Indian Auteur Sep-Oct 2010

J O U R N A L

VOL 1 Issue 1 / SEPTEMBER 2010

O N

C I N E M A

ISSUE ON ANIME FILMS

INDIANAUTEUR

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

ia

JAPAN FOUNDATION We would like to express our sincerest gratitude and acknowledgement of the contribution of Japan Foundation in the publication of this journal.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

INDIAN AUTEUR

JOURNAL ON CINEMA

EDITOR NITESH ROHIT WRITERS SATYAM BERERA, ANUJ MALHOTRA, GAUTAM VALLURI SAGORIKA SINGHA, SUPRIYA SURI, DEBABRATA NATH ART DIRECTOR ANUJ MALHOTRA COVER IMAGE AT THE SHORE OF SUMIDA RIVER BY UTAGAWA KUNIYOSHI COVER DESIGN DEBOJIT GHATAK PUBLISHED & PRINTED BY CINEDARBAAR WELFARE SOCIETY IN ASSOCIATION WITH n s media films pvt. ltd. w-104, gk - i , iind floor, new delhi -110048 ALL IMAGES ARE OWNED BY THEIR RESPECTIVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS, AND ARE USED HERE PRIMARILY FOR CRITICAL, ACADEMIC AND NON COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. NO PART OF THE TEXT CAN BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE PRIOR PERMISSION OF INDIAN INDIAN AUTEUR AUTEUR. AUGUST 2010

break on through to the other side

by N I T E S H R O H I T

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

There are two types of ‘limitations’ that are of core concerns for the future of image-building in India. Both are confined by the fact that it is absent from the architectural plotting of critical and theoretical study of cinema in India and its impact on the practical aspects of film-making. To look at the first limitation we don’t need to travel too far, we just need to leaf through any regular film reviews, festival catalogues, articles and theoretical books on cinema to understand that something is amiss. There is an uncanny, almost pathological similarity between the film reviewers/writers/curators and academics studying cinema or writing on the medium. First, most of them, suffer from apophenia and secondly their insight on the medium is purely literary since their text(writings) is heavily depended on studying another text (scripts) so much so their critical analysis, books, curating have closer family resemblance to literature than to the study of images (cinema).

This due to the large scale absence of formal studying of images that has deeply hurt the artifacts (films) and cognition because there is an absolute lack of the study of film grammar: mise en scene or montage. In the last two years of extensive travelling to various schools and colleges, the team noticed that there is a complete disregard towards film aesthetics.

This amnesia is directly affecting our films and television that is responsible towards the mass-audience. In this ignorance people have forgotten that, what is needed is to focus on ‘how’ we see things than ‘what’we see things.

Cause the purveyors of images in the future: directors, cameramen, editors and even journalists have absolutely no clue regarding the aesthetics that make up images : video or films. Hence there is disarray towards undera standing what to film and how to film. The p latter state does not exist or if, it does, it exists p only in unison with the ‘beautification’ of the of former. Because of which, every news chanof nel you watch, every movie you see - formalexc ly everything, appears just like one another. sibi Turn off the volume and zip-zap and all imform ages would be just the same: the news anchor, worl the cameraman, the reporter or the filmmaker.

Haya Study of film syntax, the core fundamentoshi tals of cinema, has virtually disappeared the an from most practical or theoretical jargons. duced The zealot and blind focus on ‘what’ we see tion of has paved a way towards a clear disappear- ditional ance of any form of stylistic advancement history

in cinema. Too much is depended, techniques: composition, transition analyzed, constructed and even de- and even different aspects of monconstructed on ‘narrative’. Things tage that is widely used to create the have become so homogenous that it illusion of movements on screen. has diluted our individuality in the This very fullness of minimalism in name of creation of thrash or better the cinema and anime of some of the put: thrash reviews, thrash film fesleading masters illuminate an importivals and even trashier cinema. Or tant characteristic that is missing in let’s put it sophisticatedly: a- paperour cinema. That there is absolutely on –the- violence- on- myopic- vino room for austerity nor is there an sion- of- consumerism- nehruvian, eye for baroque. What exist is a loud, gandhian- diasporic- marxism- ideocrass and an age old aesthetics with logical- insight- in- the- cinema- ofmodern film equipments to create so- and- so- a-paper- to-be-presenteda world that is full of deceit and fed in-New York. Most of these people to consumers like any other product. are not cinephiles but specialists of Even our animation has become sterevery other medium disguised as ile because it directly lifts the formal pretentious ‘cine-goers’. These are ‘limited’ world-view of popular cinthe first batch of people that needs to ema that it resembles the live-action be questioned and uprooted for creatfilm. This has also imbibed in our teleing the first rows, in the long, rows vision and our news channels. For a and rows of fences in destroying any journal like Indian Auteur this is an imform of legitimacy in the possibility portant juncture of exploration keeping that cinema as a visual medium could into account the salient features in the grow. We must then ask the most Manifesto that strives towards a more fundamental question: What good is formal and cinematic aesthetics criticinema if it trails behind literature? cal culture building. Ideologically and Let’s call the first limitation ‘a pripolemically the focus of the journal is ori’…and move towards the second to slowly break away from this crippling that involves ‘a posteriori’. In her limitation that has created faux sub-class article on the trend in Pan-Asian of film pundits and filmmakers, who like cinema Yvette Biro, scenarist and the termite have created a huge vacucritic, talks about the cinema of Hou um in the nomenclature of film culture Hsiao Hsien, Hong Sang Soo and in the name of societies, film criticism, Tsai Ming Liang. Their cinema repreviews and every other shit. Secondly resents an aesthetic that is limited in and more importantly that the journal is its formal representation yet it gives predominately and ideologically a place a sense of fullness in the overall exthat wants to move away from simply pression. In a similar vein Anime as deconstructing the “ text” or “ themes”a form is limited but it offers a comtwo schools of thought that are highly plete range of locution that puts it atpopular within the confinement of the par with western style and technique study of cinema in India and filmmaking. f animation. Limitation in the hands This is also for the first time that such f masters such as Hou becomes an an extensive coverage regarding Anime cuse to explore the unseen poshas been under taken here in India. In ilities in the cinematographic art the genealogy of critical culture this ism of mise en scene. Similarly, the sue presents an outlook of Anime, analyzld of Anime has masters such as ing its thematic concerns and at the same ao Miyazaki, Mamoru Oshii, Satime highlighting the formal aspects that Kon and Makoto Shinkai who in has severely been neglected in terms long nnals of Anime history have prostanding critical or theoretical study. Alauteur works within the restricthough the issue is not exhaustive in enf Animation. Anime unlike tracompassing the entire anime oeuvre but l animation has a long standing it takes an important step in laying the adopting of cinematographic foundation for further critical and analytical study of the medium in the near future.

editorial

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

CONTENTS 08 16 30 36 40 46

MIYAZAKI / auteur

by ANUJ MALHOTRA

Hayao Miyazaki’s contribution to the animation industry remains indisputable, and yet, as a formal stylist, a composer of action films, he can be placed alongside the masters of the genre such as John Woo, Tsui Hark and Sergio Leone.

SOULFUL BODIES / cover story

by THOMAS LAMARRE

Till the 60s, anime was in the era of ‘excessive expressionism’, that of limited animation that did not involve many drawings, and lacked the super-fluid motion of the later films. It is generally looked down upon as being an era devoid of artistic merits.

The author carefully observes the films of the time and notes that it had many.

MAMORU OSHII / cover story

by GAUTAM VALLURI

Acclaimed auteur is known for his bleak depiction of post-apocalyptic universes, elaborate characters from the sci-fi with spiritual underpinnings, and intricate plots. And yet, the world where all of these reside is seldom discussed; the world of Mamoru Oshii, and the extensive care applied in its construction.

SATOSHI KON / cover story

by SAGORIKA SINGHA

A film lover describes her encounter with the works of the filmmaker who many have described as the only post-modern anime auteur, and tries to figure out what constitutes a Kon film.

THE HISTORY OF ANIME/ cover story

by DEBABRATA NATH

Behind the eyeballs as large as paper orbs, there is a brain who invented them. A detailed chronology of the history of the animation industry in Japan, that still functions under the influence of one of its most acclaimed auteurs, Osamu Tezuka.

ANIME MILESTONES

by IA TEAM

If a Fascist government that ruled over the world were to declare anime evil and a hindrance to the cultivation of its ideal human; these are the 16 works of Japanese animation films that one must rescue from imminent confiscation the films that shaped the history of modern anime.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

T

he ‘industry’ produces a new soap each Friday.

The soap is then tested by a review group which rates it on the basis of its scent, durability, lather, ability to cleanse germs, and lasting duration. They are then sold to an unsuspecting audience with new packaging and the review group’s appraisals attached. They buy.

Each soap produced by the industry looks the same, smells the same, and is the same.

Support us in our contempt of soap.

INDIANAUTEUR.COM

W E H A T E S O A P.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

AUTEUR HAYAO MIYAZAKI

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

DELHI Page 71 MANIFESTO

NEGATION STILLNESS OF

B Y A N U J M A L H O T R A

“It was still early autumn – that time of year when kings in ancient days used to go out on conquest. Personally, I have never been away from Kolkata which is why my mind always wanders around the world. I am like an exile in my own home as my mind constantly likes to travel to other places. The moment I hear the name of a foreign country, my mind longs to visit that unknown place. Likewise, the sight of an alien person brings to mind the image of a lonely hut beside a river in the midst of a forest, and I begin to imagine an autonomous, exultant way of life.”

- Rabindranath Tagore, Kabulliwalah

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

AUTEUR

T

he camera is at the disposal of the scene it needs to replicate. Without the scene presenting itself in front of it, the camera cannot do much.

As such, the act of recording itself cannot be performed within a single room, and while the single room can be used as a location to deposit all the performances of a day and review them as dailies, the camera by itself needs to be a mobile device. The process of creation in cinema and in animation, thus, takes reverse directions. A cinema director cannot afford the luxury of a comfortable refuge in a room while letting his mind take off on inexpensive travel to a mythical waterfall near a small tribal hamlet in a continent south of the equator. In order to include the waterfall in his act of creation, he would have to travel to the place along with his camera and record it.

In a situation where the waterfall is a set created on a sound stage, the camera would still have to be carried over, aligned at a certain angle with the artifice and then cranked to fulfill its essential function. The unassuming device that it is, it will still shoot reality as it appears to it.

An animator or an author, on the other hand, does not owe any allegiance to reality per se. At its very essence, the ambition of their work is to evoke a notion of reality, and not reality itself. The drawings of one, much like the words of another - the yields of the respective performances, can only refer to a certain reality and never be a perfect replication. They may travel to the minor, hidden corners of the world - places that usually do not stick in the eye when the tourist glances over the map of the world; basking in the indigenous, and often, exclu-

sive geographical glory – but the process of conscious creation itself has not started yet. And it will not until they reach their private rooms or studios and settle onto a desk in front of their typewriter or their paper, and employ their respective tools to recollect and store the aforementioned experience in a more permanent form. But for the cinema director, the travel is the process of creation. The popular term, as film units give to the idea of going to different locations and shooting them with a camera is ‘production’ itself, or more proficiently, ‘principal photography’. Production of a book or an animation film, however, starts inside an enclosure. The awareness of this process might be a key to understanding the work dynamic that prevails within the walls of Studio Ghibli in Tokyo where Hayao Miyazaki makes his films.

While the authorship of a book can be, and is carried out often by an individual – one of an animation film is often not.

“The most talented ones (6 or 7) will draw the backgrounds while the others will make the outlines and color the pictures .If you include the 80 people working full time at Studio Ghibli, the 60 people orchestra that will perform the music, the 40 people that will give their voices to the characters and the various technicians and staff members, about 300 people are involved in this project.” 1 The above only elaborates on the enormity of the task that Miyazaki undertakes each time he sets out to make a film. He travels around the world, wherein he acts like a geographical sponge, absorbing wholly whatever he sees – the act of sight’seeing’ – and then filtering out the ones he does not wish to use – but preserving securely the ones he does. One may mention that even he, much like a cinema director, records data and eventually utilizes it in his

10 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

films – thus emulating the process of a live-action film director, but the point with Miyazaki remains, he does not construct a physical record of his seeing, but instead, stores the sight in some compartment. The process ensures that each time he accesses the compartment again; it is never a pure replication – but his version of it. Miyazaki, unlike his animator counterparts from the Western countries who spend years in perfecting a lighting pattern or the twitch of an eyebrow to make the animation resemble ‘reality’ as closely as possible – understands the expressionist depiction of reality that animation is capable of. It is not in imitation of reality that he constructs his films, but in its distortion.

It is possible thus, for an animation studio in the West to have 300 animators work without seeking any particular direction from an individual, because well, the reality they are attempting to duplicate is their direction. But when the distorted version of reality has to emerge from a single source, the drawers would all have to rely on it for direction.

For a moment, consider that in a team of 300 people who make an animation film, around 80 majorly draw.

Now, the job of a sound engineer on a film set, for instance, exists in reaction to an element – he never initiates the exchange – his job exists as reciprocation – to record sound that already exists in nature. The interaction of a person who draws on paper starts with him himself, however. He does not capture an existing element and reproduce it, but has to first create it. In view of this, the fact that 80 people devote themselves purely to creating a set of characters, their attires and the world they move in – all of it based on the summarization of a single

AUTEUR

man’s experience – means that the job of an anime film director is to implant his own recollection of an experience into the heads of his subordinates, thereby allowing them to access it when they sit to draw.

In a situation like this, it is even more surprising that even with a team of 80 people drawing under Hayao Miyazaki, it is his memory that they are drawing. Throughout a filmography that constitutes 10 films over a period of almost 30 years, he has managed to retain the central personal fiber which runs through his films – the same sociological concerns, a similar fascination for the female protagonist conducting activities traditionally associated with masculine figures, the same devotion to the classical Hollywood three-act structure, and an exaggerated sense of optimism that pervades them. Like Miyazaki likes to put it, “Endless luminosity and beauty.”

He began his career in an era of what he likes to call ‘excessive expressionism’ in animation. Short animation serials, produced for television and thus bound by deadlines, would hardly provide the directors of these films with the time necessary to draw a lot of pictures and thus, facilitate free flowing movement of their characters, instead demanding of them to tell their stories through stationary images.

These drawings would function in a state of perpetual exaggeration – through eyeball drawn so large that one could fall into them, wide open jaws, and garish colour schemes.

A tradition like this, let’s choose to call it ‘maximum impact’ filmmaking – has its historical precedent in the grotesque sets of the films of the German Expressionists of the 1920s and the decade or half that followed; and its legacy can be traced in most of our television soaps which face the same paucity of time available

for proper production. Simply put, instead of shifting the camera (in live-action) and the perspective (in animation) too much, directors would be expected to achieve as much from static (or fixed) positions.

Miyazaki hated the trend, since he believed that such a practice would sacrifice the only quality inherent in an animation film – animation itself – and instead rely on stationary character drawings to make a quick point and presumably, a quick buck. The negation of this stillness was the primary agenda adopted

by Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki as they set upon founding Studio Ghibli. While it may sound paradoxical considering Miyazaki’s primary career began only in the 80s, his greatest legacy to the medium of motion pictures is his ability to compose continuous motion.

If his interests lay in that direction, he would’ve made as accomplished an action film director as anyone; for what is an action sequence but the preservation of the most classical component of a scene – continuity? His animation was, thus, the turbulence in the stagnant waters of Japanese animation, and as the cliché would go, he brought the animation back into anime.

From the very start, Takahata and Miyazaki insisted on feature-length films instead of the short films and the television serials that were in anime vogue; thereby permitting themselves the runtimes to whittle elaborate narratives with thorough characterization, but most importantly, enabling animation and not drawing to sustain their storytelling ambitions. It would cost them four times the amount of a shorter film, but that is an amount easier to pay than the price of an unfulfilled aspiration.

It is important to understand ‘motion’ only in the kinetic sense of the word – and not the dynamic rhythm of say, the montage of Eisenstein still images or Mayakovsky machine-

11 INDIAN AUTEUR

LUPIN THE THIRD, NAUSICA, CASTLE IN THE SKY, MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE, PORCO ROSSO, PRINCESS MONONOKE, SPIRITED AWAY, HOWl's moving castle, ponyo

AUGUST 2010

THE MIYAZAKI FILMOGRAPHY

AUTEUR

In this panel, the sky pirates, led by Dola, emerge from inside their craft. The shot clearly establishes their downward trajectory by positioning the camera below the craft, and then letting them fly towards us.

In this panel, the pirates enter from the top of the frame...

He cuts closer to reveal a girl sitting inside one of the windows of the airship.

In this panel, the girl looks outside her window.

The girl reacts to the sight. The angle does not vary from No.6.; thereby pronouncing the change in her facial expression, and also establishing her as the pivot around which the entire following sequence will revolve.

The pirates, with their destination firmly established, soar towards the airship.

12 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

AUTEUR

... and exit from the bottom of the frame thereby extending the downward movement from the craft and completely establishing the spatial relationship between their craft(in the first panel), and their destination.

In this panel, Miyazaki crosscuts to a long-shot of a giant airship emerging from within the clouds; thereby providing us a vague idea of the eventual destination of the pirates.

In this panel, the girl looks outside her window.

We see her point of view; a beautiful moon in exaggerated cloud cotton, which sets as a counterpoint the fact that even though the sky is empty, but by there being two planes of perspective - the foreground(the opaque clouds), and the background (the sky) - something could emerge from behind the clouds.

And it does.

The pirates and the girl, the hunter and the victim, the scalpel and the clover - framed for the first time in the same shot.

Also, the first shot from inside the airship (or any other structure) - thereby initiating the classical shot-reverse shot exchange. This is the shot.

The reverse shot. The girl and the other occupants (her abductors) reacting in shock, awe and scorn at the sudden appearance of the pirates.

13 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

AUTEUR gun sentences in order to appreciate Miyazaki’s work as a director. He is as classical a director as any, and much like Hitchcock, the montage is the fullstop to the long take that is his sentence. Thus, much like a classical narrative, he allows long passages of droll dreaminess to puncture his action sequences – which often enough, are the ones you can tell he really enjoys working on. Many of his major films – Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbour Totoro – feature exhaustively designed aerial encounters – that may involve anything from flying bandits, pirates, corporate villains, witches, water spirits to trolls – everything and anything in his film flies.

And it is the open limitless expanse of the sky that provides him with an endless space to direct his character movements (blocking) in – they are essentially opportunities to fashion interesting character entries and exits from the frame, as well as establish the participants of the encounter in fascinating arrangements. He shoots his action in the sky like Kurosawa would shoot it on the land – chaotic, and yet, in a discernible pattern, manifested most suitably in the climactic battle of Seven Samurai. The thing with most modern day chase sequences in thrillers is that they are mostly set in urban landscapes – thus set into a fixed mould – the space is arranged rather conveniently into alleyways, narrow bylanes and pavements that run adjacent to shop windows. What is more challenging is to shoot a chase set in an open expanse; which is why Hitchcock’s North By Northwest cropduster sequence is genius. Miyazaki exhibits similar ingenuity in all his aerial chases.

The blocking in a Miyazaki film, at its essence, be understood as one belonging to a sports film. The most generic one too, since it features most of the cinematic tropes – a playground, dressing rooms (often enough, his characters discuss ‘strategies’ when-

ever they are sitting inside a building, stationary and sedate) sets of competing teams (down to the uniforms, what with the characters almost never changing clothes), their respective equipment and a moral code that dictates the flow of action.

The playground, as it is remains the area in which most of the central action will take place. It is rather important for Miyazaki himself – for most of his films start with an introductory shot of the large expanse in which most of the action will be set – as if providing the audience with a vantage point similar to the one shared by a spectator in a sporting encounter when the teams have not yet occupied the ground and its population remains imminent. As such, it becomes a conventional Hollywood device : that of the establishing shot, the cursory introduction to the location in which the plot will unfold.

But for Miyazaki, an animation director, the shot of this expanse (sky in Laputa, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle; earth in Princess Mononoke Hime, My Neighbour Totoro; water in Ponyo, Spirited Away) assumes a new significance, because the process undertaken by him to fulfill a film is cel animation, or as it is now, vinyl chloride animation. In the process, talented painters draw extensively researched and elaborately detailed backgrounds (also, as aforementioned in his case, a result of travels far and wide). The others draw character outlines, and yet others sketch them. These coloured character outlines are then filmed moving in front of the 2D backgrounds. As such, for Miyazaki, for whom this motion is essentially the core of his filmic exercise, the large stationary expanse (or the background) starts to resemble even more a two-dimensional cardboard model of a playground where his characters (or the players in a team) float or move or swim in pre-determined directions. In this case, thus, Miyaza-

14 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

ki is the coach for both the teams – except that he favours one more, and the other less, and thus assigns a faulty strategy to the latter; thereby ensuring a loss for them.

The direction of this favour on Miyazaki’s part is dictated by a searing optimism that pervades through all his films. And yet, in his endeavors that lead upto Princess Mononoke Hime, the optimistic tone is unequivocal – almost too strong. He has been accused of being an eternal pessimist – as Oshii said about him “He actually wants a huge atomic explosion that would blow up Japan”, and as himself admitted to attempts to subdue his pessimism when he makes films for children.

It is as if, with his early films, all of which were made at a younger age, his pessimism was far more concentrated and insistent in its appearance – so in order to not let any trace of it make an appearance on the surface of the paper he draws in, he had to try that much harder – in the end, almost ending up with films that would easily sacrifice a logical recourse for a ‘happier’ conclusion.

And yet, even in those early films, there are traces of unabated nihilism – a destructive streak that he could disguise only by justifying it through moral means – he rationalized violent deaths only through a declaration of an evil nature on the part of the dying. Castle in the Sky is the most prominent example – thousands of soldiers, often visible only from a distance, fall to what one may presume is a violent death – even as in the foreground, the hero is on the verge of scoring a heroic victory. The point is strictly anti-war, but no one’s ever had so much fun with an anti-war message, except perhaps James Cameron, who claims an anti-war statement with Avatar, but his explosions are darned pretty.

The trajectory that Miyazaki’s morality adopts during his filmography is not linear, however, and thus, definitely not consistent. From Prin-

AUTEUR cess Mononoke , and perhaps, Porco Rosso onwards, he cannot disguise his cynical edge as well as he could with his earlier features – as if his getting old ensures a lack of embarrassment about beliefs that come naturally to him. It could also be the admission of defeat on the part of an old man. The ending of his films are still unambiguously positive, and yet, they are more solemn reassurances than shameless declarations.

This bleak streak of cynical pessimism is all the more prominent in his works, primarily because his drawings are graphic depictions of his beliefs, borne out of an access into the hitherto unlocked corners of his subconscious – and because like for an author, ‘rewriting is censorship’ – for an animator who draws his characters, ‘redrawing’ is.

As a result, Spirited Away features as pungent a reproach of consumerism as any – through the use of animals as symbols (done in Chaplin’s The Modern Times, but in a more mild manner) – men who become gluttons who become pigs. There are close-ups of dirty, unhygienic, and clearly uncivil manners of eating that the pigs adopt – as they ravage through food, and then ravage through it again. The visuals in the sequence are as disgusting as the singular visual of a sandal floating in the pond to suggest suicide/ death in My Neighbour Totoro is disturbing. It is nice that Miyazaki did not direct Grave of the Fireflies, for it does not require any extraneous bleakness than what is prevalent. This human-as-pigs allegory, ofcourse, is grim and in many cultures, even misanthropic. Ofcourse, he has a theory, when he laughingly says, “There is no special significance behind drawing pigs. It’s only because they are easy to draw.” But that’s like Hitchcock saying that The Birds is about poultry deciding to take its revenge on humans who have been consuming it for dinner for centuries. Miyazaki also adds,

“Also, because pigs are just like us.”

His study of a man’s flawed pride in his physicality (because after all, we are just like pigs), manifests itself in his most personal film yet – the 2004 smash hit Howl’s Moving Castle – where a young lady is cursed to look like a 90 year old woman. She regains her youthful appearances only when an incident, or her lover’s touch, or something he says re-ignites the youthful spirit – in essence, Miyazaki declares youth as being outside of the influence of physicality, and more a spiritual occurrence.

It also features the lead character, Howl, who is according to the Japanese version of physicality, a rather beautiful man, but occasionally turns into a hideous crow-like figure (because his ‘heart’, again the spirit, has been stolen away by a demon.)

Miyazaki’s concerns in dialectic between a man’s physical exterior and his inner immaterial being is a recurring theme in his films – an almost Cronenberg like concern in human body as not just a tangible object but an emblem for something else – as being a corporal entity that can turn from being immeasurably beautiful to completely disfigured, not through an act of physical violence, but more importantly, through an emotional one.

His characters often shift appearances according to their emotional or attitudinal states, especially in the later films - Prince Ashitaka’s physical state deteriorates through Princess Mononoke Hime, Chihiro’s central motive in Spirited Away is to help her parents turn back to ‘humans’ (turning back to humans is a conceit in his last three films) from pigs, and Ponyo features a fish who sprouts human extensions. All these transfigurations in his films, ofcourse, are guided by messages that have been talked about elsewhere in greater detail – anti-war sentiments, environmental protectionism, anticonsumerist appeal – but there are narrower themes that reside in his

15 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

work – a growing sniggering interest in old age and its acceptance (all his old characters look the same), physical appearance and its relevance, and a sustained interest in returning home (most of his films end with characters’ returning to to an original geography or amidst a chosen familial setup).

Much like Tim Burton, also an animator, he hopes for the world to let go of its cynicism and believe in the fantasies they propagate; except that the latter always evokes a massive combat between fantasy and ‘reality’ and lets fantasy emerge victorious; the former presumes that people have shed cynicism through the act of entering a cinema hall in the first place. No one in his cities where the witches fly is surprised by witches flying around.

For all his commercial success thus, his corpus exhibits intense personality – one that is manifested not through the umpteen short-haired female heroines that reside in his film – but through the secondary boyish male characters – all of who are fascinated, all of who are curious onlookers, all of who are intimidated, coy and in some cases, would want to make themselves barely visible. He is, thus, the Sōsuke of Ponyo who sets out to the ocean on a toy boat; the Tombo from Kiki’s Delivery Service who hangs onto the dirigible, and Kanta from My Neighbour Totoro who can offer you an umbrella when it rains, but run away and not bask in the gratitude.ia

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

Soulful Bodies e

by T H O M A S L A M A R R E

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

COVER STORY LIMITED ANIMATION & A N I M E C H A R A C T E R S1

T

he distinction between full animation and limited animation is central in the study of animation, and accounts of Japanese animation frequently characterize anime as a distinctive form of limited animation that began in earnest with the production of animated television series in the early 1960s 2. The full/limited distinction is useful, yet certain problems arise. First, historically, there has been a tendency to think of full animation as the art of animation, and to depict limited animation as an artistically limited and even failed version of full animation. On the scene of Japanese animation today, Studio Ghibli in particular pushes such connotations, insisting that the works of its directors, such as Takahata Isao and Miyazaki Hayao, are not anime but manga eiga or manga films.

The result is an entrenched opposition between feature-length full animation films (manga film) and animated television series (anime). Establishing an opposition between full and limited animation often has the unfortunate effect of eliminating the history of dialogue and exchange between different ways of making animation, in favor of a simple valorization of full animationtt 3

Second, at a more fundamental level, there is a tendency to think the distinction between full and limited animation in terms of movement versus stasis.

Limited animation is not seen as a different way of animating, of generating movement, but as an absence of movement, a lack of animation, as a series of static images. Legendary animator Ôtsuka Yasuo captures this bias succinctly when he characterizes full animation in terms of ugoki-e — “dynamic image,” “moving drawing,” or “movement-image.” In contrast, he suggests, limited animation entails tome-e — “static image,” “stopped drawing,” or “still-

image.”4 This way of parsing animation carries the implication that, because limited animation does not strive to produce movement in the manner of full animation, it may not be animation at all. Limited animation might be closer to graphic design or manga than to animation (defined as full animation).

In some respects, it is true that the trajectory of limited animation has been to favor graphic design and character design over character animation.

5 Nonetheless, if we simply think of this tendency in terms of stasis versus movement, two problems arise. First, the distinction between movementimage and still-image tends towards a simplistic opposition and forecloses dialogue or interaction. Second, when limited animation is construed in terms of an absence of movement, a lack of animation, it becomes impossible to discuss the very evident dynamism of anime, not only the force of the moving image but also that which develops between “viewers” and so-called limited animations. There is surely a reason that so many commentators associate otaku with limited animation.

If I put the term “viewers” in quotes here, it is because anime often entails the construct of multiple lines of sight or perceptual trajectories. These do not entail defined viewing position or fixed subject who transcendently consumes anime objects or patronizes the anime world. Instead, anime techniques and structures imply an interactor whose pursuit of the potential depths that traverse the anime-mangagame world make of her or him a cooperator in the production and promotion of the expanded anime world. The pivotal role of the garage kit in Okada Toshio’s discussions of otaku reinforces this sense of the fan as a producer, assembler, or fabricator, who engineers as much as navigates his or her path within the manga-anime-game world.

6 Viewing anime frequently builds on or extends into fanzines, amateur production (dôjinshi), cosplay (costume play), conventions, fansubbing, toys, garage kits, and music venues. Anime

18 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

thus becomes a nodal point in a culture industry that generates crossover, spin-off or tie-in productions in the form of manga, light novels, character franchises, toys, music, video games, and other merchandise.

It is impossible to understand the dynamism of these anime networks if we continue to think of limited animation on the model of stasis or stillness.

Thus, to counter the equation of limited animation with stasis, I will draw on Mori Takuya’s 1966 discussion of full animation as “classic” in contrast to limited animation as “modern,”7 in conjunction with Gilles Deleuze’s distinction between “movement-image” and “time-image.” I will propose that we understand limited animations (and thus anime) as modern, and in terms of the time-image. Full animation, in contrast, can be understood classic, and in terms of the movementimage. My goal is to stress how the dynamism of anime interactions and anime-related networks is a matter of harnessing a specific potential of the moving image. Implicit in my approach is a challenge to the tendency to explain interactivity entirely by reference to media platforms or technologies that appear to be external to the moving image. Interactivity and the so-called “media mix” begin as a trajectory of the animated moving image.

Let me begin with Studio Ghibli’s distinction between manga film and anime, which I will then pursue into the hyper-limited animation associated with director Anno Hideaki’s work at Gainax Studios.

In 2004, in conjunction with an exhibition entitled Nihon manga eiga no zenbô,8 Studio Ghibli produced a documentary film on the work of Ôtsuka Yasuo called Ôtsuka Yasuo no ugokasu yorokobi.9 Ghibli animation directors Takahata Isao and Miyazaki Hayao highlight the impact of Ôtsuka Yasuo on Japanese animation, both in the exhibition and the documentary. And they are adamant about situating their

COVER STORY animated films in the lineage manga eiga or manga film. They present Ôtsuka Yasuo as the pivotal figure10.

Surprisingly enough, Studio Ghibli’s “Nihon manga eiga no zenbô” almost completely excludes those forms of Japanese animation that commonly fall under the rubric anime. Clearly, the goal of the exhibition and documentary is to shore up a lineage of Japanese animation (called manga film) that stands in contrast to anime.

Recall that, whereas histories of anime frequently begin with the emergence of animated television series in the early 1960s, taking as their point of departure Tezuka Osamu’s adaptation of his manga Tetsuwan Atomu (Mighty Atom or Astro Boy) to the small screen, Studio Ghibli begins with the work of animators in the 1910s and 1920s in Japan and tracks the emergence of the feature-length animated films for theatrical release.

Central to this lineage is Tôei Dôga, an animation studio established at Tôei Studios in 1956 by its first president Ôgawa Hiroshi, who envisioned making animated films to rival those of Disney, with an eye to exporting Japanese culture to the world. Ôtsuka Yasuo emerged as one of the most important animators at Tôei Dôga, and both Takahata and Miyazaki worked with him there. The linchpin in this history of Japanese animation is a Tôei animated film called Taiyô no oji Horusu no daibôken (1968), which combined the talents of Takahata as director, Miyazaki as key animator and scene designer, and Ôtsuka Yasuo as animation director.

This distinction between manga film and anime, with its tendency to elevate big screen animation over little screen, is built on a distinction between full animation and limited animation. Ôtsuka Yasuo sees Studio Ghibli as the only heritor of full Even animation in Japan today11. though Miyazaki, Takahata, and Ôtsuka collaborated on a number of television series (most famously Lupin III), the exhibition does not

link such series to broader currents in Japanese animation. It situates them within the lineage of manga film and thus full animation. There is an overall tendency for television anime either to drops out of Ghibli’s story of manga film or to reinforce a commitment to full animation under difficult circumstances12.

Full animation refers primarily to the number of drawings used to animate movement. The projection rate for film is 24 frames per second, but you can produce cinematically full with 12 drawings per second.

This is called “on twos” because you use a drawing for two frames.

Faster movements may require “on ones,” or a drawing for each of the 24 frames per second. The Disney average was 18 drawings per second. The full animations of Tôei are generally described as “on twos.13”

The story of limited animation in Japan usually begins with the formation of Mushi Pro by Tezuka Osamu in June 1961, to make animated series for television. As the story goes, Tezuka had long wanted to make animated films (and he also worked on a couple Tôei Dôga productions), and the popularity of his manga gave him enough visibility and credibility to propose an animated adaptation of his popular manga, Tetsuwan Atomu (Mighty Atom or Astro Boy). To sell the project to Fuji Television, he presented such a low budget that no one really thought he could pull it off.

He proposed to make thirty-minute programs at roughly one third the expected budget (at approximately ¥500,000 each)14. The solution of his team was, simply put, to animate “on threes,” to work with approximately eight drawings per second.

Full animation is frequently treated as the art of animation, while limited animation is seen as cheap and slapdash. Today we are accustomed to thinking of limited animation in terms of the production of low budg-

19 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

et television animation that were popular in the 1960s — Hanna-Barbera series such as Top Cat, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, etc. as well as a number of Japanese animated series that made their way in syndication into North America and Europe, such as Astro Boy, Tobor the Eighth Man, Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer, etc. In an introduction to animation written in 1966, however, Mori Takuya re-

COVER STORY minds us that it was the former Disney animators who founded UPA who initially experimented with limited animation techniques16. They saw it as an art movement in animation that employed a simplified graphic mode of expression in contrast to the simulated naturalistic worlds of Disney Studios. Stylistically, the idea was to move away from elaborate detail in drawing, reducing images to graphic designs and iconic figures, while limiting the number of drawings per second. Because such techniques proved useful in cutting costs in production, major Hollywood cartoon studios gradually turned to limited animation in some guise or another. Animation, especially television animation, gradually abandoned its emphasis on painterly worlds and cinematically inspired movement.

The interest of Mori Takuya’s account is that it tries to some extent to invert the valorization of full animation over limited animation: limited animation, not full animation, is the future of animation. He sees limited animation not merely as a cost-cutting measure (although he is aware of this potential) but as a modern art of animation in contrast to the classicism of full animation. In fact, Mori Takuya goes so far as to suggest that live action has become boring, and to speak of the fascination of line tests16. His account thus reminds us that limited animation is as artful and experimental as full animation, and, even more importantly, with limited animation, it is impossible to establish a divide between commercial and experimental fare. Formal distinctions between mass culture and avant-garde art have no purchase here. In fact, at the first screening held at Mushi Pro in 1962, Tezuka presented one of his new experimental animations Aru machikado no monogatari (1962) and an animated short Osu (1962) alongside the first episode of Tetsuwan Atomu television series17.

In sum, the distinction between full animation and limited animation is not explicable in terms of clear-cut formal distinctions between experimental art (avant garde) and studio production (mass culture). Nonetheless, it is pre-

THE SEQUENCE FROM CONAN IS PRESENTED AS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF TSUKA YASUO’S “PEG HOLE TECHNIQUE” FOR ANGLING THE ACTION OF CHARACTERS, WHICH IMPARTS DYNAMISM TO ANIMATION EVEN IN MORE LIMITED ANIMATION.

20 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

COVER STORY cisely this kind of distinction that Studio Ghibli wishes to mobilize in its bid to separate its manga films from anime.

Ghibli has been very successful in promoting its animation as art animation and as national cinema, which is why they consistently strive to distinguish their works from the mass culture industry and transnational subcultures.

When one looks at the actual films in manga-film lineage, however, limited animation techniques are abundant.

The jewel in the manga-film crown, Taiyô no ôji, has extended sequences deploying techniques of limited animation. For instance, the first two attacks on the village are rendered with a montage of still images; in the midst of more fluidly animated sequences, rapid cuts from still to still showing violence enhances the sense of shock and violence. What is more, in a scene of Hilda in reverie, the camera pans slowly from the reflection of the landscape in a lake, up the image to show Hilda in the landscape, and then the camera moves on to show the landscape that was reflected in the lake at the start of the sequence. This is a beautiful, concise, and low-cost way of rendering a scene of reverie, by moving the camera rather than drawing the movement.

What is more, Takahata, Miyazaki, and Ôtsuka spent a significant number of years producing television animation, which obliged them to work closely with limited animation techniques. In fact, one of Mori Takuya’s prime examples of limited animation is a 1963 television series, Ookami shônen Ken (Ken the wolf boy), on which Miyazaki worked as an in-between animator and Takahata as a director. Interestingly enough, Ookami shônen Ken, loosely based on Kipling’s The Jungle Book, came as a response to the success of Mushi Pro’s Mighty Atom18. In effect, Tôei’s full animation was not leading but following, and as it entered into television animation, its full animation “on twos” (12 sheets per second) gave way to “on threes” (8 sheets per second)19. It is, of course, possible to insist

that, behind the scenes, Tôei animators and the future Ghibli team remained committed to full animation. Ghibli research Kanô Seiji, for instance, points to the steady increase in the number of sheets used in Miyazaki’s television animations, and to an emphasis on full animation techniques20.

But such a history forecloses dialogue and interaction, reducing them to a simple story about Miyazaki-Ghibli’s resistance to an economic degradation of the true art of animation.

Miyazaki’s animations have always been in dialogue with limited animation and cannot actually reject or overcome it. Two techniques are crucial to a sense of his animations as full rather than limited: the use of painterly backgrounds, which are in Miyazaki’s films, ever more painterly in recent

TWO TECHNIQUES ARE IMPORTANT FOR A SENSE OF FULL ANIMATION : PAINTERLY BACKGROUNDS AND EMPHASIS ON DYNAMISM OF MOVEMENT years; and an emphasis on the dynamism of character movement. Interesting enough, because the defense of full animation depends so much on full animation of characters, those commentators who wish to praise the full of Miyazaki tend to stress the movement of characters rather than the painterly backdrops. Ironically, however, Miyazaki’s characters do not move all that much; their motion is rarely that of classic full animation. His character animation shows the impact of limited animation. This is where Ôtsuka Yasuo’s techniques for producing a limited version of the dynamism of full animation come into play. Ôtsuka introduces a slight tilt into each successive image of the character to impart a sense of roughness and energy into animation (Fig. 1 a, b, c). Thus, despite the limitations in drawings per frame, techniques of angling the image allows for a sense of fully animated dynamic

21 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

characters. We might think of such techniques as limited full animation. Or, given the brand emphasis of Ghibli, we might think of this as “full animation, ltd.”

LIMITED ANIMATION The Ghibli bias against limited animation takes an unusual turn in one of the final sequences of the Ôtsuka Yasuo documentary in which character designer and manga artist Sadamoto Yoshiyuki makes an appearance.

One of the original team who founded Gainax Studios, Sadamoto Yoshiyuki lent his talents to major Gainax productions from Wings of Honneamise through Gunbuster and Nadia to Evangelion and FLCL, and his collaborations with director Anno Hideaki on such television series as Nadia and Evangelion have especially contributed to his fame. Needless to say, Gainax Studios and Anno’s animated series, famous for taking limited animation to an extreme, might be considered the antithesis of the Ghibli manga film. In the Ghibli documentary, with a tone of surprise and concern, Ôtsuka asks Sadamoto about his shift from animation to character design. Sadamoto diplomatically replies that such is the work that has come his way. Brief as it is, this exchange evokes an important tension. For Ôtsuka, character design is not animation; the art of animation is the ugoki-e or movement-image.

Yet, if we approach this tension between the movement-image (full animation or manga film) and the still-image (limited animation or anime) without the assumption that limited animation is an absence of movement and thus a lack of animation, we can understand anime as generating movement in a very different way, one whose dynamism opens the image in very different directions.

COVER STORY In limited animation, for instance, there is a tendency for the viewing position of “camera” to slide over the image (even if this is produced by sliding the image instead of moving the camera), and its speed and direction impart a sense of movement.

This is different from the sense of a viewing position imparted through Cartesian perspectivalism. It is closer to an art of describing, unfolding or scanning the world 21. In addition, in limited animation, cutting from image to image increases in importance, as do the rhythm and speed of cuts. Cutting between static drawings tends to work well with scenes of characters talking (a variation on shot with reverse shot), and the voice-overs (exchanges of dialogue and monologues) become more important in introducing a sense of continuity across cuts.

There are also the sliding planes of the image: Tsugata Nobuyuki calls this technique hiki seru or “pulling cels.22” If we look at limited animation from the angle of compositing, we see that it tends toward iconic or schematic expression across the planes of the image, which leads to a flattening of depth in the image, making the gap between layers of the image palpable.

Even when there are gestures toward depth such as darkening the background layers or sketching perspective lines (gestures common in limited animation), these remain schematic or iconic depths, close to the surface.

In sum, in limited animation, movement does not merely stop or disappear. Instead, it comes to the surface of the image, as potentiality. And so, rather than insist that the characters of limited animation do not move, we need to look at how they harness and direct the force of the moving image that compositing has transformed into potentiality on the surface of the image, in a distributive field.

When it comes to animating charac-

ters, it is true that limited animation tends to move as little of the figure as possible and to reuse as much of the figure as possible. For instance, with faces, the eyebrows, eyes, or the mouth may move but nothing else; and drawings of the face seen from a couple different angles are used again and again. Likewise with the animation of bodies, the legs and arms may move, but nothing else. Limited animation tends toward the production a series of cel copies of the same body or face, and minor additions are made to them as you use them. The best way to assure maximum reuse of figures and bits of figures is to develop a cel bank, so you can piece together different scenes and different movements by assembling elements already drawn23.

The cel bank prepares the way for a relation to characters based on assembly — it forms the basis for the overlap between garage kits and models (self-assembled characters) as well as more recent digitally customized characters. The cel bank provides the assembly diagrams for taking part and piecing together animated life forms.

Another commonly cited precedent or source for limited animation is kamishibai or “paper theater,” which consists of drawings on paper board that are loaded into a wooden frame, often conveniently mounted on bicycles to allow the narrator to take his story on the road 24. Using these images, narrator would recount a story or joke, sliding the upper image out of the frame at various speeds to reveal the image below, building from image to image toward the denouement or punch line. Tezuka’s Atom was commonly referred to as “electric kamishibai.”25 Frequently, the idea of kamishibai sources also encourages commentators ignore the force of the moving image in limited anima-

22 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

tion, resulting in an emphasis on stasis and apparently native traditions of storytelling. Kamishibai, however, also has a profound relation to technologies of the moving image. Not only did paper theater serialize stories that sometimes reprised or evoked film scenarios and later television stories, but also the narrators were frequently silent film narrators (benshi or katsuben) who had lost work with the advent of talkies, and not surprisingly their image sequences recall those of silent films 26. Clearly, this cardboard theater, with its sliding drawings and live narration, had a profound impact on limited animation, leading to an emphasis on moving the drawings and on supplying voice-over narration or explanations. Nonetheless, even if we locate the sources of sliding planes and moving the drawings in the sliding paperboard panels of kamishibai, those kamishibai techniques, already profoundly related to technologies of the moving image, occur under conditions of movement in limited animation, wherein the flattened compositing of celluloid layers pushes depth and movement to the surface of the image in specific ways. Thus when Anno Hideki’s hyper-limited animation is also characterized hyper-kamishibai, this should not be an invitation to avoid questions about the moving image, to consider how specifically the force of the moving image is channeled and orientated in Anno’s animations27.

In conjunction with very limited character movement, Anno Hideaki’s animation is famous (or notorious) for taking limited animation to an extreme. His animations frequently use techniques of “pulling cels” or “sliding planes,” thus producing a sense of movement by sliding the layers of the image, as

COVER STORY in the example from the first episode of Nadia presented in chapter 13. Let me look some other examples, these from Episode 13 of Nadia, which verge on hyper-limited animation. The little girl Marie and a pet lion cub King, wandering into the interior of the desert island on which the Nautilis has put ashore for repairs and food, discover a network of railroad tracks. As they walk happily down the tracks, we see their movement laterally. Pulling the foreground layer of grass backward creates the sense that the characters are moving forward. The background layer of clouds moves backward too, but only slightly. Yet the little girl’s layer does not move, and for the most part, her body does not move.

Every couple frames, however, her arms and legs are put in different positions, and the result is a sense of her walking.

Such character animation is exceedingly limited or hyper-limited not only because it uses so few drawings per frame but also because it slides the layers of the image to move the character.

The result is a perfectly serviceable rendition of walking, which is fundamentally different from Ôtsuka’s limited full animation in terms of its sense of dynamism. Some of the sequences of walking feel too long, and we become keenly aware of repetition. The sense of repetition suits the sequence in question: the girl and cub walk on and on, eventually losing all sense of direction.

The episode as a whole is a brilliant illustration of action based on limited animation: the characters repeat their steps, going in circles. When their enemies’ robot discovers them and chases them, their leaps and bounds repeat again and again. Hyper-limited animation results in rhythms that are as exhilarating and hilarious as anything in full animation, precisely because we become aware of skips and jumps internal to character movement. These become a source of surprise. In conjunction with the expectations that come with literal repetition, the inherent yet almost subliminal jerkiness of character movement makes

IN THIS SEQUENCE OF THE GIRL MARIE AND THE LION CUB KING WALKING ALONG RAILROAD TRACKS, WE SEE HOW HYPERLIMITED CHARACTER ANIMATION PLACES RENEWED EMPHASIS ON THE SLIDING OF LAYERS TO PRODUCE A SENSE OF MOVEMENT.

23 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

COVER STORY for a world of action in which you cannot be sure what will happen next, or where it will come from.

There is a sort of anime rhetoric: figures pop abruptly on and off the screen, or heads poke into a scene, or screens suddenly split into two, three, four or more planes. Usually the planes are articulated diagonally to emphasize a field of multiple actions, and there occurs angular slipping of planes of actions with sudden and sometimes incongruous apparitions — as when the giant robot chases Marie, King and Sanson. In other words, the animetic interval implicit in the sliding planes is embodied in the character but not in the form of dynamic movement but in the form of an explosion of the image into multiple fields that allow characters literally to jump into and out of the image along angular planes.

The animetic interval begins to leap from field to field, and the character is at once unframed (the flattening of the relation between foreground and background makes the figure take priority over background) and enframed (an assembly of passions and actions available for technical manipulation).

This makes for a character whose integrity does not depend on the unitary of space of an image, which makes it available for disassembly and reassembly across images.

Another striking feature of Anno Hideaki’s hyper-limited animations is the rhythm of cuts. Anno often tends to cut from simplified image to simplified image — from a static face, for instance, to a printed word; or, as happens in Nadia, as a character speaks of something, an image of it flashes on the screen. Anno plays with the relation between images by making the cuts feel too slow or too

In this sequence from episode 13 of Nadia in which a giant robot with red pincers chases Marie, King, and Sanson, we see how the very repetition of character movements implicit in the cel bank, in combination with the repetition of backgrounds, allows characters and other entities to jump from field to field, giving precedence to rhythms of appearance and disappearance over continuity in movement.

fast28.

This procedure reaches dizzying proportions in the last episode of the Neon Genesis Evangelion television series. At times you suspect that either your TV or your disk is not working properly, that something is catching or skipping. Images remain still far too long, and sometime the cuts are far too rapid. Obviously, however, such stillness and effect of surprise that it produces happen within a field of movement. Animation has not broken with the moving image. Rather such rhythms of editing come from an explosion of the animetic interval across images, analogous to the jerky looping movements of limited animation characters. It is as if the stacked cels, the multiple planes, that compose the anime image had been spread flat across images. One

24 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

might think of this sort of editing as “superplanar editing,” for it follows directly from the flattening of planes that forces movement across the image surface.

In sum, Anno Hideaki’s animations place dramatic limits on character action and continuity editing, and these limitations force a confrontation with the moving image. This is not about stasis in opposition to movement. Hyper-limited animation entails a very different way of dealing with the animetic interval, a distinctive relation to the multiplanar machine.

Needless to say, as a channeling of the force of the moving image, hyper-limited animation implies a specific manner of thinking the question of technological condi-

COVER STORY tion. This is where the distinction between movement-image and time-image proposed by Gilles Deleuze in his two-volume Cinema proves useful, for it does not arrest thinking at the level of stasis versus movement but forces an encounter with the material essence of the moving image as harnessed and orientated in cinema.

SOULFUL BODIES Across two volumes, Deleuze presents what initially appears to be a historical divide between the movement-image and time-image.

His discussion of the movementimage largely deals with films and directors before WWII, and the time-image emerges in postwar Italian neo-realism and French new wave cinema. He associates the movement-image with classic cinema, and the time-image with modern cinema. In his analysis of cinema, Deleuze thinks in terms of orientations (prehensions of time and space) that are prior to narrative. He sees in classic cinema the emergence of a “sensori-motor schema” that coordinates our sensory and motor faculties, laying down patterns of interconnection between our senses and movements, and shaping a commonsense world29.

What Deleuze calls classic cinema is not unlike what other film scholars call the classical style — which entails an emphasis on cause-andeffect goal-orientated movement through a subordination of time to space30. Simply put, cinema develops a set of conventions to impart a sense that movements clearly begin and end somewhere, and we can trace their course coherently. This often translates into

narratives in which protagonists pursue and attain a goal. Unlike commentators who associate such conventions almost entirely with Hollywood and speak of a classical Hollywood style that becomes the international standard, Deleuze offers a variety of movement-images (and non-Hollywood cinemas). The movement-image (classic cinema) actually comprises different ways of coordinating a variety of movement-images (perceptionimage, affection-image, actionimage, impulse-image and others)31. Likewise, within classic cinema are different national cinemas (and within these, different directors and schools).

Nonetheless, among varieties of movement-image coordinated within classic cinema, the actionimage is the one that tended to shape the conventions for causeand-effect goal-oriented action that came to dominate classic cinema. It is a crisis in this specific kind of movement-image (the action-image), within the overall coordination of cinema called classic cinema, which spurs the emergence of the time-image.

Because Deleuze sees this crisis most clearly in Italian neo-realism and French new wave cinema, many commentators read this cinematic transformation in terms of a historical rupture.

In my opinion, the interest of Deleuze’s study lies in its emphasis on the ontological force of the moving image rather than its film history. In effect, I am reading Deleuze from the angle of Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of technology (with its emphasis on the force entailed in the “evolution” of technical objects), which is the source of my general emphasis on the force implicit in tech-

25 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

nologies of the moving image.

For Deleuze, it is the emergence of the time-image that shows the force of the moving image pushing beyond its initial schematization in classical cinemas.

The time-image, then, does not break with the movement-image, because the time-image is incipient in the movement-image. The time-image is inherent to cinema, to the moving image.

Thus Deleuze asks, “…can the crisis of the action-image be presented as something new?

Was this not the constant state of cinema?32” The time-image is a transformation or mutation in the movement-image that brings forth a force inherent or incipient to the moving image.

Deleuze’s use of taxonomy and natural history also invite us to read this transformation in terms of (creative) evolution. In effect, the movement-image is the body of cinema, and the time-image is the soul and brain of cinema.

With the emergence of the timeimage, cinema is learning to think. Or more precisely, just as we see in the record of evolution a trend toward encephalization (the development of centralized nervous systems and the brain), so the creative evolution of cinema is toward increased encephalization. Deleuze reinforces the point, writing that the brain is a screen33.

With the crisis in the actionimage and the emergence of a modern cinema that coordinates various kinds of time-image, Deleuze sees a tendency toward protagonists who are confused about which way to go or unable to act effectively, and toward stories in which orientation gives way to disorientation,

COVER STORY

and action gives way to reflection, recollection, memory, and other emotional and affective tendencies.

The break between modern cinema and classic cinema then is not a total rupture. The cinema brain cannot go on within the cinema body, so to speak, but so much feeling and thinking make for a different relation to the body, to action.

Put another way, the time-image is the non-relation at the heart of all cinematic relations and relationality, which opens them to thought.

When Mori Takuya presents full animation as classic and limited animation as modern, he invites us to think in similar terms. In his account, limited animation is not only the product of a historical and economic crisis. Limited animation was, in fact, an art movement first and a response to economic concerns second. It was a creative transformation. At the heart of animation’s creative and economic crisis was a break down in both the desire and the money to produce fully animated character movement. But, as with Deleuze’s account of the crisis in cinema, this crisis in animation is not a total rupture with animation.

Limited animation entails an “evolutionary” individuation of the force of the moving image as embodied in classic full animation, which individuation opens the potential of the animated image into new possibilities. It is “evolution” in that the animetic interval, as a by-product or accident in one formation, becomes operative in transformation. 34 This is where the action-image enters into crisis; heroes or protagonists emerge who are less and less sure about their goals. Inaction and disorientation undermine goaloriented action, to the point that we

are not sure where this is going and what a good resolution would be.

This is precisely where the famous (or infamous) episode 26 of Evangelion takes limited animation: the action-image opens up from within, exploding into anxiety, uncertainty, disorientation, and also reverie, recollection, love and confidence. But for this to happen you must first lose all sense of where this character is going, and even of where this series is going. The actionimage is not only stretched out. It becomes populated with affective responses, mood swings, and emotional values. We are then shocked into thought and remembrance35.

It would be impossible, of course, to produce a pure time-image. It would be like trying to produce a brain or soul without a body. The production of an autonomous timeimage nonetheless remains one of the dreams of animation — a brain or soul or consciousness that is somehow free of the body or flesh, and there is a long line of efforts to think in animation the disembodied mind —a ghost that can move from shell to shell; or a robot or computer that develops a heart, mind or soul; or mecha or giant robot that somehow communicates with its pilot via empathy, via psionic connection or some other kind of quasispiritual bond. If animation frets a great deal about the connection between the body and the soul, it is because the centrality of compositing — and this is where cel animation and digital animation continue to overlap and intersect — forces a confrontation with the animetic interval in the bodies of characters36.

Full or classic animation tends to manage the animetic interval through “closed” compositing and through

26 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

the production of action-images that serve to mask the gap that cannot be entirely closed. In response to intimations of a crisis of the actionimage or hints of character breakdown, the tendency of classic full animation is to step on the gas, or to pour on the sentiment. In other ways, the tendency is toward a cinematism that feels okay in the end, even if it entails a disturbing hypercinematic instrumentalization of the life world. Hyper-full animation will push toward total war that ultimately works out, for sentimental reasons as much as for justice.

If limited animation feels the crisis in the action-image and takes it more seriously than does full animation, it is partly because techniques of flattening and of schematization are less willing and able to mask the appearance of the animetic interval. The crisis of the action-image is a displacement of the animetic interval into character animation, where it appears as inaction or inoperative action, or as a crisis of body and soul, or both. Because the time-image does not appear in pure form, it too can be read in terms of a capture of animetic interval that serves to displaces and disavow it.

Yet there is a difference in the way limited animation captures in animetic interval in character action: it is less a stubborn disavowal of the force of technologies, and more of a prophetic annunciation and revelation of the material limits inherent in the animated moving image.

In sum, in limited animation, the crisis of the action-image does not necessarily result in the emergence of a pure time-image, that is, pure mind or pure soul. Still, it stands in contrast to those animations that linger obsessively on questions about disembodiment and

COVER STORY

spiritual immortality, gravitating toward them as to an ideal that has become a technical problem.

Limited animation tends toward the production of “soulful bodies,” that is, bodies where spiritual, emotional or psychological qualities appear inscribed on the surface. This is also where character design becomes all important, taking precedence over character animation, which returns us to the difference between Ôtsuka Yasuji and Sadamoto Yoshiyuki, and to the contrast between Ghilbi’s commitment to full character animation (however limited) and Gainax’s emphasis on character design and otaku-related character products.

This is also where the emergence of the time-image in limited animation differs from the conditions that Deleuze sees in cinema.

For Deleuze, writing on cinema in early 1980s before the widespread use of VCRs and large-scale distribution of films on video, it was easier to sustain a distinction, however tentative, between the time-image and the cliché, or more precisely, to imagine the “beyond movement” of the time-image in terms of a movement beyond clichés. He closes the first volume with these remarks about the conditions for the postwar mutation of cinema, “On the one hand, it would require and presuppose a putting into crisis of the action-image, the perceptionimage and the affection-image, even if this entailed the discovery of ‘clichés’ everywhere. But, on the other hand, this crisis would be worthless by itself, it would only be the negative condition of the upsurge of the new thinking image, even if it was necessary to look for it beyond movement.37” Similarly, when limited animation

put full classic animation into crisis, it discovered clichés everywhere — stock situations, generic locations, dependable gags, iconic characters.

This is a kind of negative condition for the appearance of a new thinking image, manifested in characters whose heroics are empty, whose feelings undermine the resoluteness of their actions, and whose loves and wars gradually intertwine into rivalries that are at once cosmological in scale and petty in tenor, precisely the sort of action that Evangelion takes to the limit in optimizing limited animation into hyper-limited animation. Yet, as the emphasis on the VCR in discussions of otaku attests, this “beyond movement” of the animated time-image, this emergence of a new thinking image, is also the upsurge of a new business model, a new corporate entity, which is better captured in Deleuze’s later remarks (in 1990) about the soul of corporations: “We’re told that businesses have souls, which is surely the most terrifying news in the world.”38 The male otaku lineage of anime similarly reminds us that clichés, too, may today have souls. As limited animation puts into effect the crisis of the coordinating action-image of classic animation, the resulting emphasis on character design generates soulful bodies. These are timeimages that stick very close to the negative conditions for their production. Thus they show an affinity for the new soulful corporation (such as Gainax) that incorporates the hearts and souls of fans into its productions.

A number of factors affected the use of character design in limited animation in Japan. For instance, Tezuka’s adaptation of his manga set a precedent not only at the level of studio structure and technical skills but also in terms of an emphasis on producing anime based on manga39.

27 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

Even subsequently when studios had larger budgets, animation teams tended to adhere to the precedents for limited animation set up in the 1960s, which had begun with Tetsuwan Atomu, continued into Eight Man, Tetsujin 028 and into additional series based on Tezuka’s manga, and finally resulted in MazingerZ. Although anime based on toys or designed to promote toys and other anime-related commodities became more prominent in the early 1980s (Macross is frequently cited as the turning point in making anime based on toys), Tetsuwan Atomu already succeeded in stretching its loveable little robot character across a variety of commodities, spawning toys and populating ads40.

Limited animation lends itself to this movement of the character from manga to television screen to toy store (and subsequently limited animation would become as central as manga to multi-media production), precisely because the crisis of the action-image tends to produce a character detachable from one field of actions, which can be inserted into other fields.

In Anno’s Gainax animations, the flattening of the multiplanar image produces an image traversed with planar energies, generating multiple fields of action with characters popping on and off the screen. In effect, Anno’s hyper-limited animation responds to the crisis in “full” sensory-motor integration (the action-image) by optimizing the crisis. The result is an exploded projection in the character, and the character appears as a do-it-yourself kit, as an assembly diagram for taking bodies and souls apart and piecing them together again. As such, the character is free not only

COVER STORY

to leap in and out of the animated field of action. It is also free to leap across media fields. It can dissemble and reassemble from one media platform to another.

Operating on characters across media becomes not only possible but also desirable, especially from the vantage of the corporate soul. It is as if all the depth brought to the surface became condensed in one figure, allowing it to flash from media to media, convulsively. Optimizing limited character animation heightens this potential, not only spurring official products or authorized spin-offs and tie-ins, but also inciting fans to rework the stories and characters, to adopt their dress and manner, and to work with garage kits. There is even a new relation to voice acting, in which vocal qualities and verbal explanations stand in for action, and voice actresses in particular become stars in their own right in the anime world. Above all, however, it is character design that plays a pivot role, for there must be a diagram for the character that is expressive of both its potential as an action-image and as a time-image.

In keeping with the crisis in the actionimage, it is the time-image — that is, a coordination of time-images — that must appear on the surface in character design. The movement of the soul or brain or psyche — feeling, thinking, discerning —is written on the surface of the character. This is how character design in limited animation captures and directs the force of the moving image surfacing as potentiality. You then see in the character not only a potential movement of the limbs but also a potential movement of the heart and mind. Character design thus begins to stress affective expression or emotion in a state of physical inaction. Character design becomes a coordination of varieties of time-image, and its rhythms are at once erratic and predictable; it pops up everywhere on almost anything, which is pretty much what you expect it to do. But then, if the character works well, it does not always pop up how or when you expect it.

With his post-Disney-esque obsession

with cuteness, Tezuka seemed to anticipate this tendency with Tetsuwan Atomu, with his expansive eyes, his hair coiffed like horns or bunny ears, and his frail yet mighty limbs. Subsequently, in such series as Galaxy Express 999, Uchû senkan Yamato and Sailor Moon, characters began to take on new density, with quasi-modeling effects in etching that imparted a sense of autonomy and agency, even though the characters moved very little. This made the character appear to operate in a plane independent of the background world at the same time that the inaction of the character, in conjunction with the echoes of its lines in schematized backgrounds and its positioning to emphasize negative space, thoroughly flattened and dehierarchized the multiplanar image. As Okada Toshio stresses with his analogous examples from Getta Robo, this is also when anime viewers began to detect how different animators rendered the character differently41.

This is how the anime character begins to operate in different avatars and renditions, preparing to its leap across media.

Needless to say, the history of limited animation in Japan presents such a rich array of character designs that I can only scratch the surface here. Suffice it to say, as limited animation de-emphasized full animation of characters, it increasingly stressed character design, and the degree of detail and the density of information become as important as line, implied depth, and implied mass.

Character design became so crucial to this kind of animation that even today fanzines typically include character designs in their synopses, discussions, or reviews of a series; and reviews usually give as much weight to character design as to story or other aspects. In this context, Sadamoto Yoshiyuki’s comments on his character designs are very telling.

Sadamoto’s is a recognizable style, partly because his characters tend to be spindly and peaked rather than roundly cute, and partly because he is renowned for his personalization of characters.

28

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

He comments, “An easily recognizable silhouette is also important, but I designed the characters (for Evangelion) so that their personalities could be more or less understood at a glance.

For example, even the color and length of hair expresses personality.42” As his remarks suggest, Sadamoto is famous for his ability to inscribe the personality of the character — even its flaws and conflicts — on the character surface and across the entire figure. It is not only the face that expresses withdrawal, for instance, but also the entire posture and stylization of the figure. There is a combination of potential action-image and potential time-image. What is more, Sadamoto implies points of resistance to withdrawal within the withdrawn characters, points of insecurity in the confident characters, and so forth.

His design for character of Ayanami Rei who first appears in Evangelion wrapped in bandages became the sensation of the series, selling an unprecedented number of figurines and spurring extensive speculation about her character in the press and the world of anime criticism43. Ayanami Rei may be the ultimate instance of the inactive character as time-image, the quintessentially soulful body. Like so many of Sadamoto’s characters, she tends to be all soul to point of losing the body and dropping out of action altogether, but only to turn up everywhere, her soul stretched across innumerable platforms and fields.

As such, Sadamoto’s character design is not typology (normalization or disciplinization of types) or psychology (exploration of the unconscious depths of the psyche). By taking the modern “inaction” of character inherent in limited animation to a certain limit, he conjures from within it a portable animus, an image of the soul that can attach itself to anybody or anything. You don’t have to believe in the character or even like it to feel its powers of attraction, to know it may stick with you a long time. Such is full limited animation. ia

COVER STORY

The first panel shows Ayanami Rei as she appears in the first episode of the Evangelion series, and the second panel shows Rei in Evangelion: 1.01 You Are (Not) Alone (2008). The third panel presents sketches for three of Sadamoto Yoshiyuki’s Evangelion characters from the title sequence of the animated series. Sadamoto was also illustrator for the subsequent manga edition of Evangelion, and his cover work for volume 9 of the manga displays his characteristic style of soulful bodies.

29 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

the

O

architecture of

MAM

O

riginality is a quality that is reserved for the ones among us who have done something before everyone else. In the 21st Century however, we have all but run out of things that which we could do for the first time. With 7 billion humans thinking, conceptualizing, discovering, inventing, contemplating, creating and all the while growing in number, there is almost never a chance to be original anymore. Mamoru Oshii is not original either and he doesn’t seem to mind.

Ever since the birth of cinema, technology and science fiction have been unavoidable subjects.

Perhaps it was almost self-referential to make a film about technology that hasn’t been invented yet and the only way to achieve it in the film is to use methods that haven’t been invented yet.

Wasn’t it the same thing that made Fritz Lang chuckle to himself as he patiently sat through the very first screening of Metropolis (1927).

He knew the audience had their jaws dropped to the floor and he didn’t even have to look.

Why is it that almost always a science-fiction

30 INDIAN AUTEUR

by

AUGUST 2010

O

COVER STORY tion and watches it perform its designated duty and takes pride in his achievement. The more sophisticated the machine becomes, the more it seems to resemble him. In a way, he is creating his machine in his own form and likeness.

While the technological man keeps building his machines, the creative man keeps throwing questions about what would happen if these machines became aware. This has become the seed that gave birth to modern science fiction. We’ve had Utopian cities run by Computers that are the manifestation of perfection itself, we’ve had hostile uprising of rebellious machines threatening to exterminate the human race in a technological holocaust and we’ve had machines that made themselves capable of the finest human traits such as the ability to dream and harvest emotions. The machine fascinates man and he sees it as a mirror that shows him himself.

RU film is presented with a larger spiritual undercurrent? Perhaps, the technology becomes only the means through which a deeply human story is told and not the central component of the film itself. Perhaps it is a way for man to get an idea of what it is to be god-like. He completes his inven-

We’ve had artists painting their canvases with dystopian architecture and we’ve had Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke building their imagination into them. We’ve had Vangelis who created music with ‘noises’, ‘signals’ and ‘tones’ generated by machines and then we’ve had men who took the best of these and tied them together in the second-best mixed-media there is: cinema. And then there are few who took it one step further. Oshii is one of them.

Working with a very specific medium of art such as Anime means playing by the rules. The world of Anime finds it signature in hyper-reality and gratuitous exaggerations. It has its roots in the Manga comics that were in turn built by artists who’ve used them as a medium to unleash their darkest fantasies about sex, violence, horror and grotesque. The word ‘Manga’ itself loosely translates to ‘irresponsible images’. Oshii took anime to his own little quiet corner and he gave it a shape that no one has seen before.

Gautam Valluri

SHII

Anime had been around for a few decades before the likes of Oshii and Miyazaki came around. To an extent they did retain the goofiness, the deformations and the exaggerations that define the medium but they gave it a solid grounding in serious storytelling. Oshii reenforced it with a thick layer of strong visuals.

films

‘I have always watched and enjoyed European

31 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

COVER STORY

films since I was young. I was always intrigued by the classic styles and old designs of the architecture and atmospheres of Eastern Europe because they are serene, beautiful, and nostalgic.’1 Oshii says of some of his inspirational sources. This is perhaps reflected best in the first Patlabor film made in 1989 where the story is set in a Tokyo preparing itself to enter the 21st Century.

Oshii returned to familiar grounds six years later with Ghost in the Shell (1995). The world of Ghost in the Shell is set in the future2029 AD to be precise and this is a world where Man and Machine have merged into a single being.

Almost nobody is a complete human being anymore, every human has a cybernetic organ and all cybernetic ‘shells’ have ‘ghosts’.

Patlabor features massive construction projects and inhuman industrial imagery. It finds its roots in the popular ‘Mecha’ genre of anime- featuring manned robots as tall as buildings facing off against each other. Spearheaded by early TV serials like Mobile Suit Gundam, the genre can be considered an industrial transmutation of the original Godzilla-esque fascinations of Japanese audiences.

Ghost in the Shell is an adaptation of the eponymous manga by Masamune Shirow, who ironically shares a lot of similar traits with Oshii. The story is a strong meditation on the existence of the human spirit and the inevitable future in which it can be sepa-

But Patlabor transcends its Mecha genre-specific duties in the profound hands of Mamoru Oshii.

Central to the film is a very intense story with several biblical allusions. The gigantic factoryisland where labors (names for manned construction robots) are assembled is named as ‘The Ark’ and the massive project being undertaken to build on Tokyo Bay is called ‘Project Babylon’.

The rest of Tokyo however, is presented as a vast, impersonal garden of decaying concrete inspired

by Soviet urban layouts from the 1970s. The architecture can only be called neo-brutalist with very light cyberpunk undertones. ‘The Ark’ in the film serves an inverse purpose to the biblical Ark of Noah.

As opposed to it being built to save life on earth, in the film it is to be ultimately destroyed to save life in Tokyo. The character that brings about the destruction of it is ironically named ‘Noa’ and is a woman.

HE INSTILLS A SENSE OF NOSTALGIA FOR THE PAST THROUGH ITS RECALL IN A FUTURISTIC SETTING rated from the human body and allowed to travel freely through a vast digital network. The story reflects several elements of the eastern philosophy which considers all life as connected through a ‘web’ much like the network that is talked about in Ghost in the Shell.

The film, like the manga features an intricately designed mission laid out by Section 9 to hunt down the mysterious entity known only as ‘The Puppet Master’. The film follows the protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi and her ever-faithful partner Batou as they move through Oshii’s awe-inspiring dystopian landscape in search of the Puppet Master and in the process trying to find answers to certain questions that they have on life in general.

‘When you create a film dealing with humans and cyborgs,

32 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

you have no choice but to refer back to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, as this movie is probably the foundation of movies with this theme.’2 Ghost in the Shell sounds and feels a lot like Blade Runner even down to the chase factor where the protagonist is in the pursuit of a formidable opponent. But in the places where Blade Runner stands tall as purely cyberpunk, Ghost in the Shell takes a more Tarkovsky-ian stance.

Although seasoned with enough action, the film refuses to take refuge in it. It instead seeks resolution through long, soulful visual montages and through the questioning of human existence.

Oshii lays down the perfect architecture for a story of this scale to take place in. Everything from clothing to weapons to vehicles to ricocheting bullets feels like it is real. He constructs the atmosphere where this sort of violent tension coexists with a sort of serene, otherworldly spiritual air.

Perhaps, the most significant scene in the film is where a heavily damaged Kusanagi has a deep dialogue with an equally damned Puppet Master who proposes the idea of ‘reproduction’ of their ‘ghosts’ by ‘diving’ into each other. After all, reproduction is the only way to ensure some part of you carries on in existence. The process happens but not before an assault team destroys the last remains of both shells. Batou manages to save Kusanagi’s head and later transfers her ghost into a shell

G N I H T O L G C N I T M O OCHE R F G H N I C I H R EAL.” T Y O T R “EVE HICLES S ITS R L E E V E F O ; T S T E L L U B

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

COVER STORY

ia

34 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

COVER STORY

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

The

Madhou Madcap W

hen dreams and reality coincide, the concoction can be deliciously smooth and fantastic, literally. Satoshi Kon’s anime mostly alluded to that concoction - the merging of the real and the fantasy, the thoughts and the illusions blurring lines between.

But these were not the only pegs to his storytelling. Kon’s creations were an amazing introduction to the world where line blurs, the definition concedes a conundrum, giving way to a

chaos of simplicity. Like the name, Studio Madhouse, that has produced all his films till date, Kon’s films delved into a realm that tried to reflect the utter madness that our imagination can infuse into any ordinary circumstance. Portions of his films felt like captured memories, the heightened ones of course.

Manga –artist turned anime director, Satoshi Kon’s oeuvre, over the last two decades, garnered him the name “auteur anime director”. His films had

36

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

been known for defying the conventional genre and their exquisite, fantastic choice of subject. Though a protégé of the famous Katsuhiro ‘Akira’ Otomo and often hailed at the same level with Spirited Away director Hayao Miyazaki, Kon clearly carved a different space altogether. The filmography of this graduate from the Musashino College of Arts, includes films like Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika and the alternate television anime series, Paranoia Agent, among

COVER STORY others. Most of his works were adaptations or influenced by some form of previously existing works- like Perfect Blue is loosely based on the novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi. In Kon’s words, he was given the freedom to use his interpretation and play with the script

the real and the fantasy and exuding the sense of magic realism throughout, it is also the subjective reality reflected through his storytelling that arrests you while watching his creations. Whether be it the split-personality twist to Paprika (2006) or Mima’s identity crisis in Per-

anime. If in his first venture, he introduced the identity crisis of a pop idol in the midst of a transition state of her ‘self’, in the next film, Millennium Actress (2001), we found an aging actress narrating her life spent in futile chase of someone, she never had.

use’s p

Sagorika Singha on Satoshi Kon

only keeping the three keywords – ‘idol’, ‘horror’ and ‘fan’. And these were the primary premises of the film.

Like he said, he deliberately employed different point of view to his storytelling. What you remember at the end of the film is the sense of déjà vu that the protagonist Mima undergoes throughout this play-within-a-play film.

Back to back viewing of his first four works make one thing very clear – apart from merging the lines between

fect Blue (1998), more than the topic, it was the way Kon made them appealing through his presentation that strikes the viewer- the animation, the emotion, the set, all inclusive. Particularly, in Tokyo Godfathers (2003), the entire story thrives on the view of Japan, and Kon, with his artwork makes one of the most remarkable settings depicting all the narrow, lanes and all the underside of the mega city, otherwise. Apart from all these, it’s the issues underlying his tales that perhaps, elevated the nature of his

37 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

In his first full-length feature anime, Perfect Blue, if one part was the representation of the Japan Pop Idol culture (and everything wrong in it, perhaps), the other side dealt with identity crisis, the tug-of-war between the image and the self. The story tells about one of the members of the teenage pop group Cham, Mimi, who wants to end her singing career to become a ‘serious’ actor. No problem there, except that may be her fans and one in particular, known as ‘Me-mania’, who is

COVER STORY in awe of the pop idol persona finds it hard to digest. Slowly, you see the difference between the real and reel life of Mima dissipating. It starts with Mima discovering a website called ‘Mima’s Room’ that chronicles the everyday life of the pop star in stark details. She lets her manager Rumi Hidaka know of the website but she only asks her to ignore.

Meanwhile, Mima, as her first major break in television, manages to get the role of a rape victim in a strip club.

But things take a bleaker turn when the stalking penetrates far deeper into Mima’s personal life, including the serial murders of all the people who were in some way or the other responsible for tarnishing the squeaky clean image of the pop singer. Kon also showcases the dissociative identity disorder in the film. Subtle and not profound references are also made on the internet’s roving interference, which very aptly drives the idol-horror-fan point home.

In one particular scene, we see Mima practicing her only line in her television debut: “Who are you?” In a different point-of-view, this question takes on ulterior meanings in the film. The dark tale in his debut makes for interesting introspection through a culture as such.

Millennium Actress (2001), Kon’s second film, shared the Grand Prize in the Japan Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival with Spirited Away, among many other prizes. Until now the film remains as one of the top 25 animated films on the Internet Movie Database. This film adopts the device of a story-within-a-story, like the former. It tells the story of once famous actress, Chiyoko Fujiwara, who goes into reclusion. The entire film is the narration of the actress’s life story which

runs across the World War II until the new space revolution. Film director Genya Tachibana, who also happens to be besotted with the erstwhile actress, wants to document the life story of the film persona and hence follows her into the woods where she has been in hiding for the last 30 years. Chiyoko thus narrates how she once helped escape a dissident artist during the 30’s fascist government, an artist whom she falls in love with. Her entire life was spent in the futile chase of the artist, in his search. A lot of changes in the setting of the film, its visual manifestation and style take place throughout and Kon very smoothly carried out the alterations making the transition a fantastic ride. However, in this case, it becomes difficult not to notice the sheer, rather artless depiction of both the female protagonists in the above two films.

By this I mean to imply that both the women did not bring in something else to the character, though both the stories primarily revolve around them, they as characters seemed rather flat and innocuous and predictable. Genya and his assistant infused the comedic respite, lifting the film’s serious disposition.

Next release was Tokyo Godfathers, said to be inspired by John Ford’s Three Godfathers. It was perhaps, the straightest of the four, at least subject wise. It tells about three homeless souls - Gin, Hana and Miyuki - in Tokyo who discover an abandoned child on Christmas eve. All the three are not only homeless but a quirky group in itself – an alcoholic, a homosexual cross dresser and a runaway girl. Along with the baby they also find a note that asks the finders to take good care of the baby and few belongings that might give in to the par-

Satoshi Kon’s Paprika

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

ent’s identity. No hyper imaginings, apart from the occasional “dream sequence”, no stirrups until unless you look at the subtler storytelling - three myriad homeless citizens who literally live in Tokyo’s periphery - the forgotten ones. The emotional, a tad too sugary undercurrents do at times turn predictable but Kon’s funny, unwisely wise, often ignored kinds of protagonists bring to you one of the most unusual Christmas story ever.

The film leaves you in a happy state - nothing starkly brain-wiring, hardto-distinguish-reality-from-dreams effect bereft. Unlike, Paprika, which, a few anime otakus believe, slightly inspired Christopher Nolan in coming up with his latest “Inception”. But, we are not threading on that discussion.

Paprika, like the name itself, is the seasoning, garnishes the immediate idea – to infiltrate, travel to other people’s dreams. A lot of story precedes the actual making of the film itself. Based on the work of Yasutaka Tsutsui’s 1993 novel of the same name, Kon was reportedly, highly inspired by the novel.

And when the opportunity came along with the writer himself suggesting that Kon adapt the book into a film, it was a treat for him. The rest is history, of course. Wolfgang Petersen is working on its live action version. The string that binds this ‘auteur anime’ director’s work is also the sub level introspection, or so I felt, the juxtaposing of the myriad history of Japan or rather the Japanese cinema in Millennium Actress was definitely not missed. He had a very detached look at some of the critical aspects of the Japanese history, the Sengoku period through the stories of the ageing actress.

Difficult among the four films and definitely the most appetising is Paprika. Spontaneous, vivid, stark, fantastic Paprika is a chaotic pleasure.

This futuristic tale mainly concerns with the device called DC Mini, the bane of technological advances but it is definitely not a commentary on this issue. Kon’s amazing animation made the dream world utterly

THE KON FILMOGRAPHY believable and beautiful with all its stark nakedness, right from the first scene with Detective Konakawa Toshimi chasing his ambiguous repetitive dream. Something that we, the viewers, do with his films, following Kon’s trails, trying to join the dots, trying to give form to the ‘blurring lines’.

Films were a major influence on Satoshi Kon. A dialogue in Paprika between Dr. Atsuko Chiba while helping Toshimi in interpreting his dreams describes them as followsToshimi (On watching a scene from his dream): This looks like a scene from a spy movie?

Chiba: REM sleep that occurs during the later sleep cycle is longer and easier to analyze. If earlier cycles are, say, arsty film shorts, then later cycles are feature-length blockbuster movies.

Kon’s films, naturally defy such general categorisations. Just like Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress, this too employed the story within a story format. The detective had the desire to make a film prior becoming a detective, the posters in his dreamland, the dream itself was just a natural extension to it. This was Kon for you. Cinema was everywhere, or well almost. There is an unrestraint streak to Paprika. The dreams that actually confuse you later as they become more difficult for the viewer to predict when they are within a dream and not, just like the characters of Paprika, the alter-ego, meshes with Dr. Chiba. Some scenes stay back – the rape being one of them, the dual representation, the exposure of Chiba and Paprika.

Everything’s not been said and the introspection into Kon can actually be an extended activity. This just has been the trailer. The world of Kon, with all its superfluous tricks and colourful cacophony had far deep reaching effects than visible on the surface. The world of Kon was a tasteful con, or perhaps.

ia

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

ANIME Page 46 MILESTONES

AN

IME

It al l ama began i n S a un eitaro’s 1914, w ique shor hen first anim style of t film M cartoon a ist om ated n “talk imation otaro s create (1 d ie” s . hort Furthe 918). Th the firs r su t film c cess e Japan Japanes mad e e c e in s a Japa me in e anim animat the atio ed m nese n form . o of C industr tion pic y pi hika t ra T cked ures. Ja p oO u nna p since an’s fir s N t o Hav Yon hen, it t intern e a ona w Kaw you e ka w as yet tional s aii o ver s uc h t o ich not? crat r ga rele create cess wa c W v a h a s e s e ell, d ed i Ani d yo a bl n 19 stir or d Kitaym o a 32 a e Ani e. Be n’t be s nk star ur head nd w velop m it o e as th Ani e or Ja Shojo surpri when when , m s s p e ence e). Alt anese Shonen ed, the asked i omeon s h A f e that history ough, h nimat or Sen e are te you li called io k r t follo now it’s of its or aving it n (the ai, all o ms wh e Mech you i s c i a c w f u g o r i s e t o n n e d th ot in ime vent hese h belon or d in . An e b i i i is ye s a reco world every p me has Japan w onal na rings u g to o o t as A to catc gnized ver (inc ssible gained ithout a me give s to This s h n l t u y i u m ding genre o such h clear n to l e of Indi ax h p wit u c tion article a a h a n ima our co r theme ge pop oherit en is fam n mass s help tion ular untr Japa but seek not a s t e i i e r a l d i e s n a it ly . y co t c d r wi nese s th A Howe reate a and o he wor ). Alth is bein y Ani to offer mprehe oug nly ld o ver, n s g me u i n a m r s h, re ve ge th e an a glo glimp ive g d its ere ar in its cently c r now, Anse in uide bal e p In phe h vari o nom to the r or a cr ous quite a pularit annels dia itica ich f eno s y o f u e r a w m l trad n. s in peo mong ch ition analysi ple o t u he r s : gen w cou o ntry ho are re, h f Anim istor asw e ell. y an or its c dm ultu aste r a rs th l imp li at h as m caade

by

101

DEB NA ABR TH AT A

40 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

I

tw a tion s not s res tyle until a t wh s firm took o few d o is e ly ff Jap also on t and a cades a n h refe e s s sur later ani ese h m Wo ator Comi rred t oulde prisin that “A ga oa rld rs wh cs). n Wa o to Tez s a “l of on s it m ime” r. T o as a a e u e k ge ka ezu m y ka to dra start nd” a an, seem, n anim O wa s o wing ed his nd “G samu the cr anly car od c Te edit a re to o 20 yea ons d er as f Man zuka, rs o uri a g f ag ng t n aspi a” ( e w he s ring hen eco his nd firs t

sig n rele ifica n saw ased t wo r i n h and im 19 k, S wh bec 47. T hinta ich om k h late e th at wa arajim r ea e m s th a ( e rne ost N d h fam start ew im ous of a Trea the s titl Mang glori ure I ous eo sl a a f “G rti c and od st in areer ) wa s of Ma all of which nga Jap ”. an

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

OSAMU TEZUKA SINGLE-HANDEDLY CHANGED THE FACE OF JAPANESE ANIMATION

was a style of animation which enabled its characters to be full of life and emote in various ways.

Tezuka soon established his own production house, known as Mushi Productions. Through this studio he produced both animated television shows and theatrical features.

Mushi Production’s first success came in the form of….none other than Tetsuwan Atom, also known as Astro Boy in the US and other countries. Featuring a robot boy fighting against evil and protecting his friends, the show became such a hit that it was later distributed worldwide. It was based on a manga series created by Tezuka himself, which had the same name as the show.

But, what Tezuka achieved that changed Japanese animation forever was through his design of characters. Tezuka often felt the need of a vast emotional template to convey his complicated stories and tried to figure out a style which enabled him to do so. In this search, he explored his childhood days when he was very fond of Disney cartoons.

Tezuka then took inspiration from his all-time favorite characters like Mickey and Donald and imbued his characters with their design. Soon, his characters were found to have round heads with eyes which were very large and full of expressions.

Tezuka, however designed them in such a style that even though they appeared to be very simple characters to look at, their facial features enabled them to express a gallery of expressions ranging from admiration to sheer jealousy or love-struck.

He’s the one who made Anime popular during the 1970s and bought the Mecha genre to life. It was largely due to him that series such as Gundam and Macross became classics and were converted in various entertainment forms

Soon, this became the benchmark for all his creations and it grew into something original and unique. It

42

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

(including videogames and movies).

Japanese animation saw another leap during the 70s when the science fiction genre got a huge boost thanks to shows like Mobile Suit Gundam which premiered in 1979.

MS Gundam was full of thrills and took place entirely in space.

It was an exciting space opera which showcased a whole lot of emotions and was narrated in a very intelligent manner. The concept of human pilots wearing gigantic robotic battlesuits to fend off evil in a future space war was something which caught the fancy of not only the Japanese audience but people the world over. By this time, Anime was breaching the confines one country and its creations had begun to find an international audience aswell. made them such a crowd favorite.

COVER STORY THE GOLDEN AGE The 80s witnessed a phenomenal growth as far the Japanese animation industry was concerned. With the growing popularity of Anime, producers made full use of its demand and explored previously untouched markets such as the home video market and started to produce anime series directly as video disks.

This enabled a larger audience access to these creations and Anime was becoming a part of the Jap culture as more and more people had direct access to it. 1986 saw another benchmark, when the fantasy series, Dragon Ball got a television show. Such was the demand and popularity of the series that it soon became the no 1 animated TV show in Japan.

The Japanese Television and home video industry was mostly dominated by the works of one man, Rumiko Takahashi during the 80s. Some of his notable creations include the alien comedy, Urusie Yatsure and Ranma ½. Rumiko was a master of comedy and her shows were able to replicate humour in various situations which made them such a crowd favorite.

Another interesting animator during the 80s was Go Nagain, whose creations were in stark contrast of that of Rumiko. Now that the home video market was open, this guy got a chance to bypass the TV and film censor boards and thus begun creating erotic manga which were directed towards an all adult audience. Some of his more popular works include the Devilman TV series along with Kekko Kamen featuring a naked super-heroine. These works became quite popular with young adults and others who were looking for some animated orgasm (although I am not sure what that might feel like).

The 80s also saw another major breakthrough in the form of the anime film, Akira. Created by Japan’s first artist/director Katsuhiro Otomo, this film was revolutionary in so many ways. Featuring a completely new style of animation, it soon became an international hit. Oto-

mo went on to create other similar titles, like Akira, which also tasted success. His contribution towards anime film-making can’t be ignored.

Another director saw his work taste major success during the 80s.

Masamune Shirow, he was known for creating situations whereas humanity had its back against the wall and was caught in a battle against machines and technology. This was evident in Black Magic M-66 which was a huge hit worldwide.

Although he explored other situations aswell, Shirow was the master of the man vs machine template and he came back to his roots with his film, Kokaku Kidoutai (1995) which is also known as Ghost in the Shell. This was a film which tasted international and critical acclaim.

However, none of these filmmakers explored a more serious subject or situation. The first person to do so was Keiji Nakazawa, whose series (Barefoot Gen) which was based on his personal experience as a nuclear attack survivor of Hiroshima touched the hearts of millions in Japan. Another director to explore a similar subject was Isao Takahata in Hotaru No Haka (Grave of the Fireflies). This film followed the struggles of two orphans who managed to survive the fire-bombing of Tokyo. This is one of my personal favorites as far as anime films go and I doubt if any other live action movie has surpassed the replication of the horrors faced by the victims caught in a war as this anime film did.

These films contributed to anime being accepted as a more serious business and allowed it to breach the confines of a few genre or topics. People were now appreciative of anime versions of various serious subjects and many directors made full use of that. Anime as a medium grew due to this change in thinking amidst the general public. It was no longer a light-hearted “kids-only” affair!

43 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

GENRES OF ANIME Over the years, there has been a continuous evolution, new concepts and techniques in animation, Anime has come a long way and has undergone a tremendous change in all regards. This has led to the birth of various genres and sub-genres in which Anime can be divided into.

Most of these genres are unique and often weird and has a true Jap style in their execution. Common genres include action, adventure, comedy, drama, erotica, medieval fantasy, horror, romance and everyone’s favorite science fiction. Many of these are further divided into various sub-genres as stated below – SHOJO Anime\Manga targeted at girls ( Fruit Basket, Mermaid Melody) SHONEN Anima\ Manga targeted at young boys. ( Dragon Ball Z, Digimon) SEINEN Anime\Manga targeted at teenage or young male adults. ( Oh My Goddess!, Outlaw Star) SENTAI Shows that involves a team of superheroes ( Cyborg 009) SHONEN-AI Anime/Manga that focuses on love or romance between male characters. It is often popularly referred to as Boys’ Love (BL) SHOJO-AI Anime/Manga that focuses on love or romance between female characters. It is often replaced by the term Girls’ Love (GL) ROBOT/MECHA Anime/Manga featuring robots or androids ( Mobile Suit Gundam/ Cyborg 007) JOSIE Anime/manga aimed at young women. (Gokusen) KODOMO Anime/Manga aimed at young children (Doraemon, Pokemon) BISHOJO Anime that features pretty and cute girl characters (Magic Knight Rayearth) BISHONEN Anime that features pretty and elegant boys and men. ( Fushigi Yugi)

C O V E R S T O R Yv POST APOCALYPTIC Anime dealing with a post-apocalyptic word. (Trigun, Akira) HAREM Anime/Manga which involves several girls who are fascinated by a single boy (or sometimes multiple boys) – (Love Hina) REVERSE HAREM The opposite of Harem where several boys are fascinated by a single girl (or sometimes multiple girls) -- (Fruits Baskets) HENTAI Anime/Manga which contains pornographic cartoon or depicts graphic sexual concepts or images.

While most people refer to it as the above term, the real Japanese word to refer to the same material is Poruno or Ero. This is one of the most watched forms of Anime which should not be a surprise really!

ECCHI Anime/Manga containing sexual humour ( Love Hina) As you can see there is a sea of genres and sub-genres which Anime comprises of. Over the years, its popularity has seen such rapid growth that many new genres and sub-genres have come into being. Among these, the most popular ones are Shonen, Kodoma and Mecha along with the obvious Hentai. The next time anyone asks you about Anime do show off your new found knowledge and leave them perplexed!

H

ow exactly do we recognize Anime? How is it different from other forms of animation? To be honest, it’s relatively easy to distinguish Anime from other styles of animation. Anime has a distinct style of its own which is not found in any other forms of cartoons. Anime characters usually have big cute eyes and are very brightly coloured. The large eyes and the bright colours are mostly due to Japanese anime artists getting inspired from Osamu Tezuka, who found that large eyes enabled his characters to express emotions vividly

with ease.

ANIME OUTSIDE OF JAPAN

There are several other traits that anime characters seems to exhibit which are not common anywhere else. A surprised character will perform a “face fault”, in which they display enormously overstated expressions. Angry characters are not to be messed with as they will exhibit a “vein” effect wherein, lines representing throbbing veins will appear out of nowhere on their foreheads. I would suggest you stay far away from angry anime woman, as they can summon a sledgehammer out of thin air and go on to strike the offender with it (usually in the head…ouch!).

What started out as an inspired by Western cartoons animation style thanks to one man’s fondness of Disney cartoons during his childhood days, has now been transformed into a source of inspiration for many western animators and cartoonist.

Anime as an animation style has come a full circle since its inception and now is considered among the most popular animation styles in the world. Many animators around the world are now drawing inspiration from their Japanese companions.

These adapted anime stylizations and methods is known as Anime Physics. These can be noticed in western creations such as W.I.T.C.H and Megas XLR (which is quiet popular in India aswell). Although shows such as these are influenced by Anime, they can’t entirely be called Anime and posses traits of their own.

This particular idea led to the concept of Hammerspace ( an extradimensional space that stores an infinite amount of every kind of stuff which are accessible by Anime comic characters at will). Further on, male character might develop a bloody nose when around their female love interests (as an indication of getting aroused). As you might have noticed, humiliated characters seem to produce a massive sweat drop. Anime characters also possess over-coloured and often strange hair ( light blue, purple and light brown are some common ones).

Anime cartoons and comic characters posses several unique traits which makes them easily recognizable and infact makes Anime the easiest form of animation which can be distinguished from the rest. Although, often thought to be weird or outright hilarious, most of these traits enable the characters to portray various emotions and brings them to life unlike any other style of animation allows its characters to.

44 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

Anime has developed such a unique and original style of animation over the course of time that it gives them a truly unique and well deserved place in the world of animation.

These cartoons having atrocious plots, unbelievable characters and illogical concepts have secured a special place in the hearts of animation and comic lovers worldwide. People now relate Anime to define Japan culturally and it’s rather amazing to see how an original form of animation can define a nation culturally.

Unfortunately, India has yet to come up with such a unique and original style of animation (which is not surprising to say the least) and it might serve them well to look eastwards for some inspiration, not to imitate or copy the Japanese style of animation but to learn from their neighbors that how something as casual as a animation style can give a nation its own identity. ia

FILM MAKING

ANIMATION

RADIO

TV MASS COMMUNICATION ADVERTISING & JOURNALISM

1 Yr Programs

3 Yr UG Degree

3 Months Programs

BSc in Multimedia + Multimedia Production

Diploma In Camera & Lighting Techniques

Production Direction & TV Journalism

BSc in MCAJ + Cinema

Diploma In Post Production

Video Editing & Sound Recording

Diploma In Visual Communication

Acting & Presentation

Diploma In Acting for Film & TV

Still Photography & Journalism

BSc in MCAJ + Mass Communication BSc in MCAJ + Electronic Media (Radio & TV) BBA + Media Management

2 Yr PG Degree

Diploma In Digital Design

Camera & Lighting Technique TV Graphics & Animation Sound Recording & Radio Production Mass Media Research & Planning

Msc in Multimedia + Multimedia Production

Diploma In Multimedia

MSc in MCAJ + Cinema MSc in MCAJ + Mass Communication

Post Graduate Diploma In Media Management

MSc in MCAJ + Electronic Media (Radio & TV)

Post Graduate Diploma In TV Journalism & communication

2D Graphics and Animation

MSc in MCAJ + Direction

Post Graduate Diploma In Film & TV Production

Virtual Set Design (3DS Max)

Post Graduate Diploma In Print & Photo Journalism

3D Graphics & Animation (MAYA)

Post Graduate Diploma In Advertising, Mass Communication

Compositing and Special Effects

MSc in MCAJ + Cinematography MSc in MCAJ + Sound Recording MSc in MCAJ + Post Production MBA+Media Management

Screenplay Writing Print and Advertising Graphics

Internet & Web Design

MCAJ = Mass Communication, Advertising and Journalism Degree Courses Are Run Under ASIAN SCHOOL OF MEDIA STUDIES (ASMS)

100 % Placement Assistance by specialized placement division 3 month & 1 year programs Commences 6th October 2010 Housing Facility Available Prospectus Available At

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

T

1. OSAMU TEZUKA he father of Modern Manga who is also its DW Griffith and Jean Luc Godard. His pioneering visual techniques brought in the first core cinematic sensibilities to manga ala its intrinsic visual aspectsDecompressing narratives into a visual treat running into hundreds of pages, the mise en page of Tezuka stretched out scenes to express through visual compositions. He went on to define some of the common characteristic of manga/anime in terms of characterization. His decision to draw characters with large eyes to focus on expressiveness and emotional qualities are part of the basic formal elements of manga/anime. Some of Tezuka’s creation has become part of the global village culture: Astro Boy, Buddha, Phoenix and Black Jack are some of his pioneering creations. Ozamu Tezuka, often confesses, comics, are his ‘wife’ and animation his mistress- a great deal of money being lavished on the latter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Tezuka’s volume is staggering, he created nearly 700 stories and close to 17,000 pages of manga. Many of which is yet to be published in English and he was also involved in innumerable anime series and films notably through his production house – Mushi Productions. Tezuka loved his art form and continued working till his very last breath, his last words when he died were: “I am begging you, let me work.”

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

PROMINENT WORKS OF TEZUKA ASTRO BOY BLACK JACK PRINCESS KNIGHT PHOENIX KIMBA THE WHITE LION ADOLF BUDDHA

16 anime

milestones COMPILED BY

SHUBHANK MAURIA NITESH ROHIT ANUJ MALHOTRA

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

2. GUNDAM

M

obile Suit Gundam aired in 1979 it was scheduled to run for 52 episodes. But the anime never caught on with the audience and hence was cut down to 43 episodes. Created and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino the started only to be cancelled before the series was intended to end. Ironically it was after Bandai was licensed for the mecha figures the Gundam fancy caught on with the audience.

The series was later re-edited under the supervision of Tomino and released in three parts. It was a major success in the history of anime and heralded a new dawn for anime.

Teryuki Hoshina, Director. Japan Foundation reminisces on the infuence of Mobile Suit Gundam:“In my childhood, though I never watched Gundam series of TV nor knew any plot, somehow I remembered all characters of mobile suit (robot) of Gundam by heart, as many adults gave the set of plastic models to me and my brother. In my teenage, I completely lost the interest in Gundam as most of the Japanese teenagers graduated from it while only a few OTAKU kept the interest. In my thirties, as my son started to get interested in Gundam, I purchased a plastic model and made it on behalf of him as he was too little to make the one. It was the time when my memory of childhood flashed back to myself, and I was surprised that I did not forget any character of Gundam for 25 years.Now I am watching Gundam series together with my son, and it is really nice that you are spending time with your kids rand sharing the same feeling together.” “

Director YOSHIYUKI TOMINO CHARACTERS WERE DESIGNED BY YOSHI KAZU YASUHIKO AND KUNIO OKAWARA THE SERIES WAS THE FIRST WINNER OF ANIMAGE grand prix 1979

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

3. AKIRA

W

hen Katsuhiro Otomo announced his decision to make a filmic adaptation of his epic 2182 pages long cyber-punk manga, more than a few eyebrows were raised in skepticism. Nothing in the manga lent itself conveniently to an easy anime adaptation - a post apocalyptic futuristic setting, an ensemble of psychologically elaborate characters, a enormous number of explosions and the controversial aspect of children as members of criminal biker gangs and government conspiracies. The theme was more bleak than it was relevant. To gather the unheard of production cost that would be required to produce the film, a number of major Japanese entertainment giants had to assemble their resournces. When the film was released, however, it changed anime forever. 1,60,000 anime cells, lip-synching that preceded drawing, and super-fluid motion that is Akira’s permanent legacy.

Director KATSUHIRO OTOMO SCREENPLAY IZO HASHIMOTO VOICES OF MITSUO IWATA NOZOMU SASAKI, MAMI KOYAMI PRODUCED BY AKIRA COMMITTEE COMPANY

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

W

4. CAPTAIN TSUBASA

hat is common between the likes of footballer Hideo Nakata, Zinedine Zidane, Francesco Totti and Fernando Torres? At one point in the life of each of this great footballer from Japan, France, Italy and Spain, Tsubasa Ozoro was their hero. Captain Tsubasa, the famous anime is based on the manga in running by Yoichi Takahashi who decided to take his passion for soccer into building a dream for the Japanese soccer team. His vision was to ink, outline and draw a series that would build on paper a dream team headed from the elementary school of the passionate football fan Tsubasa Ozoro and his aspiration to be the first to lift the World Cup for Japan. The original manga series ran in Weekly Shoen Jump and the first anime series was produced by Group TAC and Toei Animation appeared between 10 October 1983 and 27 March 1986.

Captain Tsubasa is a popular anime series across major soccer playing nations. And in the middle east the anime is popularly known as Captain Masjid. The popularity of anime is such that it has also helped in bringing a sense of hope in the future and determination for young Iraqis where the anime is re-run with the help of Japan Foundation and is immensely popular in the nation.

CREATED BY YOICHI TAKAHASHI THE ANIME FILMS WERE DIRECTED BY ISAMU IMAKAKE THE TWO TELEVISION SERIES WERE STARTED in 1983 and 1994. both were grand successes.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

D

ragon Ball Z is based on a manga created and illustrated

by Akira Toriyama. The story involves the protagonist, Son Goku, who with his friends and family fights many battles for protecting and searching for the Dragon Balls. These Dragon Balls are the famed 7 orbs which are together used to summon Shenlong, a dragon who has the power of fulfilling every wish within it’s limit.

5. DRAGONBALL Z

DBZ does bring back a lot of memories. Personally, it’s not the best but does hold a special place as it is the first anime I watched and adored simply for the fact that it’s brought in possibilities of achieving things in the world that almost seems impossible. Goku a hero with super power seems vulnerable and that made things more humane and fun. It’s arguably the most important and famous Anime in India and one of the classic milestones in the history of anime.

CREATED BY AKIRA TORIYAMA IT HAS BEEN ADAPTED TO THREE ANIME SERIES DRAGON BALL, DRAGON BALL Z, DRAGON BALL GT TOEI ANIMATION HAS ADAPTED IT TO 17 films and 3 television specials

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

6 6. GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

I

remember the master Indian filmmaker Kumar Shahani introducing Ritwik Ghatak’s masterpiece Megha Dhaka Tara with a disclaimer “It would make you weep”. Finally at the end of the film, when one hears Nita’s cries to survive, it shakes the life in you and only for those; with an undeniable control over his self, the movie would appear sane…yet, the heart, concealed with the stoic physical form… will gently weep. Something similar one could experience while watching the work of Isao Takahata’s masterpiece Grave of the fireflies. What the film does is to bring to life an extraordinary tale about two siblings struggling to survive the horrors of World War-II. What makes ‘Grave of the fireflies’ such an emotional and powerful journey is that it traps its characters in a slow transcend towards death. Preparing them for the journey with experiences that offer fragments of different facets of the human existence: from being young, to adolescence and finally experiencing the agony, pain and the hopelessness of it all. Grave of the fireflies on the outset feels like a very normal film with anti-war sensibilities and a story about brother-sister relationship. But to look at the film and not merely watch it, one could witness tendencies that reflect attitudes of exploring love between a ‘ man’ and a ‘woman’ and a setting that is planted for the relationship to doom.

Director ISAO TAKAHATA BASED ON A NOVEL BY AKIYUKI NOSAKA UNDER THE STUDIO GHIBLI BANNER 88 minutes long, IT WAS RELEASED ON APRIL 16, 1988.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

7. MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO

M

milestones

iyazaki Hayao had built a reputation around creating astounding action setpieces, or action films, even if they featured animated children as their lead protagonists. These early films had the tendency to suddenly reveal moments of unqustionable humanity, even as characters prepared for battle atop giant aerial ships and inside fortresses - but primarily, refused to completely relinquish their devotion to sustained overwhelming ‘action’ to actually consider their characters as more than places to deposit morality (or immorality). Until My Neighbour Totoro came in as a companion piece to Grave of the Fireflies, made only so as the funding of the much bleaker, more pessimistic latter film could be made; but the former in itself was not made as a formality, with its study of human nature being as glaring as the other film; even if in a more mild setting. The tale of two sisters, and the tale of their discovery of a troll in their neighbourhood who no one but they can see.

Childhood has never been symbolised better.

Director HAYAO MIYAZAKI PRODUCED BY STUDIO GHIBLI DISNEY PICTURESWERE THE OFFICIAL AMERICAN DISTRIBUTORS

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

8. MAMORU OSHII

O

shii was born on August 8th, 1951 in Tokyo. He started out as a storyboard artist for several anime studios in the 1970s before making the transition into directing for Television. He is credited for creating the first ever OVA (Original Video Animations aimed at direct-to-video market). He went onto direct critically acclaimed anime and live-action films such as Patlabor 1 & 2, Avalon, Ghost in the Shell and the 2004 Palme d’Or nominated Innocence. The Wachowski Brothers cite him as a major influence on their Matrix trilogy of films.to be a witness to it.

PROMINENT WORKS OF OSHII pAtlabor ghost in the shell avalon ghost in the shell : innocence kill

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

9. NEON GENESIS EVANGELION

N

eon Genesis Evangelion, directed by Hideaki Anno, is widely regarded as the greatest anime ever produced by many anime lovers. It’s a post apocalyptic science fiction mecha-anime set in an alternate reality in the early 21st century. The series centers around biomechanical mechas known as Evangelions.

Their objective is to destroy the Angels, who are the prime antagonists of the series.

The story starts with a 14 year old Shinji, who is chosen to enter one of the Evangelions and battle the Angels. The series explores this war and brings in several twists as it goes on. There is a great deal of detail and rich background stories concerning not only the humans but also the mechas. NGE is a must watch for not just kids but everyone. NGE will undoubtedly remain one of my favourite anime series.

What seemed like a typical mecha anime initially really grew into an experience I would never forget. It may sound really corny but NGE has a soul driving it. If you don’t watch anime this is a good place to start.

CREATOR YOSHIYUKI SADAMOTO anime consists of 26 EPISODES IT WON THE ANIMAGE GRAND PRIZE AT THE 1995-96 JAPANESE ANIME AWARDS.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

10. INUYASHA

C

oncieved as a half dog-demon, and a half-human in a ‘priest’s garb’ in the era of Japanese warring states, Inuyasha’s influence in the years following its conception has been truly multi-platform. One of the biggest superstars of Japanese anime, alongwith Naurto and Pokemon, it has spawned 4 major films, around 300 episodes of a television series, and a manga that started it all. The reason for its grand success may be attributed to its creator Rumino Takahashi’s insistence on a strong moral code, even when the prospect of the defeat of an antagonist lies ahead, a rarity in the dark, immoral world of anime.

CREATED BY RUMIko takahasi it has been adapted to videogame setups for java or brew

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

11. MAMORU HOSODA

M

amoru Hosoda started out his career doing bits of anime sequences for Digimon it was while working on the television episodes that he went on to direct the big screen adaption of the popular figure. However, it was only with the the critically acclaimed and commercially successful The Girl Who Leapt Through Time that he came into prominence.

Hosoda was slated to direct Howl’s Moving Castle for Studio Ghibli before it was taken under the Studio Boss, Miyazaki. Hosoda film features a blend of reality and fiction, yet it’s contained with a strong sense of realism, this sort of exploration between a ‘virtual’ and the ‘real’ came to prominence with his latest film, Summer Wars. He is one of the defining new anime auteurs whose influences range beyond the boundaries of anime to directors like Frank Capra, Billy Wilder and Stanley Kubrick. Hosoda also collaborated with Takashi Murakami on the project Super Flat Monogram for Louis Vuitton.

PROMINENT WORKS OF HOSODA DIGIMON : DIGITAL MONSTERS ONE PIECE THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME SUMMER WARS

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

12. SATOSHI KON

B

orn in October 12, 1963, in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan, Satoshi Kon became a manga artist. His early ambition was to become a painter. He was a graduate from the Musashino college of Arts and started his career as the editor and manga artist in Young Magazine.

Kon, while still a student in 1984, won the Chiba Tetsuya Newcomer Award for Manga.

His directorial debut was the 1997 Perfect Blue. His films are known for their narrative economy and perfect amalgamation of fantasy and reality. Some of the recurring traits in his body of work include – surprising and disorienting editing, visually spellbinding ideas and cinematic speed. His second release was Millennium Actress (2001) which shared the Grand Prize in the Japan Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival, with Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. It also won the awards for Best Animation Film and Fantasia Ground-Breaker at the 2001 Fantasia Film Festival among others. His last fulllength feature film, Paprika, also received rave reviews from both the audience and the critics. The thematic consistency in his oeuvre helped in Kon being labelled as a ’postmodern anime auteur’.

PROMINENT WORKS OF KON PAPRIKA MILLENIUM ACTRESS perfect blue tokyo godfathers

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

13. MAKOTO SHINKAI

A

one man army, Makoto Shinkai single handedly brought in a ray of hope and freshness to the anime industry in the last decade. Shinkai, whose first seminal work was a short anime film titled ‘She and Her Cat’, displayed a solid command over storytelling that was uniquely his own.

Bringing forth a scheme that relied on voice over and repetition of spaces he created a work that set in motion the thematic and formal attitude that he build upon: love, distance and relationships.

Often billed as the ‘Next Miyazaki’ Shinkai’s pre-occupation are quite different from the master. For the master Miyazaki, magic realism is a tool that allows him to create a fantasy often coded with problems and conflicts of the modern world. On the other hand, for Shinkai, his pre-occupation are more intimate and formed on everyday realism, even when stories are set in confluence of sci-fiction it’s still concerned about communication, distance and the changing face of love in the various phases of human beings.

PROMINENT WORKS OF shinkai voICES OF A DISTANT STAR eaao 5 centimetres per second the plac e promised i n our early days

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

14. HONEY & CLOVER

E

very now and then when I witness a narrative in any form of art: manga, films, anime, or literature directly exploring the trials and tribulation of college years it brings warmness that is nostalgic and melancholic at the same time. For one, it makes me realize that the routine of everyday realities of college life: bus travel, classes, canteen and the dead-time in between all of them had a larger narrative working without our participation, that at the end of it all, helped in connecting the pieces of the fractured times into one cohesive drama. That had elements of suspense, love, mystery and everything that the bigger dreams in life are made of. Honey and Clover is one such gem of an anime. That is outrageously expressive in its elucidation of characters and their emotions. While the same is held together with a very concrete sense of realism that makes each of the characters in the anime come to life.

The anime is based on the manga written by Chica Umino and revolves around the life of five art students: Y큰ta Takemoto, Takumi Mayama and Shinobu Morita Hagumi Hanamoto and Ayumi Yamada. Takemoto becomes the omniscient narrator who connects all the dots in the story from the beginning of the anime series and its grande finale in season two. The anime opens with Takemoto riding a bicycle across a plain confused and questioning the very reason of his act. This motion in itself sets the platform on which the anime explores different facets of our college years. Although the visual tends to keep things balanced between humor, self-realization and a great deal of sadness but Honey and Clover beneath it all is a very intimate portrait of relationship between friends, lovers and unrequited love. Of things one could say, of thing one did say and of things one never said in their own college life, even after having spent years under the same roof.

CREATED BY CHICA UMINO IT HAS Been adapted into to AN ANIMATED TELEVISION SERIES ON FUJI TV AND ONE LIVE ACTION MOVIE

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

15. NARUTO

N

aruto is another immensely popular franchise. The anime series is based on a manga created and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The story centers around the titular protagonist Naruto Uzumaki, a young boy and a student of the Ninja Academy. Sealed within Naruto is Kyuubi no Youko (Nine Tailed Fox) a spirit, one of nine which are the manifestations of the nine chakras. The series follows Naruto and 2 of his friends, together known as team 7, on their adventures.

Naruto is a coming of age journey for the 3 characters. We explore their past and know them better to realise how deep the characters really are. Many viewers have stated a similarity between Naruto and the Dragon Ball series. Kishimoto himself has claimed DB as one of his primary influences.

I didn’t really watch Naruto until a couple of years back. Having recently finished watching the Nickelodeon show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, I was discussing it on a public forum where people were recommending watching Naruto for more action anime action. I had heard praises about it earlier and this presented an excellent time to jump into it.

CREATED BY MASASHI KISHIMOTO IT HAS Been adapted into 2 television series 6 feature films produced by studio pierrot& aniplex.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

16 anime

milestones

16. COWBOY BEPOP

S

hinichiro Watanabe’s western-film-noir stylistic science fiction anime series set in the year 2071 is one of the most satisfying and cinematic anime till date. It’s one of the rare gems that is not afraid to mix genres. There are elements of space, western noir, crime thriller and even satire. The story revolves around the crew members of the spaceship Bebop. These crew members are bounty hunters each having an interesting character, their back-story and the plot mechanics intertwine to form one of the most compelling and dramatic narrative in the history of anime. Its short run of 26 sessions makes it even more rewarding and well timed.

Cowboy Bebop is an anime for fans of complex characters driven by a motivation. The jazzy soundtrack and the space western setting gives a post-modernist feel to the series. It’s one of the most stylistic anime in the market and a must watch for any fans of anime, movies or even music.

DIRECTED BY SHINICHIRO WATANABE ITS COMMERCIAL SUCCESS LED TO 'knockin on heaven's door' a sequel and 2 serialised manga adaptations rated the second best anime of all time.

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

ENDNOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY/REFERENCE INDICES

65 INDIAN AUTEUR

AUGUST 2010

THE NEGATION OF STILLNESS / P g 9

by Anuj Malhotra

Protoculture Addicts, No. 19, 1992

1

S O U L L E S S B O D I E S / P g 17

by Prof Thomas Laparre

The essay has been abridged and modified from chapter 15 (Full Limited Animation) of Thomas Lamarre, The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

1

In Art in Motion, Furniss provides a brief overview of full and limited animation in the American context (135-53). In the context of Japanese animation, the distinction between full and limited animation has gradually settled on a distinction between Tôei dôga and Ghibli manga films on the one hand, and Mushi Pro and Tezuka Osamu’s Tetsuwan Atomu on the other. Discussion often hinges on establishing the importance of the one over the other. For an account that leans toward Miyazaki’s virtues, see Kanō Seiji, “Miyazaki sakuhin no animeeshon gijutsukō” (A study of animation techniques in Miyazaki’s works), in Miyazaki Hayao, ed. Yōrō Takeshi, Firumumeekaazu 6 (Tokyo: Kinema junpō sha, 1994), 90-104. Scriptwriter Tsuji Masaki, lays out the biases against television animation in Bokutachi no anime shi Iwanami junia shinsho 587 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2008), 161-63. Accounts of Japanese animation that dwell on otaku and subculture tend to look more favorably Tezuka and developments in limited animation, as we have seen. In Nihon animeeshon no chikara: hachijûgo nen no rekishi o tsuranuku futatsu no jiku (Tokyo: NTT shuppan, 2004), Tsugata Nobuyuki organizes his account around two axes, which reprises the contrast between Miyazaki and Tezuka, with Miyazaki’s statements about the lack of value of Tezuka’s animation playing a crucial role (30-31).

2

There was indeed dialogue and interaction between full and limited animation. In his chapter on the prehistory of television animation, “Terebi anime zenshi: Tôei chôhen anime no jidai” (Prehistory of television anime: the age of Tōei’s feature-length anime),” in Zusetsu terebi anime zensho (The complete book of television anime, illustrated), ed. Mi-

3

sono Makoto (Tokyo: Hara shobō, 1999), Sugiyama Taku traces the movement of animators from Tôei to Mushi Pro and later other television animation studios, which led to the image of Tôei Animation as Tôei University, as a training site for animators (115-16; 119). He also reminds us that the success of Mushi Pro spurred Tôei into the television animation industry, where they too had to make adjustments toward limited animation (134-36). Ôtsuka provides one of the clearest statements of this distinction in a book of interviews with Mori Yûki entitled Ôtsuka Yasuo intabyuu: animeeshon jûô mujin (Ōtsuka Yasuo interviews: animation every which way) (Tokyo: Jitsugyô no Nihonsha, 2006), in the second chapter, especially pages 54-55. See, too, Kanô Seiji, “Miyazaki sakuhin no animeeshon gijutsu-kô,” 50-58.

Even psychoanalytic commentator Saitô Tamaki tries to build on the idea that Miyazaki does not use tome-e, but oddly enough, in order to ground an emphasis on context over materiality, which recalls the logic of suture.

See Saitô Tamaki, “‘Undō’ no riinri,: aruiwa hyōshzō kontekusuto shikiron.” (Ethics of “movement,” or a preliminary account of symbolic context), in Miyazaki Hayao no sekai (The world of Miyazaki Hayao), ed.

Sugawa Yoshiyuki, special issue, Eureka 29, no. 11 (August 1997): .” Special issue, Eureka 29, no. 11 (August 199777-85.

4

In Anime ga sekai o tsunagu Iwanami junia shinsho 591 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2008), artist, animator and director Suzuki Shin’ichi speaks of his interest in design in a positive way (106-7), without insisting on a divide between design and animation, in a manner that contrasts sharply with that of Ghibli researcher Kanô Seiji in “Miyazaki sakuhin no animeeshon gijutsu-kô,” 50-58.

5

Okada Toshio, Otakugaku nyūmon: tōdai “‘otaku bunkaron zemi”’ kōninshiki tekisuto (Introduction to otakuology: the official text of the “seminar on otaku culture” at Tokyo University). Shinchō OH! bunkō 019.

6

INDIAN AUTEUR AUTEUR AUGUST AUGUST 2010 2010 66 INDIAN

Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1996.

Mori Takuya, Animeeshon nyûmon (Tokyo: Bijutsu shuppansha, 1966), especially pages 41-45.

7

The exhibition originally ran from July 15 to August 31, 2004, but subsequently moved to Kobe December 12, 2004 to January 15, 2005. The full title of the exhibit and catalog was Nihon manga eiga no zenbô: sono tanjô kara “Sen to Chiro no kamikakushi,” soshite… (Tokyo: Tôkyô-to gendi bijutsukan, 2004).

The official English title omits reference to manga films, styling the title Japanese Animated Films. Ôtsuka Yasuo is credited as editorial supervisor.

8

Ôtsuka Yasuo no ogokasu yorokobi. Studio Ghibli telebi-manyunion, 2004.

9

Miyazaki insisted on calling his films manga eiga as early as the first Ghibli production Castle in the Sky in 1985. His miscellaneous writings show that he was conscious of the distinctiveness of manga films even earlier: “Animeeshon to manga eiga,” from 1982, makes this clear. In a 1988 essay, “Nihon animeeshon ni tsuite,” in Shuppatsuten, Miyazaki gives a nice account of the emphasis on anime adaptation of manga and the result techniques that meant that “movement itself could not help to change” (106-7). He thus parses two streams of animation, styling anime as hyôgenshugi, a manner of “representationalism,” which led in limited animation to an emphasis on tome-e (107).

Despite Miyazaki’s long emphasis on this distinction, it is only in recent years that in Studio Ghibli has become insistent on developing and promoting their manga film lineage, and was even responsible for the republication of Imamura Taihei’s Manga eiga ron (Tokyo: Tokuma shoten, 2005), originally published in 1941 and often touted as the first book-length study of animation. This is odd in the sense that Imamura Taihei evokes very different terms for the analysis of anime, which are more keeping with Oshii Mamoru’s discussion of actuality. See discussion in Chapter 3 and note 9 to that chapter. See, too, Mark Driscoll, “From kino-eye to anime-eye/ai: the filmed and the animated in Imamura Taihei’s media theory,” in Between Cinema and Anime special issue of Japan Forum 14:2 (2002): 269-96.

10

Especially in the first chapter of his book Sakuga asemamire (The blood, sweat, and tears of making pictures) (Tokyo: Tokuma shoten, 2001), Ôtsuka Yasuo provides an introduction to movement in animation, using many of the examples that appear in the documentary film and stressing the Tôei Dôga and Studio Ghibli lineage. See too his discussion of ugoki-e in Ôtsuka Yasuo intabyuu.

from anime. Ghibli researcher Kanô Seiji, in “Miyazaki sakuhin no animeeshon gijutsu-kô,” points out that the number of sheets used in Miyazaki’s television animations (often Takahata and Ôtsuka Yasuo collaborations) was steadily rising, and stresses that they were using full animation techniques in their television productions (93-94).

Tsugata Nobuyuki, Nihon animeeshon no chikara: hachijûgo nen no rekishi o tsuranuku futatsu no jiku (The power of Japanese animation: two axes running through an eighty-five year history) (Tokyo: NTT shuppan, 2004), 32.

13

Akitauki Takahiro, ‘Koma’ kara ‘firumu’ e: manga to manga eiga (From ‘panel’ to ‘film’: manga and manga films) (Tokyo: NTT shuppan, 2005), 153.

14

15 Mori Takuya, 29. See, too, then entry on limited animation at Wikipedia as well as Furniss, Art in Motion, 135-53.

Mori Takuya, 33.

16

Ban Toshio and Tezuka Purodakushon, Tezuka Osamu monogatari: manga no yume, anime no yume 1960-1989 (The Tezuka Osamu story: dreams of manga, dreams of anime, 1960-1989) (Asahi shinbunsha, 1992), 43-45. Insofar as this is a manga biography endorsed by Tezuka Production, there is tendency to stress Tezuka’s aspirations as an artist, whence the mention of his experimental animation. But the point about mass culture versus avant-garde experimentation holds.

17

18 Misono Makoto, “Terebi anime reimeiki no paionia-tachi” (The pioneers at the dawn of television animation), in Zusetsu terebi anime zensho, ed Misono Makoto (Tokyo: Hara shobô, 1999), 134.

Misono, “Terebi anime reimeiki no paionia-tachi,” 136.

19

Kanô, in “Miyazaki sakuhin no animeeshon gijutsukō,” 93-94.

20

Miyazaki’s use of the term hyôgenshugi to describe limited animaton is interesting here if read against the grain, for it could be read less in terms of static representation and in terms of a dynamic art of describing.

21

11

12 In the Ghibli documentary, Takahata and Miyazaki credit Ôtsuka with introducing radical new artistic possibilities into television animation, which sparked their enthusiasm for this medium. Even in the context of television, they strive to differentiate their work

Tsugata, Nihon animeeshon no chikara, 140-42.

22

Tsugata, Nihon animeeshon no chikara, 32-33, and note 4 on page 32.

23

Ishiyama Yukihiro, in Kamishibai bunkashi: shiryô de yomitoku kamishibai no rekishi (A cultural history of kamishibai: reading the history of kamishibai through the material record) (Tokyo: Hôbun shorin, 2008), provides a thorough overview of the chronology of kamishibai, while Kan Jun, in Kamishibai to ‘Bukimi na mono’ tachi no kindai (Kamishibai and the modernity of those deemed “uncanny”) (Tokyo: Seikyûsha, 2007), gives an analysis of the relation between sound and voice, with an emphasis on the strangeness or the uncanny quality that this lent to paper theater.

See, too, the photos on 42-43. I am especially grateful to Yassan at the Kyoto Manga Museum for his demonstrations and explana 24

INDIAN AUTEUR AUTEUR AUGUST AUGUST 2010 2010 67 INDIAN

from anime. Ghibli researcher Kanô Seiji, in “Miyazaki sakuhin no animeeshon gijutsu-kô,” points out that the number of sheets used in Miyazaki’s television animations (often Takahata and Ôtsuka Yasuo collaborations) was steadily rising, and stresses that they were using full animation techniques in their television productions (9394).

Tsugata Nobuyuki, Nihon animeeshon no chikara: hachijûgo nen no rekishi o tsuranuku futatsu no jiku (The power of Japanese animation: two axes running through an eighty-five year history) (Tokyo: NTT shuppan, 2004), 32.

13

14 Akitauki Takahiro, ‘Koma’ kara ‘firumu’ e: manga to manga eiga (From ‘panel’ to ‘film’: manga and manga films) (Tokyo: NTT shuppan, 2005), 153.

Mori Takuya, 29. See, too, then entry on limited animation at Wikipedia as well as Furniss, Art in Motion, 135-53.

15

Mori Takuya, 33.

16

material record) (Tokyo: Hôbun shorin, 2008), provides a thorough overview of the chronology of kamishibai, while Kan Jun, in Kamishibai to ‘Bukimi na mono’ tachi no kindai (Kamishibai and the modernity of those deemed “uncanny”) (Tokyo: Seikyûsha, 2007), gives an analysis of the relation between sound and voice, with an emphasis on the strangeness or the uncanny quality that this lent to paper theater. See, too, the photos on 42-43. I am especially grateful to Yassan at the Kyoto Manga Museum for his demonstrations and explanations long after years.

See “The Brain is the Screen: An Interview with Gilles Deleuze” in The Brain is the Screen, ed. Gregory Flaxman (University of Minnesota, 2000), 365-73.

33

I continue to put evolution in scare quotes to avoid the misreading of Simondon’s, Deleuze’s or my account in terms of the adaptionist paradigm. See Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewotin, “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 205 (1979): 581-598.

34

I am deliberating evoking some of the language of Max Horkeimer and Theodor Adorno’s notion of a “shock of enlightenment” in Dialectics of Enlightenment, trans. Joan Cumming (New York: Continuum, 1982), not merely to layer it suggestively onto Deleuze’s notion of the timeimage but to suggest that we might read these two different dialectics (one leading to the time-image, and the other to the shock of enlightenment) polyphonically, even though this is a project extending well beyond the aims of this book.

35

Ban Toshio and Tezuka Purodakushon, Tezuka Osamu monogatari: manga no yume, anime no yume 1960-1989 (The Tezuka Osamu story: dreams of manga, dreams of anime, 1960-1989) (Asahi shinbunsha, 1992), 43-45. Insofar as this is a manga biography endorsed by Tezuka Production, there is tendency to stress Tezuka’s aspirations as an artist, whence the mention of his experimental animation. But the point about mass culture versus avantgarde experimentation holds.

17

Misono Makoto, “Terebi anime reimeiki no paioniatachi” (The pioneers at the dawn of television animation), in Zusetsu terebi anime zensho, ed Misono Makoto (Tokyo: Hara shobô, 1999), 134.

18

Misono, “Terebi anime reimeiki no paionia-tachi,” 136.

19

Kanô, in “Miyazaki sakuhin no animeeshon gijutsukō,” 93-94.

20

Miyazaki’s use of the term hyôgenshugi to describe limited animaton is interesting here if read against the grain, for it could be read less in terms of static representation and in terms of a dynamic art of describing.

21

Tsugata, Nihon animeeshon no chikara, 140-42.

22

Tsugata, Nihon animeeshon no chikara, 32-33, and note 4 on page 32.

23

24 Ishiyama Yukihiro, in Kamishibai bunkashi: shiryô de yomitoku kamishibai no rekishi (A cultural history of kamishibai: reading the history of kamishibai through the

36 This is, of course, a different aspect of Cartesianism, the mind-body dualism that is generally albeit loosely attributed to Cartesianism in the form of so-called Cartesianism dualism. Channeling the animetic interval into character animation creates a sense of a gap within character action, which can be stabilized in Cartesian dualism or opened as a crisis in Cartesian dualism. Although, due to considerations of length, I excised material related to this aspect of how anime thinks technology, I should mention, parenthetically, because it bears on my discussion here, that such a line of inquiry passed through Oshii Mamoru’s neoPlatonic take on the cyborg, which reprises the problems of Cartesian dualism that both Merleau-Ponty and Yuasa Yasuo strived to overcome phenomenologically, and which Vicki Kirby has recently deconstructed in preparation for a feminist critique of the dualisms that still attend thinking about the body. See Vicki Kirby, “Culpability and the Double-Cross: Irigaray with Merleau-Ponty,” in Feminist Interpretations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, ed. Dorothy Olkowski and Gail Weiss, (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 127-146 [ms13].

Deleuze, Cinema I, 215

37

INDIANAUTEUR AUTEUR AUGUST AUGUST 2010 2010 68 INDIAN

Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on Control Societies,” in Negotiations: 1972-1990 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 181.

38

In one of his discussions of limited animation and anime, “Nihon animation ni tsuite” in Shuppatsuten (100-115), Miyazaki stresses the emphasis on manga sources in limited animation. This may appear ironic in the light of his own adaptation of his manga Nausicaä into an animated film, but in fact, Miyazaki not only opposed adapting the manga but also felt he had written a manga that resisted adaptation. Indeed his animated version significantly changes the manga.

39

Marc Steinberg also takes up the question of the relation between limited animation and the serialization of anime characters across media, but with a different emphasis and in the specific context of Astro Boy. See Steinberg, “Immobile Sections and Trans-series Movement: Astro Boy and the Emergence of Anime,” Animation: An Interdiscipinary Journal 1:2 (2006): 190-206.

40

Okada Toshio, Otakugaku nyûmon, 16.

41

These comments originally appeared in an interview with Sadamoto Yoshiyuki included in the 1999 deluxe edition of Der Mond, a book on Sadamoto’s art. I am citing from a “fanlation” and commentary on Sadamoto accessed July 18 2007 at http://eva.onegeek.org/pipermail/evangelion.2006November.

42

Morikawa Kaichiro, in “Evangerion no dezain riron” (Design theory of Evangelion), in Evangerion suutairu, puts the bandages of Ayanami Rei in a broader context of the art historical unconscious, and in Dôbutsuka suru posutomodan, Azuma Hiroki sees in this character image a turning point in the history of animation toward otaku assemblage and thus database.

43

THE ARCHITECTURE OF MAMORU OSHII FILMS / P g 30

by Gautam Valluri

Midnight Eye interview with Mamoru Oshii http://www. midnighteye.com/interviews/mamoru_oshii.shtml 2 Midnight Eye interview with Mamoru Oshii http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/mamoru_oshii. shtml 3 Midnight Eye interview with Mamoru Oshii http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/mamoru_oshii. shtml 4 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence page at Wikipedia http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_2:_Innocence 5 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence page at Wikipedia http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_2:_Innocence 1

INDIANAUTEUR AUTEUR AUGUST AUGUST2010 2010 69 INDIAN

“Then, I’ll show you the starry, starry sky, like I promised you I would.”

SATOSHI KON (1963-2010)

INDIANAUTEUR AUTEUR AUGUST AUGUST2010 2010 70 INDIAN

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010

They say true talent will always emerge in time, When lightening hits small wonder Its fast rough factory trade No expense accounts, or lunch discounts Or hypeing up the charts, The band went in, ‘n’ knocked ‘em dead, in 2 min. 59 I know the boy was all alone, till the Hitsville hit U.K. So hit it The Clash

INDIAN AUTEUR AUGUST 2010