From Far Away - Teaser Anime Review
IT'S HERE BROOOOOO!! IT'S HAPPENING!!!
Okay to be fair this was announced I think back in either March or May but now we have a teaser trailer with some footage!
Future me here! (a day after I started writing this😅) another official trailer has been released! The main preview!
But also...
If you've been with me for a while you know that the manga From Far Away (or Kanata Kara or as I've recently seen it, From the Other Side) by Kyoko Hikawa is my favourite manga of all time. I re-read this manga every year and every year I find more things I love about it! 💚
It's got everything! Action, adventure, romance, horror, comedy! It's just so perfect in my eyes!
And since high school I have been DREAMING of the day that this series would get the live action treatment. I didn't have casting down but I thought that the visuals in the manga would translate really well with visual effects & animation.
I never really thought about an anime adaption until I started watching Inuyasha and then I wanted nothing more.
And now...in 2026...IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING!
This isn't fan art by the way! This is LEGIT! You can see this and so much more on the official Japanese website here: https://kanatakara-anime.com/ (it's really beautiful actually 🩵)
October 2026 baby! I believe it will air on a Japanese tv station but best believe some way, SOMEHOW I will find a way to watch it! I've waited too long!
October is about to be stacked for me! Ranma season 3 and now this anime adaptation?! Trust I will be eating good in October
Now even though my excitement is through the roof...there is one tinnnnyyyy issue I have with it already
There were a couple of things I was worried about when I first heard this series was going to get the animation treatment and only one was confirmed while watching these preview videos. Can anyone guess what that might be?
The Animation 
(I mean duh, when don't I have an issue about the animation in an animated series in this day & age?)
This was and still is! my biggest concern. I wish, with every fibre in my being, that this anime was made back in the 90's or early 2000's when animation was done....well.
The animation for this series feels too clean, you know? Clean and stiff. I saw a tweet saying this,
Apparently people have been saying that the animation is bad & this person does not agree. They say it's just "solid good comp, lighting and directing." And I'm sorry to say, that's not animation. Comp (short for compositing) is just the assembly of different elements, edited to make it look like a final image. (ie cg characters composited into a live action plate, or someone on a green screen composited into a different scene)
I think the comp is fine, I like the lighting I guess...? but I wish they would have gone the cell animation route. Make it look like it was shot on film, make it look a little "rough." I would have preferred a styled more similar to...
Inuyasha...duh....clearly the standard for me.
Because I mean look at this,
this is the manga
and this is the key visual for the anime adaptation
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😬 |
There's something...missing? Like I said before, I think it's too clean, too flat. And I get it's a different medium but it can still have the essence of the original artist's work.
But okay, say they can't change the style, then bump up the budget on the animation. Right now it looks ,and I hate to say this, cheap. Cheap meaning the animation isn't as fluid. It's more basic (if that makes sense) and I think the reasons it's done this way is because it's easier to animate.
I grew up on Inuyasha, Spider-Man TAS Sailor Moon, Mew Mew Power, Case Closed (when it aired for that short while under that name), Ranma 1/2, Gundam Seed & Gundam Seed Destiny, Disney animated classics and so much more. While all these animes are animated different there is one thing they all have in common, fluidity. The 12 principles of animation are present.
What are the 12 principles of animation? I am so very glad you asked!
Allow me to take you to school right quick,
the 12 principles of animation are the foundations of animation. They are the principles that very animator knows, should know and follow for realistic movement. These principles were discovered and documented by Disney legends Frank Thomas and Olie Johnston in their animation bible, The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (it literally is! talk to any animator! they either own this book now, did in a past life or signed it out at the library at one point in their life).
the 12 principles are,
1. Squash and Stretch
2. Timing and motion
3. Anticipation
4. Arcs
5. follow through and overlapping
6. straight ahead and pose to pose
7. slow in and slow out
8. arcs
9. Exaggeration
10. appeal
11. Secondary action
12. solid drawing
They don't necessarily have to be in that order.
Now I'm not going to explain every principle (that's gonna take waaayy too long and I have some professional complaining still to do) so you can read about them here: https://redapplelearning.in/list-of-disneys-12-principles-of-animation-you-need-to-know/education/ (does a good job at explaining them).
The principles I think most animated shows (or at least the ones i have the pleasure of viewing) are missing are squash and stretch, follow through & overlapping, secondary action, arcs and anticipation.
