MOM Productions and the Making of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

It’s the Christmas season again and my children have already watched our DVD of the 1964 stop motion animation of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) half a dozen times.  I never tire of watching this Christmas special which was something I looked forward to watching on TV every year when I was a child.  The characters have clearly been lovingly brought to life by the hand of some animator.

As I reported last year in my post Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials: Made in Japan, Rudolf and many other animated Christmas specials produced by Rankin/Bass were animated in Japan.  Rudolf is an early example of an international co-production for television.  The production, concept, and screenwriting were all done by Americans.  Apart from the star, Burl Ives, the voice acting was all done in Canada.  The stop motion “Animagic” was subcontacted to Tadahito “Tad” Mochinaga’s MOM Production studios – a place where many animators including the great Tadanari Okamoto got their start.  Rick Goldschmidt’s The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass tantalizingly offered up a few tidbits about MOM Productions, but I could not afford his book about the making of Rudolph.  Fortunately, he released The Making of the Rankin/Bass Holiday Classic: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Kindle edition this year.  It gives the answers to a lot of questions I had about the production, and provides highly detailed testimonies from former MOM Productions employees.

A few of the nuggets of information about the production:

• Arthur Rankin supervised the production in Japan while Jules Bass was responsible for the production outside of Japan.  This meant that it was rare for people working on Rudolph to see both men together.

• There are two conflicting stories about how Rankin discovered Mochinaga.  One is that he saw Mochinaga’s Little Black Sambo at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1958 and contacted Mochinaga about making TV series The New Adventures of Pinocchio (130x5 minute episodes).  The other story Rankin tells is that he was invited to Tokyo in 1958 by a trade delegate called Minoru Kawamoto and one of the studios they visited belonged to Mochinaga. (note: date typo amended 26 Dec 2011)

• I had long wondered about the role of Kizo Nagashima, who is listed as a director in the credits of the Rudolph.  I could not find any evidence of Nagashima as an animator or a director online.  Goldschmidt solves this mystery by reporting that Nagashima “was an elderly gentleman who supervised the business affairs of the Tokyo studio.  Perhaps due to Japanese traditions of respect, he was given a prominent creative credit.  However, the credit was entirely honorary, as Tadahito Mochinaga was undeniably in charge of the entire animation process.” 

• Mochinaga began animation in 1938 at Geijutsu Eigasha (芸術映画社 aka GES/ゲス).  [This isn’t in Goldschmidt’s book but Mochinaga spent much of the war and the years following working for an animation studio in China].  When he returned to Japan after the war (c. 1953), Mochinaga started up his own studio.  He formed MOM Productions in 1960 with many of his old colleagues from GES in order to make puppet animation for Rankin/Bass.

• Assistant animation director Hiroshi Tabata recalls that he and Mochinaga took the 10 hour sleeper train from Tokyo to Nara to see the famous sika deer in Nara National Park.  The spent two days observing the movements of the deer in order to prepare for the animation of Rudolph.  The animation studios were housed in a building that had previously been used to test engines for fighter planes.

• Ichiro “Pin-chan” Komuro was the puppet maker for Rudolph.  He used the wood of the Katsura tree (カツラ/ Cercidiphyllum japonicum) for Rudolph’s head and torso.  The head was carved out to make it lighter and therefore easier to control during animation.  The joints of the puppets were made of lead and copper wire which were padded with cotton and polyurethane.  The antlers were formed using polyurethane.  Rudolph’s eyelids and irises were made using finely shaved leather.  Rudolph’s exterior was made of thick-piled white wool that they dyed themselves.  The hooves were made of wood and had 1mm holes drilled in them in order to affix the hooves to the sets using pins.

• The biggest problem during production was the fight to keep the puppets and sets from collecting dust and dirt.  The animators all wore white gloves, and the figures were sprayed with a magnetic spray flock to diffuse reflections for the camera.  The most difficult sets and puppets to keep clean were the white ones. 

Goldschmidt’s book is a must-read for fans of stop motion animation and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Add the Kindle edition to your holiday reading:

Learn more about Rankin/Bass Productions on Goldschmidt's blog or in his book:

Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part IV

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Part I: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part II: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part III: Masaaki Yuasa on Kaiba and working for Madhouse

Part IV: Morimoto, Mind Game and more

Noiseman Sound Insect (音響生命体ノイズマン, Kōji Morimoto, 1998)

This 16-minute animated short was the first time that Masaaki Yuasa collaborated with Kōji Morimoto whom Yuasa calls a “free thinking director.” He was called by Morimoto himself – which shocked Yuasa because he is such a star in the animation world [having worked on such animated classics as Tomorrow’s Joe 2 (あしたのジョー2, Toshio Takeuchi, 1980-81) and  Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (アキラ, 1988) before directing his own films].

Morimoto told Yuasa that  he wanted to work with him. Yuasa laughingly said that Morimoto later realized that he had had something quite different in mind than what Yuasa ended up giving him – though that was not  necessarily bad thing. It was during the making of Noiseman that Morimoto showed Yuasa Robin Nishi’s manga Mind Game. Yuasa said that through working together Morimoto and Yuasa realized that they are very different from each other. He again laughed and said that it really wasn’t until they went out drinking together that they realized that they had a few things in common. Though they may have artistic differences, Yuasa spoke earnestly of his deep admiration for Morimoto.

Mind Game

It took a long time to complete Mind Game. The storyboards themselves took at least 8 months and animating it took about 2 years. The project started off small with only 3 to 4 people involved. Yuasa did all the storyboards himself. As production for the film got under way, more and more people joined the team.

The beginning and ending of Mind Game appear to be very similar, but the viewer should notice small differences. If they do, then Yuasa feels that he has succeeded as a director. Many criticized the film for not having a clear story, but he disagrees with this view. In contrast to TV series, which have certain story constraints, everything is allowed in films.

On commercial pressures:

Especially for TV, there is a lot of pressure for the characters to be kawaii and for the story to be easily understood. He has been criticized by financial backers for having difficult to understand storylines. At one point while making Tatami Galaxy, the financial backers wanted him to change everything and Yuasa said that he refused. When asked what effect his refusal had, he replied that they just stopped bothering him after that and they didn't fire him.

Yuasa has noticed that he often does the opposite of what others expect of him. When people ask him for something soft, he gives them something hard. When they say something should be complicated, he makes it simple. He likes for people to see his work on a big screen – they should enjoy it like a trip to Disneyland. The story should be simple but powerful.

Does Yuasa see himself as an artist?

“I am an anime person,” responded Yuasa, “I don’t really know what art is, but I find it interesting.”

TV Series vs. Films

As a kid he loved TV series, but film is different. There is more attention to detail. You watch it in the dark on the big screen. A lot of talented people come together to make an anime series and this is something Yuasa enjoys. He thinks that most people enjoy working freely and on their own. He would like to make another film at some point because he thinks he can go deeper into subject matter and be more individualistic in that medium.

As a freelancer, where does he like to do his storyboards? At the studio or at home?

Yuasa likes to go into the studio so that he can feel like he’s going to work. That being said, he actually draws everywhere: on the train, on the shinkansen, in cafés.

Is he still considered a freelancer?

He is still a freelancer and has never been anything else. There are not many permanent jobs in the anime industry; most people are freelancing from job to job. Yuasa enjoys the freedom that freelancing allows him.

What are Yuasa’s future plans?

He wants to make another film. He’s seen some scripts but he would really like to do his own original idea. Failing that, he’s quite happy to do an advertising campaign or music videos until the right project comes along.

How did the March 11th earthquake affect Yuasa and did he notice any effects on the animation industry in Tokyo?

The severity of the quake was such a shock and Yuasa thought that it would mean the studio he was working at would have to close for a short time – but all the meetings went on as usual as if nothing had happened. His producer said to him: “Even if there has been a disaster, our deadline hasn’t changed”

This event was recorded on video by a Japanese crew, so there is the possibility of it turning up online at some point. This is not a transcript of the Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa but a writing-up of the notes that I took during the event. There are a few points that I know I missed because occasionally the simultaneous translation from Japanese into German occasionally caused my brain to go into melt down. As the conversation between Stefan Riekeles and Masaaaki Yuasa did not follow a chronological order, I have for clarity’s sake assembled my notes on Yuasa’s responses in thematically.

To see photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1

Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part III

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Read  Part I: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

and Part II: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part III: Masaaki Yuasa on Kaiba and working for Madhouse

As we had watched the first three episodes of Kaiba (カイバ, 2008) just before the film talk began with Masaaki Yuasa, host Stefan Riekeles brought it up in conversation before Mind Game (マインド・ゲーム, 2003). Kaiba is one of several projects including Kemonozume (ケモノヅメ, 2006) and Tatami Galaxy (四畳半神話大系, 2010) that Yuasa has done in collaboration with Madhouse.

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Masao Maruyama, the main producer and studio head at Madhouse, was the one to make contact with Yuasa and suggest that he direct something for them. Yuasa could hardly even believe it when Maruyama called him personally. Despite his respect and admiration for Maruyama, Yuasa didn’t just jump on board with the ideas Maruyama initially brought to him. The audience at Dortmunder U laughed when Yuasa described saying “No… no… no, that’s boring…” to one after another of Maruyama’s suggestions. I did not have the impression that Yuasa was being arrogant; rather, I think he has a very firm idea of who he is as an artist (more on that later) and that he only wants to work on projects that he really cares about.

Yuasa found Maruyama very tolerant of his quirks. In fact, he was very surprised that once they had decided on a project that Maruyama was willing to give Yuasa free reign to do what he wanted with it. The same could be said of Eiko Tanaaka at Studio 4°C (where he did Mind Game) who also gave him lots of freedom as a director. Yuasa had heard stories that Maruyama could be very strict with directors but that was not his own personal experience.

On Kaiba, Yuasa got to wear a lot of different hats: not only did he come up with the concept for the series and act as the series director but he wrote screenplays, did storyboards, and directed. Because it was for television, the deadlines were a lot stricter than they are with feature films like Mind Game. Yuasa was given only one year to complete Kaiba. He personally directed episodes 1, 10, and 11 and allowed others to take the reins on the other episodes. Because time management what of the utmost importance, Yuasa said that it was necessary to delegate the work load to other directors.

Yuasa mentioned in particular Akitoshi Yokoyama who directed episodes 2-3, 7, and 9. Speaking specifically of episodes 2 and 3, which we had just screened, Yuasa explained that he had allowed Yokoyama to incorporate his own ideas into the screenplay and storyboards for those episodes. Yokoyama was given a great amount of freedom in this respect because episodes 2-4 did not really affect the main story-line of the series too much. Thus the themes of the mother-child dynamic, the idea of the mother passing away and asking her sister to care for her daughter, and the piano as a metaphor were all ideas that Yokoyama came up with.

As Yuasa freelances at a lot of different studios, he has noticed that they each seem to have their own language. At some studios they understand what he is trying to communicate to them as a director and at other ones they don’t. When he starts at a new studio it can sometimes take a while to understand the “language” that they speak.  He did not specifically talk about which studios he had problems communicating with though, he only generally inferred that he sometimes encounters problems when working with people unfamiliar with his style and methods.  

Later in the evening, during the question and answer time, an elderly gentleman whose viewing of Kaiba was his first contact with Yuasa’s work said that he found the landscapes in Kaiba depressing and wanted to know what kind of message Yuasa intended to relay with the setting. Yuasa responded that he always tries to keep a glimmer of hope in his work – even when depicting something that is difficult; he likes to keep hope alive. Yuasa described himself as a person with doubts, and he finds that the older he gets, the more misgivings he seems to have about the world. The one place where he sees hope is in children. He knows that viewers want to see something cheerful when they watch TV anime, but he wants to show them something deeper with his work.

Another question relating to Kaiba came from an audience member who recognized the familiar anime theme in Kaiba of a futuristic world in which humanity is threatened, but it was the first time he had encountered the idea of a person’s inner psyche being bought and sold like material goods. He wondered if Yuasa had come up with the concept on his own or if he had borrowed it from somewhere.

Yuasa responded by mentioning a title of some kind which I am afraid I didn’t quite catch and I believe he mentioned that the author/director was called Oshima. If any of my readers know what work he might have been referring to, do let me know in the comments. He went on the explain that he had been fascinated with the way in which the brain sends signals to the body via neurons that transmit information via electrical and chemical signalling. He wondered what if there are only such signals instead of a soul, but this notion did not appeal to him. It was certainly a possibility, but it couldn’t be everything.

Yuasa also said that he had been thinking about mortality and fear of death and he wondered when a person was considered dead. People from past centuries no longer live, but many of them have left pieces of themselves behind for us to enjoy – via legacies of music, writing, and so on – ensuring that in spirit they are in a certain sense still alive and with us. He is also interested in how so many people’s experiences of life are so different from one another yet also have points of similarity. These were some of the ideas Yuasa had been grappling with when planning Kaiba.

Part IV: Morimoto, Mind Game and more

To see photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1

Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part II

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Read  Part I: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part II: Masaaka Yuasa’s Early Career in Animation

Immediately upon graduation, Masaaki Yuasa sought a job drawing for Asia-dō (亜細亜堂) in Saitama because he was a great admirer of their work. In the 1980s, Asia-dō worked on a number of great series including Doraemon and Manga Nippon Mukashi-Banashi. He was not paid an hourly rate but by the drawing and was expected to complete about 20 drawings a day. Freelance animators just starting out get paid rather poorly for long hours of tedious work and his parents were concerned about his low income. Yuasa was undeterred however, and he moved up the ranks at Asia-dō fairly quickly and he felt that they treated him rather well.

During the talk, Yuasa heaped praise upon Mitsuru Hongo, director of the Crayon Shin-chan TV series – the second series that Yuasa worked on after Chibi Maruko-chan – for his generosity in allowing Yuasa to draw want he wanted. Yuasa spoke very critically of his own work during these early years. He just never felt that his work was good enough. The speed at which he was expected to work meant that did not have the time to produce his best quality work. He found it very stressful at times and wished that he had more time at his disposal in order to produce higher quality work.

At some point, Hongo asked Yuasa if he wanted to try his hand at drawing backgrounds. This gave Yuasa a great deal more satisfaction with his work. He enjoyed researching the landscapes and architecture needed for each scene. This work allowed him to experiment with different techniques and he found that his education in oil painting helped him a lot in designing the backgrounds.

When Hongo gave him the opportunity to do storyboards, Yuasa had a real “a-ha moment”. During this part of the interview with Stefan Riekeles, Yuasa became very animated when he described the pleasure he got from drawing storyboards. His excitement and passion for his craft was really palpable and he talked about how “sugoku tanoshii” (super-fun) the experience of drawing storyboards was for him. For the first time as an animator, he was really enjoying himself and others were sharing in his enthusiasm. He got to do storyboards for episodes of Crayon Shin-chan. In addition, he started drawing designs and storyboards in his spare time, but this was just for his own fun and not really with the intention of becoming a director himself.

Yuasa often mentioned in the discussion how lucky he had been in his career to have people like Hongo as his mentors.  Hongo gave him the unique opportunity to try out many hats in their animation studios. Traditionally in the Japanese anime industry people stay in one role – as a background designer, key animator, inbetweener, etc. – for a really long time or throughout the entirety of their career. Not all studios were willing to let freelancers do storyboards, but as he was not tied down to any one studio, Yuasa could pick and choose work and he began to seek out jobs where the studio would let him do storyboards.

Eventually he was allowed to make shorts and storyboards for a pilot project. In making the designs he would have to make much more than was really necessary in order to try out new ideas. Eventually, Masao Maruyama of Madhouse approached him about directing a project and that was the moment that started him on the path to directing Mind Game and a part of Genius Party for Studio 4°C and Kemonozume, Kaiba, and Tatami Galaxy for Madhouse.

Next read: Part III: Masaaki Yuasa on Kaiba and working at Madhouse

To see more photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1

Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part I

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Introduction

On Sunday, September 11th, I took the train up to Dortmund to see the Proto Anime Cut and Japan Media Arts Festival exhibitions at the Dortmunder U. The Proto Anime Cut: Spaces and Visions in Japanese Animation exhibition is sponsored by the Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) and features the original artwork of Hideaki Anno, Hiromasa Ogura, Takashi Watanabe, Koji Morimoto, Haruhiko Higami, and Mamoru Oshii. I will write up a review of this exhibition and the accompanying bilingual (DE/EN) publication in the near future. The exhibition runs until October 9th.

The Japan Media Arts Festival exhibition, also sponsored by HMKV runs until October 2nd. You can read more about the programme in my earlier post. I will also be writing reviews of some of the exhibitions and short films later this month. 

The highlight of the festival was Sunday’s Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa. It followed a screening of the first three episodes of Kaiba (2008) and was followed by a screening of Mind Game (2004). The festival will also be showing all 11 episodes of Tatami Galaxy (2010) on Sunday, September 18th. Tatami Galaxy won the Grand Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival 2010 as did Mind Game in 2004. Kaiba received an Excellence Prize in 2008.

The film talk with Masaaki Yuasa was conducted by the event curator Stefan Riekeles with simultaneous translation through headphones by two translators in a booth. It reminded me of watching a session of the Canadian parliament. I found it all a bit awkward and prefer the more personable style of translation done at Nippon Connection. The Germans have a very strong dubbing culture and I often find English documentaries that have been dubbed on TV impossible to understand because the English track is usually left so loud that it competes with the German overdub and becomes an unintelligible jumble to me. At times during Sunday's film talk hearing German and Japanese simultaneously became overwhelming, so I may have missed out on some  of the nuances and details of the conversation. The following is my impression of the proceedings – with additional information (ie. full titles, years of release, full names, etc.) and observations.

Part I: How did Yuasa get started in animation?

Masaaki Yuasa (湯浅 政明, b. 1965) loved anime as a child. He was so wild about one particular TV series that he drew pictures of it and put them up all over the house. I did not hear him name the particular TV anime series he was referring to, but I know from past interviews with Yuasa that he was a fan of Doraemon, Obake no Q-Taro and Hana no Pyun-Pyun Maru as a child. Yuasa noticed pretty early on that drawing was his forte, but when he reached his teenage years he apparently thought that he would have to give up watching anime for more grown-up pursuits. This all changed when Space Battleship Yamato (宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Leiji Matsumoto, 1977) came to the cinemas and he noticed that adults were standing in line to see the film. This was the moment – Yuasa would have been aged 14 at the time – that he realized that anime could be for grown-ups too.

For those of you who don’t know, Space Battleship Yamato (aka Space Cruiser Yamato) was a feature film that was made by condensing Leiji Matsumoto’s 26 episode run of Space Battleship Yamato (宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Leiji Matsumoto, 1974-75) on Yomiuri TV to feature film length. The film was more successful than the TV series and in fact even beat Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) at the Japanese box office.

In his teens, Yuasa started watching more and more anime at the cinema instead of just on TV. This got him interested in pursuing a career in the animation industry. Although I did not hear him mention it on Sunday, Yuasa has in the past often cited Hayao Miyazaki’s Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (ルパン三世 カリオストロの城, 1979) and the TV series Golden Warrior Gold Lightan (黄金戦士ゴールド・ライタン, Koichi Mashimo, 1981-82). In particular, the work that Takashi Nakamura did on Gold Lightan – which was also to influence the work of Kōji Morimoto – was hugely impactful on Yuasa in his teenage years.

Despite his obvious interest in anime, Yuasa’s parents put pressure on him to do a university degree. In order to appease them, he took a degree in oil painting in the Department of Fine Arts of the Kyushu Sangyo University in Fukuoka. Immediately upon graduation, he sought a job drawing for Asia-dō (亜細亜堂) in Saitama because he was a great admirer of their work. In the 1980s, Asia-dō worked on a number of great series including Doraemon and Manga Nippon Mukashi-Banashi.

Part II: Masaaka Yuasa’s Early Career in Animation

To see more photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1

Animation at Nippon Connection 2011

Nippon Connection (April 27 - May 1, 2011) is fast approaching and there is much to be excited about. Last year, I was delighted with the wide selection of films directed by women. This year, I can't wait to see all the animation on the programme! In fact, on Friday, April 29th, I will be moderating the event Film Talks: Independent Animation at 20:30 which will feature special guests from CALF including Nobuaki Doi, Mirai Mizue, and Tochka. It will be a great opportunity for fans of independent and experimental animation to learn more about the indie scene in Japan. 

Mirai Mizue's JAM

Read my reviews of the CALF DVDs of the works of Mirai Mizue and Tochka to learn more about these innovative artists. Official website.

Other CALF events at Nippon Connection 2011 include:

CALF Animation Special

Atsushi Wada's In A Pig's Eye

Friday, April 29th, 18:00

A selection of short avant-garde films by Atsushi Wada, Kei Oyama, Mirai Mizue, Tochka, and more!
Update 13 April 2011: Read the full shorts programme here.

An Animation Workshop with TOCHKA 

Saturday, April 30th, 18:00

Don’t miss out on your chance to participate in the making of a Tochka PiKA-PiKA (lightening doodle) film!

The Borrower Arietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ, 2010)

Friday, April 29th, 12:00 and a special screening for kids on Saturday, April 30th at 16:00

The German premiere of the Studio Ghibli adaptation of The Borrowers by Mary Norton.  This is longtime Studio Ghibli animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi's directorial debut.

Midori-ko (緑子, 2010)

Finally, Keita Kurosaka's surrealist, hand-drawn masterpiece is coming to Europe!  Read more about Kurosaka here.  Official website.

Tatami Galaxy (四畳半神話大系, 2010)

Sunday, May 1st , 12:00


Masaaki Yuasa, director of Mind Game (2005) and  Kaiba (2008) won the Grand Prize in Animation at the 14^th Japan Media Arts Festival for this innovative TV series.  It is an adaptation of the novel by Tomihiko Morimi. 

Colorful (カラフル, 2010)

Sunday, May 1st, 19:45

The closing film of the festival will be Keiichi Hara’s much acclaimed Colorful.  This expressive, poetic film won an Excellence Prize at the 14^th Japan Media Arts Festival as well as the Animation Award at the Mainichi Film Concours.

• There are many short films on the programme as well, so you can count on me to once again report back to you about any animated gems that I discover!

Other events that have piqued my interest:

• There are many women directors on the programme again this year. I am most looking forward to Linda Hoaglund’s ANPO: Art X War (2010), Sayaka Ono’s The Duckling (Ahiru no ko, 2010) and Mai Tominaga’s Rinco’s Restaurant (Shokudo Katatsumuri, 2009).  Mai Tominaga Profile

• I have heard great things about Permanent Nobara (Daihachi Uchida, 2010), so it is on my must-see list.

• Nippon Retro will be featuring a retrospective of the work of Sion Sono in addition to screening Cold Fish (Tsumetai nettaigyo, 2010) as part of the competition.

• Nippon Digital is being rebranded as Nippon Visions and will celebrate the diversity of independent film and new digital formats. Artists featured in this category will include the latest work of Takahisa Zeze, Keita Kurosaka, CALF, and the work of the Graduate School of Film and New Media Arts of Tokyo University of the Arts.

• the Nippon Visions Award for young filmmakers is being sponsored by the Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy (JVTA)

• Nippon Culture will be hosting the Japanese cheerleading troupe Gamushara-Oeda as well as yoga, kendo, shiatsu, and baby massage workshops 

•  the debut of the Nippon Kids section with workshops aimed at getting children interested in Japanese culture

• the Japanese Package Design exhibition at AustellungsHalle 1A promises to be awesome!

• artists Fumio Ohashi and Yuko Takatsudo will be presenting their latest works at the Kunstraum Westend

• and much, much more!  Check out the schedule posted at the official website for more details.

Monkey Punch’s Top 20 Animation (2003)

Monkey Punch (モンキー・パンチ) is the pen name of Japanese manga artist Kazuhiko Katō (加藤一彦, b. 1937).  He is the manga-ka behind the popular series Lupin III which began in 1967 and has been adapted into various animated series and movies.  The most famous adaptations of his work being the Lupin III TV anime series and Hayao Miyazaki’s film Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) – the latter of which gets a nod on Monkey Punch’s selections for the top 20 animations of all time. 

The biggest influences on Monkey Punch creatively have been the work of Mad Magazine comic artists Mort Drucker (b. 1929) and Sergio Aragonés (b. 1937).  His favourite animation ranges from American cartoon classics to contemporary video game animation.  In addition to popular fare, Monkey Punch also demonstrates an interest in art animation such as Aleksandr Petrov’s beautiful paint-on-glass animation The Old Man and the Sea (1999), Dianne Jackson’s pastel and crayon cel animation The Snowman (1982), and Osamu Tezuka’s Jumping (1984). 

Judging from this list, one can see that Monkey Punch enjoys the fantastic and in particular, he seems to admire people who take risks with their animation.  From the cult classic fantasy films of Ralph Bakshi to innovations in animation styles and technologies by the folks at Pixar and MTV, Monkey Punch seems open to both the wild and the wonderful.  Sticklers will point out that the Thunderbirds is not really animation but puppet drama, which Monkey Punch also acknowledges, but he seems to have a pretty broad interpretation of the definition of animation.  He writes, for example, that he had to include the video game Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² because he likes it so much that he just can’t help himself.  One could say that Monkey Punch is enthusiastic about animation in all its forms from hand-painted to CGI.

List Source:  Laputa’s Top 150 World and Japanese Animation(2003)

1

Fantasia

(ファンタジア, Disney, James Algar et al., 1940)

2

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

(白雪姫, Disney, David Hand, et al., 1937)

3

Tom and Jerry

(トムとジェリー, Hanna-Barbera/Gene Deitch/Chuck Jones, 1940-1967)

4

The Old Man and the Sea

(老人と海, Aleksandr Petrov. 1999)

5

The Snowman

(スノーマン, Dianne Jackson, 1982)

6

Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro

(ルパン三世 カリオストロの城/Hayao Miyazaki, 1979)

7

Heavy Metal

(ヘビイメタル, Gerald Potterton, 1981)

8

The Lord of the Rings

(指輪物語, Ralph Bakshi, 1978)

9

Wizards

(ウィザーズ, Ralph Bakshi, 1977)

10

Watership Down

(ウォーターシップダウンのうさぎたち, Martin Rosen, 1978)

11

Æon Flux

(イーオン・フラックス, Peter Chung, TV anime, 16 eps., 1991-1995)

12

Thunderbirds

(サンダーバード, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson)
(Supermarionation TV series, 32 eps., 1965-66)

13

Wallace and Gromit Series

(ウォレスとグルミットシリーズ, Nick Park, 1989-on)

14

The Nightmare Before Christmas

(ナイトメアー・ビフォア・クリスマス, Harry Selick/Tim Burton, 1993)

15

Final Fantasy

(ファイナルファンタジー, video games/animation, Hironobu Sakaguchi, 1987-)

16

Luxo Jr.

(ルクソーJr, Pixar, John Lasseter, 1986)

17

Yellow Submarine

(イエロー・サブマリン, George Dunning, 1968)

18

The Simpsons

(ザ・シンプソンズ, Matt Groenig, 1989-)

19

Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.²

(ヘビイメタルFAKK2, video game, Ritual Entertainment, 2000)

 

20

Jumping

(ジャンピング, Osamu Tezuka, 1984)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Keiichi Hara’s Top Animation Picks (2003)

The list that Keiichi Hara (原 恵一, 1959) submitted for the Laputa Top 150 World and Japanese Animation (2003) is fascinating as it reveals not only the animation that influenced him during his formative years, but it also his dissatisfaction with the state of animation in Japan in the early 2000s.

At the time of the poll, Hara’s talent as an animator had recently been recognized with the Mainichi Animation Award for Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Adult Empire Strikes Back (クレヨンしんちゃん 嵐を呼ぶ モーレツ！オトナ帝国の逆襲, 2001), the eighth installment in the Crayon Shin-chan film series. Although he would stay with the Crayon Shin-chan franchise for several more films, there were already signs in 2003 that he might consider taking his career in a new direction.

The animation professionals polled in 2003 were asked to list what they felt were the 20 best animated works of all time. Keiichi Hara elected to nominate only six titles: 3 feature films and 3 TV anime series from the 1970s.

 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

(風の谷のナウシカ, Hayao Miyazaki, 1984)

Keiichi Hara considers Hayao Miyazaki’s adaptation of his own manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind the greatest animation every made in the history of world animation. During the recent Q+A with Hara in Frankfurt, he reaffirmed that he still admires Nausicaä.

Night on the Galactic Railroad

(銀河鉄道の夜, Gisaburo Sugii, 1985)

Hara also heaps praise on Gisaburo Sugii’s Night on the Galactic Railroad, which is an adaptation of a novel by Kenji Miyazawa. While chatting with Hara and Nippon Connection organizers earlier this month in Frankfurt, the subject of Miyazawa came up during a discussion about vegetarianism and Hara spoke of his admiration for Miyazawa’s writing. He mentioned particularly how much he enjoyed Miyazawa’s use of word play like onomatopoeia.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade

(人狼, Hiroyuki Okiura, 1999)

Most of the animation on Hara’s list comes from his childhood or the early part of his career in the animation industry. Jin-Roh is the only recent work that seemed to have impressed Hara, and he even writes that he wishes more animation would be like this film.

Ganba no Bōken

(ガンバの冒険, Osamu Dezaki, TV anime, 26 eps., 1976)

This anime impressed Keiichi Hara when he was a teenager because it was clearly so very different than other TV anime of the 1970s.

Space Battleship Yamato

(宇宙戦艦ヤマト, Leiji Matsumoto, TV anime, 26 eps., 1974-75)

This was a science fiction anime series that aired on TV in Japan when Hara was a teenager. He recalls that every week he eagerly anticipated the next episode. Although the project was conceived by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki a year before animator and manga-ka Leiji Matsumoto came on board as a director, Matsumoto shaped the TV series to such an extent that he is generally credited with the unique look of the anime.

Future Boy Conan

(未来少年コナン, Hayao Miyazaki, TV anime, 26 eps., 1978)

Hara cites this TV anime as having a profound influence on his own work. The always sharp-eyed Benjamin Ettinger over at Anipages spotted the name of Shojuro Yamauchi (山内昇寿郎, name sometimes transliterated as Toshiro Yamauchi), a key animator on Future Boy Conan (and many other Miyazaki projects) in the credits for Hara’s Colorful (2010). Yamauchi passed away last year on the same day as Satoshi Kon. It is fortunate that Hara had the chance to work with someone whose work he admired.

It is noteworthy that Hara does not mention any foreign animation in his preferences. Yet despite his clear preference for anime, Hara writes in the comments section of the survey that he has been actually finding it difficult to watch animation. Somehow, he thinks that the characters and the voice acting make him feel sick and he wonders if too much anime is being produced, or if the talent levels of the animation staff has declined over the years, or if he is simply going crazy. He says that there is simply nothing worth watching anymore and he wonders if it would be better to reduce anime production by a third.

I would speculate that Hara’s comments on this survey reflect the animator’s weariness with producing “programme pictures.” He spent the better part of the 1980s working for the Doraemon and Esper Mami series, and at the time of this survey he had spent a decade making Crayon Shin-chan films. In the short amount of time I had to speak with Keiichi Hara in person, I had the impression of a very thoughtful man with wide-ranging interests from popular culture to literature and world cinema.   In his most recent films, he has taken on challenging subject matter and tried out new animation styles.  I think we have only just begun to see what great things this talented animation is really capable of creating. 

Summer Days with Coo [Blu-ray]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011