Kyousougiga with Yumiko Igarashi eyes

Yase from the TV anime KYOUSOUGIGA. Sparklyyy!!!

While watching the new TV-anime KYOUSOUGIGA last year and after seeing the character Yase, I couldn’t stop thinking about where I have seen these kind of eyes before. They seemed to be a reference to typical shojo manga eyes from the 70s and 80s mainly, for sure. But these eyes embody a very specific style of shojo manga that I couldn’t quite grasp white exactly it was.

Now I know it has a name: Yumiko Igarashi. Her manga a truely the embodiment of what we would call truely purely shojo manga. Some of her most famous titles ar GEORGIE and CANDY CANDY.

Yumiko Igarashi CANDY CANDY

And the huge eyes of the characters with the iris covering almost all of the eyeball and almost more sparkles and reflections then you see of the eyes pupil certainly gave me a chill when I was small, somewhere between amazingly sweet and totally creepy.

I’m not sure if other people feel the same about these eyes but Yase from KYOUSOUGIGA seems to perfectly embody these ambivalent feelings, sometimes truely lady like and vers sweet and the next moment turning into a uncontroled monster smashing everything to small pieces around her.

Sparklyygggrowl! Yase from KYOUSOUGIGA

Japan Animtor Expo weekly short animes

Visual Art from ME!ME!ME!

I’ve posted earlier about several Anime Mirai projects. I always find it interesting to find these kind of small projects and to see what the creators decide to do with the freedom they have while being limited by time and the small size of the project. How far can the ambition of a creative soul grow beyond the restraints of the circumstances? These short films truly are a chance to see into the creative mind of some brilliant artists.

Ongoing at the moment is a project called Japan Animator Expo. Studio Khara (founded by Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno) together with Dwango (the company behind the Japanese youtube-equivalent Nico Nico Douga) release a short work every week.

So far 3 shorts are out and another one is coming up. They’re listed here with the link to the official page where you can watch them in full length. They actually have a English version of the homepage and have added English subtitles to the films, which is a rather rare but very welcome service on a Japanese official website.

01: The Dragon Dentist

02: Hill Climb Girl

03: ME!ME!ME!

04: Carnage (coming soon)

I was specially blown away by the prowess of ME!ME!ME! I suppose the presentation of the female body can be heavily discussed here, but as a explosive expression of the protagonist’s psyche it really left me with this certain tingle in my stomach and sparkle in my eyes that make me want to believe again in the magic of animation! Surely some scenes heavily reuse animation, but others you just stand there and your mind goes blank as you watch the tour de force of animation! Specially in the second half there certainly is some amazing filmic and animated imagery.

Here’s a link the the article on this project on AnimeNewsNetwork.

Kagerou Project – Media interconnected

Recently I’m totally hooked on something called KAGEROU PROJECT! And it’s an interesting example for how different media can be used centering around one story.

The kind of media mix (not transmedia in its true meaning) used in Kagerou Project is already well known from other projects. In his talk at the Cartoon Museum in Basel on September 1st, Prof. Dr. Bernd Dolle-Weinkauff called it the media alliance, which is a cascade like structure showing how a story runs through different media formats in a set order. It usually starts with a manga, since it costs the least and offers a platform to see how the story works with an audience. If it proved successful, it can be adopted as a OVA first on a small market or directly as a TV series. If those were popular enough, a feature film often follows. There are other cases where TV series get adopted as a manga, too. It seems to me that the Japanese (market?) wants to enjoy a story in all it’s formats.

Games are an other common source for TV series and at least since the great success of THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA, light novels are a powerful member of that league, too, to the extent that some people start groaning: “Not another of those light-novel-adaption type anime!”

What is unusual about KAGEROU PROJECT is that is started with songs by Jin (a.k.a. Shizen no Teki-P) using vocaloid voices (mostly IA) but using original characters in the PVs produced by Shidu and Wannyanpu. And most importantly, with his songs Jin created a story and a whole universe that got adapted into a manga and a light novel series and a TV series has been announced as well which is to be produced by studio Shaft and directed by Akiyuki Shinbo (my absolutely favorite combination, so I’m almost going crazy!!!).

The links to the official site below:

http://mekakushidan.com/

I was surprised when I found out that there is an other project with almost the same CV: DEMISE PROJECT also started as a song series by 150P, picking up urban legends and shaping them into songs also using vacaloid voices. And it also got adapted into a novel and a manga.

Are these projects laying out the blueprint for how stories will be developed and produced in the future?

All Aboard the Omnibus!

Did you know that on June the 20th a new omnibus film by
Katsuhiro Otomo with several short films by major Japanese
animation filmmakers premiered? I just found out a few days ago,
and it looks mighty interesting!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzs392_short-peace_shortfilms

Some may know that Otomo has past experience in making omnibus films
with MEMORIES, which featured shorts by Koji Morimoto, Tensai
Okamura and Otomo himself. The new omnibus features: COMBUSTIBLE
(HIYOUCHIN) by Otomo, TSUKUMO by Shuhei Morita, GAMBO by Hiroaki
Ando, BUKI YO SARABA by Hajime Katoki. What isn’t mentioned in many
places is that it also includes an opening by Koji Morimoto.
However I’m puzzled why only COMBUSTIBLE and TSUKUMO are listed on
the English version of the homepage.

http://shortpeace-movie.com/

 

Japanese Animation Studios – behind the scene

During my hikes through internetland (and especially Youtubia) I’ve found several clips allowing a peek behind the doors of several animation studios, giving an insight into how Japanese productions work.
So I thought I’d collect them all hear in one place. Additions are very welcome and I will surely add more links myself later.
For those of you who have always wondered what the difference to Western productions might be or just what they might be about.

Here is a series of clips following the production of KANON at Kyoto Animation. Kyoto Animation is probably most famous for K-ON and THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA. And their one of the studios that showed that successful animation can be produced even outside of Tokyo.

Next is a report on the studio J.C. Staff by Culture Japan. J.C. Staff have worked on UTENA, TORADORA and BAKUMAN, but also realized NEKOJIRU-SOU (which is an exceptional animation).

Studio Ghibli has produced a whole series of making-ofs and behind-the-scenes, always titled ○○ WA KOUSHITE UMARETA (○○ WAS BORN LIKE THIS). In the film focusing on PRINCESS MONONOKE I specially liked how detailed the explain the job of the camera and special effect artists, who in other making-ofs often are left out.

The real indie

In the last article I discussed the indie status of LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA. If you want to find some real Japanese indie animation shorts, try searching for “自主制作” on youtube, meaning exactly “independant production”. You will also find several playlists. Problem might be that their usually only in Japanese without subtitles. The shorts range from very well done films to amateur works, from brilliant ideas to clichés. “フミコの告白” (fumiko no kokuhaku, fumiko’s confession) is one that’s animated really well and has earned some recognition.
Have a look and if you find one you specially like, why not post a comment? I’d be very interested to know!

What’s the deal with Little Witch Academia?

A friend of mine asked me recently whether I knew anything about the anime LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA. As it happened, I had stumbled upon an article on this title, but hadn’t read further than the headlines since I had never heard of it before. Now I went back to look for the article – and here it is is!
The story my friend told me was that this short film had been very popular and successful even though it was “some sort of indie production”. Now, as a auteur film maker ourselves, anything indie AND successful of course draws our attention. After a bit of research i found out what that “sort of indie production” exactly was. The first confusing thing was that it was produced by a studio with some rather well known titles (Black Rock Shooter). And with 25 minutes it conforms with the regular TV episode length – which means the mainstream format. And then the keyword “Young Animator Training Project” turned up, of which I had heard before in connection with some other titles. And finally Wikipedia (as so often) come up with the answer: Young Animator Training Project started in 2010 and became annual in 2012 under the name of Anime Mirai. It’s funded by the government’s Agency of Cultural Affairs and supports 4 selected projects of all applications. It’s goal is to encourage projects executed in Japan that give young animators the opportunity to get on the job training by experienced animators. This became necessary because more and more work was getting outsourced to other countries e.g. Korea. Summing it up, these films are somewhat independently financed projects meaning not financed through the industry and with not entirely commercial intentions, but produced by mostly well established or upcoming studios (Production I.G., Madhouse, P.A. Works, A-1 Pictures, Studio 4°C).
I am somewhat surprised that from all, LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA has received so much attention and popularity. I admit that the animation is beautiful and the visual look is beautiful – in American terms. Because the movements are fluid and exaggerated, but differs from the philosophy which you can find not only in many other animes but also in other Japanese arts/sports such as kendo. I was lucky enough to be at a conference where Hiroshi Nagahama (director of MUSHISHI and just recently AKU NO HANA) talked about how in anime as in kendo you focus your energy to where it’s crucial and effective, to one spot, in order to achieve the optimal result. (I hope I can post the video of it as soon as possible). When everything is moving almost hysterically, as generally the case in classic American animation, you don’t know where to put your focus, which movement to follow, and lots of energy gets wasted on maybe beautiful but ineffective work (that’s exactly the feeling i got when I rewatched PRINCE OF EGYPT).
And concerning it’s visual look, it differs from the typical anime look. The lines are more curved, the basic shapes are closer to the circle as is so typical of Disney, and you could say it somewhat looks more “cartoony”. It goes as far as that I wouldn’t have been surprised if somebody had shown it to me saying it was an American production. It also reminded me of PANTY AND STOCKING, which is more graphic, though, but also very different from typical anime. Their connection is that the director of LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA was responsible for the concept art in PANTY AND STOCKING. All in all, I wonder whether the popularity of LITTLE WITCH ACADEMIA does not actually just mean a greater popularity amongst American audiences which in turn is due to it being more familiar to them.

Mucha Takato Psychedelic

Yesterday I went to see the Mucha exhibition at the Bellerive Museum with Cesare and Manu. It’s officially titled MUCHA MANGA MYSTERY, but after having walked through the exhibition some I wonder how fitting the last two keywords really are.
There are some works that I’ve missed in the exhibition. The Mucha part was beautiful and complete with some film and sound documents. But besides the manga part having been researched very superficially (as Jane has noted correctly, who had already been to the exhibition before and has warned me about certain deficiencies), with some very questionable examples in this context (GHOST IN THE SHELL?!?), the third part of the title is even more puzzling. As Cesare commented fittingly, “psychedelic” would describe it much better than “mystery” regarding all the 60s and 70s record covers and posters that were exhibited. But you’re right, “Mucha Manga Mystery” just sounds better.
Two texts that I’ve missed from a Japanese perspective are first of all the opening of the anime series GOSICK with very obvious Art-Nouveau references (specially in comparison to GHOST IN THE SHELL).
And UTENA, that was also exhibited, is rather victorian in my opinion. Am I wrong?
And on the other hand not only, but especially Takato Yamamoto as a representative of Ero-Guro is clearly related to Mucha. Although in this case maybe indirectly, I admit, since his artwork has mainly been influenced by Japanese woodcuts which have also been a strong influence on Art-Nouveau. But some floral elements clearly are closer to Art-Nouveau than to Ukiyo-e.
While writing this article I started wondering why I couldn’t think of any more contemporary western examples in connection with Mucha. Surely you occasionally can find single graphics that follow in his tradition. But is it really possible that the East has been influenced more lastingly? Or can it really be drawn back to that the origins are in the Japanese print graphics in the first place? There were some examples of American comics displayed at the exhibition, sure. What comes to my mind additionally are the flowing drapings in SPAWN. But there surely must also exist some other examples from Europe?
If anyone has an idea, please let me know.

Let’s go Polymanga!

Who doesn’t know about the POLYMANGA festival yet? … I didn’t until a few days ago. But now I know: It’s a manga festival in Lausanne that also includes a huge anime section and concerts. I guess it evolves all around anything Japanese pop culture and bande désinée. This year it’s taking place from April 7th to 9th. Now that I know about it I can’t help but go. Maybe you’ll have the pleasure to read more about in a later post! It seems that the French part of Switzerland has quite a vivid manga/anime and bande désinée culture. And it’s amazing how little we in the German speaking part know about it… So people: Communicate and get connected! Across and within national borders! So that our future may be more ANIME!!!
What I’m especially looking forward to:

BODACIOUS SPACE PIRATES: The Japanese title is MOURETSU PIRATES, or Moupai in short. Actually, it’s based on a novels series titled MINISUKA PIRATES. Both the anime and the novels titel would suggest a hentai story (minisuka referring to miniskirt and moupai sounding similar to oppai – breasts). But I’ve heard it’s  suprisingly different and good. Can’t quite think of in what way or how the story should go (female pirates in space?!?) but EXACTLY the reason why I’m so curious!

BLACK ROCK SHOOTER: I’ve actually seen this already. Or at least one season of it. Because I think there are more of this? And there’s also a video game. It totally had me hooked the first time I saw it, though. The story had a unique feeling to it, while in other animes there’s a tendency that the same plot gets reused again and again. And it has a nice visual look, especially some scenes set in the parallel world are really amazing. Towards the end I couldn’t help a certain frustrated, disappointed feeling, though. Maybe because it didn’t go any further than what it sets up in the beginning. And some important events in the story come very suddenly and are left behind again quickly without gong into the depth. But I might be wrong there. So I’m looking forward to seeing it once more with new eyes. Maybe I will change my mind afterwards…

RED LINE: If you want to know how the orgasm of a car might feel like, then whatch this film! When I saw it I had my jaw dropped on the floor over whole sections! And the end is just perfect in a wrong way… But I won’t say more!

5 CENTIMETERS PER SECOND: This film has become a strong influence on me! It’s the 1st film I’d seen by director MAKOTO SHINKAI and it seems that it shares some themes with his earlier films but I think I would still like this one best after I saw all of them. It’s just so nicely balanced out. Very sensitively told story that comes across mainly through the beautifully depicted sceneries and atmospheres. The film invites you to experience the moment so intensively and at the same time very calmly, making you almost forget about time and space.

NISEMONOGATARI: There are all kinds of these MONOGATARIS. I’ve seen a bit of BAKEMONOGATARI. The special thing about the title is that BAKEMONO means “monster” and MONOGATARI means “tale”. So MONO in the middle is used in two different contexts and they use this principal in the other titles as well. BAKEMONOGATARI was recommanded to me because I’ actually a huge fan of the same studio’s ARAKAWA UNDER THE BRIDGE, which is hilariously weird and self ironic. From what I’ve heard studio SHAFT is famous for building in many references in its films.

TIGER & BUNNY: The 1st time I’ve heard of this I was completely disinterested since it seemed like another of those action fueled films focused around battles and robots and superheros. But I think it’s very aware of this type of films and plays with the expectations you would have. The idea of a city where superheros are sponsored by big companies and they serve as advertisments for them seemes to prove also some awareness of our society nowadays. And one of the main characters being a father and struggling with his aging sounds like this film might have some really interesting twists, too.

AKIRA: I hope it will be screened in it’s original language because I’ve only seen it in German so far. And I hope I then will find it better. Somehow I wasn’t so awed out as I had expected to be judging from how everybody talks about it. I mean, its sort if punky frustration is so 80s! But when I had heard a track from its soundtrack recently creatd by XXX I was courious to see the whole film again. Maybe also focusing more the music this time.

COLORFUL: I must have seen or read something about this film because I had noted its title. But I haven’t seen anything from it and neither do I know anything I could possibly say about it. Hopefully I will know more to say about it once I’ve seen it.