What happens when you take a director whose biggest claims to fame are in the action genre, and then give them something completely different - low on action, but big on romance or drama? The results might be a bit surprising and are precisely what makes Masahiro Ando a director worth getting to know.
Ando is a longtime industry veteran whose work can be found in everything from Evangelion to Ghost in the Shell and beyond, even serving as the Animation Director on the Cowboy Bebop movie. He's highly regarded in the sakuga community as the director of Sword of the Stranger, a cult classic film hailed for its action scenes and overall visual storytelling.
Ando's Appeal
While he has directed series at other studios like P.A. Works, a lot of Ando's works as a director or animator have come from Studio Bones. Bones is something of a legend in the industry and among the many appellations levied toward them is that they make great action shows/films. It's obviously not all that they make (as we shall discuss), but they've certainly got a knack for it.
From classics like Fullmetal Alchemist to gems like Darker than Black or the aforementioned Stranger, to some shows you've likely never heard of, Bones makes great action. And artists like Ando are a big reason for that reputation. When he finds himself in the director's chair, it's like the staff is suddenly emboldened by his presence, and the results are frequently impressive.
Plenty of anime, especially shonen, create exciting action through dynamic posing, effects animation, and an overall emphasis on spectacle. However, there's a demand among some audiences for more grounded action that might lean more into elaborate choreography and realistic martial arts. This is something that Bones has often catered to quite well.
Of course, I'm generalizing, as plenty of shows can do a mixture of both, thus blurring the lines. But for the sake of identifying the style of a director like Ando, think of it as the difference between the action of My Hero Academia and the action of Cowboy Bebop. Both are good but for different reasons. Sword of the Stranger is perfectly emblematic of Ando's dedication to grounded and impactful action choreography.
The final fight of this film is often regarded as one of the best swordfights ever animated, and it's easy to see why. Yutaka Nakamura's 2-minute long cut makes up the majority of the fight, based on Ando's storyboards. It's a masterclass in command of speed, impact, and character acting through combat.
Every time an action series comes out with his name attached, there's a sort of minimum guarantee of solid fight choreography that fans have come to expect of his work. It scratches a sort of itch that is rare outside explicitly martial-arts-heavy anime. With such an identity forged for him, it's sorta weird to think about how he also directed one of the most underrated feel-good romances of the 2010s.
Ando's Versatility
Snow White with the Red Hair (AKA Akagami no Shirayukihime) is a 2015 fantasy romance series from Studio Bones, based on the manga of the same name by Sorata Akizuki. It's a Shoujo series about a herbalist named Shirayuki who flees her home country in search of a new one. She meets Prince Zen and the two become friends as she seeks to become a court herbalist, all the while the two slowly realize their feelings for one another.
It is not an action series by any stretch of the imagination and though there is tension, it is an utterly delightful watch. It is also, with little hyperbole, a masterful story, portraying one of the more healthy and mature romances depicted in anime, much less romance as a whole. On the scale of priorities, good fight scenes should rank very low, and yet, when they do happen, they are awesome. [Clip 1]
The best way to describe what makes Akagami work so well is that Ando directs romance like he would direct action and in a way, it makes a lot of sense. As a love story - and furthermore, as a fantasy love story, its moments of levity, tenderness, and drama should be romanticized. Even if there were only hypothetically two physical fights in the whole show, they should look good.
This approach is apparent from the first episode and while, yes, premieres are meant to put their best foot forward, depending on the story, the premiere serves as a sort of thesis. And from the get-go, Akagami strikes the audience as a warm and inviting adventure, but one more than capable of raising the stakes on a dime.
Once again, beyond the first episodes, action is not a common occurrence, nor would it serve the story well if it were, but it speaks to the commitment and skill of the creative team that they went the extra mile. But the quality of Ando's directing exceeds the appeal to his apparent wheelhouse. On the whole, the show is superbly directed, and arguably because he understands one very important thing.
Action Is More Than Just Fighting
What is "action"? The titular genre implies storytelling which is punctuated by physical interchange or some kind of heightened combat; the result of a breakdown in typical conflict resolution. But have you ever seen an animator known for fight scenes animate something other than a fight? They do it all the time, and sometimes a shot of a character just running can be as exciting to watch as a gunfight.
By definition, action is a process performed with the aim of reaching some goal. In a narrative, we define action based on the context or contextualize action based on the genre. But action is simply a character doing something and good storytelling is about making the audience care about that action. So even if it's completely "extra" in contrast to the wider romance genre, Akagami is a show that cares. [Clip 2]
In 2011, Ando directed Hanasaku Iroha at P.A. Works, a drama about a young girl moving to rural Japan to live with her grandmother and work at a small inn. It's an even less action-heavy premise than Akagami, and yet the opening alone is very high-energy, with the characters frantically running about their place of business. Replace the kitchen utensils with swords, and it isn't directed all that different from a show like 2009's Canaan, which Ando also directed.
He can truly pop off in a directorial capacity out of an apparent attitude that "action" is everything, and sometimes everything is "action." Granted, his expert touch can't always save a flawed story. 2018's Sirius the Jaeger was an underwhelming Netflix Original that drew eyes for its expectedly gorgeous hunter vs vampire fights but was narratively underwhelming.
When he is given a good script or solid source material to work off of, he can make something truly amazing, just as his works can falter without those things. Akagami, at its core, is a very well-written story, and Masahiro Ando was the perfect person to bring it to life in vibrant colors and an unexpectedly romantic spectacle. With such a versatile repertoire, it's a wonder what he'll direct next.