I have held off on doing a news post about this topic for a while. Mainly because we had yet to get exact details on it. At last, we know. What I am talking about is the almost mystery that has developed over the past few months over who exactly animated Korra Book 2 and how much of it.
I suppose the place to start is really where this came from, for the most part it was rumours because Book 2 was taking so long that made people think there were issues with the animation. There were a lot of rumours, most of them not true as far as I know, but 1 always lingered. That being that a new animation studio was also working on Korra with Studio Mir, that being a Japanese studio called Pierrot Co. It was the one rumour that always stayed around, and as the wait for Book 2 went on so did the thought that there was an issue with the animation studios.
A few months ago one of the lead animators at Studio Mir had a big interview and in it he said that a japanese studio were working on the show, but then Mike and Bryan went back to Studio Mir. At this point there is still some confusion over this.
Which brings me to San Diego Comic Con, in an interview after the big Friday panel Bryan mentioned in a completely off hand way that he wanted to thank the animation studios Studio Mir and Pierrot co, which made me do a double take since I would consider this big news that we now have 2 studios working on Book 2. I was most shocked that it was not brought up in the Friday panel, they mentioned new writers and directors, why not the new animation company. This got more interesting when during the panel Bryan specifically mentioned that Studio Mir would animate Beginnings Part 1 and 2, the episodes focusing on Wan, the first Avatar. Then we got news that Book 2 Episode 1, Rebel Spirit was animated by Pierrot co, they are even mentioned in the credits. At this point I was really confused, who was animating what?
I realised then that I had not checked the Studio Mir Facebook page in a while and to my embarrassment the answer was right there. Someone asked a question about how much of Korra Book 2 they worked on, their answer
We worked on half of Book 2.
They also mentioned in another post that they are working on Book 3, but did not mention if it was with Pierrot or not.
So we now know Mir will animated at least some of Book 2, 3 and 4. My big question now is, was the interview correct and Pierrot after doing half of Book 2, were they replaced by Mir going forward. With Mir confirmed to be doing the two Beginnings episodes which we know will take place near the start of the second half of book 2, does this mean that Mir were only brought on board very late in book 2 production after Pierrot did the first few episodes?
It would explain why Book 2 has taken so long if they have been working hard with Pierrot to perfect the show style with them. The Mir interview did tell us that Mir were initially not going to do Book 2 as they were doing a new season of Boondocks.
I think there is still a story to come out about this situation, but what I will say is that I am not worried in the least about Korra having 2 animation studios working on it. ATLA for its full run had 2 studios working on it, JM Animation worked on all 3 seasons, DR Movie worked with JM on Book 1 and 2 while it was Moi Animation who replaced DR Movie in helping JM for Book 3.
For me the key questions still to be answered are these
Is Pierrot done working on Korra after the episodes on Book 2 they did, or will they also be working on Book 3 and 4 ?
Is this animation studio confusion responsible for Book 2 taking as long as it is ?
What are your thoughts ?
