Publication outcome

At the first stage, I did three mock-up version of publication (Black & White, Colour tone and Colour tone on recycling paper), however, I made a little mistake, I didn't use a thicker paper for the cover and the backside, also I left some blank pages before the last page so I made another one with a better layout.

Using the digital guillotine makes me more convenient because it cut and trim better than hand process so that the outcomes look perfect cut.

The final version of the publication which used a thicker cover.

What I have learnt from this research brief

Overall this research brief, I know I am a huge fan of Japanese animations and manga, however, I didn't really know that much information about the history/evolution of the Japanese anime industry. After I did the brief, I know deeper in the Japanese anime industry, if I have a chance I would like to work in this industry either in Hong Kong or Japan. Therefore, I think this was a really great opportunity for me to enhance my knowledge in order to benefit my future.
It was good to know the reason that some studios being a success and how is their work like they influenced and inspired me a lot. To be honest, I am not really good at character illustration especially colouring, however, I would like to push myself to practice more because it is my favourite thing in the design industry. Hence, I always practice when I have free time, usually, I tried to illustrate some characters that I really like from some animation/manga, it gave me a lot of inspirations and chance to practice.

My favorite Japanese animation

Since being a huge fan of Japanese animations and manga, I watched or read a lot of Japanese animations and manga, I have quite a lot of favorite anime characters and story. In this blog post, it is about my sharing, for example why I love that animation a lot, what attracted me the most, etc.

First of my favorite animation is "Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny(機動戦士ガンダムSEED DESTINY)", it is a 2004 anime television series directed by Mitsuo Fukuda. It is a sequel set two years after the events of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. The producer was Sunrise Inc(株式会社サンライズ), the reason I really like it is because of the products from this animation, such as toys and games. The most famous product from the anime is "Gundam Model", almost every boy has one or more, it is similar to LEGO which people need to build the model by themselves. Therefore, the products bring me to watch this anime and I really like the story behind and the characters and gundam drawings which I think is really attractive, my favorite "Gundam" from this anime is "ZGMF-X10A Freedom", the colour worked really well on the model.

Mitsuo Fukuda

The toy model of "ZGMF-X10A Freedom"

Main characters from the anime

Another my favorite animation is "SLAMDUNK(スラムダンク)", even though the anime was about 20 years ago but it is still popular nowadays in Asia because of the realistic story. The reason that I started to play basketball is because influenced by this animation. The anime was premiered since 1993. It is produced by Toei Animation. Directing the series is Nobutaka Nishizawa. 

Basically the story is about a man called Hanamichi Sakuragi, who is a delinquent and the leader of a gang. Sakuragi is very unpopular with girls, having been rejected an astonishing fifty times. In his first year at Shohoku High School, he meets Haruko Akagi, the girl of his dreams, and is overjoyed when she is not repulsed or scared of him like all the other girls he has asked out. Haruko, recognising Sakuragi's athleticism, introduces him to the Shohoku basketball team.

Even though there are some remake version of the manga, the colours and characters looked more realistic and modern, however, I still prefer the oldest version which produced in 1993 because it is the most original.

Nobutaka Nishizawa

Main characters from SLAM DUNK

1993 version of the manga

Remake version of the manga

It is true that being a fan of Japanese animation/manga, I have a lot of animation and manga that I like and I can't introduce all in here. Generally, I like those animation and manga are because of the background story are really attractive to me and I like how the characters be illustrated which is the style that I like.

Outcome idea

Simply, I want to make a small publication to show what I have done over the research because I believe it is the best way to show what I have learned through the research. For the publication, I decided to put both languages (English and Japanese) because it is the main theme(Japanese anime). Moreover, some illustrations/photographs will be added on the publication so it will be more clear.

Toei Animation

In stead of Ghibli studio, another big Japanese animation company is Toei(東映アニメーション株式会社) primarily owned by Toei Company. Most of the famous animations were produced by Toei Animation, for example "Dragon Ball", "One Piece", "Digimon", etc.

Toei Company Ltd., since its foundation in 1951, has been supported by a broad range of fans for over half a century. The company focuses on providing high quality, comprehensive entertainment through the production of theatrical movies, TV dramas, direct-to-video productions, and anime, as well as a diverse range of businesses based on film production.

TOEI's logo

Dragon Ball

Ghibli studio

Talking about Japanese animation/comic, Ghibli studio must be the most popular studio in this industry in Asia. 
Studio Ghibli Inc. (株式会社スタジオジブリ, Kabushiki-gaisha Sutajio Jiburi) is a Japanese animation film studio, and previously was a subsidiary of Tokuma Shoten. Its provocative and emotional anime films are widely praised all over the world.

The studio was founded in 1985, it is headed by the acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki along with his colleague and mentor Isao Takahata, as well as the studio's executive managing director and long-time producer Toshio Suzuki.

Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking animation in his films made him become more popular over the world. Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo on January 5, 1941. He started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga studio and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible drawing ability and the seemingly endless stream of movie ideas he proposed.

Hayao Miyazaki’s art style is unique, distinct and combines both Japanese and American animation together. He uses a mix of innovative animation techniques to produce amazing landscapes, scenery, and environmentalism.

Spirited Away(千と千尋の神隠し) is the most successful film of Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli Studio, the film released in 2001. The film is about a girl called Chihiro and she becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits when her parents undergo a mysterious transformation (transform to a pig), she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free herself and return her family to the outside world. The film won a lot of international awards over the years such as Academy Awards, USA 2003, BAFTA Awards 2004, AARP Movies for Grownups Awards 2003, etc. Spirited away is also one of my favorite animation produced by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli Studio.

Hayao Miyazaki

Studio Ghibli logo

Hayao Miyazaki anime style

Spirited away film poster

Due to the success of Ghibli Studio, they built a Ghibli studio museum in Tokyo as a tourism place for visitors. The name of the museum is 三鷹の森ジブリ美術館(The Ghibli Museum). It Located in Mitaka, just outside of central Tokyo, the museum is a must-see for fans of the films. The museum itself is whimsically designed in the distinct style of the studio's films, and many of their famous characters are there, including a life-sized robot from "Castle in the Sky" in the rooftop garden. The first floor of the museum exhibits the history and techniques of animation and has as a small theater which shows short movies by Studio Ghibli that are exclusive to the museum. While the second floor houses special temporary exhibitions. And the museum also has a cafe, children's play area, a rooftop garden, and a gift shop.

Character/drawing style in Japanese anime and comparison with western anime/comic

It is true that the faces between Asian and Western are totally different, for example, some of the physical characteristics are the space between the eye and the eyebrows, a loosely defined jawline, and noticeable nose and cheek features. Hence, we can see the characters in Japanese comic and western comic looks totally different. The picture above, left side is Japanese character in comic book or animation, while, the right side is western characters in comic or animation.

Normally, the Japanese's characters mainly contain larger eyes with brighter eyebrows. While western's characters usually have stronger eyes with darker eyebrows. Moreover, the two pictures below are some examples to show the main different characteristics between Japanese and western, the main difference must be the "noticeable nose". It is true that most Asian doesn't have a noticeable nose as western, hence, the Japanese anime characters usually don't really focus on the nose. 

For people who like Japanese anime/comic must know that those characters look similar to a cat’s profile, calling the angle “Neko-gata” (猫型) or “cat-shaped”. It is just because in Japanese anime/comic, characters usually draw with big eyes and small noses. In Japanese anime characters, animators put more effort into the eyes part as they consider larger eyes beautiful which is like an ideal.

Among Japanese traditional art techniques, line drawing has large influences on today’s Manga and Anime. “Drawn only with outlines, Manga contains the characteristic of Japanese-style painting made up of lines seem three-dimensional; drastically simplified and yet it forms curious profoundness,” says Sugiyama Tomoyuki, president of Digital Hollywood University. 

For western anime/comic, they were using light and shadow and have long been paying more attention to volume than flat spaces. They don't pay that much attention to the lines. Japanese believe that even if they change a shape a bit, it still looks like the same thing. While westerners think in terms of light and shadow. If they change the light, everything changes. 

Japanese Line art

Western anime drawing

Japanese anime in 00's

00's
Since the 90's, Japanese anime has become more and more popular to the general public over the world. Also, the technology started to be better and developed, CGI(Computer-generated imagery) became increasingly commonplace as a supplemental technique. This technique could manipulate images ever won over traditional-animation. Hayao Miyazaki used this technique on his animation in 1997, which was "Mononoke-Hime". He animated demonic tendrils and a few other effects after his staff demonstrated how seamlessly they could blend the animation in.

The first completely computer animated anime, A.LI.CE. in 1999. However, in that time, the technology wasn't good as nowadays, therefore, it didn’t look like “anime" As more and more studios began making use of the new digital technology, most of them chose methods that blended well with hand-drawn cels. Due to the fact that computer processing capacity increased and prices went down so studios decided to use digital ink and paint. In this method, after each frame is drawn it is scanned into a computer, then colored and composited digitally instead of coloring or painting by hands.

Japanese anime in 90's

90's
In the 90's, Japan’s economy crashed in 1991, and budgets were cut back and many anime film and OAV studios closed. Even though the crush, entertainment would never be ended, Studio Ghibli helped to solve the problem, they produced an animation named "Majo no Takkyuubin" and it continued the success as before and TV continued to be fertile ground for funding. Another huge commercial success animation was "Sailor Moon " which released in 1992, they helped to reduce the problem.

Majo no Takkyuubin

Sailor Moon

Japanese Anime in 80's

80's

Since the 70's Japanese anime started to bring the Japanese anime industry became more popular worldwide. The 1980s are considered the “golden age” of anime and saw a huge explosion of genres and interest. Many factors contributed to this, including the introduction of VHS (Video Home System).

Mamoru Oshii directed Urusei Yatsura in 1981 for Studio Pierrot, founded just two years later by former animators of Tatsunoko Pro and Mushi Pro. The series based on Rumiko Takahashi’s manga about a lecherous human, the playful alien he accidentally becomes engaged to, and their friends became a huge hit and introduced the now practically required practice of promoting pop songs via the show’s opening and ending sequences.

Mamoru Oshii

Urusei Yatsura

Tatsunoko Pro  Logo

The sports anime formula was codified in 1983 with Captain Tsubasa by Tsuchida Pro, a show about soccer, It inspired a generation of soccer players and manga writers and set the standard for anime sports moves of ever-increasing coolness and improbability. I remember I also watched it when I was young and it made me get interested in soccer. But the one I watched was the animation version, not the manga, it was newer than the manga version. 

Manga version of Captain Tsubasa

Animation version of Captain Tsubasa

Urusei Yatsura was available on VHS in late 1983, and the OAV (original video animation, Japan’s version of a straight-to-DVD movie) was invented in the same year. However, OAV wasn't that popular in that time and more popular titles began driving the market upwards.

Another technological first in 1983 was CGI (computer generated imagery). TMS’s Golgo 13 used CGI in several scenes, most notably to show helicopters circling a skyscraper. It was the first significant use of CGI in an animated film not just in Japan.

Golgo 13

The biggest news of 1984 was Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä produced by Isao Takahata and directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki and it was the first film of Studio Ghibli which made them became famous and known overseas. Especially, I am sure most people have heard Hayao Miyazaki before. 

Once more manga has been released, studios also made their manga to animation which also brought OAV back, people could buy anime and watch it in their own homes.

Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä

 

Hayao Miyazaki

In 1986, another best success animation has been released on that time which was Dragon Ball, anime sources were expanding. Manga, novels, and original stories continued to be as popular choices as ever. Other than that, video games started to be more popular at that time. For example "Super Mario Brothers", it was released in 1986 and it was really successful. Due to the fact of that, the studio not only develops animation from the manga but also video games, toy, etc.

Dragon Ball

Super Mario Bros

History of the Japanese animation/comic

Recently, Japanese animation or comic has become popular over the world no matter in Asia or other western countries. Japan began producing animation in 1917—still the age of silent films—through trial-and-error drawing and cutout animation techniques, based on animated shorts from France and the United States.
However, at that time, due to the fact that it was expensive to produce animation like Western animation and there were overshadowed by the popularity of Disney cartoons. 

A famous Japanese anime- Astro Boy

During the Second World War, the majority of media was made to nationalize Japan’s culture and religion. Therefore, many anime films were created for that purpose. The picture above was one of the best examples of anime created in that time, a black and white hit anime that came out in 1963. But due to the rise of Japanese nationalism and the start of WWII, most of the animated productions created from the 1930s on were not popular entertainments, but instead were either commercially-oriented or government propaganda of one type or another.

Post-war and the rise of TV

The first modern Japanese animation production company, one devoted to entertainment, came into being: Toei. Their first theatrical features were explicitly in the vein of Walt Disney’s films (as popular in Japan as they were everywhere else).

One of the examples was the ninja-and-sorcery mini-epic Shōnen Sarutobi Sasuke (1959), the first anime to be released theatrically in the United States (by MGM, in 1961).

The fact that pushed animation to the fore in Japan was the shift to TV in the Sixties. The first of Toei’s major animated shows for TV during this time were adaptations of popular manga: Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Sally the Witch and the “kid with his giant robot” story Tetsujin 28-go was adapted for TV by Toei and TCJ/Eiken.

Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Sally the Witch

kid with his giant robot

First Exports

Until this point, Japanese animated productions had been made by and for Japan. In 1963, Japan has released an animation and exported to the U.S which named Tetsuwan Atomu—more commonly known as Astro Boy. 
In 1968, animation studio Tatsunoko followed the same pattern like "Astro Boy", they adopted a domestic manga title and ended up creating an overseas hit. In that time, the hit was an anime called "aka Mach GoGoGo" and also exported to the U.S, this started the success of Japanese anime over the world.

aka Mach GoGoGo

Diversification Of Japanese anime

Since the 70s, Japanese anime has been more popular and known worldwide, while, the rising popularity of TV put a major dent in the Japanese film industry (action and animation). Due to this reason, many of the animators who had worked exclusively in film attracted back to TV to fill its expanding talent pool. The result was a period of aggressive experimentation and a time where many of the common tropes found in anime to this day were coined. Therefore, many Japanese animations are based on a team due to this reason.

The most important genres of Japanese anime are dealing with giant robots or vehicles. The first anime to start this was "Mazinger Z" which the story of a boy and his remote-controlled giant robot. Another great success robot animation is "Gundam", there are many manga and novels, each has a different story and background. I am also a huge fan of "Gundam", I believe most Asian boys watched "Gundam" when they were a child or even now. It was the most popular anime for boys in Asian countries especially in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan.

Mazinger Z

Mobile Suit Gundam