t a high-school anime drenched in melancholy and nostalgia. The girls seem like real, imperfect little brats, awkward and stick-like, living in the moment. They aren’t walking on eggshells, their voices are rough and passionate. Passion is the keyword here. Well, passion and love. Do what you love. Be creative.
What are you worried about?
Like pretty much every Masaaki Yuasa anime, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! won’t be for everyone. It is filled with rough and lively animation, crass jokes and silly banter. If you, like a lot of anime fans, prefer a more sedate pace with prettily drawn, cute characters, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! isn’t for you. I hope that Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! finds a fanbase, I fear that it will be small.
From manga to anime
In another post, we review what we can of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!‘s manga and learn a bit more about how its mangaka came to live out the dreams of his lively characters.
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