Tone, Direction, and Their Importance

What is tone, and how great is its role in films, anime, and the likes?

Tone (one can also say direction) in all forms of media is extremely important. If a piece of entertainment has no structural mood, tone, or defined accent, it ends up being a mess. That isn’t to say that if the tone changes, it is necessarily bad (we’ll get back to this in a bit); it’s quite the opposite.

Imagine the tone as the conductor of an orchestra. The members/players of the orchestra have worked hard, and ready to play their part; they may end up being bad, but they are still ready to perform… and the conductor doesn’t show up. They decide to play themselves, and the concert is a mess.

That is a film without tone.

What about a theme that changes? Does that mean that the “performance” ends up being choppy?

Once again: no!

A sudden, unnecessary change in pace can be questionable, but one that was planned from the start is perfectly fine. Take for example one of my favorite anime, “Puella Magi Madoka Magica.” This show starts off as a seemingly innocent story about magical girls fighting supernatural evildoers, but the anime’s creators spin a 180-degree turn on us, and the true nature of the famous show is revealed: the world of so-called “magical girls” is a dark one, one filled with despair, suffering, sacrifice, and many other attributes to go along with these.

Nevertheless, back to the original topic: what about normal, standard tones in media? What are some examples of how to set a tone right?

“Fullmetal Alchemist.” If you’ve ever been into anime at any point past when “FMA” was created, you’ve had to have heard of the name somewhere. The show is a masterpiece, and is acclaimed by all to be one of the best anime series to come out, ever.

But what makes it so successful?

I’ve always pondered that thought, trying to figure out why it’s so incredibly good. I loved it (almost every second of it), and I could explain it through some more artificial critique, but, only just recently, I think I figured out why it ended up so popular.

The anime has great cards to play, and knows how to play them. It knows when characters need backstory, it knows when it needs to get serious, and it knows how to play comedy. The thing is incredibly good- genius, even- at conveying emotion and tone. “Fullmetal Alchemist” is an undaunted masterpiece.

Now, here’s where it comes full circle: these two anime (“PMMM” and “FMA”) are prime examples of how to do tone right. Not the subject matter of the tone themselves, as both of these are rather dark (and by no means is this a bad thing), but in the way in which they are conveyed. These two anime wait patiently for their turn to play their respective cards, and, boy, did both of them ever hit the jackpot.