https://v.animethemes.moe/CityTheAnimationOP1. Video includes audio. Be sure to unmute I had a long conversation with a friend over Discord voicechat two days ago and I said something during the course of it that seemed to catch him offguard. When we were talking abut our favorite anime of the year up to this point I made the point of mentioning CITY THE ANIMATION and more specifically that while it didnt always make me laugh Id readily call it one of the best things that had been released in 2025 thus far. My friend took issue with this stance saying that it was ridiculous to say that since for all its aesthetic prowessand even he admitted that there was plenty to be hada comedys first and foremost job is to make us laugh. If it doesnt do that a comedy isnt doing its job properly. He didnt find its humor funny such to the point that whatever other potential gifts that lay within just werent worth calling it a show worth watching. I understand why this mode of thinking exists. The word comedy is supposed to carry with it the inherent implication that it should make us laugh and if it doesnt we morereadily say that its a bad comedy. But over the years since I started watching anime regularly I feel as though Ive undergone a personal reshuffling on two fronts that are relevant for talking about CITY THE ANIMATION: one that my sense of comedy is less about making me laugh and more about having fun overall however it manifests. And two that the anime is like lots of Kyoto Animation work part of a larger pattern that Ive become more aware of both by watching and learning more about anime and anime production specifically. https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/f83bde5e7f561a5d5b59774e475ca264.mp4 Credit to Ishidate Taichihttps://anilist.co/staff/103129/IshidateTaichi the series director. From its first piece of animation the anime moves with palpable energy and zest transitioning smoothly from 3D to 2D through its use of the raindrop as a cover. The animes world is colorful and it wants you to know that immediately Ill talk about the latter later but lets start with the former and a simple question: did CITY THE ANIMATION make me laugh? Yes and no. In its crazy noisy bizarre town theres no telling what kind of crazy noisy bizarre oddity will arise from somewhere within it making its residents have to deal with that something. And in a place with so many people from so many walks of life whos to say what will cause what to transpire? Whether it might involve Naguno being recruited to run like an absolute madwoman and make a soba delivery and chase down a thieving cat Captain Obina having the football team standing at attention like in the army while remarking that theyre borderline useless without their star player or Makabe and Ecchan having a conversation about eternally transforming money into counterfeit and then traveling home inmontage while avoiding a giant bear as part of the journey the underlying philosophy is always the same. Do what you can to be wacky and if in the process you make someone laugh then thats a happy consequence There is no plot in the more allencompassing sense because the overall sense of mood is the plot and the point. https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/74eba98fcbd0c16a0e8038b1fd73c95c.mp4 Credit to Satou Tatsuyahttps://anilist.co/staff/125597/SatouTatsuya routinely one of Kyoto Animations mosttalented animators and often the one tasked with some of their most striking momentshttps://www.sakugabooru.com/data/31c241f79211e2f6c59180f941dba6a1.mp4 of beauty The mood can be glanced by just casually glancing at whats going on. Essentially any episode at any timestamp will give the impression of a manic energy suffused running throughout the anime. Because each vignette generally speaking is anywhere from about 810 total minutes every small story within the superstructure requires a flow of motion. That doesnt mean that its always screaming itself red or having a magical explosion of animation at every given time that would be closer to something like Dead Leaveshttps://anilist.co/anime/974/DeadLeaves/ or similar because there are indeed many times where it calmly lets the mood set before flipping the table and letting all hell wonderfully break loose. Everything was so tightly composed that laughing as a reaction to a thing that was happening somehow felt irrelevant. It was always offering something brimming with confidence and abandon that I couldnt help but love. Its a circumstance where both on the technical front and the comedic front the fuse is always waiting to go off and when it does it never feels out of left field even as it pulls a gag or a nongag moment that could be taken as out of left field. 550https://i.ur.com/JflhnU4.png https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/238fc22b64637d8560dfa43fc7f4aa89.mp4 Unknown credit adapting a gag from chapter three of the manga. The adaptation honors the visual and comedic sensibility of Arawi Keiichishttps://anilist.co/staff/98504/ArawiKeiichi original manga while often adding new perspectives or movements that would reasonably exist based on the source gag But what is definitely of left field is just what exactly went into this from the production front. According to an interview with Ishidate special thanks to kViN for providing some detailshttps://blog.sakugabooru.com/2025/09/20/citytheanimationproductionnotes0211/ on the matter he had hoped for an adaptation of CITY THE ANIMATION back in the summer of 2022 and was surprised at the nearimmediate approval of the work. Kyoto Animation already had experience with Arawi through adapting Nichijouhttps://anilist.co/anime/10165/Nichijou/ and likewise Arawi couldnt contain his own excitement as he eagerly jumped at his editors suggestion to adapt CITY into Kyoto Animations hands. Ishidate and Arawi apparently laughed like idiots at a writing camp as they shared ideas about how to make the anime realized on the small screen and Arawi directly worked at the studio rather than speak through an editor or proxy. The process was so infused with vitality that showed a kind of communion between creator creative staff and creative product. Its why talented people like Ishidate can direct something like CITY THE ANIMATION after having worked previously as director on Violet Evergardenhttps://anilist.co/anime/21827/VioletEvergarden/ a series on the clear opposite side of the spectrum to CITY THE ANIMATION and why the studios staff handle both types of aesthetics and moods. Ideas and the people who make them come to life thrive in an environment that can actually accommodate them. https://youtu.be/VMnsUp0LJY https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/c4a7fecff9cfa626a1fceaadf17faf34.mp4 YouTube video includes audio. Be sure to unmute. Unknown credit for animation clip. Episode 5 directed by Oota Minoru is a masterpiece of both ideas and execution making for an aesthetically dense wellspring of expression And the anime industry needs more stuff like this happening. This may be a bit of a revelation or shock to any relative newcomer to or morecasual fan of the medium reading this hello there Tell me what you like but if I may take a quick second to be rather uncouth the anime industry is a fucking terrible place. As animators and studios find themselves descending into everthicker and more unpleasant webs of production issues tight deadlines and now the encroaching reality of AI and how it risks putting out of work all those people in the ED credits who do thankless / seeminglyinvisible work that we dont learn the names of assuming they get credited at all which is another problem altogether anime is a business enterprise concerned about getting content out the door moreso than making any artistic statements. Especially in the current climate of the Reiwa era seasonal listings are flooded with shows we wont remember within a couple of months or shows where the titles are more than enough to make someone think twice about tuning in to the first episode. CITY THE ANIMATION may not be the funniest thing under the sun but its existence is a symbol that sometimes there are moresignificant macrolevel concerns and understandings of how an artpiece orients itself into a grander design than whether a bit involving takoyaki in episode three had me laughing my head off it did for the record. But isnt that a navelgazing philosophy? I dont think it is. Kyoto Animation is one of the last bastions of giving its ideas the chance to not only develop gradually but also see their realization while actively trying new boundarypushing and active training as has been their longstanding traditionhttps://youtu.be/scRv6iu0w4g?t=274. They and CITY THE ANIMATION are an odd duck of the best variety one which helped the studio codify their moe aesthetic through the 2000shttps://anilist.co/anime/1530/Kanon2006/ wildly influenced the moe aesthetic of the early 2010shttps://anilist.co/anime/5680/KON/ etc. And here in 2025 they havent come close to exhausting their creative juices yet. They didnt need to make a physical diorama for episode five and have these practical nonanimated moments but they did it anywayhttps://www.animatetimes.com/news/details.php?id=1755044912 the idea of Lets try it just because we can and lets see if it works is beautiful as a thing in and of itself that I cant help but be thankful that it exists even if I found it an unfunny husk begging for death it wasnt for the record. When a piece of media vibrates at just the right frequency it radiates warmth even in its moments that affectively dont work. Why does this matter? One of my university students asked me at the end of an academic year whats the point of praising something however new or interesting or ingenious / ingenuous it might be if it doesnt move us personally? Why praise that which doesnt reach all the way? I couldnt help but remember this in light of the conversation with my friend from a couple of days ago. Years later and with a lot more media consumption and instruction under my belt I have a better answer I hope. To that I say that it is important to recognize that there are at times greater perspectives to consider than ones own ego for whether thing funny or thing not funny. It is more about ones own ability to understand that a different mode of thinking is sometimes required for watching something you realize on some level is truly special even if it doesnt completely coincide with what you want or like. It is about making YOUR effort to reach the creative energy on its own terms rather than waiting for it to reach you. It is actively broadening your own horizons into territories you didnt dream of or didnt think youd ever chart or learn and how through that you will be remade into something newer and more beautiful even if you still come out the other side not actually liking the thing in question. Is that not worth celebrating? https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/e49613b58b85ef6509b655cd54f87d85.mp4 Unknown credit But lets also not overstate the case this anime will be as it is in the hereandnow endlessly compared to its earlier progeny Nichijou and arguably even Lucky Star within the Kyoto Animation canon both stylistically and structurally and elsewhere with other comedies of similar swagger. It also is likely not going to rewrite any book anytime soon both in terms of how to create comedycentric anime or industry practice. The anime industry will be as problemladen as it was before this anime existed if not moreso as it lumbers into its un?certain future as Kadokawa prepares to adapt whatever is going to be its next Long Light Novel Title with a HighlySpecific Gimmick That Might Involve Reincarnation in Another World While Maxing Out My Vigor Stat. https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/236f25e2d5d9f038d241ddd8c7dcf2f7.mp4 Credit to Ishidate Taichi But for thirteen Sundays over the summer and into the beginning of autumn a kind of unrestrained vibrancy happiness and joviality shined. And it was called CITY THE ANIMATION.