Vivy: How to IM.PACT

Vivy is the most high impact anime I am watching this season. But while much of it can be attributed to its fast-paced sci-fi plot, I feel much more inclined to breakdown one of the more subtle reasons that made this anime so thrilling -- Its structural composition.

Now I am a sucker for structure. Shit like introduction, rising action, climax and then ending makes me a happy man and when writers go out their way to subvert conventional structures in their stories, that is when my brain juices really start pumping. Vivy does this perfectly with their sharpest technique -- The art of the hard-cuts.

Sound cuts

This scene uses two sound cuts in two polar structures. The first is the use of the explosion sound cut to the music and the second is the use of music sound cut to the explosion; The first explosion provides a hard cut into the sound track, emphasizing the impact of the dreadful melody. 

The latter sound cut does the opposite. Instead of using the punchy sound effect to place impact onto the music, it uses the sharp cut of the music to place impact on the sound effect; Music cuts on high note, emphasizing impact of the word "Diva", which ends off by punching you right back with an explosion. In the same scene, two different ways of sound cuts were used each to provide the same result. To emphasize.

But explosions may be a form of cheating. The sound itself is naturally impactful afterall. Plus music sound cuts are a dime a dozen nowadays. It's nothing to get worked up about. Hmm, how about we look at another example?

No music this time. Rain as backdrop. An echo and then a sound cut by the sharp cry of the engine. And then the engine echoes out into the silence when the girl looks down, which is then punctuated by the roar of the fire and the final cut of the explosion. If I would draw out the sound design, it would look something like this.

Normal sound design would probably just be rain, followed by engine, followed by fire and then explosion; All in one sharp rise. Not too shabby. But just by intersplicing the "dip" (The cry of the engine fizzling out and the complete silence), the impact to the fire and the explosion rose three-folds.

Plus it even does another cut in the end of the episode with the rain rising turbulently to a hard cut of silence, leaving us speechless to the explosion that we just witnessed. Are you impressed yet? Cause I am, and I want to give the sound designers and editors at Wit Studio a goddamn raise. Here are more examples if you aren't yet impressed.

Story beat hard cuts

I have seen things like plot twists or anti-climax before, but never have I ever seen a show play around with plot revelations like this anime before. The basic context of this scene is that the bear comes from the future to work with Vivy to stop evolving AI from wiping out the entire planet. However, since the bear comes from the future, he doesn't want to alter too many things from the past to trigger unnecessary butterfly effects. Thus, he stops Vivy from saving the crashing plane, to which her one and only friend, the little girl is currently on.

Here is how a conventional writer (like me) would have this scene play out. 

Vivy and bear shake hands to form partnership --> Vivy finds out the plane is crashing --> Vivy finds out her friend is on the plane --> Vivy fights with bear --> Vivy loses and plane crashes.

Such is the basic plot twist cum rising tension cum climax.

But here is how the writers for this show chooses to let it play out.

Vivy shake hands to form partnership --> Vivy fights with bear --> We find out plane is crashing --> We find out her friend is on the plane --> Vivy loses and plane crashes.

Notice the sharp cut from a calm and conclusive partnership to instant fighting? At that point you don't even know why they are fighting. It was a hard cut in the plot with little to no explanation. You are left utterly confused. A normal plot structure, afterall, would first have the plot twist of the plane crashing explained, before the subsequent fight. 

However, if the plot twist is explained, the fight becomes predictable, and thus less impactful. You have seen this same story beats in countless stories after all. What creates impact then is that immediate cut in those story beats. Now you don't know what the hell is happening and you are eager to know why they are suddenly fighting. 

This is brought onwards by the revelation. Your heightened intrigued gives the revelation of her friend being in the plane much more impact, giving it its "OH SHIT" moment. Additionally, the revelation and the consequences are stacked together, whereby it would've been weakened by the fighting in the middle. Imagine this; Vivy became friends with bear but then finds out about the plane. They spend like maybe one or two minutes arguing about the morality of saving the plane, before we actually see the plane coming down and crashing. Feasible, but it is predictable.

The plot structure skips that boring middle step and gives the audience no time to even process the revelation before the big kaboom. It is like watching a story begin and end but in only 10 seconds. This is how you create the infamous "after the episode I just sat there staring at the black screen" moment. And thus, a hard cut was used, both individually amplifying the fight and the explosion, just by the simply swapping two story beats around. As a writer hobbyist, I worship such writing story-telling.

This show is awesome

Look, I'm not gonna say using hard cuts are revolutionary. But goddamn does this show remain extremely consistent with it, while also keeping it fresh by giving us different types of cuts in both the music and plot and sometimes even both together. 

My other favourite show of this season is zombieland saga but that anime surprises with its whacky and zanny plot. This show however not only surprises us with plot twists, it twists the literal structure of the plot. In the words of God Doog Korone, I say "Oh I'm die, thank you forever".