What's Cool About Light Novels Is They Remind Me What Stuff I Love

“Possibility, or what we refer to as Imagination, is 99% imitation. The real deal is only 1%”
-Kouhei Kadono, as translated by Andrew Cunningham, Boogiepop  Returns VS Imaginator Part 1

A little while back, 2-D Teleidoscope read Zaregoto book 1 and brought up the interesting fact that as he read it, he imagined the world and characters as an anime. Light novels feature illustrations in definitive anime/manga style and often feature characters and situations that seem to be torn right out of those mediums, so it’s only natural that we would visualize them that way – however, when I thought back on the images in my head from reading Zaregoto, I noticed something odd. The characters looked like anime, and the situations played out in an anime-like way, but the world itself looked nothing like anything I’ve seen in anime.

Shingri-La Opening Has Me Spraying My Pants

The opening video for Gonzo’s upcoming conservationalist anime Shangri-La has been leaked and reported by Moetron who lets you watch it here.

I already had plenty of reason to watch Shangri-La – first of all, I love Gonzo (I may be the last one) and second of all, the designs are by Range Murata, who is without doubt one of Japan’s great artists. (his site here, links are thankfully in English). Murata and Gonzo collaborated in the past on both Last Exile and Blue Submarine no. 6 which are both ten kinds of awesome. Shangri-La doesn’t look terribly original, and I’m a little leary over the amount of seriousness which may be present. It’s based on a novel, though, and that’s usually a good thing.

The preview has me very psyched. The animation is pretty much drop-dead gorgeous, as expected from a Gonzo op, but much more exciting is the lush art which brings back memories of Last Exile. If the show’s art is as good as the op, this will be an instant favorite for that alone. The buildings covered in moss were like a shoutout directly to me, haha. Really looking forward to this.

EDIT: Oh, and I guess the song was okay too.