I like pretty pictures and I like season. Mostly because this season is completely packed full of pretty pictures of various kinds. That’s something that’s really exciting for me, so I spent some time this week talking briefly about the directors who are bringing these shows to us and the actual formal qualities of their work. To my great chagrin, I had originally meant to talk about Lostorage Incited WIXOSS in this article, but I forgot and wound up writing about Sangatsu no Lion instead. Oh well.
Mage in a Barrel 
From the pictures I’ve seen, this season’s WIXXOS does look pretty good. Can’t speak beyond that, though.
Yuri on Ice is definitely my favourite visual experience this season. The window scene from your sample was my favourite of that one. (Btw, the top left of your sample is an example of what reminded me of Shaft: the blurred out mosaic in the background, few colours in sharp contrast – it’s even clearer with a character in the foreground; again – I’m not that good at visuals, so take that into account.)
I loved the winter wonderland of Flip Flappers, and I adore the flip-flapping ending (with its computer game repetitiveness on the bottom and its picturebook fairy tale on top).
Among the shorts this season, there’s Sengoku Choojuu Giga, and it’s quite literally what the title suggests: Sengoku warlords animated as the animels from the Choojuu Giga scroll. This means minimal line art, even more minimal shading, and no clours, except the worn-scroll-effect of the blank background. It’s the polar opposite of all that anime usually stands for, and it works well with the dead-pan humour and voice-acting (think a restrained version of Osomatsu-san). If you’re interested in animation styles, I’d say this is a must-see (one episode’s probably enough to appreciate the style). Not much time lost, either, at 3 minutes. (The short form is starting to find its place, I think.)
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I love it when I can go into something unsure how it’ll affect me and it blows me away like Yuri on Ice has. Besides the shifts in colour and tone from scene to scene that were barely noticeable because they’re executed so well, it was the direction on the figure skating sequences themselves that made an impression. How the differences between both Yuris’ performances were framed, the cool maturity of one with the unbridled passion and near desperation of the other. So beautiful.
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