Worldbuilding is in my opinion among the most underappreciated elements of a story, both by casual and critical viewers. It's the magic ingredient that can bring everything together, investing the viewer and making them remember and care about everything going on.
Just finished JoJo Diamond is Unbreakable yesterday and I really liked how the small town came to life thanks to the landmarks, the radio host and the returning side characters.
It helps Monogatari's case that since the original LN was almost entirely dialogue, they had to send it to Shinbo so he could work his trippy visual magic on the show.
If you're looking for insanely good writing without the visuals of Shnbo, try Katanagatari. Same writer, totally different story. Theres LOADS of dialogue but it's so engrossing, i didn't mind the lack of action
out but adding this to my watch later queue! I care deeply about worldbuilding (in case my trails in the sky video didn't give it away) so I'll be sure to come back with a big dumb rant soon.
I've always felt that when a series utilizes its setting, especially when characters in a show explore the world, it feels less like watching an anime, but more experiencing a story with its characters. A lot of the reason why I loved FMA 03' so much is because the world felt vast and alive. Every place was intrinsically connected to one another in some way and having Ed & Al take the time to travel, further intertwines its setting. Great video, Jack! :)
The Wings of Honneamise is my favourite example of world building in anime film. Studio Gainax took incredible effort to depict an alternate culture, society, history and civilization. Highly recommend checking it out for world building alone. Sadly it's underappreciated.
My fav worldbuilding is -Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo( due to its episodic format and the plot having characters going on journeys or quests) -Samurai Jack :ok it's not anime, but the world building of this show is amazingly good. And it embodies the whole "Show don't tell " thing( I mean seriously, Jack has little dialogues , and there would be scenes going on for minutes without any dialogues, just background noises) . Especially with the new season 5, even the battle grounds Jack fight in are superb. Not only are the backgrounds not overshadowed by the intense fightings, they also compliment the on screen actions by creating an appropriate atmosphere . -One piece: Ok, one piece world building isn't the "in the detail " type(altho it does have some) but the "Major event happening type" . Whenever something happens or the Straw Hat does something , you can feel the impact of the events on the world and it's really epic
One Piece world feels "alive" to me. While readers follow main characters impacting the world, there are other characters impacting the world and the future of our main characters. I haven't tried, but I truly believe if I draw a straight horizontal timeline and someone gives a single event anywhere on the timeline from One Piece, it's possible to expand from there to the rest of the world through character, setting or history connection
From mabeast's to divine protections to magic, spirit-arts users and sword saints. From the witch's cult to the witch's themselves, Re:Zero's world is so immensely detailed with lore and history that rivals GOT's, a quick look around the wiki will prove that this anime is not the generic shounen trash it's made out to be but an epic tale that just hasn't been fully told yet!
Ok, fair! If no one wants to remember and talks about Juuni Kokuki, I will! Juuni Kokuki (Twelve Kindgoms) have a great and detailed world, worth watching just for it.
I like to say worldbuilding IS storytelling. Like, characters are just a subpart of that world (and the product of it, be it culture, parents, events, etc) and even the plot is just what happens to that world
This is how I feel about Harry Potter. The story isn't particularly interesting and the characters aren't the greatest but I absolutely love it's world. It just feels so vibrant and full of interesting ideas. So many small details add so much like the candy that has all these crazy flavours including snot or the newspapers with moving pictures. All these little details add up to make a really fun and interestin world.
Harry Potter's worldbuilding only work on a surface level. While it has an incredible ideas and a real attention to details, the worldbuilding in it's larger scope don't make much sense. It falls appart rather quickly when you try to understand the history of this world and how the presence of magic would have affected society.
I actually think that the infodump in episode 4 of Shinsekai Yori is used pretty appropriately. It does take you out of it a bit, but it feels more deliberate in its attempts to do so as the characters themselves feel yanked out of their own world while the dump is happening. Now, I get that it might not work for everyone, but I couldn't consider it a bad infodump given how it is placed within the story, and how it impacts the characters.
Necessary but I think they did it too fast. THERE WAS AWAY TOO MUCH INFO! I wished they have paced them out a little. When I was watching that episodes, I actually had to re-watch it 2-3 times before moving on. It was just too much to process. Though, I am glad I took the time to understand it as much as possible, it made me understand and appreciate the rest of the series much more!
AnimePianoAngel But them doing it so fast is part of what makes it actually work. It isn't really an info dump there for the viewer. Sure, it is cool info about the history of the world, but most of it is extraneous to what we actually need to know for the story. Rather, it serves the purpose of overloading the characters with information that completely destroys their worldview. This can be seen in a lot of their expressions, particularly the one girl who freaks out the most. It is meant to be too much info too fast.
Info-dumping isn't always boring. If the iformation you get is interesting why should it be boring? I had a lot of fun with the first episodes of for example: Fate/Zero and Shinsekai Yori, even if they had info-dumping. But otherwise good video :)
True, though I think it helps doing it at a time when you're more invested in the characters. You'll be more interested in learning information and willing to learn it in big chunks like that if you care about how it will affect the characters and the world they live in.
Having people standing around talking doesn't take full advantage of a visual medium, making half of what you watch feel wasted. It's a problem common with anime adapted from novels like Shinsekai Yori or any of the Fate series. In their original mediums, there are little to no visuals and the text is all you're focusing on, so the interesting information carries the work. When you directly put that into anime, it adds another layer that feels boring as hell.
Muhammed ShiNja Completely agree with you in terns of Shinsekai Yori. I am a huge supporter of "show, don't tell", but if the information is interesting enough, I don't mind them telling me how stuff works.
Muhammed ShiNja You might not have been bored, but that was most likely due to interesting information itself rather than the anime doing anything visually engaging. Haven't read Shinsekai Yori, but Fate/Zero's novel prologue+act 1 had much more information and characterization packed into it than its episode 1. If all you're looking for is information, you mind as well just skip that section of the anime and read that section in the novel. Or how about Fate/Stay Night's church infodumping scene? The anime bored me to death and not because I knew everything, the delivery was just awful. In the visual novel, the soundtrack and the internal thoughts gave that scene so much atmosphere, characterization, and foreshadowing I couldn't care less about whether the information was interesting. It all comes down to execution and use of the medium.
great point. worldbuilding is probably the hardest part of the creative-process too, it's easy to overlook when you're busy trying to sort out the characters and plot, but it is REALLY important. Thanks for the reminder, and you did a great job conveying it.
One anime people NEVER speak about is Xam'd, I felt it had one of the most 'Alive" worlds I have ever seen, and while the ending is one of those "I may need to rewatch this a few times" the entire show feels so fresh, and i could actually see humans acting this way even down to the smallest character.
Bounen no Xamd is freaking awesome. The characters felt so human and relatable, the design in terms of clothes, weapons, vehicles, environnements are perfectly put together. It's just so good... I don't understand what you mean for the ending though...
When I think of worldbuilding the first thing that comes to mind is salons. In the AstroidQuest universe there are multi-species salons for people to have their fur brushed, nails trimmed, etc. It literally never comes up in the plot and they're completely unimportant in every conceivable story way, but they exist and someone casually mentions them and it really brought me in. Felt so 'real'.
And thats why avatar the last airbender is my favorite cartoon. Believe me I love the characters but the world is the reason why I've watched the series 5+ times.
I've been rewatching Vision of Escaflowne, and the world building in that show is amazing. When Hitomi is transported to Gaea, they never stop to explain what this new world is, or how it works, they let you learn about it along with her as she encounters new people and places.
A particularly impressive example is Tokyo Godfathers imo. You might not notice it at first, but every now and then you will spot a house that looks like a face or the city itself will support the actions by the characters. Remember that scene where Gin is beaten up by the teenage gangsters in front of the old man's tent? It took me three viewings to figure out but the windows in the background function as a kind of energy bar, adding a sense of dark humor to the seemingly gruesome beating of a homeless. It has taken me a few viewings to really appreciate the amount of detail that was put into making Tokyo a character of its own but it complements the characters and their stories beautifully.
I'm gonna try to create a criteria of what a setting needs to do in a story: -What specific purpose does the setting serve? -How do the characters interact with it? -What tone does it give? -IS the setting interesting, to begin with? -What is going on in the setting? Anything else?
"The world has not the personality" Oh this, this summarize how the world building on some animes going in a bad way. Thank you for the logical understanding about the world building of story!
I wholeheartedly agree on the little details part, an author named Les Hedgerton wrote in "Hooked" that one needs to downplay rather than overplay, turn the volume down rather than cracking it up, being subtle and trusting the reader with picking up on little cues.
This is really great! I've been meaning on making a personal project and a huge part of it is worldbuilding. So far, I've only made some visuals (but even then, it's only bluesky concepts haha) for characters and such. Designing the world itself to fit the story is a whole nother task. This video sums up most of what I need to consider in creating. Huge thanks!
0:08 Best Anime EVER! Okay, this was very well done, and felt relevant to me, even though this was focused on anime more than the written word. I myself write, and would love to see a tutorial video on worldbuilding techniques that relate more to the written word.
I'm currently writing a comic I will be making in the future about the planets and their moons having a monarchy, so I have been researching about the type of weather they have and such. That way designing it (all together with culture and "human" life) becomes a lot easier.. This video helped a lot, so I thank you for it!
I think one of my favorite anime in terms of world building has to go to Log Horizon in how it explains everything from the worlds mechanics to its political structure with out it being a boring info dumb because you're learning the world along with the characters.
I think a great example is the film Summer Wars. The film starts in the hectic and fairly normal inmer city and high school kind of showing who Kenchi is before meeting Natsuki's family. However in that whole overture sequence, you gradually watch and hear the regular world fade away as each family member joins the two, and convey the "remoteness" through the transitions in sound and the vehicles they ride. The scene begins to paint a picture of a world unknown and new to Kenji and in a way magical. It acts as a counter yet a parallel to the world of Oz. In a sense, the film paves the way for the poignant lines of Kenji when he was about to be dragged off to the police station, speaking of how he truly experienced a new world, one being of familial love.
I love the world building in spirited away. For the majority of the film you are stuck in this greedy, steamy, crowded and compresed bathhouse with all of those sweaty spirits and workers running around, you can just feel how hot and fusty it is and it realy emerses you. Also all the different types of spirits just add to the mess that that place is. And then, near the end of the film, you sudenly get out to the open, and sudenly everything is so peaceful and relaxing. That train sequence is just beautiful realy.
I think a cool example of worldbuilding was chapter 68 of Boku no Hero Academia, where it's revealed that due to the nature of physical quirks, many stores, especially apparel stores, have to not only keep a massive inventory of all potential adaptations to clothes, but also keep an extensive collection of designs made to fit any demographic.
The thing I keep thinking of when I'm hearing you speak is the world of Clannad. It's never referenced where it takes place unless you're reading a street sign or taking the name of the school, which isn't referenced in the story. The story takes place in areas where everything seems familiar, yet it doesn't because of the supernatural components. Plus the snowy world that is shown slightly throughout the series.
TBH, i think the "show don't tell" thing is much more of a taste subjetct than one of actual quality. I like info dump, and like characters siting and talking. And ep 4 of Shin Sekai Yori is one of my favorites in the series.
Hogwarts, Middle Earth, Cars Land, Pandora, Star Wars Land- people want to experience these worlds and now they can. Without the creators' incredible world-building, fans wouldn't have nearly the same love for these franchises.
For irl world building, you may refer to science classes as an example Info dumps are like the teacher reading the textbook to you. Experiments are the show, don’t tell. I’ll leave you to decide which you like more.
I am currently catching up on Orange, and it totally fits this video, because plot is your classic shoujo that you may see hundreds of times, but the school feels so lively, it's a joy to see!
As someone who's watched Orange (tackles some serious themes), what about the school do you like so much? Could it be the green uniforms, since green represents nature and liveliness.
The first thing that comes to my mind is background students. They have short talks but it makes sense. Feels like you're at school, eavesdropping on someone else' conversation without intending it
I remember reading this really bizarre story about a world with NO TECH. Nobody had phones, much less computers. No refrigerators, artificial lighting, or even electricity as far as I can tell. They cooked and heated their homes by, get this, burning chunks of some kind of giant plant that seemed to grow, like, everydamnwhere! All they had to do for entertainment was stand around talking about each other's love lives. Still, great characterizations, and the romance element was interesting enough as far as it went. (I mean, like, NO sex, if you can imagine that.) Truly weird dystopic society, where everybody was born into their roles, and did what they were supposed to do without question, which I found more than a little unbelievable as a premise, but it seemed to work. I think the author's name was Owsten, something like that. Gods, they didn't even have cars, and had to ride around on some kind of large animal. Great touch, very imaginative.
World building is a tricky thing, especially when it comes to "show, don't tell." A great example I always come back to regarding this is the difference between the worldbuilding in Xam'd: Lost Memories and Seirei no Moribito. I watched both shows concurrently, so I was able to get a good, comparative look at doing non-expository worldbuilding right, and doing it poorly. Both shows attempt to accomplish their worldbuilding through primarily visual means, character interactions and casual dialogue, with characters only explaining things about the world when strictly necessary and only in ways that would make logical sense in-universe. Seirei no Moribito absolutely nailed it, and as a result has some of the best worldbuilding I’ve seen in anime. Xam’d floundered, however, the reason being that it didn’t properly take the time to explain the lore and world enough in any ways, visual or otherwise, leaving lots of loose ends and questions about the world (and plot). It would introduce a conflict, or a place, or characters, and then never get around to explaining how it/they fit in the world. In some ways, Xam’d went too far with showing rather than telling, and as a result there wasn’t enough time for all of the ideas and plot threads the show introduced. In the end, Xam’d has a world that is engaging and visually appealing on a surface level, but falls apart when you dig deeper. Just an interesting example I thought of.
Very much exactly what i was trying to express after watching ghost in the shell for the first time this year. I can't tell you anything about any of the plot, and hardly anything about the characters. I was too busy paying attention to the movie, to notice minor details like plot or characters.
My conworld is set in the late 1600s / early 1700s. The main nation is a principality, and the prince is almost absolute in power (giving the senate some judicial power and to control trade and foreign policy)
Buck Wade it does feel chaotic, but in a way it's also kinda what it wants to represent, like after going through the whole thing I realky got immersed into the place and it feels like you know ikebukuro as well as they do
The one time that I appreciated a giant dump of information was in _1984_ and otherwise, it's nice to just do it the way that _Star Wars_ and _Harry Potter_ does it, which reveal the world through the events of the story itself. One must always be concerned when it comes to exposition. Although, I have often found that a good way of getting exposition in is when a significant part of a story involves a language barrier between characters of two cultures, in which case there's a reason for a character to be an avatar for the audience and actively try to find out more about the world that they've entered into. And even then, you want to break up information dumps into smaller regular packages over time.
Thanks for the video, I'll take this to know when I am writing or directing a series. However I don't think Info-dumping is entirely if used the right way.
Yea world building is super important to a series. Funny I had so much hope for SAO when it was first airing because I so badly wanted a "trapped in a mmo" setting to be done well and the world building failed so miserably to me. Instead of focusing on making its world intriguing and interesting it just follows dumb subplot that shouldn't even be in a mmo setting, then the series just gets bored of its own setting that it just moves onto other uninteresting world with there own set of dumb issues.
For me, it was some of the unrealistic game mechanics that really took me out of the experience. In one of the subplots involving a shared stash between characters, I kept thinking that no reasonable game developer would restrict such a convenient and useful mechanic to a specific role-playing condition (marriage between characters), and that most players would probably just create fake marriages to exploit it. It really felt like it was written for the sake of making a mystery plot out of a game mechanic and to shoehorn some romance elements between Kirito and Asuna.
yoshiyukiblade yea exactly also that part where Krito learns the the apparent exclusive ability for him alone to wield two swords, which he doesn't use right away because he doesn't want people to think less of him or some bull shit like that. No game developer would ever make random personal abilities, it would break pvp... Also you think an ability like duel wielding would be common in a game named 'sword art online'. Man don't even get me started with the racial thing with the literal races you pick at the start of the game from the second half of the series.
When I see this kind of review it makes me think maybe the first season should've adhered closer to the light novel, where the story is being told by Kirigaya after the events of the sao incident. Unless it ended up being a one-shot deal it was always it's design to move on to other worlds, and I personally think the author was always more interested in our relationship with technology, and how technology could be used to create new worlds and what we, as people, would do with that power.
IMO One piece and JJB have the best world building (details, sounds, unique, combines classic/modern/future art style) even batter than hxh and berserk( hiatus world building).
Monster & Mushishi also has a great world building but yeah One piece is the best, even considered as one of the craziest worlds in any kind of medium.
Buck Wade The interactions with various people throughout the series, not only feel natural, but give you a great idea of how the world of Monster works (among other things). This actually is the reason that I loved the series so much, though I hadn't ever thought those brief interactions contribute to the world building.
not going to lie, I don't generally see info dumping as a problem in some anime, I mean I hate GGO info dumping and agree about the setting problems, but if they are going to throw in info dumps, completely upto them, just I'd prefer if they add something to make it interesting! in the case of the Monogatari series, you get gorgeously animated backgrounds and head tilts to amuse you while you listen in, same goes for a lot in the Fate series, with their gorgeous backgrounds! maybe also how they say it, helps as well, and using the visuals to hook us into a conversation is actually quite very good thing IMO!
Worldbuilding is in my opinion among the most underappreciated elements of a story, both by casual and critical viewers. It's the magic ingredient that can bring everything together, investing the viewer and making them remember and care about everything going on.
Plasmatize FUCKING THIS. it's scarily underappreciated.
What anime are at 0.6, 0.8, 0.14 and and 0.17?
@@elizabethpower1702 this is old and I only know one but 0.17 is the disappearance of haruhi suzumiya
Just finished JoJo Diamond is Unbreakable yesterday and I really liked how the small town came to life thanks to the landmarks, the radio host and the returning side characters.
DiU definitely had the best worldbuilding compared to other parts
Personally, I feel that Monogatari was one example of how an anime can tell something without showing it, and still be very captivating (most times).
Aqua Marine Ararararararararararagi-kun
It helps Monogatari's case that since the original LN was almost entirely dialogue, they had to send it to Shinbo so he could work his trippy visual magic on the show.
Aqua Marine
Because of the intense visuals Shaft does, nothing is boring lol
But Monogatari doesn't really have any focus on its world, does it? Its empty, barren, doesn't in particular play a role in the story.
If you're looking for insanely good writing without the visuals of Shnbo, try Katanagatari. Same writer, totally different story. Theres LOADS of dialogue but it's so engrossing, i didn't mind the lack of action
God, I forgot how amazing Shinsekai Yori's ED is
still listening to it a few years after watching the show. Amazing!
out but adding this to my watch later queue! I care deeply about worldbuilding (in case my trails in the sky video didn't give it away) so I'll be sure to come back with a big dumb rant soon.
MAKE A VIDEO ON HIBIKE EUPHONIUM PLEASE
Mother's Basement Can you explain that Info-dumping can be good?
Mother's Basement do you think abridge series help the anime industry in a whole? If so, how?
I've always felt that when a series utilizes its setting, especially when characters in a show explore the world, it feels less like watching an anime, but more experiencing a story with its characters. A lot of the reason why I loved FMA 03' so much is because the world felt vast and alive. Every place was intrinsically connected to one another in some way and having Ed & Al take the time to travel, further intertwines its setting. Great video, Jack! :)
In my opinion, Cowboy Bebop is one of the best examples of world building.
Indeed!
For the entire duration of the video I had Cowboy Bebop at the back of my head, as if saying "don't forget about me!"
So true
Made in Abyss
One piece
Nagi No Asukara is a great example of great world building. I have re watched it multiple times because of the amazing world it conveys
The Wings of Honneamise is my favourite example of world building in anime film. Studio Gainax took incredible effort to depict an alternate culture, society, history and civilization. Highly recommend checking it out for world building alone. Sadly it's underappreciated.
My fav worldbuilding is
-Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo( due to its episodic format and the plot having characters going on journeys or quests)
-Samurai Jack :ok it's not anime, but the world building of this show is amazingly good. And it embodies the whole "Show don't tell " thing( I mean seriously, Jack has little dialogues , and there would be scenes going on for minutes without any dialogues, just background noises) . Especially with the new season 5, even the battle grounds Jack fight in are superb. Not only are the backgrounds not overshadowed by the intense fightings, they also compliment the on screen actions by creating an appropriate atmosphere .
-One piece: Ok, one piece world building isn't the "in the detail " type(altho it does have some) but the "Major event happening type" . Whenever something happens or the Straw Hat does something , you can feel the impact of the events on the world and it's really epic
One Piece world feels "alive" to me. While readers follow main characters impacting the world, there are other characters impacting the world and the future of our main characters. I haven't tried, but I truly believe if I draw a straight horizontal timeline and someone gives a single event anywhere on the timeline from One Piece, it's possible to expand from there to the rest of the world through character, setting or history connection
grimgar of fantasy and ash does an amazing job of world building honestly
From mabeast's to divine protections to magic, spirit-arts users and sword saints. From the witch's cult to the witch's themselves, Re:Zero's world is so immensely detailed with lore and history that rivals GOT's, a quick look around the wiki will prove that this anime is not the generic shounen trash it's made out to be but an epic tale that just hasn't been fully told yet!
Ok, fair!
If no one wants to remember and talks about Juuni Kokuki, I will!
Juuni Kokuki (Twelve Kindgoms) have a great and detailed world, worth watching just for it.
The only downside is that it ends abruptly on episode 75. Still worth it though!
This guy deserves more subscribers. He's like a mentally stable Digibro.
That ending music though, hit me right in the feels.
Excellent analysis. This info can really help creators avoid major pitfalls and build better stories.
I like to say worldbuilding IS storytelling.
Like, characters are just a subpart of that world (and the product of it, be it culture, parents, events, etc) and even the plot is just what happens to that world
This is how I feel about Harry Potter. The story isn't particularly interesting and the characters aren't the greatest but I absolutely love it's world. It just feels so vibrant and full of interesting ideas. So many small details add so much like the candy that has all these crazy flavours including snot or the newspapers with moving pictures. All these little details add up to make a really fun and interestin world.
RedKind That is how i feel about one piece. The story and characters are pretty standard, but the world is very interesting
Exactly. I really love world building in Harry Potter
Harry Potter's worldbuilding only work on a surface level. While it has an incredible ideas and a real attention to details, the worldbuilding in it's larger scope don't make much sense. It falls appart rather quickly when you try to understand the history of this world and how the presence of magic would have affected society.
When I saw the thumbnail I was like "YASSSSSSSSSS!"
I actually think that the infodump in episode 4 of Shinsekai Yori is used pretty appropriately. It does take you out of it a bit, but it feels more deliberate in its attempts to do so as the characters themselves feel yanked out of their own world while the dump is happening. Now, I get that it might not work for everyone, but I couldn't consider it a bad infodump given how it is placed within the story, and how it impacts the characters.
pretty much i was ready to drop the show until episode 4 made me look forward to it
Necessary but I think they did it too fast. THERE WAS AWAY TOO MUCH INFO! I wished they have paced them out a little. When I was watching that episodes, I actually had to re-watch it 2-3 times before moving on. It was just too much to process. Though, I am glad I took the time to understand it as much as possible, it made me understand and appreciate the rest of the series much more!
AnimePianoAngel But them doing it so fast is part of what makes it actually work. It isn't really an info dump there for the viewer. Sure, it is cool info about the history of the world, but most of it is extraneous to what we actually need to know for the story. Rather, it serves the purpose of overloading the characters with information that completely destroys their worldview. This can be seen in a lot of their expressions, particularly the one girl who freaks out the most.
It is meant to be too much info too fast.
this guy knows his thing
ep. 4 mindfucked the hell out of me
It's a guy who freaked out the most, tho.
Playing "Wareta Ringo" at the end of this kind of video was a low blow; dont make me tear up like that :'[
I love the world building in shineskai yori. I truly felt the uniqueness of it
Info-dumping isn't always boring. If the iformation you get is interesting why should it be boring? I had a lot of fun with the first episodes of for example: Fate/Zero and Shinsekai Yori, even if they had info-dumping.
But otherwise good video :)
True, though I think it helps doing it at a time when you're more invested in the characters. You'll be more interested in learning information and willing to learn it in big chunks like that if you care about how it will affect the characters and the world they live in.
Having people standing around talking doesn't take full advantage of a visual medium, making half of what you watch feel wasted. It's a problem common with anime adapted from novels like Shinsekai Yori or any of the Fate series. In their original mediums, there are little to no visuals and the text is all you're focusing on, so the interesting information carries the work. When you directly put that into anime, it adds another layer that feels boring as hell.
Muhammed ShiNja Completely agree with you in terns of Shinsekai Yori. I am a huge supporter of "show, don't tell", but if the information is interesting enough, I don't mind them telling me how stuff works.
Bio. Bait. I wasn't bored neither by Fate/Zero nor by Shinsekai Yori. Everyone thinks different about that.
Muhammed ShiNja You might not have been bored, but that was most likely due to interesting information itself rather than the anime doing anything visually engaging.
Haven't read Shinsekai Yori, but Fate/Zero's novel prologue+act 1 had much more information and characterization packed into it than its episode 1. If all you're looking for is information, you mind as well just skip that section of the anime and read that section in the novel. Or how about Fate/Stay Night's church infodumping scene? The anime bored me to death and not because I knew everything, the delivery was just awful. In the visual novel, the soundtrack and the internal thoughts gave that scene so much atmosphere, characterization, and foreshadowing I couldn't care less about whether the information was interesting. It all comes down to execution and use of the medium.
great point. worldbuilding is probably the hardest part of the creative-process too, it's easy to overlook when you're busy trying to sort out the characters and plot, but it is REALLY important. Thanks for the reminder, and you did a great job conveying it.
Talking about world building in anime, and not mentioning One Piece should be a crime.
Really my only complaint though...other than that..great video.
Ye still to this day Oda has set the bar for world-building in anime/manga. One Piece is kind of like The LotR of this medium in that regard.
One anime people NEVER speak about is Xam'd, I felt it had one of the most 'Alive" worlds I have ever seen, and while the ending is one of those "I may need to rewatch this a few times" the entire show feels so fresh, and i could actually see humans acting this way even down to the smallest character.
asdfghjkl
kjhgfdsdfgl
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bounen no Xamd is freaking awesome. The characters felt so human and relatable, the design in terms of clothes, weapons, vehicles, environnements are perfectly put together. It's just so good... I don't understand what you mean for the ending though...
Akatsubasa
When the mc randomly shows back up, it made me think "did he find himself, is this in her head, what the fuck is going on."
Magnetic Rose is one of my favorite short films! Such a good mystery, and absolutely beautiful.
nothing but praise for you man
When I think of worldbuilding the first thing that comes to mind is salons. In the AstroidQuest universe there are multi-species salons for people to have their fur brushed, nails trimmed, etc.
It literally never comes up in the plot and they're completely unimportant in every conceivable story way, but they exist and someone casually mentions them and it really brought me in. Felt so 'real'.
And thats why avatar the last airbender is my favorite cartoon. Believe me I love the characters but the world is the reason why I've watched the series 5+ times.
I've been rewatching Vision of Escaflowne, and the world building in that show is amazing. When Hitomi is transported to Gaea, they never stop to explain what this new world is, or how it works, they let you learn about it along with her as she encounters new people and places.
'member Outlaw Star? It had wonderful word building.
Oh yeah I 'member
watching that right now haha
One of the most captivating worlds in anime is mushi-shi. It was a world I instantly fell in love with.
A particularly impressive example is Tokyo Godfathers imo. You might not notice it at first, but every now and then you will spot a house that looks like a face or the city itself will support the actions by the characters.
Remember that scene where Gin is beaten up by the teenage gangsters in front of the old man's tent? It took me three viewings to figure out but the windows in the background function as a kind of energy bar, adding a sense of dark humor to the seemingly gruesome beating of a homeless.
It has taken me a few viewings to really appreciate the amount of detail that was put into making Tokyo a character of its own but it complements the characters and their stories beautifully.
I'm gonna try to create a criteria of what a setting needs to do in a story:
-What specific purpose does the setting serve?
-How do the characters interact with it?
-What tone does it give?
-IS the setting interesting, to begin with?
-What is going on in the setting?
Anything else?
is the setting internally consistent or is it full of holes like in lag horizon
Well, obviously, the setting's gonna have to make sense and be consistent.
"The world has not the personality"
Oh this, this summarize how the world building on some animes going in a bad way. Thank you for the logical understanding about the world building of story!
I wholeheartedly agree on the little details part, an author named Les Hedgerton wrote in "Hooked" that one needs to downplay rather than overplay, turn the volume down rather than cracking it up, being subtle and trusting the reader with picking up on little cues.
"clues" my bad :) Happy New Year, man!
This is really great! I've been meaning on making a personal project and a huge part of it is worldbuilding. So far, I've only made some visuals (but even then, it's only bluesky concepts haha) for characters and such. Designing the world itself to fit the story is a whole nother task. This video sums up most of what I need to consider in creating. Huge thanks!
I really enjoy these over reviews because they touch on subjects that most other reviewers don't touch upon
0:08 Best Anime EVER!
Okay, this was very well done, and felt relevant to me, even though this was focused on anime more than the written word. I myself write, and would love to see a tutorial video on worldbuilding techniques that relate more to the written word.
I'm currently writing a comic I will be making in the future about the planets and their moons having a monarchy, so I have been researching about the type of weather they have and such. That way designing it (all together with culture and "human" life) becomes a lot easier.. This video helped a lot, so I thank you for it!
Sound of the Sky has an incredible amount of world depth to it.
I think one of my favorite anime in terms of world building has to go to Log Horizon in how it explains everything from the worlds mechanics to its political structure with out it being a boring info dumb because you're learning the world along with the characters.
i have no problem with info dumping.there were plenty of animes i would of dropped if they characters didnt give me something to look forward to
I think a great example is the film Summer Wars. The film starts in the hectic and fairly normal inmer city and high school kind of showing who Kenchi is before meeting Natsuki's family. However in that whole overture sequence, you gradually watch and hear the regular world fade away as each family member joins the two, and convey the "remoteness" through the transitions in sound and the vehicles they ride. The scene begins to paint a picture of a world unknown and new to Kenji and in a way magical. It acts as a counter yet a parallel to the world of Oz. In a sense, the film paves the way for the poignant lines of Kenji when he was about to be dragged off to the police station, speaking of how he truly experienced a new world, one being of familial love.
I love the world building in spirited away. For the majority of the film you are stuck in this greedy, steamy, crowded and compresed bathhouse with all of those sweaty spirits and workers running around, you can just feel how hot and fusty it is and it realy emerses you. Also all the different types of spirits just add to the mess that that place is. And then, near the end of the film, you sudenly get out to the open, and sudenly everything is so peaceful and relaxing. That train sequence is just beautiful realy.
Possibly the best video I have ever seen on TH-cam
I've never heard of this channel before, but you, sir, have earned a sub.
i actually found this video beutiful. the shots, the music even the voice over! woah good job man!
I think a cool example of worldbuilding was chapter 68 of Boku no Hero Academia, where it's revealed that due to the nature of physical quirks, many stores, especially apparel stores, have to not only keep a massive inventory of all potential adaptations to clothes, but also keep an extensive collection of designs made to fit any demographic.
A great example of this is Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London".
another eloquent and well reasoned video, man i'm still so glad I subscribed to this channel :)
Man, I love Wareta Ringo, Euphonium and Flip Flappers.
King of world building is One Piece if you want to look good example look at its recent arc
You have made me subscribe just because your word choice, you speak great and I enjoy that. Plus I love anime. This my first comment. Be proud.
no joke, you make some of the best videos on TH-cam.
The thing I keep thinking of when I'm hearing you speak is the world of Clannad. It's never referenced where it takes place unless you're reading a street sign or taking the name of the school, which isn't referenced in the story. The story takes place in areas where everything seems familiar, yet it doesn't because of the supernatural components. Plus the snowy world that is shown slightly throughout the series.
Good to see you back man! I love the worldbuilding in the anime Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet
I appreciated the New World Symphony for the background music.
TBH, i think the "show don't tell" thing is much more of a taste subjetct than one of actual quality. I like info dump, and like characters siting and talking. And ep 4 of Shin Sekai Yori is one of my favorites in the series.
Totally agree with you mate. Good video :)
I really liked the ED of Shinsekai Yori at the end of the video. Instant nostalgia!
Hogwarts, Middle Earth, Cars Land, Pandora, Star Wars Land- people want to experience these worlds and now they can. Without the creators' incredible world-building, fans wouldn't have nearly the same love for these franchises.
Wonderful video :D Thanks for the upload!! you've got amazing content in your channel and you deserve more views
For irl world building, you may refer to science classes as an example
Info dumps are like the teacher reading the textbook to you.
Experiments are the show, don’t tell.
I’ll leave you to decide which you like more.
Mushishi... nice
I am currently catching up on Orange, and it totally fits this video, because plot is your classic shoujo that you may see hundreds of times, but the school feels so lively, it's a joy to see!
As someone who's watched Orange (tackles some serious themes), what about the school do you like so much? Could it be the green uniforms, since green represents nature and liveliness.
The first thing that comes to my mind is background students. They have short talks but it makes sense. Feels like you're at school, eavesdropping on someone else' conversation without intending it
I remember reading this really bizarre story about a world with NO TECH. Nobody had phones, much less computers. No refrigerators, artificial lighting, or even electricity as far as I can tell. They cooked and heated their homes by, get this, burning chunks of some kind of giant plant that seemed to grow, like, everydamnwhere! All they had to do for entertainment was stand around talking about each other's love lives. Still, great characterizations, and the romance element was interesting enough as far as it went. (I mean, like, NO sex, if you can imagine that.) Truly weird dystopic society, where everybody was born into their roles, and did what they were supposed to do without question, which I found more than a little unbelievable as a premise, but it seemed to work. I think the author's name was Owsten, something like that.
Gods, they didn't even have cars, and had to ride around on some kind of large animal. Great touch, very imaginative.
World building is a tricky thing, especially when it comes to "show, don't tell." A great example I always come back to regarding this is the difference between the worldbuilding in Xam'd: Lost Memories and Seirei no Moribito. I watched both shows concurrently, so I was able to get a good, comparative look at doing non-expository worldbuilding right, and doing it poorly. Both shows attempt to accomplish their worldbuilding through primarily visual means, character interactions and casual dialogue, with characters only explaining things about the world when strictly necessary and only in ways that would make logical sense in-universe. Seirei no Moribito absolutely nailed it, and as a result has some of the best worldbuilding I’ve seen in anime. Xam’d floundered, however, the reason being that it didn’t properly take the time to explain the lore and world enough in any ways, visual or otherwise, leaving lots of loose ends and questions about the world (and plot). It would introduce a conflict, or a place, or characters, and then never get around to explaining how it/they fit in the world. In some ways, Xam’d went too far with showing rather than telling, and as a result there wasn’t enough time for all of the ideas and plot threads the show introduced. In the end, Xam’d has a world that is engaging and visually appealing on a surface level, but falls apart when you dig deeper. Just an interesting example I thought of.
UTS's videos are always so damn good...
Very much exactly what i was trying to express after watching ghost in the shell for the first time this year. I can't tell you anything about any of the plot, and hardly anything about the characters. I was too busy paying attention to the movie, to notice minor details like plot or characters.
You need more subs. Your channel is so good, you should have at least 100k subs.
Your delivery has improved a lot!
My conworld is set in the late 1600s / early 1700s. The main nation is a principality, and the prince is almost absolute in power (giving the senate some judicial power and to control trade and foreign policy)
durarara! is also really great at world building in that sense, you get to really feel what the society there feels like
For me, the setting of Durarara is chaotic, messy, unpredictable. How does it feel for you?
Buck Wade it does feel chaotic, but in a way it's also kinda what it wants to represent, like after going through the whole thing I realky got immersed into the place and it feels like you know ikebukuro as well as they do
Jonathan Giovannacci When I said chaotic, messy, and unpredictable, I meant it in a good way.
Thank you for showing me a side I didn't see before. 😊 You gave me a gift when I needed it.
Excellent analysis, thank you very much!
Incredibly insightful and eye-opening. Deep thanks for this.
You are pretty good at what you are doing. You should continue with that.
The one time that I appreciated a giant dump of information was in _1984_ and otherwise, it's nice to just do it the way that _Star Wars_ and _Harry Potter_ does it, which reveal the world through the events of the story itself. One must always be concerned when it comes to exposition. Although, I have often found that a good way of getting exposition in is when a significant part of a story involves a language barrier between characters of two cultures, in which case there's a reason for a character to be an avatar for the audience and actively try to find out more about the world that they've entered into. And even then, you want to break up information dumps into smaller regular packages over time.
this was a very insightful video. thank you for posting this, I think I could use these tools when I make my D&D campaigns, too
The song at the end is the Ending theme of Shinsekai Yori 😍
That was amazingly put. You have a way with words.
#Shinsekai yori has the best world building. Really... the vibe and atmosphere. It's near perfect!
Personally, I would say that the world building in Ghost In The Shell & Legend Of The Galactic are amongst the best world building out there.
In my opinion, the best example of world building can be shown in the anime Made in Abyss.
I like that you ended it with the ending song from From the new world
i really love these kinds of videos from you!
keep it up
Thanks for the video, I'll take this to know when I am writing or directing a series.
However I don't think Info-dumping is entirely if used the right way.
great work man helps a lot
fucking hit me with that shinsekai yori ending
Yea world building is super important to a series.
Funny I had so much hope for SAO when it was first airing because I so badly wanted a "trapped in a mmo" setting to be done well and the world building failed so miserably to me. Instead of focusing on making its world intriguing and interesting it just follows dumb subplot that shouldn't even be in a mmo setting, then the series just gets bored of its own setting that it just moves onto other uninteresting world with there own set of dumb issues.
For me, it was some of the unrealistic game mechanics that really took me out of the experience. In one of the subplots involving a shared stash between characters, I kept thinking that no reasonable game developer would restrict such a convenient and useful mechanic to a specific role-playing condition (marriage between characters), and that most players would probably just create fake marriages to exploit it. It really felt like it was written for the sake of making a mystery plot out of a game mechanic and to shoehorn some romance elements between Kirito and Asuna.
yoshiyukiblade yea exactly also that part where Krito learns the the apparent exclusive ability for him alone to wield two swords, which he doesn't use right away because he doesn't want people to think less of him or some bull shit like that. No game developer would ever make random personal abilities, it would break pvp... Also you think an ability like duel wielding would be common in a game named 'sword art online'.
Man don't even get me started with the racial thing with the literal races you pick at the start of the game from the second half of the series.
Well, that may be the case of the anime. I personally enjoyed the world building in the light novels, especially in the Alicization Arc
When I see this kind of review it makes me think maybe the first season should've adhered closer to the light novel, where the story is being told by Kirigaya after the events of the sao incident. Unless it ended up being a one-shot deal it was always it's design to move on to other worlds, and I personally think the author was always more interested in our relationship with technology, and how technology could be used to create new worlds and what we, as people, would do with that power.
GREAT video!
IMO One piece and JJB have the best world building (details, sounds, unique, combines classic/modern/future art style) even batter than hxh and berserk( hiatus world building).
Monster & Mushishi also has a great world building but yeah One piece is the best, even considered as one of the craziest worlds in any kind of medium.
+lester pena Why does Monster and Mushishi have great world building, according to you?
Buck Wade The interactions with various people throughout the series, not only feel natural, but give you a great idea of how the world of Monster works (among other things). This actually is the reason that I loved the series so much, though I hadn't ever thought those brief interactions contribute to the world building.
This is how I felt about Last Exile. The world got bigger the more I watched 😁
Thank you.
Good video! I think "world building" gets tossed around a little too often in anime discussions. The details really do make a difference.
not going to lie, I don't generally see info dumping as a problem in some anime, I mean I hate GGO info dumping and agree about the setting problems, but if they are going to throw in info dumps, completely upto them, just I'd prefer if they add something to make it interesting!
in the case of the Monogatari series, you get gorgeously animated backgrounds and head tilts to amuse you while you listen in, same goes for a lot in the Fate series, with their gorgeous backgrounds!
maybe also how they say it, helps as well, and using the visuals to hook us into a conversation is actually quite very good thing IMO!
Great video, dude
I think the ultimate masterpiece for that was the first Blade Runner!!!
Great vid.
Jack, I saw a lot of potential for you to grow this channel but the only problem is you don't upload that often. Your video is very high quality.