The rubber hose style animation we got before was neat to see (albeit creepy), but I so prefer this style! Still wish we'd get a proper series in one of the "nicer" styles they've been teasing us with these last several years—the BW2 animated promo, Generations, Twilight Wings, the Gotcha! music video, and now this—or that they'd at least go this direction for the movies.
Studio Colorido, which handled Twilight Wings, handled this one!! The animation was very loose and bouncy, expressive and fun. Very much like Studio TRIGGER's Little Witch Academia, but to be frank, aside from the gorgeously detailed settings, colours, crisp lighting, and faultlessly animated Pokemon, I am not a big fan of human faces drawn this way... the faces can be very funny, but rarely as naturally emotive as the show (Twilight Wings' style is more realistic and expressive too!).
These animation styles are FAR too expensive and FAR too much work for a long-running TV anime. You will never, ever, ever see a weekly TV anime, spamming for years, of this quality because it's not doable. It's murde for the animators. It's precisely because these specials and shorts are so short and with long breaks between them that they can be this quality.
Something like a movie is much longer, so even that is unlikely without a HUGE budget and would probably need them to take twice or thrice as long as an average film and they don't skip years...
Anyway, back to this special! I loved
. ^^
This was a sweet story of two kids proving themselves and earning their parents' confidence and trust to allow them to pursue their own paths. Tsubomi was very sweet and funny, her dad was adorably chill, and the sequence with
The sequence where
, it reminded me exactly what I love so much about Pokemon... beautiful.
