15/02/2020, an half overview of the book Japanese Animation
Since Japanese animation has been succeeding around the world, as well-known as American animation nowadays, I think it is worth studying the precious experience of developing animation from Japan. So I searched a book Japanese Animation and have been reading some articles from this book for weeks. Now I am giving a brief overview of these studying essays below.
There are four main periods in Japanese animation developing history since the first animated film by Japanese released in 1917.
From 1910s~1920s, which we could call the pioneer time, both Japanese cartoonists and entrepreneurs began to make animated films when inspired mostly by French and American animation shorts. Cartoonists representatives were Shimokawa Oten (1892-1973) and Kouchi Jun-ichi (1886-1970) who made few films a year but soon went into financial crisis. And the other was Kitayama Seitaro (1888-1945), the painter & entrepreneur of art magazines, who established the Kitayama Film Studio in 1921 with ten films produced per year. He finally succeeded through devising new technology and establishing mass production system on a commercial basis.
Then came to 1930s~1940s, two different accesses to animation production—-collective and individual productions—-appeared into the competition of Japanese animation, leading two categories of animation’s developments later. The animator Masaoka Kenos (1898-1988) acclaimed as “the father of Japanese animation” to Japanese public introduced cel animation and talkies, and developed a system of collective production, having a tremendous impact on Japanese animation but remaining unknown to the international society during the postwar time. Meanwhile, Ofuji Noburo (1900-1961) bringing new genres of animation and colour films insisted on individual production and was highly praised overseas due to his personal works containing absurd stories and many elements of eroticism which have been being criticized for decades. Thus, their efforts towards different standpoints of animation production have been producing differences in the style of the finished works in Japan. And the content of works from collective production tended towards popular taste and large capitals while the individual works went into the independent area.
The third period 1950s~1970s is the significant part of Japanese animation, which resulted in a totally different way of development in animation we called anime later when comparing the west and American animation. Under the background that many Japanese audiences and producers were attracted by the latest released Disney’s animated features (like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and American TV animation series, some Japanese producers wanted to imitated this kind of commercial model of animation. For example, Toei Doga (in his Toei Animation Studio) in 1956 followed this trend to make its first animated feature Hakujaden, but failed to compete with Disney’s featured films in popularity.
However, later in January 1963, Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989) released his TV serials work Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) which changed people’s taste of Japanese animation and created a new style of animation we call anime nowadays. This time was a competition between featured animation films and TV serials.
Unlike Disney’s mass production based on huge industries and large capitals, Tezuka found TV series could be better produced under a lower budget and less time. He also found that American TV series were short and therefore could not express any great variety of narrative or character emotions. Thus, he set up a new principle for Japanese animation production connected with pop culture and merchandise—-a system that could possibly produce long, complex and diverse stories in animation forms, and leading a twofold approach that of pursuing story interest and that of emphasising the emotional expressions of characters, achieving preponderance very soon. While this could also be causing problems like increasing the burden of animators’ works and a shortage of animators, bringing the poverty to many Japanese animators.
Form 1980s~1990s, Japanese animation went into a new market including mass market and “mania”. In 1984 Studio Ghibli founder Miyazaki Hayao released feature film Kaze no tan no nausicaa (Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind) and soon made themselves become mass-market brands, reviving Japanese feature animation films and appealing a much broader ages of audiences. Meanwhile, some Japanese animators did not want to be limited by large capitals. Therefor, they made some animations bringing their thoughts but not following the mass taste. For instance, Shin-seiki Evangelion (1995) and Ghost in the Shell (1995) attracted a wider interest and became a hit in America. Thus, “mania” had been created to describe certain works that are produced for only a limited fan base and a constant interest.
Now, many Japanese audiences are already divided into diverse areas of interests from animation, and the commercial animation has become one of main props of economy in Japan. Probably owning to the diversified tastes from anime fans, Ghibli’s output has lasted a long-term decline in industry.