The word ukeru has no single kanji that captures its full meaning. The character 受ける means to receive or to hand over an object, but when we say a manga or anime uketa or ukenai, the word becomes an indicator of whether something has reached the hearts of the audience – those who watch, those who listen. One day, Master Tezuka invited me out. “Tsuki-san, I’m heading to Ginza today. Want to come along?” ...
Verisimilitude These two words are surprisingly often conflated. Not just by young students, but by professionals as well. I would like to think about that a little. Animation is, above all, a job that involves drawing a great many pictures. Twenty-four per second. In the days of film, early animation drew every single one of those frames. One drawing per frame — each one drawn individually. Then it was discovered that shooting each drawing for two frames did not greatly alter the movement. ...
The Lines Humans Draw The lines in a drawing made by human hands carry momentum, languor, suppleness, hesitation, sensuality. Some of these qualities are consciously sought; others emerge unconsciously. In a picture drawn by a person, such qualities are naturally adjusted and woven in. The word “sensuality” does not mean only sex appeal. We often speak of “mature allure,” but this is a complex thing, and eroticism is no simple matter either — because sex appeal has no pattern. ...
What Is the Bank System? Long ago, Osamu Tezuka — creator of Astro Boy, the pioneering television anime — devised a method called the Bank System to produce 30-minute episodes every week. “Bank” means to store. Unlike today, animation at that time was drawn on paper, traced onto cels, and painted by hand. Normally, cels were discarded after a production was completed. But Tezuka decided to keep and organize certain cels rather than throwing them away — bust shots, waist shots, close-ups, walking shots, flying shots, crying, laughing, lip-sync shots, and other footage likely to be reused. This was the Bank System. ...
There is a work called The Congress (2013, directed by Ari Folman) that blends live-action film with animation. It is based on a novel by Stanisław Lem (born in Ukraine, raised in Poland), the author famous for Solaris. A producer approaches an actress whose prime is passing and asks her to sell her current likeness — her image rights. Struggling with a difficult illness and crushing medical bills, she agonizes but ultimately accepts the offer. She is then recorded from head to toe by a full-body 3D scanner — and so the story continues. ...