The Long Road to Miyazaki
The Japan Society of New York City is currently presenting a film program entitled, The Dawn of Japanese Animation, a look back at Japanese animation from the late 20’s and 30’s. As a Nipponophile and a member of the Japan Society, I’ve got to say, I was pretty excited by this program. Here was an opportunity to see the very roots of what would grow into films like Tonari no Totoro and Spirited Away or film makers like Miyazaki.
However, what was presented were badly drawn, badly animated shorts. Now, I know that animation was just learning to crawl in Japan during this time, but come on. By comparison, in the early 30’s Max Fleischer Studios was releasing Popeye and Betty Boop shorts. A little later, Disney released Snow White in 1937 (the year of the second Sino-Japan War) while in Japan audiences were treated to the 1938 propaganda film Taro Overseas.
So, how did Japan eventually catch up and surpass the rest of the world in quality animation? It began in 1958 with Toei Studios’ Panda and the Magic Serpent[clip below], the first color full-length animated film in Japan. And one of the first to be made in the Disney-style studio system.
More on the history of Japanese animation check out this excellent article from Midnight Eye.
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“So, how did Japan eventually catch up and surpass the rest of the world in quality animation?”
Oh come on man. THAT is totally subjective. It has not surpassed anything.
Even the Japanese animation producers will tell you all about the amazing Disney methods of using all of 24 frames to capture the movement of their characters via Rotoscoping; whereas the majority of the JapAnimation, since the 60’s and on that the world knows of, were borne out of the necessity to cut budget and cut corners and thus the static, stilted, “fake-movement” by sliding background cells to make it seem like there is movement comes from skipping frames and not actually using any character movement at all!!!!! Ask any old school Animation producer in Japan about their low-budget technique and they will tell you that their skills are not inferior, but the quality of the actual drawn movements are.
I don’t think it’s the animation quality that makes Japanese anime way more interesting than western animation, but the stories. Same with manga. Although France does produce some interesting comics.
As Honey Flash says, the low budget was the materialistc condition of the limited animes, so this was a inevitable choice. But some creators have invented and developped the “aesthetics of tome-e(止め絵の美学),” so this is now a deliberate technique. You can find it even in relatively high budget animes. Some think this obsession with tome-e is placed in the traditions of kamishibai and manga. It has something to do with the visual art history in Japan.
Since the title of this topic is the Road to Miyazaki, then the conclusions are valid. Disney animators are in awe of Miyazaki’s work, especially as they haven’t been able to produce anything good in traditional animation for years.
Thanks for the article, I just love his movies.