The fun part is they all have their own tricks! Kitanohara did something similar with objects rather than characters. Ota turned digital effects like sparkles, shading, reflections, etc into clearly drawn effects... then it all contrasts with the physical backdrop. "Handmade" from a different angle!

The ways CITY's creative width becomes specific technical choices is also fascinating. Given how stylized everything is, each director basically adapts to the "level of technology" of the series. Ishidate started by translating photography ideas like being out of focus into the drawings themselves

(It's because it apparently has a gag page by me in it, which would be cool to see. The one with DUCK TWACY cameo)

Praying and manifesting for the eventual Warner Bros. x Pokemon crossover... there's potential here!!!!

i can't spoil CITY episode 5's best trick, but suffice to say minoru ota (director and storyboarder) is a genius and this is truly revolutionary tv anime

i've long been kinda on the fence about kyoani's arawi adaptations--i've found their love for naturalism kinda at odds with arawi's surrealism and hilariously UN-natural pacing and emphasis, and both kinda cancelling each other out in the process--but not anymore!

(The movie is 'Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam'.)

not many shadows but brings to mind the notorious toy story 2 posters

the trick of course is that it's quickly established as inconceivable that the tiny, gentle, and/or adorably ineffectual characters in this show could ever do any harm to each other, in spite of their most diligent efforts

the anime "risky/safety" (1999-2000) displays a working prototype of the kyoani ideal of therapeutic moe, despite it opening on a scene of a shinigami appearing before a despondent young lady and declaring her intent to send the latter to hell.