Blue Blazes

Blue Blazes ("Aoi Honō", also a pun on the main character's name) is a Japanese comedy-drama show about animators and manga authors. Specifically, one aspiring manga-author/animator and his competition with the future stars of Gainax like Hideaki Anno. It's an interesting, dramatized look at Japanese art/film-student life, and demonstrates the importance of being in the right place at the right time. If all these guys hadn't gone to school together and formed these relationships and rivalries, would they have ended up with such enduring/successful careers? It reminds me of the CalArts class that produced John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Henry Selick, Tim Burton, and Chris Buck. Sometimes you get the right convergence of incredible talents, who all work off each other to get better and better, and are able to create the right opportunities for themselves.  Especially if they're mentored by the right people.

The series is a lot of fun because of its exaggerated acting. I haven't seen much live action Japanese comedy so I don't have any idea if the stylistic conventions this show uses are normal, or are meant to represent that the characters share more in common with cartoon reality than the ordinary world. Its clear the show runners have done their research, and are committed to demonstrating the trials of an aspiring creative professional. Here is Hono externalizing his sense of not being good enough:

Also, the actor playing Hideaki Anno has one of the most threatening smirks I've ever seen. I might have to borrow that expression when animating a character filled with both satisfaction and disgust.

I recommend the series to any anime fans or aspiring animators. Especially because it contains some animation production history, such as how animation cells work. Thank god we don't gotta paint those no more. Maybe they'll go into x-sheets in a later episode.