Shirobako is a great show about creatives in the anime industry. It has a wide cast of too many characters (affectionate) involving production assistants, animators, 3DCG artists, writers, directors, project managers, voice actors, sound designers, concept artists, and more. And the coolest thing? Each one of these characters have multiple unique outfits; these are people who change their clothes every day. This actually isn't common in media at all, especially animated media.
In real life, a person's clothes say a lot about them. We all know this, I'm not going to dwell on it. Characters in movies, tv, and games tend to have an iconic outfit that represents them. From superhero costumes to the outfit of any character from Ed, Edd, and Eddy. Even in settings where there is a uniform or a dress code, people find ways to be unique; wearing a sweater over a school uniform or wearing the uniform's shirt unbuttoned for example. But Shirobako goes above and beyond.
I'm being kind by collapsing the rest of this long post, but I will not be kind about telling you to hit Read More, you coward!
Let's talk about Aoi and her coworkers
Shirobako gives everyone multiple outfits and manages to make each of them feel iconic. For example: the main character, Aoi, has many outfits that are varied and unique, but they all fit her and her character. As you go through these next few images, keep an eye on her and some of the other reoccurring characters.
They're all good, right? You probably have a solid image of what kind of person Aoi is in your mind just based off of these couple of outfits alone. She's practical, she's easy-going and friendly, but has an outer-shell of professionalism.
And you probably noticed while some characters have pretty varied outfits, others just have different colors of the same shirt. And that's also important! That says a lot about them and their job. Some characters just wear the same suit with a different colored undershirt. The director often just has different colored or patterned polo-shirts. They are all creatives, but not every creative person dresses flashy. Some people just like their cool jacket and wear that over everything. Some people are just plain and wear whatever without thinking about it. And that establishes a realistic distribution of people's attention to fashion in a given office.
What about the wild outliers?
And then you have the outliers and exceptions. These outliers turn into stories. You may have noticed that there's a certain woman who wears goth-lolita fashion and you might think she's maybe a comic relief character, but no. She puts on a bit of a character, but she's played completely seriously and is taken seriously by her coworkers. We find out the reason she dresses this way because she wasn't taken seriously at a previous job. So much like in real life, she dons "battle armor" and puts on a little bit of a character so that she emits too powerful of an aura to be walked over.
Other ways clothes are used for story telling
Then there are stories that stem from when characters wear clothes that do not fit them. Literally and metaphorically in some cases. At one point a character named Midori is brought in for an impromptu interview to assist on a project. In this scene we can tell the suit she is wearing is just slightly too big. The show never addresses this; it's never discussed explicitly. But we can infer that it makes sense that she doesn't own a suit, she's still wrapping up her undergrad degree. So where did she get the suit? We know she is friends with Aoi, they live in the same apartment building, they exchange keys and just walk into each other's places, Aoi is slightly bigger than Midori. Despite the show never saying this explicitly, you just know that she borrowed her suit from Aoi. This show pays so much attention to the fit of each character, that there is a story behind when a fit doesn't... fit.
Of course once she's hired and can express herself, she fits right in with these goofballs with her uniquely colorful and pattern-heavy style.
Conclusion
Shirobako is great. I love the characters, their growth and stories, and the story it tells overall. But the character designs really hammer it in. It's the kind of show that you won't forget, never.
