Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

y passion which was in fashion at that time. Indeed,
when the audience got excessively involved with the
piece of work, and sympathized with it more than the
work expressed, this method was overwhelmingly
supported by the audience. However, as the passion
wore out, it merely became the easiest pattern of
technique. And to turn around the adverse situation,
expression in Anime more and more became excessively
decorative. Character design became more and more
complicated. Huge eyes had seven-colored highlights.
More and more shadows were painted in different
colors, and hair was painted in bright colors of every
possible shade. It makes animators suffer, by increasing
the workload of those who are paid by the quantity of
animation they drew. The pattern has become
prevalent to a frightening degree. To all these identifiable
and uniquely Anime traits Miyazaki-san expressed:
Maybe I, too, am exaggerating the situation of
Japanese Anime. Not all Japanese Anime is run by
excessive expressionism. I do not say that there was
no effort made to establish their own style of acting
under various constraints. I do not say that there
was no effort made to depict time and space with
a sense of existence. I do not say that there was no
effort made to refuse to be a subordinate of Manga.
However, most of them followed this trend of
expressionism, and many of the young staff joined
the Anime industry because they admired this
excessive expressionism. 17
Miyazaki-san has proven on numerous occasions how
much love could be put into a work of animation, and
how much the movement of the pictures can sublimate
to acting. His movies exemplify an animator’s notion
that when one draws a simple and strong emotion
earnestly and purely, animation can strike people’s
hearts as much as the best works of other media can.
He opined:
If an audience can be released from the stress or
sorrow in their daily lives; can release their gloomy
emotion, can find unexpected admiration, honesty, or
affirmation in themselves, and can return to their
daily lives with a bit more energy, that’s the role
of a popular movie. Hence, I think that a popular
movie has to be full of true emotion, even if it’s
frivolous. The entrance should be low and wide so
that anyone can be invited in, but the exit should
be high and purified. It shouldn’t be something
that admits, emphasizes, or enlarges the lowness.
I don’t like Disney movies. The entrance and the
exit are lined up at the same low height and width.
I can’t help but feel that it looks down on the audience. 18
ENGAGING MODERNITY: RELIGION, GENDER, AND ART 145
Noting the excessive expressionism in Anime and loss of
motivation, Miyazaki-san lamented:
I don’t feel like defending, speaking for, or
analyzing Japanese Anime. Anime is more suitable
to be discussed together with computer games,
foreign cars, or playing gourmet. When I discuss
Anime with my friends, it somehow turns into a
discussion about our cultural situation, the
desolation of the society, or our tightly controlled
society. Something called the Anime boom had
come and gone. But there is no use talking about
it. If there is something we have to talk about, it’s
the “excessive expressionism” and the “loss of
motives” in Japanese Anime. These two are corrupting
Japanese popular animation. 19
Miyazaki-san observed that in spite of numerous
animation techniques, most of the popular Japanese
animation had been successfully created by employing
cel animation process. Cel, meaning celluloid sheet, has
become vinyl chloride sheet, but animators still use the
same abbreviation today. Using this technique, a
picture on paper is transferred to cel (by adhering carbon
via heat treatment); then, it is colored with waterbased
vinyl paint and filmed with the background. This
technique was developed in Japan almost at the same
time as in the United States. He furthered:
Cel Anime is a technique suitable for group work,
and the images in cel Anime are clear and have
strong appeal. The clarity of the images at the same
time means their shallowness. To make cel animation
with a certain quality, you need a group of
technicians with talent and patience. 20
On rotoscoping, a technique to draw poses and timing
from live action film, he commented that this was
developed in the United States and the Soviet Union
because the limits of animators’ imagination and ability
to draw was clear from early on. However, in Japan,
rotoscoping did not become popular.
It isn’t just because of economic reasons. I myself
hate this technique. If animators were enslaved by
live-action films, the excitement in the animator’s
work would lessen by half. Though we can also say
that we didn’t have an acting style after which we
could model. Bunraku, Kabuki, Noh, or Kyougen
are too far apart from our works, and Japanese
musicals or ballet which are just borrowed [from
the West] didn’t interest us. 21
Miyazaki-san hailed the way Japanese animators proceed
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows