I realise that I’m not exactly being prescient with this discussion here, but I was watching the second BD volume of iDOLM@STER yestereve (itself not exactly prompt, but I guess you can’t expect too much out of international mail this time of year) and Producers tie started bugging me again.

I mean, I don’t know how many of you reading actually own, or wear, a striped tie on any kind of regular basis, but when you actually tie the thing…

…the stripes in the knot actually go in the opposite direction to the rest of the tie. Not with Producers, however, where the stripes always go in the same direction, which is most peculiar. I kind of wanted to chalk that up to it being a cheap clip-on tie. I mean, given that 765Pro are such a ghetto production company that their logo is plastered onto their window using masking tape, I figured that Producer simply didn’t get paid enough to afford a decent tie.

But then he let’s it down during the heat-wave in episode 5. Oh, well, so much for that. I guess that the stripes on his tie just change direction part way down it – or Mr Nishigori just decided it would be way easier to keep consistent between cuts this way. Probably the later, actually – they’ve had real trouble being consistent with Wavers tie in some episodes of Fate/Zero, where in some scenes the stripes on the knot will change directions as frequently as they change camera angle.

They got Mikis tie in episode 3 right, though. That’s clearly more important than Producers, anyway.

Whilst I’m on the subject of the second iDOLM@STER BD, there was much (well, a little) to do on the Japanese blogs about the following image from the Episode 5 ED sequence a couple of weeks ago…

In the broadcast version of this particular ending sequence, the twins were in their swimwear. Not so much here – it’s an uncharacteristically classy (for the anime industry) example of a sequence where characters are given more clothes for the home release version.

Although, in reality, that’s not exactly what’s going on. In the bulk of the episode, swimsuits are still on display, and the twins swimwear isn’t any different – rather, it’s a change made purely as a matter of continuity.

You see, by the point that they were playing with fireworks, the girls had already changed into their evening wear. Of course, it’s probably a bad idea for idols (or anyone, for that matter) to be playing with sparklers wearing very little anyway – their looks are the commodity they trade on, after all.

(Not really worth going in to, but there are a few other animation tweaks in this episode – there fixed an obvious animation error, and they continue replacing shots of hand-drawn trains with CG ones, which they started with the first episode).