WARNING: The following contains spoilers for episode 8 of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, "The Grand Shibahama Festival!" streaming now on Crunchyroll.
The Eizouken, along with their collaborators in the Robot, Audio and Art Clubs, have spent the past three episodes working on a giant robot anime. Now, it's finally time to put the finishing touches on the film before its big premiere at the school culture festival. Mizusaki's decision last week to spend extra time on the animation means the audio is now behind schedule, but Domeki's expertise combined with Asakusa's assured direction make the sound editing a success.
With production finished, now it's time to market the premiere screening. This is where Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! gets to indulge its wackier side, with cardboard robot cosplays, exploding rockets, banners on ziplines and slapstick chases on the run from security guards. It's also a chance to demonstrate just how ruthless Kanamori can be as a saleswoman, blackmailing the Air Conditioning Club (yes, there's really a club for everything at Shibahama High) into making their screening auditorium the coolest.
This is a chance for the show to take a common trope of high school-centric anime (the culture festival episode) and do something crazy and unexpected with it. However, Eizouken! has always been a lot less about high school and a lot more about the actual process of anime production, so the festival stuff has to be read as a satirical commentary on the extremes producers need to go to in order to get an anime noticed in a crowded marketplace. Masaaki Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi surely must have their own crazy anime promotion stories they're drawing inspiration from here.
Mizusaki's celebrity status as a model is the robot anime's big selling point. They even give out merchandise with her face on it! Her willingness to be the face of the project comes at a risk because her parents are attending the festival. Her dad was so against her pursuing anime that he sent guards to stop her from joining the Anime Club back in the first episode. Now, she refuses to hide her passion from her parents, who receive an invitation to attend the mecha anime premiere.
Mizusaki's mom, who was largely absent in her life but never restrictive, loves the film. Extra impressively, so does her dad. As hard as he pushed for Mizusaki to become an actress to live out her mom's dream, his realization upon watching the film is that his daughter has, in her own way, become an actress. Animation is another method of performance. The personality and attention to detail seen in Mizusaki's animation are undeniably hers.
It's all the more stunning that this sense of performance comes through in a short film that is mainly about a robot fighting a monster crab. There are some human characters, but the meat of the short is what would generally be considered "effects animation" rather than "character animation." People often talk about character animation as being the way in which animation serves as a performance, but Eizouken! argues that effects animation can also deliver a sense of performance.
The premiere's a rousing success, but Asakusa's still coming up with ways she could improve the film for the DVD release, while Kanamori's concerned with selling DVD preorders. Mizusaki introduces her fellow Eizouken members to her parents. She might have an accepting family now, but her bond with the Eizouken is stronger than family.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is streaming on Crunchyroll. New episodes premiere Sundays at 1:30 pm EST.