Studio Spotlight: Madhouse

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Studio Spotlight: Madhouse

Postby blkmage » Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:05 am

The linkbacks to the previous threads are using too many images :<

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This week, a long-lived studio that isn't afraid to dabble in a bit of everything and push the boundaries of the medium.

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Madhouse was founded in the early seventies. Unlike a lot of the other studios we've seen, they started producing OVAs and TV series pretty quickly. As a result, they have a ridiculously huge list of works, rivalling or surpassing that of Sunrise's.

What I love about Madhouse is their willingness to do weirder, less popular shows. I consider them to be the studio that is the most likely to do experimental stuff. They've got a fairly amazing stable of directors with them, including Satoshi Kon, Hosoda Mamoru, and Masaaki Yuasa. That's not to say that they're weirdos like the guys at Shaft. They've got plenty of mainstream shows under their belt.

And I guess that's the reason for their long list of shows that have no common style. They've got a great mix of stuff and among their shows is something for everyone. They've got your magical girl covered with Cardcaptor Sakura. They've got your American garage band story with Beck. Classical literary adaptations? Aoi Bungaku. Fanservice? Ichigo 100%. Weird, trippy show? The Tatami Galaxy. Shoujo drama? NANA. Mainstream family film? Summer Wars.

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「ありがとう。そしで、ただいま。」 by Stephie915


Madhouse has done a lot of CLAMP adaptations, with Cardcaptor Sakura being the most well-known of them. They've also got Chobits and Kobato, the latter of which I have seen. It was a decent show, but it pretty much confirmed for me that CLAMP isn't really my thing. That said, I think that these adaptations serve as an example of how Madhouse isn't particularly tied down to a certain style. They're just as willing to do shows about girls in frilly dresses as they are about guys gambling for their life in the criminal underworld.

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「1.2.3更新」 by ぽれ


Dennou Coil is a perfect example of the type of show that a lot of other studios are afraid to do. Dennou Coil is an interesting take on a future society, where augmented virtual reality has just become common for younger people. It's critically acclaimed and probably pretty popular while it was airing on TV, but it was ultimately lacking in DVD sales, which meant financial failure. Of course, Madhouse's diverse and large amounts of works allow them to do this sort of thing, but I think that it's encouraging to see someone do works that don't just go for easy sales.

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「希望」 by niuya


Masaaki Yuasa is a guy who directs shows that look very weird. The art style in any of his shows is bound to turn someone off. And yet, even in all the weirdness, the themes of his works should resonate with us. For instance, in Kaiba, we're introduced to a futuristic world that is completely alien to us. And yet, at the core of the show, it asks a very human question: what does it mean to love? Similarly, we have a very caricaturized world with very strange mechanics in The Tatami Galaxy. Like Kaiba, the story itself is something that a lot of us will have to deal with: our journey through college and dealing with the consequences of our decisions.

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「サマーOZ」by マルシュ


The horserace for my favourite theatrical anime director is always going to be between Shinkai Makoto, and the guy responsible for the above, Hosoda Mamoru. Although Hosoda doesn't have very many movies under his belt, at least not compared to the likes of Miyazaki or Satoshi Kon, the ones he has done are pretty amazing. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is your classic time-travel don't mess with time shenanigans, from the viewpoint of a high school girl. Summer Wars is a refinement on the themes that he presented in the Digimon movie that he presented, with the addition of the importance of family.

And more! Seriously, Madhouse has a ridiculously long list of works, the breadth of which I can probably never adequately cover.

NEXT TIME
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Postby Mr. Hat'n'Clogs » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:05 pm

Summer Wars! Besides that, Madhouse is petty solid from what I've seen. Ergo Proxy is great, though I need to finish it, and I think I've seen something else by them, though I can't say what.

I also need to see The Girl Who Leapt Through Time...
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Postby rocklobster » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:23 pm

Oh yeah! I love Madhouse!
Favorite titles:
Trigun
Paranoia Agent
Perfect Blue
Monster
Death Note
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Postby Mr. Hat'n'Clogs » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:27 pm

Oh. Death Note. I knew I was forgetting something.

Death Note actually made me not like Madhouse that much until I watched Summer Wars.
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Postby AnimeGirl » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:38 pm

Ah yes, Madhouse animated one of my fave anime of all time! Their work on Cardcaptor Sakura was stunning, and although I have yet to see Kobato, I saw some clips in AMVs, and it looks BEAUTIFUL! It's even better than Cardcaptor Sakura was!
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Postby TheSubtleDoctor » Wed Aug 18, 2010 12:50 pm

Mr. Hat'n'Clogs (post: 1417983) wrote:Death Note actually made me not like Madhouse that much
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...

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Sorry =). But that statement is sort of akin to judging Bones by Clockwork Fighters: Hiwou's War if Bones has been around for almost 40 years. The sample judged in both cases isn't all that representative of the stuidos' work. In fairness, it's hard to find a show that is representative of Madhouse's work since they've been around for so long doing so many different kinds of shows.

blkmage, where's the LoGH love?

Favorites:

Gungrave
Monster
Rainbow
Casshern Sins
Trigun
Claymore
Death Note

But there is so so much I want to see by that studio. Hajime no Ippo is probably the next thing I'll watch by them.
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Postby blkmage » Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:07 pm

TheSubtleDoctor (post: 1417997) wrote:blkmage, where's the LoGH love?

Not in the Madhouse thread because Madhouse wasn't in charge of series production?
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Postby Mr. Hat'n'Clogs » Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:11 pm

TheSubtleDoctor (post: 1417997) wrote:Sorry =). But that statement is sort of akin to judging Bones by Clockwork Fighters: Hiwou's War if Bones has been around for almost 40 years. The sample judged in both cases isn't all that representative of the stuidos' work. In fairness, it's hard to find a show that is representative of Madhouse's work since they've been around for so long doing so many different kinds of shows.


Basically, I was saying since the first thing I'd seen from Madhouse was Death Note, I wasn't as interested in the rest of their works until I'd seen something else that I liked. I'm not saying I don't like Madhouse's work, I'm saying I wasn't eager to look up more on the studio based on what I'd seen. I guess I poorly phrased that.
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Postby blkmage » Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:24 pm

Actually, Madhouse was one of the studios that I thought would give me a challenge (and it did) when I thought about doing studio threads. The problem with judging Madhouse as a studio is its breadth and diversity of works and how the quality can vary from team to team. Production IG kind of has this, but it's much less pronounced than with Madhouse and JC Staff also has the same thing, where it's easy to tell which team did what.

And so the challenge with Madhouse is that you can't exactly characterize a Madhouse show in the same way you can with KyoAni or Shaft. It's not a matter of when the shows were produced too, because the last year has seen an incredible variation in quality in the shows that they've produced. In order to get a more accurate read on a given show, you'd have to drill down to see the staff behind it: director, producer, etc.

A very obvious example of this is CHAOS;HEAD, which was pretty awful.
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Postby Atria35 » Wed Aug 18, 2010 1:37 pm

Favorite Madhouse works-
Paprika
Monster
Paranoia Agent
Dennou Coil
CCS
Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Summer Wars

and innumerable others. They produce far more shows that I like than any other studio, which is AWESOME! I never purposely look for their shows- I just watch them and like them XD
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Postby TheSubtleDoctor » Wed Aug 18, 2010 2:13 pm

blkmage (post: 1418000) wrote:Not in the Madhouse thread because Madhouse wasn't in charge of series production?
According to MAL and Wiki they were, along w/ Kitty Films.

*EDIT: ANN has them credited with "Work Assistance" while Kitty gets the nod for production.
Mr. Hat'n'Clogs (post: 1418002) wrote:Basically, I was saying since the first thing I'd seen from Madhouse was Death Note, I wasn't as interested in the rest of their works until I'd seen something else that I liked. I'm not saying I don't like Madhouse's work, I'm saying I wasn't eager to look up more on the studio based on what I'd seen. I guess I poorly phrased that.
No, I understood what you were saying. It just made me laugh that, coincidentally, the one shot you gave Madhouse was Death Note (of all things) and then dropped them based on that w/o checking into their body of work/history/diversity/etc. Nothing personal at all, just a funny situation to me. Again, it'd be like someone watching Clockwork Fighters: Hiwou's War and going, "Nah. Bones ain't for me." You'd be like, "But check out their other works! They are great!" etc.
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Postby mechana2015 » Wed Aug 18, 2010 3:57 pm

I'm sad to hear that Dennou Coil did poorly on DVD... I really liked it when I saw it. It's a fun show with some amazing characters that deserves a lot of attention.
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Postby Atria35 » Wed Aug 18, 2010 4:08 pm

mechana2015 (post: 1418038) wrote:I'm sad to hear that Dennou Coil did poorly on DVD... I really liked it when I saw it. It's a fun show with some amazing characters that deserves a lot of attention.


And what's worse is that it never made it over to the US because of those sales! Sad day, indeed.....
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Postby ShiroiHikari » Sat Aug 28, 2010 12:13 pm

Wait, Madhouse did Hajime no Ippo? Didn't know that! That's a great series; one of my favorites.

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Postby Falx » Sat Aug 28, 2010 12:39 pm

Dennou Coil is SUCH a good series... I mean, seriously. SUPER good.
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Postby MasterDias » Sat Aug 28, 2010 12:49 pm

Yeah, Dennou Coil's probably my favorite TV series from them.
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