9"780786"432349

his text examines the artistic development of anime,

T from its origins as a subset of the Japanese film

industry to its modern-day status as one of the most

popular forms of animation worldwide. Chapter One

provides a discussion of the history of anime and the separate

phases of the artistic process involved in creating a

traditional anime film. There follow nine chapter each

devoted to a single production, exploring the technical and

thematic developments pioneered in works such as NillftJ Scroll, Perfect Blue, and Howl's Moving Castle. The final

chapter examines changing \\Testern perceptions of anime

and its frequent appearances in \\Testern pop culture and the

fine arts. A complete bibliography and filmograph - are

included.

Freelance writer DAN I C A V ALLA R 0 is also the

author of The Allime Art of Hayao l\tliyazaki (2006) and T1,�

Cillema of Mamoru Oshii (2006), both from IcFarland. She

lives in London.

II McFarland ISBN 978-0-7864-3234-9

On the cover: Appurushido a_k_a_ Appleseed, 2004, directed by Shinji Aramaki (Gencon Entertainment! Photofest)

Anime Intersections

ALSO BY DAN! CAVALLARO

AND FROM McFARLAND

The Allime Art of Hayao Miyazaki (2006)

The Cinema of Mamoru Oshii: Fantasy, Technology and Politics (2002)

Anime Intersections

Tradition and Innovation in Theme and Technique

DANI CAVALLARO

McFarland & Company, Inc., Puhlishers [efferson, North Carolina, and London

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUiNG-iN-PUBLICATiON DATA

Cavallaro, Dani. Anime intersections: tradition and innovation in theme

and technique I Dani Cavallaro. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-I3: 978-0-7864-.U34-9 softcover : 50# alkaline paper §

1. Animated films - Japan - Themes, motives. I. Title.

NC1766.J3C38 2007 791.43'340952 - dc22 2007023573

British Library cataloguing data are available

©2007 Dani Cavallaro. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or trammitted in any form or by any meallS, electronic or mechanical, including photocopyittg

or recording, or by an,Y information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

On the cover: Appurusllido a.k.a. Applesecd, 2004, directed by Shinji Aramaki (Geneon Entertainment/Photofest)

Manufactured in the United States of America

Mcrarland 6- Company, fIlC., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640

WUJW. mcfarlandpub.com

This, like everything else, is for Paddy

Table of Contents

Preface

One - Tradition and Innovation in Modern Anime

Two -Ninja Scroll

Three -Perfect Blue

Four - Neon Genesis Evangelion

Five -Aletropolis

Six -Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Seven -Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Eight -Appleseed

Nine -Steamboy

Ten -Howl's Moving Castle

Eleven - Anime Synergy

Filmography

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index

VII

1

5

21

37

54

71

87

103

121

137

154

169

187

195

199

207

Preface

One of the most compelling aspects of animation is its power to remind audiellces of the impor­tance of play and imagination in a world that increasingly sidelines such necessities .... animation is one of the most popular forms in which the spirit of true anarchy and the antic spirit live on. [n Native American mythology, the coyote figure is a central force, playfidly and wilfully at odds with the established order that it seeks to mock and undermine. Animation plays this same coyote-like role .... [It} is a liberating force that free associates like crazy and makes audiences see the world afresh and, cliched though it sounds, with the eyes of a child again. -James Clarke

This study is the product of a steadi ly growing in terest i n the art o f an imation , fuel led

by the des i re to celebrate the medium's un iqueness . What attracted me most forceful ly to an i ­mation i n the fir s t p lace , and what I soon came to regard as i ts most dist inctive attr ibute , i s the uncom promis ing made ness o f i ts images . On this p remise , I i n i t ia l ly harbored a p refer­ence for 20 cel-based an imation , which I saw as a patently art ificial express ion of the medium.

However , research in to other types of an imation , such as clay-based and stop-motion tech­niques, broadened my perspective , as I observed that even an i mational styles that aim for 3 D scu lp tu ra l i ty such a s those are fundamental ly rooted i n an aesthetic that squarely pr ior i t izes

the art isanal qual i ty of the an imated i mage . The p rinc ip le of madeness accordingly remains

p ivotal to their ventures . I became interested i n examin ing the material underp inn ings of a l l

sorts of an imat ion , be they drawings, puppets or maquettes . The scope of my i nqu i ry expanded further as I turned to an imated p roductions which ,

whi le firmly grou nded i n the hand-crafted dimension , incorporate both 2 0 and 3 D com­puter graphics for edi t ing , c inematograph ical and effect-re lated pur p oses . I indeed real i zed that digital ly assisted an imation is not in im ical to tradi t ional forms and objectives as long as the art ist 's hand persists as the fou nding force and is s t i l l palpably evident i n the fin ished product .

I n pursu ing these l eads , I methodical ly examined various types of an imat ion p roduced in cu l tura l ly, h istorical ly and geograph ical ly dispa rate contexts, and eventual ly focused on an ime as a paradigmatic express ion of the pr incip les I sought to foreground. Through close study of a broad range of an ime t i t les, I gradually discovered that th is form wears its made­

ness on its s leeve by overtly shunn ing the aesthetic and ideological p recepts of classic rea l i sm. This is blatantly borne our by an ime's twin avers ion to the natura l i s t ic rendition of mass and to the emulat ion of the conventions o f l ive-action c inema i n the representat ion of movement :

2 PREFACE

goals that Hol lywood an imation , conversely, has t reasured s ince the 1930s . I n keep ing w ith Japanese art's inveterate p reference for l inear graphics , an ime characteristical ly del ivers flat ,

relatively s imple , yet v ibrantly dynamic shapes that self-consciously p rocla im the ir art ificial

status and lay bare the material substratum of their construction . I n endeavour ing to ident ify i ts pr i ncipal characteristics, I found tha t anime is by no

means a mono l i th i c phenomenon wi th un iversa l ly recogn ized cu l tu ra l and affect ive specificat ions . I n fact , as recurr ing traits emerged, as many grey areas crept into the form u l a . An ime , I soon determi ned, entai ls a s many rules a s i t does except ions to those rules . Th i s dis­covery increased my fascinat ion wi th the form insofar as i t fel ic i tously matched my exist ing be l ief i n the value of hybridity as fa r more conducive to speculation and exper imentation than any not ion of artist ic self-containedness. Reflections upon varying percept ions of anime across

the globe reinforced this conviction in the conception of the book .

Whereas in Japan the word anime des ignates an imation i n general , i n the Anglophone

world i t i s regarded as coterm inous with specifically Japanese an imation . The "Japan icity" of an ime cannot , however , be taken for granted . For one th ing , the form is asserti ng itself w ith increas ing vigor as a global p resence . Japanese studios have been engaging w ith growing fre­

quency i n co-productions with studios from other cou ntr ies . It is also noteworthy, i n acknowl­

edging an ime's transnat ional i mpact , that i ts dist inctive p ictorial style has been i ncremental ly infil trat ing Western visual registers not merely in the realm of animation per se bu t also in the domains of pop mus ic , advertis ing , fash ion design and l ive-act ion cinema . Puris ts wish­ing to establish anime's essence beyond cu l tural cross-pol l i nat ion are therefore l i kely to be frustrated in thei r m ission . I ndeed, their quest may u l t imately prove al together spur ious when one considers that the father of modern ani me, Osamu TeZllka, created the style destined to shape the future of the med ium l argely by i ncorporat ing into h i s work the aesthet ic tenets of Western an imation - wi th F leischer and D isney at the forefront . Hence , i t could rea l ist ical ly be maintained that the supple amalgamation of d iverse codes and convent ions in the ideation of composite u niverses has constituted an integral part of anime for a long t ime .

Th i s study seeks to test , and hopeful ly substant iate , the hypotheses del ineated above through detailed analyses of a selection of representat ive anime t i t les that i l l ustrate the grad­ual transit ion of the form from cel an imation to the synthesis of hand-drawn graph ics and i nnovative digi tal technology. Concurrently, the work seeks to extol an imation's knack for br inging in to existence a l ternate rea l i t ies that are subj ect to the l aws of ne i ther physics nor logic , and may therefore be conceived with unsurpassable degrees of i nventiveness, audacity and even i r reverence . My objective is to document , in the process, the extent to which n ew and com pel l ing aesthetics u l timately resul t not from the pursu i t of puri ty but from a pass ion for blending - not , to borrow Claude Lev i-Strauss's b inary model , from the engineer's extrap­olat ion and app l i cat ion of special ist knowledge bur from the bricoleur's eclect i c i nterm ingling of diverse materials and tools .

The first chapter del ineates the book's overarching argument with reference to the anime­making process and to i ts handl ing of both hand-drawn and cutti ng-edge i maging techn iques and camera work . It then focuses in depth on the theoretical and p ragmatic impl icat ions of the confluence of the o ld and the new, with an emphasis on the ro le p layed there in by the a r t of drawing . I n its closing portion , the chap ter out l ines the dist i nctive roles played by the fi lms here studied with i n a broad developmental curve , reflecting specifically on the i r deconstruc­tive p rocl ivities . The main body of this study comprises n ine chapters, each of wh ich is devoted

P reface 3

to a detai led analysis of the chosen productions, conducted a long the axes of tradition and novelty. The technica l and thematic d imensions of both of those categories are systematical ly eval uated, in tandem with the col l us ion of ind igenous and global perspect ives unfolding

there i n . The final chapter examines an ime's impact on Western contexts , with a tw in focus

on changing percept ions of the mediu m over t ime and on synergetic phenomena that bring anime into fert i l e co l lus ion with various aspects of both popular cu l ture and the fine arts . Detailed fi l mograph ica l and b ib l iograph ical information supp lements the discuss ion .

ONE

Tradition and Innovation

in Modern Anime

Animation, in the broadest sense of the term, constitutes a fundamental, possibly unique, means of represellting dreams: of translating them, at least for a ftw minutes, into something utterly real and tangible. It is a workshop whose sole limittltions are of a technical nature .... It is, at this point, absolutely necessary to underscore an essential element of animation: authentic animation is not and must I/ot be a mere display of techniCtlI perftction . . . . It should also be remembered that a char­acter, even when it is drawn in a peculiar way, cannot live without a soul. - Luca Fava 1998 [my translation}

When you make an art piece, it is not the ''coolest'' media that mtlkes it significant; it is what you do with it. -Jean 7heberge

The styl istic distinctiveness of anime as both a cinematograph ical medium and a p ictorial art has

traditionally resided with i ts tendency to foreground the eminently hand-drawn quality of the animated image . This pred i lection has tenaciously endured in recent years despite the i ncreas ing

infil tration of the form by computer-generated graphics, i n contrast with Hollywood animation's rampant cult ivation of eCI at the total expense of the hand-drawn element .

I ndeed, even an ime product ions that rely substantial ly on digital technology i n order to accompl ish effects that would be unachievable by more conventional means j udiciously endeav­our to integrate the i r state-of-the-art tools w i th manua l ly execu ted p ic tures , n ever qu i te

sacr ificing the agency of penci l s and brushes . Ani me's endur ing ded icat ion to p re-digi tal methodologies i s a coro l lary of its des i re to remain loyal to the two-dimens ional i ty of the art of drawing even as i t engages i n the rendit ion of three-d imensional effects . Hence , numer­

ous productions that ut i l ize eCl pervas ively nonetheless s t r ive to reta in a cumulat ively 2 0

look o r , a t any rare , t o take the 20 i mage a s their foundation .

Ani me's commi tment to l i ne-centred graphics could be said to emanate from an int r in­sical ly p ictographic sensib i l ity, and hence to m i rror an aesthetic p rocl iv i ty that has been deeply embedded in Japanese art for centuries . This i s inextricably i ntertwined with a steadfast p ur­suit o f styl izat ion and of techniques capable of art iculat ing complex storyl i nes and of dep ict­

ing deep emotions th rough m in imal is t visual registers . The al legiance to tradit ion on the techn ical p lane , moreover , i s paral leled by an ime's perpetuation of t rad i t iona l subj ects and

5

6 Af'IME I�TERSECTIONS

motifs on the themat ic p lane . I mportantly, those narrative e l ements are not exclus ively d rawn

from native cul ture but often reveal , in fact , inAuences of expl ic i t ly Western derivation . Not infrequently, an ime's narrative appeal springs precisely from its eclectic hybr idizat ion of images

and styles drawn from d iverse cultural mi l i eux . As Pau l Wel l s has emphasized, the medium's tendency to both appropriate and reconste l late traditional mot ifs is essent ia l ly a coro l l ary of the nature of Japanese art as a discourse characterized not by a l i near success ion o f trends but rather by the su perimposit ion of novel inAuences on establ ished styles , and concomitant adap­tat ion of fore ign e lements to domestic parameters (Wells 1997) .

If the use of tradit ional animation techniques is m irrored by anime's complementary rev ival of old images and themes, the trai lblazing component, conversely, finds a diegetic correlative i n the representat ion of futuristic and computer-saturated societies, a s wel l a s in t h e articulation of

contemporary anxieties regarding the fate of the environment, the role played by the media and by commodification in the shap ing of ident ities, and the ever-present phantom of war.

The present study is structured around the two comp l ementary categories of tradi t ion and innovat ion . With i n each , attention is devoted to both techn iques and themes . I n explor­

ing the specifical ly techn ical p roperties of the chosen movies, the book concentrates both on

manual ly crafted components (with a focus on storyboards, character des igns , na tural and arch i tectural backgrounds , and mechan ical models) , and on digital concepts and techn i q ues deployed for the purposes of mode l l ing , rendering and compos i t ing (among others) . At the thematic level , motifs that can be regarded as e i ther dist inct ively Eastern o r dist inct ively West­ern are ident ified and investigated as such . Global ly resonant themes, for their part , are exam ­ined in terms of thei r relevance t o both Eastern and Western contexts . What i s axia l t o the argument here p roposed is that t rad it ion and experi ment , the o ld and the new, East and West

are never u l t imately pos i ted as mutual ly exclusive polar it ies i n Japanese an imat ion but are i n

fact consistently drawn i nt o tempora l , generic and geograph ical com posites of kale idoscop ic

p rofus ion . As the p resent book was being p lanned. the 78th Academy Awards nominat ions for "Best

Animated Feature F i lm" unexpectedly - and fel ic i tously - corroborated the a rgument here

pursued : whereas computer-generated blockbusters had been antici pated for several months

as the most l i kely nominees, d ig i tal technology ended up taking a back seat to clay, puppets and hand-drawn characters, as Nick Park and Steve Box's Wallace and Grornit: The Curse of

the Were-Rabbit (the eventual w inner) , Tim Burton and M ike Johnson's Tim Burton's The

Corpse Bride and Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle smartly pocketed their respect ive

nominations . ! I n order to el ucidate the artist ic and broadly cultural s ign ificance of an ime's incremen­

tal combinat ion of conventional and innovative tech n iques , i t i s necessary to assess the an ime­mak ing process itself. The ensuing pages are accordingly devoted to this top i c . The open ing part of the discussion focuses on aspects of the production curve which t rad it ional and cutt ing­edge express ions of the med ium by and large share . Digital techniques deployed in the anime

industry for the generation of both 2D and 3D graph ics are subsequently looked at. F i na l ly, d ist inct ive c inematographical strategies characterist ic of Japanese an imation in v i r tually a l l of i ts manifestations are evaluated, i n relation to both typical camera moves and v isual or spe­c i a l effects .

The actual an ime-making process is preceded by the "plann ing phase" (kikaku dangai) . There are two ki nds of p lann ing i n the un iverse of Japanese an imation . One cons ists of the

One� Hadition ,md Inn01J.1tion ill Modern Anime 7

selection of com ic books or novels for rhe p ur pose of screen adaptat ion and i nvolves relevant negot ia t ions between producers , publ ishers and a ut hors . (The resu l t i s com monly des ignated gensaku an ime . ) The other revolves around the ideat ion and e1aborar ion of an utterly or ig i­

na l concepr or story (gen an) by a d i rector or an imator.

S i nce very few an i mation com pan ies have sufficient financial resources to p rod uce an an i ­mated fil m on the ir own , a v i ra l par r of rhe plann i ng process consists of the i r deal ings w i rh porentia l sponsors . An imat ion compan ies customari ly present the i r p roposal i n paper form , ofren i n conj uncr ion w i rh a rough vers ion of the scrip t i ntended to commun icate as v iv id ly

as possib le the wor ld v iew they a im to p resent to the ir prospective audiences . Gensaku an i ­mat ions a re frequent ly l uckier than the i r gen an counterparts insofar a s the manga or novels upon wh ich they arc based al ready enjoy an esrabl ished customer base , and vaunt sales records capab le of attract ing generous sponsorship.

In the i n i t ia l s tages of the production proper, the team focuses on the e laborat ion of a "scenario" i ntended to p rovide specific ins tructions for the storyboarders , the character and mecha designers and the background anists , i n order both to muster the i r co l lective i magi­nat ion and to abet the i r understanding of the world they are about to create together . I t i s up to the d i rector , u l t imately, to supply clear and conv inc ing i nstruct ions , whi l e focus ing on

the i mperative to p resent physical ly and psychological ly appeal i ng characters - often with in the constra i nts posed by l i m ited budgets and production schedules .

The an ime d i rector holds r h e advantage , compared t o the l ive-act ion d i rector , of no t having t o deal w i th "rea l " actors and actresses, and hence wi th a l l manner of human id iosyn­crasies and eccentr ic i t ies . The an ime d i rector, however, must be able to conceive of the an i ­mators themselves a s performers responsible fo r inst i l l i ng l i fe i nto i magina ry personae . Ar rhe

same t ime, the an imato rs must also be able to approach the i r characters as actors in the i r own

r igh r , specu lat ing ass iduously about nor merely the i r su rface appearances but also rhe i r hypo­

thet ical personal i t ies , cu l tural backgrounds, ethics and tastes . A v i ral ro le is p layed throughout by rhe "storyboards" : seq uences of p ictures a nalogous

to manga that i nd i cate how the narrat ive w i l l be developed i n terms of a dis t i nct ive p ictor ia l styl e , dynamic effects and camera ang les appropr iate to the capture of specific scenes . The storyboard is essent ia l ly a v isua l ized scr ipt supplying the b luepr int for the enr i re p roduct ion team, detai l i ng the necessary frame n umbers , visual effects and backgrou nd artwork . (A mere

26-m inute storyboard of the k ind requ i red by an average-len gth TV-ser ies ep i sode normal ly

takes at least three weeks to draft . ) As the storyboards are be ing sketched, the character design­ers develop the d ram at i s personae's physiologica l and psychological trai ts through vi r tua l ly countless sketches of varying com plexi ry.

The actual layout , p roduced i n the wake of the sto ryboards, provides more exhaust ive i nstructions abou t fram ing tech n iques, camera moves and the placement w i th in a scene of part icular characters and p rops . In i nvest ing the an i mat ion wi th a d i s t inct ive persona l i ty, scene layout p lays an unquest ionably cruc i a l role . Even at i ts l east dynamic , an ime ut i l i zes th is aspect of the p roduct ion to underscore the importance of v isua l i z ing the characters fro m d iverse angles a n d perspectives, of ideat ing sett ings w i th which t h e characters c a n i m ag ina­t ively i nterac t , and of evok ing kinetic l i nes consonant with the backgrounds' chromat ic , tex­tu ral and perspectival qua l i t i es .

Once the storyboard ing has been comp leted, the product ion process enters i ts most dec i ­s ive s tages as far as the concrer izar ion of rhe team's foundar ional v i s ion i s con cerned . At th is

8 ANIME I NTERSECTI O;-']S

j uncture, the d i rector is requi red to mon i tor punct i l iously the i ntegrat ion of character des igns w i th mecha models executed by mechan ica l des igners (where appropriate) and background art p roduced by the a r t d i rectors, a l l the wh i le conferr ing with the co lo r designers , l ayout artists, directors of photography and sen ior animators . The drawings are first executed on paper and then translated into an "an imatic" (or "sto ry ree l " ) , a filmed vers ion of the s toryboards

i ntended to gauge dramatic t iming . At i ts most basic , the an imatic consists pu rely of a ser ies of s t i l l images edited and disp layed i n a sequential fash ion . However, rough vers ions o f the

dia logue and the soundtrack are frequently added to the sequence to test whether the visuals

and the acoustic effects correlate consistently. When the p re l i m inary drawings have received the d i rector's seal of approval , the actual

frames are eventual ly created . These comprise "keyframes" (or "extremes") , the i mages that i l lust rate the pr i ncipal po ints in an action , and " in -betweens" (or "pass ing pos i t ions" ) , the images s i tuated between any two keyframes . I n tradi t ional an i mation , once a sequence has

been drawn , a l l the images except background ones are transferred from paper onto transpar­ent sheets of p last ic , or cels . The out l ine of the images are i nked onto the cels and colours are later added to them. When an ent ire sequence has been transferred onto cels , the p roduc­

t ion process enters the photography phase . All the cels for each frame are s tacked in l ayers, w i th the background i mages at the bottom of the p i l e , and the com posi te i mage is pho­tographed . The ce l s are then removed and the process is repeated for the next frame unt i l each s ingle frame i n the sequence has been photographed . Vo ice record ings , soundtracks and

other sound effects are fina l ly added to the completed film .

I n computer-assisted an imation , fol low ing the complet ion o f the storyboards , model sheets and character designs, the keyframes are hand-drawn on paper . The in -betweens are next created . The final drawings are scanned i nto the computer , d ig i ta l ly i nked and pa inted, super imposed over hand-crafted or CG backgrounds and eventual ly computer-an imated . The

movements of ind ividual parts of a character's body are drawn and scanned in separately, as are the backgrounds and any mov ing obj ects . The programs used by many studios today com­bine all the various l ayers into compos i te scenes, which are then ready to be burned onto fi l m. It is not hard to recogn ize the t ime-effectiveness of this p rocess i n comparison with the tra­d i t ional method .

It is also worth observ ing , however , that the advent of cel an imation was i tse lf a revo­

l ut ionary development i n the h istory of the medium . Animat ion's p ion eers, such as Winsor

McCay ( 1 867- 1 934) , designed their works frame by frame , and every draw ing requ i red the repet i t ion of each s i ngle m inut ia , including background deta i l s . With the i nvent ion of the

cel , an imators were able to l ighten considerably the ir laborious rout ine: the execution of draw­

ings i l l ustrat ing change in the characters' movements upon transparent sheets i ndeed enabled them to superi mpose the var iable elements over backgrounds that could remain unaltered over a number of frames .

Computers can be employed in order to digitize an independently exist ing image (e .g . a conventional drawing) through scanning. Alternately, images may be created directly in the com­puter in the form of wholly digital models . In both instances , the greatest advantage carried by digital technology for today's anime studios l ies with i ts provision of faci l i t ies whereby an an i ­mator may quite effortlessly modify even the minutest element of a frame, down to individual p ixels (the p ixel constituting the smal lest unit of a digitized image) . I n the past , that very same practit ioner would feasibly have had no choice but redraft the entire compos i t ion .

One-Tradition and Innovation in Modern Anime 9

The computer-generated images that are increas ingly i nfil trat ing the an im ated medium a l l over the g lobe comprise 2D and 3D graphics . 2 D computer graphics , namely computer­generated images based on two-dimensional geometric models , s tr ike their roots in applica­t ions original ly developed in order to assis t tradi tional drafting and pr int ing tech nologies , such as typography. Such 2D graphics intrinsical ly match anime's p redilection for styles that empha­

s ize the medium's ant i-mimetic madeness . This is because the 2D image is patently not a rep l ica of a real -world referent but actual ly constitutes an autonomous artifact w ith independent

semiotic import . Its value cannot be measu red i n terms of reportorial , documentary or pho­

tographic accuracy. I t is only qualifiable , in fact , with reference to a l ternate sign ifying prop­erties : primarily, the abi l i ty to conj ure up paral le l universes unfettered by the ru les o f dayl ight common sense .

The domain of 2 D computer graphics comprises "vector graphics" and "raster graphics . " The phrase vector graphics refers to the use of geometrical primit ives such as points, l ines , curves

and polygons to represent i mages . In the field of raster graphics (also known as "b i tmap") , by contras t , images are rep resented as arrays of pixels . The human eye is s upposed to capture i ts

env i ronment as a raster image , namely a mosaic of l ight particles comparable to p ixels . Yet ,

recent research has i ndicated that the brain processes the information i t rece ives through the

eye as a vector image - plausibly for the reason that j ust as vector graph ics are eas ier to store in the computer insofar as they consist of relatively small files, so a vector-based mental image wil l be more readi ly retained in memory. I t could also be argued that e lementary draw ings such as logos designed according to the simplest geometric shapes or cartoons consisting purely of outlines are so automatical ly grasped and remembered because they closely replicate the sorts of patterns which the brain instinctively extrapolates from the visual world .

Two-dimensional graph ics, inc luding typeset text , can b e repeatedly man ipu lated and edited by recourse to 2 D geometric transformations such as rotation , scaling and skewing, to textual tools contro l l ing type styl e , size and color , and to artist ic filters capable of furn i sh ing an image with the visual p roperties of waterco lors, mosaics , s tained glass, pencil or charcoal sketches and neon lights - among myriad other options . The programs u til ized by 2D com­puter graphics are not designed to engender 3D solids and 3 D opt ical effects such as light­ing, shadows, reflections and refractions . They are nevertheless capable of p roducing mult ip le

l ayers, of endowing them wi th different ch romatic gradients and levels of opacity, transparence

or trans lucence, and of stacking them in a certai n order to convey an impress ion of depth .

Layers can be regarded a s the digita l equivalent of the clear cels used i n tradi t iona l an ima­tion . I t is possible to p lace both single obj ects and clusters of related objects on dist inct lay­ers, a lter the order of the layers, and move objects behind or in front of other obj ects . Layers may be locked so as to p revent the accidental shift ing of an object from its appointed p lace , as well as turned off or hidden in order to focus on discrete portions of a drawing at any one time . As independent ly modifiable ent i ties , l ayers const i tute exceptiona l ly supple graph i c mechanisms .

I n the final composite p icture, the layers are "painted" or "pasted" onto the v i rtu al can ­

vas i n order of decreasing depth . ( A l ayer's "depth" refers t o i ts distance from t h e viewer. ) As the terms "painted" and "pasted" intimate, 2D computer graphics lend themselves to the d ig­ital simulation of both pictorial and col lage-oriented traditional tech niques . I n both instances, they s uit ideal ly Japanese an imation's inveterate p reference for hand-crafted effects to the extent that they enable contemporary animators to mimic with extraordin ary p recision sev-

1 0 AN IMF [�T[RSECTIONS

eral t ime-honored art ist ic p racti ces � yet they can provide unprecedentedly t ime-effective and affordable methodologies to wh ich conventional cel animation cou ld never have asp i red .

Ongo ing advances i n the field of 20 computer graphics have also faci l i tated the produc­t ion of aesthetical ly p leas ing images by perfect ing the process of "anti-al ias i ng . " This refers

to the incremental b lurr ing of sharp edges and corners in order to e l im inate j agged contours

and impart the drawing with a smoothly integrated appearance . 20 systems supp ly an ime

studios w i th four pr inc ipal fac i l i ties :

• the scanning and process ing of visuals both separately and i n batches; • the color ing of an image's p lanes and trace l i nes (with the optional addit ion of effects

such as soft shadowed contours) by means of digital ink and paint; • the compos i t ing of various elements of a scene and incremental man ipulat ion of the

ensemble ; and • the creat ion of the final image from discrete data fi l es contain ing i n formation about

palettes, textures and shading through the "renderi ng" process .

Numerous programs are also equipped with a "frame buffer , " a memory area devoted to the storage of the p ixel data for a s i ngle digit ized image . This tool makes i t possible to fil l digi­tal ly various frames wi th recurrent motifs that could not be p lausibly reproduced manual ly for each i mage without impai r ing consis tency of presentation .

I f 2 0 computer graphics are akin to paint ing and col lage , 3D computer graph i cs are comparable to scu lpture . Even though an ime studios have been del iberately s lower in adopt­

ing 3D systems than 2 0 ones, in consonance wi th Japanese art's part ia l i ty to hand-crafted visuals with eminently two-dimensional attributes, 3D elements have featured in the i r p ro­

duct ions s ince at l east the late 1990s and have often been put to considerable dramatic effect . The key function of 3 D systems in the domain of an ime resides with the model l i ng process . This des ignates the shap ing of individual objects to be subsequently i ntegrated i n a wider scene layout . One o f the most com mon model l i ng procedu res , known as "constructive so l id geometry, " rel i es on pr imi tives � namely bas ic sol ids such as cuboids, pyramids, spheres , cones and cyl i nders � which it combines on the bas is of the three pr imary Boolean operations : addi­

t ion , subtraction and in tersect ion .

An especial ly usefu l tech n ique for generat ing smoothly curv i l i near and undulat ing sur­faces i n 3D is N URBS ("non-un iform rational B-spl ine") mode l l ing . This enables the man ip­ulat ion of surfaces by recou rse to control points located along mu l t ip l e l i nes that behave , when "pushed" or "dragged, " as though they were connected by a rubber band . The construc­t ion of 3D structures inc ludes the d igital creation of pre l im inary geometric versions of char­acters , to be subsequently "textu re-mapped" with the addit ion of various 20 sur faces capabl e of s imulat ing specific material and tact i le quali ties . Analogous models underp i n the opera­t ions of "mot ion-capture" technology, where motion data d ig i ta l ly extrapolated from the act ions of l ive performers are mapped onto computer-generated models o f the characters . Such forms of 3D structur ing rely substantial ly on "polygonal model l i ng . " This techn ique takes 20 po lygons as i ts po int of departure , and produces 3D groups of polygons connected by shared vert ices to rep resent approximately the shapes of the desi red obj ects . A 3D group of th i s k ind is general ly described as a "mesh" of connected "faces , " and const i tutes someth ing l i ke the sk in of an object or cha racter . A mesh is commonly dep icted i n "wi reframe" mode : a framework showing the faces and overal l out l ine pr ior to its coloring and textur ing . In the

One-T radition and InnOl'tltion in hforie rJJ Anirne 1 1

case of complex characters , the creat ion of a mesh i s fol lowed by a fu rther p rocess known as "rigg ing" - the construct ion of a v i rtual skeleton of h ie rarch ical ly i n te rrelated parts corre­sponding to bones (rods) and j o ints (pivots) .

S mooth surfaces can be p roduced by means of "subdivis ion s u rfaces . " The fundamental

p ri nc ip le upon which th is method operates is that of repeated refinement : the i n i t ial mesh

may be a s imple cube, refined th rough the generation of other meshes contai n i ng an increas­ingly great number of faces, unt i l i t app roximates a sleek sphere . In the field of 3D computer graph ics, the render ing p rocess entai ls the convers ion of 3D models , which are essent ia l ly j ust

files conta in ing basic data about objects, into 20 i mages endowed wi th deta i led chromat ic and textu ral qual i t ies , and w ith specific degrees of l um inosi ty. An especia l ly rea l i s t ic method for rendering images constructed through 3D systems, known as " ray trac ing , " i s capable of rep resent ing accurately any i maginable manifestat ion of l ight . The p rogram traces the path taken by a ray o f l ight through any one scene and calcu lates the reflection , refract ion o r absorp­

t ion of the beam whenever this h i ts a part icular surface . The more advanced render ing p ro­grams a lso i ncorpo rate m echan i sms for the generat ion of real i s t i c a tmospher ic and env i ronmental factors such as fog , mist , smoke or steam .

The dep loyment of d igita l tech nology i n an ime has been the object of heated debate for at least two decades . Studios that adopted some of the p ioneer ing com p uter-generated 3 D effects were only moderately successful- if a t a l l . 3D a n i m e s t i l l consti tutes a relatively smal l

p roportion of the overal l industry, though some of i ts recent resu l ts have p roved unquest ion­ably outs tanding . I n the early phases of computer-assisted an i mation , even the rendi t ion of 20 effects was h igh ly problemat ic , insofar as the d ig i tal ly an imated par t s tended to cl ash with the bu lk of the ce l an imat ion . As a resu l t , the implementation of d ig i ta l tools tended to be

l i m ited to scenes where the p resence of conspicuous computer graph ics was considered desir­able . Computers, i n this respect , were especia l ly usefu l i n the execut ion of sensational dynamic effects fo r the more ebul l ient act ion sequences .

Although the first attempts to use computer graph ics i n an ime were made i n the early 1980s , it was not unti l the m id- 1 990s that CGI were b rought in to the mainst ream , largely thanks to s teady exper i mentation in the field undertaken for a period of over ten years by

Toe i , the largest an imc company in Japan . S ince that t ime , studios have incremental ly deve l­oped more satisfying p rocedures to mesh cut t i ng-edge CGI wi th t radi t ional cel an i mat ion , and accord ingly del i vered i m p ress ive syntheses of the two forms u n m arred by styl ist ic incon­gruit ies . By the early 2000s , abo u t 9 5 percent of the ent i re vo lume of TV ser ies , OVAs (Orig­inal Video An imations) and theatre-bound features produced in any one year were al ready being made with d igita l assi stance .

These deve lopments have been largely d ictated by financia l cons iderat ions : d igi tal tech­nology enables studios to cut down the cost of cel p roduction without sacrific ing artist ic qual­ity. However , i t would be cyn ical to cla im that an i marors resort to com puter-assisted an imation for the sole reason that i t i s less expens ive than trad i t ional cel an imation . In fact , the j udi­cious i m plementat ion of CGI alongside conventional hand-drawn i mages a l so a l lows for a more extensive use o f visual and special effects than the trad i t ional for m would have ever afforded . Furthermore , many p rograms supply d i rectors with greater flex ib i l i ty in the han­dl ing of camera work and photographic composit ion, al lowing them to p review the work w i th several d ifferent sets of opt ions before a final pr int is made .

This study, therefo re , is not i nte rested i n assess ing the degree to which Japanese an ima-

12 AN IME I �TERSECTIONS

tIon may have resisted the p rogress ion from analogue to digita l , so much as i n eval uat ing an ime's adaptive dispos i t ion to discover what i t can do with the blossoming methodologies and how i t can harness them to a vis ion that p reserves an affil iat ion to t radi t ion at the same t ime as i t embraces novel ty. Such a quest is inevi tably open-ended insofa r as science and

fiction al i ke , a t their most honest and committed, abhor conclus ive statement s .

Regardless of the extent t o which a n i m e blends tradi t iona l hand-drawn images w i t h 20 or 3D comput e r graphics ( i f at a l l ) , one of i ts most dist inctive strengths is undeniably ca m­era work . ( See also Scott Frazier's art ic le "Japanese Animat ion Camera Work. " ) The ma in classic operations encompass : fix , s l id ing , fai r ing , pan , t i l t , z ip pan , image BG, fol low, fol ­low pan , tracking , fade i n /fade out , disso lve , w ipe , backl ight ing .

An ime uses far more persistently than Western forms of an ima t ion are general ly inc l ined

to do the "fix , " the cut where the camera does not move . The medium's detractors have often

denigrated the ut i l ization of this strategy as conducive to unexcit i ngly stat ionary cuts . How­

ever , it i s p recisely by recourse to the fix that Japanese an imation has t ime and again yielded memorable moments of reflect ive i ntensity and wordless pathos . No less common in an ime is the "sl id ing" move : the s l id ing of a frame across the field of v i s ion . A n economica l means of conveying dynamism whi le cutt ing down on the number of d rawings needed, th i s tech­n ique has come to be regarded as a ver i table t rademark of an ime c inematography.

In order to accelerate or decelerate the pattern of motion of an e lement a t the beginning or at the end of a cut , camera operators resort to "fa i r ing" (also known as "cush ion" ) : a tech­nique based on the p l acement and spacing of frames . For instance , to show an in i t ia l ly s low

movement speed ing up at the end of the cut , it is common to s i tuate the first few images rep­resent ing the affected object close together and then have the distance between them increase

with each successive frame . As a means of producing panoramic effects, an ime employs the "pan" (an abbreviat ion

of "panorama" ) . I n th i s move , the camera i tself remains stat ionary but i ts focus swings from left to r ight (or vice versa) to capture successive portions of a scene across a hor izontal p l ane . The "t i l t" is an analogous operation in which the focus sw ings vert ical ly ins tead . A rel a ted

effect , the "zip pan," is based on us ing backgrounds that consist of l i nes rather than of defined images i n order to evoke the i l lus ion of movement . For the sake of conti nu i ty, the l i nes a re executed i n the same palettes as those used for other parts of the sequence i n which the back­

ground displays identifiable figures . Background effects also p l ay an important role in the case of the " image BG" techn ique , where explos ive splatters of d iverse hues are ut i l ized to convey a character's emotional s tate or to i nt imate a sh ift to a l ternate rea l i ty l eve ls . In th is instance , the palettes a re del iberately made to c lash with the chromatic range deployed i n the sequence's

normal backgrounds in order to induce a v ivid sense of dis location . I n the "fo l low" (a move partly akin to the pan), the camera t ravels a long wi th the act ion ,

compensat ing for the fact that the var ious foreground and background l ayers i n a cut tend to move at d ifferent paces . Deal ing with shorter elements that logically reach the end before the longer ones do, i t i s common for cinematographers to move them back to the beginn ing and to take them through the cut aga in (sometimes several t imes in success ion) . At the same t ime , Japanese an imation ass iduously employs the "fol low pan ," where the camera remains steadi ly locked onto one s i ngle e lement and fol lows its motion throughout the cut , and "trackin g , " where the camera moves with the object bei ng filmed i n a s ide-to-side or forward-backward motion so as to focus closely on smal l portions of the image . "Fade i n /fade ou t , " the gradual

Olle-Tradition and Innovation in Modern Anime 13

appeara nce or disappearance of an i mage , p lays an important dramatic ro l e in an ime , as do the "dissolve , " an editing technique i n which one shot gradual ly fades o ut whi le another fades in to take its p lace , and the "w ipe , " a p rocedure whereby one image appears to push the p re­vious i mage off the screen .

A crucial component of an ime i n a l l its manifestations i s u ndeniably "backl ighting , " a

strategy customari ly employed for flares, flashes of l ight and b lasts . To generate backl it effects , the an imators p roduce "masks, " namely cels that are painted b lack except for the regions to be i l l uminated . These cels are shot separately and then super imposed onto the or ig inal cut . Backl ighting is most spectacular when it is shot through a d iffusion fi lter capable o f soften­ing an element's hardest l i nes to al low the l ight to spread o ut i n a halo-l i ke effect .

Celebrating an imation's inherent power to alert p lurigenerational audiences to the endur­ing importance of i magination and p lay, an ime bri ngs to l i fe pr i smatic dream worlds with both flamboyance and r igor . An imation's potential for delv ing i nt o profound, or even down­right unpalatab le , aspects of being h uman is persistently thrown i nto rel ief even as comedy, romance and wish-fu lfi l l i ng fantasies appear p redominant. An ime concomitantly rejects the styl i stic and ideological tenets of m imet ic real i sm , exper imenting ass iduously w ith hybr id generic m ixes . At the i r most memorab le , these al lude to the poss ib i l ity that real i sm may res ide

l ess w ith commonsense-dr iven m irror-up-to-nature depict ions of "th ings as they a re" than w ith a dispassionate exposure of the abyss on the verge of which human existence teeters at a l l times .

It could, of cour s e , be argued that a l l forms of an imation (and not merely an ime) del iver dream worlds by engendering s ituations in which the l aw of cause and effect can never be taken for granted, and incongruous occurrences may therefore concatenate in utterly unpre­

dictable ways . What th i s entai ls is a drastic suspens ion of everyday rea l ity markers, whereby parallel and often refresh i ng real ities are hailed into existence . However , in enter ing the one i ric d imension , an imation is a lso capable of disclosing n ightmares, v is ions i m b ued w ith unset­tl i ng images and un palatab le messages . Live-action c inema does this w ith some regular ity b ut audiences appear p repared to deal w ith the medium's darker moments i nsofar as these are

anchored - albeit sometimes p recariously - to what they th ink of as "normal" rea l ity : h uman

beings and sett ings that do not depart so rad ically from real- l i fe referents as to come across as und i lutedly and distastefu l ly b izarre .

Even when actors suddenly shoot up i nto the sky, evaporate i nto thi n a i r o r morph i nto fabulous beasts , v iewers somehow know - or at least sense - that the actual bodies they occupy remain , at the i r core , i ntact , and that the actions i n which they are i nvolved amount to whol ly artificial effects enabled by machines . These , moreover , increas ingly re ly for the generation of VFX and S FX on techn iques i nsp i red by animation of both the traditional and cutti ng­

edge varieties, and may therefore be expediently "separated" from the empi rical realm as utterly

fict it ious , mechanical adj u ncts . No spectator , for instance , would ser ious ly doubt the exis­tence of a flesh-and-blood Hugo Weaving beh ind the nauseating p l ethora of "Agent Smith" clones flooding the screen at cl imactic j unctures of both The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions.

The an imated med ium , conversely, does not al low for the automatic trans lat ion of its images into rea l - l i fe equ ivalents : in fact , it scrambles both reason and log ic , upsetting a l l manner of pragmatic expectat ions . I n so do ing, i t deliberately makes us fee l more vulnerable to fantasy's unwarranted incurs ions i nt o rea l ity, ult imately u rg ing us to question the val idity

14 ANIME [:--;TERSECTIONS

of our efforts to d ifferent iate between the two dimensions . Western ani mation's tenden cy to relegate the form to the category of a chi ld 's toy, supposedly unsu i ted to the explorat ion of serious issues, could be seen a s an attempt to keep i ts subversive potent ia l i t ies at bay. I t i s as

though an i mation could be tolerated only as long as i ts most audacious - and yet also most dist inctive - traits cou ld be domesticated by curta i l ing its compass . An imation, th is suggests, may be safely a l lowed to wreak havoc with so-called norma l i ty only insofar as i ts t ransgres­s ive operat ions do not sp i l l into the territory of adul t entertainment and adul t p reoccupa­t ions .

Japanese animation adopts a radica l ly different stance, and this is arguably the pr imary reason fo r which its particular dream worlds enduringly prove both inv igorating and discon­cert ing for disparate v iewers across the globe . Where Disney-oriented an i mat ion seeks to con­sol idate the audience's concept of rea l i ty by drawi ng neat bou ndaries between real i ty and

fan tasy, dayl ight common sense and oneir ic wonder , an ime insi stently p roblemat izes the p re­sumed authority of the real . In th is respect , i t art icu lates to unparal le led extremes a p rocl iv­ity which , as Wel l s argues, i s l atently present in the medium of animat ion as a whole : "Many animat ions have the tone , sty le , and su rreal persuasiveness of the dream or nightmare , and the imagery of reco l l ection, recognit ion and half- recal l " (Wells 2002 , p. 7 1 ) . Even when a

sense of normal ity is restored - for example , through the sat isfactory rounding-off of an anime

character's quest - the reso l u t ion is never total and the act ion's afterglow is accord ingly per­meated by loom ing sensations of i n completeness, uncertainty and loss . For some spectators, such inconclus ive messages may feci d ispir i t ing or even downright frustrat i ng . Yet , i t i s only as long as gaps are p reserved - and indeed treasured - as vital parts of the cul tu ral fabric that spaces for further exp loration and creativity w i l l survive, and the powers of imagination and specu lat ion thrive unhindered .

The methodologies and tools deployed by the "anime factory" to transpose i ts dreams to the screen u l t imately p l ay no less vita l a part than its content-centred p reoccupat ions . Most notably, as the case studies conducted in the fo l l ow ing chapters hopefu l ly demonstrate , an ime

never qui te rel inqu ishes the t ime-honored legacy of hand-drawn graphics even as i t engages, more or l ess enterpris ingly, with digital practices and with the cognate concerns of both actua l and hypothetical technocultures . A purely pragmatic explanat ion for the ubiqui ty and perse­verance of this styl ist ic t rend l i es with the fact that scores of an imators employed by studios l ike the ones here examined have emerged from eminently art isanal backgrounds . Even when digital technology rises to the status of a pr imary creative resource , therefore, those ani ma­tors carry with in their m inds and bodies the indel ib le vest iges of a training grounded in tra­

d i t iona l draughtsmanship . Moreover , i t is not uncommon for animators to supp lement the i r

studio-based activit ies with add i t ional invo lvement i n the product ion of manga , com ic str ips , adverts and album covers. Thus, participation in ancillary markets indirectly secures the ani­

mators' ongoi ng commitment to a fundamentally hand-crafted art. As int imated throughout th is study, while i t i s v i ta l to acknowledge anime's unfl inch ing

devotion to the hand-drawn dimension, i t would be preposterous to deny that its u t i l ization of cutt ing-edge com puter-assisted techniques has monumenta l ly enhanced i ts p ur v iew. On the one hand, digital techn ology enables studios to better cope with often insanely t igh t pro­duction schedules and shrinking budgets w ithout having to sacrifice thei r aesthet ic i mpera­t ives in the p rocess . On the other hand, that technology is often better equipped than the so-cal led " l imited animation" of decades gone by to rea l ize the art ist's v i s ion w i th unprece-

One- Tradition and Innovtltion in Modern Anime IS

dented smoothness and sophistication. As shown, an ime d i rectors adamantly ma intain that computers are essentia lly tools and should not, therefore, be unquestion ingly ideal ized as ends in themselves. Nonetheless, no neo-Luddite m isgiv ings appear to c loud the potion when it

comes to acknowledging the i mmense potent ial ities held by legion incarnations of state-of­

the-art technology, w ith its p rofusion of both hardware and software designed to execute top­notch an imatics, backgrounds, characters and special effects.

Rather , what remains card inal to the work of the studios discussed i n th is study is an adoption of d igital technology that never qu ite obfuscates the vital i mportance of some old­school hands-on train i ng for a l l p ractitioners of the art , i f only for the p u rpose of enabl ing them to appreciate the value of each of the myriad frames w ith which a l l an imators u lt imately have to grapple. Rel atedly, d i rect experience of both the bless ings and the tribu lations i nher­ent in the art of drawing wil l he lp an i mators remember throughout the i r careers - whether

or not they also engage w ith CGI - the exquis ite un iqueness of the tacti l e , even sculptura l , sensation of carv ing a draw ing w ith a penci l i nto the textu re of a sheet o f paper.

The argument i n favor of an imation's ongo ing fidel ity to trad it ion typ ical ly advocated by the an ime practitioners d iscussed in th is study are echoed by com mitted an imators the world over , and should not therefore be regarded as an exclus ively Japanese "syndrome. " For Pol i sh fi lmmaker Andrzej Czeczot, for example , "Classical an imation wi l l stay around as long as sens itive people sti l l ex ist. . . . It's not about how we wi l l make an imated films, but for what and for whom we're trying to cook the perfect an imated v is ion .... An imation should also be

an oasis of poetry and a more refined sense of humor. Animated films can also te l l much deeper, but not boring , stories. I dream about artistic an i mated fi lms made by art ists , not only by money makers" (quoted in Bal l ) .

Furthermore , the gap putatively separati ng an imators who are faithfu l to traditional styles and those who enthus iastical ly embrace digital technology is not as wide as one may some­t imes be led to bel i eve , when one considers that both categor ies may wel l be gu ided by the same fundamental mechanism. This , as the professor of art and design at Columbus Col lege

Sean Ivory has stated, amounts to no more and no l ess than "des i re. " Ivory substa ntiates h i s

thes is w ith reference to both h i s personal experience i n the fie ld and h i s observation of devel­oping trends :

I have w i tnessed a l o t of talented art i sts who were n o t w i l l i ng t o put in the t i m e a n d effort that are a d i rect resu l t of Des i re . I have also seen a lot of shortcomi ngs overcome by a person's Des i re to accomp l i sh [h i s ot her] v i s ion . An imat ion has been made a mllch faster a n d eas i e r process d u e t o new technology b u t i t s t i l l takes a great d e a l of t ime , effort a n d exper imenta t ion i n order for i t to be d o n e proper ly. Des ire i s always the d r i v i ng force beh i nd a s tudent or a profess iona l putt ing i n the t imc, effort and cxper imenta­tion [Ivory, p . 5 ] .

The an imator Marco Valgresy, origi na l ly tra i ned in traditional an imation a n d subsequently i ntroduced to computer-generated 3D an imation , persuas ively conso l idates this po i nt : " Even i n CG animation , you are ob l iged to have an i nterest in trad it ional an imation and i n the peo­p le who have developed the necessary ski l l s" (Valgresy, p. 5).

Pixar d i rector Pete Docter read i ly embraces an analogous standpoint :

There are two ways d rawing he lps YOll, even i f you're work ing i n stop-mot ion o r 3 D computer an imat ion . Fi rst , d rawing he lps you take i n v i sual in tCmnat ion . eood .ln i mat ion i s based on keen observat ion of human behavior, movement, and l i fe in general. The only way to get this stufr to st ick i n your head i s to consciously observe i t-to rea l ly see it , not just rest your eyes on if. The best way I know to wake up your bra in and real ly observe is to d raw. Second, d rawing s t rengthens you r an ima t ion , especia l ly your poses .

1 6 Al': IME I NTERSECTIONS

I t a l lows you to know what you need to bend, or lengthen , or exaggerate . . . . The best an imators at P ixar are also sol i d draughtsmen , which I th ink i s no coincidence [Docter 200 5 a , pp . 5-6 J .

According to Jean Theberge , teacher at Concordia Un ivers i ty, an "advanced draw ing educa­tion" i s not only he lpfu l in developing a competent grasp of "shape , volume , space and d i men­s ion" but i s also "essent ial to those who a im towards 3D software mode l l ing" (Theberge , p . 6) . D ig i ta l compos i tor Joe Raasch corroborates th i s propos i t ion , ma inta in i ng that i n volve­ment in "the 'creat ive' s ide" of v isual effects l i kew ise benefits substant ial l y from an "under­s tand ing" of "al l the trad i t ional concepts" - namely, "compos i tion , color theory, perspective" (Raasch , p . 6) .

One of the most exhaust ive accounts of the importance of hands-on exper ience firmly

grounded i n the study and practice of the art of drawing i s undoubtedly Joseph G i l l a nd's Ele­

mental Magic: The Classical Art of Halld-Drawn tlfects Animation. The fol low i n g passage comes from the second chapter "The Art of Drawing and An i mati ng Special Effects , " and serves to i l l um inate G i l land's ent i re argument . Concurrently, i t supp l ies a valuable comp le­ment to the ethos embraced by al l of the d i rectors examined i n th i s study. Extens ive c i tat ion seems accordi ngly apposi te at th is j uncture :

More t ime i s be ing spent teachi ng young art ists how to manipulate complex computer grap h ics software, and l ess time i s spent teach ing them how to observe, how to see and in tu i t the i n credib le subt let ies of nature's sp lendor i n order to bes t represent i t as art ists . . . . I n my experience superv i s ing d ig i tal ar t i s t s over the l ast 10 years, I have consistent ly come across i n d iv iduals who have developed a h igh l evel of des ign sk i l l s as wel l as a h igh degree of proficiency w i t h t h e i r d ig i tal tools , bur who haven't developed the sense of fleling the phys ics of what they were trying to an i mate . . . . Lea rning to see and feel th rough hand /eye coord inat ion pract ice , observ ing , drawing , scu lpt ing , an i mat ing by hand -all of these are i nval uable if an effects artist wants to get to that mystical p lace where time, space, physics and motion become ful ly nat­ural and intu i tive . . . . Remember that no matter how wel l you master your draw ing techn ique, i f you can't flel the efleers you are trying to an imate, they wi l l not s ing with l i fe . An i m ag inat ion that is ful l of l ife , must i n form t h e wel l-tra ined drawing hand [ G i l landJ .

I n l ight of the cyberdevelopments promoted by numerous Western s tudios, w i th Pixar as the vanguard, one may be tempted to wonder whether an i mation faces a paperless future2

where in excel lence can by no means be automatically expected . Indeed, as S teve Rose has

remarked, the comb ination of "cri t ical accla im , commerc ia l success and technological p rogress" i n the an imat ion sector enjoyed by many "digital ly rendered del i gh ts" over the past decade i ncreas ingly appears to be lead i ng to "an excess of product and a dearth of qual i ty. Even P ixar could only muster m iddl i ng revi ews for i ts lates t , Cars [d i r . John Lasseter , 2006]" (Rose) .

Ryan Bal l corroborates Rose's v i ew i n maintai n ing that the p r ior i t izat ion of 3D CG p roduc­

tions by the l i kes of " Disney, Dream Works , Sony, Warner Bros . and Twent ieth Century Fox"

is no automat ic guarantee of art ist ic cal iber : "One th ing the phenomena l success of some 3 D fi l m s has done is open t h e Hood gates for p rod uction o f more o f the same . . . w e . . , may a l so see the newness of 3D start to fade l i ke a tee-sh i r t that's seen one too many wash ings" (Bal l ) .

Rose has also op ined that qual i tat ive deterioration in the doma in of an i mat ion a imed pr imar i ly at kids may expla in recent attempts i n the West to take the medi u m i nto more adult terr i tory - as ind icated, for example , by the sc ience-fiction thr i l l er Renaissance, d i rected by Chr ist ian Volckman , and by the psychodrama A Scanner Darkly, d i rected by Richard L in­klater , both of which were released i n the summer of 2006. (Linklater's fi lm i s d i scussed in some detai l i n Chapter 6 . ) Even the darker facets of "vaguely ch i l d-unfr iendly an i mat ions such as Corpse Bride [dirs . Ti m Burton and Mike Johnson , 2005]" cou l d be seen as forays i nto

One - Tradition and Innovation in Modern Anime 17

semi-adult an imat ion on Hol lywood's part (Rose) . I ntr igu ingly, even though a l l of these p ro­ductions benefit considerably from advances i n digital technology, the i r techn i cal underpin­n ings a r e decidedly tradit ional : rotoscop ing in the case of Renaissance and A Scanner Darkly,

and stop-motion an imation in that of Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride. This suggests that the

med ium has not reached an unsurpassable summit through i ts computer-generated exp lo i ts but actually remains engaged i n a p rocess of ongoing evo lut ion , cont inua l ly sco ut ing new pos­s ible worlds .

According to Ben Fritz , the CGI "glut" wi tnessed by the Western an imat ion industry over the past few years i s not only resu l t ing i n d imin i sh ing qual i ty, as argued by both Rose and Bal l ; in fac t , it i s also taking a financial to l l : " I n 2004 ," the cr i t ic declares, "the average

box office for an an imated pic was $ 149 mi l l ion . This year , i t's $88 m il l i on . Bu t then , there

are 50% more toons i n release this year than in '04 . . . . The bu l l ish sp i r i t of several years ago ,

when a l l these p rojects began p roduct ion , has given way to int rospect ion : How much is too much? " (Fr i tz) .

An ime is here to remind us of the tenacious persistence of tantal iz ing alternat ives to the

autocracy of CG I , and of the p laus ib i l i ty of br inging to the screen a plethora of dreams by cap ital iz ing at once on diverse styles and technologies . Flex ib i l i ty has tradit ional ly operated as the faculty that enables both an imation as an art and its characters there in to go on re i n ­venting i tself� and themselves � wi th rubber res i l ience . An ime's supple i nt egration of man­

ua l and cutt ing-edge ski l l s � of paper and monitor , of penci l and mouse � const i tutes one of

the most i ntr igu ing exempl ifications of that very facul ty.

The movies examined here clearly exh ib i t certa in recurr ing thematic p reoccupa t ions : the impact of technology on percept ions and defini tions of h umani ty ; v is ions of the future alter­nately based on the exp l ic i tly futur ist ic purv iew p romulgated by class ic sc ience fict ion or insp ired by a retrofutu rist ic steam punk sensit ivity; and the vic iss i tudes of the young i n the

p rocess of enculturement , a s both a personal p redicament and a microcosmic encapsulat ion of broader societal ordeal s . However , the fi lms are str ikingly diverse , thematical ly speaking , and ins tead of forcing some notion of commonal i ty upon them at th i s s tage , i t seems more apposite to focus on the narrative specificity of each i n the ind iv idual chapters .

Nonetheless, a few panoramic observations regarding the techn ical features of the selected movies are necessary at this juncture . Indeed, while i t would be quite p reposterous to try to shove these styl ist ical ly and conceptual ly diverse works into a s ingle themat ic mold, there are viable ways of l inking them with respect to their techn ical const i tut ions . To be more p recise , i t i s poss ible to honor the techn ical dist inctiveness of each, yet also see them as phases w i th in a cumu lative developmental trajectory i l l uminat ing the evo lut ion of an imat ion's relat ionsh ip

wi th dig i tal technology over the space of just over a decade . The earl i e r productions d iscussed

i n this study are firmly grounded in tradi t ional cel-centred methodologies . Nevertheless , they

also participate in that overal l progress ion by anticipating some of the ach ievements of both 2 0 and 3D CG I , or by commenting on the dominance of digital ly mediated experience . Sub­sequent productions exempl ify, with vary ing degrees of complex ity, ongo ing advances i n the jub i lantly hybr id realm of integrative an imation devoted to harmoniz ing hand-drawn and cutt ing-edge v isua ls .

Yoshiaki Kawajiri 's Nillja Scroll ( 1 993) ut i l izes exclus ively tradi t ional cel an i mat ion . One of the pr inc ipa l reasons behind its selection is the fi lm's ground-breaking intervent ion i n the deve lopment of the twi n arts of v isua l effects and special effects through the deployment of

1 8 A N I M E I :-.ITERSECTIUNS

techn iques which, though pre-digi tal , anticipate the achi evements of la te r works abetted by

varying degrees of computerized assis tance . The short an i mat ion Program (2003) , br iefly examined in tandem wi th Ninja Scroll, i l l ustrates Kawaj i ri 's t rans i t ion to the domain of cel­CGI i ntegrat ion and s imul taneously bears witness w i th economical el egance to tremendous advances in an i me at large between 1993 and 2003 .

Satosh i Kon's Perftct Blue ( 1997) const i tutes a bridge of sorts between the earl i e r feature fi lm and subsequent p roductions here explored insofar as i t is firmly instal led i n the rea lm o f the hand-drawn i mage , yet makes important conceptual contribut ions t o the debate surround­ing the growth of compute r technology. Thus , the movie complements its technica l status

with thematic reflections on the sh ift from analog to digital media and on the repercuss ions of that sh ift for the l ives of both i ndividuals and ent ire cu l tures .

H ideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion 0995- 1997) rep resents an unprecedented leap forward where the coalescence of ce l an imation and computer graphics is concerned, p rogres­sively ut i l iz ing classic hand-drawn v isuals in conj unction w i th in i t ial ly j ust 20 and subse­quently both 20 and 3D digita l ly executed effects . Evangelion was one of the first t i t les to benefit from the growing expertise of Production I .G . General ly hai led as a foreru nner in the evo lut ion of d igi tal an imation , the company is especially renowned for i ts advances in d ig i ­

ta l compos i t ing , storyboard ing , chromatic grading and special effects . Concomitantly, the saga bold ly en riches the cel/CGI b lend through the incorporation of other p ictorial compo­nents , ranging from monochrome l ine sketches to ch i ldren's drawings and col lages . The the­matic endeavor to conste l late the psyche's pr i smat ic complex i ty is th us rep l icated a t the technical l evel by means of mult ifaceted visual mixes .

I t is with Rintaro's Metropolis (2001) that the degree of sophist icat ion of which contem­porary anime i s capable i n the orchestration of tradit ional and p ioneering components becomes

ful ly evident . Juxtapos ing hand-d rawn images insp ired by overtly cartoonish , cutesy and car­

icatural characters with computer-rendered locations of dizzying i ntr icacy, the film success­ful ly fu l fi l s i ts c reators' des i re to p revent the CG e lement from stan d i n g o u t as a mere addendu m . To ach ieve this objective , the animators created the i r i n i t ia l images by computer and then drew over them manual ly to br ing them closer to cel-ani mation qual i ty and warm th .

Released i n the same year as Metropolis, H.ironobu Sakaguchi 's Final Fantasy: The Spir­its Within offers the first ful ly developed use of the technique known as "motion capture" as a means of construct ing intensely photoreal ist ic v i rtual actors, or synthespians . Rel iant on tra­

dit ional methodologies i n its approach to various aspects of mechanical design and mise en scene, the film is nonetheless most memorable as an attempt to redefine the very notion of animation . The latter is indeed posi ted as an art potential ly capable of generat ing characters that can not only exist a longs ide l ive-action performers but even replace them .

The l ast four fi l ms discussed in the book , a l l released in 2004 , const i tute as many d i s­t inct experiments wi th a shared a im : the incremental ly seamless b l end ing o f hand-drawn and computer-generated i mages . Mamoru Osh i i 's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence i s a lmost u nan imously recogn ized as hav ing attained to that a im wi th somewhat uncanny effective­ness . However , what is no less remarkable about the fi lm's overal l v i sua l mood is i t s han­d l ing of the two techn iques with defami l iar iz ing effects . These are ach ieved through the i ron ical and unsett l ing j uxtapos i t ion of expl ic i tly hand-drawn and largely styl ized cha rac­ters and photo real i s t ic archi tectu ral environments executed by recourse to the most advanced digita l too ls . The contrast causes both the styl ized and the photoreal i s t ic e l ements to appear

One - Tradition alld IIlILOvrltion in Modern Anime 19

challengingly u n fami l i a r , and hence inv i tes the v iewer to quest ion the rea l i ty level of v i r tu­

a l ly any i mage . Appleseed has accompl ished what some o f the str icter an ime enthusiasts may wel l con­

sider anathema - namely, the medi um's transposit ion to the rea lm of fu l l - fledged 3D CGI . Whi l e the fi lm's glossy scu lptura l i ty may seem at odds with Japanese an imat ion's p roverb ia l ly flat look, it should be noted that the convent ions of tradit ional hand-drawn an ime are ful ly respected by the perpetuation of somat ic features and facial exp ress ions that have been embed­ded in the form s ince at least Osamu Tezuka . Concurrently, Appleseed has revo lut ion ized con­temporary an imation at large th rough the development of a style known as " 3 D l ive an ime , "

a b l end of motion-capture technology, 3D CGI and "toon-shad ing" software capable o f ren­

dering 3D CGI i n to 2 0 cel-style images .

Katsuh i ro Otomo's stearnboy and Hayao Miyazaki 's Howl's Mo�'ing Castle, finally, could be regarded as two cognate - though visual ly quite dist inct - proj ects i n the ever-expanding field of in tegrative an imat ion insofar as both fi lms use CG I pervas ively, yet tend to temper and mellow the i r impact by means of tonal and chromat ic effects based on the lessons of tra­

d i t ional cel an imation and p re-digita l c inematography. In the case of stearnboy, the pr incipal tool consists, i n this respect , of a muted palette of beige , tan , grey and b rown h ues that apt ly rep l icates the atmosphere of the e ra i n which the story i s set . Fu rthermore , the d i rector adamantly defended throughout the n ine years of Stearn boy's l abor ious p roduct ion his inten­

t ion not to substi tute the hand-drawn image wi th the computer-generated one but rather to

com bine the mer i ts of cel an i mation w i th the meri ts of CGI so as to transcend some of the l im i tat ions in tr ins ic in the t radit iona l approach . D igital tools , for Otomo , are especia l ly use­fu l as means of enhancing the avai lable range of expressions and camera angles .

I n the case of Howl, the endeavor to transcend the soul less starkness of ent i rely computer­generated an imation has rel ied primar i ly on the development of a d ig i ta l too l that emulates

the soft focus of a camera lens . This enables the production of mel lowing and d i m ming effects

aki n to those found in tradi t ional cel an i mat ion. The ph i losoph ical cr i ter ion underlying th i s cho ice i s that the h igh degree of photoreal ism of wh i ch computer-generated graph ics are capa­ble is techn ical ly laudable , yet should not be al lowed to impair the d i s t inctive "realness" o f cel an imation a s a form of real ism s u i generis .

By b lending a variety of both conventional and experimental procedures, these movies have a l l contr ibuted to the e laborat ion of a co lorfu l ensemble o f d i s t inct ive an imat iona l approaches . In the ir col lective import , the i r styl ist ic messages eloquently demonstrate an i me's

knack of j uxtapos ing contrast ing aesthetic pr i nciples - preeminently, smoothness and homo­geneity, on the one hand, and jarr ing discordance, on the other . At t imes , the chosen fi lms

come across as genu ine paeans to visual harmony thanks to sequences characterized by o ut ­standing consistency i n both the atmospheric and the c inematograph ical arenas . At others , they del iberately cap ita l ize on dissonant effects in order to j ost le the v i ewer out of compla­cency and assaul t the opt ic nerve w i th a cacophony of impulses , deformed l i nes and quaint hues .

Digi tal technology, this study contends, has been increasin gly supplying the an ime indus­try with new opportun i ties and techn iques for the enhancement of both harmon ious and dis­cordant styles , enab l ing i t to ach ieve what would unti l recently have been considered frankly implausible . As the chosen films document , however , no amount of state-of-the-art equ ip­ment is u l t i mately capab l e of y ie ld ing authentic pleasure un less i t is buttressed by creative

20 ANI M E i l\'TERSECTIONS

adventurousness . In the p rocess, they also remind us that in order to be conv inc ing , any form of enterta inment must be able t o draw u s into i ts s i ngular un iverse and to keep u s there for as long as i ts momentum requ i res . Relatedly, the fi lms persistently em phasize that audacious tools and techn iques should n ever be adopted and upheld as ends in themselves : un less they are channelled i nto the making of thoughtfully entertai n ing stories and into the evocat ion of psychologically appeal ing characters , their products wil l ine luctably amou nt to l i t t le more than frigidly steri l e swathes of gl i ttery graphics . It is for th is very reason that the case s tudies here suppl ied, whi l e selectively assess ing both the tradit ional and the i nnovative s trategies

deployed by various artists and studios, also seek to document as exhaustively as possib le the

nine t i t les' thematic and narrative d imensions . The productions inspected, moreover , are i nherently deconstructive i nsofar as they har­

bor tantal iz ingly unresolved tensions . Due to thei r in tegration of p rofou ndly d ifferent method­ologies i n the techn ical art iculat ion of thei r respective vis ion s , the movies appear to be what they are not , on one leve l , and appear not to be what they are , on another . Even as they seem to comply ent i rely with the t ime-honored codes and conventions of cel an imat ion , they are frequently underp i nned by cutt ing-edge digital technology. Conversely, even as they overt ly

assert themselves as ground-breaking interventions in the development of daring CG I , they

tend to remain attached to the tradit ional legacy of hand-drawn , styl ized graph ics . The fi lms' j uxtaposition of ingredients s o diverse as t o appear i l l-suited t o coexistence could

be seen to amount to something of an aporia . In the realm of logic , this term denotes a concate­nation of elements which, though individually tenable , del iver an untenable inconsistency when they are yoked together. An imation , however, is no more tied to the laws of logic than i t i s to those of phys ics . Hence, i t is at l iberty to thrive on the creative energy unleashed by dialectical

oppositions and turn a logical i ncongruity into an aesthetic strength . In this respect , the selected

productions are not only deconstructive but also markedly i ronic : their messages cannot be taken

entirely at face value insofar as they are conveyed by means of images that are never unproblem­atically themselves but are actually traversed by multiple alter-egos . The two-dimensional cel , the two-dimensional drawing evoking the i l lusion of three-dimensionali ty, the three-dimensional computer-generated image , the hand-crafted frame enhanced by digital technology, and the computer-generated image edited so as to look manufactured - among legion more p ictorial pos­sibi l it ies - meet and merge in mutual suffusion .

This formal ly composi te scenario is repl icated, thematical ly, by an ime's quintessent ial

hybr idi ty. This trait persistently informs the n ine t i t les' hand l ing of thei r cu l tural and h istor­ical sou rces, yie lding a col lus ion of the old and the new, on the one hand, and of East and West , on the other . I n this respect , the fi lms could be said to encapsulate a transnat ional ly topical not ion of cultu ral schizophrenia spawned by the amb iguous ga ins of global izat ion . At the same time, however, they also capture speci fically ind igenous anxieties i n mirroring Japa­nese cul ture's suspension between nat ional ist and global values . Anime i ndeed rev is i ts w i th a lmost obsessive regularity - though not always in a visual ly or thematical ly exp l ic i t fashion -Japan's preoccupation wi th notions of national integrity and ideology, war and neu tra l i ty, eco­

nomic growth and economic crisis, env i ronmental depletion and psychological displacement . I n crisscross ing geograph ical borders and chal lenging the stab i l i ty of nat ional ident i t ies

through alternately lusty and s in i ster pastiches of fantasy and adventure , the fi l ms u l t imately com mun icate a pass ionate des i re to go on stretch ing - perhaps indefin i tely - the styl i s t ic and narrat ive boundaries of an imation itself.

Two

Ninja Scroll

1 was trying to explore possibilities in the entertainment genre. And of course, 1 wanted to make exciting entertainment. That was my goal with the Ninja Scroll flature. - Yoshiaki Kawajiri, 2003

America has uyatt Earp, Britain has Robin Hood, and japall has Yag.Y" jubei. Okay, maybe it s IlOt that simple, but it s a place to start. When dealing with an icon as vital to japanese cul­ture and masculinity as the historic samurai, you should start by lookingfor whatever parallels your own culture has to offer. - Patrick Drazen

Released in Japan in June 1993 and in the West in December 1 9 96 , Ninja Scroll almost instantly asserted itself as a hal lmark in ani me a imed at mature audiences . Over the ensu ing decades, the fi lm's popu lar ity spread across the West , engendering a larger fan base i n the U .S . than on home turf and i t came to be recognized as one of the most i nfluentia l an imat ions ever

made . With its amalgamation of the codes and conventions of period drama , the action thr i l ler and po l i t ical a l legory - i n an elegantly, yet exuberantly, choreographed p i ece of c inematog­

raphy - the p i lm cont i n ues accru ing new fans ro this day. I n 2003 , a 13 -ep isode TV series t i t led Jubei Ninpuuchou: Ryuhogyoku-hen and directed by Tatsuo Saro was a i red i n Japan and

subsequently released i n the West on DVD as Ninja Scroll: The Series. Part ia l ly penned by Yoshiaki Kawaj i r i , the show is only a sequel to the feature- length movie in the loose sense of the term and i ts story accordi ngly functions quite autonomously. '

In thematic terms, Ninja Scroll i s ver i tably steeped in Japanese t radi t ion insofar as i t deals w i th a per iod of extraord inary h istorical and myth ical r ichness . Moreover , i ts protag­onist , Jubei Kibega m i , is qu i te overt ly based on one of the most chari smat ic figu res of Japa­

nese lore , Yagyu Jube i . The only h istorical ly unequ ivocal fact about Yagyu Jubei i s that he

was a renowned bugeisha (mart ia l art i s t) of the early seventeenth century. However , such a cornucopian abundance o f legends , novels, movies and te lev i s ion shows has over the cen­tur ies become so entangled w i th rea l documents that i t has become v i rtua l ly i mposs ib le to separate the truth from the fict ion . Recent incarnations of the Jubei character i nc lude the samu rai featur ing in the pseudo-h istorical OVA series Ninja Resu rrection ( 1 997) , and the schoolg ir l protagon ist of Jubei-chan the Ninja Girl, a comedic TV ser ies a i red in 1999 and d irected by Akitaro Daich i . The popular image ofJubei is that of a wandering warrior d ressed

ent irely in black who roams the land incogn i to , p rotecti ng the i nnocent from evi ldoers . Even though Kawaj i r i 's Jubei has inher i ted some of his worthy p redecesso r's tra i ts , Ninja Scroll

2 1

22 A� I M E I NTERSECTIONS

portrays the character pr imari ly as a ronin ("masterless samurai" or , l i tera l ly, "wave man") and as a mercenary. 2

The fi lm presents Jubei as a fighter with a mean eth ical streak, reso l u tely rel uctant to

jo in the fray as long as he has any say on the matter. At the same t ime , he never rel ies on bravado in his exp lo i ts but rather on a generous dose of sh rewdness and sheer happenstance . Jubei's wry sense of humor and keenness on rhetorical sparr ing are no less d i s t inctive aspects of h is personal i ty. John Beachem gives a colorful portrait of Kawaj ir i 's hero :

Don't get it i nto your mind that Juhei is some invi ncible , shadowy figure . . . . He's good, but he's not i nde­struct ib le . He gets p asted i n a few fights , knocked around, b loodied , b ru ised . . . . Take , for example , a scene in wh ich Jubei i s recover ing from fight ing one of the devi ls . He i s i n a pond, c lean ing his wounds . He pu l l s a tooth out , washes b lood out of h i s mouth , and genera l ly looks a mess . . . . You never see Hol lywood action heroes nurs ing their wounds, because they're inv inc ib le [ Beachem] .

Moreover , i t is by unobtrus ively draw ing attention to Jubei 's la tent vulnerab i l i ty that the fi l m succeeds i n making h i s displays of finesse more effective than they would otherwise appear to

be. An absol ute gem of both Kawaj ir i 's c inematography and Jubei 's characterizat ion , where d i sp lays o f ap lomb are spec i fical ly concerned, is provided by the first act ion sequence . Ambushed by three enemies, the protagon ist responds by throwing a rice ba l l up i nto the a i r , drawing h i s weapon , vanquishing the attackers and catch ing the r i ce ba l l aga in before i t has a chance of reaching the ground .

The fi l m's setti ng i s the early port ion of the Tokugawa Shogunate ( Tokugawa RIfttku, 1600- 1868) , the era that would eventual ly witness Japan's un ificat ion , yet was s t i l l riven , in i ts i n i t ia l s tages, by the same treacherous feuds, crafty intr igues and clandest ine cabals that had ravaged the country throughout the Warring States Period (Sengoku Jidai) in the fifteenth centu ry. An i l l -fated series of clan lords deemed endowed w ith sufficient credent ials to u n ify

Japan were rout inely assass inated by their opponents unt i l the h igh- ranking general H ideyoshi Toyotomi ( 1 5 36-1 598 ) brought the Sengoku Jidai to an end . After h i s death , however , c iv i l unrest escalated once more as the general Ieyasu Tokugawa ( 1 542- 1 6 16) c la imed contro l over the ent ire national territory. Toyotomi's loyal ists , far from wi l l ing to merely turn the other cheek, launched repeated and increasingly vic ious assau l ts upon Tokugawa so as to regain ru ler­sh ip . Although their army was fi nal ly vanquished in 1 6 1 5 , the surv iv ing rebels cont inued p lan­n ing thei r revenge . I t is w i th this background in mind that Kawaj i ri 's movie ought to be approached i n order to fathom i ts h istorical density - even though most fans would read i ly maintain that lack of fami l iar i ty wi th the viciss itudes of Japan's ancient past is hardly l i ke ly to detract from the fi lm's visual sumptuousness and scinr i l l a t ing dynamism .

Central to Ninja Scroll's p lot is a posse of ruthless d issidents known as the "dev i ls of Ki mon" (Kimon Hachinin-shuu , which l i teral l y means "The Demon-Gate Eight" ) . Th i s demonic band is abetted by a l l manner of terr ify ing ski l l s and is l ed by I-Iim uro Genma (Genma = " ice-house") o r , "The Shogun of the Dark ," one of Jubei 's o ld enem ies whom the p rotagonist bel ieves he decap i tated five years earl i e r but who has regrettably mastered the

occult art of re i ncarnation . Genma's associates include the impeccably s tyl ish youth Yur i­maru , who graces h is employer with erotic as wel l as martial favors, and the scarred beauty Zakuro , who lusts vain ly for Yur imaru to her b i tter end. The v i l l a ins' first m i ss ion consists of the massacre of the rural v i l lage of Shimoda, a s part of a grander game p lan inrended to lead them to a cargo of gold, which they deftly disguise as the resu l t of an obscu re plague . (This i ncident wil l be revis i ted later i n the d iscuss ion. )

7i£!o �Nin j a Scrol l 23

The pest i lence-centered ruse engineered by Genma's band , a s i t turns ou t , i s merely a fragment of a much wider pol i t ical conspi racy which gradual ly discloses the ubiqui ty of both l i teral and figurative nests of v ipers across the fabr ic of proto�Nippon i c society. A team of

n in j a from an adj acent sett lement is sent to invest igate the puzzl ing event but its members are waylaid by the dev i l Tessa i , a c reatu re rem in iscent of The Thing from The Fantastic Four

whose ski n is capable of morph ing i nto sol id rock and defect ing a l l convent ional weapons with the aid of a double-bladed sword, which he th rows l ike a boomerang to hack th rough every th ing i n h i s path . Kagero , an exquis i tely beauti fu l and deadly fighter cursed by the pos­session of po isonous skin which renders contact with another l i v ing creatu re lethal , i s the sole

survivor . Kagero ant ic i pates the hero ine of Mamoru Osh i i 's 1995 b lockbuster Ghost in the Shell, Major Motoko Kusanagi , in both her physical appearance and her characterist ic body

language , even though her character issued from Yukata Minowa's penc i l whereas the Major was ideated by H i royuki Okiura . This i s perhaps not ent i rely surpr i s ing when one cons iders

that Osh i i 's own character possesses athlet ic and strategic abi l i t ies redo lent of those of the tra­d i t ional n i nj a type - traits she has also bestowed upon the character of Tri n i ty from the lvfatrix

tr i logy which she has clearly insp i red.

Captured by the stony demon and most unpleasantly abused, Kagero is eventual ly saved by Jube i , who n i ft i ly p lltS o u t one of Tessai's eyes with a dainty dart . Fol low ing the female n inja's rescue , Kagero and Jubei part , seemingly wi th no i ntent ion of ever meet ing aga in , but fate soon bonds them i n a common pursu i t : out- maneuveri ng the devi l s of Kimon's nefari­ous scheme to overth row the government . In Kagero's case , the task is an i nevi table coro l lary of her obl igat ion to avenge her dead comrades . Jubei , for his parr , is roped into the confl i ct much against h is wi l l by the mach i nat ions of the decidedly unholy mon k Dakuan , a spy i n the serv ice of the Tokugawa Shogunate who gui leful ly en l ists the hero to h is side by poison­

ing him and then withholding the ant idote un less he agrees to p rovide u ncond i t i onal sup­port . As Dennis H . Fukush ima, J r . has noted, Dakuan's dubious eth ics are overtly encapsulated by the character's name :

The first k,mji is "dt/ku," which means "uncleanness ," "mudd iness ," or " impur i ty . " Obv ious ly, Th i s is a com­ment on h i s character and mora l s . The second, "an," means "hermi tage" or "ret reat . " This i s l ikely con­nected wi th Dakuan's "pr iest ly" facade . . . . Spies l i ke th is were sent into the prov i nces to look out for the threat of poss ib le revo lu t ionary act iv i ty . Safeguards such as these ma inta ined the th ree cel lturies of peace i n the Tokugawa per iod, but at the expense of s t ifl i ng fascism [ Fukush i m a] .

(Dakuan , however , is by no means the only monk wi th shady credent ia ls i n an ime : Cherry from the Urusei Yatsu ra TV series and features [ 1 9 8 1- - 19 9 1 ] a n d J iko from Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke [ 1 997] would supply Kawaj ir i 's v i l l a in w i th su i table com pany. )

Jubei fights each of h is infamous enemies in a series of increas ingly intense , demand ing and sensational scenes, eventual ly having to confront once more h i s o ld foe Genma i n the most breathtaking sequences of al l . Bes ide Tessa i , the hero's foes inc lude a seductive female with hordes o f venomous snakes at her d isposal , a wasp-host i ng h unchback, an explos ives

freak, a pu ppeteer of l i feless bodies with an u nwholesome appet i te for e lectr ic i ty, a b l ind swordsman and a demon rendered vi rtual ly i nvis ible by h i s own shadow. I ntrigu ingly, each preternatura l power is referred to as a "techn ique . " As Ryan Donovan has noted,

These devi l s . . . aren't actu a l ly fi re and bri m stone devils , more l ike powerfu l users of n i n j a magic . Those fami l iar with the hyperbo l ic ab i l i t i es that H ong Kong cinema can ascribe to kung fu m asters wil l h ave a sense of what they are . But these ab i l i t ies often take physical forms . . . . Each i s u n ique and creatively exe-

24 AN IME I NTERSECTIONS

cuted , mak ing for spectacular ba t t l e s . These battles a re some of the most e l egant , b ruta l , and enthral l i n g s e t p ieces p u t to cel l u lo id . A large part of t h e v iolence i s imp l icat ive, cutt i ng from a s h o t of a b lade's t ra i l past an enemy to a shot of that enemy . . . spl i tt ing and erup t ing wi th b lood [ Donovan) .

This type o f violence may well be deemed unsavory by viewers that are automatical ly p rogrammed to respond to the sp i l l ing of blood on a screen as coterminous w i th lax o r even

downright perverse eth ical standards . Nevertheless, i t could hardly evince so un ivocal ly con­

demnatory a react ion were one wi l l ing to appreciate i ts self-conscious ly staged, i ntent iona l ly

formulaic and u l t imately humor-t inged const itut ion � as could a l so be said of comparable dal l i ances with undi l uted butchery in productions such as Terry Gi l l i am and Terry Jones's Monty Python and the Holy Grail ( 1975) and Quentin Taranti no's Kill Bill (2003) .

Though eminently action-oriented, Ninja SCI'oll subtly i nte rweaves i ts main p lot and swir l ing battles with an understated love story as Kagero i s drawn to Jube i , ye t repels h im th rough insolent behavior a s a result of her curse and Jube i , i n turn , develops fee l ings towards

the female n inja that clearly t ranscend the professional arena . J n a rather shocking p lot tw ist ,

Dakuan reveals that Kagero's poison would work as a powerfu l ant idote to the noxious sub­

stance cours ing Jubei 's b lood. However , Kagero is mortal ly wounded i n combat and the only contact between the hapless lovers we ever witness is one futureless embrace . This aspect of the p lot posed considerable d ifncult ies for Kawaj i r i : "as far as d i rect ing i s concerned," he has stated, "what I struggled with was not the techn ical stuff. But how to portray the growing

emotions between Kagero and Jube i . Weaving the tender element into the fi l m's s tory p re­sented the greatest chal lenge for me in d i recti ng . "

At the same t ime , however , Kawaj i ri contends that the "art istry of n i nj a" is undoubtedly

the "h igh l igh t of the fi lm . " Such prowess, i t must be emphasized, i s rendered especial ly tan­

tal iz ing by the fact that its actual or igins and functions are h ighly en igmatic . I nsofar as n in ja seldom recorded anyth i ng i n writ ing or bragged about the i r exp lo i ts , the i r h istory is p r ima­r i ly apocryphal and sometimes flagrantly legendary. The d i rector has commented thus on h is n in ja p l ayers :

The ch aracters i n Ninja Scroll are members o f very special ized organizat ions . S o I d idn't i m agine them a s normal people ftom that period . They are more a group o f people w i th spec ia l powers who were members of inte l l igence organ izations . And the ir roles i n these organizat ions were c learly define d . They would put the i r l i ves on the l i ne to accompl ish the i r m iss ions and they a re extremely d riven towards those ends . But I don't consider them to represen t l i fe dur ing the feudal period i n any way . . . . I th ink t h i s k ind of power s t ruggle did happen al l over the worl d . So if th is kind of concept from Ninja Scroll were to be set in Amer­ica, the C IA would be the equivalent of the Tokugawa spy organ izat ion which Dakuan be longs to . And the organizat ion wh ich Kagero belongs to i s a much smal ler one , someth ing l i ke a l ocal sheriff 's d epart­ment . . . . Ninja Scroll j ust happens to take p l ace in the feudal period and I didn't i nt e nt iona l ly try to por­tray that era's l i festyles [Kawaj ir i 2003 [ .

Numerous h istorians contend that n inja were a select group o f samura i coached specifically for assass inat ion , esp ionage or sabotage . Although this hypothesis is em inently feas ib le , i t should nonetheless b e noted that n inj a were never renowned for harbor ing a part icularly h i gh sense of honor and that this aspect of their reputation blatant ly contradicts the samura i caste's utter commitment to an exacting eth ical code : bushido (the "way of the warr ior" ) . This uncon­d i tionally demanded the ass iduous cult ivation of seven cardina l v i r tues � recti tude , cou rage , benevolence , respect , honesty, honor and loyalty � and advocated the p recept that i f a samu­ra i fa i led to maintain h i s honor he should regain i t by com mitti ng seppuku ( r i tua l su icide) . Wh ile the Japanese warrior's honor depended crucial ly on openness and truthfu lness , the ninja

Tzvo -Ninja Scrol l 25

i nevitably rel ied on secrecy and subterfuge . Their notoriety as p roverbia l ly sh ifty and furtive characters i ncrementally led to the convict ion that they would automatical ly resort to uneth­

ical stratagems without even considering any righteous alternatives . While p rofoundly trad i t ional , the ethical codes i nvoked by the fi lm through its sustained

references to samurai and n i nj a customs have unden iable reson ance i n raday's Japan as wel l . Although bushido orig inated i n samurai cu l ture , i t s t i l l permeates contemporary Japanese soci­ety and i ts heri tage i s recu rrently evoked i n manga and anime though an emphas is on the

qual i t ies of perseverance , loyalty and dedication . The pop cu l ture personae who embody these ideals are rarely hero ic in the tradit ional sense of the term insofar as the arenas wi th in which they endeavor to assert their u l t imate worth are p reeminently the mundane spheres of p ro­fessional l i fe , sports and the educational system . However , those characters' explo i ts gai n mag­n i tu de by their e l l ip t ical associat ion with exalted rituals and mores and by the staunch , a lbeit sub l iminal , convict ion that they are somehow perpetuati ng a lofty legacy. In h i s evaluat ion of the endur i n g hold of bushido i n Japanese popular cu l ture , Patr ick D razen has observed :

" Samurai stories are about medieval swordsmen - but they're also about the ethical code the

audience should l ive by. That's why some modern samurai swing a baseball bat o r l ine up a

perfect purr" (Drazen , p. 104 ) . I n this l i ght , it could be argued that Ninja Scrolts thematic a l legiance to trad i t ion should not obscure i ts concomitant connect ion with modern cul tural perspect ives . (The contemporary relevance of the n inja figure wil l be addressed later due to

i ts contemporary promi nence i n both Eastern and Western contexts . ) Where the fi lm's entanglement wi th trad i tion is concerned, i t i s a l so noteworthy that

Ninja Scroll i s i nt imately associated with an establ ished reperto i re of em inent ly Western der­ivation in its elaborat ion of numerous motifs character ist ic of the class i c horror and western genres . Ninja Scroll offers one of the most satisfactory articu lat ions of horror ever seen in Japa­

nese an imation insofar as i t never indulges i n sensational ism as an end in i tse lf. Iconograph­

ical ly, the fi lm derives a substantial p roport ion of i t s overal l horror from the aforementioned supernatura l monsters . These come across as concomitantly h ideous and fasc inat ing ent i t ies that are capable of e l ic i t ing intensely v isceral affects , yet also resonate wi th the eerie impal­pab i l i ty of del us ional voices i nfes t ing a haunted psyche .

S tyl ist ical ly, Ninja Scroll mirrors the western's procl iv i ty ra keep both the descr iptive and the dia logical components of the story somewhat s lender , whi le endowing the landscape with awesome sub l imi ty and a spectacular profusion of deta i l s . The movie concurrently echoes the western's ethical l ean ings i n expl i ci t ly pr ior i t iz ing cu l tures of honor over cu l tures o f l aw. (S ign ificantly, this same vis ion i s also shared by the gangster mov ie - of both the American and the yakuza var iet ies - and by the revenge movie . ) Demonstrat ing one's a l legiance to a code of honor is of paramount importance as a means of estab l i sh ing one's ident i ty ; paradox­

ical ly, in the class ic western and in Kawaj i r i 's an ime a l ike , v io lence and magnan imi ty are u l t i ­mately posited as equally v iab le methods i n accompl i sh ing that ai m . The cl imact ic sequence in which a host of val iant r iders makes i ts appearance is a clear homage to the western - as wel l as an i ronical i nvers ion of the rescue theme given that the horsemen tu rn out to be i ngen­

iously d isguised v i l l a i ns . The spectator is thus s imul taneously reminded of the classic western and of rev is ion ist

manipulations of that gen re such as Sam Peckinpah's, Sergio Leone's and C l int Eastwood's . Like the works of those Western d i rectors, Kawaj i ri 's Ninja Scroll unceremoniously redefines the western by demyst i fy ing its stodgi ly conventional approach to the concept of the "hero . "

26 ANl!vtE I !'JTERSECTIONS

Kawaj i r i also shares specifically w ith Leone a preference for c inematograph ical techn iques that frequently pr ior i t ize , as Joshua Kl e in has put it , "purely cinematic e lements of fi lmmaking . " The cr i tic's comments regarding the Ital ian d i rector's style could indeed app ly no less fitt ingly to Kawaj i r i 's characterist ic methodo logies : "He carefu l ly composes each w idescreen image l ike he's pa int ing a great landscape , frequently indu lging h imself i n extreme close-ups - often l i t ­

t le more than a character's eyes . . . . Style dr ips from each face l ike the sweat pour ing down h i s stars' faces" (Kle in , p . 4 5 8) .

Addit ional ly, Ninja Scroll pays homage to tradit ion by embracing a c l ass ic narrative strllC­ture to be found in both Eastern and Western heroic mytho logy. Relatedly, i ts pr inc ipa l char­

acters correspond to as many mythical archetypes : Jubei is the hero recalci trantly spurred into action by a senior authority figure ; Kagero is the s idekick and helper ; the devi l s are the tr i­als to be overcome by the hero in order to accompl ish the appointed task . As in other arche­typal man i festat ions o f heroic myth, in Ninja Scroll, too , the j ou rney upon which the

p rotagonist embarks does not merely provide h im with the adventure of a l i fet ime , i t a l so traces a developmental trajectory akin to the maturation p rocess common to the Bi ldungsro­man modal i ty. I t i s in the rep resentation of Jubei 's commodiousness to emotional and psy­chological growth that the fi lm most successfu l ly t ranscends the c l i ches of the act ion adventure genre , thereby del ineat ing a character that can never be unproblematical ly consigned to the category of typ ical comic-book avenger.

At the same t ime , Ninja Scroll embraces contemporary trends to be typical l y found i n several of today's act ion adventure productions i n both Eastern a n d Western m i l i eux . I ts

meticulously paced and symphon ically orchestrated figh t sequences , b reakneck chases and athlet ic escapes rap idly imprint themselves in memory with even a s i ngle v iew ing . At the level of action , the fi lm's styl ist ic dist inctiveness most defin i tely benefits from the choreograph ing of the hero's somewhat unorthodox fight ing method - an aspect of the story that also serves to th row into rel ief Jubei 's i rreverent deviation from dominant codes of conduct desp i te h i s fundamenta l a l l eg iance to trad i t ion . Fukush ima has commented on the p ro tagon i s t's swordfight ing techn ique as fo l lows :

Jubei uses an unconventional iai [ "swordplay") form. Th is techn ique was origi na l ly developed to deal w i th the spl i t-second, l i fe-and-death s i tuat ions wh ich samurai frequently found themselves i n . Jubei , however , often has ample t ime wi th which to draw h i s sword, and thus does not necessari ly need to me th i s tech­nique. St i l l , he l eaves h is sword i n i ts scabbard and when he final ly does attack . . . , uses the force of the a i r to infl ict damage to his opponent . Such a s ty le requi res near superhuman strength and speed . . . [ Fukushima) .

The dazz l ing swordplay del ivered by the crowning duel between Jubei and the diabol i­cal Mujuro i n a bamboo forest could be sa id to not on ly antici pate but qu ite effortlessly match an analogous sequence in the l ive-action film House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou , 2004) . It could further be suggested that Roger Ebert's account of the l ush visuals offered by House of Flying Daggers would j ust as fitt ingly describe Kawaj i r i 's fi l m : "There are i nter iors of ornate elaborate r ichness , costumes of b izarre beauty, landscapes of mountai n ranges and meadows, fields of snow, banks of autumn leaves and a bamboo grove that fu nctions l ike a kinet ic art i nstal lat ion" (Ebert 2004) .

Ninja Scroll undeniably teems wi th meticulously dep icted costu mes, accessories , fur ­n i sh ings and arch i tectural fixtures typically associated with trad i t ional p re-modern Japan . Kawaj i r i has indeed described the fi lm as h is "period p iece . " He has also s t ressed, however, that "you don't have to know about Japanese h istory to enjoy it ," noting that young Japanese

l1uo -Ninja Scro l l 27

audiences are themselves often u n fami l i a r w i th the h istory of the period in wh ich the film i s set . I n the d i rector's eyes, " the sheer energy of the fi lm is what appeals to fans , " wh ich expla ins i ts immense popular i ty i n non-Japanese m i l ieux . I n explor ing the nat ional her i tage for the sake of both structu ral and decorative accuracy, " the research team rel ied on per iod dramas

which are set i ll the 1700s . Numerous period dramas about the 17th and 1 8 th centu ries have

been made in Japan . We've used them as the sou rce for bas ic h istorical deta i l s . Bu t in tel l i ng a story about superhuman characters i n that period I d idn't want to be too restr icted . As long as i t was entertai ning , I thought I cou ld take l iberties . Although the basic sett ing had been determi ned I a l lowed myself to work freely wi th in i t" (Kawaj i r i 2003) .

I n assess ing the cross-pol l i nat ion of East and West over the terra i n of Japanese an ima­t ion , i t must be em phasized that n inja appear in both Eastern and Western fiction . N i nj a became hugely fash ionable i n Japan dur ing the 1 9 5 0s and early 1 960s by flood ing bo th the screen and the page , a nd have featu red in anime and manga as a popular subj ect ever s ince . 3 I t i s general ly accepted that the first p rominent use of a n i nj a character i n Western popu lar cu l ture co inc ides with the James Bond fi lm You Only Live Twice ( 1 967) , where a top-notch n in ja is recru i ted by the Japanese Secret Service to assist the Br i t ish spy. Western pop cu lture

usually rep resents n i nj a as con summa tely wel l- trained mart ial art ists and murderers , garbed wholly in black and equipped wi th all sorts of out landish weapons and gadgets . Western nov­el ists have for long been i n tr igued with the notion of Western ers be ing granted access to the ninja's secret caste , as eloquently borne out by Eric Van Lustbader's The Ninja series of thr i l lers

( 1980) , with their ha lf-Japanese , half-Caucasian n inja p ro tagon i s t . Al lus ions to n inja ski l l s

are a lso evident , as noted earl ier , in the fofatrix movies, in the film Batman Begins (200 5 ) , where Bruce Wayne receives n inja tra in ing , and i n Wi l l i am Gibson's cyberpunk fict ion - as exempl i fied by the character of Molly Mi l l ions from Neuromancer ( 1 9 84) and that of Cayce Pol lard from Pattern Recognition (2003) . Comic books, video games and role-playing games popular across the globe have also contained d isparate and extensive references to n i nj a s ince at least the 1980s .

An assessment of Kawaj i ri 's deft reworking of mult ip le generic sources, formulas and for­

mats would not be complete i f attent ion were not also devoted to h is h igh ly or ig ina l hand l ing

of Goth ic mot ifs . The afo rement ioned sequence se t i n the corpse-r idden and crow- infested v i l lage of Sh imoda , cu lm inat ing with the spectral figure of a dying woman who has managed to leave the doomed location and sp read the news regarding the ep idemic , exudes an over­

whelm ingly eerie atmosphere of haunting and decay that aptly exempl ifies this aspect of Kawa­j i r i 's oeuvre . Through this sequence, the d i rector appears to be exper iment ing with what could be tentatively tagged " Eastern Gothic . " The sequ ence could indeed be said to abide by the dist i nct ive rhetoric of the Gothic as a cul tural discourse i ntent on ut i l iz ing tropes of phys i ­cal , psychological and eth ical d isa rray in order to com ment al legorical ly Oil part icular h istor­ica l and po l i t i ca l c i rcums tances . Fu rthermore , the fee l i ng o f both bod i ly and me ntal d i s integrat ion communicated by the scene does no t merely contr ibute to the provis ion of a tanta l iz ing p iece of c inematic enterta inment : no less vi tal ly, it a l ludes to the c l imate of per­vasive malaise and ideological confusion characterist ic of the phase of Japanese h i s tory wi th which Ninja Sc rolts p lo t i s i m p l i cated .

Earl ier i n h is career , and most notably i n Wicked City ( 1987) , Kawaj i r i had al ready exper­imented w i th the Goth ic or, to be more p recise, with "City Gothic" - a phrase, as Kim Lind­bergs expla ins , "used in Japan to describe a style of anime set i n a fu tur ist ic world, wh ich

2 8 AN I M E I NTERSECTIONS

features Gothic and cyberpunk overtones" (Lindbergs) . Packed with grotesque imagery, shape­sh ift ing , twisted sexual i t ies, demonic phenomena and a fai r share of s lash ings and gruesome

explos ions , the fi lm typ ifies Goth icity at i ts most intractably corporeal . I m mediately hai led

as a lan dmark i n the genre upon its release , Wicked City s t i l l reta ins a cu l t fol lowing among both Eastern and Western audiences . As Jasper Sharp has noted, the mov ie a lso rema ins notable a s "a fascinat ing example of an ime's near-obsess ive p ursu i t of c inemat ic real i sm to portray someth ing tha t , i n the p re-CG era a t l east , wou ld have been imposs ib le to render in l ive-action , and even i f i t could, would have been far too graphic to s l ip by the censors . Th i s b lu rr ing of the boundaries between an imation and l ive-action c inema appeared to be the guid ing pr inc ip le of a generat ion of an imators who made their names i n the ' 80s" (Sharp) . This aspect of Wicked City makes it especially i nterest ing in the context of the overa l l argu­

ment , in that i t bears w i tness to ani me's un ique potentia l i t ies even in the days when tradi ­

t ional eel an imation was the on ly game in town.

Kawaj i ri wil l venture further into typical ly Gothic terri tory wi th Vampire Huntei' D ­

Bloodlust (2000) , a n authentical ly vis ionary an imated work comb in ing gorgeously atmos­pheric sett ings , begu i l i ng character designs by Yoshi taka Amano and b reath tak ing sequences punctuated by blood-spurt ing eruptions that could feasibly be described as a Goth ic vers ion

of Ninja Saol/. Beyond doubt one of the most beautifu l an imated fi lms ever made , Bloodlust

is part ly a sequel to the an ime OVA Vampire Huntei' D di rected by Toyoo Ash ida and released

in 1 985 . This was i tse lf an adaptation of a 1983 horror novel by H ideyuki Kikuch i , an extremely prolific and accla imed writer whose reputation in Japan is comparable to that of H. P. Love­craft or Stephen King i n the West . Bloodlust i s ent i rely apprec iab le for audiences unfam i l i a r wi th the earl ier work, which Kawaj i ri 's fi lm is unan imously he ld to have smart ly surpassed a t the levels of both technique and storytel l ing . Furthermore , a s Jason Myers persuas ively argues,

"you need not . . . be a fan of Japanese an imation" i n order to enjoy the movie . "Those of you

who refuse to watch an ime because your introduction to the genre happened to i nvolve e i ther

wide-eyed yapp ing p re-teen g i r l s or tentacles and demon phal luses : i t 's t ime to give Japan i­

mation another chance" (Myers) . Kawaj i ri 's fi lm is based on the th ird of the twelve vo lumes contained i n Kikuch i 's vam ­

p i re series, namely D : Demon Deathchase ( 19 8 5 ) . This is set i n a pseudo-medieval imaginary world i n the year 12 ,090 A .D . , in the wake of a nuclear and biochemical con fl ict of apoca­

lyptic proport ions . In order to survive , the scanty numbers of extant humans have no cho ice but to engage i n fierce confrontations with a powerfu l race of blood-d r inking monsters whose aristocratic p rovenance and mores are instant ly recogn izable as qu intessent ia l ly D racu l i an . Gradual ly enfeebled by a decadent l i festyle over several m i l lennia , the blood-dri nkers even­

tua l ly become unprecedent edly vulnerab le to human attacks . The p rotagon i s t , D , is a p ro­fess i ona l vamp i re h u nter whose persona l i ty and mot ives rema i n i n t ractably amb igu ous throughout due to his hybrid status as the half-breed chi ld of a human mother and a vam­p i re father. The narrative cons is tently gai ns substance and al l u re from the coexistence of both d issonances and harmon ies between those two natures at the heart o f D 's composi te ident i ty.

I n Kawaj i ri's fi lm , the vam pire hu nter is recru i ted by a wealthy fami ly whose daughter , Charlotte , has ostensibly been abducted by one of the might iest remai n i ng vamp i res . D i s p romised a reward of t en mi l l ion do l l ars for Charlo tte's safe retu rn or for clear ev i dence of he r execu t ion in case she hersel f has been transformed into a blood-dri nker . A t the same t ime , D 's employers rely on the efforts of a band of five unscru pulous bounty h unters endowed with

Tiuo �Nin ja Scro l l 29

n inj a ski l l s . Both the p ro tagonist and the band are relentl essly pursued by the vamp i re deemed responsible for the kidnapp ing and by the demonic mercenaries i n h is service . (In D 's case , matters a re further compl icated by the bounty hunters' steady attempts to remove h i m from

the competit ion a l together . ) Most importantly, D is forced to face a troublesome d i lemma

that ca l l s h i s eth ical values as both a p rofess ional vampire hunter and a h u man-vamp i re cross­

breed seriously into quest ion . I ndeed, there are overt indications almost from the start that Charlotte has wi l l ingly eloped with her charming , though lethal , captor and that even though this may be s imply a ruse staged by the vampire , it is also possible that the couple are gen­uine se lf-ex i l ing lovers and should, i n this case , be peacefu l ly a l lowed to l ive .

Thus, echo ing Ninja Scroll, Bloodlust endeavors to mesh imaginat ively the most charac­teristic e lements of n umerous genres, hence del iver ing an intr igu ing blend of traits typical o f

the horror movie , of the western , of romance, of the epic saga a n d of t h e samura i act ion fi l m .

Kawaj i ri 's vamp i re tale a lso echoes Ninja Scroll b y i nterming l ing the essent ia l requ i rements

of action-dr iven c inematography - with i ts chase scenes, fights and exp los ions - and the reflective and personal subplots dramatizing the pl ight of a man tormented by h is inner demons and that of a couple locked in a fo rbidden l iaison .

The p lot of Bloodlust is not , however , what ult imately makes it the memorable experience it undeniably is . In fact , as Fred Patten has observed, the film's vigor res ides primarily with the p ictorial component : "The movie has some clever dialogue , but i t rel ies so heav i ly on i ts v isual

impact that it would not matter much i f it were shown as a si lent fi lm. The suspenseful d irec­tion by Kawaj ir i (who also wrote the screenplay) is backed lip by beautifu l graph ics . Most of the

chase takes place by day, through bright forest settings fi l led with trees and flowers . The vam­pires' sumptuous palaces and court costumes are rococo marvels of fi l igree and lace and sparkl ing gold t r im (no cobwebs or emaciated corpses here)" (Patten 2000) . Myers evocatively re i n forces th is proposit ion : "The an imation i s ornate and sumptuous, a lmost tacti l e - the visual equ iv­alent of crushed velvet" (Myers) .

I n the case of Ninja Scroll, Kawaj ir i 's abi l i ty to intermingle the pr inc ipa l codes and con­

ventions of d iverse gen res, wh i l e concurrently experiment ing adventuro usly wi th the ir for­

mulae, is largely a coro l l a ry of the great creative freedom enjoyed by the d i rector throughout

the movie's execut io n :

1 was al l owed t o work o n t h e fi lm w i thout any restraints . S o 1 had a very p leasant exper ience making the fi lm. The th i ngs I real ly wanted to do and e lements from movies t h a t I l oved ended up in i t . For exam­ple , The Sting and Mission: Impossible have absorb ing p lot l ines . There's the exci tement of can games and one-upmansh ip . And the excitement of ac t ion . Al l these e lements that I l ove were i n j ected in to i t . I was excited and real ly had fun making Ninja Scroll. "I want to do th i s . How can I make i t exc i t i ng?" were con­stant ly on my mind. 1 t h i n k the audience can feel that when they watch the film l Kawaj i r i 2003] .

The lat i tude o f movement afforded by Kawaj i r i was unquest ionably i ns t rumental to the ach ievement of a un iquely eclectic mix , and to a c inemat ic experience that assiduously com­municates the sense of "fun" which the d i rector experienced in its product ion - whether or not Ninja Scroll happens to comply with one's personal preferences and tastes .

This p roposit ion is upheld by Mike Pinsky, who argues that even though Ninja Scroll

held the potential for go ing down i n h istory as yet another p iece o f formula ic an ime , its i n fec­tious energy immediately asserted i ts standing as a riveti ng c inemat ic experience :

By al l rights, Ninja Scroll should fai l . It i s , after a l l , ful l of the cl iches of the figh t i ng an ime : a re t icent hero barding supcrpowered bad guys (who always seem amused by the ir own capaci t y for ev i l ) in excess ively

30 ANI1-&, I NTERSECTIONS

gory sp lendor. Th row i n a tough hero ine (who st i l l needs per iodic rescui ng ) , an indestruct ible final boss , some gratuitous (and borderl ine tasteless) sexual v iolence, and enough arter ia l spray to power a downtown c i ty fountain . But Ninja Scroll works . . . . I t manages to succeed at what i t tries to be : a th ri l l i ng r ide . Part of this i s due to its i nterest ing array of action sequences . . . . D i rector Yoshiaki Kawaj i ri . . . man ages to keep th ings moving wi th a few visual surprises and some genu ine scares and suspense [P insky 2002a] .

Makosuke ( Marc Marshal l ) has l ikewise commended the fi lm's performat ive verve :

Ninja Scroll is more t han j us t a n inj a hack and s l ash fl ick that's got i t a l l - by taking a l l the earmarks of a tr ied and true formula and na i l i ng every one of them , it has dist i nguished i t se lf as t h e quinressent i a l entry in i ts genre . Although i ts qual i ty, depending on your defin i t ion , i s debatab le , one th i ng i s certain : . . . Ninja Scroll i s abour as good as i t gets - a true i nstant cl ass ic . To i ts cred i t , Ninja Scroll deserves i ts rank as an in stant c la s s ic because i t goes a b i t farther than j ust rehash ing the formula perfectly - the main characters aren't ent i re ly fami l i a r and the i nterplay hetween Kagero and Jubei is both more creative and has more emotional complex i ty than you might expect [Makosuke 2000] .

No less axial to Ninja ScroLls graphic v igor than Kawaj i r i 's d i rection is the input of char­acter des igner Yukata Mi nowa - an artist so recept ive and alert to h is environment as to draw fru i tfu l insp i rat ion from even the most prosaic facets of h i s quot id ian world . Asked by Lau­ren Synger on beha l f of the on l ine j ou rna l DVD Vision Japan whether any par t icu lar " influences" have shaped h is "unique" style , Minowa has rep l ied :

That's a tough one . Bas ica l ly I am influenced by everyth ing around me . Every th ing in th i s room here . T h e water bott le , that desk , t h e scenery outside a n d of course some th ings that aren't even seen and I take a l l these th ings I h ave seen or heard and experienced and pur them i nt o th i s bal l or artwork, and then t hey just kind of take shape as t h ese characters . . . . If I had to boi l i t down 1 0 the very basics I would say take something from every th ing . Be able to look at a water bottle and appreciate i t or the cap and appreciate i t and use i t somehow. Take everyth ing in and make i t a parr of you . You have to work a t i t . For exam­p le , i f you want to draw a certa in p icture d raw i t ten t imes . . . . Of course there are people that . . . are j us t natural ly tal ented . But basical ly you have to ge t your muscles to work and to ge t you used to drawing . . . . Draw someth ing one-hundred, two-hundred, th ree-hundred ti mes, b u t you h ave t o draw i t , a n d some people ask me i f I actua l ly h ave to d raw i t that many t i mes . I t e l l them of course . You have to go through a p rocess, you can't jus t go from point A to point Z. You have to go through a l l the l et ters .

Furthermore , Minowa's approach to ani mation offers a paradigmatic example of an ime's a l le­giance to hand-drawn graph ics, as the fo l lowing pithy exchange demonstrates :

SYNGER -- When des igning a character what mediullls do you work with and what medium is your favori te ? M INOWA - Penc i l s . Jus t penc i l s (he l aughs) [Minowa 2004] .

Although the hand-crafted d imension i rrefutably p lays a p ivotal ro le , i t should also be noted that at the techn ical leve l , Ninja ScroLL partic ipates i n both tradit ion and i nnovat ion no less than at the themat ic level . Accordingly, whi le the commi tment to revered p ract ices on

the part of Kawaj i r i , Minowa and their team deserves due recogn it ion , i t i s equally i m por­

tant to acknowledge the movie's experimental thrust . Before em bark ing on an examinat ion o f this aspect, i t seems useful to reflect upon the film's orig inal title, as this enca psulates the

thematic mot ifs discussed in the p receding pages at the same t ime as i t evocatively a l ludes to Ninja ScroLls techn ical makeup . The fi lm's Japanese des ignation , Jubei Ninpuuchou, lends i tsel f to d iverse i nterpretat ions . As seen above , Jubei is the hero's name .

The second kanji compound i s more problematic . The first character is read a s " nin,"

which can mean "to endure" o r "to h ide . " (The same character is used for the word " ninja . " ) The second cha racter , "fuu" (also readable a s "fu") , carr ies an array of poss ib le mean ings, including "w ind," "storm," "style" or "custom." The t h i rd character , "chou , " means "registe r , " "notebook" o r "screen . " F i rstly, i t is a matter of interpretat ion whether " ninpuu" { p l ease note

Tiuo -Nin j a Scrol l 3 1

that "fuu" becomes "puu" for pu rely phono logical reasons) should be taken to mean "n in ja style" or "n in j a w ind . " Whereas the former may refer to a b road code of conduct , the latter cou ld be seen to a l lude specifical ly to the protagonist's dist i nct ive swordfight ing techn ique .

The final character may refer to a log book, such as a chronic le , a painted screen or a p icture scro l l . " Chou" denotes, str ict ly speaking, Aat obj ects such as qu i res of paper and fold ing screens and does not automat ical ly refer to a scro l l that can be rol l ed up and is therefore cyl i nd rical . (The Japanese language is very sensit ive to such d ist inct ions i n sofar as d ifferent d imens ional attr ibutes are accorded s ign i ficantly d ifferent counters) .

The word "scro l l " is normally rendered by a total ly d ifferent kanji to the one used for " chou . " On a pu rely l i teral p lane , therefore , the inc lus ion of the word "scro l l " i n the transla­t ion of the fi l m's t it le may seem somewhat arbitra ry. On the figurative p l ane , however , that

word describes the movie most fai thful ly, and accordingly const i tutes a h ighly apposite choice , insofar as the work's overall compos i t ion is v i vidly redolent of tradi t ional Japanese scro l l pa int­ing and of th is art's knack of i nte rspers ing images and tex t . (The art of manga as a whole i s profoundly i ndebted to that p ictorial form .) The ent i re experience of watch ing Ninja Scroll is comparable to wi tness ing a Japanese scro l l pa int ing i n motion .

An a r t form tha t has p layed a prominent part i n both Ch i na and Japan for centuries , scro l l pa int ing tends to feature Aora l , an imal , landscape and social mot i fs , as wel l as short poems or stories i ntermi ngled with v i sual images . (Often described as one of the o ldest forms

of paint ing , horizontal scrol l s are cal led cmakimono [ e = "picture" + maki = "rolled" + mono

= "th ing"J - though they a re also known s imply as makimollo or emaki- and were trad i t ion­a l ly produced by past i ng s i ngle sheets together i nto a lengthy ro l l . The i mages were v iewed from right to left . Vert ical scro l l s mo unted on rol lers , known as kakemono [kakeru = "to hang" + mono = "th ing"J , are a more recent art form that became especial ly popular dur ing the Edo period [ 1600- 1868 J as an ideal way of decorating the wal ls of smal l Japanese houses . ) Ninja

Scroll features p rominent ly the key themes conventional ly assoc iated w i th scro l l pa int ing as in tegral to i ts recu rrent visual imagery.

Using consistently the s implest visual vocabulary in the depict ion of both the natura l environment and domestic inter iors , Kawaj i r i makes us sen se the po ignancy of each l iv ing creature , p iece of weapon ry, household accessory or garment . At the same t ime , even a s b lood fi l ls the screen , one cannot fai l to be touched by the smoothness and refinement w i th which the figures move through the elegantly del i neated landscape . Deta i l s such as l ush blades of grass and p lump roses, the sun's reflection i n a puddle , craggy and jut t ing rocks , a moth drawn to candle l igh t , a sp ider at the center of an i ntr icate web, flecked koi in a pond, the s i lhouettes

of impos i ng t ree t runks against a colossal fu l l moon , snow- blanketed lanes, and crepuscular

sett i ngs t raversed by harsh shadows would look perfectly at home i n the context of a scrol l painting or i ndeed other forms of tradi t ional Japanese art .

I n i ts elaboration of tropes and motifs insp i red d i rectly by a keen sensit ivity to the n at­u ra l env i ronment in al l i ts r ichness and complexi ty, Kawaj i r i 's style cou ld be sa id to epito­m ize an essent ia l ly ho l i s t ic approach to the concept of "Nature , " cons istent ly uphe ld by Japanese art and confirmed by l inguist ic usage . Hayao Kawai 's seminal work on this subj ect , and especia l ly h i s contention that in Japanese lore there is "no d i s t inct demarcation" between "man and Natu re , " are especial ly apposi te , i n th is regard :

Throughout European h i s t o ry, Na ll lrc has becn a concept which s tands i n oppos i t i on to cu l t u re and civ­i l izat i o n , and cont i n l lcs to be objcct i fied by h ll m a n bei n gs . The word "Nature" was t rans l ated into Japa-

3 2 A N I M E I NTERSECTIONS

nese as shizen. Pr ior to th i s we d id not have a concept of Natur e . When we Japanese wish to ta lk about "Nature , " we use such express ions as sansensomoku, which l i teral ly means "the mounta ins , rivers, grasses, and trees" . . . before the encounter with the West . . . [shizen] i s not even a noun . . . [bur rather] an adverb or adj ective . . . that expresses a state i n wh ich every th i ng flows spontaneously. There i s someth ing l ike an ever-changing flow in wh ich every th ing - sky, earth , and man - is conta ined . Because it is l ike a cont in­ual process, i t can never be grasped spat io-temporal ly, and str ict ly speak ing , cannot be named [ Kawai , H . , pp. 2 5-71 .

I n acknowledging the movie's affil iation with trad i t ional pa int ing , i t should also be noted that at one point Ninja Scroll al ludes self-referential ly to i ts a l legiance to Japan's t ime-hon­ored arts by means of a map - used by Kagero's clan i n the plann ing of the i r fatefu l expedi ­

t ion - that displays a l l the dist inct ive graph ic trai ts of classic ink sketches . Moreover , Ninja

Scroll echoes the more recent but no less popular art of the ukiyo-e (the woodblock pr ints rep­resent ing " imagcs of the float ing world") , espec ia l ly in i ts wordless evocat ion of human mor­tal i ty through shots of volat i le l i fe forms such as firefl ies . Kagero is the character most exp l i c i tly associated with trans ience - an aspect of her complex persona which her very name corrob­orates : " Her name i s the standard word for 'sh immer (of the a i r) ' or ' heat haze . ' . . . Two other homonyms (with d ifferent kanji) mean 'd ragonfly, ' and 'May fly' or 'someth ing ephemeral . ' In the fi lm , Kagero d ies dur ing the summer . Her young l i fe is extremely fleeting" (Fukush ima) .

The propos it ion that the term "scro l l " is a legit imate and i l luminat ing rend i t ion o f the fi lm's original t i t le desp ite its semantic looseness is v i tal to the exp lorat ion of the tech n ical and stylistic d imensions of Kawaj i r i 's fi l m here offered . Techn ical ly speak ing , the mov i e is resol utely grounded in the medium of the 20 hand-drawn cel - a flat object - and yet i s capa­ble of yield ing a sense of spat ia l i ty often associated with 3D sol ids . I t is at this level , as e lab­orated below, that Ninja Scroll could be sa id to both cult ivate tradi t ion and embrace i nnovative approaches to the art of an imation .

The fi lm undeniably constitutes a ground-breaking i n tervent ion i n the execu t ion of pre­

digi tal visual and special effects . Especial ly remarkable , i n this regard, is its flai r for impart­

ing certa in images w i th a potent feel of spatial density even as i ts cumulat ive aesthet ic i s gu ided by an unfl i nching devot ion to 20 graph ics . A str ik ing example is supp l ied by the sequence i n which the rept i l ian creature adorn ing a gorgeously tattooed dev i l , Ben i sato , seem­ingly detaches itself from the dermal surface and gradually unco i l s i n the surrounding space . The visual impact of th i s scene is un ique , as the prodigy appears to art iculate a 3 D space , yet

remains tenaciously rooted in the realm of the hand-drawn image . The sequence's c l imax , moreover , offers an i nstance of insp i red pre-digi tal morphing . (This term refe rs to the smooth metamorphosis of an i mage or object into another . ) When Jubei grabs Benisato's arm to put an end to her bewitch i ng tactics, the diabo l i cal femme fatale's ent i re body appears to turn to rubber and then metamorphoses into the human equivalent of a snake's cast-off ski n . ( Mor­phing is employed again in the unforgettable sequcnce where a tree branch reveals i tself to be Oakuan i n chameleon- l ike disgu i se , as h is n i mble body gradually unfolds out of the or igi­na l ly r igid and mot ionless object . ) Ben isato's associat ion w i th rept i l es is spectacularly rei n­

forced later i n the movie in a further sequence attes t ing to Kawaj i r i 's knack o f evoking a sense of spatial dens i ty out of 2D drawi ngs . I n this sequence , where the seduct ive dev i l conj u res

up legion poisonous snakes capable of moving freely in and out of her own body, the an ima­t ion deftly juxtaposes the s i nuously l inear mot ion of each creature with a mount ing i m p res­sion of 3D vo lume yielded by the composite mass of exponent ial ly p ro l i ferat i ng beasts .

At another key j uncture i n the fi lm , the hyperkinet ic sequence portray ing an invas ion

7loo -Ninj a Scro l l 3 3

of oversized hornets offers a textbook i l lustration of the dexter i ty of tradit ional animat ion .

F lu id and st i rri ng , the sequence was necessarily executed ent irely by hand and each of the thousands of i nsects was hence drawn individual ly. The director has commented as fol lows on the arduous tasks facing his team : "The scenes invo lving countless snakes and bees were physical ly very demanding . I drew qu i te a few of those bees myse lf. Now, we can easily dupl i ­cate them dig i ta l ly" ( Kawaj i ri 2003 ) . Fu rthermore , both the d izzyi ng swir l s of hornets

unleashed from the h u mp-cum-beeh ive of the dev i l Mushizo ( l i teral ly, " i nsect s to rehouse") and the vortices of anaesthetic- imbued petals p rojected by Kagero to keep them at bay con­vey a str iking impression of three-dimensional ity in spite of their essent ia l ly flat nature .

N o less memorable i s the moment in the early sequence dramatizing the fight between

Kagero's clan and Tessai i n which the ninja fling a host o f throwing s tars (shuriken) at the devi l : attention is d rawn to the specificity of each individual star down to the t in iest facet of i ts graphic composit ion . Addit ional ly, the choreograph ing of the ensu ing sequence manages to ach ieve in one s i ngle movement start l ing beauty and haunt ing art istry, desp ite i ts undi­lu ted and undeniable brutal i ty. Donovan has effectively summarized i t as fol lows : "The stone­skinned giant is massacring the band of n injas with his double-bladed throwing sword . There

is a distant whirr ing sound, a slash of l igh t , and then the n inj as' torsos spl i t i n the m iddle to

float suspended briefly before fal l ing from the trees . Cut to a shot of several severed l imbs and bod ies drift ing to the ground, horrified st i l l faces sett l ing into the grass below to be spr inkled with fine raindrops of blood" (Donovan) . Kawaj ir i 's painstaking attention to detai ls is fur­ther confirmed by the fol lowing example , aptly foregrounded by Beachem as styl ist ical ly rep­resentative of the d i rector's dist inctive s ignature : " In one scene , Jubei 's sh ir t gets cut on the sleeve by one of the devi ls of Kimon. In al l future scenes, Kawaj i ri makes certain that the cut

is always present on the same sleeve , and that i t's the same size cut" (Beachem) .

Al l of the canonical camera moves typically evinced by classic an ime are generously art ic­

ulated throughout Ninja Scroll. The opening frames conta in handbook instances of the type of camera work described in this book's first chapter. The "pan" is first employed to capture from a d istance the bridge which the protagon ist is crossi ng . The "fix" is then used to iso late portions of the natural environment surrounding the structure , with its lovingly ren dered b i rds and lush waters ide vegetat ion . The impress ion of movement i s subtly conveyed by frames dis­playing stat ionary background paint ings of watercolor-oriented exquis i teness , over which are superimposed the fl ickering shadows of wind-caressed bul rushes . Analogously effective are the frames in which the archi tectural setti ng remains stat ic but is concurrently endowed with

atmospheric v ibrancy by the "sl id ing" of a bank of fleecy m ist across the p icture's m iddle ground. The meditatively slow pace of the sequence is suddenly upset as the act ion switches to the first of the many skirmishes i nvolving Jubei : the use of "fair i ng" fel ic i tously abets the

commun ication of a tantal iz ing sense of rapid acceleration . " Pan" and "ti l t" shots are ut i l ized assiduously throughou t Ninja Scroll, most memorably

i n the capture of the scenery, while both the "fo l low" and the "fo l low pan" contr ibute greatly to the ebu l l ient dynamism of the sequences dep icting large-scale batt les and duels a l ike . Cin­

ematograph ical centra l i ty is a l so repeatedly accorded to "tracking" : by recourse to a rack focus, the camera concentrates on an aspect of the foreground and then swi ftly sh ifts to an aspect of the background . Such changes of focus require great techn ical ingenui ty and cinematic nimbleness, and serve to i nvest the an imation's series of static draw ings w i th an unequ ivo­cal ly "fi lm-l ike" fee l . The movie a l so makes use of the "zip pan" techn ique in the depiction

3 4 AN IME I NTERSECTIONS

of backgrounds by recourse to the s implest of l ines and strokes to evoke a potent sense o f energy wi thout encumber ing the key foreground i mages with excess ive scen ic baggage . This i s borne out by the storm sequence presented early i n the film, where the vehemence of the e lements i s com mun icated by means of min imal ist vertical and d iagonal l ines .

Equally remarkab le , in th is respect , is the later sequence i n which Jube i recal l s , i n a flash­back , h i s p resu med beheading of Genma and the action's savage pathos is both contrasted wi th and he ightened by the elegantly res tra ined sh immer of a deluge of snowflakes . Th i s

sequence a l so ant ic ipates the aforement ioned House of Flying Daggers, whose c l imactic con­

frontation takes p lace i n a snow-swept sett ing . In both films, the w intry amb ience clashes

forcibly with the type of scenery used predominantly throughout the act ion , cap i tal iz ing on atmospheric disp lacement to convey i n metaphorical form the inner turmoi l of their respec­tive characters at those crucial j unctu res .

At t i mes, Ninja Scrolls storytel l ing may seem excess ively el l i p tical or even fuzzy to West­ern sensib i l i t ies -- for exam ple , i n the segment where the plot comes to an unexpected hal t for the extended flashback dea l ing with Jubei's first confrontat ion w i th Genma, or i n scenes where the confl ic t ing parties' motivations seem obscur e . However , sens i t ive spectators w i l l be captivated by the fi lm's potent imaginative logic and thematic coherence rega rdless of the i r

cu l tural background or geographical p rovenance. They wi l l a l so almost certa i n ly savor Ninja Scrolls gorgeous i magery, wi th i ts magn ificent arch itectu re and l uscious landscapes, and appre­ciate the elegance of the battle sequences, where the dynamic appeal of gymnast ics and bal­let are ro l l ed seamlessly together , and a powerfu l sense of rhy th m , poetic grace and haunt ing beauty are consistently pr ior i t ized over martial prowess and bravu ra stuntwork .

The short an imat ion Program- Kawaj i ri 's dazzl ing contr ibut ion to the OVA compris­

ing nine shorts insp i red by the Wachowskis' un iverse and t i t led The Animatrix (2003) - shares

with Ninja Scroll a fascinat ion wi th tradi t ion , evinced by the hand l ing of the convent ions of

period drama and by the studious rendit ion of martial sk i l l s i n a s tunning sw i rl of b reathless samurai act ion . However , in s i tuat ing the ti me-honored art of swordfight ing in the context

of a cybertech nological society, Program also demonstrates the past's ongo i ng col lus ion wi th the present and the fu ture . Th i s thematic amalgamation of trad i t ion and novel ty i s m i rrored by a n i mble combinat ion of hand-drawn graph ics and eGl. While Ninja Scroll could be sa id to mark the zen ith of 2 0 cel an imation , Program s ignals Kawaj i r i's enthron ing as one of the contemporary masters of the i ntegrative "tradigital" approach . Developments in the creative

traj ectory of an ind iv idual d i rector over exactly one decade thus also serve to i l l u m i nate broader reorientations in the art of anime at large .

I n h i s evaluation of the evo lution of digital tech nology, Kawaj i r i has stated :

As far as what you can ach ieve w i th digita l tech nology goes I don't th ink we can surpass Jurassic Park. I t s imulated sumcth ing v i sual ly t h a t doesn't exist i n real i ty. After that ach ievemclll , cven tho ugh technology has improved s i nce then I don't th ink we can match the impact that had . So now, comi n g up w i th a good idea i s the key whcther YOll llSC digi tal technology or not . . . . I n l i ve-action fi lms computer-generated exci te­ment and real i sm have reached the ir peak . So when they arc transferred i nt o the an i mat ion format a few p roduct ions may be seen as someth i ng new. They might make a b i t of an i mpact, but after thc novel ty wears off what w i l l matter i n the cnd are a good story and good v i sua l i m ages . Which h ave always been the i mportant e lements [ Kawaj i r i 2003] .

The Animatrix shares the conceptual premises ideated by Larry and Andy Wachowski for The Matrix and i ts sequels , and accord ingly pursues the hypothesis that the h u man world is

Tiuo -- N i n ja Scro l l 3 5

a monumental computer-generated s imulat ion progra mmed a n d regimented b y h ighly soph is­t icated Artificial I nte l l igences . A motif that squarely belongs in the domain of specul at ive

cyberpunk sc i-fi, th is theme also operates al legorically as an i ndictment on a l l-too-real ideo­logical agendas committed to foster ing a ubiqui tous condit ion of false consciousness . Like the parent movies, the nine short an imations of which the col lect ion consists feature characters that have bravely chosen to transcend the i l l usory p leasures and vap id promises of the quo­t idian world by means of exacting digita l ly assisted train ing , face up to l i fe's unpalatable real­i t ies and rebel aga in s t the n u mb ing sys te m . Program's protagon i s t , C i s , i s one of these

characters, and the act ion revolves around her struggle to rema in fa i thfu l to her courageous choice - desp i te the hardsh ip i t i nev itably entai ls --- when con fronted w i th the opt ion of reen­ter ing the v i rtual rea l m for the sake of a trouble-free and grat i fying exis tence .

I n the course of Program (the fifth segment in the anrhology) , C i s engages i n a v i rtual fight generated by a computer p rogram meant to both test and enhance her sk i l l s . Set i n feu­dal Japan , the p rogram first requ i res the hero ine to ann ih i l ate s ingle-handedly an attacki ng caval ry - which she does with aplomb, as wel l as some tastefu l flaunt ing of glor ious ly ren­dered period garments and accessories overtly insp i red by Kabuki , compe l l ingly brought to

l i fe by cutt ing-edge d igi ta l tool s . No sooner have the attackers been vanqu ished than a lone samurai appears on the scene : Cis recognizes h im as Duo , seemingly a member of her crew and feas ibly her l over , who has decided to be reinserted i nto the matrix and wants the young woman to jo in h im. Exp la in ing the sources of Program's concep t , the d i rector has stated : "One of the insp i rat ions was the matter of Cypher's betrayal in The JMatrix. That was some­th ing that got me go ing , the idea of that betrayal" (Kawaj i ri 2002) . Cis eventual ly opts for the arduous l i fe of the real as opposed to the "peacefu l l i fe of the vi rtual wor ld ," as Duo describes i t . When , at the end, she emerges from the program and i s to ld by a crewmate that

the encounter wi th Duo was del iberately devised to test her steadfastness of purpose , she

sternly punches h im in the face and walks away, in a dist inct ively Kawaj i r ian flour ish of dry humor .

Kawaj ir i ' s contr ibut ion to The Animatrix sta nds ou t as a capsu la ted masterp i ece of computer-assisted an imat ion . The extent to which the short fi lm employs digi tal tools not as ends i n themselves but rather i n order to accompl ish effects that wou ld be unth inkable wi th i n the parameters of trad i t iona l an imation i s ful ly borne out b y the sequences i n which various aspects of the archi tectural scenery with in which the characters execute their styl ish wal tz- l i ke

duel divide i nto rapidly mult iplying p lanes that appear to recede ad infinitum. Such sett ings are emphatically two-dimensional , yet acqu ire a mesmerizing aura of three-dimensional i ty by sheer v i rtue of their vert ig inous p ropagat ion . The computer-generated v i rtual landscape , with its ornately t i l ed roofs , is v iv id ly redolent of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) . So are the characters' acrobatics, a l though in the case of Program, an imation's flamboyant dis­engagement from the constraints of grav ity did not requ i re the ut i l izat ion of h idden wi res, nor indeed Yuen Wo-Ping's l egendary cho reographing talent (on which both Lee's film and the Matrix l ive-action p roductions substant ia l ly depended for their effects) .

The hand-crafted element is never total ly suppressed, however , s ince both the bu i ld ings and the natural environ ment - dep icted consistently wi th a preponderance of tradit ional Japa­nese hues - exh ib i t the palpable markers of manual execll t ion . In discuss ing his personal con­tr ibution to the creat ion of Program i n an i nte rview given at the t ime of The Animatrix's re lease, Minowa has confirmed the v i ta l agency of the art isanal component :

36 A:--J IME I NTERSECTIONS

Orig ina l ly I wasn't go ing to be i nvolved in The Animatrix, but as Kawaj i ri-san was headed to the Un i ted States wi th the scrip t , he asked me to do a few character drawings to inc lude i n the p resent ation mater i­als for Program. So [ started out doing basic concept work based on Kawaj i r i-san's des igns . Kawaj ir i-san and I h ad ta lked about doing some imagery and costumes based on Kabuki i mages and I ran with that , doing some of the first images of the soldiers on horseback rid ing aga ins t a red sky. There's a funny story attached to that because when I was doing those particular drawings, [ kept runn ing out of pai nt - there was a lot of red ! . . . At first they weren't sure that the h igh cont rast s ty le would work , but i n do ing those very first p i eces of concept art , they rea l ized i t might work after a l l , and p rov ide a way of meet ing the cha l ­l enge of l i v ing up to The Matrix. They rea l i zed that rather than going fu l l out wi th very deta i led render­i ngs, they could go wi th someth ing very s imple , someth ing that you could on ly rea l ly do in an i mat ion . After that I d id a lot of the animat ion superv i s ion , making sure t hat scenes worked, but I real ly fee l my main contribution were those firs t images wi th the red sky and b lack grass, and the so ld iers on horseback with the ir s taffs [Minowa 2002J .

Program thus eloquently attests to Kawaj ir i 's conv ict ion that convent ional "an i mat ion's appeal w i l l not change" as a resu l t of the incorporation of d igi tal techn iques : " I f the i mage and also the pass ion are not conveyed through computer-generated an i mat ion , then it w i l l

n o t succeed i n moving people or excit ing them . So whether you use a penci l or a computer

the important th ing is that the pass ion and the image are expressed i n the final p roduct . . . . To express the pass ion and the image whi l e using computers i s j ust a matter o f finding the r ight mater ia l" (Kawaj i r i 2003) . This is resplendently confirmed by Program , where no volume of d igital tr icks wou ld ever have r isen above the category of gl i tzy enterta inment had the act ion not been i n fused throughout w ith the drama of Cis's predicament : an interna l batt le between p rivate emotions and col l ective ob l igat ions , m ind less p leasure and str ingent du ty.

THREE

Perfect Blue

Anime often gets looked down on I/S being simply animated excuses for violence and sexual gratu­ity with plots that frequently seem targeted at the teenage audience. There is a great deal of truth in that but such a view also overlooks films like Perfect Blue where the animated medium is used to tell a complex and nuanced sto�y .... And the plot of someone caught in the middle of a circle of dreadful events whilst also questioning their own sanity is a classic staple of more accepted cine­matic genres. This is a good film to show the nay sayers to demonstrate that anime is capable of quite sophisticated tales. It also rewards with strong characterization for tbe most part and pro­vides some musing on tbe price offame. tbe demands offa1ls and the often u/lScyupulous 1Iature of people quite prepared to exploit tbe unseasoned Mima. - "banksie "

Tbe colollr ofitlusion is perftct blue. - Pt·rftct Blue Tagline. Japancse version

An i nternational ly accla imed and cultural ly astute psycho-thr i l l e r , Perfect Blue marked Satosh i Kon's debut as a d i rector through a fus ion of spel lb ind ing an imation techn iques and harrow­

ingly mature themes . The fi lm has i ndeed played a key part in conv inc ing even the most skep­

t ical audiences that an imation cannot be unproblematical ly relegated to the status of i n fant i l e enterta inment and that an ime , specifical ly, i s capable of prov ing every b i t as sophist icated as any respectable c inemat ic form . I n the case of Kawaj i r i 's Ninja Scroll, as we have seen , th is goal was reached by means of an utterly unsent imental exposure of the evils cours ing a specific h is torical era . Kon's movie , for i ts part , ach ieves the same objective through a sustained explo­rat ion of the darkest facets of ind iv idual psyches and of the i mpact thereon of a p roverbia l ly

perfidious sphere of cu l tural product ion and consumption . Kon's Perfect Blue was or ig inal ly i ntended to be a 90-m inu te l ive-act ion d i rect-to-video

p roject . However , as the p roduction h istory presented i n the movie's official s i te exp la ins ,

Production was de layed dur ing early 1 9 9 5 due to the Kobe earthquakel and the decis ion to an imate the fi l m was made . However, Perftct BIlle deal t w i th a subj ect never before addressed by an ime and i t was agreed to employ the best names cu rrent ly working i n the indus try. A new system of production would be adopted that did not fal l p rey to the constraints of tradi t io l la l an imat ion . I t was fel t that an ime had not adopted the eclectic nature of manga and was i n danger of confin ing i t s e l f to the same characters and sub­ject matter . Perftct Blue offered a real opportun i ty to break the mold and create someth ing d ifferent [Per­ftct Blue: Production Notes J .

Kon h imself had p resumed that the project's rather h umble or ig ins i n the OVA i ndus­

try would make i t i l l - su i ted to theatrical release , and had certa i n ly never ant ic ipated i ts sen­sationally posit ive reception not only on home turf but p ractical ly a l l over the globe . Asked

37

3 8 A N I M E h :TERSECTIO:"JS

by Tom Mies (on behalf of the on l ine journal Midnight £.ye) , " What's you r reaction to the success and the unexpectedly long l i fe of Perftct Blue?" the d i recto r r iposted :

I can only say it was a surprise . Because in the beginn ing this project was i ntended for video. As its creator I was actual ly a b i t hesitant about Perftct Blue gett ing shown in theaters . Bur it was, and as a result the fi lm was invi ted to a number of fi lm fest ivals and seen by many different audiences. I also got to v i s i t m any cou ntries, so I was happy with i t after al l . The fi l m was much more appreciated by those audiences t han I 'd imagined, so I was quite perplexed at the same time.

Altho ugh Perftct Blue i s loosely based on the novel of the same t i t l e by Yosh ikazu Takeuch i , the thematic twists and ph i losoph ical perspectives that are u l t imately most p ivotal to its cumulative identity as a work of art have sprung ent irely from the d i rector's own i mag­inat ion . Kon has indeed stressed that the story presented in the film is qu i te d ifferent from the novel on numerous counts : "The idea of a fi lm wi th in a fi lm , and the idea of a b lu rred border between the real world and imagination , those were my ideas and they weren't in the

novel" (Kon 200 1 ) . A l ive-action movie more faithfu l to the parent tex t , t i tled Perftct Blue:

Yume Nara Samete and d irected by Toshiki Sato , was produced in 2002 . The fi lm's p rotagon i s t , M ima Kir igoe , is the centerpiece of a tr io o f Lol i ta- l ike pop

s ingers called Cham who decides to qui t the group i n order to pu rsue fame as an actress . Her agent , Rum i , is far from supportive of this career move , bel ieving that Mirna's i mage as the i ncarnation of squeaky-clean , Snow-White innocence wi l l be i rretr ievably impa i red by her sh ift to act i ng - especial ly s ince her first major part is i n a lur id TV soap about a ser ia l k i l l e r ent i tled Double Bind. The agent's misgivings are soon corroborated by actua l events : the show requ i res Mirna to adopt a decidedly su l try persona that is starkly at odds wi th the whi te­kn ickered proj ection idol ized by her erstwhi le fans . Her compliant submiss ion to raunchy photo shoots fu rther a l ienates the once loyal crowds .

Junko Iwao's personal engagement with the task of l end ing Mima's character a vo ice for the original Japanese vers ion of the movie paral lels the protagon ist's exper ience . To th is effect , the actress has observed :

When I got the storyboard and the scrip t , to tel l you the truth , I had some m ixed fee l i ngs abo l l t i t . I had made up my m i nd t o accept the role at the t ime of the aud i t ion , but I was a l i t t le concerned about the v io lent scenes . Because I d idn't have any experience acting vio lent scenes i n the past . . . . I t h i n k I feel exactly the same as Mima fee l s in this story. This was a chal lenging role for me as an actress and I wanted to over­come as many obstacles as I could, j ust as Mima does in the story. I 've p l ayed cutesy roles in the past , but I fee l that Mima and I are a l ike . . . . The d i rectors and creators of this p roject have extremely h igh standards and expectat ions . If my del ivery was less than 100%, they were on to me r ight away . . . . The d ifficul t scenes for me were when M i m a shouted loudly or when she was out of breath from chas i ng "vi rtual Minla" [ Iwao] .

Mima's re l i nquish ing of her old sel f is sealed by her involvement as the v ict im in a par­t icularly graphic rape scene, made additionally disturb ing by her performance in a garb mod­elled on Mima's Cham costume w ith an extra soft-porn twi s t . (This sequence will be retu rned to later in this chapter . ) Alternately disappointed and confused by her novel rol e , the p ro tag­

on ist begins to lose her hold on real i ty. Shocked to discover what c la ims to be her own diary

on a popular webs ite dubbed "Mima's Room," anguished by the real izat ion that the contents of the log are impeccably accurate , tortured by phantasmatic hal luc inations of her former se lf garbed i n Cham gear , and stalked by the psychotic fan Uchida (a . k . a . " Mimaniac ," a lso ren ­dered a s "Me-Mania" )

' who regards the new Mima a s an impostor, t h e young woman is grad­

ually engu lfed in a paral l e l u n ive rse where in fact and fiction seamless ly - and often vengeful ly - coalesce . Most memorab le , in th i s respect , is the sequence i n which the heroine

Three - Perfect B lue 39

wakes up afrer an i ntense ly traumatic n ightmare and barely has t ime to draw a s igh of rel ief at the real izat ion that the experience was purely one i r ic before the very same occurrence starts

rep lay ing in her ostensibly conscious l i fe . A deft v isual ization of Mirna's psychological predica­ment , the sequence also funct ions sel f-reflexively as a subtle cr i t ique of the numb ing repeti­t iveness of much commercia l ani me .

Ruby Marlow, the Engl i sh voice act ress for Mirna , has expressively assessed the heroine's intr ins ic dual i ty :

Tech n ical ly, we kep t the two obvious Mima characters separate . There was t h e "real " M i m a and the "v i r­tual" Mima . . . the M i m a that was al most l i ke a phantom , s t i l l d ressed i n her performance olllfir . We d id one of them a l l the way th rough , and then we went back and d id the other , so we kep t them separate and showed cert a in character t ra i t s of each : t he v i rtual Mima was l i ghter and br ighter a l l the t ime , a l though she had an agenda . The real Mima was broken down w i th in that character into several d ifferent ones . . . evcn though I d i dn't rea l ly know el'fI" exact ly what h e r real i ty was . . . t o me i t was all real i t y - i t had t o be IMarlow] .

The tech n ical strategy embraced by Kon and h is team has undeniably pa id off, insofar as the two Mi mas' d is t inct personal i t ies are pa lpably appreciable throughout the fi l m . Marlow's own

wi l l ingness to approach each and every s i tuation in which the hero ine i s ca ught as potentia l ly real has contribu ted s ign ificantly to the final p roduct's affective qual i ty, commun icat ing a gen­

u ine impress ion of both uncertainty and ingenuou sness which might have been on ly part ia l ly art iculated had the actress made up her mind a p rior i as to what counted as real i ty and what

as i l lus ion . On the technica l p lane , Mi ma's displacement is most effectively and succinct ly conveyed

by frames that deftly capita l ize on intrepid layer ing techn iques, wh i l e concurrently throwing into rel ief the hand-drawn component and graph ic conventions of trad i t ional an ime . An espe­cial ly striking example is supp l i ed by the extreme close-up depicting Mirna as she stares with m ixed horror , d i sbe l ief and gr ief at the i nexpl icably dead Tetra fish l i mply suspended i n her m in i -aquariu m . Kon's s leek choreography conj ures up an eer ie space i n which the hero ine and the obj ect of her s tunned gaze appear to interact and even coalesce . No less i mpressive is the scene , set i n a subway carriage , in which a deso late "rea l" Mirna catches her reflecti on in

a window and sees not her current self but a taunti n gly cheerfu l Mirna in her pop- idol incar­

nat ion . This economica l image communicates the young woman's psychological and sensory dislocation more radical ly than extensive d ialogue ever would .

Kon ut i l izes reflect ions in myriad glass su rfaces th rougho ut the fi lm so as to t ransmi t i n a visual ly consistent fash ion the doub l ing , sp l i tt i ng , polar iz ing and dissociative mechanisms affiict ing the main characters' psyches . Furthermore , Perfect Blue featu res a p lethora o f glass surfaces of specifical ly tech nological derivat ion alongside those p rovided by bas i c archi tecture and interior des ign . These are introduced as a means of suggest ing that v i rtual ly all the expe­r iences dramat ized in the film are synthetical ly mediated and cannot , therefo re , be taken as transparent wi ndows onto a character's real i ty - whatever this m igh t be . Kon has commented on this motif in an in te rv iew for the Perfect Blue officia l website :

Most of the fi lm is set i ndoors . M i m a's room , Uch ida the fan's room , even the fi lm s tud i o . The other M i m a also makes h e r fi rst appearancc from t h e PC i n M i rna's room. To te l l the trut h , I thought l o n g a n d hard abo llt how the other Mima should besr make her appearance , and i t was Murai [ the fi l m's scr iptwriter ] who came up with the idea of the I nternet : the homepage Minds Room. In this way, we dec ided to make a l l of the rooms evoke the same thing. There arc rhree "screens" i n the room where Mi rna l ives : a TV, a PC and a trop ica l fish tank wi th the same 3-by-4 d imens ions as a moni tor. We also shot M i nds room as

4 0 ANI M E I NTERSECTIONS

i f i t was be ing v iewed on a TV screen . Th is is because we wanted to g ive a d i luted sense of real i t y, as if a l l of the events were taki ng p l ace wi th in a TV screen of some kind . Later , when the scriptwriter Sh iburani comes i nto the parking lo t , the entrance i s framed as i f i t were a TV screen , w i th the same 3 :4 d imensions [Kon 1998 1 .

I n h is own assessment of t h e protagon ist's predicament, the English vo ice actor for M ima­niac, Bob Marks, suggests that h i s character favors Mima out of the th ree Cham gir ls no t merely because of he r p ivotal role in the group but also, more i mportantly, because o f the latent sense of powerlessness she transmi ts : "She seemed to be the voice of the Cham girls , o r the m a i n focus, a l though she was portrayed a s a very gentle , actual ly more vulnerable char­acter and not as aggress ive as the other gir ls and I guess somehow more accessible. So I guess to this character [Mimaniacl she was probably more appea l ing" (Marks) . M ima is i ndubitably

depicted as a rather naive and cautious person , unequ ipped with the headstrong ambi t ious­

ness stereotypical ly associated with r is ing stars or the v ivacious conviv ia l i ty that usual ly d is­

t inguishes the pop idol figure . Nor does she exh ib i t the vaguest trace of the sc i-fi g lamour that accrues to other classic an ime idols : most notably, Lin Minme i from Superdimensional

Fortress Macross (and i ts American version known as Robotech, 1 982 ) , Miho Utsuse from Key

the Metal Idol ( 1994) and Sharon Apple from Macross Plus - The MOllie ( 1994) . Immersed i n an env i ronment that promotes self-aggrandizement as the norm , yet unable

or unwi l l ing to p lay the game on her own terms, Mima has no a l ternat ive but to succumb to the dubious agendas of an overzealous talent agency manager and a suffocat ingly m aternal bus iness agent . In a sense, even the decision to qu i t the music world for the screen is never overtly posited as the p rotagon ist 's own personal choice . The young woman's puppet- l i ke standing is economical ly captured by the scene in which the two characters eager to shape her future career argue about her chances of success in the televis ion i ndustry i n Mima's very pres­

ence , as though she were no more sentient - let alone the h ub of the debate - than a p i ece of office furn i ture .

Matters are fu rther , a n d gruesomely, com pl icated b y the murder o f key members o f Mima's new business and, worse st i l l , b y her suspicion that s h e may b e responsible for the i r

perpetrat ion . Once Mimaniac h imself has been murdered, the t rue cu lpr i t turns out to be

Rumi , the sufferer of a complex case of Mult ip le Persona l i ty Syndrome . Mima is eventual ly accla imed as a talented performer , comes to terms with her adult ro l e , and magnan imously goes on vis i t ing her deluded ex-agent after the latter has been indefini tely hospita l ized . How­ever , this relatively "neat" ending does not total ly erase Perfect Blue's status as an arres t ing v i sua l experience tha t leaves many issues open to interpretat ion even as i t h ints a t part ia l

explanations . One poss ib le i nterpretation h inges on the thesis that the fi l m dramatizes a concatena­

tion of events as seen from the perspect ives of th ree varyingly d isturbed characters : Mima , Rum i and Mimaniac . Rumi would final ly appear to have orchestrated the p l o t i n accordance with her own maniacal perceptions of real i ty and identity, whi le Rumi and Miman iac are pawns that easily lend themselves to man ipulat ion as a resu l t of the ir respective exper iences of emo­tional and cul tural dis locat ion . Another interpretation , here adopted as something of a work­i ng model , p roposes that the delusional web woven by the movie cons ists pr imari ly of a ser ies of paral le ls and convergences centered on Mima , Rumi and thei r both personal and profes­sional relat ionship . In this reading , Miman iac operates essent ia l ly as an i ntermediate and cat­alyzing agency, and the TV soap as a metafi lm ic commentary on the ma in p lo t .

Three � Perfcct Blue 4 1

Correlat ions between Mirna's and Rumi's identit ies and experiences abound throughout . Both are ex- idol s ingers and both have difficult ies coming to terms wi th the younger woman's new rol e : in M irna's case , due to her perception of the trans i t ion from pop idol to actress as a potentia l descent from a state of pur i ty to a "tarn ished" self- image (which cou ld be read as

her react ion to the r ift between the p re-adul t and adul t domains) ; in Rumi's case , due to her

sub l iminal convict ion that the demise of Mirna as adolescent pop s inger amounts to a fad ing of her own identity - of what she stood for i n the days of her popu lar i ty and of what vest iges of those t i mes she has thus far managed to salvage through v icari ous ident ificat ion with her charge .

Furthermore , i t should be noted that i t is after the execut ion of the rape scene that the film increas ingly foregrounds Mirna's decl ine i nto madness, especia l ly as i mages of her p rev i ­ous se l f att ired i n the o utfit she wore at her l a s t Cham concert haunt her and defiantly c l a im

to be the "real" Mirna . Those hal lucinations emanate from Rumi 's psyche no l e s s than from

Mirna's own , i nsofar as the v i rginal ly immaculate persona they seek to enshr ine corresponds to the agent's own yearn ing to p reserve a van ishing past and a correspond ingly evaporat ing grasp of selfhood . This psychological cross-hatch ing is rei nforced by the sequence in which the character of the photographer is murdered and Mirna appears to be com mitt ing the c r ime . I n fact , a s i t later becomes patent , i t i s effectively Rum i that is performing the ac t wh i le delu­s ional ly bel iev ing that she i s Mirna .

I n both instances, the ou tcome is a radical mental unanchoring conducive to paranoia and sch izoid self-persecut ion a s far a s Mirna is concerned, and to the fabricat ion of an intr i­

cate slasher yarn rep lete with technological props, masquerades and more than moderate a dose of sheer bloodlust i n Rumi 's case . The rape scene seal ing Mirna's sh ift from pop idol to

soap actress functions as a d ieget ic pivo t , br inging the two characters together thro ugh a v iv id depiction of sorrowful pathos . Rumi's tears at the end of the shoot ing in t imate that the pa in she feels is arguably more wrenching than any feel i ng exper ienced by Mirna herse lf. After a l l , the older woman has more to lose than the r is ing starlet does .

The rape sequence as we see i t i n its on-set construct ion is by no means a p ru rient con­cess ion to the dubious p redilections of anime viewers keen on erotic t i t i l lat ion . In fac t , i t func­

tions as an i ronical ly deconstructive exposure of the ci nematic p rocess and of both the p leasures and the tr ibulat ions it enta i l s . The Animefu review of Perfect Blue, i n this respect , p raises the

fi lm for its "subl ime undermin ing of the rape scene for the TV show - with the actors caught in uncomfortable poses between camera angle changes . Quite c leverly remov ing the eroticism of the scene and hav ing a quiet l i tt le j ab at sex scenes in general i n visual media" ("banks ie" ) .

I t should also b e noted, however , that even though the sequence is so self-consciously

orchestrated, from a formal and techn ical perspective , as to stand out as someth ing of a p lay

with i n a play, i t nonetheless remains deeply disturb ing at the affective leve l . (The p lay wi th in

a p lay i n Hamlet provides an apt antecedent , i n th i s rega rd . ) This is a logical coro l l ary of the uncompromis ing rea l i sm with which Kon has chosen to choreograph Mirna's ent ic ing act , the mount ing l ustfu lness of the str ip c lub c l ients, the vict im's feverish struggle to disengage her­

self from the th icket o f l ewd hands reaching out towards her defenseless body, and her even­tua l co l l apse at the edge of the str ip stage l ike a discarded dol l . Accord ing to Aaron H. Byn u m , whi le the rape sequence appears t o mark the inception of t h e p ro tagonist 's ostensibly i rre­vers ib le descent towards a moral nad i r , there is a lso, paradoxical ly, a sense in which i t ach ieves a diametrical ly opposite goal : "emblematic of what w i l l occur to a person's sensib i l i ty should

42 ANI M E i !\TERSECTIONS

they yield to the damaging splendor of societal abstract ions, the glor ified filth of the rape , in a m i raculous way, helps to pur ify Mirna . . . . Identifying her telev i s ion work as 'a hu rdl e , ' . . . Mirna constructs her self-worth and sentience" (Bynum 2005a ) .

I n the log ic of the i nterp retations out l i ned above, Perftct Blue's narrative lead ing thread consists of an affective contam inat ion , so to speak, whereby Ru mi 's l unacy feeds M i rna's confl ict ing emotions to the po int that these , too, acquire the graphic symptoms of ful l -b lown insani ty. I m portantly, even though Mirna fi ghts back and final ly asserts her separateness from her former agent as a capable professional i n her own r igh t , her sense of self remains t i ed to Rum i , as evi nced by the clos ing scene portraying one of the young woman's regular tr ips to

the inst i tut ion where in Rum i whi les her delusion-laden days away. Communicating Rum i's d iv idedness throughout the action posed considerable chal lenges for her Engl ish voice actress,

Wendy Lee : "Rumi started out as somewhat i nnocent i n her relat ionsh ip w ith Mirna and I

knew what the outcome was go ing to be, that she would turn in to a very sordid, horr ib le monster at the end. The trick really was keeping that under wraps from the beginn ing and not giving away the plot" (Lee) . Lee's performance i s unremitt ingly remarkable , in th is regard : an except ional ly sympathetic imagination appears to underp in the actress's enactment of the v io lently con fl ict ing s ides of Rumi 's schizoid persona, and abi l i ty to part ic ipate imp l i c i tly i n the character's pathological out look.

The TV show Double Bind comments metafict ional ly on the fi lm's central concerns ­

its t i t le could barely be more appos i te , in this regard . Its very p lo t , moreover , echoes events

seen i n the main narrat ive by cap i ta l iz ing on the act ions of a serial ki l ler , on paranoid v i s ions , on the haziness o f real i ty's boundaries and on the anxious search for alternative ident i t i es . A key scene from the TV show features the character played by Mirna , Yoko , as a mental pat ient and the character of the doctor i n the act of diagnos ing her afflict ion as Mult ip le Personal i ty Syndrome . Although the characters look l ike Yoko and the doctor from Double Bind, what

the scene p lausibly dramat izes i s Rumi 's own p l igh t i n the form of a flashfo rward, a l lud ing to the diagnosis of the agent's condit ion and resu l t ing hospita l ization . The characters' appear­

ance wou ld feas ibly resu l t from Rumi 's delus ional state - and part icularly her tendency to

ident ify wi th her p rotegee so total ly as to lose any sense of her and Mima's very separa te ness, let alone of somatic diss im i lar i t ies .

With th e sequences in which Mima is portrayed a s t h e subj ect of part icular act ions , yet Rum i-as-Mima is the effective performer, Perftct Blue has accompl ished what some would deem cinematical ly imposs ible : i t manages to ascribe one and the same act ion to more than j ust one agent at any one t ime. The film could s imply have shown Rumi perform certa i n acts as herself, wh i le i l l ustrat ing by means of cut- ins the imaginary contents of the character's m ind, where she ident ifies wi th Mirna . Such a method would have kept the hero ine and the v i l l a in discrete , and inv i ted specific degrees of empathy or sympathy wi th either one or the other. By actually endowing Rum i wi th Mima's semblance as those acts are be ing performed, the fi lm atta ins to utterly fresh levels of complex i ty, drawing the v iewer i nto the ravel led n igh tmare .

Furthermore , the sequences i n question derive much of their c inemat ic v i gor from Kon's blend of efficient cuts and poignantly a l lus ive imagery, as wel l as a p redi lect ion for de l icately scattered clues that p lay coy with the truth rather than stark statement s . Hence, v iewers are gently, even languidly, drawn i nto the fa ntasy even though the visual and narrat ive content of the sequences is downright disturb ing in i ts atrocious authentic ity. Arguably, th is feat could

Three - Perfect B lue 43

never have bee ach ieved w i thout the d i rector's unfl inch ing com m itment to an an imational style of incomparable l i near neatness , capable of demonstrat ing that potently natu ral i s t ic effects do not automatical ly depend on the an imator's s imulat ion of photoreal i s t ical ly th ree­

d imensional local i t ies but may actua l ly s t r ike the i r most melodious chords when the drawn l i ne is accorded pride of p lace .

Kon is not , however , impervious to change and recognizes the im portance o f cu l tivat­ing a commodious approach to both ex ist ing and deve loping tools and techn iques : "My main method of express ion is the drawn image . . . . I love to draw and drawings are my words . . . . I mysel f intend to continue with 20 an imat ion , but my i nterest i n 3 D an i mat ion is increas­

ing . I th ink i t's cr i t ical l y important to ut i l ize new techn iques . But . . . I th ink i t's also impor­tant to perfect your o ld tech nique and make as many works as possi b le by focus ing your efforts" (Kon 2004) .

The fi l m's interweav i ng of tradit ion and novel ty i n the tech nologica l doma i n occurs

p redominantly at the l evel of i ts consistent and subt ly varied j uxtapos i t ion of representat ions of long-establ ished med ia , on the one hand, and o f deve lop ing electron i c systems, on the other . Acco rdi ngly, a l though Perfect Blu e does no t seek to i n tegrate ce l a n i mat ion and computer-generated graph ics as several later (and even synchronous) p roduct ions do but actual ly cul t ivates a reso l u tely art isanal aesthet ic , i t does engineer an i magi native encou nter of the o ld and the new on the specifica l ly rep resentat ional p l ane . I n the cou rse of the story,

references to l i ve-action c inema , telev is ion shows, analog record ing and gutter-p ress pho­

tography are conti nua l ly contrasted wi th images of d ig i ta l tech nology and reminders of the increas ing ly ub iqu i to us ro le p layed by the I nternet i n peop le's l ives and dest in i e s . The grad­ual construct ion and deconstruct ion of the p rotagonist 's both p rivate and pub l i c personae encapsulate that tens ion . Indeed, her characterizat ion i s a l l the t ime t raversed by more or

l e s s expl ic i t a l lus ions to the equal ly powerfu l agency of a relatively o ld-fash ioned i ndustry grounded i n pre-digital technology and of an emphatical ly contemporary galaxy of b i t s , by tes and p ixe l s . Tradi t ional and cutt i ng-edge technologies , moreover , are i nca rnated by the

sp l i t t ing o f the central character , referred to earl i e r i n th i s chapter , i nto two contras t ing configura t ions : the flesh-and-bone woman , on the one hand, and the v i rtual construct , on the other .

A paral le l contrast can be observed i n the movie's handl ing of quite d ifferent an imat ional modal i t ies . Numerous sequences are drawn and shot i n de l iberately "non-spectacular" styles so as to throw i nto rel ief the humdrum qual i ty of the characters' l ives outside the synthet ic g l i tter and glamour o f the pop i ndustry that varyingly defines the ir ident i t ies . The sequences h igh l ight ing the narrat ive's precarious balancing act between real i ty and i l l us ion by means o f

intensely surreal visuals , camera work and edi t ing strategies, conversely, cap ita l ize on overtly

sensat ional rep resentations of physical and psychological d isp lacement , incremental ly bu i ld­ing up to paroxysms of cold-blooded bruta l i ty, rendered i n a dispass ionately photorea l i s t ic fashion . The backgrou nds, too, are so rea l i stically executed as to often come across as l ive­action matte pa int i ngs .

Profo undly influenced by h i s ear l ier work a s a manga art is t , Kon overt ly i mports the comic-book conventions i nto the realm of an ime . Kon's evo lu t ion as a manga artist demands some attention , i n this respect , and the di rector's own account of the creat ive path lead ing from h is in i t i al encounter wi th comic books to the perfection of the dist i nct ive s ty le embraced in Perfect Blue seems espec ia l ly deserv ing of notice :

44 ANIME hTERSECTIONS

I d idn't want to j ust read manga . . . but have a go at writ ing them myse lf. I was heav i ly i nfluenced by Ka t­suh i ro Oromo's DOn/u ( 1980) and Akira ( 1 982) . . . . From the very beg inn ing I enjoyed d raw i ng pictures and my early scr ibbles event ual ly developed i nto manga . At length, one story I completed won the " Kodansha Manga Award," and ever s i nce the n , I 've been drawing manga not as a hobby, but as my l ivel ihood . . . . I can't th ink of a part icular fi lm or a part icular d i rector who has real ly " i nfluenced" me , but I d id gradual ly absorb the th ings I saw . . . . The most important i nfluence on me . . . wasn't a s ingle fi lm hut the works of Terry Gi l l iam. Desp ite be ing fantasy, h i s depict i ons are qu i re bitter , h i s narrat ion a l so th rows "curve-ba l l s , " and rather than cover ing every po int i n deta i l , he takes the s taging off to a complete ly d ifferent p o i nt and p lucks out a s i ngle , v iv id theme . I espec ia l ly l ike Time Bandits ( 1 9 8 1 ) , Brazil ( \ 9 8 5 ) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen ( 1 989 ) . When I draw myself, I am quite n atural ly i nterested i n whatever's around me , so that there's a feeli ng of start ing from a real ist ic po int of v iew, w i th which fantasy i s then m ixed, and finally fin i sh ing with pure fantasy [Kon 1998 ] .

The endur ing hold of manga- insp ired styles on Kon's v isua l imaginat ion is ful ly attested

to by his preference for min imal ist character designs , flat figures , tenuous masses and back­ground characters reduced to impersonal cut-outs or even blobs and splotches of pa in t . These e lements gain visual potency throughout the film by the i r interspersal w i th jo l ts of graphic complexi ty and r ichness emulat ing the more exuberantly baroque moments i n manga art . The d i rector has exp l ic i tly acknowledged the i nfluence of h is background upon h i s an ime work in an i nterview inc luded in the Perfect Blue ova released by Manga Enterta inment : "I started

out as a painter so I think in terms of visual ized drawings from the beginn i n g . " (Kon 2000) . On th is same top ic , the d i rector has also stated : "What came to interest me enormously when drawing manga is of course the format , but a lso the layout panel by panel . You d raw s ix or seven panels to a page , and when yo u open the page , there's the quest ion of which p ic ture h i ts your eye , and when a double page is open in front of you , there's the flow start i ng from 'this' p icture and c l imaxing i n the end with 'that' p icture . I t has to be 'cut , ' edi ted l i ke a fi lm"

(Kon 1998 ) . I n the course o f the 2000 i nterv iew quoted above , Kon has also usefu l ly commented on

h i s dist inctive approach t o t h e drawing stages of product ion , emphasiz in g th e need t o s tr ike

a fine balance between attention to details and commi tment to the p icture's cumulative design , as well as between spectacular i ty and fluidi ty : "Coming up with a story and making detai led decis ions about what type of a home a certai n character should l ive in , for example , and then sketch ing it , is a lot of work . I wo uld get caught up in the detai ls of the task before me and lose s ight of the b ig p icture . . . . I r isn't that I tried to make the drawings sensational as such, but I wanted the drawings to effectively flow smoothly during the 80 m inu tes of the fi l m . Rather than have one scene stand o u t , I hoped that the story would b e del ivered wel l over

the ent ire 80 minutes" (Kon 2000) .

Kon has unquest ionably ach ieved h is goal i n Perfect Blue, insofar as each of the set t ings reveals a u n ique b lend of meticulously rendered deta i ls and overal l structural coherence . The urban locat ions, addit ional ly, a l so carry documentary value . Makosuke has persuasively pu r­sued th is propos i t ion i n h is rev iew of the mov ie for Anime World:

Even most l ive action mov ies , l e t a lone an i me, fa i l to capture the sort of r ich env i ronment s that Perfict Blue is fi l led w i th . M inds apartment is the most impressive exampl e : it has a cramped, l ived- in look that captu res the fee l of Japanese c i ty l iv ing . . . . (For those wondering about M i m a's less-than-glamorous I i v i ng space , i t 's no t unbel ievable - minor pop s ingers are a d ime a dozen , and an apartment i n Tokyo costs a fortune . ) . . . The sense of tangib i l i ty is equal ly s t rong in lhe backstage v i ew of show bus iness t ha t p rov ides the framework for the slory. BOlh t he Pop I do l scene tha t M i ma l eaves and the TV aCl i n g wor ld she strug­gles to break i nto seem bel ievab le , more so than i n most movies deal i ng with s im i l a r sub ject mattef . . . . Al l th i s i sn't just window dress i ng ; the Iess-l han-glamorous (but not exaggeratedly so) beh i n d the scenes v iew

Three - Perfect B lue 4 5

of act ing gives the p lot a l o t of i t s srrength and tens ion , and the concrete backdrop makes Mima's deter i­orat ing real i t y a l l the more pa lpable [Makosuke 1998] .

I t could further be suggested that the city of Tokyo i n i ts ent irety rises to the status of

a p ivotal character in Perftct Blue's narrative , coming across a s sometimes amicable , some­t imes host i le , and invariably unpredictable - as the fi lm's h uman personae also are . Alternately exuding a sense of colorful opulence and a tenebrous atmosphere of engulfing menace, the urbanscape thus rep l icates both the characters' most t reasured dreams and their most dreaded n igh tmares . Tokyo , it should be noted, wi l l p lay an axia l ro le in Kon's later production Tokyo

Godfothers, the tale of th ree homeless people and, v ia the i r s ingular vic iss i tudes, of Tokyo's poverty-stricken underbel ly. (Th is fi lm wi l l be returned to later in this chapter . )

In the art iculat ion of i ts dist inct ive spat ia l poet ics , barely seen i n an ime before or indeed s ince , Perftct Blue concomitantly captures what Paul Sch rader has described as the "restless

and unstable" space of film noi r . Such a space , by capital izi ng on unsett l i ng composit ions and

lighting strategies, radically interrogates i ts inhabitants' own rel iabi l i ty : " No character can speak authoritatively from a space that is continually cut into ribbons of l ight" (Schrader , p . 1 7 5 ) . I n thus destabi l iz ing i ts spatial organization , Perfect Blue also shatters t h e audience's depend­ence on the screen itself as a supposedly safe space , compell i ng us to look on i t more wari ly

and in the constant awareness that its coordinates may be arbitrari ly v io lated at any moment . S imul taneously, the arch i tectural d ialectics conj ured up by Kon's camera, with its knack of

establ ish ing a susta ined tens ion between the ins ide and the outs ide ( to t h e point that the enclosed sett ings and the surrounding c i tyscape appear to mi rror each other and even become in terchangeable) , br ings to mind the spatial relat ions immortal ized by Alfred Hitchcock i n Rear Window ( 1 9 5 4 ) . I t i s also worth point ing o u t , in th i s context , that Perfect Blue echoes the classic auteur's oeuvre i n more ways than one. The fi l m's more brooding moments , for example , are redolent of Rebecca ( 1940) , H i tchcock's adaptat ion o f Daphne D uMaur ie r's Gothic masterpiece ( 1 938 ) . The mounting atmosphere of omnipresent t reacherousness and attendant p ropensity for self-delusion , conversely, recalls the mood of Gaslight ( 1944) , whi l e the action's sudden leaps into undi luted savagery brings i t i nto int imate p roximi ty wi th the

affective tone of Psycho ( 1 960) . 2 At the same t ime, Perfect Blue develops to great effect an ime's dist inct ive tendency to

min imize movement . Thi s has tradi t ional ly resul ted from eminently financ ia l constraints , and specifically the need to keep the tota l number of frames down to the bare bone for the sake of cost-effective productiv i ty. Such p ragmatic l imitations also apply to Kon's fi l m to some extent : the l im i ted budget at the d i rector's disposal i n the execut ion of Pe�foct Blue entai led that the ent i re fi lm eventual ly added up to less than 30 ,000 drawings . (To grasp the ful l

s ignifica nce of th is figu re by comparative means, i t i s worth no t ing tha t Hayao Miyazaki 's

Princess Mononoke, also released in 1997, incorporated over 144 ,000 cel s . Katsuh i ro Otomo's Steamboy [2004] , as we shal l see , encompasses no less than 180 ,000 drawings . )

However , regardless o f budgetary considerations , Kon's work also po ints to a del iberate adopt ion of h ighly rarefied action as a v i tal component of his aesthet ic , and to an ab i l i ty to harness that cho ice to a markedly self- reflexive approach to the mediu m . I ndeed, Kon abides

by the pr inciple that nothing needs to move unless i t has to move to such a heightened degree that the technique has the effect of consistently rem inding the audience of the art ificial sta­tus of the product ion . The impress ion is fu rther conso l idated by the systematic use of long takes and dol ly shots .

46 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

Cinematograph ical ly speaking, i t is also noteworthy that Kon's take on c inematic space

benefits cons iderably from the deployment of audacious camera angles that evade the estab­

l ished tendency to make the camera's point of view level w i th the h uman eye and display a

un i form horizo n , and exper iment instead wi th u nsett l ing and perplex ing perspectives . These a re p rod uced by recou rse to extreme h igh-angle and low-angle shots that capture both char­acters and locations from above or below, in preference to visual ly and emot ional ly balanc­ing eye- level frames . Deep-focus shots a l lowing a l l the p lanes of a set t ing to rem a in i n

identical ly sharp focus a re also used as a means o f disorient ing the v iewer's sensor ium by

i nvesting disparate d imensions with myst ifyingly equal relevance . We are not, at such t imes ,

encouraged to recogn ize certa in aspects of a shot a s more i mportant or cogent to the action's unfold ing than any others , and are accordingly requi red to take in and process the en t i re

fi lmic moment as a n ensemble of mult ip le , mutual ly sustain ing and mutual ly underm in ing

elements . Eve ry th ing , therefo re, becomes potentia l ly momentous and per ipheral at once .

Obl ique-angle shots based on the capture of a subj ect by a t i l ted camera a re somet imes employed with analogously baffl ing ou tcomes i n order to make the subj ect i tse lf seem to be

s lanted across a d iagonal plane when the final film is p rojected . The ass iduous use o f short

cuts and swi ft trans i t ions from one scene to the next l ikewise imparts Perfect Blue with an

atmosphere of enigmatic uncann iness .

No less p ivotal to the movie's spel lb inding camera work is the use o f takes that supp ly

the audience with a s ingle viewpo i nt by int imating that the scene is be ing presented i n the

way i t is perceived by an indiv idual character and, therefore, as a markedly subj ect ive rather than shared experience . I nsofar as the various personae's perspect ives a re a l l , in varying degree, warped by obsess ions and fears, we cannot afford to take any of those scenes at face value, as

unproblematica l ly denotative of a defin i te message . Refused the l uxury of rel iable viewpoints,

we are thus forced to watch and wait for a character's percept ion to be confi rmed as val id ,

d iscredited as a figment of a feverish imaginat ion or - more often than not - dieget ica l ly emplaced as both cred ible and delus ional at once . I n such instances, the fi lm overt ly empha­

s izes the role p layed by the camera as an autonomous agent i n the man ipu l a t i on o f the viewer's

responses, and as capable of techn ical gestures that foreground the existence of an i ns t rumen­

tal p resence endowed w i th grea ter knowledge than the v iewer . Another defin i n g t ra i t of Kon's d i rectorial cachet resides with h i s cho ice of a chromatic

palette capable of invest ing Perfect Blue not only with the spat ia l , as noted earl ier, but also

w i th the atmospher ic qua l i t ies o f film no i r . Even though i ntense h u es are cons i s tent ly

employed, the setti ng of much of the movie in noc tu rna l or indoor locat ions requ i red the

ass iduous ut i l izat ion of art ificial l ighting, and this made i t poss ib le to adj ust the tones and

i ntens i t ies so as to convey a pervasively sombre a tmosphere for the more meditative moments, and a harsh mood of foreboding for the suspense-laden scenes . The sequence in which Mirna

retu rns to her dress ing-room after the completion of Double Bind along a deserted t i led Co[­

r idor punctuated by u n friendly neon l ights is part icularly noteworthy.

Kon has mainta ined that the i nj unction to translate the p roject from a 90-minll te video

project i nto an 30-minute theatrical release is largely responsible for Perfect Blue's part icular c inematograph ical s tyle :

I th ink we had to th row out about 100 scenes . The cuts were made because the c inema runnin� t i m e was l imited, so nearly al l the miss ing footage was just there to show the passage o f t ime. We cut several scenes of escalat ing suspense that were or ig ina l ly there to emphas i se M ima's gradua l ly growing fea r. It's very

Three - Perfect Blue 47

difficult to bring out the feel ing of "gradually" when you don't have the time to do it, so that led us to become bolder and cut most scenes in wh ich stuff crept up on you gradual ly. We a lso used m any jump cuts to l i nk separate episodes and as an express ion of mental confus ion .... It woulJ be bor ing just to cur out littl e b its and piece them together, so I ... used imaging techniques to connect different scenes by pi l­ing action scenes or images one on top of the other. As the film progressed, e.specia l ly in the l ater half, we decided to cut from scene to scene faster and faster IKon 1998J.

Thematical ly speaking , Perfect Blue embodies an integral facet of Japanese tradi t ion i n the form of a key topos drawn from class ic indigenous fairy tales : namely, the not ion of inter­

penetrating worlds. This phrase des ignates everyday d imensions, non-quot id ian realms and

l im inal i n terst ices between those two categor ies , across wh ich characters may migrate e i ther

of their own vol i t ion or as a coro l lary of bewi tchments . Perfect Blue paradigmatical ly exempl ifies

th is mot i fby render ing the membrane that supposedly separates exter ior and i nter ior domains

of be i ng disorient ingly paper-th in . The wor ld of the o ld pop-idol i mage , unwi l l ing to be dis­

p laced by the new TV-show persona, infi l t rates Mi ma's quot id ian existence wi th mount ing an imosity and ins istence . As a resu l t , shadow doubles of the flesh-and-blood g i r l p rol i fe rate and mal ignantly beg in [0 graft themselves upon her ostens i bly defense less body and m i n d .

As in tradi t ional versions of the motif of in terpenetrat ing worlds, what is most disturb ing about

the scenario dep icted i n Perfect BLue is the sheer implacab i l i ty of fantasy's ons laughts on the

real . Dreams cross over into waking l i fe , the soap drama blends with the actual world, i mag­

inary spectres become i ndist inguishable from obsessed sta lkers, and t ime itself appears [0 dis­

solve i nto an i ndist inct blur as the protagonist p lummets into a whi rlw i nd o f del i rious anxiety.

I n the afo rement ioned interv iew incl uded in the Manga Enterta i n ment DVD release of Perfect Blue, the d i rec[Or has descr ibed h is approach [0 the story and [0 i ts compos i t ion thus : "We intentionally tried [0 keep the audience guess ing . We tr ied to do th i s r ight from the begin­n ing when we were wr i t ing the scr ipt . . . . In the end, I th ink we were r ight in keep i ng the audi­

ence guess i ng and leaving them to use the i r imaginations rather than spel l i ng eve rythi ng out

for them" (Kon 2000) . Elsewhere , Kon has exp l ic i t ly underscored the fil m's "Ch inese box

construction , " stat ing that i ts adoption was largely dictated by the des i re to explode some of an imation's most inveterately rooted convent ions : " For example , dream scenes have a pattern :

when you get wavy l i nes on the screen , i t means that you're enter i ng a drea m sequence , o r the scene switches [0 sep ia tones, or cream flows onto the [Op of the coffee , creat ing a whir lpoo l , or there is a close-up of someone's eyes . Bu t that k ind of edi t ing is [Otal ly bor ing . . . and I thought that it would be i nterest i ng if the v iewers did not im med iate ly grasp they were watch­

ing a flashback or a drea m . Viewers a re too used to bei ng t reated kindly, so I 've b roken this

pat tern del iberately" (Kon 1998 ) .

I n the evocat ion of M irna's fractured rea l i ty, Kon is careful [0 create a subtle balance

between the individual character's emotional unrest and the col lective anxiet ies and fears [0

which the you ng hero ine's experiences metonym ical ly refer. Among these , arrest ing promi­nence is accorded [0 the t raumas spawned by popu lar i ty and i ts loss , the ever-present phan­[Om o f sexual exp lo i tat io n , the th reat of I n ternet-abetted violat ions o f one's p rivacy and i ntegr i ty, and the ram pant erosion of ethical soundness . The fi lm thus stands out as a mas­

terfu l explorat ion of both personal and com muna l ordeals that a re u l t imately inseparable from the technologies - both o ld and new - that rou t inely beget the m , and no less often benefit ideologica l ly and fina ncia l ly from the i r exponent ia l propagat ion .

The downright sp i ral t raced by Mima's psychological j ourney cu lminates wi th the fi l m's

4 8 A�IME Ir-.:TERSECTIONS

cl imactic chase sequence. This yields what is s imultaneously a memorable v isual effect and a

succinct summary of Perfect Blue's thematic preoccupations by displaying M irna's hunter both

as she appears i n her own distorted vis ion ( i . e . a grotesque M irna lookal ike) and as she actu­

al ly looks in the empir ical rea lm. At t imes , the two vers ions of Rumi coexis t in shots fi lmed so rap idly that they appear to coalesce : most hauntingly, i n the frames where one i ncarnat ion

of the manic pursuer as she spr ints past a ser ies of shop windows and the a l ternate con figura­

t ion reflected i n the h ighly pol ished panes interplay as each other's specu lar complements .

Devoted to the perpetuation of the topos of i nterpenetrat ing worlds as a t ime-honored

facet of Eastern lore , Perfect Blue concomi tantly invokes a well-establ ished Western favor i te :

the Cinderella topos . The main body of the action could be said to i nvert qu i te drast ical ly

the motif of "v irtue rewarded," by depict ing not the t r iumph of the i nnocent and the long­

suffer ing but rather the degeneration of a s in less soul int o a state of commodified deprav i ty.

The orthodox lesson tradit ional ly communicated by the Cinderel la theme is , however , rein ­

stated - and i ndeed re-energized by i t s infusion with topical cogency - at the end . I n the clos­

ing sequences, M irna's ordeal is actually presented as posi tive evidence for the endurance of

honest , a lbeit misguided, conduct and intentions and, by extens ion , o f generosi ty and selfless­

ness . Marlow's take on the character corroborates th is hypothes i s : "I do feel she sold out i n i ­

t ia l ly because s h e agreed t o d o things that she was n o t happy do ing . She agreed to d o a scene [the rape one] i n the soap opera and when she went home she tore her room apart out o f anx­

iety and j ust u nhapp iness . . . . But then , I th ink through her struggle she survived . . . she even­

tual ly won herse lf back" (Marlow) . The effectiveness of the message is fundamentally a corol lary of Kon's iconoclastic take

on the shoujo strand of an ime (namely, anime centred on young female characters and more

or l ess expl ici tly document ing the i r psychosexual development) . The cutesy formulae of the

shoujo form are squarely turned on their head, as the icon of the wide-eyed sacchar ine pread­

olescent i n fri l ly clothing is transmuted into the grotesque image of an aging and deranged doppelganger whose incongruous baby-doll costume only rei n forces her standing as the sym­

bol of implacable malevolence . Perfect Blue, in th is perspective , const i tu tes a variat ion o n the

Cinderel la theme of a kind that one may more read ily expect to encounter in the fi lms o f

Dario Argento, Roman Polanski o r Brian DePalma than in an ime a imed a t budding females . In evaluat ing the fi lm's thematic topical i ty, i t is noteworthy that Mima is an exemplary

incarnation of the idoru (idol si nger or pop idol) . This term is customari ly used to descr ibe

female performers i n the ir late teens or early twenties who rap idly achieve fame through pub­

l i c i ty i n the mass media and the activ i t ies of fan clubs, usual ly to van ish from the spot l ight

i n a matter of months . The idoru's most cherished tra i t is he r i ncarnation of an ethos of cute­ness deeply i ngra ined i n Japanese culture . The idoru phenomenon exploded in the 1970s and still characterizes contemporary Japanese society, even though both the working conditions

and social status of the "stars" i n question have al tered over the decades, i n keep ing wi th

broader changes i n the domestic economy. Moreover , as Patrick D razen has po inted ou t , i n

contextual iz ing the cultural s ign ificance of the Japanese idol s i nger , i t i s a lso v i tal t o app re­

ciate the cross-fert i l izat ion of discrete media in the enthron ing and demot ing of stars : "A

n umber of pop s ingers are also sept or voice actors . That way, if thei r latest record isn't on the charts, their voices are st i l l before the publ ic . If they're lucky, they' l l land a role i n a TV ser ies running twenty-six weeks or more , keep ing them busy and fo res tal l ing the dreaded day that their careers are declared over . Conversely, a dramatic vo ice role can somet imes be parlayed

Three-Perfect Blue 49

into a s inging career. Seyu also become radio announcers and can even be heard lending the i r

voices to computer games" (Drazen , p . 173) .

I n the aforementioned Midnight Eye interview, asked whether "cri t ic i sm" of the "pop idol phenomenon" was one of h is "main i ntentions," Kon repl ied :

No, th e film is not based on any criti c i sm . If the audience get the impress ion from watch i n g the film that the i dol system in Japan is l i ke that, I 'm embarrassed. Of course I d i d research before maki ng the film and I vis i ted a number of these ido l events, but I d idn't see the k i n d of example that is used in the film. Also, to reveal beh i nd-the-scenes secrets about the enterta inment world was never my intention. I s im­ply wanted to show the process of a young g i r l m atur ing, becoming confused because her o ld set of val­ues gets shattered, but who i s reborn as a mature bei ng as a result of thar. That's what I wanted to descr ibe. Bur because I had to st ick with the i dea of an ido l , the film came to talk about that particular world [Kon 2001].

This is a realm wi th which non-Japanese viewers may be utterly unfami l ia r or only vaguely

acquainted : a factor of which Kon was well aware in the cou rse of the fi lm's execut ion . D is­cussing Perftct Blue's recept ion around the world, moreover , the d i rector has j ust ly noted that

the movie's w idespread appeal beyond the boundaries of the i ndigenous market is somewhat

surpr i s ing in the l ight of i ts cultural specifici ty : "There are many people who don't know that

the Japanese also have a cu l ture in which B-grade idols are manipulated . Ours is a closed cul­

ture , and very smal l . I t seemed sl ightly strange to me that fo re igners could watch our fi lms

and find them interes ti ng , whi le not understanding the background" (Kon 1998) .

While the theme of the idoru may seem quintessential ly Japanese , i n the con text o f Per­ftct Blue, ir should nonetheless be noted that it is also deeply relevant to the West and to West­

ern percept ions of stardom and fandom . Furthermore , the idoru phenomenon was i n i t ia l ly an

American export to Japan , resul t ing from the country's steady exposure to Western pop s ingers

i n the 1 950s and 1960s and to al l the anci l lary trapp ings of fame , screaming fans i nc luded .

Wi l l iam Gibson's novel !doru ( 1996) provides a cogent and cul tura l ly resonant com mentary

on the pop-idol trend a nd, by impl ication , on several interrelated aspects of current Japanese

society vis-a-vis the twi n forces of tradit ion and modernizat ion . The novel would certa inly

p rovide an inval uable companion for any ser ious Perftct Blue fan or student .

The deeply d isconcerting perspective art iculated by Perfect Blue would soon return to

haunt the anime world in the guise of the hugely successfu l TV series Serial Experiments Lain

(dir. Ryutaro Nakamura , 1998 ) . In Nakamura's p rogram , the thi rteen-year-old p rotagon is t ,

Iwakura Lai n , becomes inextricably entangled with the alternate rea l i ty o f cyberspace, which

she innocently enters upon receiv ing a cutt ing-edge computer as a p resent . G radual ly, the d ig­ita l matrix of vi rtual experiences and synthet ic personal i ties i nfi l trates the analog real i ty of tangible people and places to the po int that the barrier separating the two domains evapo­

rates altogether. As i n Perftct Blue, the cris is is dramatized through the lens o f the protago­n ist 's own self as an evanescently p recarious entity. An on l i ne s imulacrum of La in - "Wired Lain" - emerges w i th in the e lus ive fabric of cyberspace , throwing the real world into chaos, caus ing the hero i ne's erstwhi le fri ends to turn into lethal enem ies and i mpl icat i n g her i nto a

sprawl ing conspiracy. Eventual ly, Lain real izes that her very ident i ty amollnts to a p i ece of

software and that i f the analog domain is to be saved, she has no cho ice but to w ithdraw

in to the matrix and cancel out all extant reco l lections of her p rev ious worldly incarnation . I n sp i te of the seemi ngly unresci ndable conclus iveness of Lain's final move , t h e tension between the analog and the d igital d imens ions rema ins u nr esolved right through to the end of the

50 ANIME I NTERSECTIONS

series and beyond . This , as Susan J. Napier observes, is encapsulated by the show's "final

scene , " where "the viewer finds Lain trapped i nside of what seems to be an old-fashioned,

s tat ic-ridden televis ion set" (Napier 200 5 , p. 78 ) . The suffocating atmosphere of psychotic d isplacement tha t i ncreas i ngly engulfs Lain's

"real i ty" is also e l l ip tical ly enhanced by the incorporation , as a parallel strand in the story, of

a sem i-real ist ic component in the form of a documentary apparently descr ib ing key moments

i n the deve lopment of the technology that would eventually lead to today's compute r sys­

tems . These could be said to supply the historically recorded equivalent of Nakamura's fict ion

i n thei r emphasis on the ascendancy of digi tal networks . The examples i nclude the "memex , "

a hypothetical analogue computer theorized b y the scientist a n d engineer Vanneva r B u s h in 1945, and supposed to p rovide an interconnected knowledge base ak in to an on l ine l i b rary,

and the concept of "hypertext" coi ned by the phi losopher and sociologist Ted Nelson i n 1963

to designate the organ izat ion of discrete information un i ts i nto corre lated " l i nks . " Al though

one m ight logically expect th is quasi-reportorial narrat ive element to al leviate the hal lucina­tory mood accompanying the p rotagonist's actions , the opposite is the case : i ts i nfus ion i nto

the story actual ly serves to th row La in's rampant disreal i ty into sharper and more pa infu l

rel ief.

Kon's interest i n an ime plots that boldly chal lenge the medium's format by foregro u nd­ing the nebulousness of the boundary supposedly separat i ng rea l i ty from fantasy has found eloquent formulation throughout h is career wel l beyond his d i rectorial debut . The fi lms A1iL­

lermium Actress (2001) and Tokyo Godfothers (2003) , as well as the 13-ep isode TV series Para­noia Agent (2004) , bear wi tness to Kon's ongoing experimentation wi th c inematograph ical

p loys meant to blur the l ine between the actual and the imagined . In an interview for Games­

tar, the d i rector has tersely expla ined his predilection for this moti f: " I th ink b lurr ing the

l i nes of rea l i ty and fantasy i s an interest ing technique . Besides the att i tude of completely sep­

arat ing rea l i ty from fiction isn't a healthy way of l iving. In our rea l i ty, there are many layers , and whi le to others i t may seem l ike a dream or fantasy, to someone else i t might be nothing

less than the truth" (Kon 2004) .

Like Perftct Blue, Millennium Actress penetrates the inner , most recondite workings o f

the enterta inment i ndustry, th is t ime focusing o n the art of filmmaking itself. A s i n the ear­

l ier p roduct ion , so in the 200 1 movie , Kon j uxtaposes tradit ional and contemporary tech­

nologies wi th tangible gusto . The modern perspective revolves around the act iv i t ies of a pair

of TV documentary makers as they seek to commemorate the achievements o f a p rest ig ious

seventy-year-old studio in the course of demol i t ion , and specifically the history o f i ts great­est star ever : Chiyoko Fuj iwara . The pas t , for its part, finds a charismatic voice in the char­

acter of the ret i red Chiyoko , who has l ived in self- imposed exi le for no less than th ree decades fol lowing a formidable range of roles in greatly admired period sagas, melodramas, war movies and sci-fi fl icks .

Japanese tradit ion at i ts most sumptuous comes resplendently to the fore i n Kon's stu­

dious representation of numerous set p ieces from the celebrity's career . I ncreas ingly, as the

c inematic p lot p rogresses , the individual frames come to resemble ukiyo-e (woodblock pr ints displaying "pictures of the float ing world" or the "transient spectacle") - most notably in the scenes from one of Chiyoko's countless per iod dramas set i n a courtesans' house . The ves t i ­mentary codes, accessories, make-up, furniture and i nterior design employed i n these scenes

is especially remi n iscent of Kikumaro's works ( 1800s) w ith the i r spel l-b ind ing col lus ion of

Three-Perfect Blue 51

chromatic harmonies and lov ingly executed patterns of extraord inary intr icacy. At one po int,

in order to underscore an especial ly dramatic utterance, the screen even del ivers an an imated

vers ion of the most famous ukiyo-e among Western crowds, Katsush ika Hokusai 's "Beneath the Wave off Kanagawa" (c . 1830), someti mes j ust known as "Tsu nam i . "

Keen, as we have seen, t o expose the fl imsiness of the boundary pu tatively separati ng

real i ty from fantasy, the d i rector consistently interweaves Chiyoko's imagi nary screen embod­

iments from different fi lms - and hence from disparate historical eras and societa l setups­

with h ints at her personal h istory of unrequi ted love . The epochs covered by the narrat ive

encompass a t ime span of approximately one-thousand years, ga l lop ing from the Warring

States Period (fifteenth century) to a fu ture space age . I n the process, the act ion appears to Row in mu lt ip le d ifferent d i rections at once . However, Millennium Actress does not merely

propose an intr iguingly com pressed panorama of Japanese h istory referenced by some of its

most picturesque and horr ific moment s . At the same t ime, in fact, i t also br ings forth an

alchemical dist i l lat ion of key points in the evol ution of Japanese c inema, marked by the emer­gence of novel styles and genres in conjunction wi th broad socioeconomic developments .

Concomitantly, both the actress's fict ional personae a n d her rea l - l i fe se lf are constantly

meshed with the documentarians' own perceptions of the legendary star's publ ic and secret

incarnat ions . They rap idly become so engrossed in the story u n fold ing before thei r eyes that they turn into extras acti ng w i th in Chiyoko's own narrative, wi th in a transtemporal d imen­sion where past and present b lend i n mutua l suffusion . The di rector, who is obvious ly besot­

ted wi th Ch iyoko (and i ndeed has been for longer than even he can remember) is so utterly bedevi l led by the i l lu s ion that he ends up featur i ng in costumes and hairdos appropriate to

the periods in wh ich part icu lar movies are set . His ass istant cameraman, conversely, retai ns a

more detached stance, regal ing the story wi th i ron ical and sarcast ic remarks that cumu lat ively

amount to a h ighly entertain ing metacommenta ry. In sp i te of the in tense pathos exuded by most of the s i tuat ions dramatized in Chiyoko's fi lms, humorous touches are also observable

throughout the story. Most remarkable, in th is respect, are the scenes in which the di rector

and camera man find themselves chas ing Ch iyoko at breakneck speed down crowded u rban

streets and country lan es, as wel l as across snow-swept wastelands and war-ravaged ru ins, j ust

to keep up wi th the precip itous passage of t ime . The real i ty level of the sequences i n which past and present, the personal and the pr i ­

vate, the empirical and the i magined, ins istently coalesce is no less open to i nterpretation than

the veraci ty of the sequences in Pe�fect Blue where Mirna and Rumi effectively merge, to the

po int that estab l i sh ing w i th absolu te certainty who is do ing what to whom becomes not merely an arduous b u t actually an absurd chor e . Although Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress are generical ly and formally very different - complying wi th , and concu rrently subvert ing, the visual rhetoric of the psychological slasher, in one case, and the formulae o f the ep ic love

story, in the other - both fi lms use the elaborate b lurr ing of concrete facts and fuzzy remi ­n i scences to br ing forth c inematic tapes tries of exceptional poet ic r ichness, sophist icat ion and warmth .

I t must also be noted, for the sake o f comprehensiveness, that Kon had prev iously explored the intermingl i ng of memory and real i ty in "Magnetic Rose, " the first segment of the three­p iece omnibus lvfemorics (d i rs . Katsuh i ro Otomo, Kouj i Morimoto and Tensai Okamura , 1994) , which he wrote and Morimoto d i rected. In the p iece, a group o f deep-space salvagers responds to an 50S s ignal issu ing from what is bel ieved to be a derel ict stat ion . The source

52 AN IME I NTERSFCTIONS

of the disturbance is located amid a "space cemetery" consist ing of galactic detritus that exudes

s imultaneously s i n ister reverberations and an aura of ethereal ly lace- l i ke grace . The overa l l atmosphere is po ignantly enhanced by the soundtrack, an audito ry col lage of Pucc in i arias (particularly from lvfadame Butterfly) created by one of the most in sp i red composers on the

contemporary anime scene , Yoko Anno . The animation's s tunn ing fus ion of th is musical back­

drop and an overwhel ming sense of cosmic infin ity, moreover , i s redo lent of Stanley Kubrick's

class ic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Upon thei r arrival at the appoi nted desti nation , the salvagemen discover an uncanni ly

elegant palace cons ist ing exclus ively of holographic images and special effects generated through

nanotechnology. This magical world turns out to be the p roduct of the memories of a for­gotten opera diva, so magnetically powerful as to appear endowed with a breath ing , pa lp i ­tati ng l i fe of the i r own even though they are consummately v i rtual . The b lur r ing o f the

boundaries putat ively separat ing real i ty from fantasy, present occurrences from remi n iscences,

and tangible bodies from the i r electronic s imulat ions reaches its c l imax as the rescuers become

utterly engulfed in the defu nct pr imadonna's del usional web, unable to reente r the real world

hence they came . "Magnetic Rose" echoes Perfect Blue in i ts unsent imental exposure o f the

ephemeral i ty of celebrity and of the insane lengths to which fame's worsh ippers a re p repared

to go i n order to keep its treacherous phantoms al ive .

Tokyo Godfothers perpetuates Kon's commitment to the exploration o f the p uzz l ing rela­

t ionsh ip between fact and fantasy, while s imultaneously ushering i n a h ighly refined in tegra­

t ion of lov ingly hand-crafted cels and sl ick CGl . Weav ing together elements o f Chapl inesque

humor and D ickensian real ism through the characters of the cyn ical alcoho l i c Gin , the ex­

drag queen Hana and the runaway teenager Miyuki , the film echoes Perfect Blue in its fa i th­

ful capture of human mo tivations and of both thei r noble and the i r despicable consequences .

The personae themselves are made aesthetically i ntriguing by the i r combinat ion of attr ibutes

so styl ized as to verge on the caricatural and act ing ski l ls so refined as to match those of l ive­action dramatic performers of acclaimed thespian cal iber . L ike Perfect Blue, moreover , Tokyo Godfathers art iculates themes that few audiences would associate wi th the medium o f an i ma­

t ion - Japanese or otherwise . P layfully commenting on h is p rocl iv ity towards unconvent iona l

choices , Kon h imself has remarked : "] l ike us ing ideas others i n my fie ld wouldn't even take

not ice of. ] think Tokyo Godfothers i s a good example of th i s . The insp i rat ion for Tokyo God­

fothers came from the idea of ' finding a baby in a t rash dumpster . ' 'Trash' mean ing ideas that

others i n my industry have considered trash . From this trash dumpster of ideas ] retri eve what

] consider fasc inat ing . I think of i t in this way" (Kon 2004) . An analogous agenda underpins Paranoia Agent, a series written and d i rected by Kon

largely out of a des i re to make use of ideas he had conceived of in the creat ion of Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers but left unused . The show del ivers v int a ge Kon an ime i n the guise of a dynamically ornate c inematographical tapestry where in a freakish cast o f char­acters is bound together by an ominous thread : they al l , at some po in t , get whacked on the

head by a myster ious elementary school kid known as "Li l ' S l ugger , " who is equ ipped w ith

a bent basebal l bat and golden rol lerblades . The young cri m i n al ' s mot ivat ions rem a i n

i nscrutable for most of the act ion , invi t ing the audience t o wonder whether he is a n actu al kid, a malevolent spectre or a cover fo r other people's cr imes . These doubts conjure u p a mounting sense of paranoia not only among the dramatis personae but also among v iewers :

there is something gen ui nely creepy about the notion of a latently omn ipresent force about

Three - Perfect Blue 53

to sneak ou t of the dark to take a swing at the next prey. Concomi tant ly, Paranoia Agent com­

ments on the rampant erosion of both personal and col lective identit ies w i th in postcapi ta l i s t d ispensat ions . A pervasive atmosphere o f anomie is effectively communicated by the first

episode's open ing sequence , a styl ishly constructed visual crescendo where in the ent i re social

fabr ic appears dominated by the insidious tyranny of the mobi le phone . Li l ' S lugger's v ict ims

viv idly recal l Perfect Blue's main characters i n v i rtue of the i r dupl ic i tous personal i t i e s : though

seemingly wel l-adj usted, they are a l l haunted by disturb ing secrets and fears . The first vic­

tim, designer Tsukiko Sag i , i s a clear case i n point : the creator of the enormously popular

cuddly toy Maromi , she is u nder u nbearable p ressure to come up wi th another b ig h i t , as wel l

as the target of mal ic ious backstabbing . The character o f Yuich i Tai ra is l i kewise d iv ided : the

perfect-student fa�ade eas i ly cracks when i t i s suspected that he might be the attacker . The

ostensibly i rreproachable youth now starts bel iev ing that everybody i s out to get h i m . I t i s very tempt ing , as the story unfolds, to surmise that L i l ' S lugger is an agency that the affiicted

characters themselves inadvertently summon from the most tenebrous depths of thei r own

hearts : "When the darkness overcomes the heart , " the tagl ine warns, "L i l ' S l ugger appears . "

FOUR

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Autonomy and dependence are like light and shade, callght in the pull of etlch other's gravity, IIntil, after considerable trial and error, each individual can find his or her OWII place in the world .... Now a narrative is a story, IlOt logic, 1I0r ethics, nor philosophy. It is a dream you keep having, whetheryotl realize it or 110t. Just as surely as you breathe, you go on ceaselessly dreaming yollr story. And in these stories YOll wear two faces. You are simultaneous�y subject and ob;ect. You are a whole and you are a part. Yoll are real and you are shadow. "Storyteller" and at the same time ''charac­ter." It is through sllch multilayering of roles in our stories that we held the loneliness of being an i.wlated indil,idllal in the world. - Haruki Murakami

Man fiars the darkness and so he scrapes aWilY ilt the edges of it with fire. - Rei Ayanami, Neoll Genesis Evangelion TV Series, Episode II

The original t itle for the series, ShillSeiki EvangeLion, is composed of two parts : the Japa­

nese compound Shinseiki, which means "new era" or "new generat ion," and the Greek word

EvangeLion, which l iteral ly means "good news" (from eu = "good" + angelein = "to announce" ;

cf. angelos = "messenger") and has subsequently come to also mean "gospel . " The Engl ish t it le

Neon Genesis EvangeLion, originally chosen by Gainax , consists of the Greek words neon, the

neuter form of the word neos ( = "new" or "young" ) , genesis ( = "origin , " "sou rce" o r "b i rth , race") and evangelion .

In sp ite of an unusual ly generous b udget for a telev is ion show, towards the end o f the

run its ch i ef d i rector , Hideaki Anno, was left w ith insufficient funds to shoot h is o r igina l

scrip t for Ep isode 25 and Episode 26, the final instal lments . As a resu lt , he opted for an a lternat ive character ized by a perplexingly unsett led ending . Though cherished by n umer­

ous fans , th i s left others fee l ing d issat isfied (and, in some rather severe instances, murder­ous) . The di rector , therefo re , resolved to create an Original Video An imat ion intended to rep lace the final TV episodes, ut i l izing an amended script based on h is or ig inal . Eventual ly, due to Evangelion's sensat ional success as a TV series , a consort ium of Japanese corporat ions funded Anno's p roject so bounteously that the outcome was not an OVA b ut two featu re­lengt h movies .

The films Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion were both released in 1 997. The first compr ises two rel at ively discrete sect ions : the Death segment (wr it ten by Anno and

di rected by Masayuki) , an im aginat ively reconstructed composite of variou s key moments from Ep isodes 1-24 of the TV series (and also peppered with tangent ial a l lu s ions to Episode

54

Four-Neon Genesis Evangclion 5 5

25 and Episode 26) contai n ing approximately twenty m inu tes of total ly new footage; the

Rebirth segment , cons is t ing of wholly new footage to be reproposed as the first th i r ty m in ­utes of the fi lm The End of Elltlngelion.

The End of Eva ngelio n i s an ent i rely novel development of the story's end ing , offer ing an

alternate concl usion to the one provided by the last two instal l ments of the TV show. The

film i tself is divided i nto two segments ent i t led Episode 25' , "Ai r , " (written by Anno and

di rected by Kazuya Tsuru m aki) and Episode 26 ' , " S incerely Yours/My Pure Heart for You , "

(both written and di rected by Anno) . Several highly edi ted frames from both the TV series and Death are also i ncluded . (Rel'il'al of Evangelion was released i n Japan in 1998 and con­

tains a different edit of the original Death fi lm , as wel l as the episodes that form The End of Evangelion.) In both the U . K. and the U .S . , the series has been distr ibu ted by ADV F i lms

and the feature-length mov ies Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion by Manga Enter­ta inment , rap idly gai n ing an enth usiastic fo l lowing . In 2004, ADV Fi lms released two addi ­t ional DVDs, Resurrection and Genesis Reborn, encompass ing the d i rectors' cuts of Ep isodes

2 1-23 and Episodes 24-26 of the TV series respective ly.

The kale idoscopic u n iverse ofNeoll Genesis Evangelion u n assum ingly started l i fe as a reg­

ular 26-episode TV series (4 October 1995-27 March 1 996) , based on the wel l - tested an ime

formula of a post-apocalyptic Earth laboring under the menace of prodigious non-human

entit ies and deploying g iant b iomechanoids pi loted by ado lescents i n i ts defense . However , the early episodes bel ie the actual nature of Evangelioll. Init ia l ly masquerading a s an i nnocent

addit ion to the classic giant - robot (mecha) genr e , replete with act ion-packed sequences, the series i ncremental ly metamorphosed i nt o a darkly thoughtfu l exploration of the human con­

dit ion featur i n g some of the most convoluted personal i t ies ever com m itted to fi lm (ani m ated

or otherw ise) , and requ i r ing the audience itself to ponder the u l t imate and most i ntractab le

quest ion : what i t means to be human and to l ive as a human vis-a.-v is onese lf and other peo­

ple . Hence, the show rapidly asserted itself as a h ighly or iginal , thought-provoking and for­

mally adventurous avant-garde enterprise, whereby the aforementioned formula receded to the ro le of a purely diegetic underpi nn ing. Priority was accorded i nstead to the scrut iny o f a

p rism atic variety o f personal and col l ective ordea ls , invested with both afFective and ideolog­

ical impl icat ions, by means of u northodox composit ional p rocedures, open-ended plot threads and i ntrepid c inematography.

The bu lk of the s tory takes p lace in the year 2 0 15 , fi fteen years after the " Second

Impact" - a calam ity of horrendous proportions p utat ively caused by a meteor strike but actu­

al ly triggered by human hubris - has melted the Antarctic ice cap, t i lted the p lanet's axi s and wiped out half of the Earth's popu lation. Just as humans are tentatively begi nn ing to recover from th i s catastrophe , they are b l ighted by a novel scou rge : the advent of po lymorphous and

extremely be l l igerent b iomechanoids known s imply as the "Angels . " Convent ional weapons

are utterly useless against these phenomenal i nvaders , and the sole avai lab le defense against them consists o f a further breed of biomechanical crea tu res , the Evangelions or Evas, pro­duced by the parami l i tary organization NERV (the German word for "nerve") , and p i loted

exclus ively by selected ado lescents born after the Second 1m pac t . As the series unfolds , the actual calise of the d isaster turns out to lie with the grandiose evolut ionary schemes p romoted by the mysterious organizat ion SEEL E (the German word for "sou l " ) .

The principal character of El'angelion is Sh inj i I kari (the "Third Chi ld"] and the p i l o t of EVA-Ol) , a t im id and su l len teenager who lo s t h i s mother Yu i when he was merely a tod-

56 ANIME I NTERSECTIONS

dler - as she w i l l ingly acted as the test subj ect in an Eva-related exper iment that cu lm inated

with her ent ire be ing's absorpt ion i nto EVA-Ol . Shinj i is starkly neglected by h i s father , Gen­dou, the NERV commander , unt i l the latter discovers h is son's usefu lness as an Eva p i lo t .

Sh in j i 's fel low p i lo ts are Rei Ayanami ( the "F i rst Chi ld" and the p i lo t o f EVA-DO) , a tac i turn

and apparently unemotional g i rl whose past is shrouded i n mystery ( i n order ro concea l her

b io-engineered nature as a Yui I kar i clone) , and Asuka Langley Sohryu (the " Second Chi ld"

and the p i lo t of EVA-02) , a hot-blooded and seemingly arrogant gir l haunted by memories

of her mother's suicide. Although this hypothesis is never conc lusively confirmed, i t i s l i ke ly

that M rs . Sohryu's i nsan i ty and resul ting self-destruction were also the resu l t of an Eva-based

experiment . Later deve lopments w i l l suggest that Asuka's mother's soul was sucked i nto EVA-02 as this was being constructed . Other key roles are p layed by NERV's head of tactics, Mis­

a to Katsuragi , by NERV's head scient ist , Ritsuko Akagi , by the latter's gen ius mother , Naoko,

by the char ismatic spy Kaj i and by Gendou's adviser, Professor Fuyu tsuki .

Despite their surface differences and often exceptional capabi l i t ies , a l l of the p rinc ipal

characters are social ly maladj usted and burdened by a grievous i n heritance o f loss and neg­

lect that renders them respectable and object ionable by turns . (Detai led portraits of Evange­

lion 's characters - inc luding the Evas and the Angels - are ava i l ab le on n umerous fan s ites

and official movie s ites . As potential companions to this study, the most hel p fu l are fe l t to be the Evangelion port ion of the Anirne Archive; the Evangelion character pages on Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia; and the official Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion on l ine homes .

URLs are p rovided i n this hook's bibl iography. )

Addit ional ly, i n i ts treatment of metaphysical and ethica l p reoccupat ions surround ing

the nature of good and ev i l , Evangelion resolutely eschews any s imp l ist ic dichotom ies by a l lud­

ing to deep-seated affini t ies that u l t imately bring the adversarial part ies together despite the i r

apparently i rreconc i lable differences . Anno irreverently chal l enges the p rerogatives of anthro­

pocentr ic human ism by i nt imat ing that mankind and the Angels are not qu i te as diss imi l a r a s one may at first have heen l ed to bel ieve . In fact , bo th belong to an overarch ing category

designated s imp ly as " h umans"; the Angels are the human chi ldren born o f the "first Angel , "

Adam , w h i l e t h e "L i l im" (namely man kind) are t h e human ch i ldren b o r n of t h e "secon d

Angel , " L i l i th .

Furthermore, hav ing subj ected the l ifel ess body of the fourth Angel to thorough i nves­

t igat ion after its defeat by Sh in j i in Episode 3 , "A Transfer/The Phone that Never Ri ngs," the

NERV scientists make some astonish ing discoveries about the enemy's makeup. As Ritsuko

reveals to Misato and Sh inj i i n Episode 5, "Rei , Beyond her Heart/Rei I , " a l though composed of a different form of matter , the Angels' "actual composit ion in terms of the arrangement

and coord inates of the pattern is a 99.89% match to ours . " I n Episode 7, " The Iluman Cre­ation / A Human Work," Ritsuko gets even closer to revealing some unsett ling truths as she expla ins that the Second Impact was not inst igated by a meteor bu t by manki nd's contact with the first Angel , resu l t ing i n the enti ty's fatefu l explos ion . She then avers that NERV exists i n order to prevent a probable "Thi rd Impact" from occurring . As i t turns ou t , both NERV and SE ELE are i n fact planning a Third Impact in thei r separate ways .

I n addit ion , even though the Evas are deployed in order to vanquish the Ange l ic enemy, they ironical ly turn out to have been fash ioned on the basis of the physical model supp l i ed by Adam h imself. Concu rrently, the Evas have much more in common with the mu rky car­na l i ty and brute matter of the organic world, and hence of mankind i n its ent i rety, than wi th

Four-Neon Genesis Evangelion 57

the gleaming su rfaces and u tterly steri le cores of conventional giant robots . Wendy Goldberg

has v iv idly described the c l imax of Episode 19, "A Man's F ightlInt roject ion , " as a part icularly

shocking instance of the Eva's an imal ist ic drives : "The Eva moves on fou r legs . . . and crawl­walks over to the fal len figure of h is enemy. Holding the head down , he begins to tear at the

creature with his mouth . . . . We see the Eva from a shadowy distance; he looks up a t us , h is

eyes glowing l ike an an imal in the dark . Victory is no longer the clean , unambiguous pos i­

t ion in the conventional mecha genre" (Goldberg) . (While Goldberg refers to the Eva as mas­

cul ine , some cr it ics - and characters i n the saga - use fem in ine p ronouns . Others opt for the

neuter , which i s the gender adopted in this study.)

The s imul taneo usly fasc inat ing and repuls ive appearance evinced by the Eva Uni ts is a logical outcome of mecha des igner I kuto Yamash ita's or iginal concept , as described i n the fol ­

lowing passage : "The d i rector instructed me t o make , "the i mage of a demon . " A giant j ust

barely under the control of mankind . . . . The image I had for the design concept was the fa i ry

ta le , Gulliver's Travels. Enormous Power Restrained . . . . What I came up wi th was a giant that

looks l ike a rel ief on a wal l " (Yamash i ta , 1.).

Numerous works inc luded i n the Evangelion artbooks bear w itness to both the textura l ,

structural and chromatic sumptuousness of the Evas' physiques , and the hypnotic magnet ism

of their a l l-too-human expressions . The color p lates i n Die Sterne and Der Mond are espe­cial ly notable, i n this regard . The penc i l sketches and CG drawings deta i l i ng myriad facets

of both the Evas' bodies and the vast arsenal at their and NERV's disposal are no less worthy

of considerat ion : the Groundwork of Evangelion volu mes are veritable gold m ines of graphic

and techn ical i nformation on the saga's mecha dimension (as wel l as countless other aspects

of i ts d ist inct ive aesthetics) . Readers are also advised to consu lt the art appendices to the

"Newtype F i lm Books" devoted to both the series and the features .

Evangelion offers an unprecedentedly complex orchestrat ion o f the i nterplay o f the tra­

d it ional and the new at both the thematic and the techn ical l evels . O n the thematic p lane ,

Evangelion evi nces an a l legiance to Japanese tradit ion i n its engagement wi th issues of loy­alty, group affil iat ion , i ntersubjective respons ib i l i ty and the dangers i nherent in the exerc ise

of private self-advanc ing schemes. Sh inj i 's , Asuka's and Rei's inc l i nat ion to conceive of the i r

very ident it ies as inextricable from their "jobs" as Eva p i lots ful ly attests to the p ivotal ro le played by the tradit ional pr inc ip le of steadfast a l legiance to one's duties throughout the sto ry.

Concur rently, the saga reflects on the role of the fami ly and on the d i re repercussions of the

derel ict ion of parental duty.

The generational conflicts assiduously and uncompromisingly dramatized by Evangelion do

not only pertain to the private sphere- axial as they indubitably are to the characterization of

Shinj i 's, Asuka's, Misato's and Ritsuko's respective relationships with varyingly remiss parents . I n

fact , they s imultaneously strike broadly cultural chords, i nsofar as Evangelion i s also eager t o doc­

ument the generational connotations of Japan's social and economic modernization in the after­math of the Second World War. Accordi ng to one of the saga's most dist inguished crit ics , Dennis

Redmond, "The 'old men' ofSEELE represent the deeply conservative , immediate post-war gen­eration; Gendou Ikari and Fuyutsuki ha i l from the technocratic generation of the 1970s; M isato and the other NERV staffers represent the consumer-oriented 1980s; whi le the children them­selves incarnate the informatic 1990s (only fourteen-year-old chi ldren have the neural flexibi l ity

to pi lot the Evas, a canny reference to the abil ity of the Nintendo kids to meld with a given tech­nology far faster than any adult)" (Redmond, p. 2 10 ) .

58 ANIME I NTERSECTIONS

The tradit ional e lement is also v ividly encapsulated by the fi lms' cons istent em phasis on the a l iveness of the ent i re environment in a fash ion redolent of Sh into mythology. The saga contains nu merous al lus ions to Sh into's sacred texts : the Kojiki (or Furukotofumi, 682-712) ,

the oldest extant text documenting Japan's proto-history and i ts u nderly i ng creation myths,

and the Nihongi (720) , the second oldest record of Japan's myth ical pas t . Exp l i c i t reference

is spec ifically made to the legend contained in the Nihongi accord ing to which the cosmos i n i t ia l ly cons isted o f an amorphous b lob and subsequently d iv ided into d iscrete regi ons : " Heaven and Earth were not yet separated . . . . They formed a chaotic mass l ike an egg which

was of obscu rely defined l i m i ts . . . . The purer and cleaner part was th in ly drawn o u t , and

formed Heaven , whi le the heavier and grosser element sett led down and became Earth . . . . Thereafter d iv ine beings were produced between them" (The Nihongi, Book 1: The Age of the

Gods) . Anno's own cosmogony is di rectly informed by this ancient fab le . Fu rther a l lus ions to

th is discou rse i nclude images centered on the myths of a pr imordial cosmic soup , the B lack

and White Moons, the Spear of Dest iny (namely the lance by means of which the Sh into

deit ies lzanagi and Izanami are said to have created the Earth) and the ind igenous pantheon :

the Sun goddess Amaterasu (el l ipt ically associated wi th the unfathomable Rei ) , the goddess

of Joy Uzume ( i ronical ly connected wi th the ebul l ient Asuka) and the Storm god Susanoo (comparable to Sh in j i i n v i rtue of his unsociable behavior) . I n acknowledging Evangelion's specifically Japanese legacy, it also seems worth point ing out that the nat ive word used to des­

ignate the Angels is not " tenshi" (the l i teral translat ion of "angel" ) but "shito, "messenger" :

the use of this term is ent i rely congruous with the t i tu lar connotations d iscussed in the open­

ing segment of this chapter .

Western tradit ions also come prominently i nto play alongside native lore , w i th a dist inct

p reponderance of Christ ian motifs . Visual al lusions to the Cross abound throughout the saga ,

and range from spectacular representations of gigant ic beams shoot i ng up to the heavens and

across the u rban gr id to prosaical ly unobtrus ive ornamental detai ls and accessories . Along­side spectacular visual h ints at the Crucifixion , Evangelion featu res sustained refe rences to the aforement ioned Adam (described as the first "human" in the Judea-Christ ian tradi t ion) and

Li l i th ( introduced as Adam's firs t wife); to Eve (called "Eva" in several languages); to the Lance

of Long in us (the spear said to have been thrust by a Roman soldier i nto the crucified Christ); to the Dead Sea Scrolls (a collection of about 850 documents p roduced over 2 , 000 years i n

a variety of media - parchment , copper, papyrus, etc . - a n d discovered between 1947 and

1956 on the north west shore of the Dead Sea); and to the Sephiroth - the Kabbal i s t ic Tree

of L ife dep ict ing the ten creative emanat ions of the divine pr inc ip le that intervene between God and the u n iverse .

Evangelion's i nvocation of numerous rel igious and mythic mot ifs by means of crypt ic a l lus ions to sou rces as varied as the Kojiki and the Kabbalah const i tutes one of i ts most con­sp icuous characterist ics . I t is noteworthy, however , that even though these themat ic motifs are drawn from both Japanese and Judeo-Christian frames of reference and the latter discou rse often appears to have been accorded a central posit ion , the Eastern dimens ion is ult i mately a more vi tal ly susta in ing source of insp i ration , and the Western baggage fundamental ly func­tions as a narrative and iconological enhancer. Furthermore , Evangelion is no prosely t iz ing chunk of catechism - i n fact , there is every chance that very devout Jews and Christ ians would regard its use of imagery drawn from thei r texts as rather unorthodox . This is qu i te a refresh­ing message i n a world as often driven by evangel ical bigotry as the contemporary one i s . Asked

rOllr-Ncon Gcnesis Evangelioll 59

to comment on Evangelion 's Bib l ical symbol ism, Ends co-director Tsuru maki has explicitly underscored the playful ly uti l itar ian character of its employment : "There are a lot of g iant

robot shows i n Japa n , and we did want our story to have a rel ig ious theme to he lp dist in­

guish us. Because Christ i anity is an uncommon rel ig ion in Japan we thought i t wou ld be mys­

terious .... There is no actual Christ ian mean ing to the show" (Tsurumaki).

Whi le embrac ing the not ion of tradi t ion at the aforementioned l evels , Euangelion s imul­taneously makes susta ined reference to broad cultural and pol itical ordeal s . These themes

e loquently test i fy to the decidedly top ical and macrocosm ic amp l itude of the afflict ions

i t dramatizes. Consp i racies , h idden agendas, draggi ng bu reaucrat ic p rotocols and govern­

ment cover-ups des igned to san itize the reasons and effects of devastat ing confrontat ions cast ominous shadows upon each and eve ry turn of the saga's mult i- layered p lot. T hese are ren ­dered especial ly d i sturb ing b y the ir methodical i ntegrat ion w ith utterly uncomp romis ing

dep ictions of outbursts of anxiety and pan i c , on the one hand , and w ith del ic ious ly i ncon­

gruous descr i pt ive touches, such as the pet pengu i n that takes h is naps in M isato's spare freezer. It i s th i s deft amalgamat ion of d iverse narrative and c inemat i c in gredi ents that

cumulat ively enables the saga to reach far beyond the domain of soap opera frequently occu­

p ied by its gener ic relat ions and wel l i nto the realms of aesthet ic elegance and eth ical den­

s ity. Evangelion concomitantly adopts a sa l iently modern perspective i n its t reatment of h is­

torical cris i s : it i s v ital to acknowledge , i n th i s regard, that the anxieties u nderlying Anno's

work la rgely emanate from cu ltu ra l ly spec ific v i c i s s itudes affect i n g Japan i n the ear ly

and mid-1990s - namely, the burst ing of the economic "bubble , " the Aum Sh in rikyo ter­

rorist attack2 and the Kobe earthquake. At the same t ime , the image o f the Tokyo-3 sky­

scrapers emergin g fro m the i r underground shelter at sunset could be read as an a l lego rical

reference to the processes o f ceaseless demol it ion and rebu i ld ing , fue l led by the imperat ives

of a ruthless construct ion state , that has characterized vital moments of Tokyo's actual h i s ­to ry.

Mick Broderick has hel p fu l ly summar ized El'angelion 's overarch ing soc io-h i stor ica l d imens ion as fo l lows : "The h istory and or ig ins of Japanese post-war a n i me are inextricably

l inked with both secula r and sacred renderi ngs of eschaton . . . . Neon Genesis Evangelion seems

to re-v i s ion the rad ical and evo l ut ionary transformat ions of Japanese society dur ing the past

two generat ions , recast ing contemporary ruptures in its narrat ive as h istorical p redict ion" (Broderick). At the same t ime , however , the story's postapocalypt ic p reoccupat ions make it concu rrently relevant to d iverse m i l ieux across the e nt i re map of o u r feroc ious ly abused

planet. Furthermore , Evangelion 's ins i ghtful treatment of t roubled i ndiv idual psyches , on the

one hand, and of no less tormented societ i es , on the other , i s of equal resonance in a w ide

range of societal setups. The cripp l ing anx iet ies endured by the ind iv iduals and the societ ies

depicted in the Evangelion product ions in deed capture a tru ly global not ion of "civi l izat ion and i t s discontents , " as the title o f one of S igmund Freud's most sem ina l texts famo usly p uts It.

Throughout the TV series, Anno and h is collaborato rs stress that the problems faced by

their characters at both the affective and pol itical levels stem from one card inal cause : they are all unable , in var ious ways , to sever themselves from the i r ch i ldhood experiences of rejec­t ion and loss. This inabil ity to access successful ly the adu lt domain enta i l s that the affected characters do not hold a shared and pub l i cly recogn ized language through which they may at

60 AN I�E i :-.lTERSECTIONS

least ident ify and name what they have lost , and are therefore incapable of mourn ing the lost

object thro ugh ratified s igns and symbols . I n fact , they pathetical ly grieve over a lack that can

be neither expressed nor symbol ized . I ncapable of encoding thei r anguish , Anno's personae

one by one retreat into s i lently private crypts of pai n .

I n t h e p rovis ional ending suppl ied b y the TV show w i t h Episode 2 5 ( "T he End o f the

World/Do You Love Me?") and Episode 26 ("The Beast that Shouted ' I ' at the Heart o f the

World/F inale : Take Care of Yourself") , we are given a series of v ignettes of the pr inc ipa l char­acters, set i n a d imly l i t and sparsely fu rnished room and i ntercut with flashbacks , flashfc)f ­

wards a n d styl ized representations of their subl iminal fantasies a n d fears i n t h e forms o f l i n e

draw ings, abstract p ictures a n d photographs . A s the animat ion breaks down , t h e giant-robot genre dismantles i tself drastical ly. As Susan J . Napier comments , "The al ienation of the char­

acters , especial ly that of Sh inj i , is spectacularly apparent in the p uzzl ing and genu inely sub­

versive fina l ep isode, a grand fina le in which , bizarrely for a work in the mecha genre , no t a

s ingle mecha is shown" (Nap ier 200 1 , p. 10 1 ). Episode 2 6 delves further into the characters' m inds, i nt imat ing w ith increas ing u rgency

that they wi l l know no peace unt i l they can come to terms with the i r intersubject ive connec­

tions . In the episode's c l imax , the an imation plu nges into Becketti an m i n ima l is m , techn ical ly

embracing both the trad i t ional Japanese penchant for styl izat ion and innovat ive dig ital meth­

ods for choreographing s imple l ines with unparal leled flu id i ty. Sh inj i is translated int o a b la­

tantly two-dimens ional l ine drawing of himself, proteanly metamorphos ing from one frame

to the next to reflect other people's discordant percept ions of h is personal i ty. The shape i s

then flung i nto a vo id where i nfin i te poss ib i l i t ies seem avai labl e .

This sequence amounts to an utterly unsentimental deconstruction of Sh inj i 's psyche i n wh ich , a s Mike Crandol points out , the exposure of i nternal affiict ions a t the themat ic level

is aptly complemented by the an imational style at the level of techn ique i n what u nquest ion­

ably const i tut es Evangelion's "boldest art ist ic endeavor" : "Fu l l an imat ion regresses to story­boards that in tu rn give way to a black-and-white scribble of Sh inj i floating in a wh i te void .

(The effect is not un like the classic Chuck Jones' Looney Tu ne D uck Amuck , i n wh ich Daffy

D uck finds h is cartoon un iverse deconstru cted by an unseen an imator)" (Crando\) .

The episode's deconstruct ive procl ivit ies are fu rther confirmed by i ts consistent employ­

ment of discordant visuals that appear to interrogate their own val id i ty at each turn . T hese i nclude elaborate col lages of shots from other ep isodes in the series, i nterspersed with mono­

chromatic st i l l s captur ing key moments in the saga , black-and-whi te photographs fro m the

actual world, kaleidoscopic sl ivers of co lor and elusive fl icke rs of l i gh t . What the c los ing

i nstal lments of the show sugges t , through these audacious composit ional strategies, i s tha t the

sol ipsist ic prison i nto which v i rtual ly al l the characters are trapped may only be set aside when a person accepts - as Rei puts i t - that "you cannot be yourse l f wi thout the presence of oth­ers . " Th i s entai ls the ach ievement not only of an understanding of the value of interaction and of the mechanisms that make i t possible but also, more crucial ly s t i l l , of an abi l i ty to

conceive i maginat ively of alternative worlds : precisely what Anno, his team , and u l t imately all animators are committed to accompl ish .

The closing part of Episode 26 of the TV series, moreover , overtly p roposes that se lf­

knowledge impl ies a preparedness to open up commodiously to the poss ib i l i ty that one's so­

called "real i ty" may merely represent a d iminutive facet of a vast galaxy of other conceivable

rea l i t ies . This thesis is uncharacteristically developed to comedic extremes as Sh inj i i s rrans-

FOllr-Neon Genesis Evangelion 6 1

ported to a s i t-com type o f fam ily and neighborhood fil led with cl iched s lapst ick, common­

place concerns and not the s l ightest h int at the l ikes of Angels and Evas . This a lternate end­ing is fundamentally a corol lary of Sh inj i 's eventual real izat ion that h is ident i ty as an Eva p ilo t

is only one poss ib le narrative in which h is existence may be couched, and by no means the

so le defin ing factor of h is ent i re be ing . Fol lowing this discovery, l i fe becomes someth ing o f a

stage upon which both confl ic t ing and complementary narratives can be enacted . I n the c los­

ing segment of the series , Sh inj i does not reinvent h imself from scratch . Rather , as Goldberg

puts i t , he s imply "tells a happier story - this t ime cast ing h imself i n another convent ional

an ime genre , the teen comedy, where he has the perfect fami ly l i fe and sexua l i ty is 'norma l­

ized' ( i n the sense that u nknowabi l i ty i s exc i t ing , not necessari ly a l i enat ing ) . He d iscovers that there is a certain pleasure i n d iscover ing a new person and her ident i ty . . . . Rei becomes a

typical , bubble-headed, late-for-class new student at h is school i nstead o f her usual coo! , ego­

less self" (Goldberg ) .

A j oke a t Sh in j i 's expense , this comedic finale i s a n apt commentary o n the character's psychological development but also, no less s ignificantly, on the degrees of depth o r superficial­

ity to which the art of anime may opt to asp i re . Any top ic , Anno here int imates, may offer

the raw materials for e i ther a t ragedy or a farce or i ndeed both i n the hands o f an insp i red

art ist . I t i s by capita l iz ing on this premise wi th unprecedented temerity that Evangelion has stretched the l im i ts of what the an imated fi lm could ever hope to convey, offer ing at once a

masterfu l ly executed sc i-fi action adventure , a revis ionist sat i re of that same genre , a B i l ­

dungs roman , and a dispassionate study of the i ncidence of i nsecur i ty and lonel iness . I n the

p rocess, the series and the features a l ike have left an indel ib le mark on the an ime industry i n

i ts ent i rety.

Where techn iques are concerned, the saga is staunchly comm itted to the perfect ion of

hand-drawn graphics tha t are capable of evoking a real ist ical ly mul t i -faceted un iverse , wh i l e

s imul taneously perpetuat ing the Japanese preference for styl ization by recou rse to po ignant ly economical visual symbol s . Yosh iyuki Sadamoto's des igns , moreover , ev ince an uncanny abi l ­

i ty to grasp the subtlest nuances of the various characters' personal i t ies , prov id ing c lues to

the i r plausible att i tudes and conduct i n s i tuations other than those exp l ic i tly dramatized by

the series and movies . They thus emulate , at the l evel of character design , the ach ievements of "method" actors in the rea lm of theatrical performance .

I magin ing the dramatis personae in roles and contexts external to the logic of the saga

enables the character des igner to bu i ld up satisfyi ngly mul t i faceted and conv inc ing person­al i t ies . Both Die Sterne and Der Mond offer numerous examples of Sadamoto's knack of plac­ing the characters i n a variety of a l ternate real i t ies . The i mages are , at ti mes, so starkly in

contrast with the nature of the characters as one has come to know them thro ugh the an i ­

methat they may we l l br ing a smi l e of amusement to the v iewer's face . Vis ions of Rei and

Sh in j i i n formal even ing wear; of bo isterous p layground p ranks centred on Asuka; o f S uper­Deformed vers ions o f the main personae; of Misato playful ly c l imbing a Honda b ike; and of

Rei and Asuka affectionately i nteracting with each other , for i nstance , are so gloriously "out

of character" as to verge on the h i lar ious . However , such images a re perfectly consonan t ,

phi losoph ical ly speaking , wi th the existentia l message conveyed by bo th the c los ing port ion of Episode 26 of the show and End of Evangelion, where i t i s p roposed that the world i s what one cont ingently makes of i t - and that the coexistence of confl ict i ng , paral le l v is ions of one's

rea l i ty is not necessari ly qu i te as p reposterous a scenario as one might at first suspect . 5 Fur-

62 AN I M E ] ;\fTERSECTIONS

thermore, Sadamoto's character designs are harmon iously integrated w ith Yamashita's mechan­

ica l designs . As Redmond has noted, i n th i s respect ,

Over and over aga in, Anno w i l l str ike just t he right balance between Yamash ita's people-moving platforms, giant conveyor belts and Eva-related equipmem, and Sadamoto's crisp, emotive character des igns. Dur ing an early scene of [Episode I , "Angel Attack"], for exampl e, R itsuko, ... Mi sato and Shinji are s i l houetted in an e levator aga inst a glowing p ink background, gloomily d i scussing the near-imposs ib i l ity of ever get­ting the Eva to work properly; sudden ly the vast humanoid hand of EVA-OI materia l izes in the storage tank beh i n d them. A s imi lar tech nique i s used when Shin j i first confronts the gaze of EVA-O l, whose seg­mented, eyeless face glares l ike a styl ized demon out of Japan's storied theatrical traditi on : d i stant objects look near, and ncar objects look d istant [Redmond, pp. 207- 8 1 .

The hand-drawn element i s self- reflexively thrown into rel ief, moreover , through t h e i ncor­

poration of frames and shots that reproduce sn ippets of the original storyboards, sketches,

character designs and wate rcolor backgrou nds, drawn from various planning and p roduct ion

stages . These techn iques play an especial ly vital role i n sequences devoted to the depict ion of

the characters' troubled psyches .

Some of the most viv idly real ist ic depict ions o f both characters and sett i ngs can be detected in the sequences dramatizing the Evas' confrontations with the Angels . At less dynamic

and more int rospective t imes , real ism gives way to a graphic style that del i berately foregro unds

the v isuals' hand-crafted dimension. On such occas ions, both the natural env i ronment and

the urban scenery are repeatedly rep resented by recourse to emphatical ly two-di mens ional

watercolor pai nt i ngs characterized by h ighly di luted washes and i ntensely styl ized e lements .

Whether i t embraces the natural ist ic modal ity or i ts al lusive counterpart , Evangelion 's p icto­rial style u n re lent ingly evinces an affectionate devotion to detai ls that is no less concerned with captur ing the sta ins on the walls of a school lavatory o r the s tark l i nes of rai ls and pylons than with portraying the ominous beauty of an intricately des igned b iomechano id .

When methodically paced and meditative moments develop i nto j ourneys across the con­

torted minds of those who experience them in the first perso n , a fur ther aspect of the hand­

drawn tech n ique comes into p lay : the somatic featu res of the affected characters acqu i re

harsher , more angular and even maskl ike traits , the shadows fal l more deeply and search ingly

onto the i r aggrieved countenances, and the chromatic palettes are m in imal ized so as to g ive

surreal p rominence to a s ingle hue range . As Jeff Wi l l iams persuasively mainta ins , th is auda­cious admixture of real i sm and s tylization has occasional ly met with puzzled responses : "What con fuses some people i s the visual style of the series - many shots are qu i te spartan by des ign

rather by any technical l im i tat ion . . . by an intentional styl ist ic dev ice" (Wi l l iams, J . ) .

The an imation's del iberately jarri ng effects are he ightened b y Evangelion's use of cap­

tions presented in the form of ultra-swiftly flashing ktmji that foreground the intensely painterly flavor of Japanese wri t ing . Addit ional ly, polychromat ic and minutely detai led sequences a re disconcertingly j uxtaposed to min imal ist ic an imations of abstract penc i l drawings of efferves­cent adaptabi l i ty. I n the final feature , the hand-drawn dimension is further emphasized by

means of i ts j uxtaposi t ion with fragments of l ive-act ion footage and s t i l l s derived from real urban l i fe . These various p loys serve to comment e l l ip tically on the very p rocess of the fi lms' p roduction . This appl ies , i n varying degrees, to the TV episodes and the feature-length fi lms

a l ike .

A t t h e same t i m e , Evangelion 's cinematography offers a number of wordless a n d exquis­

i tely slow sequences, barely register ing any obvious sense of dynamic change , of the ki nd of

FO/lr--Neon Genesis Evangelion 63

which on ly an ime at i ts most p roficient is capable . As Wi l l iams observes, "many shots lack any movement whatsoever for lengthy, al most uncomfortable periods of time . . . for example ,

Rei and Asuka's famous elevator r ide i n s i lence , which goes on seemingly forever . . . i s s imply

i l lustrat ive of character relat ionships , and a lso serves to tweak the viewer a l itt le b i t" (Wil l iams ,

J . ) . (The scene referred to by Wi l l i ams, incidental ly, occurs in Episode 22, "At Leas t , Be

Humane/Don't Be ." ) No less memorable is the cl imactic frame of Ep isode 24 , "The F i nal Messenger/The Beginn ing and the End, or ' Knockin' on Heaven's Door' , " where a perfectly

motionless EVA-OJ cl utches Kaworu - the " F ifth Child" and "seventeenth Angel" - for an ostensibly interminable sixty-three-second spell before reso lv ing to crush the creature to death .

The pathos of Sh inj i's predicament , as h is tormented conscience gradual ly comes to terms

with the ghastly real i ty o f h is fr iend Kaworu's true namre , could barely have been captured

more po ignantly by a lengthy dia logical or monological sequence - in fact , there is eve ry

chance that the use of any words whatsoever would have lowered the p rotagonist's ordeal to the level of vap id ly garru lous melodrama . Sh inj i's train ride in Episode 4, "Rai n , Escape and

Afterwards /Hedgehog's D i lemma," l ikewise suppl ies a paradigmatic example of Anno's pen­

chant for wordless sequences, i nsofar as the s i lence su rrounding the hero as he makes a fee­ble attempt to flee h is respons ib i l i t i es evokes with admirable conciseness h is patho logical

separation from h i s fel low humans .

In assess ing Evangelion's acoustic d imension , it must also be stressed that the saga in i ts

enti rety is comp l emented by quite a unique use of mus ic , including both the soundtrack actu­

ally composed for the pu rposes of the series and of the ensu ing featu res and an insp i red adop­

tion of classical p ieces . T he latter include Georg Handel's "Mess iah ," Ludwig van Beethoven's " Symphony No . 9 in 0 m i nor Op. 125," Johann Sebastian Bach's " Su i te for Cel lo Solo No.

1" and "Jesus Ble ibet Meine Freude ," and Gi useppe Verdi's "Requ iem . "

N o less d is t inct ive of Anno's c inematographical s ignature than the use of lengthy stat ic i mages is the di rector's v isual m in imal ism . As cultural theorist Azuma H i roki of Tokyo Uni­vers i ty has po inted out in an interview conducted by Kryst ian Woznicki , whereas n umerous

anime d i rectors "are becoming more and more obsessed with drawing a del uge of detai ls into

one frame , " Anno consis tently cul tivates the aesthetic principle of reduction so that , by and

large, "the i nformat ion i nc luded in one frame is very l im ited . " Relatedly, " i nstead of mul t i­ply ing i nformation w i th i n one frame , Anno does mult ip ly i n formation by the speed and

rhythm of cut-u ps" (Wozn icki ) . Furthermore , Anno's employment of cut-ups - perfo rmed by taking a l inear fi l m ic tex t , sl ic ing it into p ieces and then rearranging the p ieces i nto a new text - is vividly redolent of Jean-Luc Godard's cinema .

Anno's persistent dedication to th is technique is matched by the ub iqu i tousness, across

al l of the avai lable Evangelioll artbooks, of col lage-l ike composi tes of var ious characters that

point to their intersubject ive roles and connect ions . These works are also thematical ly cogent

i nsofar as they aptly complement the story's emphasis on the fu ndamentally relat ional status of h uman ident i ty. Pictoria l ensembles inc luding Sh inj i , Asuka and Rei , normal ly with one or more of the Uni ts looming in the background, abound . M isato i s often inc l uded as i s , occa­sional ly, Ritsuko i n o rder to u nderscore the three Eva p i lo ts' imbricat ion i n a network of strategic and scient ific pr ior i ties . Some of the composi tes reach straight to Evangelion's meta­physical core - e .g . in the depict ion of Asuka and Sh inj i stari ng at a m in iature Rei suspended

i n s ide a beaker in a fetal position , or in that of Rei and Asuka against the background of a

rad iant Geofront where i n Sh inj i's nude body helplessly floats . The image of Gendou observ-

64 Af" IME I NTERS ECTIONS

ing the scene from a guarded distance is sporadically incorporated to lend s i lent pathos to the

ensemble . The more elaborate montages i nclude al l of the saga's key characters i n mult i- lay­

ered formations of cons iderable structural complexi ty. Their i ntegrat ion of myriad kale ido­

scopic shards closely app roximates the v isual vibrancy of Evangelion 's an imated cut -ups despite

the absence of empirical movement .

Wh ile fosteri ng hand-drawn and styl ized visuals , Evangelion a lso const i tutes a ground­

breaking intervention i n the evolut ion of computer-generated graphics . The imp lementat ion

of appropriate d ig i ta l tools i n the editing of the pictorial components ment ioned above and

i n their i ntegrat ion with the "regular" frames has clearly abetted Anno's ambi t ious approach

to co l lage, yielding a markedly personal vision that is s imultaneously t radi t ional and i nnova­tive . In the TV series , CG I were used extensively but consistently p rocessed as 20 i mages .

I n The End of Evangelion, a 3 D element was incorporated but analog process ing was also

employed i n order to i mpart the 3D CG scenes with a visual flavor consonant with those

fi lmed in conventional fashions . The result is a c inematograph ical accompl i shment of arguably unprecedented worth : "Neon Genesis Evangelion- both the series and movies - is often beau­

t ifully 'shot , ' wi th an art i s t ic style oHraming and use of color and l ight ing heav ily i nfluenced

by some of the great l ive act ion cinematographers of the past and p resent" (Wi l liams , J . ) .

The overall techn ical qual i ty of both the series and the features owes much to the p io ­

neer ing explo i ts i n the domain of digi tal animation in it iated by Product ion I . G - - the studio

behind epoch-making anime movies such as Mamoru Osh i i 's Ghost in the Shell ( 1 9 9 5 ) and

H i royuki Kitakubo's Blood: The Last Vampire (2000) - and Stud io Gainax - the company

founded by Anno , Sadamoto, H i royuki Yamaga and Takam i Akai i n 1 984 , and bes t known

for The Wings of Honneamise (dir . Hi royuki Yamaga , 1987) and the series Nadia: The Secret

of Blue Wtzter ( 1990) , of which Anno was personally i n charge .

Both studios' techn ical excel lence is eloquently borne out by Evangelion's use of var ious

trai lb lazing techn iques, and especial ly of digital compos i t i ng . Man ual compos i t ing posed i nevi table restr ict ions on the number of layers that could be real ist ical ly inc luded in the final

p roduct , and was extremely laborious when it came to harmon izing the indiv idual l ayers so

as to secure their rec ip rocal compatib i l i ty. With the advent of computer-generated compos i t ­

ing , the layers cou ld be edi ted i n groups , which would guarantee consistency o f presenta t ion . Moreover , add it ional effects such as l ight ing could be app l i ed to either a who le frame o r to

discrete layers , according to a scene's contingent requi rements . The saga also benefited con ­

s iderably from t h e creation of d igital special effects, for which Product ion I . G is g lobal ly

renowned . What is most dist inct ive about the studio's p rocedures , i n th is respect , i s i ts knack

of creating analog effects by digital means . These inc lude lens effects such as the fish-eye lens ,

motion b lurs and instab i l i t ies in both camera focus and l ight exposure so as to evoke specific moods, and lighti ng effects such as variable shadows and gu n-muzzle flashes .

Evangelion's use of cutting-edge tech nology works self- reflexively o n th ree dis t inct lev­els . F irstly, computer-generated imagery is consistenrly employed i n o rder to rep resent cyber­

netic equipment and digital data : for example , geometrical diagrams of the pilo ts ' bodies as

these are subject to CAT scans, computer maps deta i l ing the p rogress of an attacking Ange l ,

and bar graphs i l lustrating the various phases of an Eva's activation p rocess or the resul ts o f a synchron ization test involv ing a n Eva a n d its p i lo t . Secondly, Evangelion 's narrat ive com­

mitment to the investigation of the ult imate meaning of humani ty vis-a.-vis an apocalyptic vis ion of technology leads to a radical suspension of conventional real i ty markers that is apt ly

Four-Neon Genesis Evangelion 6 5

paral le led by the use o f state-of-the-art tech n iques . These a re expl ic it ly i ntended to throw

into rel ief the vaporousness of the real by foregrounding the rampant art ifice i nherent in the

med ium of an ime itself.

Thi rdly, sophist icated digital tech n iques are imaginat ively ut i l ized to convey the div ided

and composite nature of the central characters' psyches by means of images that l i teral ly mul­

t ip ly the i r countenance wi th deeply disorienti ng effects . In Episode 1 , for example , Shin j i 's

con fusion upon meeting his father (whom he has not seen for three years) and be ing asked

to p i lo t EVA-Ol is forcibly communicated by the shot of Gelldou's own face aga inst banks of

video monitors exhib i t ing mult ip le i mages of Shinj i . These video images , moreover , are i n

turn deftly m irrored b y a c lose-up of Gendou's glasses , i n which they a re reflected . Also

emblematic is the scene in Episode 5 in which Shin j i v i s i ts Rei in the di lap idated and eer i ly

resonat ing apartment block where in she dwel ls and finds that her so le possess ion , bes ide

assorted l i tter and b loody bandages, is a cracked pair ofGendou's spectacles . Shi nj i 's reflect ion

i n the warped lenses as he tentat ively approaches the object symbol ical ly captu res the menta l sp l i t he experiences throughout the show a s a resul t of his inab i l i ty to arrive at any conclu­

s ive decis ions regard ing e i ther h is father's or Rei 's true natures, let a lone the relat ionsh ip

between the two characters .

There are also occas ions on which Evangelion deploys self- reflexively i ts b lend of trad i ­

tional and digital techn iques . A class ic example is offered by Episode 9 , "Both of You , Dance

like You Want to Wi n!/With one Accord, in a Flash," through the sequence i n which Uni ts

0 1 and 02 's j o int attack against the seventh Angel is choreographed as a feat of seamlessly har­

monized movements . In the sequence's c l imax , the Evas' coord inat ion is techn ically rep l icated

by a montage cons i s t ing of exuberantly hand-drawn and digita l ly composited graph ics by

means of which both the two Evas' and the i r p i lots' bodies appear to merge i nto one s ingle

enti ty. Ep isode 1 1 , " In the St i l l Darkness /The Day Tokyo-3 Stood St i l l , " a l so funct ions se lf­

referential ly i n order to consol idate technically the adventure's pervasive mood . The suffocat­

ing atmosphere o f i ner t ia and stas is pe rvad ing NERV as a resu l t o f a l arge-scale

blackout - wh ich co inc ides wi th the advent of the n inth Angel - is conveyed by recourse to

sophist icated CGI for the representat ion of the sp ider-l ike enemy and i ts ponderous mot ion ,

and tradit ional an ime camera work for the fi lming of the three Eva p i lo ts' crawl ing p rogress

along the labyrinth ine passages lead ing from Tokyo-3 to the NERV Headquarters , as they

endeavor to reach the i r Un its . The different tools here employed col laborat ively contr ibute

to the evocation of a potent sense of i mpeded laboriousness .

The animat ion's complex i ty is a l ready evident i n the TV show's open ing , a 90-second p iece compris ing 84 up-tempo cuts . With each shot rece iv ing an average o f approxi mately

one second, the footage del ivers an overwhelming vo lume of i nformat ion en riched through­

out by an i ntr iguing array of mystical symbols , a perfect match o f visuals and mus ic and

soph ist icated framing . While i t is common for an anime series to offer a tag that s imply br ings together samples of i ts action footage , snapshots of its key personae and e lements of music­video rhetoric , Evangelion supplies a radical ly innovative visual p reamble of autonomous art is­t ic qual i ty. The i n i t ia l frame exhibi ts a m inute gl immer of throbb ing l i ght spreading i nto a

circular shockwave . This is replaced by a blazing background nebula upon which is s uper im­posed an i ntricate emblem that gradual ly recedes i nto the distance . A forwards zoom through an ocean of ice-blue galaxies i s then p roposed, wi th a gleaming c lose-up o f the Seph iroth scro l l i ng downwards in the foreground, and then dissolv ing i nto a tw inkl ing azure glare akin

66 AN I M E I NTERSECTIONS

to the reflection of candlel ight in a puddle . The t it le sequence p roper now begi ns , ushered i n

b y t h e Japanese characters for "Shinseiki" against t h e Anglophone word "Evangel ion . " The

sequence then moves onto a pan of Sh inj i 's face against a serene sky beaded with fleecy clouds .

A dusky s i lhouette of h is enti re body makes a brief appearance to the r ight o f the fra me , and

i s then superseded by the l ightless shapes of Rei 's and Asuka's bodies , scro l l i ng vert ica l ly on e i ther s ide of Sh in j i 's face ( to the right and upwards in Rei 's case , and to the left and down­wards i n Asuka's) . A close-up o f Misato's outstretched hand against the backgrou nd o f a rad i ­

a n t golden sky appears nex t , a s the Sephiroth aga in scrol ls through the scree n , th is t i m e i n upwards mot ion .

The sequence reaches i t s affect ive c l imax w i th a s tunn ingly elaborate montage inc luding

a close-up of M isato's mien , a shot of her contour against the backdrop of a glowing o rb , and

a close-up of Sh inj i 's face in the upper right-hand corner of the screen . Each image smoothly

rolls out of the frame j ust as another image rolls i n . A shot of Rei behind a closed w indow is

then introduced, and fo l lowed by an intensely real ist ic close-up of her albi no eye rep l ete with infin ites imal quivers of l igh t . The c los ing part of the opening cred i ts offers b rief shots of

English words central to the saga's indigenous vocabulary - such as "Test Type , " " Tokyo- 3 "

a n d "EVA-O! " - i nterspersed w i t h gl i mpses of moments from t h e series and close-ups o f the

various characters, cu lminating with emphatically graphic images of EVA-O I at i ts most i mpos­

ing. The final sho t , i ron ical ly, is that of a smi l ing Sh inj i . Each of the key i mages elegantly counterbalances another image moving in the opposite d i rection . For example , the firs t shot

of the Sephiroth to which we are treated displays the sym bol in descending motion , whi l e the

second adopts an ascending traj ectory. L ikewise , the vertical scro l l ing motions of Rei 's and Asuka's s i lhouettes are explic i tly contrasted, and further juxtaposed with the hor izontal or i­

entations o f Misato's s i lhouettes . Chromatic contrasts, harmonies and blends , a l l ied to sub­

tle variat ions i n shot pac ing , ideally complement the sequence's accompl ishment .

Anno's techn ical adventurousness is fully corroborated by the two feature films released

in 1997, Death 6- Rebirth and The End of Evangelion. Death has been somewhat harshly branded

by some cri t ics as a re-edit of the TV series. In fact , i t consti tutes a brave c inematograph ica l

exper iment bolstered by audacious syntheses of hand-drawn visuals and CGI that br ings

together port ions of the events dramatized in the show but not merely i n order to p rovide a neat synopt ic replay for the un in i t iated spectator. I t is indeed hard to i magine how a v iewer

without any degree of fam i l iar i ty with the series and i ts p rem ises could adequately appreci­ate the fi lm's eminently collage-l ike , non-l inear and mult i temporal narrative . Moreover , a

number of c l imactic occurrences drawn from the TV show - such as battles between the Evas

and the Angels - are not rep roposed in the original order. The bu i ld-up to and consequences

of part icular m iss ions are consistently telescoped and com pressed in ways that preclude fore­gone conclusions about any character's s i tuation at any given j unctll re . 4

Therefore , Death could be sa id to reconstruct qui te drasti cal ly the show's narrat ive by reco urse to the deft j uggl ing of a number of scenes from a selection of episodes , inte rcll t wi th

poignant references to the characters' deep-seated traumas . As a resu l t , any poss ib le pr inc i­p les of causal i ty and teleology offered by the original p rogram are radical ly cal led into ques­

t ion by the mov i e , u l t imately i ndicat ing that Anno has p rec ious l i t t l e t ime fo r gra n d exp lanatory systems of quasi-Hegel ian or ientation driven b y a determ in ist ic yearn ing for c lo­sure , and in fact favors purely tentative and u l t imately rescindable ou tcomes . Thus , Death consti tutes a po intedly autonomous visual experience in the context of Evangelion as a whole .

FOllr�Ncon Genesis Evange lion 67

The featu re's novelty is techn ical ly enhanced by i ts ut i l ization of digita l p rocedu res not avai l ­

ab le i n the execut ion of the series, espec ial ly in the more sophist icated areas of l ayer ing , com­

pos i t ing and both v i sua l and acoust ic edi t ing .

Death ut i l izes v i sua l and thematic materials that cover events presented in the series u p

to Episode 24 a n d t o t h e defeat of the seventeenth Angel . Rebirth, t h e fi l m's second section ,

was in i t ial ly in tended as a remake of Ep isodes 25 and 26 of the TV show. In the course of production , however , i t became clear tha t the vo lume of fresh contents avai lable to Anno's team was far too bu lky to be rea l ist ical ly accom modated wi th in Rebirth . I t was therefore

decided to keep the latter down to approxi mately two-thirds of the new Episode 25, and to

devote a separate theatrical release ( The End of Evangelion) to the film compris ing both of the

reconfigured ep isodes .

Co-producer Tosh i m ichi Otsuki commented on the experience of accompl ish ing two theatrical releases in the space of on ly six months (Death & Rebirth came out in March and End of Evangel ion i n August) in an in terview conducted by Kei Watanabe on behalf of A1ainichi lvfanga Town, as part of a 10th-anniversary Evangelion special report . When asked by Watan­

abe about the toughest t imes, Otsuki rep l ied, "Without doub t , the hardest thing was when

we couldn't make the open ing deadl ine for the mov ie back in 1997 . . . . I made the decis ion to create two movies . . . . Even then , we st i l l had to work up unt i l the very last moment to get the

second mov ie out on t ime . I went home to catch up on some sleep wi thout even watch ing

the movie" (Otsuki ) . Death & Rebirth ea rned 1 . 1 b i l l ion yen at the box office, wh ich made i t

the seventh mos t successfu l Japanese movie for 1997, wh i l e End ofE11angelion grossed 1 .45 b i l ­

l ion yen , thus gain ing fou rth p lace on the scale . I n Rebirth's o p e n i n g frames, w e are treated t o what i s poss ibly one o f t h e techn ical ly

most accompl ished and evocative scenes i n the whole of Ellangelion, as Sh inj i mutely beholds

the sunken ru ins of Tokyo-3 . The melancholy of the once magn ificent ed ifices is i ron ical ly

j uxtaposed with the awesome subl i m i ty of azure skies and waters , whi le an overwhe lm ing

s i lence ruptured only by a d iscreet "splash" and by the hypnot ic wh i rr ing of c icadas in the

distance engul fs both aspects o f the landscape , as tho ugh to mock any p retens ions to indi­

vidual i ty on the part of each . Death and reb i rth are i ndeed pos i ted as inextr icably i nter­

twined, to the point that ne i ther is ent i t led to c la im u ncond it ional super ior i ty ove r the other . The open ing segment of Rebirth thus encapsul ates the i n tr ins ical ly dual is t ic character o f the apocalypt ic world v iew, int imat ing that any hope of regeneration may only ar ise from dev­

astat ion and chaos . The End of Eva ngelio n elaborates th is mot if and compl i cates i ts meta­

physical import by emphasiz i ng that the trans i t ion from one state to the other requ i res conscious agency and the scrupulous exerc ise of free wi l l and cannot , therefo re , be lefi: to

random chance . A gem of digital compos i t i ng , the scene's c l imactic moment consists of a b i rd's-eye shot

i n which the r ipples caused by the fa l l of a p iece of debris i nto the ubiquitous waters, the reflections of the clouds lacing the sk ies above and the emerging remnants of Tokyo-3 's sky­scrapers are a rranged in perfectly concentric c ircles around a wh i te-hot sun . The shot's han­dl ing of digi tal tech nology eloquently demonstrates that the i mp lementat ion o f i nnovat ive tools in an ime does not inevitably br ing forth steri le swathes of gleaming visuals . In fact , despite the preponderance of coo l hues, the image veri ly oozes with pa interly warmth and a tacti le sense of the art isana l ski l ls channel led into i ts making .

Anno's proverbial penchant for e laborate montages combin ing hand-drawn graphics and

68 ANIME 1 NTFRSFCTJO:.JS

sophist icated d igital techniques is resplendently b rought to fru i t ion in Rebirth. Especial ly

memorable , i n this regard, is the sequence i n which Misato expla ins to Shinj i that mankind

is actual ly "the e igh teenth Angel , " born of Li l i th , and that SEELE's and Commander I kari 's

agendas r ight from the i nstigation of the Second I mpact have not been in the l east benevo­

lent , let a lone a l tru ist ic . As Misato's revelations unfo ld, Rebirth offers one of the ent i re saga's

most memorable montages . Far from s imply providing an ent ic ing p iece of c inematography, though i t indubi tably does this i n spades , the sequence yields a highly compressed vis ion o f

Evangelion's cumulative narrative traj ectory. The montage begins with a medium shot o f EVA­

�O 's i ni t ial skeleton (as seen i n Episode 2 1 , "The Birth of NERV IHe was Aware that He was

St i l l a Chi ld") , consist ing of the Uni t's head and an anatomical ly p recise backbone . The screen

then changes to a shot of a seeth ing array of tendrils reach ing downwards in to a pool of blood­

red fluid ; these later turn out to be the spinal cords emanat ing from myriad Eva cran iums . A series of flash ing shots , so rap id as to be almost impercept ib le i n "real t ime , " fol lows . These

encompass i mages of the crater left beh ind by the Second I mpact , of Adam as a l u m i nous giant , of the same Angel i n embryon ic form, of the graveyard where Yui I kari i s commemo­

rated, of the digi tal table out l in ing the Angels' bafflingly h uman makeup, and of a sep ia sketch

of Yui 's face fol lowed by a sti l l of Rei i n her p i lot ing su i t . This last shot i s not actually v i s i ­

ble except in very s low motion . Considerately integrated digital effects enhance the cels' over­a l l qual i ty by augmenting their l uminosity and sharpness, thereby also foregrounding the i r

hand-drawn features i nstead of subsuming them to the computer's ru le .

The bold c inematographical experiment i n i t iated in Death & Rebirth cont i n ues u nabated

with The End of Evangelion . Frighten ing , contorted and yet lovely by turns, this film consti ­tutes a veri table tour de force, p icking up the plot in the immediate aftermath of Sh in j i 's

destruction of the seventeenth and final Angel � sa rcastical ly, his sole real "fr iend" ever � and

then p roceed ing to supp ly an alternate conclusion to the saga to the one offered by the TV

series .

As mentioned, it was with The End of Evangelion that Anno's team first i nt roduced 3 D

C G I capable of p roviding an expans ive spatial ambience . Analog p rocess ing was nonetheless

appl ied to the CG scenes by recou rse to fi l ters akin to those ut i l ized for convent ional shoot­

ing , so as to evoke a harmon ious v i sua l mood and ensure that the CG cuts would not clash

with the trad it ional ones . Whi le Production I .G played a key role th roughout the project , the

bu lk of the CG production was undertaken by Omnibus Japan (who also handled the digi­

tal effects for Oshi i's Pat/abor 2: The Movie [ 1993] and for the aforementioned Ghost in the

Shell) . The major i ty of the CG scenes are located in the second part of the fi l m and inc lude

the cut where colossal crosses are strewn over the Earth's ent i re surface and the cut disp lay­

ing mult ip le Rei s . Omnibus Japan also dealt admi rably with the d igital p rocess ing of trans­

mi tted l igh t , a task unan imously regarded as part icular ly arduous by computer an imators . The clos ing credits , scro l l ing i n the shape of a hel ix rem i n iscent of the graphs used to i l l us­t rate an Eva's connect ion wi th i ts p i lo t's sensori um , a re also a d igi ta l effect execu ted by Omnibus Japan .

End p resents humani ty's struggle to overcome lonel i ness, and hence the cripp l ing pa in

i neluctably spawned by that condit ion , in the form of a cosmic metamorphosis engineered

by SEELE as the next stage i n humani ty's evolut ion � the " Human I nstru mental i ty Pro j ect . " This momentous Th i rd Impact entai ls the merging of a l l people i nto a s ingl e undifferent i­ated mass akin to the soup o f l i fe from which al l l i fe is bel ieved to have emanated . The drama-

Four�Ncon Genesis Evangelion 69

tization of I nstrumental i ty suppl ies Anno with unique opportun i t ies for the deployment of

state-of-the-art digital i magery, and especially "morphs" : namely, CG images that gradual ly

change their shapes unt i l they become qui te different images . Rei's fus ion w i th Li l i th and result­

ing transformation i nto a giganti c , diaphanous creature of truly p reternatura l statu re offers a paradigmatic instance of morph ing . So does the p rodigious body's subsequent sp l i t t ing into

a double- torsoed being combin ing aspects of Rei and aspects of Kaworu .

I n order to accompl ish smooth morphing effects, the footage rel ies on the synchronous occurrence of three related techn ical events . The shape of the i n i t ial , o r "source , " i mage i s

distorted over t ime so as to turn into the shape of the final , or "dest inat ion , " i mage . The des­

t inat ion i mage , in turn , sta rts off in a deformed guise that matches the source image , and

i ncrementally und istorts unt i l i t resumes i ts normal form. Meanwhi le , the opacity o f the dig­

ital layers i nvolved gradually alters i n order to al low the dest inat ion i mage to become vis ib le

over the source image as they are both morph ing . A part icularly effective method, abetted by

vector graphics , which End styl ishly deploys cons ists of warp ing one i mage at the same t ime as i t fades into another image , by marking equivalent points on the source and dest inat ion

images . For i nstance, one configuration of L i l i th's body could be morphed i nto another by

marking certai n key po ints on the sou rce body, such as the contour o f the head and l imbs ,

and marking these same po ints on the destinat ion body. The computer would d i s tor t the first body- image to make i t acqu i re the shape of the second body whi l e s imultaneously cross-fad­

ing the two images .

Reinforc ing the thematic message commun icated by the TV series' controvers ia l culm i ­

nation , End proposes tha t accept ing one's separateness from others is t he p recondit ion o f human i nteract ion and that the latter , i n turn , is the p recondit ion o f se lf-conscious existence .

This real ization is s ign al led by 5h inj i's decision to renounce the pseudo-ident ity conferred

upon him by I nstrumental i ty. He recognizes that indiv iduals have been drawn i nto the Third

I mpact's a l l-encompass ing vortex by the p romise of a world wi thout lonel i n ess , and that

although the fusion of a l l creatu res i nto an und ifferent iated m ass may at fi rs t h ave appeared

to fulfi l a fantasy of p len i tude unmarred by separat ion anxieties, the ancestral blend actually

amounts to an amorphously dreary sea of negativ ity. The denial of personal barriers, whi l e

seem ingly br inging h umans int imately together, does not actual ly permi t genu ine i n terac­t ion , for this i s only ever possible as long as a distance between self and other may be per­

ceived � even though , i n ev i tably, th i s pe rcept ion must at all t imes coexist w i t h a tw i n

recogn it ion of the possib i l i ty that the self and the other wi l l desert and betray each other wi th

lamentable repercuss ions .

Whi le the vanish ing of individual boundaries was earl ier symbol ized by an indis t inct

aggregate of vert iginously swirl ing marble-sized red dots, the return to a wor ld of borders and

ind ividuated subjectivi t ies is marked by the reconst itut ion of the Earth as a sol id shape . Fur­

thermore , through an insp i red deployment of 3D polygonal modell i ng , the sphere is i ncre­menta l ly en dowed wi th a deta i l ed grid of paral le ls and mer id ians . Mankind 's in t ractable corporeal i ty is by no means effaced by this cosmic move , however . Creat ing coord inates and

patterns i s not tantamount to construct ing a fr igidly flesh less rea l i ty : the substance in which

the restored globe's part i t ioning l ines are drawn is indeed vividly akin to blood at i ts warmest

and ooziest .

Ult imately, the story's in trospective dimension on the thematic plane is echoed by El'an­

gelion's form : Anno's ongo ing impetus to lay bare the dev ices deployed in the construct ion of

70 A",IME I NTERSECTIONS

the visual narrative , by recourse to both conventional and pioneer ing tools , makes the ent i re

saga a markedly self- referential exercise . This aspect is fu rther bolstered by the consistent

adopt ion of i nter ior monologues and stream-of-consciousness med itat ions . However , this

approach does not yie ld a se lf-grat ifyi ng vis ion , s i nce fo rmal exper i mentat ion u l t imately

enables both the TV series and the featu re fi lms to transcend the introspect ive enclosu re . The sel f-reflexive proclivity indeed leads to a drastic explosion of conventional molds : i n [he process of dissect ing the characters' heads, Anno a l so deconstructs the art of an ime i tsel f, as ful l an i ­

mation gives way to c l ipp ings from the designers' sketchbooks, ch i ld l ike crayon draw ings

flaunting aggress ive h ues and angry l i nes, and eventually black-and-whi te scribbles and squig­

gles . Hence, Evangelion stands out as a formally paradoxical enterprise whereby the subjec­tive prisons in which i ts personae pathetical ly writhe are s imul taneously rep l icated by the

story's concern wi th i ts own i nterior work ings , and burst open by a drast ic unh ing ing of the narrative codes and conventions associated with ma instream an ime . Most important ly, how­

ever , neither the series nor the second feature conclus ively purport to del iver a fully compen­satory rounding-off o f the fict iona l weave . In an i n terv i ew p ubl i shed in the m agazine

Protoculture Addicts #43, Anno has disarm ingly commented on h i s saga's i ntentional i ncon­

clus iveness : "El,angelion is l ike a puzzle , you know. Any person can see i t and give h i s /her

own answer . . . i magine h i s /her own world . We wi l l never offer the answers . . . . As for many

Ellangelion viewers , they may expect li S to provide the 'al l-about Eva' manua l s , but there is

no s llch thing . . . . Don't expect to be catered to al l the t ime. We al l have to find o ur own

answers" (quoted in Eng 1997) .

FIVE

Metropolis

A nimation is JOmethillg that's just a dra wing, it's a still imllge and something thllt should not move IIctl/lI/{Y moues. A nd tha t 's like retlll)' reflecting the humlln irnllgin,uion and that 's real{y the spe­cialty of animation. - Rintaro 2002a

While real acting has limits, YOll can do anything with animation. - Katmhiro Otomo 2003

Rintaro's Metropolis is based on a manga produced by Osamu Tezuka i n 1949 . Often described

as the "god of manga , " Tezuka ( 1928- 1989) is heralded as one of Japan's most talented and

prol ific comic-book and anime artists both domestically and i nternationally. Without a shadow

of doubt , both h is visuals and h is narrat ives revolut ionized the industry, audaciously bu l ldoz­ing ex ist ing convent ions and rela ted audience expectat ions, and thus pav ing the way for the trai lblazing d i rectors and an imators discllssed in this study. As noted in the official webs i te dedicated to Tezuka's l i fe and work, h i s "manga and animated fi lms had a t remendous impact

on the shap ing of Japan's postwar youth . His work changed the concept o f the Japanese car­

toon" and "also i nfluenced a range of other gen res" ( "Osamu Tezuka On l ine" ) , The i ntensity

of Tezuka's pass ionate commi tment to h is art is e loquently corroborated by the fact that he

was st i l l drawing on his deathbed i n a hosp ital . By the end of h i s l i fe , he had created a total

o f approximately 17,000 pages of manga, 700 stories, 12 TV specials and 21 TV series . Danie l

Poei ra's concurrently i n formative and heartfelt homage to Tezuka's legacy deserves ci tation :

"Tezuka's works have touched so many people around the globe that i t's hard to find some comic book art i s t or ani mator who has never heard of him and was not i nfluenced by his

works on some level . . . . I f today we have Pokemon, Akira, Cowboy Bebop and Serial Experi­ments Lain, it was because one day, 40-someth ing years ago , a funny old man with a s i l ly hat

decided to give i t a try " (Poei ra) , Rimaro's 2001 p roduct ion also bears s imi larit ies to the fi l m of the same t i t le d i rected by

Fritz Lang i n 1 926 i n i ts adopt ion of a marked ly retrofuturist ic approach . Lang's fi lm pro­vides a subtle cr i t ique o f the utop ian t h ru s t of Futu rism , with i ts ce lebra t ion o f speed, dynamism and techno logical progress , by construing the fu ture as a world of vert ig inous high­rise c i tyscapes that stand not so much fo r p rogress as for cap ita l i st exp lo i tat ion and inj ustice .

Ri ntaro's fi l m picks up th is lead in order to develop a polymorphous urban architecture where in sky-choking ho rizons do not serve as an unproblematic metaphor for the t r iumph of technology over bru te matter but rather em body a pervas ive mood of oppressiveness and

7 1

72 AN IME I NTERSECTIOr-.:S

uncertainty. This i s conveyed in turns by the Babylonian grandeur of the c i ty's upper strata �

as balefu l as they are awesome � and by the squalor of the crime-ridden s lums that sp i ral into

the seemingly unfathomable depths of Metropol is's u nderbelly. Rintaro's film is sometimes

described as "the an imated vers ion" of the 1926 s i lent class ic , yet i ts a l lus ions to the original

Metropolis were not del iberate even though Rintaro has professed deep admirat ion for Lang's

work : "Fritz Lang's fi lm is one of my favorite fi lms, so ever s ince I was young that fi l m has been inputted somewhere i n the corner of my brain . Now, in the p rocess o f making the an i ­

mated Metropolis feature fi l m , influences from the or ig inal Metropolis m ight have u ncon­

sciously popped up , but they certa in ly weren't i ntentional . So if the audience feels that there

is a s imi lar ity between the Fritz Lang version and my vers ion , wel l , I had absolu tely no con­

scious intent ion of do ing so" (Rint aro 2002b) .

(As for Tezuka , he claimed to have drawn insp irat ion from the poster and from some

reviews of Lang's movie but not to have yet watched the actual motion p icture at the t ime of creating h i s own manga vers ion of Metropolis. ) I t i s also worth bear ing i n m ind, i n th is con­

text , that Rintaro's pr incipal concern actually resided with d iscover ing whether or not , in an

age where the science-fiction scene is seem ingly dominated by the theme of "vi rtua l real i ty, "

a "fantasy" -driven adventure i n the more tradit ional mold could s t i l l p rove appeal i ng , and

indeed stand the test of t ime (Rintaro 2003) . Hence, Rintaro's movie is not so much a remake as a re imagin ing o f the earl i e r fi l m .

Released domestically in June 2 0 0 1 and in the u . S . i n January 2002 , Metropolis was also the

first an ime t i t le s i nce the mid-1990s to be a ired i n the U.K. (on Channel 4 ) . The o rigina l

story formulated by Tezuka was adap ted for the screen by Katsuh i ro Otomo, the comic-book

artist and an imation d i rector largely responsible for drawing the West's attent ion to the art

of anime through h is seminal fi l m Akira ( 1988) . I t was Otomo h i mself, moreover , that shortly

after Akira's release p rophesied the l ikely development of an imation styles based on a synthe­

s is of tradit ional graph ics and digital technology of precisely the kind one encounters i n

Metropolis.

Prior to Tezuka's death in 1989 , Rintaro � who had been one of the earl iest members o f

Tezuka's T V animation staff� had invited the "god of manga" t o consider a screen adapta­

t ion of Metropolis, but Tezuka had flatly turned h im down, putatively due to h i s lack o f esteem

for h is very early works . Com menting on this episode, Rintaro has stated : "He told me d i rectly

that anyth ing he had done berore Tetsuwan Atom [Astro Boy, 1 9 5 2] was never in tended to be

made i nto an imat ion or motion pictures . Tezuka said that h is earl ier work was not sk i lfu l

enough , and a l so that h i s story structure was not qu i te up to the level he would have l iked i t t o be . Those were two reasons that h e did n o t want t o make i t into an ime" (Rintaro 2002b) . I t was not unt i l 1997 that Rintaro revis i ted the idea, th is t ime teaming up with Otomo . I n the autum n o f that year , the two creators retreated to Rintaro's mountain cab in for a l abor­intens ive th ree-day planning sess ion , in the course of which they made v i tal decis ions con­cerning which parts of the parent manga should be reta ined and which should be excised or

abr idged .

Metropolis's retrofu ru rist ic look is overtly based on its manga parent and specifical ly o n Tezuka's v isual ization of t h e future through the lens of 1 9 2 0 s des ign . This is palpably evident throughou t , permeating not only the larger architectural tableaux , the robots and the veh i ­cles b u t also t h e minutest facets of i nterior decor , sartorial styles, accessories and even orna­

mental patterns . The most concise assessment of Metropolis's temporal d imens ion one could

Five - Metropolis 73

wish to encounter is p rovided by the tit le of Randall Smith's rev iew of the movie for Cinekkle­

sia: namely, " D ays of Future Past : Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis. " These words capture w i th

extraord inary clarity the film's procl ivity to imagine the future wi th reference to the v isual

attr ibutes of a past that is also imagined, i nsofar as factual ly accurate data i ncessantly coalesce w ith vis ionary speculation . With i ts Byzantine al loy of disparate tools and methodologies ,

Metropolis manages to come across as a s leek depiction of a hypothetical future , and yet exude the qu i rky charm of weathered documents and maps of the kind one would expect to d is­

cover in the dusty cab inet of a n ineteenth-century techno-vis ionary.

Tezuka's vis ion comes to resplendent fruit ion in Rintaro's movie , to a s ign ificant degree

thanks to h is own technological ly vis ionary fusion of cel an imation and eG I - as we shal l see i n some detail later in this chapter. Whi le Tezuka's imagery i n forms !'vfetropolis thro ugh­

out , no less insp i r ing an i nfluence wi l l certa inly have issued from the manga art ist's u n ique

composit ional rhetoric , and particu larly from his unpreceden ted abi l i ty to imbue h is stories

with a dynamism of veritably c inematographical orientat ion . This often rel ied, as Fred Pat­ten has emphasized, on a "flamboyant use of c inemat ic effects (close-ups , tracking shots ,

unusual camera angles )" (Patten 2002) . Tezuka's formal choice would have been regarded, up

until that po int , as utterly a l ien to the defin ing sty le ofJapanese comic books , where emphat­

ical ly stat ic and somewhat theatrical images tended to p revai l .

I n the film's opening sequence, the people of the c i ty of Metropol i s celebrate the com­

pletion o f their greatest accompl ishment to date , a gleaming and toweri ng structure named

the "Ziggurat" w i th reference to the Babylon /Babel myth, am idst glor ious sprays o f fi reworks ,

flurries of l ights and clamoring crowds . The Babylon /Babel mot if is someth ing of a cyber­punk obsess ion , and also features prominently in Rid ley Scott's Blade Runner ( 1 982 ) and

Mamoru Oshi i 's Patlabor 1 : The Mobile Police ( 1989) . Metropol is i s no technological Ede n ,

however . T h e lavishly staged glorification of mankind's sc ient ific a n d intel lectual excel lence

by means of which one is ushered into the world of Metropol i s is only a fl imsy, hubrist ical ly self-congratulatory fa<;ade . The megalopol i s itse lf appears to sp read cancer- l ike across the

screen at each turn of the camera , leav ing no spaces other than occas ional v iews of the sky

that are not overlaid wi th concrete , glass or chrome , or i nundated by a deluge of l u rid neon

l ights . Addit ional ly, the luxurious bui ld ings that regale the eye i n the opening scenes const i­tLne merely Metropol is's surface . I n the ci ty's underground areas , mi streated robot laborers

are grow ing dissatisfied w ith their dismal working condit ions , wh i le human workers rendered

redundant by the increas ing employment of automata to carry out the i r former tasks plan a

revo lut ion . The inhabi tants of the lower levels are not al lowed access to other zones : i t is made

blatantly clear r ight from the start that the punishment meted out to transgressors is i mme­

diate and ruth less execut ion .

Alrhough the Ziggurat is publ icly p resented as the zen i th of techno logical advancement ,

i t actually turns out to have been designed by the diabol ical Duke Red, a secret supporter o f t h e fascist ic ant i-robot cabal known a s t h e " Malduks," a s h is means of seizi ng power over the

enti re p lanet by harness i ng the energy of solar spots . In order to activate the mechan i sm guar­

anteed to secure h is technocratic dom inance, Duke Red needs the i ncorporation wi th i n the

Ziggurat's "Throne of Power" of a h ighly advanced humanoid . The cri m ina l sc ient ist and organ-trader Dr . Laughton is ins t ructed precisely to create such a being , in the cherub ic l i ke­ness of Duke Red's deceased daughter Tima . I f Duke Red is portrayed as the arch-v i l l ai n , i t shou ld be noted that Metropo l i s's p resident i s no less dev ious , p retending to back the Zig-

74 AN IME I NTERS ECTIONS

gurat project , yet pursu ing h is own selfish i nterests . (This topos wi l l be dealt with i n greater

detai l at a later stage in the discuss ion . ) I t i s up to the Japanese detective Shunsaku Ban i (who a lso features in Tezuka's Astro Boy

and Jungle Emperor Leo, and comes to Metropol is on Laughton's trai l ) , as wel l as to h i s u nex­pectedly val iant nephew Kenichi and to the robot PI Pero , to keep the c i ty - and conceiv­ably the globe - from annih i lation . Shunsaku Ban and Kenichi manage to p inpo int Laughton's locat ion in a poor , subterranean part of the city but are separated by a rag ing fire i n i t iated by Duke Red's adopted son , Rock , in order to destroy Tima and thus ensure that Duke Red h imself- and not a robot - wi l l finally control the Ziggurat's lethal core . At this po in t , the freshly sentient Tima pops naked into the world and meets Ken ich i - who qui te i nadvertently makes a fatefu l impress ion on the creatu re . The magnitude of Ken ichi 's impact on Tima's

syn thetic psyche is most po ignantly evoked, later in the fi lm , by the scene in which the g i rl ,

imprisoned i n one of the Ziggurat's stately chambers and total ly cut off from the world she has tentatively begun to grasp , scribbles Kenichi 's name in crayon over every s ingle portion of the room , m irrors inc luded .

When Tima eventual ly comes face to face with D uke Red and i s forced to real ize that

she is a robot and not a human l ike her beloved Kenich i and, worse s t i l l , not a dol l- l ike l i t ­

t le g i r l but a weapon of mass destruction , she must confront not only her p rivate drama but also her gr im ro le in the seemi ngly endless struggle between the human and the mach ine . As Tima discovers her true identity and function , Duke Red's "Tower of Babel" encounte rs the

same fate as i ts B ib l ical antecedent : erected so as to pierce the heavens and thus con fer div ine

powers to i ts intrepid architects, the Ziggurat eventual ly crumbles, bury ing beneath i ts rub­

ble the s i n ister vest iges of h u man arrogance and human fo l ly. Although Rock i s d i rectly

responsible for i n i t iat ing the Ziggurat's ann ih i lat ion by pressing the self-destruct button , i t i s

from Tima's decis ion to merge with the Throne of Power that Metropolis's apocalypt ic cu lmi­

nat ion takes i ts cue . The destruction of Duke Red's formidable ed ifice and, i f Tima were to

fu l ly accompl ish her goal , of humanity at large is tersely described by the h umanoid as "pun­

ishment for toyi ng w i th robots . "

Although the fi lm's pr incipal characters bear unden iable affini ties w i th Lang's or ig ina l

cast at the level of thei r structural functions in the overall dieges is , cruc ia l divergences ought a l so to be observed . As Laura Blackwel l maintains , "Vi l la inous Duke Red comes across as

more of a megalomaniac than Lang's co ld , but not i rredeemable , Fredersen . . . . Unl ike Lang's

wi tchy and wi l l ing Pandora-l ike Maria , Rintaro's chi ldl ike Tima refuses to be l ieve that she is

a robot - and when Tima unleashes her powers, i t 's through anger, not calcu lat ion . Aside from stock mad scientists , none of the other characters bear any resemblance to one another" (Blackwell) .

Luca Fava's comments on the relationsh ip between Rintaro's and Lang's fi lms strike anal­ogous chords : "Affini ties and points of contact between these two productions are not after

a l l that n umerous . . . . Lang gave h is work a very pol i t ical s lant and a less pess imist ic vis ion . . . .

Tezuka's [and hence Rintaro'sl work has in fact major points o f contact w i th productions l ike Blade Runner . . . and the recent AI (directed by Steven Spielberg [2001 ] ) ; of pr imary impor­tance is the search for ident i ty that animates the female p ro tagonist . " Ri ntaro's product ion does , however , pay gentle homage to its predecessor i n the early shot where ''the characters are s i tuated at the base of a gigantic statue represent ing the robot that comes to l i fe i n Lang's fi lm" (Fava 2002 ; my translation) .

Fille - Metropolis 75

Metropolis's p lot encompasses tradit ional mot ifs drawn from both Eastern and Western

contexts . The quest topos that i n forms Shunsaku Ban's and Ken ich i 's j ou rney to and across the futu rist ic city const i tu tes a cardina l component of Japanese mythology, whereas the fram­

ing of the adventure with reference to the codes and conventions of the c lass ic detect ive ta le echoes count less narratives popular in the West s i nce at least the e ighteenth century. Where

the fi lm's contemporary thematic relevance is concerned, i t could be argued that its art icula­tion of inveterate anxiet ies about technology's impact on both persona l and co l lect ive iden­

tit ies reRects specifically Japan's ongoing preoccupation with this i ssue s ince at least the Second

World War . However , i nsofar as the movie also addresses the subj ect with reference to rhetor­

ical formulae disseminated by cyberpunk fiction , i t undeniably reverberates with Western no less than with Eastern i nRuences .

On the whole, i t i s not Metropolis's storyl ine that makes i t the haunt ingly memorable

visual experience i t i s . Far more insttumental to the fi l m's radiant magnetism is i ts abi l i ty to

induce us to perceive i ts mult i - layered un iverse through the eyes of i ts various personae, as they themselves endeavor to make sense of their environment . Most effective , in this respect ,

is Rintaro's gradual absorption of the audience into the action and p rogressive reorientation

of its l ikely responses . We fi rst experience the sh im mering c i ty of Metropol i s through the eyes

of two characters who , l i ke us, are essential ly outsiders - Shunsaku Ban and Ken ichi - as they

marvel at the superficia l l ustre of the soaring megalopol i s . Once they find Dr . Laughton i n

the midst of a roar ing b laze , and Kenichi i s forced t o Ree i nt o the c i ty's d ingy depths with

the ethereal Tima at h i s s ide and the compassion less Rock at h i s hee l s , we are i ncremental ly

compelled to modify our in it ia l reactions to Metropol is's surface glamour , and recogn ize the ghastly real i ty upon which Duke Red's dream is actually erected.

Equally remarkable i s the scene in which Tima emerges i nto the human world with no

language and no memories at her disposal , and instantly latches onto Kenich i , the first per­

son she sees . In this scene , we are invited to perceive the world through both Tima's eyes , as

she struggles to decipher the s i tuat ion into which she has so suddenly and rather traumati­ca l ly surfaced, and Kenich i 's , as he in turn tr ies to grasp Ti ma's predicament and to imagine

what i t must be l ike to i nteract w ith others in the total absence of words .

Ult imately, no one character's perception of Metropol i s's rococo intr icacy can be taken as unproblematical ly dependable . I n Rintaro's fi lm , as in Lang's own Metropolis, any not ion

of certai nty i s categorical ly p recluded by the c i ty's sch izo id personal i ty. Once the above­

ground areas are exposed as a vacuous reverie by the dystopian real i ty of the underground

quarters, i t becomes pa infu l ly clear that Metropol is is essent ia l ly a gigantic pr ison cunningly

m isrepresented as a democracy. Relatedly, the fi lm invites us to ponder thorny quest ions con ­cern ing t h e nature of societal stabi l i ty, t h e price that both t h e disenfranchised a n d t h e m ighty

pay i n seeking to achieve that stabi l i ty through rad ical act ion , and the extent to which al l rev­o lutions final ly risk degenerati ng into shal low repet i t iveness i nstead of del iver ing genu ine change .

Concentric c i rcles of in iqu i ty and intrigue appear to define the munic ipal i ty's pol i t ical

fabric far more decis ively than any authentic quest for scientific and intel lectual advancement .

Thus , we see the p res ident pretending to buttress the revo lutionary labor movement , p rom­i s ing that the workers wi l l receive the recognit ion they deserve once Duke Red has been declared gu i l ty of t reason and duly apprehended . The mi l i ta ry, for thei r part , fe ign support

for the president's pol ic ies (and, by impl ication , for the insurgents' cause) agai nst Duke Red .

76 AN IME INTERSECTIONS

Yet , both the p resident and his second- in -command are co ldbloodedly assass i nated by the

army, and the revo lut ionaries themselves are subsequently caught i n a lethal trap by the same party. We are thus rem inded - as M ike P insky puts i t - that i f, on one level , "a revolu t ion"

const i tu tes "a moving forward, a progress ion , " on another level , i t des ignates "a c i rcl e . The more th ings change , the more they remain the same . Duke Red is j us t as corrupt as the p res­

ident he seeks to topp le . The social revo lu tions tr igger frenzied backlash (the i mages of bod­

ies i n the snow rem i n iscent of the Cossack assau l t in Doctor Zhivago [dir . David Lea n , 1 9 6 5 ] ) "

(P insky 2002b) .

I ronical ly, the paint ing adorn i ng the most opulent of the presidential palace's many sp len­did chambers is a repl ica of Eugene Delacro ix's "La Liberte guidant Ie peuple" ( "Liberty lead­ing the People , " 1 830) . This iconic picture's d ist inct ive rhetoric is later echoed by a shot

dep ict ing the charismatic revo lut ionary Atlas in the act of inc i t ing h is comrades aga i nst the

robots through the styl ized captu re of a quintessent ial ly heroic pose . Whereas Delacro ix , a

genu inely Romantic art ist , tends to subl imate the horrors of the bloodshed depicted i nto an

electrifying vis ion of bravery and fervor , Rintaro's outlook is i n im ical to ep ic ideal izat ion and

chooses i ns tead to foregtound the sorrowful atmosphere of discomfiture s u rround ing the

betrayal of the insurgents . As Patten has noted, "the empty square wi th the scuffed snow cov­

ered in what looks l i ke thousands of footprints" resu l t ing from the "fa i led ant i - robot upr is­

ing" p rovides one of the ent i re movie's most touch ingly i ndel ib le memories (Patten 2002) .

On the whole , it is a wonder that an animated work predicated upon as bleak a po l i t ica l m es­

sage as Metropolis i s should y ie ld as much sensory pleasure and emi t so l um inous an au ra as

Rintaro's film does. I t is arguably i ts stand ing as a sheer labor of love that enables Metropolis

to de l iver so p riceless a gift .

What is i ns tantly evident upon encountering Metropolis, even i f o n e is not fami l iar w ith

the actual techn iques implemented by Rintaro's troupe , is tha t the computer-generated ele­

ment is consistent ly offset by eminently hand-drawn and styl ized character des igns . The char­acters are based not only on Tezuka's ind igenous d rawings but also on Western types such as Otto Messmer/Pat Sul l ivan's I�el ix the Cat , Winsor McCay's Litt le Nemo, Max Fleischer's Koko

the Clown and Berge 's Tin Tin . After al l , Tezuka's own style was shaped to a considerable

extent by h is exposu re to Western influences, Disney inc luded . Some spectators may find the j uxtaposition of photoreal ist ical ly rendered backgrounds

and overtly flat , hand-drawn , and not i nfrequently caricatural character des igns u nsett l i ng .

Yet , i t i s th rough th i s very strategy that Rintaro conveys h is aesthet ic v is ion most v i gorously.

Were Metropolis's ent i re look u n i formly photoreal i s t ic , aud iences m ight become total l y absorbed in i t s colorfu l feast of minutely real ized graphics . B y reta in ing a styl ized compo­

nent , the film defami l iarizes what could otherwise be taken as rea l i ty, compell i ng its v iewers to app reciate the ani me's i ntr ins ic madeness and - having thus distanced themselves from the

p icture - to reflect upon Metropolis's ethical impl ications . The ma intenance of overt ly car­toonish character e lements could therefore be regarded as e l l ipt ical ly analogous to the use o f

sat ir ical cartoons a n d comic str ips in newspapers a n d magazines .

Moreover , wi th in the cast of hand-crafted personae un leashed by the penci ls and brushes of !vfetropolis's creators , various levels of stylization can be observed . In the design of both Ken ichi and Shunsaku , one can im mediately recogn ize the defin ing traits of Tezuka's own graphic s ignature and penchant for somatic styl ization . Whereas Rock and Tima also ev i nce styl ized attr ibutes, the i r designs tend to exh ib i t greater degrees of real i sm . This is somewhat

Five - Metropolis 77

paradoxical , considering that both of these characters' appearances embody the visual codes

and conventions of dramatic types so sol idly enshri ned in the domain of an imat ion as to verge on the stereotypica l : the "cool" bad guy in Rock's case , and the dol l - l ike "cutie" in Tima's .

Nevertheless, the two characters are endowed w ith h ighly imaginat ive forms of body language

that im part a fee l ing of al iveness to their ent ire being - i nc lud ing , and at t imes even pr ior i ­

t izi ng , the hair - and wi th exceptional facial flex ib i l i ty. These factors serve to i nvest the ir actions with natural ist ic v i ta l i ty.

Furthermore , both Tima's and Rock's patterns of motion and express ions gradual ly alter

i n accordance wi th the decreas ing or increas ing degrees of power attr ibu ted to them by the

unfolding of events . Rock moves from a posit ion of authori ty, which he boldly declares through

each of h is d is t inctive gestures and postures , to a madden ing recogn i t ion o f the vacuousness

of h is claims to power . What remains a constant throughout , however , is Rock's ab i l i ty to

perform al l manner o f blood-curd l ing actions - includ ing , eventual ly, the material destruc­

t ion of the Ziggurat i tse lf- with undi l utedly serene conv ict ion and a gen u inely man iacal

s ingle-mi ndedness . Tima , conversely, develops from a vulnerable puppet i nto a creature o f

preternatural strength, capable of wreaking havoc o n Duke Red's spur ious empi re - and, b y

allegor ical impl ication , on the insanely preposterous heights to which h uman arrogance asp i res .

As far as Rock is concerned, i t i s a l so noteworthy that th i s character , l ike several of

Metropolis's support ing personae, has been l i fted from yet another comic book p roduced by

Tezuka . Rock or ig inal ly featured in Shounen Tantei Rock Home ( "Boy Detect ive Rock Home,"

a Sherlock Holmes-i nspired spoof) . Desp i te Rock's ostensibly self-possessed and imperturbable personal i ty, i t i s not hard to sense, s immering at al l t imes beneath the veneer o f the athlet i­ca l ly styl ish youth , a heady brew of anger, hatred and sorrow. No matter how cal lous ly and

unceremonio usly D u ke Red rem i nds the boy that Rock i s not h i s rea l son bu t merely an

orphan for whom he has p rovided shelter (and an especia l ly nasty job as head o f secur i ty) ,

Rock pathetically goes on hoping that by h is "noble" actions he wi l l one day w in the older

man's hear t . When evaluated agai nst this backdrop , the vic ious acts of bruta l i ty he rout inely

performs become, i f not exactly pardonable , at least understandable .

I ron ical ly, some of the most poignantly human express ions to be detected i n the whole

of Metropolis's exuberantly woven texture are accorded to Tima the automaton . Accord ing to

Smith , this aspect of the angel ic robot's characterization is p ivotal to a broader message com­

municated ass iduously by the fi lm in its ent irety : "There are plenty of moments where Kenich i

and Tima seem merely swept a long by whatever activ i ty is happen ing i n the i r v ic in i ty. And

yet those moments of contemplative st i l l ness and i nert ia often serve to a l low us to see Tima as charmingly - indeed, occas ionally gloriously - human i n her experience of the world around

her , learn ing and l iv ing richly even i n the d i r ty corners of Metropol is" (Smith) .

As far as the fi lm's methods of characterizat ion are concerned, i t is also vi tal to rea l ize

that the dichotomy between the h ighly sty l ized and the more natural ist ical ly portrayed per­sonae i s far from absolute . Thus, i t is not u ncommon for even a grotesquely caricatured actor to disp lay, occas ional ly, an i ntensely real ist ic detai l . An especial ly arres t ing ins tance i s offered

by the shots in which Duke Red first looks upon the nearly completed Tima s imulacrum i n

D r . Laughton's laboratory. The v i l l a in's mien is here a s typical ly cartoonish a s anywhere else

in the movie . However , the extreme close-ups focusing on his captivated eyes (first the left

one only in profile , and then both i n frontal view) str ike potently real ist ic chords . Even though these i mages occupy no more than a few seconds of screen t ime , they indeed succeed i n com -

78 AN I M E I NTERSECTIONS

mun icat ing an unholy brew of sheer fascination with the rogue scientist's work, wi s tfll l a ttach­ment to the departed flesh-and-bone ch i ld , and an al l -consuming thi rst for power .

These moments are a lso im portant insofar as they consti tute a rep resentat ive ins tance of

a styl ist ic tendency to be observed throughout Metropolis. Wh ile i t is unden iab le that eyes

hold pride of p lace in the medium of anime at la rge , Rintaro's fi lm could be said to launch

their role into the visual stratosphere . I n countless shots where only few and very per iphera l

facial modulat ions occu r , the eyes invariably come to the fore as the privi leged means o f cap­

tur ing and conveying a plethora of complex emotions . On such occas ions , the myriad poly­chromatic s l ivers of l ight flooding the i rises stunningly mediate between the characters' inner

worlds and the external domains of both the i r c inematic env i ronment and the audience's own space . To this extent , Metropolis fully corroborates Richa rd Wil l iams's contention that "ou r

eyes a re extremely expressive a n d w e frequently commun icate w i t h o ur eyes a lone . We can

often tel l the story j ust with the eyes" (Wil l iams, R. , p. 326) . Rock's eyes , s ign ificantly, a re

sh ie lded by fashionable shades for most of the action , becoming exposed when h i s fortunes

h i t their nadir - for example , when Duke Red first exposes h i s decept ion and then agai n i n

the c l imax , when his final effort t o destroy Tima i s bru tal ly vanquished . The h id ing of ocu­

la r express iveness is a s ign ificant personal ity indicator , suggest ing that what is be ing occluded

i s not merely a p hys ica l attr ibute but a deep-seated affective real i ty . .

With the more overt ly cartoon ish personae , styl ized somatic at t r ibutes tend to go hand

i n hand with an emphatically formulaic body language rel iant on (at t imes i ntent ional ly far­

cical) exaggeration and overextension . This is most b latant in the case wi th Dr . Laugh ton ,

whose movements i nva riably ev ince what pract it ioners refer t o a s "twinn ing" : that i s t o say, total symmetry i n the art iculat ion of the arms and hands . This kind of body language may

come across as u n real i st ic at first s igh t . Nonetheless, as Wi l l iams aptly remarks , it is not

uncommon for real people to move i n such a fashion - part icularly, when they are forcibly str iv ing to sel l a story and convince their audience of its credib i l i ty. This is p recisely what the scientist is doing as he endeavors to have Duke Red bel ieve that Tima is not yet ready fo r ful l activat ion so that he may run away with his p recious creation instead o f yield ing her to the

com m ission ing patron . "Just watch any pol i t ician , preacher , o r l eader of whatever , o r expert

on televis ion , " Wil l iams u rges . "When they're laying down the law their arms and hands w i l l

twi n symmetrical ly" (Wil l iams , R . , p. 324) .

Moving from character an imation to Metropolis's broader techn ical const i tut ion , i t must

first be stressed that Rintaro and h is team di l igently sought to p reserve the dis t inct ively "soft"

look of Tezuka's or iginal draw ings even as they progressively implemented the la test digi tal

tools. Hand-executed and computer-generated images were accord ingly i ntegrated in several

ways . All of the fil m's scenery was shot with 3D computer graph ics, aga inst which conven­

t ional ly an imated characters where then superimposed. I n elaborat i n g th i s ground-breaking

methodology over the five years of the film's p roduction , Rintaro found that i t d id not , after

a l l , d iffer substantial ly from trad it ional processes when i t came to elbow grease : towards the

end, the d i rector h i mself had to lend a hand i n the appl ication o f digi tal paint to cel s . The

sheer volume of work entailed by this particular aspect of the fi lm's execut ion is instantly ev i ­

dent when one considers that each cel takes about two hours to paint , that each second of

screen t ime consists of24 cels and that Metropolis eventually comprised approximately 150 ,000

drawings . The experience mus t , to some extent , have reminded Rintaro of h is salad days in

the industry, as descr ibed i n th is passage : " I have many fond memories o f wo rk ing with

Five - Metropolis 79

Tezuka, but my s trongest memory concerns the very first episode of Astro Boy. When we cre­ated it , neither Tezuka nor I had any experience making a manga i nto a TV show . . . . I t was a really tough t ime figuring out how to do TV animation , but the people and a l l the staff were

very enthusiastic . That sp i r i t i tse lf is a fond memory, too" (Rintaro 2002b) .

Mesmerizingly in tricate as the visuals del ivered by the final product su rely are , readers

in terested i n the i r met icu lous ly hand-execu ted or ig ins are warmly advised to con su l t the

exhaustive "Archi tectures" sect ion inc luded i n the companion to the film edi ted by Koichi

Numata , Metropolis: The Jvfovie Memoir. I t is i n these drawi ngs that the team's commi tment

shines forth most unambiguously in the form of black-and-white urban plans composed of

thousands of t i ny l ines and geometric patterns . Some particula rly complex sequences such as the ones depicting the churning and whi rring

wheels of Metropol is's i nnermost workings consist of numerous CG layers, on top of which the human characters were manually drawn in order to evoke an impression of depth and width that

could not have been achieved by means of entirely digital composites . In other sequences, such

as the ones displaying panoramic surveys of the city's various zones, Rintaro's team sought to

evoke a cumulatively hand-drawn look but ach ieved this objective , paradoxically, by adopting

digital 3D polygons as their starting point . Cel artists would then add colors manual ly to those CG skeletons to endow them with textural density and warmth . The manually added hues would subsequently be removed from the polygonal primaries, digital ly p rocessed and put back into the

images . This p rocess secured both the picture's retention of an artisanal feel and i ts overal l con­sistency. I ndeed, once a palette created by a cel artist has been digitally processed, i t can be saved

in an appropriate computer l ibrary and reutil ized countless t imes without any risks of deterio­ration or incongruousness arising in the course of the production.

Key to Rintaro's m iss ion , in h is commitment to the p reservat ion of a cel- l ike mood, was

the execution of CG obj ects upon which tradit ional graph ics were then manual ly drawn . The

d i rector has described the p rocess as fol lows :

The most d ifficul t th ing in terms of comhining cel animat ion and digi tal images was that , when you mix these two elemems, the d ig i tal part i s inev itably going to st and out. So the biggest chal lenge for me was !O real ly blend t hese two d ifferent cornponcms together so they wouldn't figh t each other w i th in the frame. r cal l t h i s process "detachment , " and i t's bas ically creating the images by computer and then, once you finish the process , actual ly hand -draw ing over them to give them less of a eG l look and bring them c loser to cel animation qual i t y. So essent ial ly the hardest part of making this film was creat ing the eGI and then bringing i t back closer to the qual i ty of cel animation (Rintaro 2002bj .

Rintaro grew so pass ionate about this approach that he would often sketch l i nes d i rectly over

the digital an imato rs' comp uter screens with a Magic Marker atop the CG i mages there dis­played . ( Unsurpr is ingly, this requ i red the appl ication of very generous amounts of benzine to the moni tors so flamboyantly embro idered . )

The director ha s qu i te unequ ivocal ly described h is att i tude towards, and art ist ic assess­

ment of, digi tal technology in an interview aired at the time of Metropolis's domestic release : "The advantage of us ing CG is defin i tely the wide range of express ion . . . . I want to approach the dig i tal tools from the standpo int of how they could be ut i l ized to complement what I can­not express w i th what I have accumulated ove r my last forty years in cel an imation . I v iew

digital techn iques as noth ing more than tools . . . . I n stead of lean ing towards digi tal an imat ion I would rather forcefu l ly br ing digital techn iques to our analogue s ide . I t m ight i nvolve a change in the concept of d ig i tal tools but I th ink such an approach is also poss ib le" (Ri ntaro 2003) .

80 AN IME I NTERS ECTIONS

Elsewhere , asked what he thought of entirely digital productions such as Toy Story (d i r .

John Lasseter, 1995) and Shrek (d i r s . Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenso n , 2001 ) , Rintaro

riposted : "As a movie fan , I 'm very interested in them. As a di rector , I have absolutely no i nte rest in making such a fi lm . For many years , i t 's a l l been done with 'pr im itive' cel an ima­

t ion , but I have no des i re to completely leave that beh ind . Computers are very conven ient ,

and I l ike us ing them i n combination wi th tradi t ional an imation , but only as a too l to m ake

better qual i ty fi lms , and not as the foundation . " With character ist ical ly disarming honesty,

he then suggested that although Metropolis is his most dexterous p roduction to date , there

remains cop ious room for improvement : 'Tm satisfied with abour 90% of the fi lm . . . . The

remain ing 10% is the chal lenge of maki ng my next fi lm" (Rintaro 2001 ) . Rintaro's in tegrat ion of tradi t ional and i nnovative techn iques paral le ls throughout h i s

themat ic emphasis on the i nterpenetrat ion of the o ld and the new. Thus , as P i nsky has

observed, he i s concurrently capable of "fashioning a world of scratchy propaganda fi lms , d ia l

telephones, and zeppel ins whi l e h int ing at andro ids and i nternets un imagined i n the j azz age , "

and of fus ing "new i mages l i ke holographic aquariums" with "old techniques l ike i r i s trans i­

t ions to make the film always seem both fresh and fami l iar" (P insky 2002b) .

I n endeavor ing to repl icate Tezuka's world, Rintaro and his col leagues faced two major

chal lenges posed by part icular aspects of the manga artist's u n ique s ignature : namely, the rep­

resentation of a densely populated urbanscape seasoned by both use and s t r ife , and the recur­rent placement there in of large-scale crowd scenes seeth ing with discordant energies . The

accompl ishment of those visual feats would have been p roh ib i t ively arduous had the an ima­

tors been deal ing with hefty stacks of ce l s . The combi nat ion of analogue and digi ta l tech­n iques, though a dev i l ish procedure in i ts own right , enabled the team to create complex scenes

in such a fash ion that the final outcome divulges no obvious to i l . Addit ional ly, the charac­

teristic atmosphere of those scenes gains considerably, as J . Hoberman has noted, fro m the

production team's abi l i ty to "not only compose images in terms o f shadows , reflect ions , and

camera angles but also take care to dist inguish variet ies of l ight - the glow ing n eon s ignage

has an ent i rely different qual i ty from that of the candy-colored l iv ing b i l l boards" (Hober­

man) .

As consonant with 1ezuka's style as the atmospheric capture of mob scenes and the i r set­

t ings is a punct i l ious dedicat ion to detai ls i n the ren dit ion of ostensibly per ipheral actions .

Roger Ebert econom ical ly exp resses th is idea by c i t ing the fol lowing i l l ustrative example :

"There is a scene where an o ld man consults a book of occu l t lore . He opens i t and starts to

read . A page fl ips over . He fl ips i t back in place . Consider ing that every act ion i n an an i ­

mated fi lm requ i res thousands of draw ings, a moment l ike the page fl ip m ight seem unnec­

essary, but a l l through the movie we get l i tt le touches l i ke that" (Ebert 2002) . The harmonization of cel an imation and CG I evi nced by Metropolis is unp recedentedly

sophist icated . Nevertheless , there are times when the two modal i t i es a re contrasted, rather than seamlessly blended together, for thematic purposes . Thus, the port ions of the c i ty i nhab­

i ted by the workers , representative of the Industrial Age and hence o f p re-digi tal technology, are depicted p redominantly by recourse to tradit ional techn iques, whereas the upper-crust

areas, representat ive of state-of-the-art cybertechnology, are rendered by p rinc ipal ly d igita l means . Th i s styl is t ic j uxtaposi t ion concisely captu res the thematic c lash between the p ro le­

tar ia t and the despotic ru lers by reference to the technologies pert inent to each s ide . At the same t ime , i t tends to associate the subterranean zones with warm , breath ing human i ty, and

Five - Metropolis 8 1

the above-ground ones with a tone o f aseptic s l ickness, thus mi rroring the d ifferent effects

often associated with cel an imation and CGI respectively. What is u l t imately most memorabl e about Metropolis's rel iance on computer-generated

visual and special effects is their unobtrus iveness . Rintaro and h is team dep loy the digital tools

and tech niques at thei r disposal so flawlessly and seamlessly that audiences often forget that

many of the images with which they are p resented indeed fal l into the category o f "effects . "

When the fi lmic space's geometrical coordinates twis t , condense a n d bend, for example , the

eye is l i terally sucked i nto the perspectival vortex . The overal l mood is undoubtedly enhanced

by the movie's rare ab i l i ty to come across as both viscera l and cerebral at once, combin ing an

i nte l l igent story l ine with some s tunn ing production designs . In an age where the science­fict ion film gen re o ften appears to have been dumbed down to a vap id spectacle of clamorous

explosions and sensational morphs, Metropolis asserts itself as a genuinely inspired and thought­

ful accomplishment .

No l ess dist inct ive than his take on the integration of cel an imation and CGI is Rintaro's

approach to c inematography at the i nterrelated l evels of camera work , edi t ing , choreography

and mise en scene. His overall d irection is fast-paced, sustai n ing a suspensefu l momentum and

periodical ly departing from the story i n order to draw attention to the visual spectacle i tself.

Even at such moments of heightened self-reflexivity, however , Rintaro eschews p retentious­ness by recourse to a s ingular sense of h umor and the determinat ion not to dwel l too p ro­

tractedly on any one fi lm ic e lement . I n this regard, h is t im ing is ind isputably fau l tless . I n

addi tion , Rintaro's camera shows a p redi lection for arriv ing at a sho t obl iquely, d ipp ing and

swerv ing along the vert iginous surfaces of Metropol is's intricate framework, and hence dis­

clos ing the scenery's contents from unpredictable angles . Fava's observations regard ing Rin ­

taro's c inematograph ical style deserve special considerat ion i n this context : "The layout and

framing cho ices are truly excel lent : one sh ifts from very long takes to extreme close-ups, at t imes warm and capable of conveying a fee l ing of int imacy in the dialogue between charac­ters, at t imes merci lessly prob ing , somewhat suffocating . The camera moves are exceedingly

fluid, complex , capable o f giving the viewer the exact emotion which the moment seeks to

com municate" (Fava 2002 ; my translation) .

Furthermore , Metropolis is made c inematographical ly un ique by i ts ab i l i ty to evoke wel l ­

tested narrative formulae put i n place b y cyberpunk fiction , a n d yet both l o o k and sound p ro­

foundly different from prior cogitations on the relat ionship between humanity and technology.

The film's dominant Art Deco style , which it shares with the or ig inal Metropolis, is largely

responsible for its aesthetic individual i ty. No audience cou ld ever confuse Rintaro's movie's subt ly understated automata wi th the ostentatious mecha that people so many an ime series .

Equally vital to the movie's overal l atmosphere is i ts handl ing of the musical d imension . I f

Metropolis's prismatic and d isorient ingly engross ing arch i tecture i s s o central an aspect o f the

fi lm as to operate as a composi te character in its own r igh t , no less determin ing a facet o f the production's formal identity l ies with Tosh iyuki Honda's soundt rack , an insp i red accom pa­

niment pervaded by the un ique energy of D ixieland jazz . Joe Primrose's "Sr . James's I nfirmary" is accorded a structural ly central ro le within the overal l soundtrack , i ts theme both repr is ing

and presaging the hero ine's fate . It is not a su rp rise to see Metropolis cl imax with a large-scale cataclysmic sequence ,

g iven i ts thematic and gener ic aHil iat ions to the dys top ian tale and the caut ionary sc i-fi adventure . What does come as a su rp rise - and a tantal iz ingly welcome one , i n fact - is the

8 2 AN I M E I N TERS ECTI ONS

acoustic backdrop chosen for the sequence's grand crescendo . Fol lowing the p regnant moment of s i lence co inc id ing with the detonat ion of the Ziggurat's control room , the b i ttersweet

vers ion of the Ray Charles ballad "I Can't S top Loving You" unexpectedly fi l l s the a i r . The

song supp l ies a disturbi ngly i ron ical cou nterpart to the visuals as i t accompanies the Ziggu ­

rat's spectacu lar col lapse from begi nning to end, r is ing and fal l i ng l ike a huge wave whi le

cou ntless port ions of the once formidable s tructure i n turn soar o r cascade through the sky.

Whether the soundtrack harmoniously coalesces with the flow of the an imation or else

del iberately j a rs with i ts thematic import (as in the finale) , sOllnd and action are so thorough ly i ntegrated throughout the ent i re filmic experience as to appear to emanate from each other . Metropolis accordingly yie lds a un iverse of melod ies born of motion , and of acts born of music .

The characters' movements, as a corol la ry, come to resemble a seamlessly choreographed dance

even as they reach their most frenzied and turbulent p i tch . One is natura l ly reminded, even

after j ust a couple of v iewings , of the c l imactic couplet from W B. Yeats's "Among School

Chi ldren" ( 1927) :

o body swayed to mus ic , 0 brighten ing glance , How can we know the dancer from the d ance?

In the movie's c l i max , as Metropo l is's gl itzy upper levels dis i ntegrate w i th a paradoxi ­cally bal let ic e legance , Rintaro's message finds i ts most potent material izat ion . The c l imact ic

sequences indeed mark the apotheosis of the director's bold handl ing of archi tectme , pe rspec­

tive , geometry and, u l t imately, the very concept of cinematic space . The ending thus fitt ingly

completes the m iss ion undertaken by Metropolis in i ts ent irety : namely, the del ivery of a dis­

t inct ive imaginary rea lm that is at once novel and embedded in trad i t ion . Specifical ly, even

as the fi lm exper iments adventurously with markedly innovative techn iques, it si multaneously

reaches back i nto a protracted developmental curve whose or ig in can be traced back to the very dawn of c inem a .

The ideat ion of imaginary worlds has indeed always been o n e of t h e med ium's p r imary

obj ectives r ight from i ts i nception and animatio n , i n part icu lar , has contr ibuted un iquely

to th i s quest by cap i ta l iz ing on its p roverb ial disengagement from the l aws of phys ics . Var­ious sem inal moments in early film h istory bear w itness to the incremental e laborat ion of

an aesthetic of the c inemat ic realm as a space sui generis rather than an anc i l lary im i tat ion

of materia l rea l i ty. What such an aesthetic entai l s , fi r s t and fo remost , i s an apprec ia t ion of the technological d imension of ar t , on the one hand , and of the ar t i s t i c d i mens ion o f technology, on the other - for ci nema i s obvious ly a n art b u t a l so , more exp l ic i t ly than

other arts , a technology. Ani mation , in tu rn , is more po intedly a tech nology than o ther c in­

emat i c forms i nsofar a s i t is under no obl igat ion to take real - l i fe referents at i t s po ints of departure and can therefore manufacture enti re un iverses p ractical ly fro m scratch . With the advent of digi tal technology, this power has been incrementa l ly augmented - as e loquently

borne out not on ly by Metropolis but a lso by several other product ions examined i n th i s

book . There is a w idespread tendency to associate technology wi th the appl icat ion of sc ient ific

findi ngs and w i th rat ional and measurable environments . This somewhat stereotypical u n der­stan ding of tech nology does not adequately take i nto consideration i ts etymology : the Greek word teclme, namely "art . " Acknowledging this l ink means hav ing to reconsider the re lat ion-

Five - Metropolis 83

sh ip between art and tech nology. F i rstly, if tech nology is in some ways art , it cannot be l i nked exclus ively to the rat i onal , the measu rable and the demonstrable : e lements of i maginat ion and fantasy enter its equations and these relate i t to the rea lm of storytel l i ng . Secondly, the art

underly ing technology does not merely refer to the p roduction of objects such as narrat ives,

paint ings or bui ldi ngs . Tecime a l l udes to product ion and construction in genera l : the making

of someth ing out of the raw materia ls suppl ied by either nature or the imaginat ion or both .

This read ing has p ro found repercussions for our grasp of art and shows that art i s , in many

ways , technological : i t p roduces images of people and worlds (both materia l and incorporeal) .

Tech nology, i n turn , refers not merely to an apparatus of scient ific practices and appl icat ions but also to a set of discourses through which subjects are regimented and fashioned. There­fore , tech nology is i nformed by art , i nsofar as i t is an a rt ist ic p ractice, and art i s i n formed by

tech nology because construction is i ts fundamental purpose .

Conceptions and representations of space in fi lm are based on an intimate bond between

the artistic and technological dimensions of architectu re that brings creative vision and techn i­cal expertise int imately together. Although the coalescence of tradit ional hand-drawn visuals and

cutting-edge digital tools is the specific issue with which th is analysis is concerned, i t is also cru­

cial to acknowledge that the dialogue between cinema and architecture has a long h istory. I ndeed,

it has been evolving s ince the 1920s through a plethora of films engaged in the representation of the modern city as both a metaphor for social reality and as a means of speculating about pos­

sible futures . Thus, images of urban arch itectu re in c i nema have increas ingly come to stand for

concurrently actual and virtual embodi ments of phi losophical questions regarding our place i n

the world - the ways in which our cultural identi ties are defined by the spatia l coordina tes within which we come to be situated through choice, enablement , coercion or prohibit ion.

Rintaro's Metropolis stands out as one of the most tantal iz ing attempts , in recent years ,

to art iculate a complex u rbanscape by means of diverse an i mational st rategies i n order to

draw attention to , and reflect u pon , those very quest ions . G iven the fi l m's connection wi th an u ndisputed masterp i ece of 1920s l ive-action c i nema, i t seems appos i te to contextual ize Rintaro's own enterp r ise w i th reference to other vo i ces from the same per iod . 2 The imagi­

native potent ia l of sus ta ined encounters between fi lm and a rch i tectu re was vividly grasped

by Vi rgi n i a Woo l f i n the m id-I920s whe n , comment ing specifica l ly on Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari ( 1920) , she remarked enthus iast ical ly that the new mediu m

had the capaci ty t o conj u re up a "dream architecture of a rches a n d batt lements , of cascades

fal l i ng and fo untai n s r i s i ng , which somet imes v i s i ts us in s leep or shapes i t se lf in ha l f­darkened rooms . No fantasy could be roo farfetched or i nsubstant ia l" (Woolf, p. 86) . Woo lf was here a l l ud ing to c inema's poss ib ly u nr ival led capab i l i t ies i n the evoca t ion of space .

The magic of c inematic sets is arguably most bewitching when arch itectural s tructures are

purpose-bui l t fo r a specific movie , for it is at that po i nt that genu inely new o r a l ternat ive

worlds come into bei ng and fantas ies are given tangible incarnation . It i s in such cases, more­ove r , that we may become aware of fantasy as someth ing far more profound than sheer escap i s m : namely, as a commell tary upon , and imagi native extens ion o f, cu l tural and ph i lo­

soph ical p reoccupat ions that a re very real i ndeed . Rintaro's Metropolis engages i n precisely such a miss ion by choos ing to harness a fantasy-driven adventure ro the fathoming o f ex is­tential puzzles .

The i ntersect ion o f c inema and architecture is a phenomenon that partakes at once of actual i ty and fantasy, real i ty and vir tua l i ty. I ndeed, as Anthony Vidler has observed, whi le

8 4 AN I M E I NTERSECTIONS

archi tectu re i s a "fundamental s i te of fi lm p ractice , the indispensable real and ideal matr ix o f

the fi lmic imaginary, " fi lm i s , in turn , a unique "art of space" evolv ing from a v is ionary "fusion of space and t ime" (Vidler , p . 14) . Nowhere do these hypotheses come more fu l ly to fru i t ion

than in the art of an imation , where space is not only constructed i ndependently of empi rical

constraints but also deployed as a fru i tfu l meeti ng po int for the actual and the imaginary.

What an an imated mov ie of Metropolis's cal iber corroborates, moreover , i s c inema's ab i l i ty to

harness arch itecture's flamboyant al iveness to the elaboration of susta ined ideological specu­

lat ion . As a resu l t , Ebert p roposes, "The city in this movie i s not s imply a backdrop o r a loca­

t ion , but one of those movie p laces that colon ize our memory" (Ebert 2002) .

Lively exchanges concerning the formulation of a specifically fi lmic architecture were

insp i red, in the 1920s , by the Bauhaus Movement flour i sh ing in the context of Wei mar Ger­

many. Emphasis was consistently placed on the aesthetic specificity of arch i tectu ral s tructu res

del iberately designed for c inema . F. Kaufmann , for example , enth us iast ica l ly advocated the

necessity of breaking set des ign free from purely decorative requ i rements and of transform­

ing i t in to an autonomous art : "Why not bui ld rooms, corners, o r even a s i ngle wal l , which , thanks to i t s imple disposit ion , is genu ine arch i tectu ral art ?" he earnestly asked . I n contrast

with "the gilt plaster frame of current practice" in the 1920s, Kaufmann commended an unpre­

tentious and styl ized approach that used set design as a "refined woodwork that accentuates the p icture by the s implest means," thus fu l ly espous ing the Bauhaus ethos . The evocat ion of

a dist inct ive "atmosphere , " he argued, requ i res "the str ictest abstract ion" as wel l as "complete

i mmersion in the material" (Kaufmann , p. 1 82) .

Although there are several moments in Metropolis where the sett ings are so voluptu ously

saturated with detai ls as to seemingly exclude the possib i l i ty of styl ized refinement , let a lone

abstract ion , carefu l i nspection of the i r overal l composi t ion demonst rates that Rintaro's com­

mi tment to the captu re of a part icular mood does not rely on sheer o rnamentation but rather

on a keen understanding of the underlyi ng pr inc ip les of architecture as an art and as a l an­guage . Furthermore , i t i s not merely through the display of eye-catch ing materia ls and tex­

tu res - such as pol ished marble and sensuous brocade - but also , no less s ign ificantly, th rough

an affect ionate focus on s imp le images - flagstones, t i l es , ra i l i ngs , p ipes , gears - that the

movie's overall sense of space declares itself, cap i ta l iz ing on a mosaic of i ndiv idual ly crafted

minutiae over and above the expl ic i rly spectacular sequences .

Like Kaufmann , Paul Leni advanced the c la im to art ist ic autonomy whi le embrac ing a

Bauhaus- insp i red formal i sm. He maintained that the "set designer" should not be "cons id­

ered a craftsman's ass istant i n the s tudio , but an independently creat ive ar t i s t whose cont r i ­but ion is essent ial to l end a fi lm i ts characterist ic styl e . The a im and pur p ose of architectu re

in fi lm are based on this att i tude that the fi lm should not be a mere photograph ic im i tation of rea l i ty, but must have its own style" (Len i , p. 1 8 8) . Rintaro's ec lect ic fus ion o f myriad sty­l ist ic motifs with a ludic disregard for documentary accu racy could be seen as an apt i ncar­nat ion of Leni 's aesthet ic goal .

However , i t is thanks to a methodic approach to the space of Metropolis as a ho l is t ic

ent i ty rather than an aggregate of randomly coexist ing fragments that the d i rector has suc­

ceeded in creat ing an eminenrly cohesive ensemble . I n this respect , h is v is ion echoes the v iews

of another i nfluent ia l crit ic from the era in which the first Metropolis was p roduced, He in r ich de Fries . Stress ing the i mportance of configu r ing fi lmic space in relat ion to the overal l movie ,

de Fries argued that locations should not be conceived of i n terms of i ndiv idual frames but

Five-Metropolis 8 5

a s "the whole course of t h e act ion , a sequence of states, hence a sequence of p ictures, utter ly

al ive" (de Fries , p. 184) . Taking ful l advantage of an imat ion's unparal le led freedom , Rintaro and h i s col laborators have not only communicated this sense of v i ta l i ty wi th occas ional ly uncanny zest but a lso imp l ic i tly disseminated a discreet man i festo concern ing the relat ion­

sh ip between their med ium and the rea lm of actual bu i l t space . Metropolis's mise en sce ne indeed reminds us of an extremely s imple , yet o ften overlooked,

aspect of cinematic archi tecture : namely, the fact that bu i ld ing for a fi l m (and especia l ly an

an imated one) is not a s imulat ion of real bui ld ing but actual ly an i ndependent art . Thi s i s

because what the fi lmmakers are concerned w ith is solely and strict ly what affects the movie

by means of des ign , and design can only be adequately addressed from the point o f v iew of film , not from that of rea l - l i fe arch itecture . Whatever con figurat ion of bu i l t space exists - or could exist - "out there" i s u l t imately i rrelevant to c inema : what nutters is the i nternal coher­

ence of the space constructed for the conti ngent purposes of a movie - i n other words, i ts

effectiveness in relat ion to the fi lm's narrative , style and aesthetic obj ectives . Metropolis's archi ­

tecture fai thfu l ly reflects th i s proposit ion , assert ing itself throughout a s consummately se lf­

governing and self- real ized, and thus upholding the importance of autonomously conceived

design over photographic veris imi l i tude . This art ist ic m ission is most sensational ly accom­

pl ished by sequences i n wh ich the camera penetrates all of the ci ty's quaquaversal planes from every imaginable perspective, occas ional ly w i th in one s i ngle shot .

The approach to urban arch itecture favored by the Bauhaus Movement around the t ime of the creation of Lang's own Metropolis was underp inned by the school's devotion to pr in­

ciples of structural funct ional i ty, s impl ic i ty and rigor. However , these tenets were not always

compatible w ith the actua l i ty of the rapidly expanding modern c i ty. The idea of urban space

as a carefu l ly structured ensemble of functional bu i ld ings created accord ing to pr inc iples of

mathematical p recis ion and techno logical expertise had to be coord inated with the kinet ic

rea l i ty of the actual metropol i s . This meant that whi le a iming for pur i ty and c lar i ty of form , arch i tects also had to confron t the phantasmagoric qual i t ies of the l ived env i ron ment and draw inspirat ion from i t .

Ludwig Meidner, for i nstance , encouraged arch i tects t o engage w ith "tumul tuous streets, the elegance of i ron suspension bridges . . . the howl ing colors of the autobuses . . . the rol l i ng

telephone wires, t he harlequ inade of the advertisement p i l lars" (quoted i n H axthausen and

Suhr , p. 63). As Christ ine Boyer observes , moreover , i t i s p recisely i n the real m of c inema

that th i s aesthetic p roject was to find i ts most genuine real izat ion : " I t would not be long before

the dynam ics of motion i n the b ig c i ty, and the abi l i ty to create p icture poems by visual ly j uxtaposing an array of disparate items such as graph ics, musical rhythms , typography, and

photography, were captured by one of the mach ines of the rwentieth century : the movie cam­

era" (Boyer , p. 16) .

I t is hard to imagine a closer c inematic concretization of Meidner's model than Ri ntaro's M etropolis, with its dar ing array of roar ing , ro l l ing and hover ing veh icles , i ts grand edifices

and lobbies , i ts polych romatic kiosks and cafes, i ts street s igns , ads and graffiti , as wel l as its

dizzying grid of pu l lu lat ing bou levards, stai rways , overpasses, escalators, t ravolators , fun icll­

lar rai lways , gangways , catwalks , passages and winding a l leys - al l of which are dep icted i n passionately intense hues . Also notable are the sequences, such a s t h e opening one , where archi­tecture plays the lead ro le , and flau nts its dynamism in ways that reca l l the choreographi ng style o f classic 19205 and 1930s Broadway musicals and Hol lywood se t p i eces, whi le the cam-

86 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

era's insp i red use of int repid t racking shots and rack focus causes the bu i ld ings to appear to telescope, contract , s tretch out or race away from the chosen vanish i n g po int .

Lang's Metropolis i s not the only source of tangential insp i rat ion underlyi ng Rintaro's

world . Indeed, the movie is also intensely redolent - although there is no overt evidence for

the d i rector's intentional recourse to these visual documents - of several other fi l ms p roduced

in the c l imate of German Express ionism in the 1920s. Like the aforement ioned T he Cabinet

of Doc tor Caliga ri, Rintaro's fi lm does not treat the set as a mere background for the act ion

but rather as a p ivotal means of express ing a variety of moods - above a l l , a ub iqu i tous atmos­

p here of confinement resuiring from the c i ty's r igidly compartmenta l ized layout . This is rein­

forced by a careful ly contrasted use of l ight and darkness , by the p lay of shadows and by the del iberate art ificia l i ty of the locations . Additional ly, the br ightly colored visuals punctuat ing

the act ion of Metropolis i n the form of not only archi tectu ral bu t a l so ves t imentary deta i l s are

remin iscent of the pa interly imagery profusely deployed in the Faust ian tale Algol (d i r . H ans

Werckme ister , 1920) . In both films, the di recto rs' rel iance on co lorful ly decorated, incontro­vert ibly synthetic detai ls evinces a determination to convey cinem a's art i s t ic autonomy in the ren dit ion of space , by portraying scenes that are obviously only pa inted and would never c la im

to im i tate real arch itecture or fashion design. A more recent movie with which Metropolis shares i nteresting spat ia l analogies is undoubt­

edly Batman (di r . Tim Burton , 1989). The sepulchral and n ightmarish urban setting des igned

by Anton Furst for Ba tman's Gotham City could be said to anticipate the more pointedly somber

pockets of Rintaro's cityscape : both locations are not identifiable in either geographical or h is­

torical terms, yet possess an undeniable inner consistency that renders them utterly credible . This impression is augmented by the ageless qual ity exhibited by both ci t ies : a look achieved through the collage-l ike amalgamation of a wide range of styl istic elements that elude strict class ification .

At the same t ime , Metropolis bears witness to the role p layed by d igita l technology i n

recent decades i n the construction of imaginary worlds . Thro ugh i ts breakthrough ut i l izat ion of CGI specifical ly for the pu rpose of ideat ing a hypothetica l u rbanscape , the movie inv i tes

reRection on the i mpact of d ig i tal technology on contemporary percept ions of space and,

relatedly, on c i nemat ic visual izations of space abetted by that technology. Concurrently, by

consistently expos ing sa l ient and varied contrasts between Metropol is's gleaming upper l ev­els and i ts gloomy depths, Rintaro comments metaphorically on the increas i ngly hybrid nature of the contemporary megalopol i s . This , as Nicholas Negroponte observes, resuirs from ou r

perception of the world being condit ioned by the coalescence of contrary states : though u b iq­u i tously computerized, from "a macroscopic point of view" urban space " is not d ig i ta l at a l l but continuous . Noth ing goes suddenly on or off, turns from b lack to whi te , o r changes from

one state to another wi thout go ing through a transit ion" (Negroponte , p . 7 ) . An understandi ng of this space of "trans i t ion" is crucial to the concept ion of Ri ntaro's

retrofuturist ic cybercity as a schizophrenic entity wi th in which neatly mapped-out and san­i t ized spaces are systematical ly j uxtaposed with spaces of physical decay and anarchy. The

immaterial geography of computer networks and the corporeal geography of the ever-grow­ing and seedy city c lash repeatedly throughout Rintaro's film and u l t imately reveal themselves as airernate facets of one and the same murky real i ty in its c l imactic moments. Thus , the film's engagement wi th the art iculat ion of a dialectical exchange between c inema and arch i tecture could be sa id to rep l i cate , both unobtru s ively and exuberant ly, the cumulat ive A.igh t-path traced by i ts p ioneering amalgamation of hand-drawn and cutt ing-edge styles .

SIX

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

We live ill a folltasy world, a world o!illllSion. The gretzt task in lift is to find reality. - Iris Murdoch Like the anthropologist returning home from a foreign culture, the 1I0yager ill virtuality can return

home to a real world better equipped to understand its artifices. - Sherry Turkle

Repu ted by numerous cr i t ics and commentators to have been the most ant ic ipated CG

movie ever, Final Fa nta�y: The Spirits Within carr ied al l the expecta t i ons typical of summer blockbusters, coup led w i th those of v ideo game fans . Some pu rists may be d i s i nc l i ned to

regard th is movie as an ime on the grou nds that i t is not rooted in the real m of cartoon draw­

ing . However , it i s here deemed to belong in the trad i t ion of an ime to the extent that th i s te rm broadly des ignates "Japanese an imat ion" i n the West and "an i mat ion" at large i n Japan itself. Moreover , even tho ugh the fi lm does not use cartoon draw ings but rather h ighly pho­toreal ist i c , ent i rely CG human characters whose movements are based on those of l i ve per­formers, it is unden iably an an i mat ion to the extent that i ts personae are essent ial ly constructs

i n fused with the semblance of al iveness by purely art ific ia l means . The fi l m's design at ion i n

the filmography here inc l uded as a n "an imated feature fi lm" i s a logical corol lary o f th i s p rem­

Ise . I n the year 2065 , the b ri l l i ant young scient ist Dr . Aki Ross u ndertakes the final m iss ion :

to "save the earth" from an i nvading menager ie of varyi ngly ghostl i ke , armored, i nsect i l e , ten­tacular and rept i l i an "phantoms" un leashed by a cataclysm of cosmic p roport ions , wh i l e also endeavor ing to recover from the a l ien " i nfestat ion" to which her own body has fal len p rey. Renderi ng the planet desolately ster i l e , the catastrophe has fo rced the few surv iv i ng h umans

to take refuge i n g igant ic sh ielded domes known as "barr ier c i t i es . " In o rder to defeat the i nvaders, Aki teams u p w i th the p rest ig ious Deep Eyes m i l i tary squadron , led by her o ld fri end

Gray Edwards, and w i th her erstwhi le mentor Dr . S id . Ak i sees the key to vanqui sh i ng the threat posed by the phantoms i n the creatures' in t r ins i c energy waves , and seeks to co l lect eight Earth sp i r i ts from a va riety of l i fe forms to create an energy pattern capable of in ter­act ing wi th , and hence balanc ing ou r , the i nvaders' own .

Thus , Aki does n o t approach the supposed enemy a s a p lague t o b e b ru ta l ly ann ih i l ated

87

8 8 ANI M E INTERSECTIONS

but rather as a l i fe force in its own right to be harnessed to the restorat ion of the p lanet's wel l ­

being. As stated in t h e abstract of Lucy Wright's paper "The Spir i ts With i n : The Shamanic Hero i n Final Fantasy," the metaphysical perspective art iculated by the fi lm through its hero­

i ne's v is ion and actions clearly demonstrates that "Super-muscles and super-powers w il l only get yo u so far. When the enemy takes an inexpl icably n u m i nous fo rm , you mus t t u rn

inwards - to the m ind, to dreams, t o the Spi rits With in - in order t o find a so lut ion. Sc ient ific shaman-hero Dr. Aki Ross uses both her rational mind and her onei r ic intu i t ion to save the day, and the planet" (Wright).

Whereas Aki and her associates work towards a peacefu l end, the head of the Depart­ment of Defense, General Hein , bel ieves that the hero ine's and her teacher's theories amount to noth ing more than mumbo j umbo and is hel l-bent instead on blast i ng the foe w i th a mam­

moth space gu n dubbed the "Zeus Cannon. " Even though i t transp i res that eradicati ng the

i nvaders in one swift , destruct ive blow is bound to ann ih i late the rest of the p lanet a longside

the al ien creatu res, Hein rema ins tenaciously resolved i n h i s i ntent. Gradual ly, the phantoms

are p resented as creatures which , l ike the repl icants i n B la de Runner and the mutants in the

X-lvfe n comics and movies , are not unproblemat ically evi l but are ideological ly constructed

as such. I ndeed, as the p rotagonist eventual ly discovers, the phantoms are not "al ien i nvaders"

from outer space or "aggressors" - as claimed by the revenge-th i rsty He in - but "ghosts ...

sp i rits that are confused, lost , angry. " Their spectral status is confirmed by the fact that they

come in a stagger ing variety of shapes and sizes : if they were indeed al ien i nvaders , why shou ld

they bother taking the equivalent of "Noah's Ark" with them? Final Fantasy: The Spirits W ithin suppl ies, on the thematic level , a popularizat ion of the

Gaia pr inc ip le accord ing to which nature in its ent irety partakes of an a l l -pervasive and u ndy­

ing l i fe wave . This hypothesis , first advanced by James Lovelock in 1 972, p roposes that the

Earth const i tutes a system of inextricably interconnected b io logical , chemica l and p hysical

p rocesses that i nt eract incessantly i n a self- regulat ing and immensely res i l i ent fash ion in o rder to preserve the condit ions necessa ry for l i fe to endure. This v iew radical ly contradicts the

notion that the planet i s s imply an aggregate of brute and inan imate matter that for tu i tously

happens to possess the surface condit ions capable of support ing the evo lu t ion of fau na and

flora. Al though some wil l d ismiss the theory - which is indeed named after the Greek Earth goddess - as an i nstance of fluffy New-Age spir i tual i sm , i ts basis is not mystical but actual ly scientific. I t must also be emphasized, in the p resent contex t , that the perspect ive promul­gated by the Gaia pr inc ip le wi th in Western though t finds a d i rect correlat ive i n Japanese cu l ­ture i n the guise of an imis t ic , and especia l ly Sh into is t , bel iefs. Hence , the movie 's affil iat ion

to tradit ion partakes at once of Eastern and Western i nfluences.

The narrative's engagement with contemporary issues of transgeograph ical cogency is confirmed by its thematic emphasis on the seemi ngly inexorable co l l us ion of techno logical advancement and the abuse of power. Additionally, the heroine's very name al ludes to an encounter of East and West , i nsofar as the j uxtaposition of "Aki" and "Ross" connotes an Amerasian , and specifically Japanese-American , origin. I t is also noteworthy, i n this respect , that the voice actor for this character is the Chinese-American actress Ming Na, who starred in what is generally regarded as the first mainstream Asian-American film: The Joy Luck Club (dir. Wayne Wand, 1993) . Ming Na also suppl ied the voice for the title character in Disney's animated featu re Mula n (dirs. 'Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, \998), a further instance of cinematic hybrid ization in its mar­riage of a Chinese tale to the legendary Western studio's technical expertise.

Six�F ina l Fantasy 89

Final Fa ntasy the movie or ig inated in the video games bear ing the same denominat ion prod uced by Square Co . Ltd . , a Japanese company renowned for i ts accompl i shments i n sophist icated CG an imat ion. ] I n 1997, Square had its U . S . subs id iary open a new digi tal s tu­

dio i n Hono lu lu that asp i red to match the excel lence of I ndustr ia l Light and Magic and of

Pixar , and to attract talents from both Japan and America thanks to i ts equid is tance from the

two countries . The game des igner H i ronobu Sakaguchi p roposed that the best way of tes t ing the i r capabil i t ies was to p roduce a ful l - length fi lm ut i l izing "rea l ist ic computer graph ics that

could wi thstand scru t i ny on a b ig screen" (quoted i n Kent , p . 6) . The executive producer of

a game software ser ies that had a l ready so ld over 3 3 mil l ion un i ts by the m id�1990s, acqu i r­ing an increas ingly fi l m ic look over t ime , Sakaguchi sought to create "a brand-new form of entertainment un i t ing i nteractive games and motion pictures . . . going beyond the bounds of

both" (p . 9) .

I n taking the world popularized by the v ideo game into novel terr itory wi th the inten­

t ion of producing an ent i rely CG feature, the team was carefu l to avo id the parent game's styl ized cinematography in favor of utterly photoreal ist ic c inemat ics . As Edgar Park expla ins , in order to test i ts sk i l l s , Square

decided to create a proof-of-concept an imation that showcased the ambit ious l evel of real i sm in human characters they would requ i re for the finished producl. . . . The proof-of-concept , t i t l ed The Gray Project, was a way to focus on both the art ist ic feel of the fi lm's design and the techn ical complexi ty of generat ing real ist ic ha i r and sk in on humans . The scene shows two women i ns ide a futu r i s t ic apartment hav ing an argument . Whi l e far from a compel l i ng story, the level of drama and real i sm h i t the mark . . . . Ult imately, The Gray Project was an i nternal success which a l lowed Square . . . to prove that their production p ipe l ine worked [Park, E.].

Directed by Sakaguchi h imself with the ass istance of Motonori Sakakibara, Fina l Fan­

ta sy was co-p roduced by Square P ic tures and Ch ris Lee Product ions , a subs id iary o f

Sony/Columbia P ictures . I n the $4 5-mi l l ion production faci l i ty erected by Square , a team o f

approximately two-hundred members labored for fou r years in order t o br ing t o l i fe Sakaguchi 's

original vis ion . The crew included eminent v ideo game and fi lm an imators, such as the lead

an imators for Toy Story, Ti ta nic and Jurassic Pa rk, as wel l as h igh ly special ized techn ic ians and

computer scient ists . Qu i te unan imously acclaimed as a techn ical t r iumph , abetted by a stel­

lar voice cast featu r ing Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Alec Baldw in and Steve B uscemi

alongs ide the aforementioned Ming Na, Final Fantasy was nonetheless heavi ly cr i t icized for its lack of a sufficient ly gri pp ing storyl ine and excess ive rel iance on wel l -tested generic for­mulae . Its box-office performance was accordingly disappoint in g : hav ing cost well over $ 100 m i l l ion to produce , i t merely earned $32 mi l lion . The fi l m's commercia l fai l u re eventual ly

resu l ted in the c losure of the Honolu lu studio .

Although Final Fantasy's poor performance tends to be attr ibuted to deficiencies a t the

l evels of storyte l l ing and characterizat ion , specifically cul tural att i tudes wou ld also appear to have been i t s cause . Christopher Macdonald persuasively pursues this argument in his essay "S i l ly Otaku , Cartoons are for Kids , " where he proposes that Final Fa ntasy flopped for the

very same reason that had caused Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke ( 1997) to perform weakly in the U.S. desp i te its being "not on ly the biggest grossing Japanese film ever , but the b iggest ever grossing non�American fi lm of its t ime ( i t has since been surpassed by Miyazaki 's . . . Sen to Chihiro [Spirited Away, 2001)) . Mononoke brought i n $163 . 5 m i l l ion worldwide and al l i t could make i n the Un ited States is two mi l l ion dol lars . " As the cr i t ic goes on to expla in ,

90 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

i n the case of Princess Mononoke, disappoint ing earni ngs were ascribed to D isney's fa ilure "to

p roperly pub l ic ize the fi l m . " However , th is j ust ification cannot be i nvoked where Sakaguchi 's

work is concerned, insofar as "Sony spent a fortu ne publ ic izing Fina! Fa ntasy: The Spirits

W ithin. It was one of the most hyped films of the summer . " Macdona ld su rm ises that

Miyazaki's fi lm would anyway have yielded paltry gains i n the u.S. even i f i t had been more

extens ively advert ised and draws the following conclus ions : "why did Fina! Fa ntasy: T he Spir­its W ithin fa il , and why did Mononoke earn over 1 5 0 m ill ion dollars world-wide bu t merely

two mi l l ion in the Un i ted States . . . ? Because cartoons are for kids . That's how most North Americans feeL . . Slowly, they're finding out otherwise , but for the t ime be ing the only peo­

ple who w ill pay to see an an imated theatrical feature are c inephiles , an imat ion fans , o taku ,

technoph iles ( i f it 's 3 D animation ) , and a few open-minded and curious people" (Macdon­

ald) . The content ion that mainstream U.S . audiences view animat ion as l ightweight and even

trivial stuff targeted exclus ively at kids and that this prej udice has made them especial ly u n re­sponsive to an ime desp i te the latter's richness and depth const i tutes someth ing of a lei tmot if

wi th in both journalist ic and scholarly examinations of the gen re . Macdonald's v iews add sub­

stance to the overarch ing argument with refresh ing frankness . Nevertheless , i t must also be stressed that Fina! Fa ntasy would not only have suffered from a cultu ral b ias pertain ing broadly

to the art of ani mation and, more specifically, to anime but also from the fi lm's emphat ically

hybrid status. Sakaguch i 's work cannot be unproblemat ically s i tuated e i ther styl ist ically o r

geopoli t ical ly, and th i s factor w i l l most plausibly have exacerbated i ts potential v iewers' m is­

giv ings , as well as the anxiet ies of cultural purists . In assess ing further the possible reasons underlying Fina! Fa ntasy's feeble performance ,

i t should also be noted that i ts video game-based provenance may have partly m ilitated against

i t . As Jane Park observes ,

Transi t ion from fi l m to video game works especia l ly well because the consumer can take an act ive role i n re-exper iencing or "replaying" spectacular moments from the fil m l i ke chase and rac ing scenes . I n addi­t ion, games al ready have a hui l t- in audicnce and fan-base from the fil m , which ensures an econom ic safety net . Examples of successful v ideo games based on movies i nclude the Star Wars 1ri logy, the Teenage l'vfutallt Ninja Titrtles and Jurassic Park. F ind ing an audience for game-hased movies proves more diHicu l t s i nce these movies need to appeal s imul taneously to gamers who want a p lot and/or style that resembles the game and non-garners who s imp ly want to sce a good action Hick [Park, ] . , pp. 13-14].

Moreover , regular game players may feel frustrated or inh ib i ted, when they become specta­

tors, by their inabi l i ty to perform particular actions i n the way they are accustomed to , o r to

control camera movements and thus enter the same situation repeatedly from different angles ­

let alone replay the action wi th potentially endless variat ions , to the po int that the visual experience becomes , by defin it ion , unlim i ted .

I n evaluat ing Final Fa ntasy as a movie indebted to the v ideo game i ndustry, i t is also noteworthy that the confluence of digital c inema and v ideo games i s an especially in terest ing manifestat ion of an ever-growing phenomenon of "convergence" : namely, the e rosion of tra­di t ional bou ndaries between one medium and another . There are five pr inc ipal categories into which movies entangled with video games can be classified :

• films, l ike Final Fantasy, that offer adaptations of popular video games - the two La ra Croft : Tom b Ra ider films (dir . S imon West , 2001 ; d i r . Jan de Bont , 2003) also belong i n th i s category;

Six -Final Fantasy 9 1

• films that comment on videogames -� David Cronenberg's eX istenZ ( 1999) exempl ifies this modal i ty ;

• films that quote v ideo ga mes, displayi ng portions of games a s illustrat ions of the i r own

themes and concerns - Ridley Scott's Blade Ru nner ( 1982) uses video games in th i s

fash ion ;

• films that insp i re the product ion of v ideo games as commercial sp in-olfs. These include not only fan tasy, sc i-fi and comic book-inspired blockbusters which one would auto­

matical ly expect to provide the raw materials for ludic explo i ts - such as The Fif th Element (d i r . Luc Besson , 1997) , the Spider-Ma n movies (d ir . Sam Ra im i , 2002-2007) , the Ha rry Potter saga (dirs . Ch ris Columbus , Alfonso Cuaron , M ike Newel l , David

Yates , 200 1-2007) , the Lord of the Ri ngs tr i logy (dir . Peter Jackson , 2001-2003) - but

also less obvious candidates - e.g . The Godfa ther (d ir . Francis Ford Coppo la , 1972)

and The Da Vi nci Code (d ir . Ron Howard, 2006) ;

• films that exper iment with the codes and conventions of v ideo games to p roduce new narrative , representational and generic fo rmulae . Da rk Ci ty (d i r . Alex Proyas , 1998) and the Matrix tr i logy (d i rs . Larry and Andy Wachowski , 1 999-2003) typ i fy th i s

moda l i ty.

Although Final Fa ntasy may have been a disappo i ntment on the narrat ive p lane , the

importance of the fi lm as an unprecedented experiment with the i ntegrat ion of an i mat ion and d igi tal technology can hardly be den ied . The film's detracto rs might argue that the only i nter­

est ing th ing about i t is that it i s ent i rely computer-generated, and that it would have been an unredeemable fai lure as a regular mov ie . Yet , even if i ts deployment of d igi tal techno logy may

u l t imately turn out to be i t sa le asset , the film remains deserv ing of susta i ned cr i t ical atten­t ion. Besides , a l though some cr i t ics have dism issed Fi nal Fa ntasy's styl ist ic approach as for­mula i c , wooden , overdeterm i ned and stereo typi cal , these are no t u n m i t igated flaws i f understood i n relat ion to the aesthet ics o f not only videogames bu t also an ime and manga,

to which the film is overtly indebted . Sakaguch i 's fi lm is unquestionably c loser to the ethos

of Japanese an imat ion - with i ts famously (or notoriously, as the case may be) open endings and procl iv i ty to foreground the term inal ly u nsettl i ng consequences of both personal and global viciss i tudes over and above reassuring resolutions - than to that of Hol lywood's clas­

sic tales - with their cause-and-effect trajectories crowned by consolatory rounding-off's . As shown i n deta i l below, from a techn ical point of view Fi nal Fa ntasy excels specifical ly

in the digital field and pr imari ly i n the creat ion of human s i mulacra . Nevertheless , i t should be noted that i ts ground-breaking CGI are persistently i n terwoven w i th the overarch ing

imperat ives of a more conventional grasp of mise en sce ne- namely the m eans by wh ich a d i rec­tor commun icates h is or her vis ion through performance, l igh t ing , sett i ng , costume and cam­

era p lacement . L ikew ise vita l i s Sakaguch i 's approach to the concept of mise en cadre, namely the o rgan ization of various e lements within any one frame and, more generally, to stagi n g : a spatial p rojection by means of which the d i rector can guide the spectator's eye , as wel l as draw attention to a scene's express ive qual i t ies and to its p lace wi th in a larger d ieget ic pattern .

At the same t ime , the fi lm adheres to many of the codes and conventions of the classic action adventure movie , del iveri ng plenty of ebull ient dynam ism , yet also a l lowing for reflective pauses, shot at a markedly method ical pace . As Musash i po i nts ou t , "For the most part the movie moves along at breakneck speed . On the handfu l of occas ions where the act ion does

92 ANIME I�TERSF.CTIONS

slow down , the movie a l lows for some quiet reflect ion by the characters . Aki and Gray, adr ift

i n space i n thei r space shutt le , ruminat ing on the i r loss , is one of the more memorable scenes

in the fi lm , and there's not an al ien i n s ight" (Musashi ) . Sakaguch i's knack of harness ing cutt ing-edge digi tal tools to more tradi t ional c inemato­

graphical imperatives is evident right from the start . The opening port ion consists of an oneir ic

sequence (reproposed w i th variations throughout the movie) in which a genu inely r ive t ing

a l i en world comes sensational ly to l i fe . The evocation of a l ternative un iverses in the i naugu­

ra l moments of a sci-fi p roduction is an establ ished feature of the genre , and bea rs w i tness to

Final Fantasy's homage to a t ime-honored iconographic discourse . The di rector's deftly orches­

trated i ntegrat ion of formal and chromatic aspects of the sett i ng throughout the sequence,

a l l ied to a j udic ious distr ibut ion of the landscape's key fixtures frame by frame , fu l ly co rrob­

orates this propos i t ion .

I t i s , however , undeniable that the effects that make th is paral le l real i ty - with i ts b i l ­lowy sky, rocky accret ions , incandescent globe and su l tr i ly warm palette - the transport ing experience i t i s could never have been accompl ished i n the absence of digital technology. In

what is arguably the ent i re sequence's most astounding shot , the scorched ear th upon which the protagonist i s standing appears to l iquefy and the camera , w ith a dramatic sh i ft o f per­

spect ive , captures Aki and her uncanny environment from below, part ia l ly vei led by concen­tr ic r ipples , as though i t were i ndeed a piece of underwater equ ipment . No less memorable

are the sequences , punctuat ing the whole fi l m , that dramatize the el im inat ion of h u m a n

fighters b y gelat inously gleaming phantoms through the remova l of t h e vict ims' l i fe forces .

The latter , i ntr igu ingly, are rep resented as spectra l ly azure h usks that detach themselves from the preys' bodies l ike s loughed-off membranes .

I n order to grasp Final Fa ntasy's i nnovative thrust , i t is first necessary to consider the

extent to wh ich the product ion of a fi lm of this kind differs from the making of a regu lar an i ­

mated fi lm . In the early stages , the differences would not appear to be enormous , as produc­

t ion enta i l s the trans lat ion of the scr i p t i nto concep tual draw i ngs that gradua l ly become

storyboards . As the actual animat ing process begins , however , the d i fferences become sub­stantial . Low-resolut ion versions of the characters - relat ively easy to manipulate i n real t ime ­

are first conceived, and h igh-resolut ion models subsequently designed . As the p rocess becomes i ncreas ingly elaborate , both artists and the software engineers working closely w i th them

engage i n the writ ing of code for various animation and render ing procedures, used to con­trol movements and specia l effects . The dividing-l ine between art ists and techn ic ians i s , at

this point , far from nea t , which impl ies that creativ i ty and technological know-how become closely in terwoven . (The argument regarding the col lus ion of art and technology expou nded

i n Chapter 5 w i th reference to Rintaro's Metropolis is aga in relevant in the cu rrent contex t . ) As the technology kept evolv ing throughout Fina l Fa ntasy's onerous gestat ion , bo th

art ists and techn icians found themselves constantly having to upgrade and recreate the i r prod­ucts . As Final Fa ntasy's rendering and shading supervisor Kev in Bjorke stresses , i t i s v i tal to

remember that p ractical " issues of contro l , model l ing , l ight ing , and fu nct ional performance

. . . are h ighly complex and require not only a lot of horse-power and clever coding bu t a h igh ly-di rected and techn ical ly adept and flexible workforce w i th ample computer resoutces" (Bjorke) . The pure ly organ izat ional diHiculties entai led by the project are also emphas ized by the production's sys tems supervisor Troy Brooks : "The asset management issues alone were a huge chal lenge - trying to keep track of al l the sets and models and textures, and use the righ t

Six-Fina l Fantasy 93

versions in each shot , and trying to coordinate the flow of i n formation from section to sec­

tion. Our production managers had to help create and manage workflows that were almost

being made up as we went along , and that j ust took a lot of hard work , and attent ion to detai l "

(Brooks) . Edgar Park's observations on the subject eloquently con firm Bjorke's and Brooks's

points :

The fil m itself i s composed o f 1,327 shots . There are 141,964 frames, each o f which took anywhere from 15 minutes to over 7 hour s per frame to render. The average was aroun d 90 m inutes . Square Pictures stored 10 Terabytes of 3 D and 5 Terabytes of 20 artwork . The roughly 200 people who worked on the fi l m con­tributed about 120 person-years of work . All of th is data needed to be careful ly managed so that the cre­at ion p rocess was col laborative and organized . Th is was the job of the sequence supervis ion department; they oversaw the work as i t t ravelled between many departments including Storyboards, Layout , Sets/Props, Animation , Motion-capture, Light ing , FX, Renderi ng and Compos i t ing . By going th rough these depart­ments a shot would be built with anywhere from nine to 498 composite l ayers [Park, E.].

Regardless of the movie's colossal rel iance on computers, the bu ild ings , gadgets, weapons and vehicles designed for Final Fantasy were i n it ial ly drawn manual ly and therefore exh ib i t

disti nctively material and artisanal qual i t ies . Th i s owes much to the gen i us of concept art i s t

Kazunori Nakazawa . As S teven L . Kent observes , working on the premise that j ust because

the obj ects ideated for the movie "do not currently exist does not mean that audiences wi l l

forgive them for be ing any less real isti c , " Nakazawa painstakingly constructed each of them

"to create the i l lus ion of rea l i ty" after plann ing them out "with met iculous detai ls . " The j eep ,

for example, was designed wi th very clear specifications in mind, not only i n terms of i ts d imen­sions but a lso horse-power and maximum speed, so as to ensure v isua l and kinet ic consis­

tency. I ndeed, wh i le most spectators "might see these deta i l s as superfluous , " they would spot discrepancies i f the vehic le "moved faster i n some scenes than in others" (Kent , p . 14) . Anal­ogous care was devoted to key locations and vehicles such as the afo rement ioned " Zeus Can­

non ," the "Copperhead," the wreck of the ai rcraft carr ier found by Aki and her associates i n

the desert , the " Quatro , " the "Gondola , " the "Black Boa" and the "Escape Pod . "

Great attention also went i nto the creation of Aki's outfit , w i t h i ts p rofusion of bu i l t - in

gadgets, d ifferent port ions of which were thoroughly conceived of as cons is t ing of d ifferent

materials and as encompass ing a wide range of textu res . The manually crafted components

were studiously integrated with the images generated by wholly d ig i tal means . Especia l ly i ntr iguing , among the latter , are the detai led holograph ic p roject ions and interfaces used

throughout the film - most notably, i n the sequen ce i n which Aki is attempt ing to r id Gray's

body of a phanto m : here , both the technological equipment and the infected body are ren ­

dered a s holograph ic i mages, which lends a dist inctively eerie atmosphere t o t h e sett ing , whi le

also bl urring the boundary between the corporeal and the incorporeal , the h uman and the

mach ine .

The storyboards rep resent no less eloquent a testament to the almost obsess ive attention devoted to detai ls i n the product ion of Final Fantasy. In choreographing the fi l m , staging d i rec­to r Tan i Kun i take converted the scr ipt i nto images akin to manga frames . In the absence of

flesh-and-blood performers and tangible sets, storyboards took on a far more axial role than would ever be the case wi th a l ive-action p roduct ion . As Kent points ou t , "Kun i take , who only spent seven months working on The Matrix, spent th ree ful l years t i nker ing with this fi lm" (Kent , pp. 61� 7) . Practical ly every facet of the overa rch ing mise en scene had to be visu­

al ized on paper pr ior to the "shoot ing" p rocess , and this gave rise to except ional ly labor-

94 ANIME iNTFRSECTIONS

i ntens ive worki ng schedules . Kun itake h imself has commented thus on h is herculean tas k :

"On a project l ike th is , w e had t o illustrate everyth ing . . . you really wouldn't board some o f

these th ings on a regular production . B u t w e couldn't go out t o a locat ion a n d start blocki ng

ou t camera coverage on this p roject , so we had to make every th ing up" (quoted in Kent , p. 62) . The minu te ly detailed nature of the boards , and their abili ty to thereby evoke comp lex ideas and emotions , enabled different members of the production team to glean data from the images tha t were pert inent to their particular tasks, and hence decide how a scene should be digi tally composited or l i t , for example . The boards eventually came to const i tute some­

thing of a comic book with autonomous art i s t ic value .

The multi-layered craftsmanship underp inning Final Fa ntasy can also be appreciated i n all i ts astounding complexi ty b y closely inspect ing the "Boards /Blasts" supplementary feature incorporated in the 2 -disc special edit ion of Sakaguchi 's movie released by Columbia i n 200l .

Thi s offers valuable ins ights in to Fina l Fantasy at the level of "work i n p rogress , " rather than

as a fin ished art ifact , by showing the movie in the form of rough pencil draw ings, sketches and outlines, as well as p relim inary computer-generated graphics in their experimental, unpol­

ished vers ions .

Once the storyboards had been completed and scanned into a slideshow, the crew could

move on to the film ing s tage . This availed i tself of the Alias/Wavefront Maya p rogra m , wh ich made it possible to block out and shoot scenes with vi rtual cameras capable of conveyi ng a real ist ically cinematic impress i on . Combined with this sophisticated v i r tual c inematography, Fi nal Fa ntasy's most innovative aspect undeniably cons ists of i ts crea t ion of human s imu­

l acra - namely, v irtual actors ("vactors") or "synrhespians . " The term "synrhespian" was co ined by Diana Walczak and Jeff Kleiser i n 1988 upon execut ing the exper imenral film Nestor Sex­tone fo r President (wh ich p remiered at SIGGRAPH in the same year) . Kle iser has descr ibed

h is and Walczak's j ou rney thro ugh the challenging territory of synrhesp ian-c reat ion in the

August 2000 issue of Film & Video:

Our first synthet ic actor, Nestor Sex tone, was composed of ind ivid ual ly sculpted body parts and faces . . . . A t the t ime , there was no software avai lable t o u s that would a l low for Aexed jo i nrs . . . . The comput ing power tha t can be b rought to bear on projects has cont inual ly mult ip l ied . . . . I n X-Men [2000] , d i rected by Bryan S inger , the shape-s h i ft ing character Myst ique pl ayed by Rebecca Rom ij n-Stamos i s a Synthespian/human hybrid who transforms into various other characters featured i n the fi lm . Our work here i nvolves a series of complex 3D procedural transformat ions from l ive actors to a photo-real ful ly CG character [K1eiserl .

Commenr ing o n the specifically techno-h istorical d imension of the vactor-maki ng phe­

nomenon , Kelly Tyler has observed :

The quest to create v i rtual actors is comparativrly recent ; the first i nteractive computer graph ics program was only developed i n 1961. Designed by Ivan Sutherland at t he Massachusetts Inst i tute of Tech nology, Sketchpad generated s imple geometrical l ine drawings for design and engineer ing appl ications . T hese s im­ple operations required a state-of-the-art TX-2 defense computer to run . . . . Today's m icrocompurers h ave rough ly 400 t imes more memory and operate about 5 ,000 ti mes faster than the TX-2 used by Suther­land . . . . With th is enhanced technology, animators have turned from fantasy characters and ext inct an i ­ma l s to a new d igital grai l : a photoreal ist ic Homo Sapiens . . . [Tyler].

In Fina l Fa ntasy, vactors were created pr imarily by recourse to "motion cap ture" (mo­cap) . As Maureen Furn iss observes , this techn ique has acqui red varyi ng designat ions over the years :

Six-Fina l Fan tasy 95

Another popular term is "performance an imation ," taki ng the emphasis off the captur ing of data, which is seen as j ust one part of the e ntire performance an imation p rocess . "Performance capture" i s a variat ion on both of the above terms . Also heard are "virtual theatre," "dig i tal puppetry," and "real - t ime animat ion ." Add i t ional ly , " the dev i l 's rotoscope" seems to be a favori te term among tradi t iona l an imat ion people [Fur­n iss] .

Mo-cap was in i t ial l y developed fo r the pu rpose of analysis w i th in the field of biomechan ics but has increas ingly come to play an even more p rominent part in the domain of d igital an i­mation - in both the fi lm and the v ideo game industries - as an incomparably r ich source of

dynamic data . As Furn iss has poi nted out , mot ion capture is a l so "employed in the fields of

music, fine art dance/performance, s ign language, gesture recogni t ion, rehab i l i tat ion/medi­cine," as wel l as "special effects for l ive-action fi lms" and "ath letic analys isltra in i ng" (Fu rn iss) . I n the i r "White Paper" on the topic, Scott Dyer , Jeff Mart in, and John Zulauf describe mot ion capture as a technique that " involves measur ing an object's posit ion and o rientat ion i n phys­

ica l space, then record ing that i nformation i n a computer-usable form" (Dyer, Mart in and Zulauf) .

I n the th i s context the term motion capture refers to the process by which external dev ices can be used to capture movement data from various l ive sources and then transm i t them to

the computer, where the data are mapped onto a digi tal ly generated actor . (It shou ld also be

noted, for the sake of accuracy, that even though an imate bodies tend to p rovide the in i t ia l

dynamics in the major i ty of cases, i t is occasional ly poss ib le to employ inan imate objects such

as art iculated mannequ ins to good effecr . ) Coordinated by the motion cap tu re di rector Rem­ington Scott, the Fina l Fantasy p roduct ion crew employed a motion-capture stage equipped with sixteen opt ical cameras pos it ioned on tripods w ith red l ights at their bases . The per­formers were garbed in b lack bodysu i ts w ith ret roreBect ive markers (or sensors) in the shape

of dots sewn or velcroed upon their surfaces at the body's j o i nts . As Jane Park expla ins, for

"Final Fantasy each performer wore approximately 35 markers, inc lud ing five i n the chest to capture his or her b reathing . In addi t ion to large movements, motion capture was used to get the bodily nuances of performers when they were s t i l l - nuances that were d ifficul t to an i­

mate but easy to record through the lG-camera optica l mot ion capture system and the track­

ing software from Motion Analys is" (Park, J., p . 8 ) . The cameras, total ly b l i nd to the actors' appearance, would on ly record the movements

of the reBections of the i r own red l ights onto the markers . The fi lmed material was then trans­

ferred onto a computer equipped wi th a motion-capture p rogram capable of report ing the

precise posit ion of each reBective marker several t imes per second . The p rogram wou ld on ly respond to the dots equivalent to the body's jo i nts, and then connect them by means of l ines that correspond to bones . This p rocess del ivers someth ing of a matchstick figu re, supp lying

the an imated character's skeleton and rep l icati ng exact ly the movements of the h u man actor at the source of the mot ion-related information. The st ick-man's movements would subse­quently be recorded as an imat ion data and mapped onto a rea l i s t ic 3D model created by dig­i tal artists .

This techn ique is considerably t ime-effective compared to tradi t ional an imat ion, and is

also a n ideal means of exp ressi ng supplementary emotive touches which convent ional meth­ods may have lacked e i ther the reso urces or the vis ion to create. Addit ional ly, motion capture can deal proficiently wi th complex movements i n which an actor may be performing var ious s tunt s s imultaneous ly (for i nstance, shoot ing an opponent whi le also do ing a backBip) . Fur-

96 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

thermore , as Furn iss expla ins , the "movements of performers captured i n rea l- t ime . . . can be

supplemented wi th automated movements, such as b l inking , breathi n g , hand gestures , or sec­

ondary actions (for example , when a foot h i ts ground, i ts toes spread out) . These are called 'express ions' : program components written to control a number of low-level features from one

high- level attribute , so that the movement becomes more i nteres t ing" (Furniss) . In Final Fa n­tasy, such anci l lary subtlet ies inc l ude the flowing motions of General Hein's black leather

trenchcoat and of Aki 's gracefu l ly mobile locks, ach ieved though di gital tools that wou ld enable the opt im izat ion of the original mo-cap information by appropriately tweaking the

raw data .

At the same t ime , Sakaguch i 's c inematography consistently capi tal izes on h i s actors' syn­thetic nature by engaging , a s Michael Po i rier observes , " i n angles i mposs ib le w ith real actors

or sets, us ing sweeping pans and incredible zooms" for shots as diverse as "the stagger ing v iew

of a l ien vistas or the painstaking detai l on a j et's landing gear" (Po i rier) . Nonetheless, the

ach ievement of total fl u id i ty - and hence the expression of complete natura l i sm - are feats requ i r ing more than j ust techn ical expertise and state-of-the-art software . This po int w i l l be

shortly returned to . G iven this study's focus, what first demands some considerat ion i s the

art ist ic status of motion capture as a specifical ly animational tool .

Bob Kurtz voices a fai r ly widesp read op in ion i n argu ing that "an imat ion is about creat­ing an i l l us ion of motion that doesn't otherwise exist . [Mo-cap 1 doesn't i nvolve the same art i s­t ic input and creativ i ty" (quoted in Furn iss) . Furn iss herse lf, however , mai ntain s that th i s posit ion is tenable a s l ong a s emphasis is p laced exclusively on ''the o r ig in of the i mage (wi th in a creative m ind) , " yet fal ters when one recognizes that " i n motion capture , a s ignificant amount of the creative p rocess occurs dur ing pos t production process, when data i s man ipu lated to

become an imated imagery" (Furn iss) . Seth Rosenthal of I ndustr ial Light and Magic goes even

further, propos ing that motion capture is a creative process right from the start and is essen­

t i a l ly "about perform ing , d i rect ing talent and benefiting from the spontane i ty of l ive perform­ance" (quoted i n Kenyon) .

As to whether mot ion capture legit imately belongs to the rea lm of an imat io n , i t i s no te­worthy that one of this technique's most obvious - and i ndeed i l l ustrious - p redecessors is

an instrument associated wi th the medium's early h istory: the rotoscope . Patented by Max

Fleischer i n 1 917, this device projects l ive-action footage onto a smal l screen (upon which draw­

ing paper is p laced) one frame at a t ime, and enables an imators to trace the figures that appear

i n each frame with h i gh ly real ist ic outcomes. One of the most impress ive early appl icat ions

of this technique can be observed in the dep iction and an imation of the Fai ry Godmother in D isney's 195 0 classic Cinderella . (Rotoscop ing wi l l be rev is i ted in the clos ing segment of th is

chapter . ) What some animation lovers may find jarring , as far as Sakaguchi's movie is concerned,

i s that the pr inc ip le of exaggeration so central to the med ium is only no table by virtue of i ts complete absence . Indeed, far from magni fy ing part icular traits o f a character 's appearance

or motion in order to th row i ts personal i ty, motivat ions and idiosyncrasies i nto rel i ef, as an i­

mat ion customar i ly does , Fina l Fa ntasy seems to have op ted for a d iamet rical l y oppos i te approach , aspi r ing to the accompl ishment of almost exemplary human s imulacra devo id of any exp l ic i t s igns of distort ion or aberration , and hence of sheer warmth . Fu rthermore , lack of exaggerat ion wi l l inev itably come across as a techn ical fa i l ing - ra ther than as a n i nten­

tional artist ic choice - when i t extends to those dynamic nuances that are most over t ly respon-

Six� Fina l Fant asy 97

sible for communicati ng a cred ible impress ion of movement , and actually depend for the ir

effect iveness on an e lement of distort ion ( in the guises of compress ion , e longation o r defor­mat ion of t issue) : for i nstance, the acts of grabbing or gripp ing .

The characters' restrained perfect ion may at least part ia l ly expla in why so many v iewers

have found the fi lm's cumulative atmosphere frigidly iner t . The do l l - l ike express ions , occa­sionally verging on the robotic , ev inced by some of the synthesp ians at several j unctures i n

the story, combined w ith sporadical ly statuesque postures and st iff gaits , are the pr inc ipal cu l­

pr i ts . As a resu l t , a s audiences have i nsistently stated, sympathiz ing wi th Final Fa ntasy's per­

sonae does not tend to come spontaneously. I ronically, i t feels more natural to suspend disbel ief

at the sigh t of many of an i me's blatantly styl ized and even caricatural creat ions than in the face of Sakaguch i 's hyperreal beings . This would seem to suggest that technology's increas­ing flair for absorb i ng us i nto consummately rea l ist ic 3D spaces of the kind dispensed i n spades b y Final Fa ntasy i s no t unequivocal ly conducive t o an authent ic enhancement of o u r

p ropensity t o sense such spaces affectively.

The models used for Final Fantasy dur ing the motion-capture phases were relat ively s im­

ple , their function be ing essential ly to provide a sense of the env i ronment wi th wh ich the

characters were in teracting . The final ones, however , consisted of myriad polygons meshed

together and i t would customari ly take several minutes for the art ists' computers to simply

open the relevant fi les . For the backgrounds, two-dimensional matte pa int ings digitally cre­

ated on state-of-the-art graph ic workstations were employed . According to the Square team's sets and p rops supervisor , Tadao Odaka , "The bulk of sets and models were p retty much cre­ated d i rectly on com puters . " Whi le this was a h ighly chal lenging task , even more daunt ing was the production of landscapes due to "the sheer amount of data i nvolved" (quoted i n Kent ,

p . 95) . "Carefu l attention had t o b e paid," in part icular , "to coord inate t h e way t h e charac­

ters moved to the land beneath them" � for example , "it would not look good if Gray's pos­

ture suggested he was c l imbing a hil l wi th a ten percent s lope while standing on a mountainous l andscape with very steep forty percent s lopes" (p. 96) .

It is in the an imation section of Square that the actual magic was worked . An imat ion

d i rector Andy Jones , also d i recto r of the Anima trix episode T he F ina l Flight of the Osiris (2003) , played a key role i n developing each character's appearance , moving from geometr i­cal ly styl ized shapes to i ncreas i ngly photoreal ist ic bodies and faces. Square's art i s ts were first

requi red to perfect exist ing methods for sculpt ing polygonal forms - an obj ect ive that was

admirably accompl ished . Yet , they faced an even greater chal lenge when i t came to envelop­

i ng those polygons wi th textures that cou ld convinc ingly repl i cate the look of ski n .

Jones and h i s team was acutely aware that the generation of chicken-wi re heads was only

a marginal achievement compared to the monumental task of creating characters that could

appear to experience l i fe l ike emotions - in other words, of endowing them with a sou l . For this purpose, extra contro ls were developed that could s imulate human physio logy and thus p roduce rea l ist ic mouth and eye movements, vocal-chord v ibrat ions and the impress ion of s l igh tly quivering skin tissue in the case of an older character l i ke Dr . Sid. Clothing the char­

acters was an equally tr icky operation , as th is required methodical assessments of the un ique

physical properties of different materials , and dynamic calculations about their feasible behav­ior i n mot ion. Unless the computer can cope consistently with the rendit ion of the ever-sh i ft­ing wrinkles and creases in the fabric occas ioned by a character's motion , thus allowing the clothing to drape and fold natural ist ical ly around the body, the vactor wi l l look farcically gawky.

9 8 ANIME i :--1TERSECTIONS

As for the characters' hai r , the troupe had to face a p roverbial ly arduous an i mational chal lenge, i n their case mult ip l ied exponential ly by the exigencies of photoreal ism . As Tyler

indicates , the "p roblem of hair has bedevi l led animators for years . There a re thousands of ha i rs on the h u man head, which vary i n color , l ight reflectance, and texture and can move either s ingly or together . The l ion in Juma nji [dir . Joe Johnston , 1995 ] requ i red the model l i ng of one m i l l ion individual ha i rs for the mane alone" (Tyler) . As for F ina l Fa ntasy itse l t� Ja ne Park has pointed out that "the 60 ,000 strands of Aki's hair took twenty percent of the ent i re pro­

duct ion t ime to create and render" (Park , J . , p. 9) . Furthermore , num erous devices were cre­

ated specifical ly for the pu rpose of maneuvering each strand . (The shots in wh ich a minute

strand stands out from Aki's otherwise s i lki ly condit ioned and smoothly s tyled coiffure are among the most unobtrusive ly striking fi lmic moments . ) Concurrently, each e lement of a character's face - down to the most d iminutive components - was contro l led thro ugh sepa­

rate sets of s l iders , such as the "Left Lower Eyel id Twitch" and the "Purse Lips" too ls . As Piers B izony has emphasized, a very important technique in the context of CG an i ­

mation is "inverse kinematics . " Th i s enables animators to create d igital characters on the basis

of a h ierarchy. For i nstance, the "movements of the surface skin (an array of 'ch i ld ' compo­

nents ) " can be made to resu l t automat ically from "changes of posit ion of the in terior bones

(the 'parent' components} . " Hence, i f a s ingle body element is dragged by the animator , other e lements behave accord ingly : the movement of a foot , for example , can flow through the ent i re model , adj ust ing the posit ion of the leg and, from there , extending to affect the h i p , spine a n d head . T h e rather more laborious alternative is "forward kinematics" : this techn ique

requ i res an imators to go "into every ba l l and socket jo int of the skeleton , tweaki ng the j oints one at a time , and deriv ing the external movement of the character from the i ns ide out , wi th

no automated shortcuts" (Bizony, p. 1l4) .

Described in a cl i nical fash ion , the h ierarchy-based technique del ineated by B izony m ay

seem to const i tute a relat ively straightforward operat ion . However , a rather more com plex p ictu re emerges when one reflects that the computation of motion - accurate as this may be ­does not automatical ly yield real ist ic ( let alone aesthetica l ly satisfyi ng) resu l t s . As Kev in Kel l y

expla ins , "To calculate t h e move of a h uman figure i s marginal ly possible for today's compu t­

ers given enough time . But done on the fly, as your body does in real life , in a world that shifts wh i le you are figuring where to put your foo t , this calcu lation becomes nearly i mpos­

sible to simu late wel l . . . . [E] ach pose of the body can be reached by a multitude of pathways . . . .

Locomotion is merely one facet of action . Simulated creatures must n o t only move , they must navigate , express emotion , react" (Kel ly) .

The human face i s the most problem atic challenge i n the fabrication of synthesp ians . I n order t o come across a s truly real ist ic , a computer-generated m i en must be neither too flawless , as this would deprive it of subtlety, nor too defective , as this would make it merely freakish . Ed Catmul l , a computer graph ics spearhead and a founder of Pixa r , argues that the c reat ion of credible human faces is the most daunting task an an imator can expect to confront : "the

human face is a un ique problem. We are genetical ly p rogrammed to recognize hu man faces .

We're so good that most people aren't even aware of it whi le they th ink abou t i t . I t turns o u t , for i nstance , that i f w e make a perfectly symmetrical face , w e see i t a s be ing wrong . So w e want th ings t o be no t quite perfect, have a l o t o f subtlety, b u t if they're too imperfect , then w e th ink that they're strange" (quoted in Tyler) .

Kleiser corroborates Catmul l 's point , emphasiz ing that advances i n dig i ta l tech nology,

Six-Fina l Fantasy 99

though v i ta l to the generat ion of effective synthespians , are not in themselves able to secure the des i red resul ts un less the an imator's ski l ls cont inue p l aying a cardina l role . Such ski l l s ,

moreover , cannot consist excl usively of a competent handl ing of cutt ing-edge software and digital ly assisted c inematography: l ively engagement i n the dynamics of act ing , grou nded in a sound grasp of the performative facu l t ies of both the creators and thei r creatures, must come i nto play at al l t imes . Thus , gro und-breaking instru ments and technologies inev itably col­l ude with tradit ional p ractices even i n the unfolding of a p rocess that would seem capable of

reconfigur ing not on ly the an imation i ndustry but the concept of human evo l ut ion i tse lf. As

Kleiser mainta ins ,

The march toward photo-rea l i sm wi l l march inexorably forward, with a lo t of devel opment required to accurately model the structure and function of fac ia l muscles to a l low for conv i nc ing dramat ic perform­ances in close-up. This i s extremely d ifficult to do techn ical ly. Most of us spend all day long watch ing the morion of the facia l express ions of people with whom we i nt e ract and we are very good at discerning emo­t ional conrenr or sub-textual in formation from that process . . . . Systems current ly ex ist for render ing con­vi ncing hai r and c loth ing and the fac ia l textures can be s imulated th rough photograph ic studies and sophist icated texture map p i ng , bur the an imator of the furure wi l l need to bc a talented actor i f he or she intcnds to create a dramat ic performance i n a synthetic actor [Kle i serl .

I n the making of Final Fantasy, one of the keys to the creat ion of bel ievable faces resided with the handl ing of details - for example , of wri nkles , skin blem ishes and age spots . Aki was

apparen t ly the most arduous real ization insofar as the imperative to make her look attract ive entai led the danger of her looking too impeccable and hence u nreal . The addit ion of freck­

l es and occas ional express ion l i nes was an indub itably insp i red touch, in th i s respec t . I n addi­t ion , the character's m ien derives considerab le real ism from the v i s ib i l i ty of pores and del icate

l ip creases . The extent to which Fina l Fa ntasy's vi rtual hero ine attained to photorea l i sm is

p roved by her p lacement on the cover of the men's magazine Maxim as a sexy icon two months

before the fi lm's American debut in the summer of 2001 . The images looked l i ke h igh-qual­

i ty photographs of an ent i re ly real , breath ing and ent ic ing being, even though the young woman they depicted is actual ly a post-Frankenste in ian amalgam composed from legion human images through a p rocess of incremental morph ing .

The extent to wh ich Ak i was conceived of a s a character so real i st i cally rendered as to acqu i re someth ing of an i ndependent l i fe of i ts own is l i kewise attested to by the fol lowing :

"Prior to the fi lm's release (and subsequent box office fa i lure) , Square had i ndicated p lans for

the Aki Ross 'synthet ic actress' to appear i n other fi lms , possibly even i nteract ing wi th l ive actors . A sample of what th i s might have looked l i ke can be seen on the i ntroduction to the

second DVD in the Special Edit ion rel ease , wh ich shows Aki 'breaking character' after fi lm ing a scene and wal k ing th ro ugh the s tud io , i nterac t ing w i th both eG I and real people" ( Wikipedia, the Free Encyc lopedia - Fi nal Fa ntasy: The Spirits Within). Like the idol s inger Rei Toei described by Wi l l i am Gibson i n h i s novel Idoru, the Aki Ross contemplated by Square is essent ia l ly "a persona l i ty co nstruc t , a congeries o f software agents , the crea t ion of i nfo rmat ion-designers" (Gibson 1997, p . 92) .

Synthesp ians had been accorded supporti ng roles for some t ime pr ior to the production of Sakaguch i 's fi l m , serv ing as doubles for mortal performers i n the fi lm ing of especial ly per­i lous stunts . Addit ional ly, the generation of digital extras meant to stand in for l arge c rowds or armies had already abetted producers as a ma rkedly cost-effective resource . Final Fantasy radical ly reformulated the ex i s t ing understand ing of the synthesp ian's ro l e by upholding i ts

1 00 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

promotion from extra to starring role and, by impl icat ion , i ts ab i l i ty to compete wi th the l ive

performer. News of the imminent advent of v i rtual actors on the eve of Final Fa ntasy's pre­m iere spread considerable anxiety among some of the more tradit ional Hol lywood personnel ,

part icularly as i t coinc ided w i th the 2001 Screen Actors Gu i ld (SAG) str ikes . Tom Hanks is

reputed to have been especia l ly vociferous in the exp ress ion of widespread anxiet ies about the

future of real performers . This is somewhat i ron ical i n consideration of the role p l ayed by

Hanks in the execution of the film Pola r Express (dir . Robert Zemeckis, 2004) , a p roduct ion

held to have further raised the bar for techn ical ach ievement in the growing genre of computer­

generated movies rel iant on mo-cap. Pola r Express i ndeed marks one of the most recent deve lopments of mo-cap techno logy

w i th in the dom a i n of an imation , conducted by a popu lous team of v isua l effects art i s ts at Sony Imageworks under the aegis of effects gurus Ken Ralston and Jerome Chen . As Ju l ian

Ph i l l ips exp l a in s , the mo-cap process used in Zem eckis's movie - termed "performance

capture" not as a synonym bu t as a development of exis t ing mot ion-capture technology ­

was

designed to digita l ly col lect every d iscern ible movement and subtle human express ion . . . . Un l ike ex i s t ing nlO-cap , Performance Capture can s imul tancously rccord 3-d imcns iona l fac ia l and body movements from mult ip le actors, us ing a system of dig i tal cameras that provide 360 degree v iews . . . . With th i s system , tbe d i rector could l i teral ly create custom shots during the edi t ing process, sel ect ing from a range of dcpths and perspectives, and mov ing characters i n their eyber-world to emphas ize specific deta i l s , w i th natura l cam­era moves . . . . I t took nearly two hours to apply as many as ISO reflect ive "j ewels" that were c lustered on tbe actors' faces and scalps. adhcri ng to al l l i nes of muscu laturc, eyel ids , brows. upper and lower l ip s , ch in l i ne and cheeks [Ph i l l i ps ] .

Another audacious advance in the field of v i rtual c inematography, resul t ing from t h e j o i nt

efforts of visual effects wizards Joh n Gaeta and Kim Libreri . is "un iversal captu re" (u-cap) , a technique developed i n the execution of the Wachowski brothers' T he Matrix: Revolutions (2003) . This is a form of motion capture focusi ng on facial performance : h igh-defin i t ion cameras are a rranged in a semi-c ircle around the actor and photograph h im o r her from every

poss ible angle . recording skin texture. pores, fol l icles and express ions down to the m inu test detai l . Un iversal capture is also deployed to record wi th incomparable fide l i ty legion aspects

of a performer's dynamic and sartorial attr ibutes . All of these data can then be stored i n i mage l ib raries and appl ied to CG characters as and when appropriate . Ma trix producer Joel S i lver

has commented on the technique as fol lows : "Using uncompressed data captured by five h i ­def cameras . . . t h e computer calculates the exact shape a n d textu re of the acto r's face , move­

ment and cloth ing . . . . Gravi ty-defying camera moves that have prev iously j ust been paper

pipedreams are now a real i ty, with the action fl ipp ing between real footage and v i rtual con­tent , actors and virtual actors" (quoted in Kennedy, p . 90) .

According to CG animator Kevin Mack, the day is rap idly approach ing when CG char­acters m ight be not merely animated but actually directed. "The ideal is ," he expla ins , "you tel l them , 'Walk , ' ' Bend over , ' or ' Pick up that object' . . . 'Now walk wi th more anger , more

flamboyance . ' When you direct these guys , you won't need keyfram ing [the technique whereby an imators draw a few crucial frames for a sequence and al low the com puter to create , by i nter­polat ion . a l l the intermediate posit ions] or performance capture [a . k . a . motion capture , as described] . The only p roblem will be when the CG characters get too smart and say they j ust don't want to do i t any more" (quoted in Bizony, p. 1 37 ) . (Some of the software used in the

Six � Final Fantasy 1 0 1

production o f v i rtual actors for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films largely fulfi l Mack's

prognostication by grant ing the performers a degree of autonomy.) Whereas productions such as the Matrix and Lord of the Rings t rilogies and Pola r Express

bear witness to remarkable advances in the domain of d igital motion capture s ince the exe­

cut ion of Sakaguchi and Sakakibara's Final Fa ntasy, no less worthy of notice i s the recent

return to the rotoscope � namely, as pointed out earl ier , mo-cap's most eminent ancestor . This tendency is most eloquently attested to by Richard Linklater's A Sca nner Da rkly (2006) , a

fi lmic adaptat ion of Ph i lip K. Dick's novel of the same tit le wherein the unparal leled degrees

of realism afforded by the rotoscope are further enhanced by its integrat ion wi th sophisti­

cated software . As the W ikipedia entry for A Sca nner Da rkly explains , the movie constitutes a ground-breaking intervention i n the realm of contemporary digital ly assisted an imation : '/1 Scanner Da rkly was fi lmed d igital ly us ing the Panason ic AG-DYXlOO and then animated wi th Rotoshop, a proprietary graphics edit ing program created by Bob Sabiston . Rotoshop uses an

an imation technique called interpolated rotoscope , which was prev iously used in Linklater's

film Waking Life . . . . [It] makes use of vector keyframes, and interpolates the in-between frames

automatical ly . . . . Each m inute of an imation requ i red 500 hours of work" ( W ikipedia, the Free

Encyclopedia - A Sca nner Da rkly [film]). Central to the execut ion of the movie was the shoot ing of live action onto d igita l fi lm

and subsequent t rac ing and paint ing of each frame by ent i re ly manual means . O n the tech­n ical p l ane , the artisanal d imens ion of A Sca nner Da rkly i s arguably the fi lm's most com­mendable feature , as wel l as an e loquent testament to the enduring ho ld of hand-drawn

an imation . This aspect of the work has been exp l i citly underscored by Sabiston himsel f: "There is no texture model ling or digital motion capture . Everyth ing is traced . . . drawn onto

the frames freehand . . . We don't use a mouse , nor do we see what we draw on the pad behind

each pen s t roke" (quo ted in "Scanner Darkly B l u rs Lines be tween Program ming and

Artistry") . Employing top-notch graphic-novel artists to paint over the digitally shot frames, the

movie yie lds deeply defamil iar iz ing effects . Whi le the source actors (inc luding Kean u Reeves ,

Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr . and Woody Harrelson) p reserve their fundamental somatic

traits, performance styles, voices and modalities of del ivery, the super imposition upon their

faces and overa l l p hys iques of black contours, flat colors and dancing beads of l ight causes

them to d issolve i nto phantasmatic entities even as they ass iduously cont inue to resemble the i r

non-animated screen counterparts . The cumulative impression is an i ntoxicating cocktail of comic-book eeriness and real istic impress ionism.2

According to Robert La Franco, L inklater adopted this part icu lar technique insofar as " the paint erly, pop-art look of rotoscoping" (at t imes remin iscent of Patrick Caul field's work

but with a s inister twist) was ideally suited "to capture the tr ippy reality described by science­

fiction author Ph i l i p K. Dick in h i s 1977 novel . " Furthermore , and no l ess importantly, in harnessing h i s pioneering methods to the production of an animated feature that bo ldly trans­gresses mainstream expectations concerning the medium as a whole, the d i rector

also sees an opporrun i ty . . . to br ing ful l - length an imated movies to a btoader, o lder aud ience . Outs ide of a few proven te lev i s ion p ropert ies l i ke Beavis and Butthead and So uth Park, no successfu l an imat ion for adults has been released i n the US s i nce the 1981 fantasy epic Heavy Metal. "There is k ind of an an ima­tion ghetto that exists i n the industry," [ Li nklater) says . " From the beg inn ing , we l i ved w i th the Hol ly­wood tru ism that adu l t s don't see an imated movies . Bur I have always had the response that , yeah , adul ts don't go see animated movies umi l they do! Al l i t t akes i s one movie" [ La Franco) .

1 02 A :-.J I M E INTERSECTIONS

Thus, at the same t ime as it aptly complements the tech nica l deve lopments out l i ned i n the course of th is chapter b y providing a n innovat ive contribut ion t o t h e flourish ing real m of CGI , L inklater's 2006 movie concurrently benefits t h e p resent book's overarch ing argument

through i ts eloquent perorat ion of ani mation's standing as an autonomous medium whose

accompl ishments are not u l t i mately reducible to the genus of ch i ld ish rec reat ion . (This po int

wi l l be retu rned to in Chapter 1 1 wi th reference to both Linklater's work and other contem­porary p roduct ions . )

In conclusion , Final Fa ntasy: The Spirits W ithi n may have disappointed v iewers who had

looked forward to i ts release as the apotheosis of d igital ani mation and then d iscovered that the fi lm's impress ive graphics were not matched by an adequately fleshed-out storyl i ne . How­ever , the work remains h istorical ly s ignificant as a fo rmal and cul tural hybrid, subtly po i sed between v ideo games and c inema, an imation and l ive action , East and West , and hence yield­

ing an imagin at ive experiment wi th both technical and thematic cross -po l l i nat ion in the

domain of contemporary an ime .

SEVEN

Ghos t in the Shell 2:

Innocence

One may question making an adult drama in anime, but I made it with a hope that it may even­tually be IISeful for younger audiences some day. - !'vfamoru Oshii 2004a If the essence of 11ft is information carried in DNA, then society and civilization are jllSt colossal memory �ystems and a metropolis like this one, simply a sprawling external memO/yo - Batou, Ghost in the Shell 2: ImlOcence

An unorthodox sequel to the cultish and Matrix- insp ir ing Ghost in the Shell ( 1995 ) based,

l ike i ts p redecessor , on a manga class ic by Masamune Sh i row, the film was released domesti­cally in March 2004 , obta in ing a U.S. release in September of the sam e year . Most notably, Innocence was also the first an ime feature film ever selected for competit ion at the p restig ious Cannes F ilm Festival (2004) . The Pal me O'Or in that year was eventually awarded to M ichael

Moore for his documentary Fahrenheit 9111, but the shortlis t ing of Osh i i 's film remains in i tself a triumph fo r an ime fans and scholars the world over . Moreover , i t i s most likely that Osh i i

h imself would not have regarded th i s outcome as a crush ing defeat , when one considers that

the world he sought to capture in Innocence is - qui te regardless of obvious thematic and s ty­l ist ic divergences - p recisely the same kind of world that Moore addresses in h is film : namely,

a "cultu re of fear and anxiety" (Osh i i 2004b) .

Innocence is set in the year 2032 and proceeds from the assumpt ion that by th is date , cybertechnology will have pervas ively infiltrated human society i rrespectively of any cultural or polit ical boundaries , and that tradit ional lines of demarcat ion between the organ ic and the art i ficial, the human and the mach ine , the self and the other w ill have become down right redundant . The film focuses on the Special Anti -Terrorist agent Batou , who is essent ially a

cyborg , and on h i s mainly human partner Togusa in the i r investigation of the company "Locus Solus , " an industr ial colossus governed by the cybercr im inal Kim and responsible for manu­factur ing "gynoids , " l i fe l ike female do l l s designed for sexual enterta inment . The attent ion of the ant i-terrorist forces is drawn to Kim's corporation a s one of the creatu res suddenly goes

berserk and slaugh ters her owner , in the aftermath of which several other gynoids go on the rampage , and eventually commit su ic ide , in luri dly grotesque displays of self-loath ing . The narrative follows Batou and Togusa in thei r dealings wi th scientists , gangsters, pol it ic ians and

1 03

1 04 ANI M E INTERSECTI ONS

bureaucrats u nt i l they eventual ly reach Locus Sol us and, desp i te Kim's elaborate attempts to

repel them by means of cyberlabyrinths and brain hacks, discover the truth at the heart of the manufactur ing giant and, by extension , of i ts dolls ' aberrant conduct .

Innocence's landscape is tantalizingly composite : i n the early segments of the story, for

example , a sprawl ing nocturnal megalopol is l icked by fl i tt ing orange flares is j uxtaposed wi th

a b l ind ingly whi te and frigidly aseptic forensics laboratory i n which the potent ia l ly dysfunc­t ional gynoids are meticulously examined. This scenario is qu i te j arringly d i sp l aced by images

of a murky yakuza den and of Batou's humble cyborg-bachelor apartment . These are in turn overtaken by a c i ty of sky-piercing Goth ic sp i res and by a mock-Tudor manor where sta ined

glass, flagstones, peop le , an imals and fire i tself are glacial ly i m mobi l ized i n both space and t ime . What lends coherence to th is potential ly d isconcerting m ix is Oshi i 's elegant jo in ing of

overtly hand-drawn graph ics and alternately luscious and crystal l i ne computer-generated v isu­

a ls .

I ndeed, whi le open to the incorporation of state-of-the-art d igital an i mat ion , Innocence remains profoundly loyal to the trad i t ional roots of an ime art istry and its upho ld ing of man­

ual techniques a s foundational . The resul t is an eye-melt ing synthes is of 20 draw ings and 3D CGl . The former were used pr imar i ly in the depiction of the characters, which consis­tently come across as cartoon ishly styl ized ; the latter played a key part i n the rendi t ion of i ntensely photoreal ist ic backgrounds, mach ines and veh icles . As noted i n the Everything2. com

review of Innocence, " I n most cases, the hand-drawn characters move th rough obsessively

photoreal ist ic CGI-rendered scenery, looking eeri ly out of place , al most l ike the Ghosts the

t i t le i nvokes . Their muted tones and s imple shading different i a tes them from the ir su rround­i ngs , which are sometimes so sharp-edged as to be almost pa infu l " ("The Custodian") . Most

importantly, as Osh i i has remarked in an interv iew with IGN FilmForce, "Whether it 's back­ground material or the characters, the source material has been hand-drawn" (Osh i i 2004c) . Mechanic layout designer Atsush i Takeuch i confirms th i s cruc ia l po in t : " Everyth i ng was p lanned around the 20 artwork, and the effect creators added on layers while hav i ng the cam­

era map as the base" (Takeuch i) .

The preservation of20 hand-drawn images a longs ide 3D CG I serves to th row in to relief

the fi lm's constructed nature - a vi tal aspect of i t s underlying essence wh ich the photoreal is­t ic element may have otherwise effaced . Radical ly disrupt ing the m imetic fal lacy, Osh i i asks the audience to acknowledge that h is work is an inherently synthet ic art ifact and not a slav­

ishly reportorial "sl ice of l i fe . " The d i rector thereby inv i tes us to ponder the s ignificance of the ent ire apparatus u t i l ized by the medium of an imation to communicate ideas of develop­ment and change : not j ust the strategies adopted in order to convey the i l l us ion of movement

but also the devices that enable audiences to comp ly with the i l l us ion , on the one hand, and consciously appreciate i ts manufactu red status , on the other. Innocence- l ike all an imat ion at its finest - encourages us to endorse and participate in the cinematic i l l us ion th rough a com­mod ious suspension of disbel ief, and yet recogn ize i t exactly for what i t i s ins tead of m is tak­ing it for empi rical ev idence of the existence of a "real i ty" out there. Furthermore, the blend

of20 and 3D elements effected i n the ideation and execution of Innocence consti tu tes a fitt ing techn ical correlat ive for the fi lm's thematic emphasis on the nebulousness of the boundaries putatively separat ing "natural" human organ isms from cyborgs , automata, clones, holograms ­or indeed dreams .

At the same t ime , Osh i i puts no less effort i n the evocation of a close-up of water s losh-

Seven -Ghost i n the Shell 2 1 0 5

i ng down a ki tchen s ink , or of the p lay of l ight reflected off the smooth su rface o f a moving veh ic le , than i n m agnificent se t p ieces replete w ith prowl ing submar ines redolent of mechan­ical sharks or s leek crow-l ike p l anes endowed with legion independently movi ng segments .

Concurrently, whi le the d i rector revels in the representation of veh icular l i fe forms that equate

to a futuristical ly bizarre menagerie , he is no l ess earnestly devo ted to the depiction of anony­

mous cars darting in and out of shadows and rai n , and b lurr ing the c i tyscape as they capture

i t from legion angles with their gl isten ing surfaces . Osh i i is also com m itted to the perpetuation of an orthodox an ime style i n h i s approach

to c inematography. This is most exp l ic i t ly demonstrated by the ut i l izat ion of exaggeratedly

slow-paced and wordless sequences that only have a recognizable p l ace and s ignificance w i th i n t h e domain of Japanese an imation . I n such pieces, the minutest nuances of bodi ly mot ion are

lovingly foregrounded, in preference to the rap id-fire action sequences favored by much Hol­

lywood an imat ion . Equal ly remarkable , c inematographical ly speaki ng , i s Oshi i 's use of the

camera as a means of conste l lat ing lyrically refined graphic scenarios , inspected gradual ly from diverse perspect ives . A paradigmatic instance is provided by the three in terrelated sequences

supplying alternative vers ions of the segment in which Batou and Togusa chal lenge Kim i n

h i s palat ial res idence . These sequences tease the audience's mnemonic facul t ies w i t h alacrity

by reiterating the same key event w i th fine variat ions in pace and rhythm . The sequences where the integrat ion o f cel animation and CG I i s especia l ly noteworthy

include panoramic surveys of futurist ic arch i tectural monsters, such as the ones offered in the

p re-credi t segment and upon Batou's and Togusa's descent into Ki m's c i ty, and the shoo tout

i n a cramped grocery store where in each s ingle shard of glass seems v ibrantly a l ive . Most memorable , for many v iewers, are undoubtedly the sequences unfo ld ing in Kim's mans ion ,

with their profus ion of holograph ic images, opulently rendered substances and textures and

mesmerizing ornamental detai ls - ranging from pol ished polychromatic marble , sta ined glass

and carved stone to patterned t i l ing and countless metal l ic e lements . A veritably Escheresque ensemble, the bu i lding discloses new vistas at each s tep thro ugh a profusion of seemingly

improbable angles and dimensional incongrui t ies that feel impalpable even as they are so l idly

supported by t imber and stone .

Composi t ing is u nquestionably one of the most important digital techn iques brought to bear upon the execut ion of those scenes . The process revolves around the digit izat ion of var­

ious images by means of scanners and subsequent transfer of the material to compu rers , where

i t can be edited. The compositors gather together a l l the elements n eeded for a scene and combine them to ach ieve the des i red resu l ts . The pioneering too l s p rovided by the American

software giant Adobe (e .g . Adobe After Effects) were especia l ly usefu l in the production of

Innocence. These adopt a system of layers and a t imel ine , whereby animators can p lace d ifferent

obj ects on different layers of a composit ion and control the size, pos i t ion and opacity of each

layer along the t imel ine to produce a smooth unfolding of effects . So-called "th i rd-party" p lug­ins further enable the generation o f a w ide range of visual impressions , i nclud ing rea l i st ic ren­di tions of smoke , fire , ra i n , steam and snow.

The fi l m's p re-credi t sequence is worth dwel l i ng upon , however cursori ly. Especial ly

remarkable is i ts knack of gradual ly bu i lding up a dist inct ive atmosphere , dest i ned to resur­

face periodically throughout the fi lm as someth ing of a musical refrai n or le i tmot if. This par­

t icular mood emanates from a subtly orchestrated contrast between the stately grandeur of the metropol is's upper strata , here exempl ified by a quaintly techno-vis ionary hel i copter cir-

1 06 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

cl ing a tower redolent of B lade Runner's omi nous structures, and the u rbanscape's d ingy u nder­belly, with i ts amorphous crowds and sprawl ing streets , ubiquitous flash ing l igh ts and s i rens .

The contrast is c inematographically sustained by the adopt ion of d ifferent rhythms in the ani­

mation of the fly ing mach ine , which is invested with a relatively flu id pattern of motion , and

of the street-based shots , where a pervas ive sense of tens ion and fear i s terse ly conveyed by i ntentional ly j i ttery t rans i t ions . Also worthy of not ice , in the aerial shots , i s the use of an i ntensely warm palette imbued with amber and och re tones . A typica l ly Osh i i an touch , this stylistic ploy i ron ically i nverts the conventional association of warm color schemes w i th not ions

of psycho logical and emotional comfort by l ink ing them i nstead with an i m perv io us ly

unfriendly env i ronment . Commenting on the no less memorable shop sequence as a representative case of h is team's

demanding ass ignment , CGI art d i rector Toru Sh inozaki has po intedly underl ined that each

s ingle product on d isplay, as wel l as each of the numerous shelves and refri gerators p resent in

the venue , were executed on computers . "The ent ire set of the store ," Sh inozaki expla ins , "had to be recreated in CG. The amount of elements was outrageous , and the work was extremely pai nstaki ng . " Harmoniz ing h i s team's graphics with the visuals created by separate depart­ments was no less chal lenging : "The movements [of the characters] are made by a d ifferent

team , whi le the textures of the space had to be drawn by the background art ists and mapped onto the elements . . . . Ligh t ing was vi tal in integrat ing these separate e lements i nto a s ingle

p icture" (Sh inozaki ) .

The present ation of any one of the numerous shelves , for example , was arrived at by tak­

ing a digital armature as the po int of departu re and then incremental ly adding various ch ro­matic layers in order to evoke a satisfyingly real ist ic palette . Different textures capable of emulat i ng the visual and tact i le qual i t ies pecul iar to speci fic materials were subsequently com­

posi ted with the in it ia l color scheme and appropriately l i t . The explos ion of countless glass

panes was l i kewise reliant on compos i t ing : layers represent ing the glass fragments as m in i ­

mal ist ic b lack-and-white objects were created to isolate t h e deta i l s o f each shard's un ique

shape and then composited with layers that d isplayed the objects as real ist ic ent i t ies by recou rse

to h i ghly sophist icated shading and nuancing too ls .

The i nvo lvement of several depa rtments i n the execut ion of the sequence's var ious bui ld­ing blocks requ ired the d i rector and h i s assistants to carry out susta ined monitor ing and super­vising tasks in order to secure the consistent harmon izat ion of those components . I nt egrat ing the 20 and the 3D elements to make them look as though they had issued if not exact ly fro m

the same hand, a t least from coherently interact ing hands, was n o t an easy j o b b u t actual ly

took considerable finesse , sensit ivity and a wi l l ingness to confront qui te unexpected chal lenges .

Computers abetted Osh i i and h is troupe to unparalleled degrees, yet i t was thei r ongo ing com­m itment to the legacy of tradi tional an ime , u l t imately, that enabled them to come up wi th so l id centers of gravi ty to which both the setting and the characters would be attracted . An understanding of software packages a lone could never have yie lded such s tunning resu l t s . In

fact , i t is by relyin g no less s ignificantly on the i r background mastery of a c lassical , hand­drawn approach to an imation than on cutt ing-edge expertise that Innocence's creators have brought forth a ground-breaking achievement in digi tal tech nology that far exceeds in both tech nical scope and affect ive im port the moni tor's cool glow.

In addit ion , as the d i rector has emphas ized, it should not be automatical ly p resu med that technological advances invariably make the ani mator's task less d ifficu l t . In fact , Osh i i

SelJen --� G host i n the She l l 2 1 07

contends , the momentous breakth roughs i n c inematograph ical and an imat ional p ract ices w it­nessed over the past decade rendered his p rogress from script to screen even more arduous :

There wasn't a s ingle th ing that has been easier as a resu l t of a technological ad vancement . Al l of the an i­mation techn iques that have ar i sen [ s ince Ghost in the Shem have added to the amount of work . An ima­tors are al ways doing the best they can , and with d igital technology, they could keep repeat ing [ the level of qual i ty] . They had done a scene ten t i mes more [careful ly] than they did with the l as t mov ie , bur it actua l ly translated into me having to check ten ti mes more careful ly wi th the materi al than I did on the l ast one . . . . When I made the first mov ie , it took overnight to render one scene , hut now they have a lo t more m aterials to render ; each person actual ly has two or three computers worki ng at the same t ime , and that a lso added to the amount of the work . D igi tal izat ion d idn't actual ly l essen the amount of work IOsh i i 2004cl .

The film's p ivot is arguably the sequence that dramat izes a sumptuous parade i nundat­

ing the streets of Kim's seedy world . What i s most beguil ing about this sequence i s the idea

that Oshi i 's team should have deployed most liberally the d igi tal tools available to them for

the purpose of rep resent ing elements of Eastern culture at i ts most po ignantly trad it ional . The disjuncture between the i nnovativeness of the techn ical tools underly ing the sequence and the custom-soaked lavish ness of i ts subject matter is a class ic i llustrat ion of Oshi i 's penchant for establi sh ing i ron ical tensions meant to whet h i s audience's speculat ive appet ite . The sequence i s profoundly indebted to var ious tradit ional r i tuals and icons, and i ts appreciat ion accord­

ingly benefits from some famil iar i ty with the i ndigenous frame of reference on which i t con­sis tently draws . I t is especially important , i n this respect , to recogn ize the exalted cultural role

played by the matsuri ( "fest ival") over the ages wi th in Japanese society in its ent irety, and con­

currently acknowledge the s ignificance of masks , used profusely i n the parade sequence i n conjunction with splendid costumes and floats, in both Japanese and broadly Asian r i tuals and theater. An understanding of relevant Eastern approaches to act ing and performance , the

codes and conventions of which bear upon the sequence's styl is t ic ident ity, i s also bound to

be of some cr it ical ass istance .

The online companion to Japan's t radit ional beliefs , customs and r i tuals , t i tled Japanese Religion Today expla ins , '' 'Matsuri' is a nou n , der ived from a verb, matsu mean ing to wait or

to invi te or in a wider sense r o be subm iss ive . I n such a feel ing of worsh i p and esteem some­thing superhuman i s wai ted for and invited . . . . Having lost the religious s ign ificance , ' mat­

suris' today are enjoyed by part ic ipants and onlookers more for what used to be only addit ive to their essential mean ing . Some of them provide shr ine proteges wi th opportun i t ies for recre­

ation and amusement and some others demonstrate scenes of i nterest in the name of tradi­tion" ("Festival [MatsuriJ").

Given that practically every shr ine i n Japan has its own local fes t ival, innumerable mat­

suris are held throughout the yea r . Most of these are celebrated on an annual bas i s , e i ther to

solemn ize events such as the advent of the farming season and the ha rvest or ro commemo­

rate h i s tor ical occas ions . Parades and p rocessions constitu te a key element of Sh into fest ivals . As these p rogress , eHigies rep resenting the kami (Shinto sp i rits and deit ies) are carr ied through the bus tling s treets - fr inged by s talls loaded with food, toys and tr inkets - in mikoshi (palan­quins) by people garbed i n ceremon ial gear. An i mportant r i tual ro l e i s also played by opu­lently decorated kasahoko (floats) , several of which accommodate drum and flu te players or

magn ificent dolls . I n evaluat ing the s ign i ficance of masks with i n the overall v isual rhetoric of Osh i i 's p ro­

cession , i t should be noted that although these feature in virtually all cultures , they are espe-

1 08 A N l M E INTERSECTlOf'S

cial ly prominent i n Asi a . As entit ies endowed with concurrently monstrous and n u minous

appeal , masks have p layed v i ta l roles over the centuries i n contexts a s diverse a s B uddhist tem­

ples , Sh into shr ines , ar istocratic and mi l i tary c i rcles, sanctuaries , parades and street festivals ,

and for purposes as varied as an i mistic magic , esoteric l i turgy, p ropi t iatory ceremon ies t ied

to venatorial and agrarian mores, in itiation and ferti l i ty r ites, shaman ist ic p ractices and seances .

Masks also occupy a p rivi leged space in tradit ional Japanese theater , he lp ing the performer to mainta in a stab le , sym bol- laden express ion and the audience to access an alternate fantasy world . Maskmaking can be traced back to Japan's p rehistory and its i n i t ia l pu rpose was to

del iver vis ib le icons of gods and demons to be deployed i n the pu rsu i t of e i ther i ngrat iat in g

or exorcis iz ing r i tes ; they could therefore b e said t o emanate from a desire t o bridge t h e gap between the human and the supernatural dimensions . It was also assumed that h umans don­

n ing masks could d ivest themselves of their earthbound i ndiv idual i t ies and metamorphose

i nto the masks' very souls , hence becoming breath ing incarnations of other myster ious ent i­tles .

Masks are s t i l l used abundantly today in Japan's many festivals , r i tuals and dramatic per­

forma nces . Noh theatre , i n particu lar , owes i ts very ident i ty as an i ncontrovert ibly u n ique

cul tural form to masks . The execution of a Noh mask is a very complex art , requ i r i ng i ts cre­

ator to abide by extremely precise technical rules at both the sculp tural and the chromat ic leve ls . The major i ty of Noh masks appear to be devo id of any exp ress ion whatsoever but

nonetheless excel at conveying particular and h ighly defined fee l ings and moods by means of concentrated abstract ion . Minute engravings and barely percept ib le grooves o r i ndentat ions ,

for example , can be i nt roduced so as to p roduce del icate l ines capable of communicat ing very specific emotions . Moreover , the performer's body language augments consistently the mask's

affective import : even the s l igh test turn or t i l t of the head wi l l cause the mask's seemingly

vacuous orbs to fill with pathos or sadness .

The masks displayed throughout Innocenc e's festival sequence reverberate wi th mul t ip le

iconographic echoes of pan-Asian derivat ion . The i r styles alternately hark back to the Sh i sh i

masks worn in the course of the Shishi-mai ("Lion Dance" ) , once performed to ward off evi l

demons a n d s t i l l enacted i n substant ial numbers today throughout Japan ; t h e sat i r ica l ly grotesque Kyogen and Oni masks , typically depicti ng the wi ldest s ide of var ious gods and spi rits ; Chinese opera masks inspired by ancient face-paint ing styles ; Korean wh ite masks wi th

beak- l ike noses and black eyes ; Indian fanged masks frequently used i n Kathakah perform­

ances - and the l is t cou ld no doubt stretch further.

As far as the performative modal i t ies ev inced by the sequence are concerned, these are

veritably steeped in a dist inct ively Eastern heri tage , dominated by the methodica l employ­

ment of repetit ive r i tual ized gestures, postures and other kinet ic c lues . In Eastern theater at large , the actor's p r i o rity is not variety, imp rovisation or the exp ression of mutable messages

but rather to convey - through practically i nvariable and h igh ly symbol ic acts - stylized rep­resentations of unfa i l i ngly recu rrent states and actions . The goal , in ab id ing by this aesthetic tenet , is the e l imination of ambiguity, equ ivocation and m isunderstanding . I t i s v i tal to appre­ciate , however , that the suppression of these elements of potential l i nguist ic i nstab i l i ty i s not

designed to inculcate dogmatic lessons i nto the audience but rather to in t imate that the th i rst

for constant change is not conducive to deeper and more satisfying truths but mere ly to a form of escap i sm. Therefore, the ass iduous return to archaic techn iques and grammars is a means of suggest ing that the desi re for cont in ual mutation s imp ly ignores the existent ia l roots

Seven - G host i n the Shell 2 1 09

of performance - and i ndeed of the u rge to perform - by dismiss ing the o ld as s ta id and out­

dated , when those techn iques and grammars i n fact carry metaphysical messages wel l i n excess

of their contingent i ncarnations (as p lays, puppet shows or parades , for example) .

The propos it ion that the retu rn to the ancestral does not s imp ly amount to stubborn

tradit ional ism but is actual ly a way of commun icat ing endur ing human concerns in evo lv ing

social mi l ieux is attested to by Innocence's parade : the ancient languages and performative styles to which i t consistently a l ludes are not deployed in order to seek refuge in an i deal ized past but rather to comment on the p resent and on a hypothetical future - most notably, through

the j uxtapos i t ion of tradi t ional masks and puppets, on the one hand, and novel h uman s im­

u lacra (such as cybernet ic organ isms) . Thus , the process ion abides i n memory as a pulsat ing

p iece of spat ia l poetry that is fai thful to the most anc ient tradi t ions and yet adventuro usly

specu lat ive at once .

A further aspect of Eastern performance worthy of consideration i n the p resent context is the use of s i lence as an integral component of theatrical lan guage . The art of an ime in gen­eral and Osh i i 's oeuvre i n part icular eloquently confirm th i s formal p reference. As Anton in

Artaud has argued, the p rocl iv ity towards s i lence is qui te at odds wi th Western approaches

to performance, where "the l ines gain the upper hand " :

This not ion, the predominance o f t h e l i nes in theatre, i s deeply rooted i n liS a n d w e v iew theatre s o milch as j llst a physical reflection of the scri p t , that everyth ing in theatre outs ide the script . . . appears to liS to be a pan of stag ing, and i nferior to the scri pt . . . . To link theatre with expressive form potent ia l , w i th every­th ing in the way of gestures, sollnd, colours, movement , i s to return it to its orig i nal purpose, to restore it to a rel igious, metaphysical pos i t ion , to reconci le i t with the universe [Anaud, pp. 50-5 \] .

Authentic emotions, Artaud int imates, cannot be nakedly expressed, for naked express ion i s

bound to betray the i r s ign ificance , to lessen the i r atavis t ic v igo r and to domesticate them in

the name of an arrogant rat ional ism : "Any strong feel ing produces an i dea of empt iness w i th in

us , and l ucid language which prevents the emptiness also prevents poetry appearing i n thought .

For th i s reason an image , an a l legory, a form disguis ing what i t means to reveal , ha s more

meaning to the mind than the enl ightenment brought about hy words and the ir ana lys is" (p .

53). I n Innocence, d ialogue does p lay a key part in the unfo ld ing of the fi l m's ph i losoph ical

strand but non-verbal e lements are no less v i ta l to the work's total effectiveness . The proces­s ion sequence , specifical ly, inv ites the audience both to savor i ts opulent graph ics and to reflect upon the i r broader cu l tural impl icat ions not by recourse to either d ialogue or voiceovers bu t

by emphatical ly proclaim i ng i ts wordlessness through Kenj i Kawai 's g lor ious mus i c . Wi th in

the sequence , moreover , d isparate s ign systems of a non-verbal natu re can be seen a s equal ly

expressive - importantly, not so much through the content they expl ic i t ly reveal as through

the inexhaustible semiot ic variety to wh ich they imp l icit ly refer . Hence , they se lf-consciously and del iberately operate as snapshots , captu ring merely an i n fin ites imal p roport ion of the world 's unceas ing becoming . In fo reground ing the non-verbal d imens ion , moreover , the fes­t ival sequence epitomizes the Japanese concept ion of theater as a total art i n which harmonies , rhythms, motions and the performer's body as a whole are often more paramount than any

scrip t . S ign ificantly, the or ig ina l Japanese term for "theater" is geinou, "art ist ic ski l l , " which

suggests that the i nd igenous cul ture does not pr iv i l ege not ions of plot and character devel­opment over other aspects of performance, i n the way Western cr i t ic i sm has tended to do s ince at least Aristot le .

1 1 0 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

I n embracing this comprehens ive approach to performance , Osh i i s imul taneously p ro­

poses a ho l ist ic take on the value of images . Putatively inan i mate constructs and i cons - such

as the majest ic floats and colossal effigies moving through an unceas ing deluge of snow- l ike

petals - are pos i ted as no less a l ive than their human (or cyberorgan ic) beholders . Although Western crowds may be inc l ined to dismiss those images as fake concess ions to idolatry, the ir a l iveness resplendently sh i nes forth once the viewer is wi l l ing to approach them as ep iphan ic

gl impses of an otherwise inscrutable beyond. In the commentary j o intly provided by Oshi i and by Innocence's an imat ion d i rector ,

Tosh ih iko Nish i kubo - inc luded in the Dream Works Home Enterta inment Special Edit ion

DVD of Innocence released i n 2004 - the creators usefu l ly eluc idate their approach to the fes­t ival sequence , d issect ing the often formidable difficult ies spr inkled a long the path to v isual

excel lence :

OS! I I I : When I was d o i n g t h e storyboards I knew t h i s part was go ing to be lOugh, b u t I never real­ized i t was going 10 be this tough .

N I SH IKUIlO: When it comes to i t , every th i ng i n th is scene was tax ing . Lots of stuff is an i mated by hand, but you real ly have to look to see i t .

O S H I I : I n terms of backgrounds, there are someth ing l i ke several hundred p ieces independent ly mov­ing here . . . .

N I S f l I KUIlO: There's lots of m i n ute movement i n back that most people probably won't not ice . But the atmosphere wouldn't be at al l the same wi thout those l i tt le movements .

OSf l l 1 : The crowds here , about a th i rd of them arc sh ift ing about . . . . D idn't want to do th i s l ike Dis­ney does mob scenes . They m ake me ljueasy. Constant movement every each way.

N I S fl I KUIlO: S l ight movement can leave you with a d ist inct impress ion . OSH I I : The human eye i s designed to scale back excessive i n fo enter ing in . So when you h ave con­

stant movement everywhere, i t gets to be unnerv ing ["Commentary by Mamoru Oshjj and Tosh ih iko Nish ikubo" ] .

As po inted out i n the course of th is same account , a major influence behind the execut ion of the parade sequence was a popular fest ival attended i n Taiwan by the troupe as par t of thei r preparatory fieldwork . This detai l confirms the pan-Asian , rather than str ict ly and solely Japa­

nese , roots of the sequence . Also noteworthy are Takeuch i 's com ments concern i n g the sequence's CG/cel ratio : " in the fest ival scene, 98% of what you see is hand-drawn material , and about 80% of the movements were supported by CG. The rest (20%) , inc luding the char­acters and mobs, were cel an imation" (Takeuchi ) .

The fi lm i s also thematical ly imbued with other a l lus ions to tradit ional Japanese cul ture .

Central t o i ts underlyi ng ph i losophy i s the Sh into-based bel ief that a l l ent i t ies - inorgan ic ,

art ificial and inan imate ones inc luded - are endowed wi th sp i ri tua l attr ibutes . Th is hypoth­esis is most ass iduously promulgated wi th reference to the ningyou ("do l l " ) i mage , n umerous incarn atio ns o f which p u n ctuate Bato u's and Togusa's in vestigation . Jap a n ese c u l t u re h as evinced a deep attachment to the symbol ic attr ibutes of dol ls of countless gu ises for many centuries . Dol ls s t i l l feature prominently in contemporary Japan , as evinced by the ongo ing ho ld on the col lective i maginary of celebrations such a s t he Hina Matsuri ("Gir l 's Day, " 3 March) , an event marked by the publ ic display of ornamental dolls as symbol ic means of ensur­ing young gir ls' wel l -be ing .

Al l the various manifestations of the ningyou proposed by Innocence are car ingly dep icted

i n accordance with painstaking background research on Osh i i 's part, which entai led trips to various dol l museums s i tuated in both Japan and the West . The ma in influences underp in-

Seven - Ghos t i n the She l l 2 1 1 1

ning Osh i i 's fi l m , i n this regard, a re the works of the Surreal i s t art ist Hans Be l lmer and of

the contemporary Japanese artists S imon Yotsuya , H i roko I geta and Etsuko Miura , a s we l l as

wax anatomical models molded from actual corpses held at La Specola museum in F lorence .

Innocenc e h ints , more or less overtly, at a broad range of do l l - related ind igenous arts and

r i tua ls that are s imultaneously relevant to both t radit ional and contem porary contexts . I t i s first of a l l worth noting that the figure of the dol l i s c losely related to that o f the mascot , as

evi nced by the adopt ion i n numerous t radit ions and cul ts of symbol i c ent i t ies w i th human or humanoid appearance supposed to br ing good luck . The word "mascot" derives from the

Proven<;:al "mascotto, " the femin ine d iminutive of " masco, " i . e . "witch . " Dol l s and mascots have been engaged i n a mutua l ly sustain ing re lat ionsh ip over the centuries , s ince dol l s can be used as mascots and mascots can take the �orm of dol l s . Rather fel ic i tously for the present

discuss ion , "masco" i s also related to the medieva l Latin term " masca," which means "ghost . "

Innocenc e also int imates that a t t h e same t ime a s doll - l ike icons pervade trad it ional cu l­tures as ubiqui tous spectres, novel ghostly forms contin ua l ly develop in tandem with chang­ing media and tech nologies . Both tradi t ional and contemporary channels of i nformat ion and communication are pervaded by phantasmatic presences - or crypto-presences, as the case may

be . The I nternet i tse lf could be seen as the producer and di ssem inator of ghostly ent it ies akin

to techno-ectop lasms . As Jeffrey Sconce argues, the tendency to associate electron ic channels o f communica­

tion wi th otherworldly and incorporeal fo rces can be t raced as far back as the advent of the telegraph and i ts somewhat unorthodox marriagc to early sp i r i tual ism . S ince that t ime , he

mai nta ins , Western (and especial ly American) cul ture has remained " intr igued by the capac­ity of electron ic media to create sovereign yet d isplaced, absent and parallel worlds" (Sconce, p. 25 ) . The reason he then adduces for this enduring propensi ty to "ascr ibe mystical powers

to what are u l t imately very material technologies" (p. 6) is that humans need to conceive of

each new med ium as somehow al ive in order to be able to accommodate i t w i th in thei r par­adigms. Endowing a tech nology with l atent spectral energies is a way of symbol iz ing i ts a l ive­

ness. In the specific case of Innocence, i t could be argued that Major Kusanagi represents (at

l east in Batou's perception of her ongoing legacy) the soul at the core of cyberspace - the "ghost in the mach ine" - and even though she is not "a l ive" in any convent ional sense of the word, she is unden iably associated wi th immense vi ta l i ty. She thus provides the cyborg cop wi th

the necessary emotional resources to i nteract successfu l ly with an otherwise co ld , function­

oriented and u l t imately dehuman izing technology.

The phrase "ghost in the mach ine , " i ncidental ly, i s used by G ilbert Ryle in T he Conc ept

of Mind ( 1949) to describe ( rather deris ively) the blatantly dual ist ic nature of the Cartes ian

system , where the body i s rega rded as a purely mechan ical apparatus, and the soul or sp i r i t putatively dwel l ing there in and governing i t as an utter ly incorporeal agent . Osh i i persist­

ently refutes th is model - not only i n Innocence but actual ly throughout h i s out p u t - by int i ­mat ing that both the so-cal led body and the so-cal led sou \ , and indeed both an imate and inan imate ent i t ies, partake at once of the mechan ical and the sp ir i tua l .

ImlOcenc e captures s imul taneously the tradi t ional s ignificance of the dol l icon (and of the

cognate figures of the mascot and the w i tch) and the contemporary ubiqu i tousness of phan­tasmatic presences wi th in the pervas ive networks of cybercul ture . The character of the Major from Innocenc e's prequel fu nct ions a s a benevolent spectral p resence, fo l lowing Batou as a dis­cmbodied "guardian angel" 2 and only briefly revis i t ing a corporeal dol l - l ike shel l i n the fi lm's

1 1 2 ANIM E INTERSECTIONS

c l imax i n order to ass ist the cyborg cop in the completion of h i s m ission . Kusanagi's deft han­

dl ing of cybertechnology, intended to enable Batou to break through Kim's v i rtual snare , i s choreographed by recourse to a visual rhetoric that vividly recal l s magical pract ices - wh ich e l l iptical ly equates the Major to the other t radit ional figure mentioned above , that of the

w i tch .

The magical d imension is further re inforced by the pro tean alchemy o f Kim's mans ion . The inclus ion of Gothic e lements is particularly i ntr igu ing , i n this regard, given the etymol­

ogy of the term "Goth ic" and i ts attendant symbol i c connotat ions . "The word 'Goth i c' , "

James Rol l i ns expla ins , "comes from the Greek word 'goet ic . ' Wh ich translates t o 'magic . '

And such arch i tectu re was considered magical . I t was l ike noth ing seen a t the t ime : the th in

ribbi ng , the fly ing buttresses , the imposs ible heights . I t gave an impress ion of weightlessness"

(Ro l l ins , p. 406) . It is therefore not surpris ing , given the ir sett ing , that a l though Kim's strat­agems are sustained by state-of-the-art cybernetics, they nonetheless exude an esoteric fee l that draws them into c loser p roximity to the realm of ancient magic than to the domain of advanced technoscience .

Where the ningyou figu re is concerned, Innoc ence is also steeped i n trad i t ion at the

specifically c inematic level , insofar as do l l s feature in varying shades of p rominence i n n umer­

o us Japanese films . Two classics arc part icularly worthy of notice i n the p resent context : Akira Kurosawa's Yume (Drea ms, 1992) and Takesh i Ki tano's Dolls (2002) . The section of Yume enti­

tled "The Peach Orchard" shares with Osh i i's film the theme of dolls ' latent a l iveness . This is poet ical ly art iculated as the dolls from a young gi rl 's col lection come to l i fe on Hina Mat­suri. Dolls i s even closer to Innocence in tone insofar as i t dramatizes w i th unsett l ing potency the dol l 's haunt ing powers by p resent ing part of a Bunraku (puppet) show and then uncan­

n i ly i nvert ing the puppets /audience relat ionsh ip by hav ing the ar t ific ia l creatures turn to

observe the human spectators with dispassionate eyes .

The figure of the dol l suppl ies Osh i i with a cu l tural ly resonant symbol through wh ich qui ntessent ia l ly human anxieties regard ing the very mean ing of the human can be fathomed.

Innoc enc e continua l ly draws attention to the construction of dol ls of var ious k inds as symp­tomatic of human beings' obsess ive procl ivity to rep l icate themselves . I n des ign ing dol l s i n their own image , humans adopt a creat ional stance that u l t imately bears wi tness not ro the i r godl ike omnipotence but rather to deeply i ngrained preoccupations about the i r own onto­

logical status . Humans , the fi lm int imates, make dol ls because they themselves feel akin to p layth ings i n the hands of a super ior force which, though not necessar i ly malevo lent , i s

nonetheless cal lously indifferent to the i r dest iny and to the i r p l igh t . The fabr icat ion of syn­

thet ic creatures thus const itutes a pathetic attem pt by humans to assert their autonomy and

ingenu i ty. Ul t imately, we are betrayed by the a nthropomorphic ent i t ies we i nvent in order to per­

petuate our se lf- image and thus efFace, albeit transiently, our inexorable l i m itat ions i n the face of the firmament's overpowering ampl i tude . This is because those creatures are meant to be

flawless and are therefore bound to fa i l us, in their supposed function as p leas ing s imulacra of actual people , for the s imple reason that they do not capture h umani ty's most d is t inct ive trai t - namely, imperfect ion . "The human ," the v i l la in Kim argues , " i s no match for a dol l , i n i ts form , i ts elegance i n motion , i ts very being. The inadequacies of hu man awareness become the i nadequacies of l i fe's real i ty. Perfection is poss ib le only for those w ithout con­sciousness, or perhaps endowed with infini te consciousness . In other words, for dol l s and for

Seven - G hos t i n rhe She l l 2 1 1 3

gods . " Kim then inc ludes "an imals" i n rhe l isr and corroborates th is p ropos i t ion by po int ing

out that "Shel ley's skylarks are suffused w i th a profound, i ns t inctive joy. Joy we h umans , driven by self-consciousness, can never know. "

The fi lm subtly interweaves the thematic strand j ust outl ined with cognate speculations

about the intractable haziness of the notion of al iveness . Ki m mainta ins that dol l s "haunt"

humans - and have indeed done so for time immemorial - because they look eminently human ,

yet are "nothing but human." They thus compel us to wonder , by implication , to what extent

creatures that appear to be al ive are really al ive , and the extent to which ostensibly l i feless objects

might actually be animate. By impl ication , dolls "make us face the terror of being reduced to

s imple mechanisms and marter. " These troubl ing reflections are l argely a corol lary of scientific advancement : in endeavoring to explain the workings of the universe in mechanical terms, h uman

beings have unwittingly ushered in the possibi l i ty of thei r own existence being "reducible to bas ic , mechanical parts . " Ascerta in ing and quantifying the precise degree to which human beings and the ir artificial counterparts differ becomes, at this point , i mperviously hard . (A comparably poignant reference to the dol l- l ike status of humans is made i n Episode 21 of the Neon Genesis

Evangelion television series, "The b i rth of NERV/He was aware that he was st i l l a ch i ld . " ) I n the

l ight of these speculations, i t is hardly surprising that visitors of dol l museums should frequently

remark on the s ingularly disquieting sensations evoked by the glassy-eyed exhibits . Obviously inanimate , these creatures nonetheless exude an aura of awareness, of knowingness .

I n addi t ion , Osh i i harbors a procl ivity to couple the figure of the dol l w i th that of the dog - an aspect of h is ph i losophy he describes thus i n the documentary suppl ied with the

aforementioned DVD :

Both were created by humans . Dogs are or ig inal ly nor wi ld an imals . They h ave been captured by the humans and made to meet their convenience . 1 fce l that the h i s tories , cult ures, and c iv i l izat ions of h umans are symbol ical ly represented i n the making of dol l s . I n othcr words, humans have been c reat ing them­selves . They have been reproducing their own images. As a resul r , rhe world h as become worthless , and created d isastrous h istories . There are a few beaut ifu l and decent th ings i n th is world, bur I can't he lp to think that rhe m ajor i ty is IlO good [Osh i i 2004al .

As emphasized by character des igner Tetsuya Nish io , moreover , the execut ion of effective dol l s requ i red a keen grasp of the synthetic creatures' pecul iar anatomies and related patterns of motion , which somet imes entai led ignoring the key tenets incu lcated in an imators from

the very begi nning of the i r careers a s p ivotal to the accompl i shment of conv inc ing effects . For

i nstance , the notion that human l imbs never qui te move i n isolat ion insofar as the ent i re body

is at least marginal ly affected by the sh ift of even a s i ngle par t , of absolu tely card inal value

when i t comes to represent ing peop le's motion , loses currency where dol ls are i nvolved . Hence,

the ani mator must be prepared to neutral ize h is inveterate capaci t ies , and an imate separate body parts independently i n a fash ion that could feasibly be deemed defective an imat ion i n the handl ing of the h u man form .

At the same t ime , Nishio and h i s associates had to negot iate the conundrum of how to

invest the dol ls with expressiveness w i thout endowing them wi th natura l i s t ic express ions :

"Dol l s have the same shape as humans but they do not have facial exp ress ions . I t actually makes the key an imation work much tougher. Normal ly, when a human gets sho t , the facial expression changes . But when i t comes to dol ls , the i r expression doesn't change a bit . For a key animator , i t 's d iflicul t to [show] that a character's been shot wi thout rely ing on the change of her facial express ion" (Nish io ) .

1 1 4 A N I M E I NTERSECTI ONS

The exten t to which the art ists involved were able to i mbue the dol ls w i th com munica­

tive powers without actual ly saturating them with anthropomorph ic t ra i t s is paradigmatical ly evi nced by the early sequence i n which a murderous gynoid, hav ing al ready assass inated her

owner and p layed havoc wi th the agents sent i n her pursu i t , attacks Batou , is held a t bay by the cyborg's en hanced arm and ends up tearing herself asu nder after whisper ing a barely audi­b le " help me . " The dol l 's exp ress ion remains im mutable , yet her h i ghly styl ized body lan­

guage , her harmon ious and yet unearthly mot ion and the aura of- paradoxica l ly

radiant - spooki ness she evokes at every turn of the camera impart upon the creatu re a u n ique

degree of v i sua l and dynamic consistency.

Dol ls are not on ly p ivotal to Innocenc e in a thematic sense , however . Osh i i is no less com mi tted to the cul t ivation of self- reflexivity than other d i rectors discussed in earl ier seg­ments of this book, pr imari ly Kon , Anno and Rintaro . What Osh i i finds i n the doll i s pre­

cisely a means of com menting from within the cinematic tapestry on the art of a n imat ion and

on the tools i t employs . Innoc ence's director is specifically i nterested i n celebrat ing the mediu m's

madeness and therefore seeks to remind us constantly of the const i tut ional art ificial i ty of an i ­

mated characters regardless of the degree of rea l i sm to wh ich they may atta i n . Even as those

characters and their environments become i ncreas ingly l i fe l ike thanks to tremendous advances

in d igital technology, they are essential ly artifacts and should be consciously appra ised as such . The doll , when approached from this angle , epitomizes the world of an ime at l a rge as a rea lm where in heightened real i sm - especially of the type afforded by CG I - is never qu i te a l lowed

to suppress the joy and toil of the construction process . Qu ite appositely for a movie com mi tted to sel f- reflex iv i ty, Innocence uses i ts very credi t

sequence , where the p roduction of a prosthetic body i s meticulously documented, t o reflect

tangentia l ly on the p rocess of its own making. The lengthy and laborious p roduct ion meth­

ods adopted by Osh i i and h is team throughout the four years of Innoc enc e's execut ion i s here

symbol ical ly repl icated . The sequence opens with an a l legory of natura l fer t i l izat ion that sub­tly paral le ls the concept ion of the individual organ i sm and the genesis of the un iverse . This m icrocosm-macrocosm correspondence is represented as the p rogressive mul t ip l icat ion of cor­puscles i nto numerous g lobular sha pes , suggest ive at once of ce l l s afloat i n the amn io t i c s tream

and astral bodies suspended i n cosmic infini ty. The process leads to the emergence of a s tun­n ingly p l ast ic sphere that rap idly mutates through a series of mesmerizing metamorphoses .

Abetted by state-of-the-art morph ing tech nologies and an insp i red use of construct ive so l id

geometry, th is part of the sequence pursues the m icro-macro paral le l i sm by caus ing the i n i ­t ia l ly smooth globe to acquire fu rrows and indentations that b r i ng to mind the imaginary gr id of paral le ls and merid ians associated with the Earth , on the one hand, and a h ighly schema­tized and neatly ordered vers ion of the human brain , on the other . No less fasc ina t i ng are the biomorph ic segments and cab le- l ike s inews (redolent of s trands of DNA) sprout ing from th i s shape as i t evolves at an exponential rate before our eyes .

The fol low ing i mages , centred on an exquis i tely s low-paced pan across a mechan ical

sp inal chord from which myriad nerve-l ike fi laments emanate, arguably offer some of the

ent i re sequence's most uncanny moments . Emphatically art ificial in i ts glorification of gleam­ing metal and painstakingly conceived microtechnology, the mechanism nonetheless comes across as v ibrantly a l ive : the cinematography is so pass ionately photoreal i s t ic as to i nduce the v iewer to bel ieve that no object that does not actual ly exist i n the empi rical domain could ever look qui te so real . The confluence of the syn thetic and organ ic di mens ions is aga i n h igh-

Sellen - G host i n the Shel l 2 1 1 5

l ighted i n the fol lowing port ion of the sequence , where a met iculously rendered cyborg hand

is the center of attention . I ts anatomical structure and proport ions are u t terly consonant w i th those of a l iv ing h u man hand, yet i ts art ificial i ty is th rown into re l ief by the p reternatural ly

fl.awless textu re of i ts "skin . " The impression of constructedness is rein fo rced as the hand tu rns upon an invis ib le p ivo t , revea l ing i ts intricate mechan ical core .

The screen then sw i tches to a composite creature i ntensely redolent of Be l lmer's do l l s . This entity is at firs t made to look qu i te grotesque by i ts seemingly uneasy i ntegration of d i s­

parate and somewhat i ncongruous segments but u nexpected ly sp l i ts i nto two , identical , dol l­

l i ke forms, po ised as though they were each other's specular refl.ect ions , endowed with the

attr ibutes of symmetrical , harmon iously constructed and - above a l l - breathtakingly elegant mannequ ins . (This i mage cou ld also be seen as an unobtrusive a l l us ion to the mass-produc­t ion of c lone-l ike individuals i n post-cap i ta l is t dispensations . )

The cyborg/dol l eventual ly surfaces from a vortex of radiant threads , i ts fetal pos i t ion

emphasizi ng the creatu re's latent hu mani ty even as the b ioports and cables i n i t ia l ly punctur­ing i ts body operate as u nequ ivocal reminders of i ts intractably fabricated nature . In the c los­ing part of the sequence , the camera focuses on the dol l 's head and face , cu lm inat ing w i th an

extreme close-u p of a disturbingly photoreal ist ic turquo ise eye . The degree of photoreal i sm

achieved by Osh i i 's team is , i n a sense , encapsu lated by th i s one frame : wha t makes i t gen­u inely unforgettab le , u l t i mately, i s not so much i t s perfect ion - wh ich cou ld actual ly have

become unconvinc ing had it fel t too extreme - but i ts i ncorporation of a per ipheral e lement

of i m perfect ion . Th is is borne out by the marginal ly i rregu lar distr ibut ion and th ickness of the lower lashes . This effect cou ld be usefu l ly compared and contrasted wi th the rendi t ion of [he hero ine's eyes i n }Ina! Fantasy: The Spirits Within, where Aki's excess ively and un i formly

abundant lashes part ial ly g ive away her synthetic nature . I mportantly, for the pu rpose of the

overal l argument here advanced, the iconography employed in the representat ion of the hybrid

art ifact is at once eminently Nipponic in i ts adopt ion of a ha i rs tyle and approach to make­up readi ly associated wi th tradit ional Japanese culture , and yet Western ized by i ts surpris i ng choice of ocular colorat ion .

Thematical ly speaking , Innocence is no less firmly rooted i n Western t radit ion than i n

indigenous mythology and lore . This i s borne out by the pro tagon ist 's a lmost obsess i ve ten­dency to reflect upon thorny existential issues concern ing the essence of h uman i ty - and upon

the possible reasons beh ind humans' entrenched procl ivity to perpetuate thei r i mage i n artificial counterparts - by recourse to c i tat ions and aphorisms drawn from sources as varied as Con­fucius , I saac Asimov, the B ib le , Rene Desca rtes , Jean-Luc Godard, Jakob Gr im m , John Mi l ­ton and Ludwig Wittgenste in , a s we l l Rena issance magic and spir i tual i sm . Evidence of Oshi i 's

appet i te for ph i losoph ical speculation is fu rther consol idated by h i s t rea tment of the haunt­

ingly charismatic persona of the forensics lab d i rector , Coroner H araway.

The character is named after the cu l tu ral theorist Donna Haraway, whose sem ina l work on the cyborg figure unquestionably bears sal ient aHini t ies with Osh i i 's own world v iew. Har­

away's "A man ifesto for cyborgs" indeed "pos i ts the cyborg body as a radica l chal lenge to the

myth of stable ident i t ies due to its emphasis on the i nterpenetrat ion of self and other. By t ra­vers ing the boundary between rile human and the mach ine , the cyborg concurrently disru p ts other b inary oppos i tes (cul tu re/nature ; rea l i ty/appearance ; male/female) . . . . The cyborg body inhabits a non-teleological and non-et io logical un iverse which makes the fantasy of return­ing to an Eden ic state of i nnocence qu ite i rrelevant" (Caval laro , p. 49) . I n the ph i losopher's

1 1 6 ANIME I NTERSECTIONS

own words : " i t i s not made of mud and cannot d ream of return ing to d ust" (Haraway, p . 1 7 5 ) . The argument p u rsued by Haraway's epoch-making art icle is resonantly echoed by Osh i i 's susta ined cr i t ique of the un ified self typical ly glorified by l iberal human i sm as a specious my th .

Thus, wh i le d rawing on tradi tional sources of concomitantly Eastern and Western p rove­

nance , Innocence also engages with a decidedly post-h umanist v is ion of global magn i tude .

Th i s is encapsulated by the proposit ion that anthropocentric humanism i s a fal lac ious creed,

i nsofar as the incremental penetration of human organisms and mental i t ies by techno logical

i nstruments, codes and prostheses i nval idates the claim to the superiority of the h u man species

onto which that doctr ine obst inately holds. In Innocence, the d i rector's vis ion gives l i fe to a world where in mach i nes and both human and non-human an imals unrelent ingly coalesce . Osh i i 's problematization of conventional notions of a l iveness and sentience through the sym­bol of the ningyou captures his a nt i-anthropocentric lean ings with disarming candor .

I n 2005 , Bandai Entertainment released the DVD Ghost in the Shell 2: 1121zoc[l1ce - Music

Video Anthology, a collection of seven an imated music videos (" I ncubation , " "Civi l ization , "

"Abyss," "Confusion ," "Sabbath ," "Rumble" and "Pathos") i ncorporat ing the gorgeous back­

ground artwork used to bring Inllocence's universe to cinematic l i fe , Kawai's score , addi tional j azz

pieces and the songs performed by the acclaimed jazz vocalist Kimiko I to . As stated in the review of the anthology suppl ied by The Armchair Empire, one of the collection's greatest v i rtues unques­tionably resides with its ability "to showcase the most overlooked character in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, the background. Removing all of the characters that might evoke emotion w i th their

own presences, we deal with only the inhuman and the backgrounds" (Tazman) .

The compilat ion const i tutes a paradigmatic instance of the phenomenon of "remedia­

t ion" theorized by Jay Dav id Bolter and Richard Grusin - namely, the p rocess whereby novel

visual media (and the art ifacts associated with such media) ach ieve a certa in cu l tura l status by reconfiguring earl ier media and art ifacts, and hence i nvest ing them with fresh funct ions : "What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refash ion o lder media and the ways i n which older media refashion themselves to answer the cha l l enges of

new media" (Bol ter and Grus i n , p . 15 ) . On the one hand , th is p rocess amounts to the rep u r­

pos ing of the content of one medium into another (as evinced by the adaptation for the screen of classic fiction) . On the other, it consists of the transformation (th rough partial d isp lace­

ment) of one med ium into another (as exempl ified by the transit ion from stage p roduct ion

to c inema, or from tradit ional paint ing to photography) .

The music anthology's "remediat i ng" nature renders it especial ly relevant to th i s s tudy's concern w ith the col lus ion of trad it ion and innovation . I ndeed, remediat ion po ints to the pos­

s ib i l i ty of v ir tua l ly any establ ished art form and v i rtual ly any ostensibly fin ished p ro duct becoming open to creat ive metamorphoses capable of t rans la t ing them i nt o novel forms or objects . Relatedly, remediation is i nherent in a medium's very essence : there would be no med i a , Bol ter and Grus in int imate , were remediation not constantly at work : "A medium i s

that which remediates . I t i s that which appropr iates the tech n i ques , fo rms , and soc ia l

s ignificance of other med ia . . . . A med ium in our culture can never operate in isolat ion , because i t must enter into relat ionships of respect and rival ry with other media" (p . 6 5 ) . Thus , the body of art ifacts - and the attendant nexus of modes of production and consumpt ion - char­acterist ic of a particular society can never be taken as immutable givens . By extens ion , trad i­t ion cou ld be sa id to harbor within its very fabric the seeds of innovat ion .

Seven -Ghost i n the Shell 2 1 1 7

The medial relat ionsh i p between Osh i i 's feature fi lm and the music anthology is part ic­

u larly i ntr igu ing insofar as i t a l ludes to a th i rd possible level o f remediat ion . This does not s imp ly add up to either the adaptation or the displacement of one med ium by another . I n

fact , i t i s capable o f engenderi ng a new form endowed with autonomous aesthet ic and tech­

nical s ignificance through the coalescence of two dist inct media by m eans of a p rocess of hybridization . With i ts i ntegrat ion of awesome visuals capable of recreat ing Osh i i 's v is ion in

detai l and of the soundtrack conj ured up by Kawai to impart l i fe and atmosphere upon them ,

the anthology cou ld i n deed be deemed not so much a supplement to , as an a l ternate vers ion of, Innocence the movie .

As a work endowed with independent standing , the col lection p lays an especia l ly impor­tant ro le , i n the current context , insofar as i t enables the viewer to appreciate and closely i nspect many of the fi lm's techn ical ly dist inct ive features in a more focused and objective fash ion than

the feature al lows for . This i s by no means i ntended as an indictment on Innocence's techn i ­

cal qual i ty - what is be ing p roposed, rather , is that the music v ideos encourage t he spectator

to concentrate in t imately on the visuals themselves, and hence to reflect on the modali t ies of

their execut ion and i mpact , without being distracted by p lot-re lated compl icat ions and con­

volu t ions , nor i ndeed by elaborate dialogue . (Innocence was not dubbed into English prior to

either its theatrical release or its appearance on OVO, and audiences unequipped with ful l com mand of t h e Japanese language therefore depend on subt i tles . These may pose an addi­tional encumbrance , a t least upon first viewing . )

The h istory of col laborat ive p roj ects br ing ing together Osh i i 's and Kawai 's p ro l ific imag­inations is not only extensive but also studded with veri table j ewels of both an imated and l ive-action c inema . Beside Innocence, these i nclude : The Red Spectacles ( 1 987) , Patlabor 1: The

Mobile Police ( 1989) , Mobile Police Patlabor OVA 1 ( 1988-1989) , Mobile Police Patlabor TV Series ( 1989-1990) , Mobile Police Patlabor OVA 2 ( 1990-1992) , Stray Dog: Kerberos Panzer Cops

( 1991 ) , Talking Head ( 1992) , Patlabor 2: The Movie ( 1993) , Ghost in the Shell ( 199 5 ) , Avalon (2001) , Killers: .50 Woman (2002) and Tachigui -The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters (2006) . As in p revious col laborations, no efforts were avo ided and no chal lenges e luded i n

the generation of a composite world where in Innocence's acoust ic a n d visual ident i ties could mutual ly enhance and susta in each other . Particularly worthy of not ice , among the many her­

cu lean tasks undertaken by the two artists and the i r versat i le t roupe , were the exact ing con­

struct ion of a colossa l music box , accompanied by sound effects recorded in a frozen quarry

in order to capture an uncanny atmosphere of reverberant spaciousness whi le s imul taneously

evoking the ici ly metal l ic sources of the melody. The lengths taken to create the fi lm's sound­track and the related v ideo anthology are a l so eloquently demonstrated by the decis ion to

bring over seventy folk s ingers together int o a concert hal l for the purposes of record ing the

more tradi t ional vocal p ieces . In assess ing Innocence's cumulat ive effectiveness , Osh i i has

i ncontrovert ibly honored Kawai's music as a vital force : "I th ink the sound accou nts for ha lf of the mov ie . Of course , v isuals are im portant , but they're eas ier to j udge than sound . In that sense , sound le ts you explore more possib i l i t ies" (Osh i i 2004a) .

I n the "Exclusive North American I nterv iew" with Kawai conducted i n Apr i l 2005 for

i nclusion in the booklet accompanyi ng the original mov ie soundtrack, the composer has com­mented as fol lows on the schedule involved in the creat ion of the score for Innocence: "The compos i t ions themselves took about a month . Three major parts o f the film score - the folk chorus, music box , and t he ending song - each requ i red a tota l ly d ifferent method of record-

1 1 8 ANI M E INTERSECTIONS

i ng , so I bel ieve it took a b i t more than two months to complete . " Asked specifical l y to com­ment on "the most d ifficult part of working on this p roject , " Kawai r iposted : "For me , th is

was the first t ime composing for the music box , so i f you inc lude the p reparat ion per iod, i t

took qu i te a long t ime . But , i t was a lot of fun" (Kawa i , K. ) . This is p recisely what one wou ld

always wi sh to hear , when al l is sa id and done, from musicians and an imato rs a l ike .

I t cou ld indeed b e argued that i t i s from the hands of artists who are n o t afraid o f mix­ing work and p lay that the most insp ir ing p roductions ensue . The "work" e lement is certa in ly

tax ing , requ i r ing a s i t i nvariably does an abi l i ty to watch out at a l l t imes for any i ndicat ion

of current or p rospective trends and to keep one's aesthet ic antennae tuned no less consis­tently. However , what could eas i ly deteriorate i nto an exhaust ing chore actual ly blossoms into candid en joyment once those crit ical ski l ls are subsumed to a joyfu l pu rsu i t of interm inable

experimentation . Thus , no amount of d rudgery ca n u l t imately erase the sheer e lan ent a i led

by a creat ive enterprise conducted in the name of s incere inquis i tiveness, as wel l as a w i l l i ng­

ness to let the medium occasional ly run amok even as i ts potential i t ies a re j udic iously rei ned i n by the art ist's overarch ing vis ion and composit ional r igour .

I n the firs t v ideo, " Incubation - The Ballade of Puppets : Flowers Grieve and Fal l , " we

are p resented wi th the equ ivalent of the fi lm's open ing sequence and related score . As men­t ioned earl ier , th is focuses on the genesis of an arti ficial be ing combin ing the most sal i ent traits of both the cyborg and the dol l . The second p iece , "Civi l izat ion - River of Crystal s , "

u t i l izes i mages from the early phases of the investigation and from the conven ience-store i nc i­

dent , deftly j uxtaposi ng the two contrast ing sides of Innocence's hybrid c i tyscape : a co lorfu l

l um inosity al lud ing to a p rosperous and cheerfu l society, on the one hand , and an i mpene­trable tenebrousness symbol iz ing its underlying corrupt ion and ubiqui tous crim inal i ty, on the

other . A slow j azz a i r p rovides the connective tissue between these adversar ia l , yet comple­

mentary, d imens ions . In the th i rd video , "Abyss - Attack the Wakabayash i , " the grimly intr i­

cate arch i tectu re , at t imes remin iscent of H . R. Giger's ar t , of the factory where the gyno ids are equipped w i th s imulated "ghosts" provides the sett ing for a s i lent speculat ion abo ut the

mean ing of l ives thus engendered, to the accompani ment of an apposite ly frosty techno beat .

( In the fi l m , the factory is not explicit ly brought into play unt i l the act ion's ful l - th rott le c l i ­

max . ) The fi lm's pr imary score is aga in employed in the fourth p iece , "Confusion - The Bal­

lade of Puppets : Tn a New World, Gods wi l l Descend," where the utban architecture is endowed with autonomous l i fe and accordi ngly i mbued with energies that appear to ebb and flow of

their own accord, regardless of h uman presence and agency. I mages of the m aj est ic cathedral (rem in i scent of the Mi lanese Duomo) with in which Batou and Togusa l and upon reach ing

the v i l l a in's c i ty and shots from the parade sequence p rovide the bu lk of the visual materia l for th is section of the col lect ion . In the central port ion of the festiva l-based segment , opu­lently shaded frames exh ib i t ing h igh ly p lastic 3D shapes are consistently in tercut wi th shots o f the sternly m in imal ist ic ha l l where the agents obtain precious clues to Kim's l ocation . Espe­

cia l ly rivet ing , from a technical perspective, is the a l ternat ion between close-ups of the majes­t ical ly made-up and att ired stage performers and the hal l 's frost i ly monochromatic eer iness . This atmosphere , i ncidentally, is graph ically heightened by an impos ing wal l i nscr ipt ion , exe­cuted by hand by a Chinese master, that could be regarded as an encapsulat ion in n uce o f Innocence's ent i re ph i losophy: "Life and death come and g o l ike marionettes danc ing on a table ; once thei r s tr ings are cut , they easi ly crumble . "

Seven - - G host in the She l l 2 1 1 9

The fifth video, "Sabbath - The Dol l House I , " p lays the music-box harmony associ­ated w i th Kim's nefar ious schemes as the background to the image of the pa int ing hanging

i n the office occupied by Aramaki , Batou's and Togusa's boss . Thanks to a deft handl ing of

rack focus, the spectator is s lowly drawn into the space of the p icture -- a l ush forest teeming

with invis ible energies - to the po int tha t i ts status a s a framed commodity is rapidly forgot­ten. At the same t ime, the hyp notic pace at which the v iewer is immersed into the s imulated

environment mirrors the p rotagonists' unwitt ing absorption by Kim into h is malevolent dream world . "Rumble - The Ballade of Puppets : The Ghost Awaits in the World Beyond," the sixth

p iece in the series, revis i ts Kim's attempts to overpower Batou and Togusa by means of increas­

ingly cruel brain hacks, w i th the i r hal lucinatory musical backdrop. This consists of a subtly varied vers ion of the main score , maximiz ing to considerable dramatic effect i ts characteris­t ic i nt e rspersal of haunti ngly beaut ifu l vocals , frantic drumming and clanging of cymbal s . The

latter part of the v ideo captures the action's c l imactic moments , us ing a markedly v igorous

rhythm in o rder to bui ld up momentum and enfold the ent i re sett ing - l iv ing and inan imate

ent it ies a l ike - in a mood of impending catastrophe .

The seventh and c los ing v ideo , "Pathos - Follow Me," dep icts Innocence's hypothetical aftermath aga inst the auditory background of the fi lm's theme song, i ndeed t i t led "Fol low

Me . " Shots of the c i ty's fet id and cr ime- infested al leys, saturated with a po intedly na i r fee l , are intercut w i th images of the forbiddingly steri le forens ics laboratory, and wi th iconic rep­

resentations of numerous p rosthet ic bodies undergo ing assemblage and p rogramming . A par­t icularly captivat ing moment consists of the wholly computer-generated scene del ineati ng in

a digital ly encoded, amber-hued guise the molding of a dol l from distinct geometrical pr im­it ives - sui tably depicted as they would indeed appear on a sophist icated monitor . The p rocess

is inspected in a veritably c l in ical fash ion from mult ip le angles as the camera search i ngly c i r­

cles the v i rtual body. ( I n the movie , th is scene is not actual ly i ncluded i n the laboratory

sequence but in a later sequence, set i n Aramaki's office , where Batou and h i s partner are first briefed on their miss ion . ) The contrast ing visuals employed in the final video e l l ipt ical ly i nv i te

the viewer to reflect on humani ty's fate wi th in a rampantly prosthetic environment , thus p ro­

viding an aptly open-ended cu lm inat ion .

The two bonus v ideos incl uded i n the anthology a r e also worthy of considerat ion a s fu r­ther exper iments in the art of remediat ion . The firs t , "Gabrie l , " consists of a montage of var­

ious images from the fi lm in which Batou's cherished basset hound features prominently, to

the accompaniment of the music-box tunc . The second, "Sett ings , " uses a s imp le o rchestral score punctuated by melodic echoes from "Fol low Me," and focuses on the ever-changing u rbanscape . This p iece once aga in foregrounds the coexistence of squalor and opulence , dusky underbel l i es and dazzl i ng surfaces, whi le also drawing attention to the u n re lent ing - though

not unproblematical ly fcl ic itous -- displacement of the o ld c i ty by the n ew.

For viewers who are only appeased when a film comes with a generous s ide o rder o f clarificat ion and closure , Innocence m a y wel l prove frustrat i ng . The p l o t does p rovide qu i te luc id explanat ions for Locus Sa lus's nefar ious p l oys , showing that i n order to endow the

gynoids with human attr ibu tes that would make them more desirable as com modities , legion chi ldren have been kidnapped and he ld capt ive whi le the i r sou l s were be ing dubbed and grafted upon the dol ls ' operat in g systems . I t a l so expla ins the p rosthet ic creatu res' malfunc­t ion ing as the resu l t of a programmer's del iberate i n fusion i nt o the i r ghosts of a g l i tch intended to trigger aberrant conduct , draw attent ion to the do l ls' p lace of o rigin and, eventual ly, lead

1 20 ANIMl: INTERSECTI O NS

to the core of the company's s in ister secrets . Nevertheless, these e luc idat ions do not - and

indeed are not meant to - supply a comprehens ively reparatory finale .

The i mages we are left with , at the very end, are those of Togusa, at last reun i ted w ith his beloved daughter, and of Batou holding h i s treasured pe t . Neither character can confidently

indulge in these p recious moments of peace . Togusa will never be able to suppress his deep­

seated anxieties concern ing h i s safety as a specia l agent and hence the secur i ty of his fami ly ;

the warmth he experiences at the end of the fi l m is inevitably precar ious . Where Ba tou i s con ­

cerned, the only truth h e conclus ively possesses i s the knowledge of un re l ievable i solat ion . As the engulfing n ight sky closes in on the cyborg and his hound, we , too , are drawn into a world where havens , i f at a l l attainable , are by defini t ion ephemeral and h u man interact ion , i f at a l l enterta inable , i nexorably cu lminates in lonel iness .

EIGHT

Apples eed

When the main character of a story is computer-generated, it used to be difficult for the audience to get emotionally involved with them. There was 110 title that succeeded in that regard. So, in the process of making Appleseed, disclJ1!crillg how the audience could empathize with the characters was the key. That's where we wanted to foms - and it was lJery challenging. - r" mihiko Sori

Realism is /Jery hard to define. Realism is supposed to portray the real "thing, " but of course, what is "rea!"? A lid so the incorporation of realism ill anime is all issue. Animation is able to por­tray all things so there is a lot of information that you need to both abbreviate and exaggerate in the cinematography. The jim of doing animation is that you can create the imagery thllt you have ill your mind, whatever it might be. - Shinji Aramaki 2005

Appleseed is based on the manga of the same t i t le by Masamune Sh i row - a work which , r ight from its or ig inal pub l icat ion , has been regarded as a m i l estone in the h istory of the

medium . Like the vast majori ty of Sh i row's oeuvre, Appleseed combines var ious aspects o f the

mecha and cyberpunk genres , with a generous dosage of ph i losoph ical , po l i tica l and soc io­

logical speculation deftly inserted into the cocktai l . Book One, Appleseed: The Promethean Chal­lenge, was original ly pub l ished i n Japan in 1 9 8 5 , and rap idly fo l lowed by Book Two , Appleseed:

Prometheus Unbound, Book Three, Appleseed: The Scales of Prometheus, i n 1 987, and by Book

Four , Appleseed: The Promethean Balance, i n 1989 . The American run o f S h i row's manga began

in 1988 with a five-volume series fo r the comic-book label Ecl ipse I nternat ional . As of today,

Appleseeas popular i ty has escalated to record levels , i ts graph ics and n arrative be ing widely

regarded as one of Sh i row's most glorious accompl ishments . The series' p ro tagon ists them­

selves have r isen to the status of venerated icons among manga and anime fans of d ifferent

generat ions . The manga was adapted in OVA (Original Video An imation) format i n 1 9 8 8 by di rec­

tor Kazuyoshi Katayama , yielding an enterta in ingly fast-paced but techn ically quite un remark­

able p iece of an imation , b l igh ted by unappea l ing character designs , that regrettably m in im izes

the intel lectual import of Sh i row's graphic opus in favor of formula ic act ion sequences . Sh i ­row was d i l i gently consu l ted on Sh inj i Aramaki's 2004 adaptati on , a s we l l a s actively involved in the mapping out of i ts conceptual groundwork . The d i rector has described Sh i row's rol e

in the movie's p re-production stages a s fol lows :

Shirow was involved w i th working Ollt the scenario, and we met several t imes to exchange i deas, bur he sa id that he was going to l eave the mov ie to the staff and he would not be giv ing li S d i rect ions and tel l i ng

1 2 1

1 22 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

us not to do th i s and that k ind of th ing . He would let the schedule evolve on i ts own accord, and he would p retty much stay un involved . I 'm sure, hav ing seen what we completed, he may have had much to say . He told me that he was sat isfied with the work that I had done on i t , so I am very happy to h ave gotten that evaluat ion from him [Aramaki 2004aJ .

The manga art ist was indeed unreservedly enthusiastic about the final product and � i ron i ­

ca l as th i s may sound issu ing from the l ips of a comic-book artist � del ighted to see h i s work

translated in to a p redominantly 3D un iverse . Sh i row h i mself has qual ified h i s response to Aramaki's fi lm i n a "Message" pub l ished

around the t ime of Appleseeds theatrical release (thereby also supplying some acute reflections on the essence of Japanese aesthetics) :

The h istory of us ing i l l ustrated p ictures to express l i fe , a lbeit more pr imi t ive , goes back fu rther than that of using film to record i t . But now, the formcr i s catching up to the latter , as the cumulat ive effect of advances i n computer graph ics tech nology are fina l ly shedding the shackles that have h i ndered the art of te l l ing stories wi th i l l ustrated mov ing pictures (standard cel an imat ion i s fraught with l i m i tat ions) . Yet computer graph ics is a double-edged sword : by al lowing the creator to express wi th a brush what more c losely i mi tates h i s or her imagi nat ion , the v iewer is i ncreas i ngly deprived of the joy of us ing h i s or her own i maginat ion to fi l l i n the gaps.

However , these reservations regarding digital tech nology's potentia l ly res tr ict ing agency have not h indered the manga art ist from welcoming its innovat ive capab i l i t ies , and pass ionately

p rofessing his intention to advance its aesthetic cause :

Once, when I was worki ng on an an imation project , I spoke up about the tremendous advantages that I fcl t 3D computer graphic backgrounds might have to offer . At the t ime , my comments were unusual . For my part , i t was just the i nfluence of my playing Doom. l On more recent an imat ion projects, I made the argument for the need for 3 D characters and mecha- aga in , comments that stuck out l i ke a sore thumb. The reason was to m ake i t possible to freely move characters and mecha within space . For so long, we've been on the s ide l i nes, d i stant onlookers wi tness ing the great s tr ides that fi l m media h ave achieved . But now, an imated i m ages are final ly heading i n a d i rect ion that matches my own ideals [Sh i row J .

According to p roducer Fumih iko Sari , also a computer an imator o n James Cameron's

Tita nic ( 1 997) , what attracted the creators of the 2004 movie most potently to Sh i row's or ig­ina l manga was i ts "sheer density" and "expans ive world view . " Also appeal ing was the art is t's

depict ion of the story's female lead as a lready "an imated" even before be ing t ransposed to the screen (Sari ) . The trai ts highl ighted by Sari are emphatical ly cu l t ivated in the vers ion of the story developed by Aramaki and his troupe . This is set i n the year 2 1 3 1 , in the aftermath of

an apocalyptic war that has left i n its wake a scorched and desolate planet beyond hope of reconstruct ion. Like several other su rvivors, the p rotagonist , Dellnan Knute , is unaware that

the war i s over and wanders the wastelands alone, occasional ly exhib i t ing impressive mart ia l

ski l ls in her confrontations with other beleaguered humans and legion nzecha-armored foes . I n the course of a part icularly hazardous skirmish presented at the beg inn i n g of the fi l m , she i s ambushed by robot ic p redators amid the cru mb l ing remains of an o ld metropo l is that " i m mediately b r ings to m ind , " as Mikha i l KOll l ikov has no ted , " C rozny o r Fal l uj ah"

(Kou l ikov) . Deunan is about to be conclusively vanquished j ust as a heavi ly armed hel icop­ter and an assault team materia l ize out of the blue (or rather the murk) and nonchalantly quash the mechan ical aggressors . The heroine is thereafter captured by her rescuers and con­veyed to Olympus , a futu rist ic utop i a .

Technical ly, the opening (pre-credit) sequence is characterized by an imaginat ive use of bu l let-t ime technology. This rel ies on the implementation of slow mot ion to i m part a comic-

Eight-Appleseed 1 23

book feel to the act ion whi le also a l lowing the d irector to move the camera at regular speed . I n p ragmatic terms, bu l let-t ime technology depends on two motion cameras p laced at the beginn ing and at the end of the shot , and on several st i l l cameras even ly sp read berween them .

The mot ion cameras are ro l led and the s t i l l cameras are fired in rap id sequence , one after the

other , to p roduce a chain of images in which the point of view sh ifts around the performer .

The st i l l p ic ture s are then imported in to the com puter sequent i a l l y and i n terpo la t ion i s

deployed i n o rder to create addit ional frames between the avai lable p ic tures and thus engen­der a seamless blend .

Olympus, i t gradual ly transp i res , is the seat of a new global government that managed

to fill the vacuum left beh ind by the war as a resu l t of the lack of any clear v ictors . The c i ty's atmosphere i s one of pervasive seren i ty and harmony, which turns out to be due to the fact

that ha lf of Olympus's popu lace consists of "B ioro ids , " a genetical ly engineered species wi th

a l imi ted l i fe span and a bu i l t - in - though resc indable - inab i l i ty to rep roduce . Devoid of

human beings' destructive emot ions , the Bioroids have been designed p recise ly in order to serve humani ty by i n s t i l l i ng benevo l ent and peacefu l energies i n to Olympus . Short ly after

her arr iva l , Deunan d i scovers that she has been forcib ly recru i ted to jo in the c i ty's ES.WA.T

(Extra Special Weapons and Tactical) team. One may legit imately wonder why a utopia should need an ES.W.A.T. The film suggests , w i th disarm ing s inceri ty, that the answer to th is ques­t ion is horribly s imple : i n sp i te of its su perficial peace , Olympus i s actua l ly riven by hatred

and mistrust . Especia l ly m i l i tant and b igoted fact ions wi th in the regular human armies , in

part icular , fear and resent the i r B ioro id counterparts and w i l l stop at noth ing in order to gain

unchal l enged domi nance over the ci ty. 2 Taken to the Olympus Legis lature by the Bioroid Hitom i , the hero i ne is i nt roduced to

the counci l , an ensemble of seven wise Elders who engage in a p rocess of ongo ing "conver­sation" with a supercomputer known as "Gaia , " the city-state's AI bra in . D i rect respons ib i l ­i ty for the p rotection of Gaia , under constant threat from vio lat ion by the ant i-Bioroid rebels

led by General Uranos and Colonel Hades of the "Regular Olympus Armed Forces , " rests

with the profou ndly charismatic senior Rioroid Athena and her right hand Nike . Unfortu­

nately, the Elders themselves harbor a h idden agenda, the i r u l t i mate obj ective be ing the total

annih i lat ion of humani ty and its replacement by Bioroids . This , we gradual ly d iscover , i s to be accompl ished by u n locking the synthet ic creatures' latent reproduct ive capab i l i t ies and

prevent ing humans themselves from propagat ing .

Before she even knows i t , Deunan is hauled into a nefarious s truggle that requ i res her to contend with swarms o f increas ing ly unscru pulous and manipu lat ive opponents so as to p rovide Athena with "Appleseed" - the key to the salvat ion of the human species . In the

p rocess, the protagonist i s also forced to confront her own personal demons, as traumatic ch i ldhood memories are reactivated by current event s . In a disqu i e t i ngly choreographed

sequence , Deunan d iscovers that her own mother had been the i nventor of B ioro id techno l­ogy and refused to su rrender control of i t to the Elders , as a resu l t of which she had been assass inated by the counci l 's emissar ies -- an act which Deunan had wi tnessed and then v ig­

orously rep ressed . (Th is sequence wi l l be examined i n some depth later i n the chapter . ) I n her miss ion , Deunan i s aided by a smal l b u t loyal army, cons i s t ing of her former lover and comrade- in-arms Rr iareos , who is now a cyborg w ith a 7 5 % mechan ica l body ; H itom i , who has developed deep affection towards the human soldier ; and the inge n ious weapons des igner Yosh i . Throughout the adventu re , a tan ta l izi n g so undt rack combin ing the var ied ta lents of

1 24 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

Boom Boom Sate l l i tes, Basement Jaxx , Ryuich i Sakamoto and Pau l Oaken fold contr ibutes

s ign ificantly to the action's develop ing momentum . On the thematic p lane , AppLeseed functions preva i l ingly a s a cau t ionary tale w i th Faus­

t ian h ubris at i ts hub. The story does not attempt to debunk the val ue of idea l i sm a priori,

conced ing , in fac t , that dreaming about a better future is a respectable exercise . What it ass id­

uously commun icates, however , is a warning about the dangers that loom over the overam­bit ious str iv ing for perfect ion . Accord ingly, the fi lm bravely eschews s impl i s t ic utopian v i s ions

and the i r customary rhetoric , by subject ing the futurist ic u n iverse of Olympus to u nsent i­

mental scrutiny. In so doing , Appleseed i nt imates that a world overflowing w i th the bounties

of p rogress may s imul taneously breed the cancer of repress ive dogmatism i n i ts m idst . The dubious vers ion of utopia brought to trial by Aramaki's movie , Aaron H. Bynum contends,

could be said "to p lague four fields of in terest" at once : namely, those of " Se lf, Emot i o n ,

Knowledge , a n d . . . Environment . " A l l of these areas of l i fe "un less managed properly have

the potential to inactivate human wi l l . " At the level of the self, the utop ian thrust refers fun ­damentally t o the yearning for "personal glory. " This procl iv i ty i s a d i rect coro l lary of Olym­pus's societal makeup :

I n a c i ty as magn ificent as Olympus. it becomes clear that a l ack of confl ic t , or rather, a l ack of concern for divers i ty fuds person al asp i rat ions . Understandably, the goal of any i nd iv idual w i sh ing to make a d ifference i n the world is also the goal of an ind iv idual so corrupt as to generously neglect a l l that is true and just for that wh ich i s merely superfluous . This is the most personal puzzle p iece of societal perfect ion , where in one ha s the potent ia l to become so engaged i n h i s or her own ach ievcment s tha t i t sudden ly becomes pa inful to d ivert any attent ion to anyth ing perccived as l e s s reward i ng .

The obvious repercuss ion of this att i tude is a cal lous neglect for a l l those c i t izens whose

agency is deemed redu ndant to the quest for self-glorification and sol ipsist ic advancement .

The Hobbesian dictum "homo homini Lupus" succ inctly encapsulates such a state of affairs . Whi le the "Utopia of Emotion" may at first be seen as a welcome correct ive for th i s ruth­

less and rapacious pursu i t of self-aggrandizement , be ing i n pr inc ip le grounded on "respect"

and "compassion" towards others, i t eas i ly degenerates i nto an extens ion of the " Utopia of

Self" : the " Utop ia of Emotion is sought when an i ndividual weathers the ord inary to become extraordinary ; however , i n doing so loses the altruist ic foundation of his act o f generos i ty . . . .

An excess rel ig ios i ty of Emotion . . . has the ab i l i ty t o evolve into a senseless a n d ambit ious search for a h igh on admiration . " At this po int , sel flessness actually amounts to l i tt le more

than a th i rs t for worsh ipp ing recogni t ion . I nt imately tied i n with both forms of u top ian ide­ology del i neated above , the " Utop ia of Knowledge" p ivots on a total i tar ian "control of i n for­

mation" whereby power is u l t imately cotermi nous with the degree to which the dominant

classes choose to divulge knowledge or else occlude i t from the i r subj ects i n order to perpet­uate their u ncontested ascendancy. Concomitantly, the rul i ng powers themselves r i sk becom­ing b l inded by their l ust for knowledge , m istaking the mere possess ion of data w i th genu ine

wisdom. F ina l ly, the " Utopia of Environment" points to a delus iona l creed that seemi ngly asp i res to ach ieve "a workplace, natural world, and/or j udic ial structure that are idea l " and

inexorably conceal s , in so do ing , that such an asp iration i s p lagued by mendacity : "It i s the

p retending of a relat ionsh ip , a social system , or of a c i rcumstance to be perfect which often i ncl udes the neglect of said relat ionship's, social system's , or c i rcu mstance's imperfect ions . "

As t o the reasons for which a fecund metropol i s bathed i n buco l ic composure shou ld nonetheless harbor terrorism and cri me, Bynum advocates that those subvers ive forces "serve

Eight-Appleseed 1 2 5

as a balancing po int for Olympus's publ ic se rvants , " ful fi l l i ng the "funct ion of ground ing those publ ic servants firmly to the rea l i ty tha t they seek to p reserve" (Bynum 2005b) . Th i s argu ment is i ntensely redolent of Pau l Brown's speculat ions regarding the essent ia l nature of

colonial and post-colonia l dispensat ions . Central t o B rown's argument i s t h e p ropos i t ion that

colon izers constantly - and endlessly - need to renew the image of the colon ized as an overtly

or l atently threaten ing p resence i n order to legit im ize the i r own strategies of p rogram matic repression and exp lo i tat ion . The moment the colonized were to appear harmless , j ust i fying

their subjugation would become impossible (Brown) . L ikewise , the "pub l ic servants" Bynu m speaks of feel compel led t o p reserve a potential ly destabi l iz ing element w i th in the c i ty-state's

fabric qui te s imply in o rder to go on assert ing their r ightfu lness as rulers , and hence imp l ic­it ly denying the plaus ib i l i ty of authentic democracy.

In engaging with the ideological and ethical preoccupat ions del ineated in the p reced ing

paragraphs, Appleseed methodical ly del ivers a trenchant cr i t ique of the very concept of utop ia

upon which Olympus's ent ire civi l ization is supposed to rest . Portraying u top ia a s an i ntractably ambiguous and imp l ic it ly h ubrist ic not ion at both the col lective and the indiv idual levels , the

film int imates that the pursu i t of over- ideal ized projections of po l it ical stab i l i ty, personal suc­

cess , emotional grat ificat ion and - ult imately - omniscience is doomed to degenerate into

utter self-destructiveness . Whereas i n i ts treatment of postapocalyptic anxiet ies and fears Appleseed thematical ly

reverberates with both Eastern and Western motifs , i ts affective emphas i s on the v i rtue of loy­

a l ty - and on the related pr inc ip les of group aHil iat ion and selfless conduct - str ikes i ts roots

in an emi nently Japanese eth ical code that can be traced back to ancient t imes . The movie's debt to tradit ion is also grounded in a specifical ly Western her i tage , however : "Olympus ,"

"Athena," "Nike , " " Gaia , " " Uranos" and "Hades" are by no means the sale references to Clas­

s ica l c ivi l izat ion contain ed i n the film. In fact , Appleseed i s peppered th ro ughou t wi th ger­

mane al lus ions to Greek mythology, not only in i ts choice of character and p lace des ignat ions

but a lso in i ts e laborat ion of archi tectura l , ornamental and vest imentary styles . The c i ty-state

as a whole is symbol ized by a twin structure compris ing "Tartaros" and " Daidalos , " the edifices

wherein Olympus's legis lature and admin i stration operate . A deta i led study of the storyboards and model sheets executed in the p lanning of Appleseed instantly reveals a mesmeriz ing pro­fusion of Class ical a l lus ions , many of which feasibly go unheeded i n the course of the actual

viewing but subl i m in al ly commu nicate an extraordinari ly coherent graph ic vis ion. Moreover , several panoramic sequences designed to h ighl igh t Olympus's v i sua l un iqueness i n the con­

text of an otherwise charred Earth are rendered in an emphatical ly Aegean palette . It is also noteworthy, i n th is regard, that the fi lm consistently i nvokes chromatic con­

t rasts that serve to d ifferentiate the polis al legorically from the rest of the wor ld . For a sub­

stantial portion of the action , Olympus's unfai l ingly sapphi re skies, emerald gardens , g l i t ter ing

h ighways and elegant towers are starkly contrasted with the war- ravaged zones , where the dom­inant palettes range from muted through sombre to undi l utedly tenebrous hues , and not a s ingle bu i ld ing or monument stands i ntact . (The image of the d is integrati ng - yet s t i l l eeri ly beaut ifu l - rel igious statue shown at one one point i n the open ing sequence encapsu lates this

mood with great express ive poignance . ) Sandy tones evocative of a hosti le mood of barren­

ness are also employed i n the dep ict ion of the s imulated battle sequence p layed out by Deu­

nan's new employers to tes t her ski l l s . Nevertheless , even Olympus's j oyfu l l u m inos i ty i s eventually exposed as a vap id m i rage . When i t becomes patent that beneath the gleaming sur-

1 26 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

face of i ts soaring edifices , a p lot is being hatched l i kely to p recipi tate the fu tur is t ic c i ty-state i nto a quagm i re of anarchy and violence, the scenery changes drastical ly. Torrentia l rain and suffocating darkness rudely displace the former bri l l iance, wordlessly suggest i ng that what l ies

at the heart of the story, for all i ts v isual sumptuousness, is an uncomp romis ing exp lorat ion

of humani ty's innate bel l icos i ty. I t is at this point that Appleseed also succeeds in commun i ­cating most harrowingly the idea that an imation is no t necessar i ly � or i ndeed pr imar i l y �

"kids' stuff. " The sorts of color contrasts used for the arch i tectural sett ings are also invoked b y cos­

tume des ign i n order to h ighl ight a character's most sal ient persona l i ty t raits or to s ignal broad

sh ifts of tone in the action . Chromatic effects undoubtedly play a central part i n the repre­

sentation of Athena's and Nike's outfits � someth ing Jean-Paul Gault ier could conceivably have

assembled for Luc Besson's The Fifth Element ( 1997) � with the i r eccentr ic b lend of futu ris­

t ic audaci ty and neoclassical decorum. As far as the hero ine is concerned, i t i s part icu larly notable that the mi l i tary version of Deunan seen in the opening scenes, appropr iately garbed in classic fatigue gear, gives way to a peace-t ime i ncarnat ion of the character as she begin s to settle in Olympus that is sartorial ly defined by an u ltra-bright orange su i t . Paradoxically, it i s i n this costume that the hero ine engages in one of the ent ire movie's most exp l ic it ly b reath­

taking fight sequences, as she confronts some of the scariest cyborgs ever to have made i t to the big screen . These ent it ies , inc idental ly, a re rendered especia l ly lethal by the i nsert ion i n

practically every part of the i r bodies o f h ighly soph isticated prosthetic weapons, such a s syringe

needles capable of shoot ing out of the i r fingertips and monofil ament w i res capable o f grab­bing and disab l ing even the most formidable opponents from a considerable distance .

I n art iculat ing i ts mul t i -faceted visual rhetoric wi th colorfu l flamboyance , Aramaki 's remake of Appleseed does not , however , indulge i n theatrical i ty as an end i n itself. In fact , i t

does ample j ust ice to the speculative and psychological complexity of Sh i row's origi nal manga .

This i s most notable i n the fi lm's dramatization of the pa inful p rocess through which Deu­

nan and Briareos, a l ienated from each other by the latter's portentous transfo rmat ion , grad­

ually reestabl i sh � and eventual ly even deepen - their erstwhi l e i nt imacy and mutual respect . I t must be stressed, i n th is regard, that the manga series i tself introduces Br iareos from the

start as be ing al ready a cybernetic organ is m , l iving w ith Deunan outs ide Olympus . Aramaki a l tered th is aspect of the original story specifical ly to add pathos to the unfold ing of the two characters' mutual fee l i ngs upon becoming reun i ted after a protracted separation . " I wanted to emphasize the dramat ic aspect of the relationsh ip between Oeunan and Br iareos," the d i rec­

tor expla ins , "so I bega n the story w ith them being separated" (Aramaki 2004a) .

It is arguably for i ts techn ical novelty, however , that Appleseed has received most of i ts

numerous accolades . Irs eclectic hybridizat ion of tradi t ional an ime i ndeed fuses 2 0 method­ologies and 3D eGI in utterly u n p recedented ways , usheri ng i n a style known as " 3 D Live Anime . " As noted, Aramaki and his team were drawn most powerful ly to Sh i row's work by its cornucopian richness and i ntricacy, compel l ingly borne O llt by the astonish i n g abundance of meticulously deta i led machines , robots, cyborgs , vehicles and firearms mushrooming ou t of practically every page . I t was precisely the textural sol id i ty of the world dep icted i n the original manga, moreover , that induced the anime director to turn h is attent ion to 3D eGI

as idea l ly su i ted to i ts depict ion. An unequ ivocal triumph , on this front , consists of the "Mobile Fortress" (a . k . a . " Mul­

t iped Gun Platform" ) , a mu l t i - legged arch i tectural monstros i ty made u p o f myr iad co-

Eight-Applesced 1 27

art iculated parts des igned by mecha genius Atsushi Takeuch i . The construct cons ists of bat­tery un its equipped with an intr icately detai led ra i l gun control led by Gaia and several gun turrets . Normal ly stat ionary, the metal l ic brute becomes ominously mobile i n extreme emer­gencies , us ing its s ix legs to perambulate at w i l l . The aHin it ies which this ominous struc tu re

bears to both the satanic "S team Castle" i n Katsuh i ro Otomo's Steamboy and the magician's

errant abode in Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle i nvite potentia l ly intr iguing com par­ative analyses for any v iewer interested i n the integrat ion of 3D CGr with tradi t ional an ima­tion techniques . Other remarkable mecha feats showcased by Appleseeds action sequences are the various p ieces of both ground and a i r equ ipment used by ES.W.A.T and the i r antago­

n ists : for example , the "Landmate ," a combat battle suit that endows its wearer w i th p reter­

natural speed and suppleness ; the "Gat l ink Tan k," a ten-wheel armored veh icle ; and the "Ti l t

Rotor , " a transport ai rcraft akin to a g iant hel icopter. Three-D CG r played a vita l ro le i n the

real ization of a l l these machines .

Appleseeds cutt ing-edge d imension wi l l short ly be retu rned to . What should first be noted is that desp ite h i s monumenta l rel iance on dig i ta l technology, Aramaki endeavored to

preserve a l l the most cherished fea tU res of tradit ional Japanese an imat ion . For one th ing , the

penn ing of the script was fol lowed - as is the case with tradi t ional cel an imat ion - by the execution of highly descr ipt ive storyboards , the autonomous aesthetic value of which glori­ously demonstrates the an imators' art isanal ski l l s . An unfl inch ing com m itment to the hand­

drawn 20 image is also attested to by the many character and mechan ical designs in tended

to translate Sh i row's frames i nto fi lmable objects while reta in ing the manga's un ique fee l and

mul t i - layered rich ness . The d i rector h imself, whose background is i n mecha design , chan­nel led at least two th i rds of the overa l l amount of t ime - and energy - which he devoted to the p roject into the man ual execut ion of puncti l iously refined models .

Arguably the most eloquent testament to Appleseeds tenacious a l legiance to manual ly executed graph ics - alongside the motion p icture i tself, of course - comes from the Appleseed

Complete Book - Prometheus A1ontage, a volume docu menti ng the construct ion of the fi l m

with reference n o t only t o l av ishly reproduced frames organ ized in chronological order b u t

also , a n d perhaps more importantly, t o reproductions of b lack-and-wh ite sketches of the key

characters and locat ions . Audiences may feel that they could never get to know Delman , Hit­omi , Br iareos or Athena better by any means other than the movie i tse lf, given i ts profusion of intensely tact i le deta i l s and atmospheric palpab i l i ty. Cur iously enough , however , i t i s by

closely inspect ing the spartan , yet meticulous , graph ic work conta i ned wi th in the covers of the Prometheus Montage book and absorb ing i ts l i near soph i s t i cat i o n , grace and la tent dynamism that those (and other) characters' i ntr ins ic v i tal i ty and dis t i nctive personal i t ies

manifest themselves most forc ibly.

As the eye t ravels across various sketches of the hero ine , for example , one finds that

different costumes and rela ted accessories, deta i ls of which are often reproduced separately i n o rder t o supply addi t ional visual i n formation , are consistently matched b y relevant sh ifts i n posture and express ion . Thus , a hlack-and-white draw i n g of Deunan i n ful l combat mode tends to be accompan ied by appropriately fe isty hody- language markers and facial exp res­sions. The same character garbed in snazzy u rban cloth ing , conversely, exudes an aura of art­less glamor , while a s i l houette of Deunan wear ing s imple undergarments communicates a

mood of casual relaxat ion . The sheer energy emanated by such images is aston ish ing , con­s ideri ng the incontrovert ib ly static nature of the medium in which they a re rendered . The

1 2 8 A N I M E I NTERSECTI ONS

character des igns are a lso very effective in their recording of the passage of t ime over the fab­

r i c of a s ingle persona's face and body. Sketches of Athena provide an especial ly stri k ing case

in po int . The contrast between the younger vers ion (co inciding w ith Athena at the t ime of

Oeunan's mother's death) and the older version (pertain ing to her current role) is conveyed

through the addit ion to the mature Athena of seemi ngly marginal d ifferences � a few expres­sion l i nes, a gently accentuated sense of presence � that work powerful ly p recisely by v i rtue of their unobtrus iveness .

The urban montages contained in the Prometheus volume are the most exh i larat ingly

demanding visual texts one could dream of. Pat ient and protracted scrut iny is indeed the

i nevitable p rerequis ite to a grasp of their dizzying prol iferation of edifices, monuments, p lazas, boulevards, domes, arches and turrets � not to mention a plethora of arch i tectural appendages

whose functions are at t imes obvious , at others ambiguous and at others downright unfath­

omable . Aramaki and h is team were especially concerned with creat ing computer-generated char­

acters with whom the audience could genu inely empathize, aware that the average an ime

viewer would be disaffected by the appearance of glari ngly digit ized figures . Th i s objective

led to the creation of u tterly orig inal characters that are concurrently invested w i th photo re­

al ist ical ly plast ic masses and vis ib ly contoured s i lhouettes fa i thfu l to the tradit ional s tyl e . Fu r­

thermore , though convinced that 3D CGI were best su i ted to the rep resentat ion of Sh i row's

world (as argued earl ier) , Aramaki st i l l felt that the essence of indigenous an imat ion � and art in general � l i es wi th 20 graphics . Examin ing the reasons for h is des i re to rema in loyal to the 20 cel-based element of an ime, Aramaki has i nvoked the hold of a specifical ly Japa­nese "sensib i l i ty" and attendant approach to "design" as the guidi ng " l egacy. " In using "3 -D CG, " he therefore "wanted to somehow include that essence" (Aramaki 2005 ) . Hence , the

d i rector came to see the perpetuation of the tradit ional e lement as an incontrovert ib le aes­

thetic and eth ical imperative . Sh i row confirms this idea i n the aforement ioned "Message , "

where he expl ic i tly ma inta ins that "Mr . Sori and Mr. Aramaki have chosen ' l ive 3D an ima­tion' to take the u tmost adva ntage of the Japanese mi l ieu of composit io n : the techn iques o f

symbol ic representation fo und in cel ani mation and puppet theatre , a n d the cu l tura l g round­ing i n met icu lous compos i t ion fo und even i n stage drama us ing h uman actors ( such as Kabuki) " (Sh i row) .

I t took a considerable amount of t ime and effort to arr ive at the techn ical formula even­

tual ly adopted i n the execution of Appleseed. As the experiment developed, the d i rector dis­

covered the fundamental nature of the animational s ty le which he sought to perpetuate and

synthesize with the p ioneering component. Aramaki has commented on the p rocess and on

i ts outcomes :

I wanted to have characters that one would feel comfortable with and so the style you see i n the movie i s the one that we settled on , so to speak , in th is process. I fel t that th i s was a type of approach that the Japa­nese an imat ion was st i l l fami l i a r with and would not feel too foreign or uncomfortable w i th . . . . As far as the Japanese an imat ion genre is concerned, just because i t's tradi t ional ly 2D - and because this i s a 3D CG film - doesn't mean that Appfeseed doesn't fit . I bel i eve that the film i s sp i ri tua l ly i n l i ne with a n i me i n general . It i s , i n a sense , a new type of an imation , which I bel i eve w i l l be able to spread around the wor ld whi le s t i l l p reserv ing its Japanese essence [Aramaki 2005 ] .

"Toon Shading" was the p ivotal cutt ing-edge tool brought into p lay t o i nvest CG char­acters with an unmistakably cel - l ike look (hy rendering 3D CGl i nto 2 0 i mages) . "Toon

Eight-App leseed 1 29

Shader characters , " accord ing to CG di rector Yasuh i ro Otsuka , "are watched as symbols by

the audience . It i s eas ier to get empathy. Toon Shader characters are more modern than real­istic CG characters" (Otsuka) . While giving l i fe to CG personae that wou ld convincingly im i ­

tate old-school an ime types , yet move more or less l ike "rea l " peop l e , Aramaki 's team also

resorted to software i nc lus ive of highly advanced fac i l i t ies for the rend i t ion of u n usua l ly expressive faces, the accurate mapp ing of vo ice recordings over the ir respective characters and,

most crucial ly, the product ion of photoreal ist ic perspectival adj ustments . These were made

poss ible by a "contour-rendering" digital tool that could alter the th ickness , refinement and

prominence of i ndividual l ines i n accordance with a character's d is tance ftom the camera .

Contours were also occas ional ly used i n the representat ion of p ieces of mach i nery (a l though

these were customari ly rendered in an essent ia l ly photoreal i s t ic fash ion) i n order to make

them more consonant with the characters in their v ic in i ty.

On the cutt ing-edge fron t , Appleseed asserts itsel f as one of the first Japanese an imat ions

to approximate l ive-act ion c inematography by v i rtue of i ts adoption of a 24-frames-per-sec­ond ratio, whereas an ime typically functions on the basis of an 8-frames-per-second model . Concurrently, 3 D c inematography enabled the fi lmmakers to i ncorporate a t remendous vol ­

ume of detai ls i n to the background artwork which the camera cou ld capture by mov ing freely

in three dimensions. (Th is is most evident in the panoramic v istas of Olympus offered through­

out the fi lm . ) "Though i t's st i l l an imation- l ike , " the d i rector has commented, "we can freely

move cameras around. So we are able to show the depth of the background and the charac­

ter p resence in a coherent manner . That's how we wanted to establ i sh character p resence and u l t imately the p resence of th i s s tory's wor ld view" (Aramaki 2004b) .

What is most rem arkable , where Appleseeds trai lb lazing reputat ion is concerned, is the

fi lm's employment to max imum effect of the latest motion-capture technology. This enables

animators to s imulate a v irtual ly un l imi ted range of dynamic moves and hence accompl i sh

degrees of flu id i ty and a cumulative sense of real i ty that are comparable to - and occas ion­a l ly even in excess of- those found i n l ive-action act ion-adventure c inema at its best . The

animators' starting po int was a se t of low-resolu tion polygonal models represent ing charac­

ters and backgrounds as meshes . Mo-cap data would then be imported i nto the computer and mapped upon those geometric skeletons . Fol lowing th is key phase i n the p re-visual izat ion p rocess , decis ions would be made regard ing layout , camera angles , character an imat ion , the

length of each cut and overal l scene construction . At this point , the team wou ld be able to

switch to h igh-resolut ion polygonal models on the basis of which the final characters and back­

grounds could be generated .

Whereas earl ier forms of motion capture al lowed fi lmmakers only to fi lm one actor at a

t ime , the advanced tech nology used i n the production of Appleseed makes i t poss ib le for the movements of several performers to be captured s imul taneously. Not only does this method ensure the ach ievement of h igher degrees of dynamic coherence ; i t also enables the com mu­n icat ion of a real i s t ic impress ion of interact iv i ty and relat ional i ty. The type of mo-cap used in Appleseed therefore surpasses the l im i tations posed by older techn iques, which Maureen Furn iss has descr ibed as fol lows :

Motion capture often requires performers to be recorded separately. This is true of mul t ip le motion cap­ture characters or even one character who i s composed of data from separate voice and body performers. When performers are composi ted, there i s less int egrat ion of the characters w i th each other - because they were not together when they were "fi lmed . " The same i s true for d u bbing sess ions, for examp le . Some-

1 30 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

t i mes voice performers are recorded separately and somet imes as an ensemble . When performers a re not together as they are recorded, they cannot act off each other [Furniss ] .

Further complexity and subtlety were infused into the overa l l performance , specifically

where Appleseeds female protagonist is concerned, by the employment of mul t ip le actors for

the execut ion of dist inct tasks . Accord ingly, Tsubasa Akimoto suppl ied the movements for Deunan's acrobatic stu nts, Ai Kobayash i provided the facial express ions and voice , and Asu m i Miwa contr ibuted t h e act ing a s such . Miwa's assessment of her approach t o t h e part i s par­t icular ly worthy of attention , i n that i t eloquently demonstrates that a mo-cap thespian i s not

merely a mechan ical suppl ier of data but actually a serious performer whose thoughts and

fee l ings concerning a part p lay no less s ignificant a role than they would i n l ive-action c in­

ema (or i ndeed theater) . Miwa's act ing derived important insp i rat ion from Aramaki's encour­

agement to perform as though Deunan were a real character , which enabled her to embrace the persona as an actual flesh-and-blood woman endowed wi th what she describes as a wide

"range of emotion s . " Commenting on her personal perception of Delman's character and on how this inRuenced her onstage conduct , the actress has stated : "She is versati le , which al lowed

me to have many options . If you take away her actions, Deunan is j ust an ord inary gir l . My

goal was to help the audience feel close to her. . . . So , I never tried to detach mysel f from the

character . I tr ied to bring her closer and closer to me" (M iwa) . Addit ional ly, the i mplementation of facial capture in the an i mation of a l l o f the charac­

ters contr ibuted crucial ly to the action's cumulat ive impact . This technique ut i l i zes h undreds

of styrofoam pieces ahout Imm in diameter that are appl ied al l over the perfo rmer's facial fea­tures and used a s the sensors through wh ich motion data are captured and recorded . As CG producer Yusaku Toyosh ima stresses, facial capture is im mensely usefu l i n the domain of mo­cap c inematography, and especial ly beneficial to the recording of l ip motion . I t i ndeed enables

the detai led depiction of countless movements much faster than would ever be the case i f the

frames were being created "from scratch manual ly. " Nevertheless, Toyosh ima also mainta ins , "wi thout addi t iona l man ipu lat ion , i t looked kind of du l l and s loppy" (Toyosh ima) . Thi s

remark serves as a p i thy rem inder of the ongoing legacy of hand-drawn styles and , relatedly,

of the undying appeal of the visual effects wh ich they alone may deliver : vivaciousness, warmth ,

grace , finesse - in a word, animation. To emphas ize the extent to which Aramaki and his associates were in a pos i t ion to benefit

from state-of-the-art technologies is not to say, however , that Appleseeds production t rajec­

tory was not fraught with d ifficult ies . A major problem faced by the team res ided with how

to i ntegrate Toon-Shaded (and therefore cel - l ike) character faces and rea l i s t ic mot ion-cap­tured movements . For the faces to be entirely i n keep ing w i th the expectat ions of tradi t ional

anime, i t wo uld have been normal for mouth motion to a lso abide by convent ional p rinc i­ples . Yet , whe n j uxtaposed with real istic body movements, t rad i t ional ly a n i m ated l i ps loo ked,

qu ite s imply, abnormal . " In mid-production ," Otsuka expla ins , the an imators d iscovered that "character facial movements . . . did not fit with the trad i t ional an imat ion mouth movement

styl e . Tradit ional Japanese an i mation does not care about l ip syn c . At first , we used this tra­d it ional style . . . . F ina l ly, we could not accept the resu l t of tradit ional l ip movements w i th ou r rea l ist ic motion captured an imation . . . . A s a resu l t , we chose a new way where an imators ed i t the facial an imation based on the fac ial capture data . " The result , Otsuka argues, is an entirely "new style of expression" that enables audiences to relate to the characters in ways to which a hyperrealistic aesthetic could never attain (Otsuka) .

Eight-App ICSl:cd 1 3 1

I t would be p reposterous to c la im that Appleseeds app l i cat ion o f mo-cap technology is

an undi luted success . The performance actual ly comes across as rather contrived in some of the more subtle movements ( and not merely l ip- related ones) - e .g . the b l ink of an eye , the

wave of a hand, the casual turn ing of a head . I t i s , however , undeniable that as the first major

effort to marry motion captu re and an i mation to have emerged from a Japanese venture s i nce H i ronobu Sakaguch i 's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Appleseed represents a considerable step forward i n the field . As shown in Chapter G , Final fantasy endeavored to repl icate real­i ty with absol ute accu racy, down to each ind ividual strand of hair on a characte r's head . Regrettably, i n tenaciously pursuing the goal of absolute real i sm , the fi lm ended up convey­

ing an uncanny sense of hyperrea l i sm - of the "more real than real , " so to speak - that is qu i te s imply i ncongruous wi th an i mation's se lf-declared madeness . Thus , Sakaguch i and h is asso­

c iates u l t imately del ivered a product that can ne i ther be unproblemat ical ly regarded as an ime

in the most str ict ly orthodox sense of the term -- given that i t makes no obv ious concess ion to the drawn l i ne past the model l i ng stage - nor be classed with l ive-act ion c inema - s ince the artificia l i ty of i ts performers cannot be utterly suppressed . I n watch i ng Final Fantasy, one

repeated ly real izes that the actors are not human precisely as a resu l t of their makers' poss i­b ly excess ive com m i tment to photorea l i s t ic accu racy. The sensat ion which the characters

evoke , tangent ia l ly echo ing Mamoru Oshi i 's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, i s comparable to

the eerie feel ing el ici ted by dolls endowed with exaggeratedly human qual i t ies . Appleseed steers

clear of this trap by p reserv ing a strong sense of two-dimens ional l i near i ty throughout , and hence exuberantl y assert ing i ts i r refutable constructedness .

The cal iber of Appleseeds ground-break ing cont r ibut ion to the development of mo-cap tech nol ogy is borne out by its commi tment not merely to putt ing characters i nto motion ,

which u l t imately const i tutes a fair ly mechan ical exercise , but also to br ing ing them v ibrantly

to l i fe . Both the performers' act ing styles and Aramaki's d i rection consistently evince an under­

standing of one of the most p ivotal dictates of an imation generally and an ime in part icular : the importance of convey ing a character's breath ing and sentient p resence (desp i te i ts appear­

ance , which may well be unnatural ist ic) , by punctuat ing their movements and vary ing the

tempo of the i r del ivery. Ignor ing these pr inc ip les is most l i kely to yield poorly t imed and Roaty movements that appear to have been robo t ical ly p layed ou t , as i f by rote , rather than truly enacted .

There is a relat ively marginal , yet authentically affect ing , scene in which these ski l l s come to the fore w ith restra ined elegance . Oeunan and H i tomi are s i t t ing in a bar, convers ing about

the nature of B io ro ids and at one po i nt H i tomi leans gently over the counter and rests her

head upon her arms . Her body language and fac ia l express ion are suffused w i th tactfu l al lu­s ions to her long ing for a state beyond her reach and, by i m p l ication , to her attraction to Oeu­

nan as both the embodiment of that state and a phys ical ly and morally adm i rable person in her own right . I n so do ing , they evoke a broader spectrum of sensations tha n analogous images from many l ive-act ion movies . Thus , although some spectators may cher ish the rap id-fire action sequences as the apotheos is of Appleseeds novel s tyle , it i s v i tal to acknowledge that i t i s from the qu ieter moments that both aesthetic and sensuous solace may frequently derive .

The pr inc ipal chal lenge fac ing Aramaki's troupe as the product ion p rocess entered the 3D CG stages was the t rans i t ion from a mode that a l lows the artist to choose from which angle a character should be drawn - which is the case with 20 eel an i mat ion - to a mode where in any one character must be drawn from mult ip le angles , wi th each of the draw ings

1 32 ANl1\lE I NTERSECTI ONS

appearing cons is tent with the others so as to ensure the creature's overal l coherence . This

requ i red ongo ing tweaking of the t in iest port ions of bodies and faces a l i ke , even m i n utiae such as eyelashes hav ing to be subtly modified several t imes in accordance w i th sh i fts i n a character's overal l exp ress ion .

Concurrently, in in tegrat ing real istic motion data i nto the characters' actions, the fi lmmak­

ers had to secure the retent ion of an element of cartoonish ness in order to honor the i r a l le­

giance to trad i t ional an i mat ion. This was no m inor hurdle i f we consider , as Furn iss inv i tes

us to do, that "there tend to be differences between the way in which h umans and class ica l ly

an i mated characters move : the speeds of accelerat ion and decelerat ion are d ifferent . Because

motion capture records movements at an even pace, reflect ing natural h u man mot ion , there

can be problems creat i ng truly cartoony movement" (Furniss) .

I n i ts engagement wi th the product ion of CCl character ized by degrees o f th ree­

d imensional i ty and so l id i ty that are utterly unprecedented in the context o f an i me, Appleseed

also i nv i tes us to ponder the med ium's re lat ionsh ip w i th the discourse of v i rtual real i t y. Com­ment ing on VR techno logies supposedly capable of suspend ing the l aw of grav i ty and even

redefining the concept of sensory experience, Janeann Di l l has stated : "The more immersed

the collect ive 'we' become in representing three-dimensional space, the less i nvo lved we become

w i th being in it . The o ld adage of the more you know, the more you know how much you don't know has advanced a paral lel adage of contemporary importance : the more you sense , the more you sense how much you don't sense" (Di l l , p. 12 ) .

Aramaki 's fi lm , wi th i ts bold synthes is of 3D CCl and trad i t ional styles, o ffers an e l l i p ­t ical ly resonant contr ibut ion to th i s debate . Appleseeds sculptural ly palpable th ree-dimen­

s ional spaces openly declare the i r status as rep resentations i nfluenced by the discourses of

v i rtual real i ty and d igital gam ing . They do not for a second t ry to pass themselves off as snap­

shots of locations one could ever physical ly occupy. They do so, p r imar i ly, by in t imat ing wi th

vary ing levels of expl ic i tness that a photoreal i s t ic 3D space can be s l i ck , s ty l i sh and even cred­ible without be ing charged w i th emotions, let alone sensuous dens i ty. At the level of sett ings

and props , therefore, Appleseed would seem to del iver p recisely the k ind of world that D i l l conceptual izes : a represented worl d that we cannot i nhabi t , an amalgam of sensory a l lus ions

that we cannot actual ly feel . The trad i t ional an ime element rect ifies th is state of potent ia l d isembodi ment and desen­

sual izat ion by infus ing the state-of-the-art graphics w i th art isanal sentiment , and hence p ro ­

v ides the means of drawing the audience i nto a warmer and affectively r icher realm . I t may seem i ron ical that the fi lm's most poignantly human d imension should co inc ide w i th i ts least

natural ist ic facets . Yet , this i s not immoderately surpr is i ng when seen in the l ight of an i me's

deeply i ngra ined tendency to eschew m imetic accuracy in favor of styl ized rend i t ions of real­ity that come across as real ist ic not by d int of any docu menr a ry veris im i l i tude but because o f the i r abi l i ty t o reach i nto deeper and even submerged recesses of h uman exper ience . Aramaki 's movie thus exh ib i ts a knack of evoking powerfu l fee l ings by recou rse ro t ime-honored styles

rather than by merely relying on eye-catching gl i tter - which could otherwise be d i smissed as an ephemeral "fashion statement . "

A paradigmatic i l l ustration of th is styl i st ic trend can be found i n t h e p rev iously men­t ioned sequence dramat iz ing Deunan's b ru ta l exposure to the t rue c i rcu mstances o f he r mother's death . No amount of CC pyrotechnics could ever commun icate, i n i solat ion , the pathos imbu ing the heroine's psychological journey in to her rep ressed past enabled by the

Eight-Applcseed 1 33

s imulated reenactment of her ch i ldhood trauma . What is i nstrumental to the sequence's over­

all effect iveness is i ndeed Deunan's overtly styl ized and Fundamental ly hand-drawn mien ,

w i th i t s abi l i ty to convey i n an economical number of shots equal measu res of grieF, shock, Fear and compass ion . At the same t ime, the sequence exempl ifies a Further styl ist ic p rocl iv i ty detectable throughout the fi lm as a whole . This consists of a susta ined alternat ion between a

rapport between the spectator and the screen centered s imply on viewin g and one centered on affective involvement and part ic ipat ion . Time and aga in , we are encouraged to sh iFt From a space that we grasp merely a s the phys ical location wi th in wh ich certain act ions occur to a

space that communicates symbol ically the emotional import of those act ions and draws us

i nto their flow. Richard Maltby defines these two types of spat ia l o rganizat ion as "represented space" and "express ive space" respectively.

"Represented space, " the cr it ic expla ins , " i s the area that exists in front of the camera lens

and is recoded by i t . I t i s the recogn izable space i n which actors stand, i n which props a re

p laced, and in which th ings happen . Un l ike the wri ter's pen , the camera cannot s imply con­j u re objects i nto existence . Whatever the camera records has to exist i n material form ; that existence i nvolves its occupation of represented space" (Maltby, p . 3 13) . Mal tby concedes, how­

ever , that with the growing deployment of digital technology, "the need to construct c ine­

mat ic i l l us ions phys ically has d imin ished" (p. 3 14) . This is most po intedly true of a fi lm, l ike

Appleseed, that does not on ly use CGI and other computer-assisted techn iques pervas ively b u t

does s o , specifically, w i th i n t h e domain of an imation - namely, a med ium defined p rinc ipal ly

by i ts independence from material referents . Nevertheless, even in a production with Apple­

seeds techn ical specificat ions , a character is i nev i tably s i tuated wi th in a represented space by the movements and gazes of other characters, and indeed must be so i f the i l l us ion of its p res­

ence in an i ntersubj ect ive rea lm is to be sustained.

Thus , in the case of the memory-si mulation sequence , Deunan's existence as both an

adult and a ch i ld at the same t ime depends on i t s occupation of a represented space constructed

by the actions and reactions of the co-participants i n the scene . Concurrently, however , th i s

represented space metamorphoses i nto a sett ing more ak in to the k ind of space which Maltby

des ignates as "expressive" - that is to say, one "endowed with meaning beyond the l i teral" (p. 3 14) . By suspend ing l i teral s ignification (denotation) in favor of a l lus iveness (connotat ion) , the fi lm compels us to transcend the safe parameters of a putatively obj ective representat ion

of material rea l ity. O u r attention is accord ingly Focused on the characters, the i r fee l ings and

mind sets, their possible pasts and conceivable futures and on feas ib le developments i n the

p lot's trajectory.

I n the sequence specifically u nder scrutiny, th is is ach ieved by means of gestures, pos­

tures and - most crucia l ly - facial modulations that make us fee l from wi th in the sett ing how

the characters are exper iencing their c i rcumstances . Thus, we a re no longer mere wi tnesses but are actually persuaded to partake imaginat ively of the scene's emotional i ntensi ty. This is s uccinctly encapsulated by the frame offer ing a close-up of Deunan's face as she comes to grasp the enormity of the counci l 's cr ime and of her mother's sacr ifice . In th i s i mage , the per­

sona of the ruthless fighter gives way to that of a vu lnerable young woman whose m ind and

senses are l i teral ly flooded w i th empathetic sadness . Str ik ing osc i l la t ions between the poetics of represented and express ive space abound

throughout the fi lm . Another notable example is the scene in which Deunan first faces Br i­areas i n h is cyborgian configuration and is blatantly at a loss external iz ing the seeth ing mass

1 34 A:-.rIME I NTERSECTIONS

of feel i ngs wh ich the s igh t , a l l ied to Br iareos's re lat ive gruffness, tr iggers in her be ing . By dis­

consolately s lumping onto a bench, she wordlessly commun icates r icher messages than any volume of verbal language could asp ire to . This effect is made poss ib le by the seamless trans­

formation of the scene's represented space i nto an expressive space subtly med iated by inter­

subject ive att i t udes and responses . Return ing to the sequence dramatizing Deunan's epiphany, i t must be noted that th i s is

also importan t , within the movie's overall v isual logic , insofar as i t p rom pts an unsett l i ng

reflect ion . I f pa s t occu rrences and the memo ries attached to them can be cybernet ica l ly

reactivated i n holograph ic form so fai thful ly that they seem undiscern ib le from actua l and

p resent events , there is no legit i mately dependable means of defending - let a lone demo­nstrat ing - the greater rea l i ty of the latter i n comparison with the former. The not ion that

supposedly concrete and empi rically measurable entit ies , human bodies i n cl uded, may u l t i ­m ately amount to cybernetical ly en hanced s imulat ions has been a tavor i te trope i n sc ience­fict ion c inema of both the l ive-action and the animated var iet ies for r ime i m memorial , gai n ing unprecedented u rgency in recent decades a t the behest of cyberpunk . I n the l ive-action domai n ,

the Matrix tr i logy unequivocal ly prov ides a paradigmatic i ns tance of that t rend .

I n the context of Japanese an imation , an intr igu ing example i s offered by the h i ghly

acclaimed TV ser ies di rected by Ryutaro Nakamura, Serial Experiments Lain ( 1998) , here a lso discussed i n Chapter 3 i n relat ion to Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue. I n the p rogra m , the protag­onis t , Iwakura La i n , i s l i teral ly sp l i t into a cybernetic self that grows inc reasi ngly brash as the

story progresses and a real-world self that gradual ly loses confidence in its corporeal substan­

t ia l i ty. Moreover , the heroine is deserted by her ent i re fam ily, who are revealed by her p re­sumed "father" to be j us t a t roupe of actors temporari ly employed to support the fict ion that

the real Lai n exists when she is only, i n fact , an ephemeral fab ricat ion . S imu l taneously, the

"real" girl 's schoolfriends u nceremon iously discard her , as a resu l t of cyber-La in's mal ic ious

disseminat ion of the i r most int imate secrets and of increas ingly d is turb ing rumors . Eventu­

al ly, i t i s posited that the show's protagon ist is i ndeed an electron ic construct created ent i re ly within the cyberrealm of the "Wi red," and that her real - l i fe alrer ego (and assoc iated body i mage) is merely a hologram. The dead scholar Masami Eir i , speak i ng from w i th i n the Wired, argues that h uman be ings fundamentally exist as m inds i n terl i nked wi th in vast electron ic c i r­cu i ts and that a l l bodies, as a corol lary, have 1 1 0 greater so l id i ty than holographic project ions .

Pr ior to h is d i rectorial role on Appteseed, Aram aki had pr inc ipal ly been i nvolved for

approximately two decades i n the execution of mecha-des ign work for n umerous an imat ions ,

l ive-action fi lms and games . He had also , however , contributed i n key capac i t ies to two major an ime ti tles : Bubblegum Crisis and Megazone 23. These productions deserve c lose attent ion ,

i n the cu rrent context , due to the i r points of contact with Appteseed's generic and d ieget ic makeup. The OVA ser ies Bubblegum Crisis, created and released between 19 87 and 1990 , was d i rected by Katsuh i to Akiyama, H i roaki Gohda, H i roki Hayashi , Masami Obar i and Fumi­h i ko Takayam a . Aramaki h i msel f contr ibuted the screen p lay i n co l l aborat ion w i th

Katsuh i to Akiyama , Emu Ari i , H ideki Kakinuma , Tosh i m ich i Suzuki and Hidetoshi Yoshida .

General ly recogn ized as a staple i nst i tut ion i n the galaxy of Japanese an imat ion , Bubblegum Crisis i s probably one of t h e first a n d most w idely accla imed i nstances of the "Gi rl s-With­Guns" s ubgenre of science-fiction an ime .

The "gi r l s" in quest ion are a four-person team du bbed the "Kn ight Sabers" and equ ipped with form idable mecha suits , who special ize in the pol i c ing of a breed o f b iomechano ids known

Eight-Applesced 135

as the "Boomers" : au tomata constructed by the industrial colossus "Genom" to act as a labor caste i n the serv ice of h umans but regrettably endowed with a knack of go ing sensational ly berserk. The a l l-female band's combat and strategic ski l ls provide apt p recedents for Deu­

nan's own talents and correspond ing characterization in Aramaki's fi lm. Their v isual appear­

ance, moreover, ant ic ipates Deunan's somat ic t ra i t s : just as Appleseeds hero i n e rema in s

unequ ivocally appeal ing i n a dist inctively femin ine ve in despite he r disp lays of martial v i r i l­i ty, so the character designs used i n Bubblegum Crisis (created by Kenich i Sonoda) reta in an al l u ring aura of sexy femi n i n i ty, specifically thanks to the style used i n the depict ion of the

meehl/-powered hards u i ts : cu rvaceous graceful ness is never total ly e l ided by the engu lfing

agency of meeha gea r. Some would ca l l th i s a concess ion to the dub ious requ i rement s of "fan service." Whether or not one endorses this verdict, it is hardly deniable that action-driven anime with female characters at i ts center is seldom ( if at al l ) wi l l ing to forfe i t a l together the typ ical markers of enshr ined icons of femin ine comel i ness . Osh i i 's Ghost in the Shell and its sequel, Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelioll and Yosh iaki Kawaji ri 's Ninja Scroll-- to draw merely on t ides d i rectly connected with this study - bear clear witness to this trend.

AIegazone 23 i s a th ree-part OVA series produced between 1985 and 1989. Aramak i wrote

the script for al l three insta lments i n col laboration with Noburo Ish igu ro. He also co-directed

Part I I I (1989) with Kenichi Yatagai , whereas Pa rr I (1985) was d i rected by Noburo I sh igu ro, and Part II (1986) by Ichirou !tano. Affinities between this work and Appleseed may not, at first, seem blatant. Indeed, whi le the 2004 feature exh ib i ts a fundamental ly transh istorical atmosphere by amalgamat ing both thematic and graph ic motifs that span over two mi l lennia of h istory, mythology and lore, A1egazone 23 is very much a p roduct of i ts t ime. I ts expl ic i t references to mid-1980s fash ion, musical tastes and, more broadly, Japanese l i festyles informed

by global t rends of that period ground the OVA series qu ite firmly i n the cu l tural c l imate sur­

rounding its execution and release.

Nonetheless, a philosoph ically pivotal s imi larity br ings Megazone 23 and Appleseed in t i ­mate ly together. The OVA presents us wi th a world akin to the one ar t icu lated by the Wachowski brothers in the Matrix tr i logy and all uded to ea rl ier in this chapter : a s the p ro­tagonist Shogo inadvertently finds h imself at the center of a whirlpool of uncontrol lable events, it grad ual ly transpi res that h is ent i re world i s a s imulation mai ntai ned by a 2 5 th-century supercompute r. Th is s imulated env i ronment is in many ways analogous to the society first

conceptual ized by Sh i row for the Appleseed manga and subsequently brought to the b ig screen

by Aramaki.

In articulat ing this theme, Applesf'f'd could be said to rei nforce its affil iat ion to the Clas­sical legacy, insofar as the s imulation trope finds one o f its earl iest and best-known formula­

tions in the domai n of fifth-century B.C. Greek ph ilosophy - specifical ly, i n the gu i se of the

analogy of the cave p roposed by Plato i n the Republic (Book VI I ). In that famous parable, the Greek ph i losopher a rgues that human bei ngs are by and large aki n to capt ives held from bi rth in an underground cave, able only to perceive shadows which they mistake for the real world. As long as the prisoners remain chained to th is pseudo-rea l i ty, they wi l l not be in a

posit ion to grasp its authentic status as a decept ive s imu lat ion. However, regardless of Clas­sical paraphernal ia o r a l lus ions, Olympus's utopia u l t imately symbo l i zes the essence of any totalitarian organ ization of society as a fake, a s imu lacrum, a hefty chunk of delus ional eye­candy - whereas Appleseed i tself, c inematic eye-candy as it u n deniably is, also succeeds in prodding the neu rons .

136 AI\:IME iNTFRSECTIONS

At the end of the movie, Deunan and her associates stand amidst the balefu l ruins of a city that bears no traces of its erstwhile glory. The wreckages of the technological monsters heroically

vanquished by our hero( in)es, steeped not in uplifting radiance but in stifling doom, fill the land­scape. The imposing mach ines - and hence the technocracy they stood for - have clearly come

to a hal t . These images invite us to reRect upon the l ikely future of human subj ectiv i ty beyond the technologies that have thus far defined it . The finale's voiced message, uttered by Deu nan, del ivers an optimistic vision in which the future is held to belong to the "chi ldren . " However,

this message feels a bit too much l ike a concession to the stereotyp ical notion of the saccharine

"happy ending" to be taken seriously a s the story's unequivocal resolution. Alternative interpre­

tations of Appleseeds closing moments should accordingly be contemplated . On the one hand, the denouement could be read as a bitter i ndictment of h uman (or

post-human, as the case may be) fo l ly. I n this read ing, much as Deunan and her mates stand

out as "sav iours," i t i s by no means obvious what exactly they have saved : the p reservat ion of

the world seems inextricable from its annihi lat ion. I t is a s though the pro tagon ists, governed by a cruel paradox, had no cho ice but to erase real i ty in their mission to keep i t al ive . O n the

other hand, Appleseed as a cumulat ive creative enterprise cou ld be said to disc lose a more

promis ing opt ion, albeit impl ic i tly, through its foregrounding of the l im i tless poss ibi l ities

i nherent in the art of animat ion . In this scenario, whereas the world art icu lated narratively by the film may have reached a bleak impasse, the worlds brought to l i fe by advent u rous an i­mat ion techn iques clearly have not . I ndeed, in showing how far the pu rv iew of ani me could

be extended by means of intrepid syntheses of hand-drawn and cutt ing-edge styles, Appleseed

does not advertise itself as a conclusive result but rather alerts us to a vi rtual ly infin ite range of as yet unexplored experiments .

This proposition is corroborated by Aramaki's decision to embark upon the production of a feature-length sequel to the movie, intended for a 2007 theatrical release, in collaboration with

the renowned filmmaker John Woo. Aramaki welcomes this p roject, t itled Appleseed: Ex Machina,

as an opportunity to expand on the i nnovative techn iques and styles developed in the execution

of the 2004 film, and specifically on the team's expertise in the field of computer-assisted ani­mation. Deeply bound by long-standing mutual admiration, both Aramaki and Woo have explic­it ly professed their des ire to learn from each other's experiences in the cinematographical domain . "John Woo is someone I really respect," Aramaki has stated in the course of an i nterview ci ted

in the August 2006 issue of Newtype USA. "I love all of his films. As a CG-animated project, the conventions parallel filmmaking more so than anime. Woo has been able to really help us with

the development of both the action and the story we are creat ing ." In the same piece, Woo has remarked : "After I watched Appleseed, I was shocked . I saw it as a work of art . . . the color, the

design and the action all look so beautiful and stunn ing. I really wanted to learn from working with Aramaki and his talented team" (quoted in Silva, p. 20).

F inal ly, whatever else may be said of Appleseed as a total c inemat ic experience, i t can hardly be denied that Aramaki's troupe met the many chal lenges posed by the deployment of

a h i therto unassayed techn ical synthes is of the old and the new with ever-expanding resource­

fulness, creativeness and laudable forbearance . Alongside these unden iable v i rtues, what u l t i ­mately ho lds Appleseed admi rably together, imbu ing i t with energet ic appeal and yie lding a visually consistent and l usty production, is Aramaki's d i rectorial style - above a l l , i ts bu stl i n g vigor, im peccably cal ibrated tem po and deft integration of the narrative's v isceral and intel­lectual d imensions .

NINE

Steam boy

That Otomo sets his story at the d,lwn of the industrial age may come as a shock to those who had the director pegged as a science-fictioll filmmaker, but the move makes perfect sellSe ifyol< cOlISider that this was a period in which man, for the first time in its existence, had to learn to deal with the presellce of machines in his daily lift. Not without reasoll has Otomo refirred to the film as 'steampullk, "illdicating the thematic similarities with cyberpunk .. . . You can understand why this film was delayed so many times just by looking at it; you can almost count the rivets on the vil­lain 's mechallic mega-fortress. - Tom Mes.

if Akira refined our notions of science fictioll, Otomo 's new film, Steam boy, expands them. jump­ing back 140 years, Steamboy is a kind of sci-fi creation myth, imagining the moment when humans fint came foce to foce with machinery 's fiarsome power . . . . It 's no MIT dissertatioll- Otomo has created a lavish, elaborate piece of entertainment that's quite aware of maillStream audiences. Still, Steamboy takes its subject- the corrupting illfluence of science- seriously. That alolle sets it apart ji'01n most contemporary sci-jz'. -jasoll Silverman.

Steamboy is Katsuh i ro Otomo's first maj or anime release s ince the ground-breakin g Akira

(1988). The latter's importance can hardly be exaggerated when one considers, as Jerry Beck urges us to do, that

Akira's strength at the box office ( in the U.S., Europe, as well as i n Japan) had s ingle­handedly put an ime on the international map and forced movie crit ics, fi lm scho lars and an i­

mators to take the genre serious ly. I t encouraged U.S. distr ibu tors to import further t i tles for d i rect home v ideo release - and insp i red several cable networks (Cartoon Network, the Sci F i Channel, G4 and MTV, among others) to run anime p rogramming blocks. The Pokemon

fad and D isney's distribut ion deal for Miyazaki's fi lms have brought further financia l success

and prestige to the genre in the subsequent years [Beck] . I n sp ite of substantial d ifferences at the levels of style, gen re and imagery, Akira and

Steamboy unquestionably share an acute concern with the Janus-faced nature of technology as the potential harb inger of equal measures of prosperity and devastation. Otomo's i nterest

in th is issue can, however, be t raced further back than e i ther the film vers ion of Akira or the parent manga, a mammoth two-thousand-two-hundred-page epic eventually yielding six vol ­umes of un ique graph ic virtuosity tha t took Otomo ten years to complete. I ndeed, the art ist's

engagement with dystop ian science-fiction themes dates back to the unfinished manga Fire­

ball, publ ished in 1979, where the focus is a classic man-versus-supercomputer adventure. I t was with Domu: A Child's Dream, first serial ized i n 1980 and then p ubl ished as a co l -

137

138 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

lection three years later, that Otomo's oeuvre ach ieved unprecedented p rominence, gain ing h im the p restigious Science Fict ion Grand Prix Award � a p rize never before received by a com ic book. This manga ell i p t ically anticipates steamboy i n i ts depict ion o f generat ional

con fl ict � a topos, as discussed i n some depth later in this chap ter, of p i votal s ign ificance to the overall narrative import of the 2004 feature . In Domu, the adversa rial part ies are eth ical ly untainted and psychologically mature ch i ldren, on the one hand, and amoral ch i ld i sh adults capable only of i rresponsible conduct, on the other. Domu's storyl ine bears no obvious affin it ies

to the adventures dramatized i n steamboy. Its p lot indeed revolves around the i nvest igat ion into the deaths of several res idents of a poverty-stricken hous ing p roject, seemingly the resu l t

of unrelated suicidal acts . Upon closer i nspection, however, Domu tu rns out to hold tangential po ints of contact

with steamboy. When the deaths are revealed to have been engineered by a tw isted old man endowed with a vast array of psychic ab i l i ties and an unfl inching determinat ion to handle the

miserable tenants as puppets i n his absolute control, one senses s imi lar i t ies between that char­acter's malevolent agency and the power-crazy agendas pursued by steamboy's rogues . I t is up

to a young g i rl i n possession of extrasensory powers capable of rival l ing those of the sadist ic

puppeteer of the dregs of Japanese society to challenge the vi l la in's schem e � j ust as i t is ult i­

mately up to steamboy's boy hero to challenge the nefarious p lots contrived by both estab­l ished and burgeoning structures of power. Moreover, Domu's stand ing as a tale that transcends the boundaries of horror-driven fantasy by fathoming the harsh real i t ies of urban i so lat ion, poverty and disenfranchisement foreshadows steamboy's commi tment to the exp lorat ion o f

al l-too-real cultural and h istor i cal in iqu it ies . I t may seem strange, given Oromo's except ionally sol id reputation as a manga a rt ist , ro

see h im i nvolved in a large-scale cinematic production of Steam boy's cal ibre . I ndeed, as Otomo h imself has pointed out in an interv iew for The Onion A. V. Club, "The cartoon ist 's work is

sol i tary; even when dealing with editors and ass istants, there is no such excitement as to c re­at ing unexpected drast ic changes for p roj ects . . . . Manga can't be drawn by a lo t o f people , as done in fi lm . " This state of affairs could be seen to enta i l the development over t ime of a cre­ative mental i ty that p laces individual effort over col laborat ive enterp r i se . However, O tomo does not resent but actual ly appears to cherish the p lural ist imp l i cations of fi lmmaking, and i t is due to th i s openness to an alternative modus operandi that he finds d i rect ing a sat isfy­

ing chal lenge :

During the production of this film, what 1 put my most effort in was the process of layouts, and I did my best ro check every detail. Once this process is done precisely, we will get great backgrounds from our art team. This makes the team effort fun. I can't create a movie by myself. It is worthy only because many staff bring new ideas and techniques. I think the appeal of heing the director is to encounter such new things, which I don't possess. It is absolutely wonderful ro create something new based on teamwork. It is something that I couldn't appreciate in my cartoonist days [Oromo 2005J.

steamboy was released i n Japan in July 2004. Boasting an in itial budget of $22,000,000,

and eventually encompassing over 180,000 drawings and four-hundred computer-generated cuts,

steamboy is the most expensive and one of the most laborious feature-length anime movies pro­duced to date . In the U.S., the film was released in March 2005 in two different formats : a full­length subtitled release, and a sl ightly shortened and dubbed version featuring the voices of Anna Paqu in, Alfred Molina and Patrick Stewart. Both the origi nal version and the edited vers ion are avai lable on DVD, with the longer one being merchandised as the "Director's Cut . "

Nine-Steamboy 139

Steamboy is overtly l inked by both i ts t i t le and its subject-matter to the tradi t ion of

"steampunk . " A subgenre of alternate-h istory speculative sc ience fict io n , u sua l ly s e t i n a pseudo-Victorian mi l ieu , steampunk focuses on representations and appl ications of advanced technology in an imaginary past through the cult ivation of a compel l i ngly retrofuturist ic aes­thetic . The term "retrofutu rist ic" is axial to an adequate grasp of steam punk, as i t indicates that the t ime zone depicted by this subgenre is not the future as we may imagine i t today but

rather the fu ture a s imagi ned by the tech no-visionaries of pas t epochs . More or less bizarre gadgets, contraptions and mechanica l toys - as well as ful l-fledged mechan ical p rodigies of

gargantuan d imensions -- are the ingredients that customari ly announce a narrative as an exper iment in steampunk . This is u ndoubtedly true of Steam boy: the fi lm is ushered in r ight

from the start by a glu t of mechanical gear as an ani mated adventu re drawn to everyth ing that would conceivably have felt ingeniously cutt ing-edge in la te n i neteenth-century England, and to qu i te a few addit ional th ings that could not have been envisioned at the t ime .

Ascerta in ing the p recise or igins of steampunk is p ractically i mposs ib le insofar a s the ten­dency to ut i l ize e lements of a more or less recent past within a sc ience-fict ional context can

be traced back to the likes of Jules Verne (1828-1905) and Albert Robida ( 1848-1926) . The

Difference Engine, Wil l i am G ibson's and B ruce Ster l ing's col laborative effort pub l ished i n

1992 , is generally recognized a s t h e insp ir ing force behind the coinage of t h e term "steam­punk . " The novel appl ies a l l the unmistakable trademarks of Gibson's and Sterl i ng's cyber­

punk fiction to an al ternate vers ion of Victorian society, employing as a leadi ng th read the theme of Charles Babbage's perfection of the Difference Engine and the Analyt ical Engine­

that is to say, the "calculat ing mach ines" held to const itute the ancestors of the modern com­puter . Like The Difference Engine, several steampunk narratives now considered p ro totypical ly representative of the form are fundamentally cyberpunk adventures set in a transh istorical pas t ,

and characteristically u t ilizing steam-age technology e i ther i ns tead of cybernetics , o r else in

conj unct ion w ith a l lego rical refash ion ings of actual digita l tech nology. Not i n frequently, supercomputers and quasi-cybernetic interfaces coexist with clunkier mechanical constructs . The infernally intricate i nfrastructure of the flying is land of Laputa in Hayao Miyazaki 's Cas­

tle in the Sky (1986) epi tomizes the type of supercomputer favored by steampunk , whi le the film's legion exper iments with quirky aeronautical des ign fai thful ly capture i ts p redi lect ion for pseudo-Victor ian technologies . 1

Steampunk motifs have consistently pervaded mai nstream manga s ince the 1940s , a s elo­

quently attested to by the science-fiction tri logy by Osamu Tezuka compris ing Lost World

(1948), Metropolis (1949) and Next World (195 1 ) . An ime has enthusiast ical ly appropriated the narrative lessons divulged by comic books, on this front , and yielded a vari ety of ent ic ing steam punk-insp ired works - includ ing , besides Steamboy, two further films exam ined i n th i s s tudy: Rinta ro's adaptation of Tezuka's Metropolis (2001) and Miyazaki 's Howl's MOlling Cas­tle (2004) . The fasc inat ion with old Europe evinced by these an d several other an ime artists can be related to what the Japanese describe as "akogare no Paris" ("the Paris of our d reams") ­

namely, a fantasized configu ration of that world conceived through Eastern eyes comparable

to the West's imaginary vers ions of the East p redicated upon the myth of the "exotic . " A cru­cially important b ridge between this ethos and semi-h istorical manga and anime is undoubt­edly Rose of Versailles, the manga by Ryoko Ikeda publ ished in 1972 and subsequently adapted both as an anime series and as l ive-action movies . Loosely based on actual h i storical fi gu res and events, and p rimar i ly on the l i fe of Marie Anto inette 0755-93) and her relat ionsh ips

140 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

with the Swedish d ip lomat Axel von Fersen and the dash ing female swashbuckler Oscar de

Jarj ayes, Rose o/Versailles introduced Japanese popular culture to the h istory and costumes of late eigh teenth-century France and to the cl imate of the French Revo lut ion of 1789. N umer­ous series insp i red by that same h istorical period, though rarely based on real personages, rap­idly ensued.2

The retrofuturist ic approach so typical of steampunk general ly and of Steamboy in par­t icular was i mported int o the domain of classic science fiction by Leij i Matsumoto i n 1976

wi th the show Captain Harlock, where the meticulously depicted spacesh ips central to a

plethora of breathtaking battles unequivocally resemble eighteenth-century galleons worthy of the p luckiest p i rate of o ld . Analogous visual tropes are deployed in the TV ser ies Elemen­

tal Gelade (d ir . Shigeru Ueda, 2005) , where the sky p i rates (i ntensely redolent of t hose i n Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky) l ikewise rely o n flying veh icles overtly i nsp i red b y o l d vessels i n both the ir basic structural conception and their fetch ing ornamental at tr ibutes . Matsumoto

developed the aesthetic first conceived in the execution of Captain Harlock i n a later ser ies,

Space Cruiser Yamato (1978), where the futurist ic spacesh ips are b latantly model led accord­

ing to classic World War Two battleships of the kind seen i n countless Hol lywood war movies .

The steampunk branch of an ime acqui red a further, unprecedentedly tantal iz ing, dimens ion

with the TV ser ies Conan, Boy of the Future, di rected by Miyazaki and b roadcast i n 1978. I n this p rogram, the focus i s a future world struggl i ng for surv ival i n the aftermath of a global

nuclear holocaus t . I n the decades to follow, numerous anime series incorporated various steam­punk motifs and visual tropes as varyingly prominent components of their overal l s tyles and narrative curves . Most notable is Hideaki Anno's Nadia: The Secret o/Blue Water (1991) . Stu­dio Gainax's first major series, p roduced in the wake of their epoch-making feature fi lm Royal

Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (di r . Hiroyuki Yamaga, 1987), Nadia echoes Verne's

Twen�y Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) as i t fol lows the young pro tagonis ts' epic adven­tures aboard Captai n Nemo's Nauti lus . At the level of des ign, moreover, the steampunk s ig­nature p rocla ims itsel f most markedly i n the execut ion of the spacesh ip- l ike submar ines punctuating the na rrat ive's v isuals . I n more recent years, steam punk has found novel e labo­

rat ions i n the "pseudo-western" TV series Trigun (di r . Satosh i Nish imura, 1998) , where sub­l ime vistas of outer space and n ineteenth-century American p ra i ries seamless ly coalesce, and

in the TV series Fullmetal Alchemist (di r. Seij i Mizush i ma, 2003-2004), where the future is

imbued not only with vestiges of not-too-distant epochs but also with incurs ions i nt o the

ancient realms of occul t ism and magic .

I n engineering mult ifaceted encounters between the o ld and the new, recorded h istory and hypothetical t ime zones, real ist ic mach inery and preposterous apparatuses, several of steampunk's most memorable accomplish ments succeed in pos ing ph i losoph ical quest ions of existential ist magn itude . Past and present persistently meet, merging and v iolently coll id ing by turns, depending on the extent to which their conflict ing messages can be reconci led o r else assert themselves a s stubbornly incompatible . In the process, characters whose ident i t ies

are defined in equal measures by past and present events have no cho ice but to con front the rel i cs of buried horrors i f they are to develop an honest sense of self-understanding and the

resul t ing capaci ty to choose and act autonomously. For al l they know, what l ies at the end of the tunnel m ight well be impenetrable darkness, consider ing tha t the societies w i th in wh ich their laborious quests are undertaken tend to be pregnant w i th greed and deprav i ty. N onethe­less, the courage imp l ic i t in such quests and sheer p reparedness to embark upon them and

Nine �Steamboy 141

see them through to completion rema in admi rable assets which an ethical ly m inded art ist of Otomo's cal ibre wou ld never, i t seems, t i re of upholding .

Steamboy finds an apt predecessor in "Cannon Fodder," the th i rd segment i n the afo re­mentioned tr i logy Memories (p lease see Chapter 3) d i rected by Otomo, created by Otomo, Kouj i Mori moto and Tensai Okamura, and released in 1994. A narratively sparse vignette out­l in ing a s ingle day i n the l i fe of an ord inary family through i ts d i smal rout ine of cannon main­tenance and shel l manufactu re, " Cannon Fodder" s tands ou t as an utterly unsent imental

indictment of ho llow patr iot i sm t inged with Orwell ian parano i a . Its sett ing is a c i ty consist­

ing pr imari ly of t i tanic cannons, where a l l resources appear to be channel led i nto the lobbing of l ikewise huge she l l s at an un identified and invis ible foe . The c i t izens themselves appear to have forgotten (or perhaps they never t ruly knew) the nature of the cause they are supposed

to be protect ing . When the chi ld protagonist asks his father why exactly they are figh t ing, the parent s imply te l l s h im that he wi l l understand when he grows older and rapidly consigns

h im to bed . I t is unsurp ris ing, at th is point , that the chi ld should respond to this unsat isfac­

tory answer by seeking refuge i n a fantasy world of h is own making, in which he personifies

the leader whose magnificent portrait (worthy of the neoclassical pa inter Jacques-Lou is David)

punctuates the ent i re environment .

I t is i n the execut ion of this relat ively early p iece that Otomo's imaginat ion was first cap­tured by the idea of a world dominated by steam-powered machines . I t is for th is produc­t ion, moreover, that the di rector began to experiment i n a methodical fash ion, and i n ways deemed revolut ionary at the t ime, with the synthes is of CGI and trad it ional hand-drawn an i­mation . As Adam Arseneau has observed, the approach to an imation evi nced by "Cannon Fodder" comes across as a s ingular synthesis of "Metropolis-style an imation blended smoothly

with 1984-esque imagery and themes, with the c i tizens be ing dressed i n WWI doughboy­

style helmets and gas masks . The colors, styles and images are rem iniscent of v intage wartime

propaganda posters come to l i fe i n a bewi lderingly fascinat ing and troub l ing ba l l e t o f wart ime society gone mad" (Arseneau) .

The digi tal component is most effectively evident i n the representation of persuasively an imated steam, smoke and vapor, as well as i n the execut ion of extraord inari ly detailed dials, control instruments and gauges . The tradi t ional element, for its part , comes to the fore i n

overtly cartoon ish, hyper-styl ized and even intentionally unattractive character des igns . These

work most memorably in the c l imactic sequence where the drawing sketched by the young protagonist, a fai rly pedestrian and expl icit ly hand-crafted se lf-portrait i n the ro l e o f an ide­al ized mi l itary hero, comes to l i fe before the bewildered gaze of the young artist 's father . I n th is sequence, Otomo adopts a deconstructive approach t o h i s chosen medium, del iberately

caus ing ful l animation to regress to rough l i nes and crudely applied colors . (An analogous approach, i t wi l l be recal led, is adopted by Anno at especial ly charged moments in Neon Gen­

esis Evangelion.) Also notable, where Otomo's technical adventurousness is concerned, is the a rch i tectural s ty le used in the depiction of the city. As a means of conveyin g the inescapable

oppress iveness of the total i tar ian regime under which the fi lm's beleaguered characters po int­

lessly labor from dawn t i l l dusk, day after day and with no gl impse of respite, the director has resorted to an i ntensely claustrophobic environment in which the edifices appear to be stacked together regardless of perspectival logic as they would i n a typical medieval pa int ing . I n suppress ing the impress ion of depth, the arch i tecture concurrently p recludes the poss ib i l ­ity of open i ngs, of breath ing spaces and hence of free movement .

142 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

Faithfu l to the aesthetic of steam punk documented earl ier in th is chapter, Steamboy com­

bines a semi -factual n i neteenth-century setting with technological and geopol i t ical phenom­ena that were part ly tr iggered by scientific advances that were al ready u nder way within that part icular m i l ieu, and part ly occasioned by subsequent developments . I ntertw ined with actual c ircumstances perta in ing to either the Victorian era or later h istorical periods are Otomo's

own speculat ions about hypothetical s ituations (and attendant world v iews) that could have feasibly e manated from the given paradigms but cannot be factual ly connected w i th any

official ly recorded events . I t i s through th i s amalgamation of h is torical ly accurate perspec­tives, imagi nat ive refashionings of occurrences drawn from different epochs i nto new fictional wholes, and down r ight v i s ionary p roject ions that Oromo's movie pu rsues i t s dis t inct ive approach to steampunk .

Set i n the year 1866, Steamboy revolves around the inventor p rodigy Ray Steam . The

boy's technological p recoc iousness is h ighl ighted righ t from the start : upon h is first appear­

ance, we see h im stop s ingle-handedly and j ust i n the n ick of t ime a mechan ical ma lfunc­t ioning that could otherwise have resu lted in the catastrophic explosion of an ent ire factory. We next discover his passion for newfangled gadgets of all sorts, and attendant flair for both analytical ly dissecting exist ing mechanisms and invent ing h is own bizarre, yet surpr is ingly efficient. gizmos from scratch . The boy's relat ively quiet existence in Victorian Manchester, England, is d ramatically hrought to a halt by h is rece ipt of a package conta in ing an enigmatic

spherical ohj ect approximately the s ize of a tenp in bowl ing bal l sent by h is grandfather Lloyd,

who is stationed in Alaska and undertaki ng pioneering research i nto the power of stea m . The arrival of the mysterious sphere - which Ray has been urged by a note from h i s ancestor to h ide at a l l costs from the O 'Hara Foundation - throws the young hero's l i fe i nto chaos . The

device, i t gradual ly transp i res, houses a novel form of energy putat ively capable of power ing a whole country thanks to i ts extreme levels of both dens i ty and pressure . Moreover, i t i s a key component of a much more complex structure designed to un leash p roport ionately enor­mous energy suppl ies .

The boy must make j udicious use of his precious but potential ly nefar ious treasu re not

only to p ro tect h is fam i ly's and h is own wel l -being but u l t imately to save London a s a whole

(where the World Expo meant to showcase Brita i n's sc ient ific excel lence is taking p l ace) from certain annih i lat ion . As the p lot unfolds, Ray finds h imself very much at the center of a mult i­p ronged conflict . The foundation, which has been sponsor ing Ray's grandfather's exper iments, wants the steam ball back and indeed wi l l stop at noth ing to secure i ts retrieval , not on ly because of its pr imary va lue as an energy source but also - more crucial ly - because they v i ew it as instrumental to the spawning of a vast and obscenely l ucrat ive mi l i tary arsenal . Despite i ts hypocrit ical c la ims to a selfless com mitment to progress, the organ ization is essent ia l ly a corporat ional mam moth governed by sheer greed and hence u tterly unscrupu lous when i t comes to the forging of a ch i l l ing array of ki l l ing mach ines . Hounded down by bo th foun­dation agents and other technopol i t ical forces wh ich, though at first seem ingly benevolent,

harbor the ir own power-thirsty agendas, Ray is brutal ly torn away from the safety of h is domestic cocoon, with its p icturesque flower beds, lacy curtains, Bib le lessons at the d inner tab le and provincia l placidity. The outcome, c inematically speaking, is a thr i l l - ride packed with action sequences of exponent ial ly escalat ing scale and momentu m .

I t i s hard t o i magine a p rotagon ist more radically divergent than Ray from t h e l ead char­

acter of Otomo's first major an ime production, Akira's Tetsuo . The youthfu l idea l i sm and

Nine-Stcamboy 143

aversion ro v io lence typ ical ly evinced by Ray throughout the fi lm - w ith the exception of h i s

knocking out of a deris ive teenager early in the action - are indeed diametrical ly opposed ro Tetsuo's utterly disaffected conduct and Clockwork Orange�style indulgence i n brutal acts of truly epic proport ions . Yet , th i s opposi t ion i s not surpr i s ing when one considers that Otomo's more recent protagonist i nhabits a cultural context which , though i ntrins ical ly corrupt and

in iquirous, s t i l l harbors op t im ist ic mental i t ies , whereas Tetsuo ep i tomizes the cyn ic i sm of alien ated and social ly maladj usted adolescents trapped in a cal lous society that only acknowl­

edges youth ro the extent that i t can fear i t . In sp i te of these obvious d ifferences, however, i t

could u l t imately be argued tha t l ike Tetsuo - and indeed l ike the chi ld protagonis t i n "Can­

non Fodder" - Ray, too , is very much the product of an age that has not (or, at any rate , not yet) ascertained its underp i nn i ng rat i onale desp i te i ts cla ims to excel lence and en l i ghtenment . Accordi ngly, he , too, is inev i tably stranded i n a nebulous no-m an's-land of uncerta inty and doubt without any guarantee of rel iable gu idance .

While Steamboy is fundamentally a cau tionary tale about the abuse of technology, i t steers clear of monol i th ic indoctrination and del ivers instead a mu l t i perspectival take on the

ideological and eth ical imp l ications of sc ient ific advancement . The most ideal ist ic approach on the h umani tarian side is val iantly voiced by Ray's grandfather, who staunchly defends the

conviction that science should only be deployed for the good of h umani ty and, condemning i ts association with financ ial gai n and mi l i tari sm, would rather adopt Luddite m easures than

continue pursu ing h i s research . Ray's father, Eddie , also purports to fos ter a human i tarian

project in no less stridently i nsistent a fash ion . However, h i s overt characterizat ion a s an incar­nat ion of the deranged-scientist stereotype - ind igenous ro futurist ic c inema s ince at least Fritz Lang's Rotwang (Metropolis, 1926) - makes i t clear that no agenda u l t imately underp ins h i s man ic actions o ther than megalomania . Addit ional pathos, i n th is character's s tunn ingly s in ister dep i ct ion , emanates from his hybrid status as something of a proto-cyborg : a condi­t ion result ing from Eddie's firsthand involvement in an i nsanely audac ious experiment that has left him cr ippled and disfigured in both body and m ind . Through self-reconst i tut ion as a part-mechanical ent i ty, the scientist is able to merge with the tech no logy he has configured

as the path to om n i potence .

It seems h ighly apposite that in the Engl i sh-language vers ion of Steamboy the figure of the mad scient ist shou ld have been voice-acted by Mol ina , who p layed a very s imi lar part i n

Sam Raim i 's Spider-fofan 2 (2004) i n t h e role o f D o c Ock/Dr. Otto Octav ius . Likewise , the

employment of Patri ck Stewart as the voice-actor for Ray's grandfather cou ld be said to echo the l ive-action performer's role i n the X-Men movies (dirs . Bryan Singer, 2000�2003; Brett Ratner, 2006), where his character's com mitment to the peacefu l fosteri ng of the mutants' special powers contrasts sharp ly w i th his rival Magneto's propensi ty towards be l l igerence .

While Grandfather Steam bel ieves that science and technology wi l l never effect ively lead

the way to enl igh tenment as long as they are harn essed to the production of dangerous tools , to be wh i msical ly man ipu lated by expansion ist po l i t i cians , explo i tative entrepreneurs and ph ilis t ine shareholders , Eddie dismisses the old man's world view as a "fa iry ta le" vis ion of no pract i cal consequence . This idea i s touch ingly visual i zed i n the fi lm's cl imact ic moments , where the v i l la in's mega-fortress careens through London's smoky skies with a je t-packed Ray in hot pursu it : amid the edifice's behemoth assemblage of murky levers and gauges, the "Steam Castle" also flaunts a charm ing merry-go-round of amhent i cal ly Victorian pastel-hued horses .

At one leve l , therefore , Steamboy focuses on the dire repercuss ions of a fundamental ly

144 ANIME I;-,JTERSECTIONS

fami l ia l clash engendered by radically different perceptions of the fu nct ion and purpose of science . Through th is father-son adversarial relationship, which by and by requ i res Ray h i m­self to take s ides as a son and a grandson in his own right, Otomo explores the b roader issue of the transgenerat ional transfer of technopo lit ical accountabi l i ty. At a fu rther level , the

conflict dramatized i n Steamboy is a power struggle of i nternational p roport ions, i nvolv ing

the aforementioned foundation, on the one hand, and the Br i t i sh government and army, on the o ther . Embarrassed (as any "proper Victorian" would no doubt have been ) a t hav ing

al lowed the O'Hara crew to h i re a pavi l ion a t t h e Crystal Palace Exh ibi t ion, after d iscover­ing that the foundat ion has deal ings wi th count less nat ions that i nc lude enem ies of the "Empire," the latter seek to d iscredi t the inventions p resented by the mult inat ional g iant at the event . In the process, they establ ish an al l iance with Robert Stephenson - a scientist who

ought to represent Brit ish values legit imately and i rreproachably. Yet, Stephenson h imself

turns out to be guided by less than lofty ul terior motifs . Everybody - individuals, corpora­

tions, whole nat ions and govern ments - is ult imately exposed as more or less tainted by so l ip­

s i s t ic self- interest .

This may come across as a potential ly s impl ist ic message wh ich, some audiences would

argue, does not s i t comfortably with the awesome soph istication and u nparal le led subt lety of

the movie's techn ical makeup. However, this dispar ity between content and form becomes understandable - if not, necessari ly, un iversally acceptable - when one enterta ins the v iew, as Kev in O'Donovan does, that

all of this talk about science is peripheral because Steamboy's strengths do not lie in its themes but rather, in its aesthetics . . . . It is a wholly modern, industrial film. Even as Otomo criticizes the misuse of science, he does not question the material (and aesthetic) value of technology . . . . Sure, the movie is unrealistic in the sense that the nineteenth century did not witness the mammoth, sophisticated devices on display in Ray Steam's England; however, the movie's machines still look and operate like machines .... Oromo's bril­liant creative vision lies not in forsaking material reality, but in pushing its boundaries to new limits [O' Donovan].

Even crit ics who have found Otomo's latest fi lm somewhat disappo int ing i n com parison wi th

his revolut ionary Akira have conceded that the style, action, visual effects and special effects

associated with Steamboy's representation of technology - let alone implementat ion thereof­

is generally astounding and a lmost i nvariably beaut ifu l . Rene Wal l ing's review of the fi lm for Frames per Second Magazine, for instance, is by no means undi luredly compl imentary - i n fact, Wal l ing laments the movie 's lack o f adequate character development a n d relatively weak storyl ine . Yet, her approach to Steamboy's mechanical infrastructure ind icates that th i s sus­

ta in ing aspect of the work is possibly more than sufficient to make i t a memorable experi­

ence . "Al l the machinery," the crit ic has sta ted, "whether i n operation or being destroyed, i s overwhelming . More attention seems to have been placed on the mach ines, creat ing that par­t icular aesthetic p roper to an imagined cutting-edge Victorian technology . . . than anyth ing

else" (Wal l ing, p . 15 ) .

Alternately functional and grotesque, the machines exude at once a lucid grasp of tech­n ical factors requir ing real ist ic rendition and a ludic fascination with the alchem ical magic of techno-vis ionary fantasy. Th is proposit ion is eloquently corroborated by the Steam boy Adven­ture Book, a truly insp ired integration of frames from the film intended to document i ts con­s is tent adopt ion of a l ternative camera angles, ambiences and chromat ic pa le ttes, and of black-and-white character sketches, model sheets and - most importantly - nzecha designs

Nine-Steamboy 145

that aim at detai l i ng the specifically technological facets of each given scenario w i th a lav i sh

profusion of lov ingly rendered deta i l s . At t imes, the machines ominously exude an over­whelming sense of crush ing grav i ty. At others, their elegantly drawn l i nes br ing to mind the almost immaterial grace of fi l igree, with its lace-l ike ornamental work and i ntricately in ter­

tw ined wires.

In assess ing steamboy's thematic import, i t is also important to acknowledge that l ike all the major productions discussed in th is book - though arguably less exp l ic i t ly so upon its

first viewing - Otomo's film offers an imaginative synthesis of Eastern and Western perspec­

tives i n the art iculat ion of i ts ideological preoccupations . As G abrie l Reldman has a rgued, the

movie is "a very successfu l experiment i n Western-style storytel l ing , something that hasn't been done . . . i n Japan i n recent memory. " Nevertheless, "Whi le clearly trying to emulate Western-style blockbuster plot structures, steamboy sti l l reta ins enough of a Japanese sens i­b i l i ty to imbue i tse lf wi th a s imple ph i losophical question that drives the fi lm's narrative . "

The s impl ic i ty t o which Reldman refers is of the order of a formal terseness that is most p roverbial ly embodied, wi th in the domain of Japan's tradit ional arts, by l inear ink drawings

and by the haiku . That is to say, i t is a s impl ic ity that does not seek to efface complexity

(which is precisely what many Hol lywood b lockbusters tend to do) but rather to encapsulate it i n a p i thy composi t ion capable of st imulat ing refl.ection and analys i s . The resul t , the cr i t ic p roposes, is "thought-provoking, i ntel l igent Japanese-style themes combined wi th exc i t ing,

Western-style act ion set p ieces and pacing" (Reldman) . Thus, a l though some com mentators have opi ned that steamboy occasionally overi ndulges i n garrulous debate over scientific moral­

i ty, i t would be hard to refute that beneath the verbiage cop iously issu ing from the power­mad Eddie and from the sabotage-m inded Lloyd, a sound undercurrent of social sat ire can

st i l l be detected.

I ndeed, even though steambo.y is the ta le of a Victorian youth ardently resolved to become

an inventor, its p ivotal p reoccupation actually resides with the uses and misuses o f science and technology. The movie clearly does not asp i re to assert i tself as a ph ilosoph ical or ideo­logical treat ise, s i nce Otomo's p rincipal a im in the first p lace was the creat ion of a p rod igal

p i ece of entertainment that could real i st ical ly appeal to lay v iewers from diverse backgrounds .

Nevertheless, as emphasized earl ier in this chapter, steamboy's abi l i ty to take a mature and earnest approach to the topos of the corrupting impact of scientific advancement se t s i t apart

from much science-fiction anime of the purely commercial i lk .

At its ph i losoph ical ly leanest, regardless of any ideological ly driven pronouncements issuing from its various personae, Steam boy works satisfyingly insofar as i t is capable of rem ind­ing us, as Jason S i lverman has suggested, that "as with our food, we've lost track of where ou r machines come from . " Th i s message is sustained by recourse to a punct i l iously orchestrated

visual discourse that pr ior i t izes the screen images themselves over verbal rhetoric pu re and

s imple . I t does so, as the critic goes on to argue, by urging us to recognize that although "mod­ern machinery is streamlined, myster ious and obviously mass-produced" to such an extent that we tend to forget or repress i ts true p rovenance, " humans make mach i nes, so h umans

should take respons ib i l i ty for the damage machines can do . . . . Otomo doesn't cure- ify h is weapons, instead making it clear that we are witness ing the i ntroduction of modern kil l i ng mach ines . I t 's l ike see ing a baby picture of Hi tler" (Silverman) .

The fi lm gathers momentu m in accordance with the ever- increas ing i ntens i ty o f the sequences devoted to the activation and destruction of steam-powered mach inery. At the same

146 A:--JIME INTERSECTIONS

t ime, the (indeed vaporous) i l lusions underlying its p rogress-driven society are i ncremental ly exposed for what they t ruly are by having each and every p iece of equ ipment run smoothly

at first and then i nvariably grind to a halt , splutter to a disappoint ing end o r else crash spec­tacu larly i nto the vo id . The fai lu re of the mach ines thus provides a sustained al legorical com­

mentary on the unheal th iness of a self-congratulatory ideology adept to disgui s ing the quest

for wealth as a pursu i t of noble object ives . The fate met by Steamboy's ubiqui tous mach ines u l t imately constitutes a more memorable and convincing indictment of the cul ture with which the film engages than the commonplace rhetoric deployed by Ray's grandfather i n h is efforts to lay bare technology's evi l potentia l i t ies .

Thus, even though Steamboy is not an animated documentary i n the str ict sense of the term (i t is patently not a reportoria l replay of l ived events), i t does carry documentary value

a s a reflec tion on the intractable ambiguities pervading the notion of technological develop­

ment i n both its hypothetical and its real ized manifestations . Relying on a medium that is

more transparent i n its construction than practi cally any avai lable form of l ive-action c inema, the film clearly does not a im at sel l ing itself off as a genu ine replica of empirical ly demon­strable occurrences .

For those viewers who are disinclined to regard an imation as a vehicle for the com munica­tion of anything other than fl imsy fantasies, Steamboy's lack of reference to a quantifiable expe­riential background will automatically exclude the possibi l ity of i ts carrying documentary weight .

Nevertheless, Steamboy has no less to say about actual, l ived h istory than legion Hol lywood pro­

ductions purporting to mirror real events in an objective fashion but effectively embodying deeply

b iased ideo logical agendas . I ndeed, it offers a version of history which , though it may never have physically obtained, st i l l resonates with powerful echoes of officially documented h istory. Above all, the film works as a thought-provoking template for virtually any regime motivated solely by

financially and territorially expansionist p riorities . Steamboy may not belong in the area of h is­toriography as the supposedly d i spassionate, yet ineluctably p rej udiced, documentat ion of identifiable facts . Yet, it does partake of the spirit of historicity as the discourse that does not p re­

tend to record incontrovertible truths but proposes that h istory as such is only ever brought into

existence by the p roduction of mutable textual interpretations. Through the trope of temporal

displacement suppl ied by steam punk's retrofuturistic logic, Otomo's movie contributes to our current understanding of h istory insofar as it encourages us to th ink about the past as a plastic

dimension, a collection of might-have-beens, a galaxy of both fulfilled and unfulfilled projec­

tions, rather than a crystal l ized set of data and dates . A refresh ingly comedic element is infused into Ray's tense adventure - and hence i nto

the dark lesson conveyed by Steamboy as a whole - by the p resence of the character o f Scar­

lett O 'Hara, the foundation chairman's teenage scion. Arrogant, self-obsessed and annoyingly op in ionated, th i s character serves to throw Ray's own matur i ty i n to rel i ef. When she d i smisses his ins istent tendency to ask questions regarding h is father's research as a sign of h is stupid­i ty, for example, Ray wisely retorts that it is precisely by asking questions that ignorance may be transcended . Otomo's female persona is named after the hero ine of Margaret Mitchel l 's classic romance Gone with the Wind (1936) and indeed bears a crucial affini ty to the latte r : j u s t a s Mitchel l 's spoi led a n d wi l lfu l s ixteen-year-old beauty matures a s a resu l t o f a v ita l encounter and thereby learns to understand her true fee l ings, so Otomo's Scarlett grows up as a result of her i nteraction with Ray, gradually exh ibi t ing a potent ial for com passionate ness lu rking beneath her whimsical surface .

Nine-Steamboy 147

Otomo's endeavor to bring Steamboy to the big screen was noth ing short of hero ic - to the point that his young hero's efforts could be said to replicate in tradiegetically the d irec­tor's own . A herculean explo it n ine years in the making , Steamboy required Otomo and h i s team to devote a phenomenal amoun t of t ime not only to the perfection of exis t ing tech­

niques but also to the ideation of brand-new digital systems that wou ld satisfactorily a l low them to blend trad it ional hand-drawn ani mation and CCI in the service of the director's epic

vision . On the who le , the computer-generated cuts have been so smoothly incorporated i nto conventional cel an imation that the digita l e lement never stands out or obvious ly draws atten­tion to itse lf. The director h imself has assessed in detai l current att i tudes with in the an ima­tion industry towards hand-drawn and cutt ing-edge styles, s imultaneously elucidat ing relevant cultural differences between his indigenous context and America : " I think the industry in Japan moving toward CGI is not as severe and extreme as in the u.s . . . . S ince Japan is a country that prefers p lane v is ion , I don't th ink we will l eave 2D and subst i tute hand-drawing with

CGI ent irely . . . . Approx imately 400 cuts [ i n Steamboy]- that would make 2 5 percent of the

total - use CGI . . . . D igital an imation is j ust supplementary . . . . Although al l s tudios are now moving towards digitalization , a foundation in which we draw pictures by hand hasn't changed, so I foresee that we w ill cont inue to keep it i n the fu ture" (Otomo 2005 ) .

The unobtrusiveness characterizing the computer-generated effects incorporated into Steam­boy owes much to the animators' endeavor to soften and tame their CGI by recourse to a largely somber palette that suitably mi rrors the mood of the period in which the story is set . Such a pro­

cedure was abetted by digi tal color-grading: a fine-tuning post-production p rocess that manip­

ulates the chromatic range used in any one scene . Digi tal color-grading also enables the animators to edit multiple CG layers at once, which al lows for the creation and appl ication of highly har­

monious color palettes . The except ional ly refined controls bu ilt i nto today's color-grading pro­

gram, moreover, make i t possible for their contribution to a scene to go v irtually unheeded. In order to adequately contextual ize Otomo's unflinching devotion to the artisanal dimen­

sion of Japanese an imat ion , it is important to recognize that the contemporary anime scene features numerous techn iques i ntended prec isely to enhance the hand-drawn feel o f its images even as ground-breaking tools are increas ingly brought into play. For exam p le , the artist and an imator "toi8" - most renowned for h i s work on the an ime series Magical Shopping Arcade

Abenobashi (di r . Hiroyuki Yamaga , 2002) and the video game Ace Combat 4- has persist­ently procla imed h i s determi nation to take fu l l advantage of the hand-drawn feel of penci l at

the same time as he has enthusiast i ca l ly embraced state-of-the-art CGI. Up until relat ively recent ly, toi8 used to draw exclus ively i n pe ncil , favoring v i brant ly dynamic l ines and chiaroscuro effects, smudges and b lends aided by a tool known as the torti l lon . I t was upon his entry into the rea lm of comput er-ass isted animation tha t the art ist began to incorporate color by recourse to digital too l s capable of c losely emulat ing both the l ush th ickness of o i l

and the etherea l mood of watercolor. However, to i8 remains faithful to the wisdom gleaned from h is hands-on i nvolvement i n tradit ional animation and particularly from h is tra in ing at the l ight table, where he " l earned to draw characters and background obj ects separate ly by individual ly tracing the origina l art i n pencil only" (to i8; quoted in Ichita 2006a , p.15 6) . I n his ut i l izat ion of digi tal technology, to i8 has by n o means reli nquished th is background . I n fact, as Sukemaru Ich i ta expla in s, "He makes use o f digital waterco loring features . . . to bring out the character of h i s penc i l l ines . I t 's obvious that to i8 appreciates the feel of a hand-drawn i l lustrat ion and knows how to make the most of one in a digital sett ing" (Jch i ta 2006a, p.15 6) .

148 Al'\ I M E INTERSECTIONS

A further cogent example is offered by the pro l ific output of the manga art is t , v ideo game artist and character designer Kumiko Suekane . As Ichita emphasizes, Suekane "th inks of d ig­ital art as a very different medium from hand-drawn i l lustrations" i nsofar as "CG i mages are

represented by numerical data , " al lowing an animator to " let the comp mer handle some of

the more repet i t ive tasks . " Nevertheless, she regards digi tal technology pr i mari ly as a means

of bypass ing u nnecessarily t ime-consuming and even tr iv ia l chores, wh ich enables her "to focus on the actual drawing process . " The i l lustrations , accordingly, are invariably "meant to have a hand-drawn feel" (Ich i ta 200Gb, p. 15 G) . Concurrently, Suekane ass iduously imports

i nto her computer-generated images stylistic and techn ical traits that one would would cus­tomari ly tend to associate with hand-drawn and hand-painted p ictures . These include the energetic appl ication of paint by means of large brushes, the employment of long brush strokes

of variable w idths to p roduce h igh l ights, the manipulation of opacity fi l ters to create a b lurred

watercolor effect , and the magn ifica tion of the graphic i ntensity of l ines defin ing key somatic features (especial ly the eyes) to enhance the emotional impact of specific exp ress ion s .

While endeavoring to remain loyal to the specifically hand-drawn qualit ies of the med ium, Steamboy also relies to a possibly unequalled extent on recent advances i n digital composi t ing

that allow for the edit ing of disti nct layers in groups, for the subsequent addition of l igh t ing effects and hence for the creation of a depth of field previously unattainable i n the medium of animation . A cardinal role , moreover , was played by digital "onionskinn ing . " Th i s techn ique

originates in a p rocedure employed by traditional animators, who would draw on thin "on ion­

skin" paper in order to be ab le to discern, through the cu rrent image , one or more of the p re­vious drawings in the animation . Therefore, onionskinning is in essence a 20 graphic technique deployed in the creation and edit ing of animated movies that enables the inspect ion of several

frames at once. Its pr incipal advantage is that i t al lows both an imators and editors to make

vital decisions as to how an image should be executed or amended on the basis of the v isual information suppl ied by the p receding images i n the sequence . For i nstance, establish ing the appropriate posit ion ing of a s ingle character or of a whole c luster of characters within a scene benefits enormously from the animator's (or editor's) abi l i ty to view the background against

which the actions of the i ndividual or of the group are supposed to take p lace . In the domain

of digital animation , on ionskinning consists fundamentally of creat ing semi-transparent frames, stacking them and proj ect ing them on top of each other. Most importantly, d ifferent visual effects can be located on dist inct layers, manipulated and edited independently, and finally com­

posited i nto a final frame or series of frames . For the sake of documentary accuracy and in order to absorb the mood of a lost era ,

Oromo and key members of h is troupe spent several weeks jou rneying across B ri ta in , v is i t­

ing museums, scout ing locations (especial ly old Manchester ne ighborhoods) , and exam i n i ng

an endless p rocess ion of original factories, steam engines and ins tances of n ineteenth-century technology. Utterly natural ist ic portrayals of late n ineteenth-centu ry Manchester and Lon­don are indubitably among the fi lm's most memorable accompl i shments , i n both the b i rd 's­eye and from-the-grassroots formats . The environment is elevated to the role of a lead character

in Steamboy. When the fi lm's rhythm flags , as i t occasional ly does, Manchester's alternately provi ncial appeal and iconic function as a vis ion of the I ndustrial Revolut ion's smoke-satu­rated darkness, a longside the sheer magnetism of London's Crystal Palace and of the 0 ' 1 l a ra Foundation Pavil ion - clearly inspired by the Royal Albert Hal l - sustain the act ion as charis­matic foci in their own righ t .

Nine �Stcamboy 149

I n the execut ion of both townscapes and domestic set t ings , every t iny detai l was the object of puncti l ious attention , from the minutest components ofOtomo's imaginary machines to the facial expressions of his convinc ingly i ndividual ized characters . Most crucial ly, the cre­ators of Steamboy did not al low themselves to take any shortcuts in the design of the fi l m's

mult id i mensional visuals : when a character coll ides with a tab le , for example , every s ingle

object on its surface moves credibly and in consonance with the scene's cumulat ive dynamic thrust .

With their pa instaking background research and p rudently planned i mplementation of

CGl , Otomo and h is associates have succeeded in creat ing an i ntensely atmospheric world that stands out as concurrently fantast ic - i n accordance with the gener ic requ i rements of sci­

ence fiction - and real ist ic , thanks to the thorough execution of each m i n uscule component of both elegant Victorian inter iors and awesome industr ial mach inery. Dazzl ing marble stair­

cases , halls of m irrors, polychromatic t i led Boors , prismatic glass s tructures capable of refract­

ing bel ievably the most l i l l iput ian facets of countless objects, and even items as prosaic as tableware (i temized fast id iously to the last p iece of cutlery and l iqueur glass) sh ine forth i n

a l l thei r graphic magnificence alongs ide a motley parade of fict ional apparatuses .

These inc lude Ray's homemade steam-powered un icycle , a steam-driven "autolocomo­tive tank," steam-propel led "jetpacks," "battlebots" and "aquacorps," as wel l as Bying soldiers equipped with canvas-shrouded wings worthy of any respectable latter-day Icarus . A steam­

activated dir igible endowed with colossal lobster claws, freighter-sized riveted submar ines (also energized by stea m , of course) , and armored knights known as "steam troopers" also

make p rominent appearances. Should the word "steam" appear to have been excessively re it­erated i n the forego ing descript ion , even a cursory glance at almost any of the movie's myr­

iad cuts will expla in the reason for i t : Steamboy veritably exudes vaporous effects of deft ly varied density and force right from the very first frame of its opening sequence . As Davide

Taro persuasively argues , "With Otomo and Steamboy, steam becomes an ethica l p ro tagon ist , and an imation i ts soul and body, its most accomplished and natu ral i ncarnat ion - an actual character, an im manent p resence l ike the kami [sp i r i ts] i n the Sh into rel ig ion , omnipresent ,

with a l i fe of i t s own" (Taro 2004a ; my translation) .

Steamboy's machines are often mass ive and u nyielding ensembles br i st l ing wi th cogs, bolts, gears, p ipes, valves and a perplexingly elaborate latt icework of crankshafts , r ivets and

interlocking gears . "As the grandfather and father reveal the i r i nventions ," wri tes Phi l ippa

Hawker , "the screen i s wreathed in steam, fi lled with i mages of p istons, cranks , cables, wheels

and pul leys , always on the verge of breaking , bursting or exp loding - like a vast and volat i le Meccano set run wi ld" (Hawker) . Nonetheless, their exuberantly hand-wrought look also ren­

ders them unremitt ingly beautifu l . This is not to say, as int imated earl i e r , that Otomo is eager

to edulcorate his weapons so as to efface their actual purpose . In fac t , the audience is never

al lowed to forget that what the film is dramatizing i s the incept ion of modern weapons of mass destruction . The fi lm's top ical and historical rel evance i s corroborated, in the c l imax, by the sur real ist ical ly dreaml ike sequence i n which random erupt ions of steam freeze in to a gigantic b loom of j agged ice . I n visual iz ing l iterally the abstract not ion of "Cold War , " the sequence functions as a po ignant rem inder of the terminal fol ly underlyin g al l forms of war­fare , actual or imaginary.

Thus, the movie p roposes that technological advances are , at l east po tent ia l ly, destruc­tive an d beneficial in equal meas ures . In so doi ng , Steamboy concomitantly points to the vir-

150 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

tual i nextricab i l i ty of the human from the techno logical . Whether we promote tech no logy as the p romise of a br ighter future or oppose i t as i n im ical to our wel l-be ing , we i nexorably

frame our ident it ies as h uman beings with reference to technology. By expound ing this mes­

sage , Otomo's film could be said to echo the central argument advanced by Bernard St iegler

i n Technics and Time, where the ph ilosopher provides a theory of t ime based on the p remise

that the human and the technological are inseparable - that the homin iz ing p rocess is i n ex­tricable from the evo lut ion of techne, despi te the sustained marginal izat ion of technology as

a side-effect of h uman evolut ion rout inely performed by Western metaphys ics .

Technology is n o t a system that makes i ts appearance a s a consequence of t h e appear­ance of humani ty. In fact , techno logy and humanity could be said to emerge i n tandem inso­far as humans have always needed technical supplements (fire, flint , weapons) and cannot be

deemed ever to have been unproblematically "natural" i f by "natural " one means nontechn i ­

cal . Humans are fundamenta l ly "tech nological" creatures to the extent tha t the cou rse of human existence on Earth cannot be divorced from the emergence and successive metamor­phoses of techn ical objects that make humans - that is to say, define the ir cu l tural rol es and posit ions - even as they are made by them. Anthropogenesis and technogenesis therefo re coa­lesce . The propos i t ion that techn ology is a cruc ia l ly complet ing e lement without which

humani ty, by defini t ion deficient , could not subsist is ass iduously art iculated by Steamboy i n

i ts ent i rety on the al legorical p lane , a n d fi nds a l i teral encapsulat ion i n Eddie's se lf- re i nven­

t ion as a man-mach ine hybrid : a composite ent i ty where in p rosthet ic adj uncts cann o t be

regarded as mere ly enhancing accessories s ince they are actually instrumental to the o rgan­ism's funct ional i ty and sheer survival .

I n impar t ing mechan ical obj ects wi th l i fe-susta in ing facui t ies , Otomo's fi l m echoes St iegler's suggest ion that the sharp dist inction between "organic" and " inert" ent it ies p rom­

ulgated by Aristotle and by many of his disciples is i ncorrect . For the Greek ph i losopher and

h i s fol lowers , organ ic ent i t ies are creatures formed by n ature and capable of i n i t iat i ng by themselves movement and change, and i nert ent i t ies , conversely, are art ificia l obj ects with n o

self-const i tutive or self-transforming powers . For Stiegler , however , techn ical constructs are actlla l ly endowed wi th l i fe , tempora l i ty and dynamism -- a dis t inct ive mach in i c phyl u m . Stiegler uses t h e phrase "organ ized inorgan ic ent it ies" t o designate these techn i cal obj ects : though non-bio logical , they are "al ive" and possess an underlying order.

What both i ndividual memory and recorded h istory offer , u l t imately, is a socio-pol i t i ­ca l record of transformations in the relat ionship between the human and the technological which can be transmi tted from one generation to the next and form the basis for subsequent recon figurations . Human beings understand tempora l i ty by grasp ing the transformation of

organ ic matter over t ime . I n t h e case of organized inorgan ic ent it ies , t h e pass i ng of t ime i s s ignalled by transformations i n techn i cal structures and fu nct ions . Techn ical obj ects fol low a phylum of transformations that are un iversal to the extent that they t raverse disparate cu l­tures over t ime . These , i n turn , bu i ld up a technology of memory - a mnemotech nology ­that encompasses al l the technologies (economic , pol i t ical , rel ig ious , aesthet ic , etc . ) through which hu man social formations come i nto being and change over the ages . Hence , memory

cannot be reduced to an archaeological reconstruction promis ing a conclus ive captu re of the

past for i t is actually a p rocess of unstoppable becoming . Otomo offers a very original ver­

s ion of such a phylum by i nterm ingl ing actual mechan ical accom pl i shments (both u nder way

in the Victor ian age and real ized by subsequent generations) with totally i magi nary configura-

Nine -Steamboy 1 5 1

t ions o f technology. What steamboy thereby del ivers is alternately a survey o f h istorical ly ident ifiable occurrences and ach ievements , and a vis ionary journey into as many unexplored or unfu lfi l led possib i l i t ies .

Also relevant to the scenario mapped out by Otomo's fi lm is Stiegler's motion that the

relationsh ip between the h uman and the tech nological man ifests i tse lf as a thanatology ­

namely, a d isco urse on mortal i ty - because both the human and the technological mark an inevitable entry in to temporal i ty as the prerequ i s i te for existence, and temporal i ty ine luctably entails fin i tude . We can only be by enter ing a sphere of bu i l t- i n obsolescence , by hav ing to

con front cont inua l ly the prospect of o ur cessation . In the mythical world of the Garden of Eden , t ime and death m ight have no t obta ined. But t h e so-cal led Fal l - what occas ions the appearance of " Man" as we know it - ushers in both temporal i ty and mortal i ty. l iumanki nd's

postlapsarian status is tied to a paradox : the precondit ion of our appearance is d isappearance,

that of our realizat ion , our dereal izat ion . I t i s wel l -n igh impossible to i magine more v iv id a dramatizat ion of th is topos with in the

medi um of animat ion than Steam boy's tantal iz ing scenar io of rampant devastation as the log­ical ou tcome of an i n iqu i tous coal i t ion between human i ty and technology. The s i tuation p re­sented i n the fi lm's c l imactic moments does not a l lude to a peacefu l attenuation of existence

but rather to a cataclysmical ly entrop ic collapse . The scale of th is thanatological vision is ent irely commensurate with the hyperbo l ic levels of lunacy that underpin the schemes har­

bored by steamboy's vil lains in thei r tech nology-abetted pursu i t of power and l ucre .

The Vice- Ve rsa review of Steam boy proposes an intr igu ing paral lel between the fi lm and

trad i t ional art i n specifically equa t ing the tenebrous intr i cacy of Otomo's world to the work of the Italian etcher, archaeologist and archi tect G iovanni Pi ranesi 0720- I77R) . An undis­puted master o f both the sub l ime and the grotesque , des t ined ro i nfluence n umerous schools

developing in later years, including Surreal ism , P i ranesi is most famous for h i s depict ion of

subterranean chasms, ba lefu l engines and hol lows fil led wi th wheels , chains and racks . I t could hardly be den i ed that such vistas v iv idly anticipate many of steamboy's typica l sett i ngs .

Steam boy, Vice- Ve rsa proposes,

exhibi ts a Piranesi-l ike obsess ion wi th gigall l ic cOll lrapr ions, a magni ficent Victorian sense of gears, pul­leys, and belts, and a Dantesque fascination with dark underworlds and murk .... Even the film's coloration is sepia toned. Not too many m inutes of film pass before the v iewer recognizes something no longer quite common, indeed somewhat forb idden to modern sensitiv i t ies : deliberately constructed allegory .... We are allowed to see the past as an allegory for the future 1 "Stearn boy: Revi ew," Vice- Versal .

A fu rther affini ty between Oromo's world and trad i t ional art is invoked by the em phat­

ically textural and synaesthetical ly tangible nature of Steam boy's visua ls . Part icu larly consp ic­uous where vas t urban tableaux are concerned, these attr ibu tes imbue the fi lm as a whole with

i ntensely oleograph ic qua l i t ies . I ndeed, j ust as a masterfu l oleograph is capable o f conveying the feel of o i l pa int ing through the mediu m of pr int , so steamboy closely approximates the dens i t y of o i l -based p i gments on film. I t is no co i n cidence, therefore, that Otomo's movie should find an aesthet ic correlat ive in the opus of one of the most p ro ficient oi l painters of a l l t imes : Joseph Mal lord Will iam Turner (I775- IR 5 ! ) . Both Turner's dist inctive palettes and his composi t ional methods are repeatedly echoed (though, i t is to be assumed, not i ntention­al ly mimicked) by OtonlO's magni ficent urbanscapes . Fu rthermore , the n i neteenth-century artist's predilect ion for vaporous effects capable of commun icat ing the a l iveness of the most elus ive substances and atmospher ic agents, inc lud ing l i gh t part ic les , w i th pa lpable intensity

1 5 2 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

ind i rectly ant ic ipates Otomo's fascination with the nature and rep resentabi l i ty of steam and related phenomena .

I t is i n "Rain , Steam and Speed" (1844) that Turner foreshadows mos t overt ly the world

of Steamboy, not only by virtue of its v isual effects but a lso due to the pa int ing's metaphor i­

ca l encapsulat ion of the zeitgeist of the very epoch wh ich Otomo seeks to both document and

reimagine . At the same t ime , Steamboy's rendit ion of the Thames � captured ass iduously from a variety of bo ld angles � viv idly recal ls Turner's own loving portrayals of tha t river's restless waters , the ever-sh i ft ing play of l ight and shadow on i ts mercurial surface , and the nebu lous aura oozing from vessels and docks a l ike . For Turner , to whom the Thames was a fam i l i a r

s ight v i rtual ly from b i rth , a major source of insp irat ion beside h i s homeland scenery was

Venice, the c i ty of reflections and refract ions par exce l lence . For Otomo, in keep ing with the

ethos of akogare no PariJ al luded to earlier in this discussion , London itself would const i tute a comparably ent ic ing object of latently outlandish all ure .

I t could also b e suggested that Otomo's fascination with crumbl ing topograph ies , which reaches i ts catastrophic cl imax in Steamboy's epic finale , harks back to Turner's youthful at trac­

tion to alternately p icturesque and subl ime images of ru inat ion and decay. I n both Steam­

boy's cl imax and many of Turner's most famous paint ings , the p reference for the catastroph ic

and the melodramatic openly announces i tself. Most importantly, j us t a s the Brit ish art ist

repeatedly tended to em ploy class ic icons of turbulence and destruct ion such as storms, ava­

lanches and whirlwinds as metaphors for the inexorable dis integrat ion of ent i re cu l tures a n d c iv i l izat ions , so Otomo (as a l l uded t o earl ier) a l l egor ica l ly emplaces t h e co l lapse o f h i s technology-saturated environment a s emblematic of t h e evaporat ion of whole ideologies . Concurrently, neither Tu rner nor Otomo allows the darker s ide of h i s oeuvre , which amounts to an uncompromis ing exposure of human puniness in the face of the infini te , to t r iumph so absolu tely as to p reclude any extant gl immers of hope . In fact , the almost magical l um inos­

ity of the atmosphere in which many of their scenes are bathed could be said to test ify to an endur ing com mitment to natu re's l i fe-givi ng essence .

I n the works of both Turner and Otomo, we witn ess the l i fe-affirming power o f qu in­

tessential ly painterly sensib i l i t ies keen on approach ing both na tural and man-made sett i ngs not as givens to be merely mirrored by brushwork or by camera work but ra ther as inexhaustible quarries of p recious gems to be unrelenti ngly rev isi ted and re-examined . In th is scenar io , both paint ing and c inematography assert themselves as open-ended success ions of v isual dis­

coveries . I t is i n consonance with this ethos that Otomo posits h i s ax ial p ictoria l and sym­

bo l i c e lement � steam -- as ominous and up l i ft ing at once . The pos i t ive enth ron i n g of

spi ritual ly nour ish ing values could be said to provide an opt imist ic corrective for the rather

bleaker scenario documented earl ier in relation to Otomo's take on thanatology. In the case examined earl ier , the end can on ly be conceived of as catastrophic because it i s engendered by selfishness, rapaciousness and brutal ity and cannot therefore act as a viable p re lude to a p romis ing reb i rth . I n the latter case , conversely, the prospect of thi ngs coming to an end i s never undi lutedly frightening , i nsofar as a fresh beginn ing is always bel ieved to be inherent i n any moment of ostensible term inat ion.

Accordingly, even though the fi lm repeatedly int imates that steam can be profoundly destructive i n both i ts industrial and its mi l i tary appl icat ions, it also proposes that there is someth ing disarm ingly elegant about this e lus ive su bstance . The structural and rhy th m i c orchestration of Steamboy's ent i re narrat ive repl icates this sense of visual grace b y means of

Nine -Steamboy 1 53

i ts pace, bu i ld ing up i ts overall momentum and t iming its p rotracted, yet flawlessly sustained, c l imax in a discip l ined fash ion . The fi lm's own steam valve is thus gradually turned one notch at a t ime . The movie i s quite capable of providing the frisson of an electr ifying rol lercoaster

ride packed with sensational action sequences and vibrant characters, yet i ts overarch ing tempo

is h ighly deliberate and scrupulously calculated throughout . Ultimately, Otamo's latest achieve­

ment stands out as a paean ta the i ntr ins ic madeness of the art of an imat ion in demonstrat­ing that even though tradi t ional an imation may never aga in exist as i t once did - after a l l , the terms " ink" and "paint" themselves no longer denote e i ther " i nk" or "paint" i n the domain of digita l technology bu t rather str ings of zeros and ones - reports of the death o f 2 0 eel ani­mation within the industry and the media have been grossly i nflated .

TEN

Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle 's naturalistic. traditionalzy drawn animation is top-notch and is combined seamlessry with a fow (mostry mechanical) elements that are computer generated (more so than Spir­ited Away). What remains bajJling is how Miyazaki 's hand-drawn characters deliver so much emo­tion without calling attention to their simple design. ellen though they are constantry contrasted by incredibry rich and detailed scenery. The answer to that is the work of Studio Ghibli 's master ani­mators. and the writing. which make this animated jilm high�y engaging although it does not foa­ture a lot of action and adventure (unlike 1997's Princess Mononoke). - Annen BOlldjikanian

Miyazaki 's jilms require a conscious investment of attention; you have to immerse yourself in them. and soon you will jind yourself floating. buoyed up by his gentlene.rs. his lJiSllal eXl/ber,mce. and his unshowy intelligence 'lIId emotional literacy. [Howl's Moving Castle} is a lovery/ilm for all ages. - Peter Bradshaw

Two years i n the maki ng , Howl 's Moving Castle was released i n Japan i n November 2004 and in other parts of East As ia , as wel l as i n France, over the fol lowing four months . The fi lm's

European debut occurred at the 61st Ven ice Internat ional F i lm Festival (September 2004) ,

where Hayao M iyazaki received the prestigious Golden Osel la Award for Tech n ical Excel­lence . The name of Studio Ghib l i 's most renowned director came aga in i nto prominence at the 2005 Ven ice F i lm Festiva l , where the director was presented wi th a l i fe t ime ach ievement

award . As Clara Ferre i ra-Marques has noted i n her account of the event , when offered the coveted p rize , M iyazaki "almost d id not come at a l l , d ismiss ing the achievement award as 'someth i ng for old ret i red people . ' But he was then to ld that Cl int Eastwood was given the same award shortly before go ing on to win an Oscar with Million Dollar Baby." Miyazaki i s

repu ted to have cr isply riposted : '' 'Then , I had no argument ' " (Ferre i ra-Marques) . Howl

received its U .S . p remiere in June 2005 and i ts U. K. debut in September of the same year . The Engl ish- language dub, d i rected by Pete Docter of Monsters Inc. fame , flaunts an unq ues­tionably stel lar cas t , enlisti ng not only the talents of contem porary personal i t ies such as Chris­t ian Bale , Emily Mort imer and Blythe Danner, but also those of Lau ren Baca l l , Jean S i m mons and B i l l y Crys tal . !

Docter ha s amusingly described Baca l l's in i t ial i nvolvement i n the proj ect , t o which she contributed the vo ice of the story's arch-v i l la iness, in an interview inc luded in the Opt imum Releas ing "Special Features" DVD : "We were a l i ttle b i t scared before she came i n because

she hadn't had a chance to see the fi lm before she recorded and so we were th inking , 'Oh , I don't know i f she's go ing to appreciate being the vo ice of this b lobby, fat , k ind of disgust i n g

1 54

Ten - Howl's Moving Castle 1 5 5

character.' So w e tried t o expl a in to h e r a l i ttle before w e went i n that h e r character i s maybe a l i ttle desp icab le . And she sa id : 'Dahl ing , I was born to p lay desp icable' " (Docter 2006) .

Though not especial ly sign i ficant as an element of the fi lm's exegesi s , th is anecdote is worthy of cons ideration , in the p resent context, insofar as i t operates as a succinct reminder

of the refreshingly good-humored dispos ition with wh ich genu ine a rtists are able to embark upon even seemingly unpalatable tasks.

As mentioned i n Chapter 1, Howl received a nomination for Best Animated Feature ri l m at the time of the 78th Annual Academy Awards (March 2006) and although the fi l m did not eventual ly receive the Oscar , its very nomination attests to global recogn ition of i ts qual ity. It i s also worth rei te rating that Howls nomination a longside two other fi lms (Nick Park and Steve Box's Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Tim Bu rton and Mike Johnson's Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride) that firmly enth rone the animator's hand in the face

of the apparent dominance of computer animation bears witness to an undying attract ion to

the medium's artisanal d imens ion . Un fortunately, D isney-led distr ibution of M iyazaki's fi lm in U.S . cinemas d id p recious l ittle to br ing i t to the attent ion of real audiences due to what Marc Hai rston has qu ite tersely described as " inept marketing . " As the critic exp la ins , "Dis­ney showed every intention of doing it r ight when they h i red legendary actresses of the cal­iber of Jean S im mons and Lau ren Bacal l to vo ice the main characters . The Japanese p ress reponed that D isney was plann ing on an 800+ screen release th is time . . . and then . . . Howl

never got past 202 screens at i ts widest release it left most major markets after only two or th ree weeks and in the end it on ly pu l led i ll $4.7 mi l l ion , a bit shy of what Spirited Away d id

i n i ts original release , and a paltry sum compared to the $ 190 mi l l ion box oHice it did in Japan" (Hai rston 2006) .

L ike Katsuh i ro Otomo's Steamboy, Howl discloses an imaginary vers ion of late n ineteenth­centu ry Europe . This world's graphic v ibrancy is largely i ndebted to methodical fieldwork i n numerous Eu ropean locations, a s well a s to c lose study of the handl ing of l ight, co lor , per­spective and atmosphere i n Western o i l pa int ing from seventeenth-centu ry Dutch art to the impress ion ists (especial ly Claude Monet) . The pr incipal geograph ical a rea from which i nsp i­ration was drawn was Alsace , a pictu resque region in northeastern France . Art d i rector Yoj i Takeshige has elucidated in depth these crucial aspects o f Howls visual identity : "At the i n i ­t ia l stage , the d i rector refer red us t o the work o f an i l l ustrato r n a m e d Albert Rob ida

(l848�1926) . . . . I had experi ence in o i l pa inting , so I incorporated Western approaches to col­ors and space i nto my work . For example , I thought of l ighting and atmosphere in Vermeer's paintings when I was working on the scene where Sophie qu ietly works away in her work­shop, although I am not sure I succeeded . . . . There a re Western paintings , p a rticu larly those by the Impress ionists , where the objects aren't d rawn in detail . The l ighting depicts the space

instead . By trial and error , I tried to emulate that sens ib i l ity" (Takeshige, p . 49) . The execut ion of background art for the natural scenery was no less exacting a task : e le­

ments of a sett ing that cou ld be regarded as rel atively margi nal or merely ornament a l yet con­tribute v i ta l ly to its dist i nctive mood frequently proved the most demanding , regardless of the i r documentary sou rces . The exper ience recounted by background artist Kazuo Oga offers a classic example : "The Aowerbeds in the moors had to be p retty so I real ly sp read them all over the drawing . I did a lot of drawings for th is scene inc luding the c louds and h igh moor s lopes . . . . Drawing a l l those dots in the dis tance was p retty t i r ing" (Oga , p . 1 5 I ) . Readers who are a l ready fami l iar w ith the film wil l be quick to appreciate the background artist's p redica-

1 56 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

ment; those who are yet to view it will grasp it no less readi ly upon the i r very first encounter with Oga's floral feast.

Visual allus ions to Wales are also noteworthy, even though these are not as prominent

i n Howl as they were i n Laputa: Castle in the Sky ( 1986) , where the disti nctive mood o f Welsh

mining v i l lages and of the ir natural surroundings is i ntensely palpable for large port ions of the action . Visiting Blaenau Ffestiniog after see ing Laputa, for example , evokes an al most over­whelming sense of deja-vu, as though one had al ready intimately experienced v ia the fi lm itse lf the v i l lage's vertig i nous perspectives and h istoric rai lway, c l imbing over 700 feet from sea level i nto the mountains round horseshoe bends, c l inging to the rock or tunnell ing through it . The Welsh landscape makes itself felt i n a far more tangential fash ion in Howl: most mem­orably in the "Star Lake" sequence, where the dominant atmosphere is potently redolent of

spr ingtime v i ews of Lake Bala (" Llyn Tegid" in Welsh) , namely the largest natural water

resource at the heart of Snowdonia . As to how Miyazaki h imself absorbs and then recon figu res v isual impress ions gleaned

from foreign travel (not only in Howl but across h is enti re oeuvre) , it i s worth cit in g p ro­ducer Toshio Suzuki 's anecdotal remarks on the subj ect : "Miya-san and I used to travel a t

the completion of a fi lm; for fun , not research . . . . Miyazaki's favorite p lace was I reland . . . . One even ing . . . we saw the landscape under a wh ite n ight. I t was such a beautifu l scene that I d id someth ing rare : I took a photo . Miyazaki d id someth ing more ra re; he got angry at

me. ' I 'm trying to remember the scene; don't distu rb me!' . . . . Miyazaki does not o ften work from photos; he sees , and recal ls . . . in th is way, the work becomes or ig ina l" (Suzuki) . I t i s the u n ique , a t ti mes even idiosyncratic , fashion i n which the di rector re imagines h is v isual recol lections , more than any amount of methodical ly documentary research , that u lt imately imparts his movies w ith u nparal leled evocativeness for the most d iverse audiences a round the globe .

Even the documentary data garnered by means of hands-on research were not , more­

over , automatical ly transposed onto paper. In fact, they were studiously s i fted by Miyazaki h imself and by his col leagues through a double filte r : its creators' Eastern sens ib i l ity (and

related perceptions of the West) , and the b izarre proj ections of tech noprophets from the e ra under scrutiny. The resul r is a retrofuturistic fantasy pervaded by many o f the aesthetic trade­marks of steampunk . In Steamboy, as we have seen , that generic m ix is harnessed to a critique of the evils of profit-oriented and warmongering sc ientific advancement. In Howl, it l i kewise fuels a sustained indictment of material ism and of mi l itarist agendas thi rsty for ful l -spectrum dominance . Thus, a s Peter Bradshaw has noted , the historical ly hybrid settings portrayed by

the fi lm never degenerate into nostalgic paeans to antiquarianism but actual ly encapsu late dis­

turbing ideological messages : "The film . .. is set i n a fictional middle European town o n an unnamed coast - sort of Bath crossed with Bru ges, wi th a h in t of Vulgaria, the c i ty-state in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There are trams and quaint automob i les, and town squares l ined w ith b uildings sporti ng p icturesque oak beams . B ut it is a town at war; the bew i ldered pop­ulace witnesses incursions from retro-futurist sh ips and planes , disgorg ing missi les and bombs" (Bradshaw, P.).

At the same t ime , Howfs treatment of the rhetor ic o f steam punk serves to su stai n Miyazaki's deconstructive approach to the fantastic , especial ly in its fa iry tale fo rm . Thus , the film encompasses both traditional motifs and novel reassessments of the i r legacy. Th i s the­

matic ambivalence, as a rgued in some detai l later in th is chapter , is paral le led by Howfs seam-

Ten �Howl's Moving Castle 1 5 7

less i ntegration o f 2 D character designs with symbol ical ly styl ized traits and i nnovative d ig­ital tools capable not only of accompl i sh ing visual and special effects u nachievable by tradi­t ional means but also of enhancing the hand-crafted look of the manual ly executed graph ics .

Howl the movie i s based on a popular novel b y the prol ific Bri t i sh fantasy author Diana

Wynne Jones, an inveterate devotee of Miyazaki's works . As Nick Bradshaw mainta ins ,

The match between her books and Miyazaki's art could hardly be closer. Both address themselves to chil­dren's struggles with self-belief in magical, mystifying and highly mutable other-worlds. Jones says she's been an admirer since catching a pirated version of his Laputa: Castle in the Sky at a science-fiction con­vention. "I was absolutely hit in mid-ships," she remembers, "to the extent of watching it whenever it was showing. It was the most amazing thing when nearly twenty years later I suddenly got these overtures say­ing Miyazaki would like to make a film of Howl" [Bradshaw, N.J.

Like the novel i t loosely adapts , the movie p ivots on Soph ie , a deeply conscient ious eighteen-year-old mi l l i ner with artist ic sk i l l s so exceptional as to verge o n magic , who is led by her t imid and self-effacing personal i ty to bel ieve that she is in fact dest ined to a decidedly unexceptional futute . The hero ine's op in ion of hersel f and of her fate is abrupt ly contrad icted by the appearance onto the scene of the Witch of the Waste, a l uridly glamorized hag who spiteful ly morphs Sophie i nto a n inety-year-old woman out of j ea lousy. Jones has stated that the idea was , to a s ign ificant extent, tr iggered by personal experience : "Though now in her

seventies, Jones expla ins that she was insp ired to write the story two decades ago, when her

lactose- intolerant condit ion � a mystery to the medical profess ion , she says �first left her

hobbl ing on walking sticks . 'It's not been fun ; in fact i t's been a grotesque t ime , ' she s ighs . 'But i f there's nothing else to be done, you get on with it'" (Bradshaw, N . ) . Unable to perse­

vere in her quotidian rout ine , HOWlS p rotagonist abandons her home town in search of a shel­

ter and, ideal ly, of a means of diss ipat ing the dreadful spel l . I t i s on th is unpredictable journey that Sophie chances upon the t i tu lar castle and settles there in i n the se lf-appointed ro le o f clean ing- lady w i t h an insistence s h e would never have been capable o f a s a young gir l , thus becoming an integral part i n the l ives of the cap ricious wizard Howl and of h is charming chi ld

apprentice Markl . Sophie soon d iscovers that the fi re-demon charged with the task o f powering the mon ­

strous edifice, Calcifer , i s h imself i n the thral l o f a baneful spel l , a n d str ikes a bargain with h im st ipulat ing that each wi l l endeavor to put an end to the other's p l ight . What renders the predicament of both characters most i ntractable is their inabi l i ty � i ntent ional ly sealed i nto their respect ive curses � to vocalize the causes of their current state . As these persona l ordeals unfold, a much larger one s imultaneously comes to fill the screen : the ent i re country i s a t the

mercy of unscrupulous warmongers, and ravaged by i ncreas ingly horr ific conflagrat ions abet­

ted by prol iferat ing technologies and by their ugly breed of p ro tean mutants .

Howl's pos i t ion i n the fray is h ighly problematic : when the monarch and the Royal Witch Madame Sul iman i nsistently request h is assistance as a ski l led magic i an , he cunningly dodges the ir demands under the p retense that he wants no part in m artia l affa i rs . Yet , Howl secretly pursues his own agenda by actively interfer ing with the m i l i tary campaign and, in the guise of a portentous b i rd of prey, stal l ing the most vicious a i r raids � thereby fac ing the loss of his own l i fe or else, more ominously sti l l , the risk of not being able to regai n his human form. This is not to say that the wizard is an unequivocal champion of v irtuous conduct. In fact , he is consistently portrayed as a fashion-obsessed megalomaniac , capable of d isso lv ing i nto a malodorous deluge of s l imy tears when his ha i r-dye appl ication y ie lds unexpected Ollt-

1 5 8 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

comes. Thus , Howl is h imself p resented as a v ictim of a cultu ral scou rge that may be less eso­teric than the Dark Arts and less expl icitly nefarious than bellicosity but is ultimately no less

pernic iously ubiqu itous - namely, commodity fetishism and the cognate ideal ization of the

"beauty myth . " Moreover , Howl too labors under a malevolent charm as disab l ing as the spel l s

afflicting Soph ie and Calcifer . This plot point wi l l shortly be returned to . What must first be reflected upon is the hero ine's role i n Howl's crypto-mi l i tary explo its .

Seeking to elude his duty to the monarch once and for a l l , and hence p u rsue unh inde red h is personal miss ion , Howl sends Sophie ro the palace d isguised as h i s aging mother so that she wi l l persuade Sul iman to give up on the wizard as a hopeless coward . On her way to the palace , Sophie comes face to face once more with the Witch of the Waste , summoned by the king as another des i rable aide-de-camp. However , it rapidly becomes obvious that Su l iman's a im is

not to deploy the ski l l s of other magicians but rather to sap her guests of a l l magical powers

by means of her own formidable incantations . The once mighty sorceress is accordingly reduced to a senile and shrunken old lady, whom Sophie will thereafter rehouse in Howl 's castl e and forgivingly cater for (alongside Sul iman's spy dog Heen ) . The sequence i n which the Witch of the Waste is subdued by the Royal Witch's superior sorcery constitutes one of the enti re film's most zestful ly magical ep isodes . The sequence relies substantia l ly on dazzl ing choreog­

raphy and on a mesmeris ing setting , replete with eer ie l ights issu ing from spooky vessels akin to the blazing a lembics of an ancient a lchem ist. The l ights gradual ly gel i nto origami- l ike shadow figures, revo lv ing in a manda la formation around the charm's help less v i cti m until

her powers have been entirely vanquished . The attenuation of the Witch of the Waste's powers is fi rst al luded to i n a sequence that

Armen Boudj ikanian has graphically analyzed as fol lows :

There is a noteworthy scene in this film that takes place on a stairway leading to the royal palace . In it, old Sophic and the Witch of the Waste (also elderly) climb the stairs . . . . The action is minimal, since the ladies walk very slowly, bur the looks and the lines the two women exchange in this scene are most expres­sive. The way Miyazaki shows these two elderly ladies making their way up the stairs, unassisted by the royal guards, is incredibly moving and enrertaining- a memorable scene in the history of animated film and of fiction films in general [BoudjikanianJ.

Docter , too , has c ited the stai rway sequence as one of his favorite segments in the movi e . " Really not a l o t happens ," the Engl ish-dub di rector has noted, "but it's so wel l observed, there's such great humor there . I particularly l iked the bit of an i mation where she [Soph ie] final ly makes it to the top and puts the dog [Been] down and he's upside down and scram­bles to get back up. It is a l l the l i ttle details l ike that that make the film so great" (Docte r

2006) .

To Sophie's dismay, it transpires that Sul iman has planned an analogous fate to the one met by the Witch of the Waste for Howl h imsel f. The hero ine fa i l s to se l l her fib to the Royal Witch but bravely unmasks her wi le , at wh ich point Howl comes to Sophie's rescue in dis­guise as the monarch . The bewitchment conj ured up by Su l iman in response , which almost

results in Howl's un making , un leashes one of the fi lm's most unforgettable sequences at the levels of both action and visuals . No sooner has the Royal Witch's charmed cane p ierced the floor than a door to an alternate un iverse materia l izes in the form of a star-studded ho le ak in to an i nverted sky. Gigantic waves instantly engulf Soph ie , Howl and the Witch o f the Waste , releas ing an aquatic concert of prismatic mult ifariousness .

It now seems apposite to return to Howl's own hex . Sophie gradually real i zes - not by

Ten - Howl's Moving Castle 1 59

sheer magic o r Cinderel la- ish forbearance but through courage , devot ion and an id iosyncratic sense of humor - that the cu rses hanging over Calc ifer's and Howl's des t in ies have a common root . In a symbol ical ly arres t ing scene , Sophie d iscovers that the fire-demon is actual ly a

fal l ing star , rescued by Howl when the latter was j ust a ch i ld and enabled to survive by means of a s in ister pact: Howl gives h i s heart to Calcifer i n o rder to keep him ablaze (wh ich gains

the w izard a reputation a s a compass ionless phi landerer) , whi le Calc ifer becomes t i ed to the wizard's dwell ing and to the obl igation to energize i ts mach inery by his sole efforts . Soph ie's discovery is pu nctuated by spectacular sequences portraying drastically alternate d imensions that i nc reas i ngly at ta i n to ha l luc inogenic potency as the act ion gain s momentum . These i nclude the deeply moving sequence dramatiz ing Soph i e's Carro l l ian d ive i nto an alternate realm dubbed by the techn ic ians responsible for i ts execut ion the "Worm Hole . " The sequence

wil l be returned to later i n this discuss ion . Sophie b ravely b reaks the spel l , rega in ing Calc ifer h i s freedom and Howl h is hear t - as

wel l as the human form which, in the movie's most cr it ical sequences, he appears to have almost ent irely rel inqu ished to the predatory one . The hero ine herself returns to her youthfu l appear­ance, even though her locks rema in as pos i t ively candid as, to quote Howl , "starlight . " I n Sophie's case , the issue o f phys ical appearances i s a much more complex conundrum than any

plot summary may adequately explai n . Indeed, one of M iyazaki's most insp i red syntheses of tradi t ional and novel techn iques emerges precisely in the osc i l l at ion th roughout the film

between configu rations of Sophie as a patently grizzled woman and gl impses of the young gir l with myriad subtly nuanced variat ions on both modal i t ies spr inkled i n the i r m idst . Constant , yet tastefully understated, transformations i n the heroine's appearance (corresponding to as many psychological and affective sh ifts) are not , however , the only i nstance of mutabi l i ty dram­atized by the mov ie . In fac t , the ent i re production commu nicates with Heracl i tean gusto a pervas ive atmosphere of unrelent i ng flux , as its fluid personae and mercurial landscapes repeat­edly morph before our eyes . Physical alterat ions i n the characters and sett ings a re conveyed, techn ical ly, by deta i led adj ustments of the hues employed in the i r dep ict ion that aptly reflect the emotional import of each transformation. Color design d i rector Mihiyo Yasuda has empha­

s ized this aspect of the film's un ique approach : "The characters . . . change so much p hysical ly from scene to scene the emotional development can be equally drast ic . I changed the colors in deta i l with every change" (Yasuda 2005a , p. 67) .

Where Sophie's phys iognomy is specifically concerned, M iyazaki ut i l i zes subt le somatic adj ustments, modulat ions and fluctuations in order to convey the impress ion that the hero­ine is not incontrovert ibly either e igh teen or n inety but disparate ages at once . Accord ingly, gl impses of Sophie's younger i ncarnation discretely ins in uate themselves i nto images of her hoary self. As Andrew Osmond has noted, Sophie " becomes older o r younger to reflect the

s tate of her spir i t . . . . At one po int a walk i n a g lorious flower garden rej uvenates her to gir l­hood, only for Howl to say she's beaut i ful , at wh ich po int she i nstantly returns to a c rone . Miyazaki changes he r in a moment o r imperceptibly over t ime , add ing or subtract ing l i nes i n a v isual i zat ion of the c l iche of be ing a s young or a s o l d a s o n e feels" (Osmond, p . 30) .

I n some of the most begu i l i ng scenes, the character p reserves the dominant age markers typical of a senescent woman but i s concomi tantly invested with a fresh complexion and sup­ple l imbs, whereas i n others , her dormant youthfu lness is del icately a l l uded to by the i nc lu­s ion in her appearance o f a more luxur ious mane than the one accorded to the aged Soph ie . Th is graph ic p loy i nt imates that the pas t is u l t i mately i n expung ib l e and that even th ough

160 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

malefic charms may be dispelled, the vestiges of antecedent occurrences l ive tenacious ly on . The finale thus embraces a decidedly non-l inear and non-teleological ethos that appropr i­ately sums up the fi lm's cumulative thrust .

I n reconstructing Howl's past through Soph ie's eyes and direct p hysical i nvolvement i n a chain of submerged events, the fi lm steers clear of the obviously developmental curves typ­ica l ly associated w ith conventional Bi ldungsroman . Thus, even as i t art iculates a grow ing-up traj ectory, Howl eschews the not ion of l inear maturation � and hence of any reparative tele­ology � by int imat ing that the p resent-day wizard is the outcome of choices and act ions that

cannot be conclus ively relegated to the past but actual ly go on haunting the here-and-now as

tangib le , albeit spectra l , forces . At the same time, the flashbacks through which Sophie i s able to visit Howl's past and rescue h im from h is curse do not del ineate a standard quest pattern . On the contrary, they ab ide i n the viewer's memory as wistful ly quiet g l impses of that cru­c ia l period where ch i ldhood gives way to adolescence, and the only constant , paradoxical ly, is flux . Therefore , a l though Soph ie does redeem the m agic ian � free ing Ca lc i fe r i n the p rocess � and concurrently shapes her own dest iny with courageous determ inat ion , the quest remains open to ongo ing i ncurs ions of the p resent by a fluid past that u l t imately e ludes defini t ive redemption . The past's stubborn resurgence is also uncanni ly dramatized in the

sequence where Sophie gathers a bloodstained feather shed by Howl upon h is retu rn from the

battlefield and enters the w izard's room to find it t ransformed into a cavernous tu nnel at the end of which an enormous b i rd cr inges in torment . Art d i rector Noboru Yosh ida has intr igu­ingly commented on this disturbing cinema tic moment as fol lows :

In my concept art I experimented with turning Howl's room into a cave. Sophie is holding a candle so I tried incorporating the light, but Miyazaki said, "No, I want you to treat it as a mental image." He informed me how the cave wasn't fi l led with real objects illuminated by Sophie's candlelight, so much as it was a passage to Howl's memory. So it's not a concrete illustration, it's a scene where one's memory of the past resurfaces. Becallse Howl's toys sllch as the dolls symbolize Howl's memory, I made the colors bright and immune to the candlelight [Yoshida 2005a, p. 140].

Davide Taro elaborates a cognate thesis to the one here advocated in propos ing that the story pivots on a not ion of t ime based on the pr inciple of "eternal c i rcular return . " This con­cept is graph ically encapsulated, the crit ic goes on to explai n , by the c l imact i c sequence dram­atizing the w izard's vis ionary premonit ions : "In his sad and lonely chi ldhood, Howl sees , in a fatal ly brief moment where past and future magically coalesce , the futu re companion he w i l l await , fa ithful ly and desperately, unt i l the 'beginn ing of the fi lm , ' which takes p lace abou t

t en years l ater" (Taro 2004b ; my translation) . Sophie herself, having p lunged Alice-like i nto

an a l ternate universe where she is able to witness Howl 's fateful rescue o f the dyin g star at the cost of a crucial part of his own humanity, urges h im to look out for her i n t imes to come . Th i s i s unquestionably one of the fi lm's most rapturously surreal sequences, and indeed one that may baffle the first-t ime spectator by v i rtue of i t s sheer semiot ic densi ty. I t expla ins , s o to speak, t he magician's troubled background, yet accompl ishes t h i s obj ective wi th a degree of a l lusiveness so marked and passionately hermetic on the d i rector's part as to discourage any

automatic conclusions . The relevant port ion of the screenplay is u ndoubtedly of considerable

ass istance when u nravel l ing the sequence's enigmatic tapestry, and therefore seems deserv i n g of extens ive c i tat ion at this j uncture .

Sophie's ring emits a beam of light . . . . The beam shoots toward a door i n the cliff foce . . . . Sophie runs t o the door . . . . Sophie opens the door. A strange wind blows. She points the beam of light at the darkness. The door-

Ten -Howl's Moving Castle 16 1

way seems to be filled with liquid .... Sophie exits. Falling stars streak through the night sky .... A star explodes in the distance near a young boy.

Sophie - That's How!. Stars shoot past young How!. ... Shadow figures dance in a circle .... Sophie runs toward young How!. Sophie - I know where I am. I 'm in Huwl's childhood. A star whizzes by Suphie .... A few stars explode behind Sophie. One runs right past her. ... The star skips

across the water, then dissolves into it. ... A star shoots overhead. Young Howl catches ir. ... Young Howl says something to the star in his hand .... Young Howl swallows the star. ... Young Howl's heart emerges from his chest. Sophie's ring bursts and a void opcns beneath her.

Sophie -- [many gasps] Howl! Calcifer! Young Howl turns toward her. ... Sophie - It's me - Sophic! [pause) I know how to help you now. Young Howl and Calcifer dissolve away. Sophie - Find me in the future! [The Art of Howl's Moving Castle, pp. 249-50) .

The setti ng's atmospheric and l ight ing qual i t ies contribute substant ia l ly to the evocation o f a pervasively cryptic mood . The enchanting effects conj ured up by the nocturnal scenery, show­ered by rap idly prol i ferat ing banks of sparks endowed with alarming physical density, p ro ­vides both an upl ift ing counterpart t o the images of destruction presented i n t h e p receding

sequences and a fearfu l i ntens ificat ion of the weight of the u n know n . The v iewer is hence asked to experience the episode as both a moment of disclosure and as a deepen ing o f the

grievous darkness that besets both Soph ie's and Howl's tasks from all s ides . The temporal perspective out l i ned above , argues Taro, is "abso lu tely congenia l to the

d i rector's poetics and filmmaking styl e . " At the same time, the suspension of conventional temporal boundaries i s matched by no less drast ic an erosion of spatial demarcations :

The ploy of the castle door, channel of communication throughout the entire scope of terrestrial geogra­phy - from desolate moors hit by a constant and melancholy rain to edenic stretches of flower-strewn fields quivering harmoniously in a delicate breeze - is ... a clever ploy ... that enables a mllch deeper concept to emerge: a fundamental a-geographicality and a-spatiality specific to the scenic space of animation .... Ani­mation, while respecting and employing in its "narrative" form the rules of basic cinematographical gram­mar, uses them in an iconoclastically different way ... since in animation scenic space is truly a mental space [Taro 2004b; my translation].

Moreover , the plot's del iberate i nconclusiveness at the level of person al ordeals is m i r­

rored by the finale's macrocosmic impl ications . Even though Howl yields what could be loosely termed a "happy ending , " Miyazaki was determined not to let any amount of loving smiles and blue skies del ivered i n the clos ing moments gloss over the horrors tackled by the main body of the narrat ive . The film's ending i s not unequivocally auspic ious i nsofar as i t does not yield any dependable p romises of e i ther stab i l i ty or peace . Hence , i t i ronical ly augments , desp ite its bucol ic connotat ions , the tenebrous undercurrent that courses th rough the bulk of the story. Addit ional ly, although Sul iman brings the war to an end for a very appropriate rea­son - that is to say, the recogn it ion that i t is " idiotic" - she does so i n an embarrass ingly p re­c ip i tous and arbitrary fash ion . As a resu l t , we are e l l iptical ly inv i ted to suspect that the very opposite decision - namely to commence a conflict - could j us t as whimsical ly and impul­s ively be opted for at any moment . The spectre of mass destruction , accord ingly, looms over the whole adventure, imbuing its drama with a desperate , gripp ing i ntensi ty. One should not be misled, i n th i s regard, by the retrovisionary look of M iyazaki's zeppel i n -style a i rcrafts . Each and every war-related frame eloquently attests to the di rector's ardent hatred of war i n general and, more specifical ly, to h i s i ndignation about the I raq war , the ear l ier phases of

162 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

which coincided with the fi lm's p roduction . Miyazaki's posit ion on that matter is exp l ic it ly

conveyed by an i nterview with Newsweek in which he describes his first response to the news that Spirited Away was about to be awarded an Oscar : "Actually, your country had j ust s tar ted the war against I raq, and I had a great deal of rage about that . So I fel t some hes i tat ion abou t t h e award . I n fact , I had j ust started making Howl's Moving Cast/e, so the fi l m i s p rofou ndly affected by the war in I raq" (Miyazaki 2005a) .

The ubiquity of a decidedly non-Disneyesque dimension is b rought home not only by the movie's dramatization of broadly societal and pol i t ical evi l s , prominent as these themes

undoubtedly are, but also by i ts exposu re of mendacity and treachery at the microcosmic level

of the fam ily : Sophie is the casualty not only of black magic but also, in a more disturb ingly real ist ic ve in , of cold-blooded betrayal at the hands of her hypocrit ical stepmother Honey. At the same t ime , the movie's ironic dispos it ion enables it to maximize both the beauty of its tranqu i l moments and the catastrophic i rrational ity of i ts scenes of massacre by hav ing the

one play against the o ther i n much the same way as a Greek chorus would create d ramatic tens ion by orchestrating the d ialogical confrontation of confl icti ng voices . The visual p leas­

ure yielded by rol l ing meadows dappled with dainty flowers , drift ing cumulus clouds and snow­

capped peaks does not stem wholly from their i nherent qual i t ies . In fac t , it is i nextricably

i ntertwined with the opposite affects elicited by images of towns reduced to smoldering embers, of wrecked battlesh ips , of whole populations abandoning the sad remnants of their former homes , and of increas ingly lethal machines hel l-bent on exact ing i nnocent b lood.

One of Howts most crucial themes i ndubitably consists of the awaken ing o f the creative drive . Sophie's own creativity, in particul ar , is twofold insofar as it expresses i tself both through the mi l l iner's art and, more dau ntingly, through her m ission as a young woman compelled to

i nvent from scratch a fresh identity in the wake of the spell that has abruptly aged her beyond

recognit ion . A major precedent for this aspect of the story, wi th in Studio Ghib l i 's output , can be found in Whisper of the Heart (dir. Yoshifumi Kondou , 199 5 ) , for which M iyazaki created the storyboards and scrip t . Kondou's film also const i tutes an important p recursor for Howl

at the techn ical leve l , i nsofar at it marked Studio Ghibl i 's first major foray i n to the realm of digital technology, p reviously incorporated into only a handful of computer-generated shots i n Isao Takahata's Porn Poko ( 1994) . Disparate elements, inc luding the hero ine's imagi nary personae , their natural and arch itectu ral environ ments and related atmospheric effects , were

an imated separately by tradit ional means and then digi ta l ly composited i nto seamless wholes .

The fi lm's l i teral ly b reathtaking flying sequences , in part icular , were executed by recou rse to over twenty layers , which i mparted them with a palpably 3D feel while a l low ing the two­dimensional i ty o f the drawn elements to retain p rominence .

Visual ly speaking , W'hisper of the Heart anticipates Howl i n a n umber of sequences . The earl ier film's magical arcade (and especially the toyshop) vividly foreshadows the representa­t ion of the wizard's bedchamber and i ts mesmerizing profus ion o f sumptuous fabrics , jewels , baubles , feathers, beads, dried plants, stuffed toys , tr inkets , esoteric symbols and intricate mechanisms . Also notable is the sequence in Whisper of the Heart dramatiz ing the n ightmare i n which the p ro tagonist , Sh izuku , enters a mine i n search of the rough gem i ntended to sym­

bolize her as yet unpol ished creative abi l i ties and, having picked up what she bel ieves to be a p recious stone , finds herself holding the remains of a d iminutive b i rd . This sequence const i­tutes a c lear forerunner of the emphatically gothic sequence described earl ier i n which Soph ie fol lows Howl i nto the dark tunnel of his troubled memory.

Ten-Howl's Moving Castle 163

As mentioned, Howts innovative th rust resides largely with its frank critique of con­sumerism and militarism but also gains significantly from its deconstructive take on the ethics of the fairy tale . Whereas the classic fairy tale hinges on the p rinciple of "virtue rewarded," promulgating the unequivocal equation of virtue to patience and to a passive acceptance of one's fate, Howl enthrones a heroine who -- though based on several of the conventions o f fairy tale down t o h e r vesti mentary attributes - does not u l timately t riu mph thanks t o a n external agency such a s a fairy godmother choosing t o reward h e r tolerance , but rather due to her own resourcefu lness, p luck and generosity. Moreover , in her aged mien Sophie is more

often akin to the magical hag of fairy ta le than to the heroine-in-distress: if fairy godmothers obtain at al l in Howl, then Sophie hersel f incarnates the type . At the same time , Miyazaki employs the older version of this incomparably charismatic character as a means of debu n k­ing a number of s tereotypical assumptions about age . B radshaw has eloquently developed this idea in his review of the fi lm: "The bittersweet irony Miyazaki p laces at the centre of his fairy­tale is that Sophie is at first horr i fied to fi nd that she is an o ld woman , and then sadly and obscurely relieved . . . . One of the great truths of Howl's Moving Castle is that youth is not always an exquisite blessing wasted on the young . I t i s a torture which the young do not

deserve" (Bradshaw, P.). Miyazaki himself has commented as fo l lows on his decision to address the subj ect of age

and, relatedly, to employ a ninety-year-old woman as the story's protagonist: "I made this film so that I could show it to a young girl of 60 [supposed ly his spouse). What's wonderful about the story is that the happy ending isn't that the spel l is broken and the girl is young again . It 's that she forgets her age" (Miyazaki 2005a) . Yasuda played a majo r par t in the process of translating into viable screen images Miyazaki's aesthetic objectives regarding the rendi­tion of Sophie's older look:

I was determined to make the aged Sophie look cute, but J had to dismiss that approach almost immedi­ately. She simply wouldn't look old without her skin being wrinkled and blemished. She might appear plain, but I made sure she would have the appeal of a refined old lady. I would alter the colors according to each scene. For example, when she cheerfully cleans the rooms, [ added some brightness to her skin and clothes. [ did the same with the Witch of the Waste when she's stunned after losing her magical power, but then ends up becoming kind. I wanted to make her buoyant here [Yasuda 2005b, p. 67J.

I t must also be emphasized that the metamorphosis o f a young girl into an ancient woman within the context of a contemporary Japanese movie holds topical relevance . Though obviously absent from the parent text , this dimension of Howl ought not to go unheeded . Suzuki has commented thus on the idea: "Japan is in a long recession . So we have two things: older people who fear for their jobs, and younger peop le who cann ot imagine a worthwhile fu ture . These young ones feel and act o ld . This fi lm is a message to Japan - although I don't know about the rest of the world" (Suzuki) . We should by no means assume , however , that Miyazaki's interest in the psychology and politics o f age signals a shift away fro m his p rover­bial commitment to the young . In an interview with The Guardian conducted by Xan B rooks at the 2005 Venice Film Festival , the director has indeed stated: " I believe that children's souls are the inheritors of historical memory from previous generations . I t 's j ust that as they

grow older and experience the everyday world that memory sinks lower and lower . I feel I need to make a fi lm that reaches down to that level . I f I could do that I wou ld die happy" (Miyazaki 2005b) .

In assessing Miyazaki's deconstructive take on the fairy tale genre , it must be noted that

164 ANIME I:-JTERsEcnoNs

Howls unorthodox treatment of age-related convent ions goes hand in hand with no less icon­oclast ic an approach to romance . Even though love p lays a p ivotal role i n Soph ie's redeem­ing m ission , th is never compl ies with some vapid notion of romantic adorat ion . In fac t , i t i s founded on pr inciples of respect and loyalty, and on the express ion o f such values through conscious choices and actions that supply the heroine w i th no readymade epiphan ies . I n the p rocess , the romance is unobtrusively woven into the cinematic fabr ic rather than expl ic i tly enunciated .

Relatedly, although the fi lm's handl ing of elements of the class ic love-story yarn and o f

s tandard fairy tale i magery would no doubt str ike Western audiences a s fami l iar fare , Howls

overall sens ib i l i ty exhib i ts dist inctively Eastern traits . Most worthy of not ice , i n th is respec t , is the haiku- l ike terseness, compounded with a Zen-l ike sensit ivity to the gent le elegance of st i l lness, wi th wh ich Miyazaki int imates - i nstead of expl icit ly dramatizi ng - ideas about love , loss and endurance . The characters themselves , moreover , are so accurately p roport ioned and vividly co lored as to resemble figures from a tradi tional Japanese ink scro l l .

Furthermore , in the depiction of the natural env i ronment Howl ass iduously com muni­cates a quintessential ly Eastern sense of the spiritual import of even the ostens ib ly mos t pro­

saic entit ies and most i ncidental minut iae . Gl istening dewdrops , blades of grass kissed by the dying sun and s i lently scutt l ing insects resonate no less powerful ly with a humbl ing a sense of the num inous than grandiose v istas and lu ridly colored horizons . The visuals thus trans­pose the v iewer i nto s trange , exquis i tely dep icted realms that hypnotical ly absorb and yet sharpen both the mind and the senses th rough the ir uncluttered di rectness.

In an interv iew with Xin Jin Bao, Miyazaki has lucidly conveyed his personal feel ings about the incomparable value of s impl ic i ty :

I did not deliberately try to deliver any educational ideologies or messages to the audience. If they really exist in my works, they arc only revealing themselves naturally. Many people think that I am telling a very deep truth. Actually what I like is simplicity. The reason that we made Howl's Moving Castle is that there are too many unhappy matters in the world, sllch as wars and economic crises. We hope that, through the movie, people can keep lip their courage and see the hope. The future world is still nice and beallliful. It is worrhy fur us to survive and explore it [Miyazaki 2004J.

On the tech n i cal p lane , Howl synthesizes cel animation and digital technology i n n umer­

ous ways and for a variety of purposes across i ts ent ire mise en scene, especial ly i n the gener­

ation of moving backgrounds for the panoramic sequences, of i nteriors superbly enriched by

specular repl icas of their minutest detai ls , of formidable weaponry, flying machi nes and related dynamic effects , and even of anci l lary arch itectural and ornamental features (e.g . emblems and flags) . Asked whether he bel ieved tradit ional an imation to have become obsolete i n the U.S . i n an i nterv iew wi th Entertainment Weekly, Miyazaki has stated : "I th ink 20 an imat ion disappeared from Disney because they made so many uninteres t ing fi lms . They became very conservative in the way they created them . I t's too bad. I thought 20 and 3D could coexist happi ly. " I n response to the quest ion " Is eGI go ing to des troy 20 in the end?" the d i rector then remarked : " I 'm actually not al l that worried . I wouldn't give up on i t completely. O nce in a while there are strange, rich people who l ike to invest in odd things . You're go ing to have people in corners of garages [making cartoons] to p lease themselves . And I 'm more interested in the people who hang out i n corners of garages than I am in b ig business" (Miyazaki 2 0 0 5 c) .

According to Suzuki , tradit ional and cutt ing-edge styles are engaged i n a p rocess o f mutual cross-fert i l ization , a n d while i t i s important t o acknowledge that champ ions o f the

Ten �Howl's Moving Castle 16 5

hand-drawn approach such as Miyazaki are increas ingly opening u p to computer an imation ,

the promu lgators o f digi ta l techno logy, conversely, are w i l l i ng to try the ir hand at o lder

methodologies . " In real i ty," the Studio Ghibl i p roducer has stated, "computers can a l low chal­

lengi ng new modes of express ion . I f you only show Miyazaki the resu l ts , he m i ght get very

exc i ted and say, let's use more . . . . My op i nion is that as most people move in to CG, Studio

Ghibl i wi l l become un ique and therefore we want to continue . We went to the USA and met

Pete Docter who sa id ' I want to try 20 ' " (Suzuki ) . Docter has expl ic it ly voiced h i s o p i n ions

on the matter i n an i nterview with Yellow Menace:

YELLOW MENACE: Several recent animated films ... combine hand-drawn animation with CGI.. .. Would you enjoy tackling a hybrid project like that?

DOCTER: It would be fun! The computer is such a useful tool, it can be used in all sorts of ways. I really admire the computer group at Ghibli, and their ability to meld their work almost seamlessly into the rest of the film. You can't tell where the hand-drawn work stops and the computer starts. And I'd love to do a hand-drawn film someday. There are things you can do with hand-drawn animation that we'll never be able to capture with thc computer [Docter 2005bJ.

As director of digita l an imation Mitsunor i Kataama has exp la ined, one o f the sequences

that ben efited most s i gn i ficant ly from the i ntegrat ion of advanced d ig i ta l components was the aforement ioned "Worm Ho le" episode . Although M iyazaki i s somet imes sa id to ho ld someth ing of an atav i s t ic avers ion to computers (a repu tat ion jocu lar ly disseminated by producer Suzuki h i msel f ) , the ideat ion of th is sequence in fact demonstrates the d i rec­tor's com modious att i tude towards innovative tools and techn iques where these a re u nequ iv­ocal ly capable o f accom pl i sh i n g effects beyond the scope o f t rad i t i ona l methodolog ie s . Kataama's account o f the Worm Hole's gradual concept ion deserves close attent ion , i n th i s

regard :

Miyazaki said, "We can't convey the gradations of curves with cel drawings. Do you think it can be with digital animation?" That was how we ended up creating it with CG. Miyazaki made specific requests for a shot like, "I want it to look like a hole suddcnly torn through the background art," and "it should look mysterious, like a black hole." ... We first created a morphing hole with polygon and thcn added the back-ground image onto its surface .... The first version was very graceful.. .. Miyazaki said, "Make it more vio-lellt, as if this is the point of no return." So we endcd up with the current version. We had the hole morph in extreme to convey its overwhelming power [Kataama, p. 187J.

It is i n the concept ion and art iculat ion of the eponymous edifice that Miyazaki's i nte­

grative approach yields i ts most memorable outcomes . This aspect o f the movie therefore

deserves close attention i n the present context . It is above al l i m portant to acknowledge the team's determinat ion to avo id total rel iance on 3D eGI. To this effect , the castle was con­structed from over eighty segments i n i t i al ly pasted onto 20 surfaces that could be an imated interactively i n order to secure overall coherence in the structure's mot ion . At a later stage , once the movements had been clearly blocked and mapped ou t , those same parts were super­imposed over a 3D CG model i n order to i nvest the cast le w ith p las t i c qual i t i es and sculp­tural sol idi ty. The castle's ta loned legs were created i n 3D in the first p lace so as to m ake the bu i ld ing's walking pattern photograph ically convincing - though i t must be emphas ized that the motion itself was based on legion hand-drawn frames pa instakingly execu ted by i n ­betweeners . Furthermore , del iberately exaggerated effects typical of cel-centered an ime were included : for i nstance, i n close-ups of the talons that th row i nto rel ief the ir eminently car­taon ish nature . The art ist's penci l also played a key role when it came ta the creat ion of v ibra-

1 66 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

t ion effects for the castle's frame, in that the manual ly drawn black contou rs of the various arch i tectural components provided the start i ng-po int to which waver ing effects cou ld then be i mparted . Many dis t inct ive features of tradit ional manual execut ion were l ikewise reta ined even as the images were being edi ted digital ly. Moreover , 3D objects were economically i nter­spersed with 20 drawings, so that in some of the castle's most spectacu lar appearances, the 3D element is l im i ted to deta i ls such as flipping wooden boards, pumping appendages and rickety balcon ies, with the bulk of the ensemble rema in ing resolutely 20.

D igital layer ing p layed a prominent part in the rep resentation of the bu i ld ing's rock ing movements . Th i s p rocedure entai led organ izing the aforement ioned segments i n a stratified

structure and connect ing them to a root node according to h ierarch ical criter ia . On this bas is , three ma in blocks corresponding to the castle's frontal , m iddle and rear port ions could be an imated first , w i th addit ional layers bei ng i ncremental ly brought into p lay (to a total of approximately th i rty) , i n order to coordi nate the d isparate parts with greater and greater flexi­b i l i ty. D igital morph ing - the transformation of one i mage into another through the grad­ual distort ion of co rresponding points - was concomi tantly ut i l ized, espec ia l ly to v i sua l ize the bui ld i ng's momentous transformations and eventual co l lapse . Vector-based graph ics enabled the an imators to s i tuate "handles" on various points of a contour by means of which an object's defin ing l ines could be s tretched, cu rved or otherwise al tered in terms of angle and d i rect ion .

One of the toughest chal lenges posed by the execution of Howl's errant erratic fortress was val iantly met by harmony process supervisor Noriko Takaya . (H armony process ing entai ls combin ing background art with the material pa i nted on a cel shee t , a . k . a . harmony) . Takaya was ins istently reminded by the d i rector that the castle was fundamental ly "a character" and should accordingly be i mbued with a recognizable ident i ty. The pr inc ipal problem faced by

Takaya i n addressing his momentous task lay with the bui ld ing's temperamental mutab i l i ty and restless : "For example , the castle is revived after fal l ing apart later on i n the film. [Miyazaki ] wanted me to depict i ts v i tal i ty and strength to revive i tsel f i n spi te o f i ts wrecked state . Unl ike my p revious harmony p rocess ing , which consisted of m atch ing the movements to the background art , this harmony had to provide the castle's personal i ty . . . . Yosh ida's concept art was very romant ic , but the castle I drew for harmony ended up lookin g real ly rough and crass" (Takaya , p . 15 5 ) .

N o less intr iguing than the castle's techn ical construct ion i s the background t o i ts con­ceptual design . Asked to comment on the origi ns of the subl imely monstrous edifice in an i nterview conducted by Ph i l ip B rophy at the Sydney Fi lm Fest ival i n June 2005 , Suzuki revealed that the first drawing of what would eventually become Howl's rov ing abode "was orig inal ly not meant for the fi lm . . . it was intended to fill an empty space at the Studio Gh i­b l i Museum . . . . When Miyazaki asked me what des ign should I use for the cast le? I said how about that one? Miyazaki was happy . . . . The problem became : what about i ts legs? The or ig­inal book didn't give much detai l . Miyazaki said that i f i t moves , i t needs legs . F irstly he thought about samurai armor of the 12 th-14th centuries . . . . Eventual ly, they became the legs

of a . . . chicken" (Suzuki) . This report , del ivered by the producer with characterist ical ly dis­arming charm , is an eloquent witness to the bearing of an element of sheer chance (as well as candid p ragmatism) upon the ideation of memorable an imated icons by an authent i cally fecund imagination .

A vital ly important digi tal tool used throughout the ent i re p roduction of Howl was " H ar­

mony," an extraordinarily sophist icated program designed by Toon Boon Animation I n c . I1ar-

Ten �Howl's Moving Castle 167

mony faci l itates the in tegrat ion of cel an imation and CGI of the h ighest qual i ty by means of various techn iques . Bes ide the aforementioned morph ing , these include " inverse kinematics" (the procedure that enables an imators to create digital characters on the basis of a h ierarchy of "ch i ld" and "parent" components) and "glue" (a tool that will automatical ly connect two body parts w i th a curve , l ine or angle-shaped effect) . Above all , Harmony is capable of o rches­trating al l the product ion stages from hand-draw ing to computer-assis ted composi t ing wi th in one interconnected workflow. The use of a too l capable of s imulat ing the soft focus of a tra­

di tional camera lens, so as to mel low the cel-CGI blend and enable the backgtounds to look

convi ncingly natural , complemented ideally the Harmony device . I t is the jo int deployment of the two procedu res that has imparted Howl with i ts uniquely elegant , painterly mood .

Let us now pursue the p roposit ion that the art ist's penci l was pers istently accorded a car­d i nal part in Howls execut ion even as d igital technology played a role of unprecedented mag­n i tude in the histo ry of Stud io Ghibl i . It is fi rst of al l v i tal to acknowledge that i t is not j ust the deployment of the art ist's penci l as an abs t ract , genera l i zed not ion that i nvests the film with exceptional visual verve. In fact , as supervis i ng an imator Takesh i Inamura has empha­s ized, respect ing the i ndividual i ty of each team member's personal penc i l was p ivotal to h i s endeavor and, relatedly, an i ntegral factor in the establ ishment o f the fi lm's overa l l appeal . " I did my bes t , " Inamura ma inta ins , "not to a l ter the key an imation excess ively. Each an imator has his or her touch , whether i t ' s in terms of drawing styles or movements ." Individual s ig­natu res , merits and even idiosyncrasies we re never , accordingly, suffocated by the overarch­ing imperat ive of graph ic coherence:

The supervising animator can stifle the animation by insisting on his own approach for thc sake of con­sistency and uniformity. The quality of the animation in the recem Ghibli films has been extremely high, so we work a 1m even on minute details, but as supervising animator, I wamed to preserve the style of the key animation while maintaining consistency. Of course, I would alter whatever I had to, but a key ani­mator's style isn't easy to remove. Each animator's thoughts and feelings, in other words � the gencral mood they werc in while drawing�always remains intact in the film [Inamura, p. 45J.

These inspir ing ohservat ions , i t is worth stressing , do not merely shed l ight on Inamura's personal modus operandi; i n fact , they succi nctly encapsulate Studio Ghib l i 's col lect ive m is­sion as a company dedicated to the fostering of both i ndividual in i t i at ive and col laborative effort, as wel l as a profound respect for the affect ive compon ents of the art of an imat ion in the face of potent ia l ly dehumaniz ing techno logies . Unremitti ngly encouraged by Miyazaki and his col leagues from the most seasoned to the greenes t , th is ethos finds a forceful d iegetic correlat ive in Howl i tself. Indeed, the film intently shuns exp lanatory scenes, deus-ex-mach ina

interventions and , most importantly, any expl icit ly omn isc ient po int of v iew. I t does so , pr i ­marily, by al lowing the s to ry to assume the perspect ives of the various characters , at t imes focus ing on a s ingular angle i n o rder to draw attent ion to indiv idual qual i t ies, and at o thers contemplat ing s imul taneously a plura l i ty of viewpoints so as to foreground their col l us ion or their coll is ion . Thus, Miyazaki's narratological approach could be said to m irror the team's devot ion to the ass iduous p romotion of both i ndividual i ty and co-operation .

The degree to wh ich manual production l i terally underpinned the fi lm's creation i s help­fully documented by supervis ing an imator Akih iko Yamash i ta , part icularly i n h i s account of h i s ro le i n the p re-production phase: "All I did at first every day was draw sketches of a l l the characters . I must have drawn 50 to GO sheets of the main characters Howl and Soph ie . I would try out various face types and p roportions, then show the sketches to Miyazaki for

16 8 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

feedback . . . . I had the hardest t ime working on the aged Sophie . It came by tr ia l and error . . . .

I have a h uge p i le o f rough sketches I did during the ent ire p rocess" (Yamashita , A . , p . 5 9) . The art ist 's hand was also axial to the conception and appl ication o f Howfs dist inct ive chro­matic palettes . This is most eloquently borne out by the methods favored by Takaya as the art ist responsible for supervis ing harmony processing . As Yoshida exp la ins , "When Takaya

works on an image , she not only uses a brush but also tOllches up the i mages w i th her fingers and cloth, making sure it won't look too simple and bland" (Yoshida 2005b , p . 63) .

F inal ly, i t would be unfair to ignore that Howl also consti tutes , among many other th ings , the most recent chapter i n what A. O. Scott has fel icitously called the "Miyazakian Menageri e . " " M r . Miyazaki's world, " t h e crit ic goes on t o explai n ,

is ful l of fantastical creatllres - cure and fuzzy, icky and creepy, handsome and noble. There are lovable forcst sprites, skittering dust balls and ravenous blobs of black viscous goo, as well as talking cats, pigs and frogs . ... Some of Mr. Miyazaki's creations secm to have precedents and analogues in folklore, fantasy lit­erature and othcr cartoons .. . . Bllt most mcmbers of Mr. Miyazaki's ever-expanding menagerie - includ­ing Totoro, the slow-moving, pot-bel lied, vaguely feline character who has become the logo and mascot of Studio G hibli - come entirely from the filmmaker's own prodigious imagination [Scott, p. 15].

Howl indeed proposes a colorfu l best iary replete with extravagant mutants , a toyl ike wheez­ing dog , a loquacious fire demon and, above all , an avian i ncarnation o f the male lead . Any loyal Miyazaki fan wil l be quick to reca l l , as memorable antecedents, the b i rd-horse hybrid i n Nausicaa of the Vallq of the Wind ( 198-1) , the fox squirrels in both Nausicaa and Laputa, the Catbus and the Totoros themselves (both the giant one and the kiddies) in My Neighbor Totoro (1988 ) , the talking cat i n Kiki 's Delivery Service ( 1989) , the human ized pig (or porc in ized man , as the case may be) i n Porco Rosso ( 1992) , the winged creature i n On Your Mark ( 1 995 ) ,

the red e lk and Forest Gods i n Princess Mononoke and the metamorphic River Sp i ri t-cum­

dragon i n Spirited Away (200 1 ) . All of those characters , i n sp ite of obviolls styl ist ic diver­gences i n the i r execution and of the varying narrat ive roles ascribed to them by the p lo t , assert themselves as bold attempts to disrupt conventional boundaries between pu tatively d iscrete species . The resul t is that seemingly i ncompatible l i fe forms meet and merge in rec iprocal suffusion , i n much the same way as tradit ional and state-of-the-art tools have increas ingly been do ing in Miyazaki's creations . 2

ELEVEN

Anime Synergy

Children in the West, raised on a diet of ['okimoll, Dragon Ball and Astro Boy, have grown up. Now they are in their early twenties, and they want more Japanese animation. A nd while Japan is going through an economic recession, anime . . . is proving to be a healthy export, rivalling elec­tronic products in import figures and popularity in English speaking countries . . . . Starting in the seventies, and going through a worldwide boom in the early nineties, the rising popularity ofJapa­nese animation has seen what was once viewed as a minor market become maimtream . . . . Recently, Western audiences of all ages hal'e become more comfortable with a medium that was once seen as "just for kids, " seeing a groUith I/Ot only in the sales of anime itself, but the influence of anime being

filt in design, foshioll and Hollywood fiature films. - 'fapanimation " Hybrids, co-operation, crossovers of all kinds are possible where these worlds [i. e. Japan and the

West} meet, and they re happening right now. But these worlds still have a different core, a different essence. Anime is a different person. Were not falling in love with a mirror. - Carl Gustav Horn

The concept of synergy could be defined as the dialectical in teract ion of p re-exis t ing forces, leading to a resu l t that is greater than the mere sum of the parts . Anime's ent i re fab­

ric is traversed by synergetic drives that operate s imultaneously at the spatia l , temporal , medi­atic and generic levels , insofar as i t persistently engineers fru i tfu l exchanges between disparate geograph ical areas, the i r cu l tures and h istories, as wel l as between discrete media and genres . As shown i n the forego ing chapters, one of the most v i tal aspects o f an ime's synergetic con­st i tu t ion l ies with i ts knack of i ntegrating , both methodical ly and extemporaneously, the ven­

erable heri tage of hand-drawn ce l an imation wi th increas ingly adventu rous d ig i ta l tool s .

No less central to the argument pursued in th i s study than the confluence o f t radit ional and trai lblazing styles i n an ime is the paral lel encou nter between East and West across that same creative terra in , and the attendant col lusion of indigenous and transnat ional perspec­tives . This phenomenon is by no means recent and can i n fact be traced back to 1 9 1 7, when , as Michael Arnold observes , "Seitaro Kitayama's Momotaro was sh ipped to France three months before i ts release in Asakusa , Tokyo . " Ani me's cross-cultural import grew s ign ificantly i n the decades to fol low:

Hiroshi Okawa, president of Japan's major postwar cartoon studio Toei Doga, emphasized the possibili­ties of animation to traverse cultural and linguistic barriers in a way that live action film couldn't. He sent Japan's first color cartoon feature Legend of the White Serpent (Hakujaden, 1958 I U.S. version: The Panda and the White Serpent, 1961 ) to the Venice Children's Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix and was picked up for local distribution by a handful of countries including the U .S . .. . Most of loei's early fea­tures were sold internationally, and when Osamu Tezuka developed his rival Mushi Productions and cre-

1 69

170 Ar-:IME INTERSECTIONS

ated the first animated Japanese lV series Tetsuwan A tomu [Astro Boy] . . . , that was picked l ip overseas as well. The golden years of Japanese animation were sparkling with international sales and co-productions, and American companies left their fingerprinrs everywhere, tra Il Slating, editing and packaging anime for the world.

It could therefore be safely surmised, as Arnold goes on to op ine , that "not only has Japanese

an imation been part of the world all along, but the world has always been part of Japanese an imation" (Arnold) . By p layful ly travers ing geopol i tical barriers - and hence, by imp l ica­t ion , questioning the i ntegrity of national ident i t ies - anime's dream factory carr ies u ndeni­ably global substance, drawing us into i t s domains by means of devices, methods, formulae and rituals that are both rooted in a local heri tage and capable of absorb ing , eclectically and commodiously, a w ide range of incontrovert ibly non-Japanese in fluences .

A paradigmatic i l lustration of cultural synergy is suppl ied by the mutual borrowings in which Japanese an imation and Hollywood have been increasingly involved i n the fields o f character a n d mechan ical des ign , a s wel l as in the generation of part icular dynam ic effects . On the one hand, anime has repeatedly drawn inspirat ion from Hol lywood's action adven­ture p roductions for the purpose of ideating i t s own varyingly futurist ic , retrofuturist ic o r steampunk designs . On the other , Hollywood has incrementally been looking at an ime a s a viable source of s t imulat ing visual clues a l l the basis of which its own kinet ic apparatus and elaborate mach inery may be conceived .

One of the most remarkable instances of appropriation by the Hol lywood industry o f

an i m e - a n d manga-based styles consists of the character a n d mechanical designs, concept art and storyboards executed by the Wachowski brothers' megata lented t roupe in the creat ion of The Niatrix and i t s sequels . The tri logy's , and particularly the first movie's , debt to Mamoru Oshi i's Ghost in the Shell has often been commented upon. The directors themselves have frankly professed their gratitude to that fi lm , stress ing that its screening for the benefit of poten­tial but as yet skeptical sponsors was a vital means of expla in ing the concept they sought to elaborate . Tim Stevens confirms this oft-recounted anecdote, vividly describ ing Ghost in the Shell as "the an ime that the Wachowski brothers used to woo Joel S i lver into p roducing their

blockbuster h it" (Stevens) . However , the synerget ic bond connect ing the Wachowskis' t r i logy

to the aesthetics of Japanese animation goes deeper than that acknowledged deb t . Indeed, an ime features prominently in the Wachowskis' mult imedia u n iverse at several

levels . As noted in Chapter 2 with reference to Yoshiaki Kawaj ir i 's oeuvre , the an imated col­lection complement ing the l ive-action tri logy t i tled The Anirnatrix is int imately l i nked up with that med ium, and indeed al l of the 9-part OVA's ep isodes are obviously i ndebted to Japanese an imation in both thematic and styl ist ic terms . However , the movies themselves are redo lent of the techn iques deployed in an ime, as i l l ustrator Tan i Kuni take emphasizes i n h is account of the visual ization process for the first fi lm's c l imact ic sequence i n wh i ch Neo i n vades Agent Smith and eventual ly vanquishes h im . It is worth stress ing that in expl ic i tly referr ing to anime i n h is descr ipt ion of one of the movie's least savory sequences, Kun i take draws atten­t ion to one of the genre's most sa l ient features which must have been part icularly congenia l to the Wachowskis' v is io n : that is to say, i ts capacity for couch ing in cartoon ish form dark themes with deeply perturbing connotat ions . I n Kun itake's own words : "For this sequence , with the Agent Smith explosion , we did qu ite a few passes . We were looking at a lo t o f an ime , wanting to capture the feel ing of th i s i n the explodi ng body. The hrst pass on this scene was real ly fleshy, but d idn't feel righ t , i t fel t more comical. The Agent didn't exp lode l ike a shel l

Eleven - A nime �)'nergy 1 7 1

. . . i t was more l i ke he was a l l flesh . . . . They [the d i rectors] wanted more of a slow bui ld-up , where he would k ind of boi l up and percolate , reach ing the th reshold, cracking some, and finally shatteri ng , reveal i ng Neo underneath" (Kuni take 2000a, p . 231) .

The c inematograph ical effects sought by the Wachowskis for th i s sequence are nowhere more expl icit ly at home that in the an ime un iverse . This i s clearly demonstrated by countless scenes i ntent on dramatiz ing sensat ional change in p roductions as diverse as Satosh i Kon's Perfect Blue, Hironobu Sakaguchi 's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and H ayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, to mention j ust a few handbook cases .

I f an ime's dist i nct ive aesthetics could be said to underp i n the Wachowskis' l ive-act ion c inematography no less than thei r forays i nto an imation , the art of manga played an equally cardinal role i n the execution of the storyboards for The lvfatrix. These , as film ed i to r Zach Staenberg has stated, contr ibuted crucial ly to the concretization of the d i rectors' v is ion , to the point that the fi lm's ent i re complexion is i nformed through and through by their p icto­

rial energy. "At i ts height , " Staenberg expla ins , "the movie employed around 450 people , and to many of those people the sto ryboards became their bible . . . . [The Wachowskis' style] i s not

natural ist ic but styl ized and often extremely graph ic . . . . There are many places in the movie

where you can j ust look at the frames, and you're looking at pages from a graph ic nove! . . . . Certa in shots and sequences feel l ike the storyboards come t o l i fe" (Staenberg ) .

Spencer Lam m , creator o f the official webs i te for the tr i logy and former editor for Mar­vel Com ics , confirms the sto ryboards' importance, maintain ing that Darrow's and Skroce's " i n it ia l art" enabled the d i rectors to "walk people , especially the studio , thro ugh the script"

and ult i mately amounted to "a 400-page comic book" v iv idly rem in i scent of a ful l -fledged manga (Lamm) . Accord ing to Skroce h imself, the Wachowskis requ ired the i l l ustrations to work as somewhat autonomous "dynamic narrat ives" capable of convey ing "a real comic-book storytel l ing style" - which led to the el i m ination of the "arrows" customari ly used by story­board artists (Skroce , p . 41 ) . Even by merely leafing through the storyboards, it is not hard to see that their images derive their characteristic power not from the formulae of comic books or graphic novels in general but speci fical ly from the art of manga . Page after page , one pal­

pably senses the reverberat ions of that art's unsu rpassed graph ic a l l usiveness, ab i l i ty to con­vey a potent i l lus ion of movement through pithy l ine drawing , preference for cr isply styl ized shapes and expression is t ic boldness .

Anime-based techn iques also p roved p ivotal to the v isual ization o f the pecu l iar effects which the d i rectors a imed to ach ieve and to their subsequent translat ion into graph ics , which constituted a veritably mam moth task in the prep roduct ion phases . Of part icularly salutary ass istance , on a number of occas ions, were the lessons learnt from an ime's penchant for meta­morphic and ambiguous images . As shown throughout this study, a hearty appet i te for trans­

mutat ions capable o f spawn ing legion compos i te bei ngs , and concu rrent ly convey ing an impress ion of ongo ing cosmic flux, is seldom absent from an ime's p ictor ial poetry. Ninja Scroffs self-transforming demons , Perfect Blue's fluctuat ing ident i t ies , Neon Genesis Evange­lion 's spectacular morphs , Metropolis's c l imactic upheaval , Innocence's concoctions of the nat­ural and the synthet i c , the apocalypt ic sh ift from utop ia to dys top ia in Appleseed, the deformation of urbane society into hel l ish mayhem in Steamboy, and the ongo i ng metamor­phoses of youth i nto decrepi tude and pastoral peace into martial horror i n Howl's MOlJing Cas­tle are some of the most p romi nent manifestat i ons of that ingrai ned tendency that spr ing most readi ly to m ind .

1 72 ANIME I NTERSECTIONS

Echoing the lessons of anime, the Wachowskis consistently pursued the elaborat ion o f a visual experience capable of communicating mul t i-accentual messages by means of images that eluded neat categorization as either organic or mechan ical , and could accord ingly evoke at

once the attributes of d iverse natural species and pieces of technology. Anime's dau ntless j ou r­

neys i nto an imaginary realm of protean permutation proved an i nvaluable art ist ic p receden t . This p roposit ion is supported b y Kuni take's comments concern ing t h e conceptual izat ion and representation of the Neb (the rebels' ship) , with i ts "electromagnetic d isp lacement engines repel l ing the vehicle from surfaces al l around . . . . The in i t i al problem was see ing the ou t l i ne , the perimeter of the Nebuchadnezzar in the dark, wi th i t always shutt l ing around and h id­ing , or bo l t ing down very dark tunnels . So we gave i t a l l these sp iny proj ections , giv ing i t a kind of deep-sea angler-fish feel" (Kuni take 2000b, p. 2 5 0 ) . The concept ion of the monstrous Sentinels besett ing the anti-Matricians from al l s ides, meant to evoke a troub l ing sense of ambiguity, a l so ga ined from the appl ication of anime's metamorphic p rocl ivi t ies . As concep­

tual art ist Warren Manser has pointed out , Darrow's in i t ial sketches for those creatu res "raised some wonderful quest ions - is i t an octopus , a spider , or a completely mechan ical device? . . .

Trying to j u ggle these th ings, we've got i t looking l ike a n octopus i n one drawing w ith loose arms going everywhere , seemingly inescapable; then we've got the creature with its tentacles p inned back, transforming i t into someth ing that looks capable o f moving at 200 m i les per hour . The i nsect look and its glowing eyes were other major po ints to stress" (Manser , p . 2 5 5) .

According to Darrow, the d i rectors also requi red the "Fetus Stalk" and the "Fetus l l ar­

vester, " used as p ivotal p rops i n the choreographing of Neo's "reb irth" into the world of the

Real , to convey a fee l ing of menace through a consistent emphasis on ambiguity o f form . For the Stalk , they wanted the creatures to be "constantly changing and sh immering . " As for the Harvester , they came up with a hybrid entity combin ing tentacles and arachnoid featu res that u l t imately resul ted in the octopus- l ike construct with " l i tt le sp iders on i ts feet" (Darrow, pp.

261 ; 268) . The innumerous hybrids that populate an ime's galaxy - from Evangelion's b io­mechanoids, through Metropolis's robot-do l l , to Innocence's gynoids, for ins tance - unden i ­

ab ly offer relevant points of reference . The des ign work of the futu rist art i s t Syd Mead provides a fu rther man ifestation o f the

transcultural dialogue in wh ich Japanese ani mation and Western l ive-action c inema have been engaged . The mechanical creations executed for l ive-act ion films l ike Blade Runner (dir . Rid­ley Scott , 1 982) and Aliens (dir . James Cameron , 1986) , for which Mead is most readily remem­bered, inspired numerous anime art ists . This is clearly borne out by the Bubblegu m Crisis OVA series (dirs . Katsuhi to Akiyama, Hiroaki Gouda , Hiroki Hayash i , Masam i Obari and Fumi ­h iko Takayama, 1 987) , and by the feature fi lm Akira (dir . Katsuh i ro Otomo, 1 988 ) . At the

same t ime, Mead has been d i rectly involved in the p roduction of two h ighly regarded sci­ence-fiction anime series : Yamato 2520 ( 1994) - a sequel to Le i j i Matsumoto's or i gi n al Space Cruiser Yamato ( 1978) conceived by Yoshinobu Nish izaki - for which he worked on sh ip exte­riors and interiors , props, costumes and settings in 1 987, and the 49-ep isode Turn-A Gun­dam TV series ( 1998) where he played a key ro le i n the mechanical revamp o f the or ig inal Gundam anime, working closely with d i rector Yoshiyuki Tomino .

Notwithstanding the protractedness of anime's presence i n the West , the form never made a p inpo intable spectacular entry i nto U.S . cu l ture . Rather, i t i nfil t rated i t s lowly and somewhat unobtrusively at firs t , with several anime shows televised i n the 1960s and 1970s not receiv ing conscious acknowledgement a s a foreign export but be ing s imply consu m ed a s

Eleven - Anime !-Jynergy 173

"animation . " This is no t ent i rely surpris ing when one considers that most o f the anime p ro­duced at the t ime bore Western - and specifically Disneyesque - attr ibutes as a resu l t of the pervasive i nfluence y ie lded upon it by Osamu Tezuka , a n art ist whose work had been s ignificantly i nsp i red by Western an imators . (Tezuka's style is discussed i n Chapter 5 i n rela­t ion to Rintaro's adaptat ion of the art ist's manga Metropolis [ 1 949] . ) The success enjoyed by Astro Boy, the TV series created by Tezuka and aired in the U .S . from 1963 (with a New Yea r's Day debut) , could be regarded as the first truly notable ach ievement in the laborious evo lu­t ion of an ime's cul tural cross-fert i l ization .

The 1980s and 1990s w i tnessed a gradual reorientation i n audience responses, del ineated as fol lows by Frank Sanchez : "A few people began to real ize anime for what i t was, and how it differed from regular cartoons that were native to society. With more shows that had sub­tle connections to the Japanese culture, and a bigger audience, i nevitably a few people would research more closely the background and or igin of them" (Sanchez 1997-2003a) . In the

1980s , certa in sectors of the cartoon-viewing populat ion began to recognize an ime's styl ist ic and thematic dist inct iveness, and first developed a discernible sense of an imation's openness

to poss ib i l i ties other than those pursued for over sixty years by Western p ract it ioners . It is a lso at this t ime that the term "Japan imation ," now generally avo ided, was co i ned, and that the seeds of anime fandom were sowed. Yet , i t was not unt i l the clos ing port ion o f that decade that anime started assert ing i tself as an autonomous art form and - at least potential ly - as a cultural movement . Cri tics agree almost unanimously on the monumental role p l ayed by Otomo's cyberpunk featu re Akira i n bringing anime into popular focus and consol idat ing its

fan base . At th is stage , however , the medium's publ ic p resence was st i l l l im i ted to cul t s tatus , wi th

the mainstream remain ing by and large unaware of an ime's existence - let a lone appeal . I t i s most l ikely that th is relatively ear ly generation of anime enthusiasts was drawn to the form by a desi re for p roducts capable of i nject ing fresh l i fe into a stagnant cul tura l landscape . As Antonia Levi suggests in her influential cr itical volume Samurai from Outer Space, these fans would have fel t especial ly dis i l l usioned with the formulaic tri teness of the typ ical Hol lywood diet , and found rel ief i n the "aesthetic distance" that anime afForded by engaging with l i fe's often unsavory real i t ies without , however , pandering to the ideological tenets of representa­tional real ism (Levi , p . 30) .

Anime's fan base would eventual ly blossom i n the course of the fol lowing decade . This development was s ign i ficantly abetted, once again , by the sensational success of another fea­ture film : the aforementioned Ghost in the Shell. Yet , as Sanchez mainta ins , " i t wasn't unt i l 1999 that an unforgettable event i n an ime's cultural h istory occurred - the advent o f the

'Pokemon' movement in the U.S . . . . . Pokemon's rocket-l ike p ropuls ion to the top o f the ma in­

stream culture has helped lay the groundwork for the promotion of the an ime med ium, and has shown the poss ib i l i ty o f its future integration into the cul ture" (Sanchez 1997 -2003b) . In sp i te of these crucial developments, as Sanchez also argues, the American media have by no means arrived at a consensual understanding of anime, and their evaluations of the medium

accordingly range from v i t rio l ic attacks to spi rited accolades : '/lBe News wrote an article a few years ago ent i t led 'The Dark S ide of Anime , ' which h igh l ighted an ime as a dangerous and violent medium . . . . However , . . . there have been a few news art icles that do cover the anime medium in a h ighly researched and fai r way, recogniz i ng it for what i t is . The San Fran­cisco Chronicle featured an art ic le about the appeal of an ime . . . which expla ins an ime as a

174 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

humanist ic med ium wh ich appeals to fans because of i ts versat i l i t y and i ts mu l t ip l ic i ty" (Sanchez 1997-2003c) .

Whether derogatory or admir ing, it is h ighly l ikely that upon encounter ing an ime w i th­

out any prior fami l iar ity with any aspect of Japanese art , a large number o f v iewers wi l l have reacted to it with some puzzlement . This hypothes is is defin i tely upheld by Emru Townsend,

whose article on "the j oy and mystery of discovering an ime," evocatively t i t led "An ime Mon Amour , " states : " I would wager that for many people who were first exposed to anime dur­ing the last century, 'What is th is ? ' was accompan ied by ' I t's not Disney' or ' It 's not Ameri­can . ' For p roof, you only have to read newspaper or magazine art icles wri t ten by someone who only recently d iscovered anime - it's a lmost a certa inty that the first paragraph wil l set anime up i n opposit ion to American animation" (Townsend 200 5 , p. 3 ) .

Townsend develops this idea i n a later art icle , "Ani me's B i g Picture , " where he argues that in the West , "we experience anime as an alternative to other forms of an imation and pop culture ; we aren't immersed in it from a cultural or enterta inment standpoint . Often , th i s leads to a fi l ter ing effect : we see only a certa in sl ice of an ime in a certa in context , and we extrapo late from that to determine what all anime must be l i ke" (Townsend 2006b, p . 3 ) .

The phenomenon described by Townsend is in d i re need of some sort o f rectificat ion i f Western spectators with on ly l imi ted exposure t o anime are t o avoid stu l t ifying general iza­t ions . F i rst and foremost , i t is v i tal to acknowledge that the medium's tech n ical and thematic

spectrum is both wide-ranging and supple , and that drawing any conclusions about its essence on the bas is of merely a few - possibly acc idental - encou nters with i ts images is a va in exer­

cise . For example , a v iewer who associa tes an ime with, say, Heidi, Girl o/the Alps (d irs . Atsuj i Hayakawa , Masao Kuroda and Isao Takahata , 1974) wi l l i nevi tably harbor a percept ion of anime that bears l i ttle resemblance, i f any, to that of a viewer that equates the med ium to Giant Robo (dir . Yasuh i ro Yamagawa , 1992) : i t is hard to imagine what these two hypothet i­ca l characters could poss ib ly share , were they to engage in a dia logue about an ime .

I ndeed, a s Townsend also maintains , much a s "the increased attention pa id to an ime i s welcome, i t's important to bear i n mind that i t s range of subject matter i s w ider s t i l l than what we see here . " However , our i nab i l i ty to "experience an ime" as we might i f we were actu­a l ly l iv ing in the cul ture that spawned it in the first place does not unequivocally entai l that we should not at least attempt to grasp and savor i ts divers i ty with reference to an appropr i­ately researched socio-historical mi l ieu : "Presenting a more honest and complete context for what we do see over here closes the gap considerably" (Townsend 2006b, p. 3 ) .

Learning to appreciate an ime's polymorphousness is also bound to benefit from an u nder­standing of manga - the art fo rm , as we have seen , that p rovides the basis for the vast majo r­

i ty of an ime p roductions - as a pervas ive cultu ral p resence i n Japanese society whose reach surpasses by far that of comic books and graphic novels in the West . An ime's variety m i rrors closely that of the manga from which i ts narratives so frequently spr ing . Some openness to both manga's and anime's dist inctive tropes and lexicon wil l also hel p the Western viewer com­prehend the broader parameters of thei r kindred cultural discourses . The terms associated with different types of man ga of the shoujo (girl-oriented) and shounen (boy-oriented) modal i t ies , from which much anime emanates, as wel l as the rhetor ic pecul iar to works aimed at you n ger chi ldren (kodomo) i n contrast with those intended for adults (olona) , may at first befu ddle non-Japanese consu mers . I t is only by adopt ing a capac ious dispos it ion towards th i s i n i t ia l ly unfami l iar l anguage - where in or iginal Japanese words coexist with numerous and mul t i -

ElelJen - A nime Synergy 175

accentual gairago (" loan -words" ) - that the cultural barrier may be , at least part ial ly, pene­trated and cherished instead of being perceived as an impediment .

I n addition , it is important to acknowledge that j u st as an ime styles vary cons ide rably

according to the expectations of the age group at which a part icula r series o r feature is aimed,

so do manga styles. As Marc Ha i rston has noted, it is not u ncom mon for a shoujo manga mag­azine targeted at "elementary and j u n ior h igh school aged g ir l s , " l i ke Ribon, to use "pastels , co lors that appeal to g i rls more than to boys . . . . The pages themselves a re colored instead of

white . So instead of black l ine art on white pages they have pu rp le l i n e art on pink pages . "

A shounen manga magazine such as Weekly Shounen Sunday exhib i rs qu i re d ifferent art is t ic featu res that fitt i ngly match the publ ication's themat ic emphases : "Most of the Ribon stories are romances and domestic dramas wh i l e Weekly Shounm's stories a re more adventure o r action or iented . There a re sports stories , h istorical adventu re stories, some supernatural , al l stories that appeal to teen-aged male readers" (Ha i rston 1999) .

In order to savvy an ime's p r ismatic richness, it i s a lso necessary to grapp le with the specific i ty of its iconography and related gestural symbol ism . Legion viewers wil l readily asso­ciate anime's visual reperto i re with i ns tantly recogn izable somatic attr ibutes : pr imar i ly, huge glossy eyes and frequently outlandish ha i r s ize and colorat ion , extended l imbs al lowing exag­gerated patterns of motion , female bodies redolent of fash ion-design sketches . What some­t imes goes unheeded by the casual spectator is that in o rder to convey subtly varied emotional and psychological states , an ime artists typically resort to h igh ly s treaml i ned facial designs,

where even the most infin i tes imal cu rve can alter rad ica l ly a characte r's ent i re express ion .

Moreover , the port rayal of the same character can sh ift d ramat ical ly from semi-rea l i s t ic , through cartoony, to downrigh t grotesque typologies, depend ing on what the cont ingent con­text cal ls for . Most i ntr igu ingly, as Jeff Boman and Jenn ifer Wand have emphasized, " I t's i mportant to recogn ize that icons are not merely t i ed to the gravi ty of the emot ion . Emotions that are truly s ign ificant i n a story . . . are shown in a much less cartoon- l ike way . . . . Sometimes even the s i l l iest an ime wi l l give way to deeper emotions ; it is completely cons istent for a

romantic comedy to have a dozen amus ing facial featu res in one scene , but then use more real istic drawings and movement in a more ser ious scene" (Boman and Wand, p. 1 1 ) .

Another class i c a n i me t rope consists of the use of i n fant i l i zed car icatures of certa in char­acters, intended to h ighl ight a scene's comical import , known as chibi. The word translates

l i terally as " l i tt le" but also stands as a contraction of "chi ld body. " Closely l i n ked up with th i s strategy i s the employment of SO ( "Super Deformed" o r "Squashed Down") vers ions of the normal personae that analogously a im at exposing the i r foib les by recourse to parodic h umor. The most blatantly styl ized visual tropes intended to external ize various affective states include the use of a large drop of sweat on a character's brow to symbol ize e i ther anxiety o r rel ief, o f

throbb ing blood vessels o r steaming ea rs t o commun icate i ntense i re , of nosebleeds t o s ign ify l us t , and of a dying candle by the head of a character who is l i terally about to "snuff i t . "

It i s not u ncom mon , moreover , for anime t o provide elements of "fan service , " namely scenes that are not s trictly relevant or else are pu rely peripheral to the advancement o f the plot but a re supposed to regale the v iewer with scop ic grati ficat ion . The ph rase is often asso­ciated with erot ica l ly t i t i l lat i n g images of gorgeous females in scanty at t i re -- the sorts of images, in other words, that tend to e l ic i t at best charitable r idicule and ar worst u ndi lu ted opprobr ium among non-fa ns . As Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy po in t out in rhe entry devoted to "A rgot and Ja rgon" in the i r Anime Encyclopaedia, i t i s i mportant to recog-

176 ANIME INTERSECTI ONS

n ize that "fan service need not always be sexually suggestive ; there i s , for example , such a

thing as mecha fan service, foregrounding machinery at the expense of other aspects" (Clements and McCarthy, p . 30) .

I n addit ion , some cri tics have maintained that a comprehens ive grasp o f an i me's iconic i nventory wi l l benefit from some appreciation of the ways i n wh i ch the med ium often defines its characters' personal i ties with reference ro dist inctive vest imentary at t r ibutes . Lawrence Eng, for instance, has stated : "Anime fash ion is an i mportant part of the whole an ime expe­rience . . . . What a character wears greatly determines how we th ink of them" (Eng 1 996) . This idea is substantiated by several of the productions here examined . In Perfect Blue, for exam­

ple , Mima's fluctuat ing identity is inextricable from the pop-idol costume worn by the pro­tagonist herself for her las t concert and reappearing with subt le va riations throughout the fi lm. I n Neon Genesis Evangelion, Asuka is portrayed as a character endowed with an acute sense of fash ion , at t imes favoring styles deemed inapposite to her age group by older characters l i ke Misato and Kaj i . This aspect of Asuka's characterization succinctly ep i tom izes her longing to sever herself from the legacy of a traumatic chi ldhood. Rei , conversely, appears to have n o

i nterest i n clothes whatsoever a n d indeed never features garbed in anyth ing other than h e r p i lot ing s u i t or h e r school un iform. I n Appleseed, sartorial contrasts are consistently i nvoked as a visual ly concise means of evoking the tension between the utopian world of Olympus and the bleak actual i ty of the world that surrounds i t . Deunan's mart ial gear , on the one hand, and dash ingly fashionable urban- l i fe outfits, on the other , neat ly encapsulate the oppos i t ion . I n Howl's Moving Castle, to cite a final example , the young Soph ie's i ntroverted and t imorous disposit ion is i n i t ia l ly establ ished by recourse to her del iberately muted and restrained cloth­ing, whereas the image of the hero ine presented in the clos ing scene appropriately flaunts a

radiantly yel low costume . I n developing a crit ical awareness of anime's un ique iconography, i t is no less v i ta l to

learn to appreciate the sheer beauty of its background scenery paint ings . I n i ntentional ly sharp

contrast with the medium's styl ized personae, the backgrounds tend to be prodigal ly detai led

and depicted in rich chromatic gradi ents of l ife l ike lusciousness . What i s more , backgro unds do not s imply se rve to establ i sh a sense of the scene's physical set t ing but actual ly contr ibute crucially to the evocat ion of complex moods, deriv ing insp iration from the fine arts and espe­cial ly watercolor paint ing . For the authent ically committed art ist , no detai l is ever too triv­ial or d iminu tive : even a discarded can , a lowly desktop computer , an unoccupied classroom chair or a garment l imply rest ing on its hanger can be lovingly designed and hence capable of exud ing a palpable charm of its own . With its mechanical designs, an ime's pass ion for

details reaches i ts iconographic apotheosis in the guise of myriad non-organ ic components

that range from everyday domestic appl iances to sensational giant robots , biomecha noids and spaceships - all o f which are painstakingly rendered with a plethora o f elabora te n u ances .

As an ensemble of visual registers that contribute v i tal ly to an ime's ind ividual i ty, the iconographic elements d iscussed in the precedi ng paragraphs remind us that p ictorial s igns are no less textual (and indeed intricately textural) than words, and accord ingly ask to be read - namely, decoded and interpreted - no less thoroughly than verbal s igns . Ha i rs ton lucidly expounds this proposit ion , fam i l iar to l i nguists s ince at least Ferd i nand de Saussu re's ground-breaking conceptualization of the discip l ine of semiotics , by stress ing that "graph ical text is far from 'obv ious . . . . ' Images are how we see and perceive the world around us . Most of our brain's sensory nerves are devoted to interp ret ing the visual world around us , much

Eleven - Anime Synergy 177

more than is devoted to the auditory in terpretation of the world . Understanding how to read graph ical images is important because images have a great power over us , more so than we generally real ize . " The exercise becomes pointedly necessary when examin ing "a cul ture where

the graphical image is unquestionably the dominant form of text : Japan . . . . One o f the first

things that a foreigner not ices when visit ing i n Japan is that everyone there is read ing comic books or manga . Here i n the U.S. you would see busi ness people riding the shuttle buses i nto downtown al l reading the Willl Street Journal (which is itself j ust another form o f fantasy l i t ­erature disconnected from real i ty . . . ) . I n Japan al l the business people on the subways and buses are al l reading manga on the way i nto work" (Hairston 1999) .

Although it can hardly be refuted that anime was, unti l relat ively recently, e i ther a total mystery or an obj ect of scorn among the majority of Western moviegoers , its popular i ty and

appeal have been escala t ing , earn ing this art form a welcoming home wi th in i ncreas i ngly

ample contemporary audiences and, concomitantly, ushering in further opportun i t ies for syn­ergetic interaction .

Any anime enthus iast the world over wi l l readi ly admi t that the medium's recen t explo­

sion i n the West is a welcome phenomenon that on ly a decade ago could barely have been dreamed of. Nevertheless, many fans are st i l l i n the dark when i t comes to figuring out the

selection and acquis i t ion criteria u nderlying the appearance of an i me t i tles on the Anglo­phone market . Gerry Pou los's el ucidations are particularly helpful , i n th is regard . F i rst of al l ,

i t i s important t o realize that how a t it le i s chosen "depends o n the studio . " Manga Enter­tainment , for i nstance, p riorit izes "production , " as expl ic i t ly stressed by the company's Di rec­tor of Acquis i t ions Kaoru M faume : "The selection p rocess occurs by j udging the qual i ty and contents of the animat io n ; the subject of the s tory has to be one that people i n the U.S . can adhere to" (quoted i n Poulos , p . 170) . ADV Fi lms , on the other hand, is said to emphasize "entertainment value , " whereas The Right Stuf I nternational is reputedly keen on p romot ing ti tles that have been marginal ized, yet are sought after by fans . Furthermore , selection and acquisit ion processes are frequently a result of creative synergies . As Poulos exp la ins , " it is not

uncommon for Western studios to have a hand in the original Japanese p roduction of a t i tl e ,

thus securi ng rights before the show i s even produced . . . . When a Japanese studio wants more for a t it le than a Western company can make i n sales, th ings can qu ickly grind to a hal t . . . . To further s t i r the pot , there may sometimes b e several companies holding rights t o a t i tle" (Poulos , p. 176) . These factors should always be borne careful ly in mind whenever one m ay feel tempted to accuse the Western market of arbitrary conduct i n the choice and release of anime productions .

Anime's growing p rominence with in Western cultures is attested to not only by the grow­

ing avai labi l i ty of h igh-qual i ty DVD releases , however , but also by the screen ing of an ime productions at nu merous i nternational conventions and fi lm fest ival s . Some fi lms have actu­a l ly risen to the level of "classics" i n the cinema world at l arge rather than merely in the domain of an imation . To cite j ust one i l l ustrative example , Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the

Valley of the Wind ( 1984) was screened as part of a select ion of classic movies i n the summer of 2006 not o nly at the Annecy I nternational Animated F i lm Festival , which could quite eas­ily have been expected, but also at the prestigious Cannes hIm Festival . Concurrently, whi le

anime-specific events such as Anime Expo attract larger and larger audiences , ! the medium is also being accorded a s ign ificant role by conventions that cover the ent i re field o f ani mation and the germane rea lm of comic books . A case in point i s Comic-Con (San Diego , Cal ifor-

178 ANIME ! r-:TERSECTIONS

n ia) , where an ime , hav ing already featu red quite prominently i n 200 5 , was a l located th ree ent ire rooms, a l lowing for the exh ibit ion of over 130 tit les in the course of four days , i n July 2006.2

A decidedly remarkable , yet not often noted, example of an ime's s teady ascent to the ranks of a legit i mate cultural form in the West consists of the i t inerant exhib i t ion "My Real­i ty : Contemporary Art and the Cultu re of Japanese Animat ion . " This t ravel led through the u.s. i n the early 2000s, beginning at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where it was held from

2 8 July to 7 October 2001 , and making e ight stops on i ts nat ional tour . The exh ib i t ion show­cased over thirty works by artists from Japan , South Korea , the U .S . , Br i tain , the Nether­

lands and Greece , inc luding ( in alphabetical order) Matthew Benedict , Lee Bu ! , Taro Chiezo , James Esber , M i ka Kato , Micha Klein , Paul McCarthy, Mi l tos Manetas , M r. (Masakatu Iwamoto) , Mariko Mori , Takash i Mu rakam i , Yoshitomo Nara , Richard Patterson , Tom Sachs,

Momoyo Torimitsu , Charl ie White and Kenj i Yanobe . The show, su i tably complemented by a companion volume of the same t i t le edited by

Jeff Flem ing for the Des Mo ines Art Center, Iowa , and publ ished in 200 1 , focused on the impact of an ime on contem porary art in Japan , other As ian cultures and the West . The syn­ergetic ass imilat ion of an i me styles and techn iques in both the East and the West was per­

s uasively th rown i nt o rel ief by the show itself, to be fu rther conso l idated by the book's refiections on the i nterplay of art and technology through the lenses of an ime's recurr ing p re­occupations, iconography and mot ifs . As noted in the web page dedicated to the event by the Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach , Florida) , where the exhib i t ion was hosted from 12 April to 15 June 2003 , "These include concepts such as futu ristic technology, cyborgs, fan­tast ical creatures, and post-apocalyptic landscapes, as wel l as more u n iversa l themes , such as gender roles, consumerism , and pop culture" ("My Real i ty : Contemporary Art and the Cul­ture of Japanese Animation" ) .

Commenting on the exh ib i tion a t the t i m e of i ts showing at the Akron A r t Museum (Ohio) from 21 September 2002 to 5 Jan uary 2003 , Noel l Wolfgram Evans observed :

The show .. . is a complete sensory tour de force with paintings, sculptures, films, lectures, workshops, books, images, photographs and hands on crafts al l coming together to offer the visitor a kind of "crash course" on becoming an otaku (anime fan) . This show is not just for the die-hard anime fan though as it deals with ideas, themes and influences that a watcher of any type of animation (and in fact any pop cul­ture junkie) can relate to .... Opening night crowds were overwhelming with long l ines being perhaps the true theme of the night. People stood on and wound down the stairs, waiting to get in up until the 1 1 : 30 closing [Evans].

Presenting anime not only as an art form in its own r ight but also as a "catalyst for other an , " a s Evans puts i t , "My Real i ty" challenged many of the prej udices b l ight ing an imat ion i n p rac­tically its entirety and its ghettoizat ion as a second-rate infant ile med i u m , by encou rag ing

recogni tion of i ts richness by both artists and curators . Wh ile the works of several Asian par­t ic ipants melded together Western sources of i nspiration - such as D isney, Warner B rothers, Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol - and indigenous art forms l ike the ukiyo-e, those o f the ir West­ern counterparts frequently ev i nced pointedly Eastern infiuences . East-West synergies were thus celeb rated with unequalled gusto .

Anime's imbrication w ith the domain of fine art is also attested to by i ts (and manga's) impact on a thr iv ing postmodern movement known as "Superfiat . " Th is was in augurated by the aforement ioned artist Takash i Mu rakami as a cr i tical response to the vacuous homoge-

Eleven - Anime Synergy 179

n ization , consumerism and sexual fet ishism dominant within post-war and post-bubble Japan . (Beside Murakami , ar t i s ts whose work is regarded a s Su perHat i n clude C h i h o Aosh ima , Mahomi Kun ikata, Yoshitomo Nara , and Aya Takano . ) Like an ime , SuperHat p rior i t izes two­dimensional i ty as the inherently defining staple of Japanese art , whi le concurrently reve l l i ng

i n a gamesome cul tivat ion of hybridi ty. Commenting on the "SuperHat" exh ib i t ion he ld a t the MOCA gal lery at the Pacific Design Center in West Hol lywood i n 200 1 , the on l ine art journal designboom observes :

all of the artists in "superAat" work between the established boundaries of their respective genres, for instance where fine art photography meets cOlllmercial photography, where painting meets illustration, or where fashion meets theatrical costllming. the "sltpe" in "superflat" not only emphasizes the planar qual­ities of much of the work, bm also denotes a special, charged characteristic or attitllde. with "superAat" murakami suggests a broader definition of contemporary art in j apan and the wide range of activity within the exhibition can be seen as a direct challenge to the traditional borders and hierarchies he tween cultural genres [ "sltperAat" & N.B. : designboom radically eschews capital lcttcrsl .

I n other words, Murakami and h i s aco ly tes could be said to be p romu lgat ing a charac­teristically postmodern l evel l ing of pyra midal structures that are i ntent on perpetuat ing con­ventional dichotomies between the "h igh" and the " low," the "sub l ime" and the "prosaic , " the "popular" and the "el i te , " by eroding both formal and semantic compartmental izations . Within

the specific scope of Murakami's own work, the p reference for heterogeneous composites and adm ixtures is borne out by the coexistence of motifs drawn not only from manga and anime but a l so from tradit ional Japanese paint i ng and pr intmaking , as wel l as myriad Western forms popularized by globa l izat io n , inc luding Ho l lywood featu res . Therefo re , while SuperHat has developed pr imari ly wi th i n the context of Japa nese cul ture , its resonance carries cross-cu l­tu ral implications .

At the same t ime , SuperHat mi rrors the concerns of the o taku3 subcul ture as a fandom phenomenon associated with anime, manga and video game lovers (among other related cat­

egories of obsess ional consumers whose passion verges on fet ishist ic addict ion) that a re h is­tor ica l ly defined by an ambiguous and occas ional l y s t ra ined pos i t io n i n g at the point of

intersection of localized tradit ional i sm and mult i nationally driven modern ization . The emo­

tional ordeals dramatized by p roductions such as the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV show and movies - works frequently c i ted as axia l to the fostering of o taku mental i ties by virtue o f their

inward-looking and eminently self- referent ial natu re - is i ndeed closely echoed by the atmos­phere of psychological u nease that pervades SuperHat even as i t seemingly indulges in unbr i­d led "fun . "

Anime-based s tyles have also been in Huencing with i ncreasing frequency and momen­tum the fashion-des ign scene . Murakam i 's co l laborative work with Louis Vu itton i s a case in poi n t . Another apposite example , cited in Factio Magazine, is the creation by j ewel ry designer Tar ina Tarantino of p ieces i nsp i red by "He l lo Kitty, " a character invented and copyrighted by the Japanese company Sanrio i n 1976 . S i nce that date , the icon of the whi te cat wi th a p ink bow on her head has spawned "more Hel lo Kitty rega l i a than seems possible" (G ibson 2004, p. 144) , featur ing on al l manner of merchandise and establ i sh ing its dist i nct ive logo as a globally known trademark .

An anci l lary factor contribut ing to Western audiences' i ncreas i ng fami l iarization wi th the visual rhetoric o f Japanese an imation through mediatic synergy cons ists of the in fi l tra­t ion of the video ga me i ndust ry by d i s t i nctive a n i me styles . The in fluence of an ident ifiably

180 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

Japanese graph ic style on this sector is eloquently demonstrated by C hris Kohler in Power­

Up: How Japanese Video Games Galle the World an Extra Life, the first among the ris i ng n u m ­b e r of cr itical volumes devoted t o the study of digital gaming t o have drawn attention t o the

East as the cradle of the form. Kohler's central argu ment is that Japanese v ideo game des ign­ers have steadily been develop ing a visual discou rse endowed with global appeal p recisely on the bas i s of a cul tu rally specific design phi losophy that str ikes i ts roots both i n tradi t ional art and in the media of manga and an ime . As the cr i t ic expla ins , many of Japan's game develop­ers benefit from a train ing undertaken in the context of art and design col leges - and not

pr incipal ly i n the fields of coding and p rogramming a s tended to be the case with the i r early Western counterparts . Moreover , many would have started our as manga i l lustrators and anime artists , and hence been in a posit ion to imbue their games with evocative storyl i nes and feel i ngs by recourse to techniques acqu ired in those original capaci t ies .

H istorical ly, the an ime-video game synergy has been deeply affected by com mercial imperat ives . Although the earl iest games in Japan had often regarded anime as a super io r parental source of graphic insp i ration , there came a point when the i r status changed fro m

that of fi l ia l by-products t o that of autonomous market forces . A s Clements and McCarthy

note ,

The large unit costs of games means that a successful gaming company has much higher budgets [dun ani me] to play with. By the late 1990s, with anime budgets squeezed ever tighter, many of the talems who might have previously worked in "IV animation instead migrated to the higher returns of computing . . . . Those anime that flourished on television often did so with the heavy backing of gaming concerns . . . . Their emphasis is often based O I l the collecting of cards, toys, or other cheaply mass-produced items thar call be marketed to young consumers during the commercial breaks [Clcmems and McCarthy, p. 218].

Jodi Heard effectively h igh l ighted an ime's impact on the gaming i ndustry in a report

assess ing the d i s t inctive aesthetics of E3 Expo ( i . e . Electron ic Entertai nment Expo) i n 2003 . (E3 is an event regularly hosted by the L .A . Convent ion Center . ) " For someone who has never been to the mother of a l l gaming convent ions ," Heard exp la ins , "Wanderi ng a ro u n d

the thunder a n d l igh t show of E 3 , images from m i l l ions of games, released o r y e t to be

released, a re everywhere . . . after a moment . . . you s ta r t to no t ice someth i n g ; a fam i l i a r b a t of eyelash here , a wave o f a h a n d there , a character design t h a t resembles someone yo u know . . . . Everywhere you go there are the haunt ing w isps of an ime . " What i s u l t imately

most intr igu ing about th is fus ion of anime and v ideo games i s i ts ab i l i ty to extend wel l

beyond the scope of Japan and its part icular graphic conventions to affect the gami n g indus­try i n i ts ent i rety : " I t seems the an ime influence is v i s ibly everywhere , bu r i t i s no surp rise that this happens . Most of the best and most popular companies that put our t i t les a re fro m Japan where such design t rends are al most inherent . B u r what i s sur p ri s i ng i s [ that ] the impact of the an ime genre is now intruding on the des igns i n non-Ja panese companies" (Heard) .

The market for games d i rectly inspired by popular anime rel eases (and by the manga on which these are in turn often based) is rapidly expanding. As Kev in Gifford has noted, " I t's a s imple formula over in Japan - if a manga publ ished in Shounen Jump hits i t big and gets i ts own long-running TV show, then Bandai or Sony or someone wi l l - repea t , will- make it into a 3D one-on-one fighter game" (G i fford, p. 1 37) . (Shounen }u mp is one of the longest­running manga compi lat ions pub l ished on a weekly basis in Japan , with monthly edi t ions released i n North America and Europe . ) At t imes , the game in question merely p rovides an

Eleven � Anime Synergy 1 8 1

ensemble o f characters from the parent series and a set of contexts for them t o fight wi th in . I ncreas ingly, however , the standard formula is be ing reinvented, a l lowing games to commu­nicate narrative and aesthetic values of their own rather than blandly repet i tive emulat ions of their an imated o r comic-book antecedents . A case i n point i s the game p roduced by Bandai for PlayStation 2 , released i n the summer of 2006, that takes as i ts source of insp i rat ion one of the most widely acclaimed an ime program of a l l t imes , namely Naruto (dir . H ayato Date , 2002-2006) , a n d the manga b y Masah i Kish imoto on which the show is based . T h e game , titled Naruto: Ultimate Ninja, bears witness to i ts creators' imaginative approach to the medium by transcending the aesthetics of the arcade-style fighter modal i ty and i n fus ing each sett ing with a dist inct ive atmosphere through the s imulation by digital means of comic-book graph ic conventions - including the rendit ion , by recourse to special shad ing tools , of visuals that appear to have been executed in penci l .

While an ime series spawn countless games , a growing number of successfu l games are being translated into an imated program. A striking example is offered by Kishin Hoko Demon­bane, another PlayStation 2 package so staggeringly mult i layered and open-ended as to appear to defy adaptation to the screen . Nevertheless , as noted i n the "Newtype Express" p ress release

on the subject publ ished in June 2006, di rector Sho ichi Masuo has met the chal lenge wi th

commendable ap lomb, b ringing forth "a world where magic and technology have developed side by side" ("Newtype Express Press Release : Kishin Hoko Demonbane," p. 1 1) . ( I t could be suggested, i ncidental ly, that few phrases could describe more fel ic i to usly the rea lm of an ime in i ts enti rety. ) Furthermore , Kishin Hoko Demonbane (which started a i r ing i n Japan i n the summer o( 2006) has p rovided the raw material for wide-ranging synerget ic exper iments cur­rently expected to b ir th a large mult imedia franchise t i t l ed Demonbane 7.

One of the most sensational instances of ani me-video game synergy is undoubtedly to

be fou nd in the . hack game series . Launched by Bandai i n 2002 , the or ig inal game itself p iv­

ots on a ro le-p laying s imulat ion of a vast onl ine mult ip layer environ ment called "The World" and has become t remendously popular in both Japan and America , sel l i ng no less than l . 7 mi l l ion cop ies . More importantly, the . hack games have generated o n e o f t h e most ambit ious mult i media p rojects ever conceived, giv ing rise to an ime, manga and novel t ie- in s . I t should be stressed, i n th is respect , that the popular i ty enjoyed by the . hack games hardly comes as a surp rise when one takes i nto consideration the r ichness o f the i r storyl ines and methods of characterizat ion . The latest i nstal lments i n the franchise a re the three-vo lume PlayStation 2 game series . hackIIG. U. (2006) and its an ime sp in-off . hackllRoots (d i r . Ko ich i M ash imo ,

2006) . As w i th the parent game so w i th Mashimo's show, the p roduct's pr inc ipal s t rength l ies

with i ts creators' honest com mitment to artist ic values that outweigh purely commercial asp i ­

rations . Th i s i s attested to by the story's emphasis on the characters' fee l ings and percept ions of thei r surroundings, the i r evolving personal i t ies and psychological con fl icts . As a resul t , the action never degenerates i nto a cycle of mindlessly enacted battles - though the v io lence i s unquestionably there - but succeeds i n fathoming quieter and aesthetical ly more tantal iz ing aspects o f the visual experience (real or v i rtual as this m ight be) .

I t could therefo re be argued that the col lusion of an imated fi lms and video games is a

two-way process : at one level , Western spectators are becoming more responsive to v ideo games produced by Japanese compan ies thanks to their pr ior exposure to an ime and their related recogn it ion o f certain graph i c conventions ; at another level , game p layers al ready accustomed to Japan's rep resentat iona l p references by the lud ic exper ience are becoming more

1 8 2 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

open to an ime itself. Jack Niida , marketing coordinator for the Japanese v ideo game p rod uc­tion company Nippon I ch i , has useful ly commented on this Janus-headed phenomenon . Expla in ing , specifical ly, the reasons underlying Nippon Ich i 's decis ion to move to the U . S . i n 200 5 , he stated : "We thought i t was the right t iming , because the American market seemed to be gett ing more accustomed to Japanese ani me-style artwork . . . and our t i t les are a l l p retty much anime- influenced . . . . The anime crowd is p retty hardcore , so we thought i t was a good match , and i t turned out to be . " Asked to elucidate to what he would attr ibute the expand­ing recept iveness to Japanese styles among Western spectators , Ni ida added : "I th ink i t's because of the growing anime influence, Americans are becoming more accustomed to it . . . back in the o l d days you had Japanese t i t les with an ime-related characters b u t they changed the art style to su i t the Western taste , but . . . nowadays they can j ust br ing the or ig inal art­work over , wh ich is great for people l ike us" (Ni ida) .

I t is also worth point ing out , in this context , that developments i n the v ideo game i ndus­try across the global spectrum provide persuasive evidence for the gradual ascent of video gam es to the stature of fine ar t , whereby one more form of cultura l synergy is p romoted . Video game designers and animators are i ncreas ingly coming to be recognized as artists capable of creat­

ing stunn ing visual art ifacts of h ighly refined technical and aesthetic cal iber and autonomous valu e . (This evolut ion intr igu ingly echoes ani me's own incremental emp lacement w i th in numerous cultures a s a valid a r t form.) Janet Hetherington has commented thu s on the growth of v ideo game art : "Art can be defined as the production , express ion or rea lm of what is beau­t ifu l . I t can also be described as obj ects subject to aesthetic criteri a . Today, some of the most recent additions to the world of art are coming from an unexpected source - videogames . Artist Andy Warhol [ 1930�19871 first took everyday thi ngs and raised them to a new level of artis­t ic awareness in the 1960s . . . . Today's artists are again looking to pop culture for inspirat ion , and videogames are providing that inspi ration . "

The trend described b y Hetherington could also b e t raced back t o the work o f Marcel Duchamp ( I 8 87�1968) , and specifically to the t ranspos i t ion of a "readymade , " or "found object" (objet trouvej from the realm of the mundane to that of so-called h igh ar t . The video game is indeed an obj ect that is generally valued in purely ut i l i tar ian terms for its enterta in­ment value , yet can acqui re novel status and meaning by be ing recontextual ized and redes ig­nated with in the art wor ld . Relatedly, video games are beginning to penetrate the erstwhi le h ighbrow (and often rather b iased) bastions of the museological empi re by means of exh ib i­

t ions that "offer the publ ic to see the work and talent that goes into creat ing the v ideogames

they enjoy" (Hetherington) . To corroborate her p roposi tion , Hetherington c ites Lorne Lann ing , p resident and cre­

ative d i rector at Oddworld I nhabitants: " Each year the game industry continues to attract i ncredible art ist ic talent from around the globe . Yet much of the work created by these art ists goes into the preproduction process and is rarely seen in its or iginal fo rm by the art-loving publ ic . " The annual exh ibit ion " Into the P ixel , " inaugurated i n 2003 , deserves special atten­tion in this regard . Lanning describes the event as "an excit ing opportun i ty. I t al lows the artis­tic works to be seen and j udged by the artist ic merits of the creators and not by the commercia l success that is a l l too often m istaken for qual i ty i n our mass-market medium" (quoted i n Het­heri ngton) . Mult ip le and interlocking levels of synergy can be detected wi th in the p rocesses del ineated above : anime feeds video games and is i n turn fed by them , as both forms gain popular i ty by mutual ly susta in ing each other and mapping their stylistic traits onto each

Eiellen -- Anime Synergy 1 83

other ; at the same t ime , an ime's increas ing access to the domai n of art m i rrors, and is m i r­rored by, the elevat ion o f v ideo games to art ist ic status.

Vlad imi r Cole's remarks on the subject are part icularly worthy of considerat ion :

The Associated Press writes, "The popularity of anime, that u niquely Japanese form of animation, can be traced directly to the growth of video games, especially the Final fantasy series and other role-playing epics like Dragon P;'0rrior. " The relationship between the two med ia is more complicated than that . First of all, anime has been around for nearly 1 0 0 years, so it's far more likely that anime has had greater influence on games than the other way around. Second, the relationship is more symbiotic than the article implies. Fans of the two entertainment forms tend to appreciate many of the same techniques, plor devices, and tropes. It's difficlllt to imagine either form of entertain ment evolving to the state that each is in today without the other. Anime is constantly referencing video games and games anime [Cole].

As suggested earl ier with reference to the show "My Real i ty" and to the Superflat move­

ment , an ime i tself has gradually been ga in ing access to the exh ib i t ion empire over the past few years . Writ ing in 2002, David Allen Wade noted that even though an ime had managed to penetrate "the rea l m of F ine Art" via the Superflat movement , there was "yet to be any s ignificant worldwide movement in the gal lery system to exh ib i t actual Japanese an imation as a formal work of art , " attribut ing this fai lure to "the rel uctance of the F ine Art world to accept t ime-based media as formal work, as wel l as its rel uctance to accept work that refer­

ences popular cu lture . " However , the crit ic opt imist ically concluded that i t seemed "only a matter of t ime unt i l the acceptance of an ime, and animation in general , " would become "evi­dent with in the gal le ries" (Wade) . Just two years later , Wade's p rognostication would come true in a posi tively spectacular fash ion with the "Miyazaki/Moebius Exh ibi t ion" held at the p restigious and t ime-honored La Monnaie de Par is from 1 December 2004 to 13 March 2 00 5 . This meticulously curated exh ibit ion - a n immensely reward ing experience for seasoned fans and casual vis i to rs al ike - prov ided a comparat ive reflect ion on the pro l ific careers of H ayao Miyazaki and of the French art ist and film des igner Moebius ( Jean G i raud) , by means o f

approximately 300 works inc luding watercolors , storyboards, cels and concept designs bor­rowed from the two masters' personal collections .

The exh ib i t ion , compris ing a total of five sections, sought to d raw attention to shared themes and concerns un it ing Moebius's and Miyazaki's careers . The two art ists' envi ron men­ta l p reoccupations were the focus of the section devoted to "The Nourish ing Earth , " a cele­brat ion o f the planet's p rodigious biodivers ity. The room ti tled "In the Air" concentrated on their common fascinat ion wi th the sky in its mult ifarious mani festat ions , whi le " I nvis ible Worlds" addressed the i r t rea tment of mytho logy, myst ic ism , an imist ic bel iefs and the realm

of the unfathomed . The section devoted to "Creatu res" foregrounded M iyazaki's and Moe­bius's proverbial fascinat ion with hybrids, resu l t ing in a bold intermingl ing of human and bestial characterist ics and engagi ngly biza rre menageries . "Study," the final portion of the show, was devoted to a meticulous documentation of the ent i re creative p rocess, exh ib i t ing a fi lmic work's incremental evolution from the sketch ing stage to the p roduction of eels and frames, and hence al lowing the vis i tor to savor the two artists' staunch commitment to ongo­ing se lf-development .

The exh ib i tion did not on ly rep resent a momentous event i n the h istory of an ime ­though it can hardly be den ied that it made a s ignificant contr ibut ion to the d isseminat ion of Miyazaki's and Studio G h ibl i 's fame outside Japan - but a l so a h istor ic moment i n the h is­tory of an imation at la rge . I t i ndeed encour aged an appreci a tion of the ar t i s t ic stature of the form , and hence of the legit imacy of its presence within the ivory tower of fine ar t . The host-

184 ANIME INTERSECTIONS

ing of the event i n one of the most superbly palatial Paris ian edifices overlooki ng the Se ine could be regarded as tel l ing confirmation of the curators' des i re to prompt recognit ion o f the exhib i ts' art ist ic value . At the same t ime , the exhib i tion const ituted an insp i r ing i nv i tat ion to recogn ize the existence of potential ly fruitful connect ions between anime and other sectors of both the fi lm and the fine-art worlds .

Two further cases of an ime-fine art synergy deserve notice : those of the Japanese art ist Nobuyuki Ohnish i and of the LA-based art ist Lore Eckelberry. As Kenneth Cho exp la ins in a "press session" with Ohnishi held i n the course of Anime Expo '99, a lthough "to anime fans ,

both i n Japan and America, h i s works have become as much a cult favorite as the movie that

showcased them , Wings of Honneamise ( 19 87) , " he " is not you r typ ical anime artist" (Cho) . Ohnishi h imself ful ly corroborates Cho's point , stat ing that "everyone i n Japan doesn't th ink of 'Ohnishi ' as an anime art ist but on ly as a fine art ist . My work is shown i n art gal leries and museums . Even anime fans s t i l l th ink of me as a fine artist . " This does not enta i l that Ohn ish i looks down on an ime a s " low culture . " I n fact , i n the same p ress release , he clearly states that he i ntends to work aga in with Hi royuki Yamaga, Honneamise's epoch-making wri ter and

director. Equipped with an encyclopedic background that encompasses both tradit ional Japa­

nese forms and Western styles, and trained in a considerable variety of media ( inc luding hand­drawing , o i l paint ing , watercolor painting , l i thography, i l lustration and photography) , Ohnishi int imates that art cannot be defined purely on the bas is of genre - and that anime, accord­ingly, cannot be un iformly categorized as either popular entertainment o r fine a r t . What truly matters is whether "a good script and good director and a good story is invo lved" (quoted i n Cho) .

As to what Ohn ish i's rep utation tells us about an ime's cul tural stand ing , at least two

i nterpretations are viable . On the one hand, it could be surmised that Ohni sh i i s p r imarily

recognized (and indeed perceives h imself) as a fine art is t , wi th an ime as someth ing of a sec­

ondary aspect of his format ive background, due to an inc l inat ion to p rior i t ize a person's accompl i shments in a h igh-culture mediu m over and above h i s or her explo i ts in the context of com mercial enterta in ment . On the o ther hand, and more fel ic i to usly for an ime , i t cou ld be argued that Ohnish i's case shows that art ists who deal , o r have deal t , w i th an ime a re no t automatically compartmental ized a s creators of purely marketable m a terial , for they may real­istically asp i re to fu l l access to the echelons of fine art .

Eckelberry, an esteemed art i s t whose works are exh ib i ted in numerous gal leries on both

s ides of the Atlantic , characteristically articulates a style that is deeply influenced by the aes­

thetics of Fauvism . In keeping with the typical priorit ies of that movement , most eloquently declared by the works of Henri Matisse ( 1869- 1954 ) , Andre Dera i n ( 1 880- 1954 ) and Mau­

r ice de Vlaminck ( 1 876- 195 8) , Eckelberry's own oeuvre evinces an i ntense interest i n the emotive and textural qual i t ies of strong p ure hues, flat patterns and rep resentat ional a nt i re­a l i sm. I t is hardly surpr is ing , in the l i ght of these styl ist ic p rocl ivit ies , that the art ist should have fel t i nst inctively drawn to the graphic and chromatic attributes of an ime and manga, and increasingly integrated i nto her work the quali ties of those med ia . As a p ress release posted on Tokyo Pop nutes, the artis t's " i nspiration for her an i me style pa int ings comes from her n umerous t r ips to Japan and the Orient . She takes the strength of the characters and reinter­prets i t i n a bold ser ies of colors that express her very un ique form of sens i t iv i ty to the car­toon characterization that she loves . " The artist herself has expl ic itly ident ified an ime's affective thrust as the pr incipal cause of her attraction to the form : "I have always loved cartoons . They

Eleven � A nime Synergy 1 8 5

have been a very strong part of my l i fe . . . . Anime characters have helped me to combine the

strong emotion of l i fe and the fantasy of color" ("Lore Eckelberry: a new take on an ime" ) . Most dist i nct ive , among the various aspects of Eckelberry's composite cachet , a re sh immer­ing palettes appl ied to b road canvases, energetic brush strokes and bold l i ne work executed entirely by hand; al l of these elements help her bring out an ime's intr i ns ic energy and eve n , at t imes, ampl i fy i t .

I nt rigui ngly, Eckelberry's work exh ib i ts a further level of synergy, cons i s t ing o f her insp i red amalgamation o f diverse trad i t ional arts . Commenting on the exh ibi t ion he ld a t the

I n fusion Gal lery i n Downtown Los Angeles ( 1-25 September 2006) , eMedia Wire comments :

In the exhibition, Lore Eckelberry's strong anime series of paintings are hanging right next ro her African Masks portraits of ceremonial warriors. These African paintings show Lore Eckelberry's brilliant technique applied to a reinterpretation of traditional face paintings used in African ceremonies. The link between these two worlds of African and Japanese cultures is Lore Eckelberry's masterful use of color and line. This exhibition is a wonderful way to see how an artist can bring two completely different worlds into one unique inrerpretation of art ["Amazing Exhibition of Anime and African Masks Painrings by Lore Eckelberry" ] .

Th us, at the same t ime as i t art iculates a vast array of a l ternate real i t i es , crucial ly energizing an imation's knack of manufactur ing speculative world p ictures, an ime's dream factory s i mul­

taneously ushers i n fresh horizons for cultural cross-pol l inat ion and media convergence. Inves­

t igat ing the causes for which an ime's popular ity has soared in the West - a worthy obj ect of study for many scholars to come - is important , therefore, as a means of explor ing not only a regional occurrence but also b road epistemic sh ifts and adj ustments . As Yosh ih iko Ari izumi ma intains , "The most i nterest ing port ion of this research i s attempt ing to find out . . . how an ime has become an increas ingly larger part of American pop cu l ture . . . . I th i nk i t's not only

important for those i nterested i n anime, but a lso for those interested i n pop cul ture i n both Japan and America and how they have shared and taken from each other" (quoted i n Lafayette

Academic News) .

Anime's i ncreas ingly sol id p resence in the academic domain is attested to by the r i s ing number of un ivers i t ies and col leges offering classes that focus expl ic i tly on Japanese an ima­tion and manga . Many of these , importantly, are located outside Japan . Some notable exam­p l es of ins ti tu tions and programs of th i s k ind include :

• Massachusetts I nst i tute of Technology ( Japanese An imation : St i l l P ictures , Mov ing

Minds) • Univers i ty of Texas, Aust in (The Wor ld of Japanese An imat io n : Aesthet ics , Com-

merce , Cultu re) • Portland State Univers i ty ( Japanese Animation and Manga) • Univers i ty of Arizona (Crit ical Issues in Japanese Ani mation) • UCLA Extension - Un ivers i ty of Cal iforn ia , Los Angeles (Enterta inment Goes " Pop" :

The Future of Manga and Anime from the Japanese Po int-of-View) • Univers i ty of Melbourne (Zen and Manga : The Art of Japan) • Univers i ty of Michigan (An i me)

• Univers i ty of Rochester ( Japanese Ani mation [An ime] ) • Vanderbi l t Univers i ty (Explorat ions of Japanese Animation) • Washi ngton Un ivers i ty - St . Louis ( I ntroduction to Japanese Pop Cultu re : Animated

Movies) • Cal i forn i a State Un iversity, Monterey Bay (Currents in Japanese Popu la r Cul ture)

186 AN IME \ ]\;TERSECTIONS

• Univers i ty of O regon (Tokyo Cyberpunk) • State Univers i ty of New York - Buffalo (Sexual Difference : M aj o r Debates I n

"Difference Femin ism") • Univers i ty of Texas, Dal las (Reading and Writ ing Texts : Natura l Wonders)4

A sustained academ ic exploration of anime - in the guise of monographs devoted to par­t icular di rectors o r studios or in that of panoramic surveys of styl is t i c , thematic and techn i ­ca l t rends - could hence u l t imately assert itself a s a l en s through which mul t i -branchi n g discurs ive phenomena may be addressed and, hopeful ly, understood. I t would, however , be qu i te absurd for any writer in the field to lay claims to the study of anime as a scholarly pur­su i t in the conventional sense of the phrase . In fact , as Madel ine Ashby stresses , "Anime scho l­arsh ip , l i ke an i me fandom i tself, is bei ng bui l t up by fans within an exis t ing subgroup : i n this case , academics . " Hence, anime scholars should not be monol i th ical ly regarded as theorists for they are also - no less consequentially - fans . A good example of the i ntersection o f schol­

arsh ip and fandom over anime's ferti le land, quoted by Ashby in the same art ic le , is the I nter­national Conference on As ian Comics , Animation and Gaming held at the York Center for Asian Research at York Un ivers i ty (Toronto , Ontario) in May 2006: "ACAG was a p lace for fans and theor ists from a l l over the world to share ideas on their favorite art forms" (Ashby, p. 12) .

Looking at an ime's evo lu t i on , one soon rea l izes that the mot iva t ing force cou rs i n g thro ughout t h e endeavor of several generat ions of p ract i t ioners i s a pass ionate desire t o s tretch the houndaries of what an imation can express , and of the tools and techn iques enabl ing such expression . Fo r almost an enti re centu ry, pioneers i n the medium have studiously i nspected conventional , experimental and developing facets of animatio n , seeking to identify what was st i l l miss ing from their purview and, accordingly, to fi l l in the gap. From Ki tayama to Tezuka, from Kawaj i ri to Anno (to name but a handful of acclaimed personal it ies) , anime creators have been p ush ing persistently forward in an unfl inch ing comm i tment to the elaboration of fresh storyl i nes, new styles and alternative media . Anime's leading thread, in this respect , is a celebration of cont inu ing exploration - a process that is never meant to lead to conclus ive plateaus upon which either the pencil or the mouse may complacently rest but rather to deliver unpredictable synergies and tantal iz ing opportun ities for further exp lorat ion .

Filmography

Animated Works Examined (Case Studies and Ancillary Titles)

Appleseed (2004 ) . O rigi nal Ti tl e : Appllrushiido. Status : Animated Feature F i l m . D i recto r : Sh inj i Aramaki . O r ig i nal S tory : Masamune Sh i row. Screenp l ay : H aruka H anda , Tsutomu Kam ish i ro . Producers : H idenori Ueki , Naoko Watanabe , Fumih iko Sor i . Execut ive Pro­ducer : Sumij i Miyake . Production Companies: Digi tal Frontier , Geneon Ent e rta inment (USA) I nc . Mus i c : Tetsuya Takahash i . O rigi nal Music Compos i t ion : Paul Oakenfold , Ryu i ch i S akamoto , T. Raumschmiere . Length : 1 0 7 m i nutes . Visual Effects Designe r : Yuusaku Toyosh ima . An imation D i recto r : Yasush i Kawamura . Art D i recto r : Takesh i Ando . Character Des i gner : Masaki Yamada . CG I D i rector : Yasuh i ro O tsuka . Motion Capture Technical D i recto r : Kouki Koshi t a . Mechan i­ca l Designers : Takesh i Takakura , Atsushi Takeuch i . Sound Di recto r : Yota Tsuru oka .

"Cannon Fodder" ( 1994) . S tatus : Animated Segment i n Memories (omnibus d i rected by Kat­suh i ro Otomo, Konj i Morimoto and Tensai Okamura) . Original Tide : Ml'moriizu. Segment Di rec­tor : Otomo . Screenplay : Otomo . Produce r : Sh igeru Watanabe . Product ion Company : Studio 4°C. Mus i c : H i royuki Nagash ima . Length : 22 mi nutes . Or ig i nal Character Des igne r : Otomo . Char­acter Des igne r : H idekazu Ohara . Art Des igners : Junko I n a , Oromo , Kazu ko Fuj i i , Masanor i Kikuch i , M i noru Nish ida , Tsutomu Watanabe , Yam ako Ish i kawa . Ch ief Animato r : Ohara . Color Designe r : Terum i Nakauchi .

Final Fan tasy: The Spirits Within (200 1 ) . Origi nal Tit l e : Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Status : Animated Featu re F i l m . D i recto r : H i ronobu Sakaguchi . Co-d i rector : Motonori Sakakibara . Orig ina l Story : Sakaguch i . Screenplay: Al Reiner t , Jeff Vi n ta r , Jack F le tcher . Producers : Jun Aida, Chris Lee , Akio Saka i . Execut ive Prod ucer : S akaguch i . Product ion Com pany : S quare Studios . Music : El l iot Goldenthal , Ken Ki tamura , Hideto Takarai . Length : lOG m i nutes . D i rector of Pho­tography : Sakakibara . Animat ion Di recto r : Andy Jones . Senior Layou t Art ist : Kev in Bjo rke . Ch ar­acter Designe r : Shuko Murase . Creature Designer : Yasushi N i rasawa . Mechan ical Designe r : Sh inj i Aramaki . Mot ion Capture D i rectors : Rem i ngton Scott , Bradley G . Bate , Jack F le tcher . Mot ion Capture Set Designe r : Ron Perry. Visua l Effects Art D i recto r : Takah iko Akiyama . Sound Di rec­tor : Randy Thom.

Ghost i n the Shell 2: Innocence (2004 ) . Original Tide : Koukaku Kidoutai 2: [nosensu. Status : Animated Feature F i lm . Di rector : Mamoru Oshi i . Origi nal Story: Masamune Shirow. Screenplay :

1 87

1 8 8 FILMOGRAPI IY

Oshi i . Produce r : Mi tsuhisa I sh ikawa. Executive Produce r : Toshio Suzuki . Product ion Companies : Production I . G . , Studio Ghibl i . Music : Kenj i Kawai . Length : 99 m i nute s . Animat ion D i rectors : Toshih iko Nishikubo, Naoko Kusumi . Art Di recto r : Shuichi H irata . Character Designer : H i royuki Okiura . D igital Animation D i rector : Fli royuki Hayashi . CGI Art D i rector : Toru Sh inozaki . Visual Effects Superv isor : H isashi Ezura . Special Effects Superviso r : H i royuki H ayashi . Mach ine and Vehicle Designer : Atsushi Takeuch i . Sound Di rector : Randy Thom. Color Designer : Kumiko Yusa .

Howl's Moving Castle (2004) . Origi nal Ti t le : HaurIl no Ugoku Shiro . Status : An im ated Fea­ture F i lm . D i rector : H ayao M iyazaki . Original Story : Diana Wynne Jones . Screenp lay : Miyazaki . Producer: Toshio Suzuki . Executive Produce r : Yasuyoshi Tokum a . Product ion Company : Studio Ghibl i . Mus i c : Joe H isaish i . Length : 1 19 m i nutes . Animat ion D i recto r : Katsuya Kondou . Art D i rectors: Yozi Takeshige , Noboru Yoshida . Character Designers : Akih iko Yamashi ta , Takeshi I na­mura . D igi tal Animat ion D i recto r : Mi tsunori Kataama . H armony Treatment : Nor iko Takaya . Sound Di recto r : Kazuh i ro Hayashi . Color Designer : Michiyo Yasuda .

"Magnetic Rose" ( 1 994) . Status : Ani mated Segment i n Memories (omnibus d i rected by Kat­suhiro Otomo, Kouj i Morimoto and Tensai Okamura) . Original Title : Memoriizu. Segment D i rec­tor : Morimoto . Screenplay : Satoshi Kon . Produce r : Sh igeru Watanabe . Product ion Company : Studio 4°C. Music : Yoko Kanno . Length : 44 minutes . Character Designers : H i royuki Okiura , Toshiyuki Inoue . Art D i rector : Kon . Art Designer : Takashi Watabe . Chief Animato r : Okiura . Lay­our Designe r : Kon .

Metropolis (200 1 ) . Or igi nal Ti tl e : Metoroporisu . Status : An i mated Feature F i l m . D i rect o r : Rintaro . Or iginal Story : Osamu Tezuka . Screenplay : Katsuh i ro O tomo . Producers : H aruyo Kane­saku , Yuraka Maseba . Executive Producers : Akih iko Teraj ima , Fumio Nagase , I -l isanori H i ranuma, Ken Munekata , Ryohei Tsunoda, Tadamichi Abe , Takayuki Matsut a n i , Toru Shiobara . Produc­t ion Companies : Madhouse Studios , Satel igh t . Music : Tosh iyuki Honda . Lengt h : 107 m i n u tes . Animation D i recto r : Yasuhiro Nakura. Art D i rector : Shuichi H i rata . Character Designe r : Yasuh i ro Nakura . CGI Superviso r : Tsuneo Maeda . Character Mechanics : Se ij i Tanda . Sound D i recto r : Masafumi M i m a . Color Designer : Shu ich i H i rata .

Millen nium Actress (200 1 ) . Or igi nal Ti tle : Sennen JOJlI. Status : An imated Featu re F i l m . D i rector : Satosh i Kon . O rig ina l S tory : Kon . Screenplay : S adayuki Mur a i , Ko n . Produce r : Taro Maki . Production Company : Madhouse Studios . Mus ic : Susumu Hi rasawa . Length : 8 7 m in­utes . Ani m at ion D i rector : Takeshi Honda . Ar t Directo r : Nobutaka Ike . Character Designers : Kon , Takeshi Honda . Sound D i rector : Masafumi Mima . Color Designer : Kazunor i Hash imoto .

Neon Genesis Evangeliol1 ( 1995- 1996) . Original Ti tle : Shinseiki Evangelion . Status : Animated Televis ion Series (26 episodes) . Chief Di rector : H ideaki Anno . Episode D i rectors : Kazuya Tsuru­maki (ep i s . 1 , 2 ) ; H i royuki I sh ido (ep i s . 3 , 10 , 1 2 ) ; Ke i i ch i Sug iyama (ep i . 5 ) ; S e i j i M izush i m a (ep i . 9 ) ; Tsuyoshi Kaga (ep i s . 4 , 1 0 ) ; Te tsuya Watanabe ( ep i . 1 1 ) ; Tensai Okamu ra ( ep i . 1 3 ) ; Masah iko O tsuka (ep i s . 1 3 , 1 4 ) ; Ken Ando ( ep i . 1 4 ) ; Naoyasu H abu (epi . 1 5 ) ; Akira Taka mura (ep i . 22) ; Shoichi Masuo (ep i . 23) . O rig ina l Story : Ann o . Screenplay : Anno , Akio Satsukawa, Mitsuo Iso , Sh inj i H iguch i , Yoj i Enokido , Yoj i E n o t o . Pro­ducers : Nor i ko Kobayash i , Yutaka Sugiyam a . Prod uct ion Compa n i e s : S t u d i o G a i n ax , Production I . G , Studio Ghib l i (ep i . 1 1 ) . Mus ic : H idetoshi Sato et al. O riginal Mus ic Compos i­t ion : Ludwig Von Beethoven ("Symphony No. 9 - Ode to Joy") . Episode Length : 2 5 m inu tes . An i mat ion D i rectors : Kazuya Kise , Nobuh i ro Hoso i , Satosh i Sh igeta , S h i nya H asegawa , Tosh io Kawaguch i , Yuh Honda . Art D i recto r : H i rosh i Kato . Character Des igne r : Yoshiyuki Sadamoto . Special Effects Supervisor : Noriyuki Ohta . Mechanical Designers : Anno , I kuto Yamashi t a . Sound Effects : Toru Noguch i . Color Check : H aru m i Takahoshi .

Neon Genesis Evangelion : Death & Rebirth ( 1997) . Original Titl e : Shinseiki Evangelion Gekijo­ban: Shito shinsei. Status: Animated Feature F i lm . Di recto rs: H ideaki Anno , Masayuki (Death) , Kazuya Tsurumaki (Rebirth) . Origi nal Story: Akio Satsukawa , Anno. Screenplay : Anno . Producer :

Filmography 1 89

M i tsuhisa I sh ikawa . Product ion Compan ies : S tudio Ga inax , M OVI C , Product ion I . G , Sega , Starchi ld Records, Toe i Animat ion . Mus i c : Sh i ro Sagisu . Lengt h : 1 39 m in utes . Design D i rectors : Anno , Masayuki , Yosh iyuki Sadamoto. Art Di rector : H i roshi Kato . Characte r Designer : Sadamoto . 20 Digital Work : Yasuh i ro Kamimura . 3 D Animat ion : Kaoru Matsumoto . Special Effects Super­v iso r : Nor iyuki Ohta . Mechan ical Des igners : Ann o , I kuto Yam ash i t a . Sound D i recto r : Hideyuki Tanaka .

Neon Genesis Evangelion : End of Evangelion ("Ai r" / "My Purest Heart for You") ( 1997) . Original Ti rl e : Shinseiki Evangelion, Gekijo-ban: "Ai r"/ "Magokoro wo , k im i n i . " Status : Animated Feature F i lm . D i recto r : H ideaki Anno . Or igi nal Srory : Anno . Screenplay : Ann o . Produce r : M i t­suhisa Ish ikawa . Product ion Companies : Production I . G , Ale, A nime Spo t , Asi a-Do , B ig Bang , Studio Gainax , Oh Product ion , Omnibus Japan , Studio Cosmos et al. Music : Anno et al. O rigi­nal Mus ic Compos i t ion : Johann Sebast ian Bach ( "Air on G " and "Jesus b l i eb t Meine Freude" ) . Length : 97 minutes . Art D i rector : H i rosh i Kato . Character Designe r : Yosh iyuki Sadamoto . D ig­ital Animation D i recto r : Isao Sara. Special EfFects Superviso r : Noriyuki Ohta . Mechanical Design­ers : Anno , lkuro Yamash i ta . Sound Di rector : H ideyuki Tanaka .

Ninja Scroll ( 1993 ) . Original Ti tle : jubei Ninpuuchou. Status : Animated Feature F i lm . D i rec­tor : Yoshiak i Kawaj i r i . Or ig ina l Story : Kawaj i ri . S creenplay : Kawaj i r i . Producers : I-hruo Sa i , Masaki Sawanobori , Sh igeaki Komatsu . Executive Producers : Makoto H asegawa, Masamich i Fuj i ­wara, Yutaka Takahash i . Product ion Compan ies : J V C , Madhouse Stud ios , M OVI C , TO H O . Mus ic : Kaoru Wada . Length : 9 4 m inutes . Animation D i recto r : Yutaka M inowa . A r t D i rector : H i romasa Ogur a . Character Designer : Mi nowa . Sound D i rector : Yasunor i Honda .

Paranoia Agent (2004) . Original Ti tle : MOllsoll Dairinin. Status : Ani mated Televis ion Ser ies ( 13 ep isodes) . D i recro r : Saroshi Kon . Original Srory : Satosh i Kon . Screenplay : Seishi M i nakami , Tomom i Yosh ino . Product ion Company : Madhouse Studios . Music : Susumu H i rasawa . Episode Length : 25 m inutes . An i mat ion D i recrors : Akiko Asaki , H ideki Hamasu , H i rosh i H amazaki , H isashi Eguchi , Jun ich i H ayama , Junko Abe , Katsuya Yamada, Kum i ko Kawana, Mamoru Sasak i , Masash i Ando , Mich io M i hara , Mich iyo Suzuki , Saroru Utsunomiya , S h igeo Akahor i , Toshiyuki Inoue , Yosh imi I tatsu . Art D i rectors : Kaoru I noda, Naruyo Ki riyama , Nobutaka I ke , Re i Kawano , S h i n i ch i Uehara . Character Des igner : Masash i Ando . S o u n d D i recto r : Masafumi Mima .

Perfect Blue ( 1997) . Origi nal Titl e : Perfect Blue. Status : Ani m ated Feature F i lm . D i recro r : Saroshi Kon . O rig inal S rory : Yosh i kazu Takeuch i . Screenp lay : S adayuki M u ra i . Producer s : H i roaki I noue , M asao Maruyama , Takesh i Wash i ta n i . Executive Producers : Kosh i ro Kanda , Yuichi Tsurum i . Product ion Company : Madhouse Studios . Mus i c : Masahiro I ku m i . Lengt h : 8 0 minutes . Ani mat ion D i recror : Hi deki H amazu . Art D i recto r : Nohutaka I ke . Character Design­ers : H ideki H amazu , H isashi Eguchi , Kon . Sound Di rector : Masafu m i M i rna .

Program (2003) . O rigi nal Ti t le : Program. Status : Animated Shor t i n The A ll imatrix (OVA di rected by Andy and Larry Wachowski et al. ) . Direcro r : Yoshiaki Kawaj i ri . Or ig inal Srory : Andy and Larry Wachowski . Screenplay : Kawaj i ri . Producers: Masao Maruyama , Yosh i m ichi Murata . Production Compan ies : Madhouse Studios , S i lver P ictures, Vi l lage Roadshow P ictures , Warner B ros . P ictures . Length : 10 m i nutes . Animat ion D i rec tor : Yutaka M inowa . Art D i recro r : Katsushi Aoki . Character Designe r : M inowa .

Serial Experiments Lain ( 19 9 8 ) . Orig inal Ti tl e : Serial Experiments Lain . Status : Animated Tel evis ion Ser ies ( 13 ep isodes) . Chief D i recto r : Ryutaro Nakamura . Screenplay : Ch iaki J . Kon­aka . Original Story : Yasuyuki Ueda . Prod ucers : Shoj i ro Abe , Yasuyuki Ued a . Executive Produc­ers: Aki h i ro Kawamura, Taro Maki . Production Company: Triangle Staff. Musi c : Reiichi Nakaido . Ep isode Length : 3 0 m i n utes . An i m at ion D i rectors : Masa h i ro Sekiguch i , Takah i ro Kish ida , Yasuhide Maruyama , Yosh ih i ro Sugai , Yuich i Tanaka , Yuj i Takahashi . Ar t D i recro r : Masaru Saro . Orig ina l Character Designe r : Takah i ro Kish ida . Character Des igner : Takah i ro Kish ida . CG : ]un-

1 90 F ILMOGRAPHY

sh i Nakahara , Koj i Yamagiwa , Masahiko Takai , Sararu Takahash i . Spec ial Effects : Takash i Maekawa . Sound D i recto r : Yota Tsuruoka .

Steamboy (2004 ) . O rig inal Ti t l e : Suchiimuboui. Status : Animated Feature F i lm . D i recto r : Katsuh i ro O tomo . O r ig i nal S tory : O tomo . Screenp lay : S adayuki Mura i , Otomo . Producers : Kazumi Kawash i ro , S h i nj i Komor i , H ideyuki Tomioka , Shunj i Kom or i . Execut ive Produ ce r : Sh igeru Watanabe . Product ion Compan ies : Srudio 4 ° C , Sunrise . Mus ic : S teve Jablonsky. Lengt h : 106 m inutes ; 126 m i nutes (D i recto r's Cu t) . Animation D i recto r : S h i n j i Takagi . A r t D i recto r : Sh inj i Kimura . C G I D i recto r : H i roaki Ando . Sound Di rector : Ke i ich i Momose .

Tokyo Godfathers (2003) . Or ig inal Ti t le : Tokyo Godfathers. Statu s : Ani m ated Feature F i lm . D i rector : Satosh i Kon . Or igi nal Story : Kon . Screen p l ay : Ke iko Nobumo t o , Kon . Produce r : Masao Maruyama . Executive Producers : Masao Takiyama, Sh in ich i Kobayash i , Taro Maki . Pro­duction Company : Madhouse Studios . Mus ic : Kei ichi Suzu ki . Length : 92 m inutes . Animat ion D i recto r : Kenich i Konish i . Art D i recto r : Nobutaka I ke . Character Designers : Kenichi Konish i , Kon . Sound D i rector : Masafumi Mima . Color Designe r : Kazunori Hash imoto .

Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust (2000) . Original Title : Vampaia hantaa D. Status: Animated Feature Fi lm. Director : Yoshiaki Kawaj i r i . Original Story : H ideyuki Kikuch i . Screenplay : Kawaj i ri . Producers : Masao Maruyama, Mataich i ro Yamamoto . Production Company : Madhouse Studios . Mus ic : Marco D'Ambros io . Length : 102 m inutes . Art Director : Yuj i lkehata . Original Character Designer : Yoshi taka Amano . Character Designer : Yutaka Minowa . Technical Di recto r : Minowa .

Whisper of the Heart ( 199 5 ) . Original Tit le : Mimi wo Sumaseba. Statu s : An imated Featu re F i l m . D i recto r : Yosh ifu m i Kondou . Orig inal Story : Aoi H i i rage . Screenplay and Storyboards : H ayao M iyazak i . Producers : H ayao Miyazaki , Tosh io Suzu ki . Execut ive Produce r : Yasuyosh i Tokuma . Mus ic : Yuj i Nom i . Length : I I I minutes . Ar t Di recto r : Satoshi Kuroda . Sound D i recto r : Shuj i I noue . Color Designer : Mich iyo Yasuda .

Wicked City ( 19 87) . Or ig inal Titl e : Yoju Toshi. Status : Animated Feature F i lm . D i recto r : Yosh iak i Kawaj i r i . Sc ree np lay : Kise i Choo . Producers : Kenj i Kurat a , Makoto Seya . Mus ic : Osamu Shooj i . Production Company : Madhouse Studios . Music : Osamu Shooj i . Length : 8 0 min­utes . Ani m at ion D i rector : Kawaj i r i . Ar t Di recto r : Kamo Oga . Character Designer : Kawaj i r i .

Full List of Cinematic Works Cited

(fu l l details p rovided upon firs t occu rrence only) Bu\(hcase studies

Under l ine=condensed assessments Italics= cursory references

Chapter 1

Appleseed (an i mated feature fi lm ; d i r . Sh inj i Aramaki , 2004) . Cars (an i m ated featu re fi l m ; d i r . John Lasseter , 2006) . Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (animated feature fi l m ; d i rs . H i ronobu Sakaguchi and Motonor i Sakakibara, 2001 ) . Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence ( an imated feature fi lm ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 2004 ) . Howl's Moving Castle ( an i m ated fea ture fi l m ; d i r . Hayao Miyazaki , 2004) . The Matrix t r i logy ( l ive-act ion feature fi lms ; d i r s . Larry and Andy Wachowski , 1999-2003 ) . Metropolis (an imated feature fi lm ; d i r . Rintaro , 2001 ) . Neon Genesis Evangelion (an i­mated TV ser ies and feature fi lms ; d i r s . H ideaki Anno , Masayuki , Kamya TSUfumaki e t aI . , 1 99 5-1997) . Ninja Scroll (an im ated feature fi lm ; d i r . Yoshiak i Kawaj i r i , 1 993 ) . Perfect Blue ( an i ­mated feature fi l m ; d i r . Satosh i Kon , 1997) . Program (OVA short ; d i r . Yoshiaki Kawaj i r i , 2003 ) . Renaissance (an imated feature fi lm ; d i r . Christ ian Volckman , 2006) . A Scanner Darkly {an im a ted

Fdmography 1 9 1

feature fi l m ; d i r . Ri chard L i nk la te r , 2006 ) . Steambo.v ( an i m ated feature fi l m ; d i r . Katsuh i ra Otomo , 2004) . Tim Burton 's The Corpse Bride (an i mated feature fi l m ; d i rs . Ti m Burton and M i ke Johnson , 200 5 ) . lXlallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit ( an imated feature fi l m ; d i rs . Nick Park a n d Steve Box , 200 5 ) .

Chapter 2

The A nimatrix (OVA col lect ion ; d i rs . Larry and Andy Wachowski e t aI . , 2(03) . Batman Begins ( l ive-action feature fi l m ; d i r . Christopher Nol an , 200 5 ) . Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ( l ive-action feature fi lm ; d i r . Ang Lee, 2000) . Ghost ill the Shell (ani mated feature fi l m ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 1 9 9 5 ) . House of nVillg Daggers ( l ive-act ion featu re fi lm ; d i r . Zhang Yi mou , 2004) . jubei­chan the Ninja Girl (an i mated TV ser ies ; d i r . Aki taro Daich i , 1999 ) . jurllssic Park ( l ive-act ion fea­ture fi lm ; d i r . Steven Spi e lberg , 1 993 ) . Kill Bill ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Quent in Tarant ino , 2003) . The Matrix t r i logy. Mission: Impossible ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm; d i r . B r ian DePalma , 1996) . Monty Python and the Holy Grail ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i rs . Terry G i l l iam and Terry Jones , 1975 ) . Ninja Resurrection (OVA series ; d ir . Yasunori Urata , 1997) . Ni nja Scro l l . Ninja Scroll: The Series (an imated TV series ; d i r . Tatsuo Sara, 2003) . Princess fl,10nonoke (an i m ated feature fi lm ; d i r . Hayao Miyazak i , 1997) . Program . The Sting ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . George Roy H i l l , 1 973 ) . Urusei Yatsura (an imated TV ser ies and feature fi lms ; d i rs . Mamoru Osh i i , Kazuo Yamazak i , Satoshi Dezaki and Katsuh isa Yamada, 1 9 8 1- 199 1 ) . Vampire Hunter D (OVA ser ies ; d i r . Toyoo Ash ida , 1 9 8 5 ) . Vampire Hu nter D - Bloodlust (an imated feature fi l m ; d i r . Yoshiak i Kawaj i r i , 2000) . Wicked Ci ty (an imated feature fi l m ; d i r . Yosh iak i Kawaj i r i , 1 987) . You Only Live Twice ( l ive-action feature fi l m ; d i r . Lew is G i lbert , 1967) .

Chapter 3

The Adventures of Baron Mltnchaltsen ( l ive-act ion featu re fi lm ; d i r . Terry G i l l i am , 1 989 ) . Brazil ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Terry G i l l i am, 1 9 8 5 ) . Gaslight ( l ive-act ion fea tu re fi l m ; d i r . Alfred Hi tchcock , 1944) . Key the Metal Idol (OVA ser ies ; dir . r l i raaki Sa LOu , 1994) . Macross Plus - The Movie (an imated feature fi lm ; d i r . Shouj i Kawamor i , 1 994) . "Magnetic Rose" (d i r . Kou j i Mori­moto) . Memories (an i mated col lect io n ; d i rs . Katsuhi ro OLOmo, Kouj i Morimoto and Tensai Oka­mur a , 1994) . M i ll enn ium Act ress (anim ated feature fi l m ; d i r . Satoshi Kon , 2001 ) . Neon Genes i s Evangcl ion -- TV ser ies and feature fi lms . Pa/"tlnoia Agent (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r . Satosh i Kon , 2004) . Perfect B l u e . Perfect Blue: Yilme Nara Samete ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Toshik i Sato , 2002) . Pr incess Mononoke . P�vcho ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Alfred H itchcock , 1960) . Rear Window ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i r . Alfred H i tchcock , 1 9 54) . Rebecca ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Alfred H i tchcock, 1 940) . Ser ial Exper iments Lai n (ani mated TV Ser ies , d i r . Ryuraro Naka­mura, 1 998 ) . Steamboy. Superdimensional Fortress Mtlcross (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r . Noboru Ishig­ura, 1982 ) . Time Bandits ( l i ve-act ion feature fi l m ; dir . Terry G i l l i am , 1 9 8 1 ) . Tokyo Godfathers (animated feature fi l m ; d i r . Satoshi Kon , 2003) . 2001 : A Space Odyssey ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ;

d i r . Stanley Kubrick , 1%8) .

Chapter 4

Blood: The Lmt Vampire (an imated feature fi lm ; d i r . H i royuki K itakubo , 2000) . Duck Amuck (animated short ; d i r . Chuck Jones, 1 9 5 3 ) . Ghost in the Shell. Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (an i­mated TV seri es ; d i r s . H i deaki Anno et a\ . , 1990) . Neon Genesis Evange l i on : TV Ser ies ; Death and Reb ir th ; The End of Evangel i o n . Ptlt/abor 2: The Movie (an imated feature fi l m ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 1993) . The Wings ofIIonnetlmise (an im ated feature fi l m ; d i r . H i royuki Yam aga , 1 9 8 7) .

1 92 F I LMOGRAPI IY

Chapter 5

AI ( l ive-action feature film ; d i r . Steven Spielberg , 2001) . Akira (animated feature fi l m ; d i r . Kat­suhiro Otomo, 1 988 ) . Algol ( l ive-action feature film ; d i r . Hans Werckmeister , 1920) . Astro Boy (ani­mated TV series ; d ir . Osamu TeZllka, 1963- 1966) . Batman ( l ive-action feature film; d ir . Tim Burton , 1989 ) . Blade Runner ( l ive-action feature fi lm ; dir . Ridley Scott , 1982) . The Cabinet o/Doctor Caligari ( l ive-action feature fi lm; d i r . Robert Wiene, 1920) . Cowboy Bebop (an imated TV series ; d i r . Sh in ichiro Watanabe , 1998) . Doctor Zhivago (l ive-act ion feature fi lm; dir . David Lean , 1 965 ) . Jungle Emperor Leo (an imated TV series ; d ir . Osamu TeZllka , 1966) . Metropol is ( l ive-action feature fi lm ; d i r . Fri tz Lang , 1926) . Metro p o l i s (2001 ) . Pat/abor 1: The Mobile Police (animated feature film ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 1989) . Pokemon (animated TV Series, dir . Masamitsu Hidaka, 1998 ) . Serial Experiments Lain. Shrek (animated feature fi lm; dirs . Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson , 2001 ) . Toy Story (animated feature film ; d ir . John Lasseter , 1995 ) .

Chapter 6

Beavis and BUt/head (animated TV ser ies ; d i rs . Mike Judge and Yvette Kaplan , 1 993- 1997) . Blade Runner. Cinderella (an imated feature fi lm ; d irs . Clyde Geron im i , Wilfred Jackson and Hami l­ton Luske , 1 9 5 0) . Dark City ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm; d i r . Alex Proyas , 1 99 8 ) . The Da Vinci Code ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Ron Howard, 2006) . eXistenZ ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Dav i d Cronenberg , 1999 ) . The Fifth Element ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Luc Besso n , 1 9 97) . Final Fan ­tasy : T h e S p i r i ts Wi th i n . Final Flight o/the Osiris (OVA short ; d i r . Andy Jones , 2003) . The God­father ( l ive-action feature fi l m ; d i r . Francis Ford Coppola , 1972) . Harry Potter saga (l ive-act ion feature fi lms ; d i rs . Chr is Columbus , Alfonso Cuaro n , Mike Newell , Dav id Yates, 2001-2007) . Heavy Metal (animated feature fi lm ; d i rs . Gerald Pott erton and J . T. Murakami , 1 9 8 1) . The Jo.y Luck Club ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i r . Wayne Wand, 1993 ) . JUlIlanji (an i mated feature fi l m ; d i r . Joe Johnston , 1 9 9 5 ) . Jurassic Park. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider ( l ive-act ion feature fi lms ; d i r s . S i mon West , 2001 ; J an de Bont , 2003 ) . The Lord o/the Rings t r i logy ( l ive-act ion feature fi lms ; d i r . Peter Jackson , 2001-2003) . The Matrix t r i logy. Metropolis (2001 ) . Mulan (an imated feature fi l m ; d i r s . Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook , 1998) . Nestor Sextone for President (an imated short ; d i r s . D iana Walczak and Jdf Klciser , 1 9 8 8 ) . Polar Express (animated feature fil m ; dir . Robert Zemeckis , 2004) . Princess Mononoke. A Scanner Darkly. Shrek. SO llth Park (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r s . Trey Parker e t aI . , 1 997) . Spider-Man tr i logy (l ive-act ion feature fi lms ; d i r . Sam Raimi , 2002-2007) . Spirited Away (an imated feature fi lm ; d i r . Hayao Miyazaki , 20(1 ) . Star Wars ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m s ; d i r s . George Lucas e t aI . , 1977-200 5 ) . Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (an imated feature fi lm; d i r . S teve Barron , 1 990 ) . Titanic ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . James Cameron , 1997) . Toy Story. Waking Lifo (ani mated feature fi lm ; d i r . Richard Li nklater , 2001 ) . X-Men tr i logy ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m s ; d i rs . Bryan S inger , 2000-2003 ; Brett Ratner , 2006)

Chapter 7

Avalon ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i r . Mamoru Oshi i , 200 1 ) . Blade Runner. Dol ls ( l i ve-act ion feature film; dir . Takeshi Kirano, 2002) . Fahrenheit 9111 ( l ive-action documentary ; dir . M ichael Moore , 2004) . Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within . Ghost in the Shell. G h ost i n the Shel l 2: I n n o­

cence. Ghost i n the Shel l 2 - Music Video Anthology (animated music v ideos, 2005 ) . Killers: . 50 Woman ( l ive-action short ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 2002) . The Matrix t r i logy. Mobile Police Pat/abor OVA 1 (OVA ser ies ; dir . Mamoru Osh i i , 1988-19 89) . Mobile Police Pat/abor OVA 2 (OVA ser i e s ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 1 990-1992) . Mobile Police Patlabor TV Series (TV ser i e s ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 1 989-1990) . Neon Genesis Evangelion - TV Series . Pat/abor 1: The Mobile Police and Pat/abor 2: The Movie. The Red Spectacles ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 1 9 87 ) . Stray Dog:

Filmography 1 93

Kerberos Panzer Cops ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i r . Mamoru Oshi i , 199 1 ) . Tachigui - The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 2006) . Talking Head ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i r . Mamoru Osh i i , 1 992) . Yume [Dreams] ( l ive-act ion feature fi lm ; d i r . Akira Kurosawa, 1992) .

C hapter 8

Appleseed (OVA ; d i r . Kazuyoshi Katayama , 1 9 8 8 ) . App l eseed (2004) . Bubblegum Cr i s i s (OVA series ; d i r s . Katsuhi to Akiyama, H i roaki Gohda , H i roki H ayashi , Masami Obar i and Fu mi­h iko Takayama, 1987�1990 ) . The Fifth Element. Final Fantasy : The Spi r i ts With i n . Ghost in the Shell. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Howl's Moving Castle. The Matrix t r i logy. Megazone 23 (OVA series ; d i rs . Nobu ro Ishigu ro , Ich i rou l tano, Sh inj i Aramaki and Ken ich i Yataga i , 19 8 5 �19 89 ) . Neon Genesis Evangelion - TV series and feature fi lms . Ninja Scroll. Perfect Blue. Ser ial Exper iments Lain . Steamboy. Titanic.

Chapter 9

Akira. "Cannon Fodder" (dir . Katsuh i ro Otomo) . In Memories. Captain Harlock (an imated TV series ; dir . Leij i Matsumoto , 1976) . Conan, Boy of the Future ( an imated TV series ; dir . H ayao Miyazaki , 1978 ) . Elemental Gelade (animated TV ser ies ; d i r . S higeru Ueda , 2005 ) . Full Metal Alchemist (an i mated TV ser ies ; d i r . Se ij i Mizush ima , 2003�2004) . Howl's Moving Castle. Laputa: Castle in the Sky (an imated feature fi l m ; d i r . Hayao M iyazaki , 1 9 86) . Magical Shopping A rcade Abenobashi (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r . H i royuki Yamaga , 2002 ) . Metropolis ( 1 926) . Metropolis (2001) . Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Neon Genesis Evangelion - TV series and feature fi lms . Pokemon. Space Cruiser Yamato (an imated TV ser ies ; dir . Leij i Matsumoto , 1 97R ) . Spider-Man 2 ( l ive-act ion feature film; dir . Sam Raimi , 2004 ) . Steamboy. Trigun (an imated TV series ; dir . Satoshi Nishimura, 199 8) . The Wings of Honneamise. X-Men tr i logy.

Chapter 1 0

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . Ken Hughes, 1968 ) . Howl's Moving Castle. Kiki 's Delivery Service (an i mated feature fi lm ; d i r . H ayao Miyazak i , 1 9 8 9 ) . Laputa: Castle i n the Sky. Million Dollar Baby ( l i ve-act ion feature fi lm ; dir . Cl i nt Eastwood, 2004) . Monsters Inc. (an imated feature fi l m ; d i r . Pete Docter , 200 1 ) . My Neighbor Totoro (ani m ated feature fi lm ; d i r . I hyao M iyazak i , 19 8 8 ) . Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (an i mated feature fi l m ; d i r . H ayao Miyazaki , 1984) . On Your Mark (an imated music v ideo ; d i r . H ayao M iyazaki , 1 99 5 ) . Pom Poko (animated feature fi lm ; d i r . I sao Takahata , 1994) . Porco Rosso (an imated feature fi l m ; d i r . H ayao Miyazaki , 1992) . Princess Mononoke. Spirited Away. Steamboy. Tim Burton 's The Corpse Bride. Wal­lace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Whisper of the Heart (an imated feature fi lm ; d i r . Yoshifum i Kondou , 199 5 ) .

Chapter 1 1

Akira. Aliens ( l ive-act ion feature fi l m ; d i r . James Camero n , 1 9 8 6 ) . The Animatrix. Appleseed (2004 ) . Astro Boy. Blade Runner. Bubblegum Crisis. Dragon Ball Z (animated TV ser ies ; d i r . Daisuke N ishio , 1986�19 8 9 ) . Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within . Ghost in the Shell. Ghost in the Shell 2: Inno­cence. Giant Robo (OVA ser ies ; d i r . Yasuh i ro Yamagawa, 1992 ) . . hackl/Roots (an i m ated TV ser ies ; d ir . Ko ichi Mashimo , 2006) . Hflkujaden (an imated feature fi lm ; d ir . Taij i Yabush i ta , 1 9 5 8 ) . Heidi, Girl of the Alps (animated TV ser ies ; d i rs . Atsuj i Hayakawa, Masao Kuroda and Isao Takahata, 1974 ) . Howl's Movi ng Cast le . Kishin Hoko Demonbane (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r . Shoich i Masuo,

1 94 F ILMOGRAPI IY

2006) . The Matr ix t r i logy. Metropolis (2001 ) . Momotal'o ( an i mated feature fi l m ; d i r . S e i taro Kitayama , 1 9 17 ) . Naruto (animated TV series ; d ir . H ayato Date , 2002-2006) . Nallsicaa a/the Val­ley o/the Wind. Neon Genesis Evangel ion - TV series and featu re fi lms . Ninja Seroll. Perfect B lue . Pokemon. Space Cruiser Yamato . Steamboy. Tzlrn-A Gund'1m (animated TV ser ies ; d i r . Yoshiyuki Tom ino , 1 999 ) . The Wings 0/ Honneamise. Yamato 2520 (an imated OVA ser ies ; d ir . Yosh inobu Nishizaki , 1994) .

Notes

Alakazam the Great (an imated featu re fi lm ; d i rs . Lee Kresel , Da isaku Sh i rakawa , Osamu Tezuka , Tai j i Yabushi ta , I 960) . Armitage If!: Polymatrix (an i mated feature fi l m ; d i r . Takuya Sara , 1997) . Bas i l isk (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r . Fu m i tomo Kizaki , 200 5 ) . Beauty and the Beast (an imated feature fi l m ; dirs . Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise , 1990 . B rave Story (an i mated featu re fi l m ; d i r . Kou i ch i Chigira , 2006) . Le Cheval ier D' Eon (an imated TV series ; d i r . Kazuh i ro Furuhash i , 2006) . Ergo Proxy (animated TV ser ies ; d i r . Shuko Murase , 200 5 ) . KamiChu! (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r . Koj i Masunari , 2 00 5 ) . Kiki 's Delivery Service. Ninja Nonsense (an imated TV ser ies ; d i r . H i toyu ki Matsu i , 2004) . Ninja Seroll: The Series. Papuwa (an imated TV series ; d i r . Ken ich i Nish ida , 2006) . A Scanner Darkly. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (an imated feature fi l m ; d i rs . Wal t Disney and David Hand, 1937) . Transformers (animated feature fi lm; Nelson Shin , 1 986 )

Chapter Notes

Chapter 1 I . Shannon Fay's comments on a n ime's s tan d ing i n this

area are worthy of not i ce : " O n ly films that have been p layed in theatres i n the U S for a certa in length of t ime are e l igib le for an Oscar . . . . The category for best an i mated feature film i s s ti l l re lat ive ly new to the Academy Awards, hav ing been i n trod uced for the first t ime i n 200 1 . Before that, the few t i mes that an i mated fi l ms were nomi nated for Oscars were usual ly in categories such as ' !lest Song. ' Dis­ney's Beallty and the Beast i s to th i s date the only an imated mov ie ro have been nominated in the Best Picture category" (Fay) .

2. The very s tud io estab l i ,hed by Wal t D i sney h i mself and respons ib le for the execut ion of Golden -Age c lass ics s uch as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (d i r s . Wal t Dis­ney and David Hand, 1937) - the legendary B urbank Stu­d io - was shu t down a l together in 2002 i n favor of a department spec ia l i z ing so le ly in computer-generated an i ­mation . As Jake Friedman po in t s out , "soon after . . . t he stu­dios i n Orlando, Paris , l(lkyo and Sydney a l l fo l lowed s u i t , layi ng off more t h a n I , JOO people" ( Fr iedman , p . 4 ) .

Chapter 2 I . The srory art iculated in the series unfil lds in the con­

text of feudal Japan and fol lows the mercenary n i n ja Jubei Kibegami as he endeavors ro guard the Dragon Srone and the Priestess of Light (Shigure) Ii-om the jo int threat posed by the Hi ruko Clan and the Ki mon Shuu, w i th the he lp of the gov­ernment spy Dalman and the th iefTsubute . As the 'If/kipedia entry for the program points out , "Al though crit ics hdve given the show good reviews, fans of the original Nil/ja Scroll have been negat ive towards i t . One reason for this is that Yoshi­aki Kawaj i r i and Yutaka Minowa have l i tt le or no i n volve­ment i n the series, and this has led to c la ims that the story l ine in i t is i n ferior to the fi lm's" ( Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopae­dia - Ninja Scroll: The Series) .

2. An extens ive eva luat ion of the histor ica l data - and cora l reef o f legendary accre t ions - sur ro u n d i n g Yagyu J ubei i s s u p p l i ed by the art ic le " Yagyu Jube i : Master Swordsman . . . And Shogun's Spy?" publ i shed i n Furyu, I ssue 9 and avai l ab le a t the fo l l o w i n g address : h t t p : / /www. furyu .coml archives l i ssue9/J ube i . h t m l .

3. Ani me's a n d manga's fasci na tion w i t h the n i n ja mythos

19 5

cont in ues unabated to th is day, as attested ro by the TV series Bmilisk (dir. rumiromo Kizak i , 2005) , based on the manga of the same t i t l e by Futaro Yamada. The show charts the age­old an imosity d iv id ing the members of two n i n ja clans and features a large cast of a lternately monstrous and seductive fighters, each of whom is endowed with un ique combat sk i l l s showcased i n a whir lwind of non-stop action . One of the prodigies is a l imbless yet p reternaturally swift n in ja named "Jyube i . " On the comedic front , the n i nja-centred genre has recently come to l i fe with Ninja Nonsense (dir . H i royuki Mat­sui, 2004), a series featur ing an inept n in ja apprentice whose utterly absu rd "miss ions" i nc l ude underwear-hunt ing . Despite i ts rather unpromis ing t i t le , the ptogram is a gen­uine breath of fresh air compared to more formulaic n i nja plots , as i t p tovides myriad s i tuations ren dered i ntriguing by their und i luted zan iness and a cast of lovable characters (not least the bumbl ing hero ine herse lf ) .

Inveterate n i n j a fans in the West m ight a l so benefit from the fol l ow ing p iece of i n format ion : " Wanna be a n i n ja ? Wel l , tough - even i f t h e real ones were s t i l l around, they probably would n't accept app l icat ions from fore igners . The best you' l l do today i s to v i s i t the I ga N i n j a M useum i n M i e prefectu re, Japan , which conta in s a n i n ja res idence (complete with revo lv ing wal ls and t rap doors) , exh ib i t ions of o ld n i n j ursu i m p lements , and even rea l ( ? ) black-clad n i njas showing off the ir sk i l ls" (Newtype USA - News & Newtype : Basilisk, p. 148 ) . For further i n format ion on the subject , see ht tp : //www. igan in j a . j p . where a v i rtual tour i n the Engl i sh l anguage i s offered .

Chapter 3 I . "The 1995 Great Hansh in Earthquake (M=6 .9 ) , com­

mon ly referred to as the Kobe earthq uake, was one of the most devastat i ng earthq uakes ever to hit Japan; more than 5 ,500 were k i l led and over 26 ,000 i n j ured . The economic loss has been es t imated at about $US 200 b i l l i o n . The proxi m i ty of the ep icenter , a n d the p ropagat ion of ruptu re d i rectly beneath the h igh ly popu lated region , hel p exp la in the great l o s s o f l i fe a n d the h i gh l eve l o f destruct ion" ( " Kobe Earthquake [ 1 995 ] , Japan" ) .

2 . [ n " Excuse Me , W h o A r e You? Real i ty and fantasy i n the Anime of Satoshi Kon ," Susan J . Napier offers an i nteres t i ng assess ment of affi n i ties between H i tchcock and Kon with specific reference to the d i scourse of the gaze and

1 96 C! IAPTER NOTES

to the tole th i s p lays in the construction of gendered i den­t i t ies (Napier 2006) .

Chapter 4 I . P iease note that the denomi natiollS here used to des­

ignate Neon Genesis Evallgelioll's teenage pro tagoni s ts are derived from the Engl i sh- language dub. In the Japanese or ig ina l , each of the p i lots i s actual ly named i n the p lural form as F i rst Chi ldren , Second Chi l dren , Th i rd Chi l dren , etc . The u se of the p l ural wou ld seem to connote the col­lect ive s ign ificance of each p i lo t's role over and above his or her personal funct ion in the story. (The l i nguist ic dis­crepancy i s clearly borne out by the t it le of Ep isode 17, namely "The Fourth Chi ld/Fo urth Chi l dren . " ) It should also be noted, from a l i nguist ic point of v iew, that the ti tles of the TV ep i sodes alternate between Japanese and Engl i sh th rougho ut .

2 . As exp la i ned i n the essay on "Aum Sh inr i kyo ( Japan , cu l t i s t s )" pub l i shed by The Counci l on Foreign Re lat ions i n November 2005, "Aum Sh in r i kyo is a Japanese rel i gi Olls cu l t obsessed w i th the apocalypse . The prev ious ly obscure group became i n famous i n 1 99 5 when some of i t s mem­bers released deadly sar in nerve gas i nt o the Tokyo s u b­way system, k i l l i ng 1 2 people and send ing more than 5,000 o thers to hosp i ta ls . . . . I t was the most ser ious terror i s t attack i n Japan's modern h i s tory, caus i n g massive d i s rup­t ion and w i despread fear i n a society that i s v i r tua l ly free of cr i m e . Bur the subway attack also showed the world j ust how easy i t i s for a smal l cu l t or gro u p of terror i s ts w i th l i m i ted means to en gage i n chemical warfare . . . . Aum Sh in r i kyo i s a doomsday cu l t whose teachi ngs arc based on tenets borrowed from H i n d ui sm and Buddh i sm . Its more ben ign act i v i t i e s i n c l ude yoga , med i ta t ion , and breath ing exerci ses . Bu t at the center of the group's be l ief i s reverence fo r S hoko Asahara, Aum's fo under , who teaches that the end of the world i s n ear" ( Terrorism: Ques­tions and Amwers) .

3. Moreover , tho ugh seem i n gly a l ien to the world of the saga, images of th i s k i nd are perfectly at home in the context of the popu lar games i n s p i red by Eva1lgelioll ­namely Gir/friend of Steel (a . k . a . [roll Maiden, 1 997) and Girlfriend of Steel 2 (200 5 ) -- fe" which many of them were actual ly create d . I n deed, in i ts l u d i c t i c- ins , Evallgelioll takes a (poss ib ly refresh ing ) turn in the d i rect ion of depth­less fun - even S h i n j i gets to experience some happi ness w i thout any metaphysical s t r ings attached .

4. There are three d ifferent vers ions of Delllh: the one i nc luded i n the 1997 theatrical release of Death & Rebirth; Death True, which was a i red in Japan on WoWoW satel­l i te TV in 1998; and Death TrueA2 (also produced in 1998) , wh ich has been i n c l u ded in var ious s ubsequent DVD releases . The vers ion upon which th i s d iscuss ion p ivots i s the most compre hens ive , as presented i n the Death & Rebirth! The End of Evangeli01l Spec ia l Ed i t ion DVD released by Manga Entertai nment in 2U 1 I4 .

Chapter 5 1 . Many manga ser ies deve lop over a per iod of several

years, mai nta i n i n g relatively s table casts of characters a n d i n terpersonal dyna rn ic s . I n a n i m e , converse ly, i t i s n o t unCOll1111on for t h e s a m e personae t o be wovc n i n to rela­t ionsh ip s that do not conform with thei r or ig ina l p(} � i ­t inn i n g wi th i n a s tory arc , and for the ir ident i t ies to be accord i n gly transformed . No le s s frequent ly, an ime char­acters trave l across d i Hcrc l l t p roduct iuns , somet i mes

retai n i n g noth i n g more substant ia l than their i n i t i a l n ames as the ir actual roles a l ter . H i ge Oyaj i pro v ides a parad ig­matic examp le of such a tran s m i gratory persona : he fea­tu red regu la r ly throughout Tez u ka's o u t p u t , a n d h i s appearance i n R i lltaro's Metropolis wel l over a decade after h i s creator's demise i n the person of Sh unsaku Ban cou ld be sa id to s igna l the cha racter 's knack of t ransce n d i n g space and t ime .

2 . Even thollgh the i mmed iate source beh i n d Metropo­lis i s Tezu b's manga, R in taro has frequent ly cited l ive­act ion c inema -- both Amer ican and Euro pean - as h i s major early i nfluence . I n t h e interv iew con d ucted b y Jeff Berkw i ts on behalf of SeiFi. com, for i n s tance, the d i rector has stated : "I rea l ly haven't had much i n fl uence from the Wal t Disney fi lms . Rather, I was more i n fl uenced by Amer­ican western fi lms or gJngster fi l ms or fi l m twi r , or even foreign films l i ke French fi l ms" (R imaro 2002b) .

Chapter 6 1 . As documented by the W'ikipedia entry for the fran­

ch i s e , Final Fa1ltasy is first and foremost a ser ies of computer and console role- p l ay ing games . . . .

I t may b e the most w i dely d i s t r ibuted game ser ies of a l l t i m e , i n c l u d i n g s tandard conso le ro le-p lay i n g games , por table games , a mass ive ly m u l t i p layer o n l i n e ro le­p layi ng game, games for mobi l e phones , three an i me pro­d uct ions , and two fu l l l e n gth C: G l fi l m s . The firs t i ns ta l i lmem of the ser i e s premi ered in Japan on Decem­ber 18 , 1 987, and Filial hmttlSY games have subsequent ly been local i zed for markets i n North Amer ica , Europe and Austral i a , on n umerous v i deo ga me con �o les . . . . As o f June 2006 , twelve games have been re l eased i n J apan a s pa r t of the ma in ( n umbered) ser ies , a long w i th IIlany sp inoff's and re la ted t i t les [ Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopaedia - Filial fillltasy] .

2. For readers eager to find o u t more about the execu­t ion of L inklater's 200G product ion , the fol low i n g ar t i c l e , posted on the A/lid webs i te , i s h igh ly recom mended :

" Conceal i n g and Revea l i n g I d e n t i t i es on A Seallller Darkly. " Avid. 2006.

h t t p : I lwww. av i d . c o m / p r o fi les 1 0 6 0 71 ( ) _ _ a S U l n n e r ­darkly _lllediacolTl poser .asp?featllfe I I h 1 O ()] & market! D � .

Chapter 7 1 . As noted by Rowan Hooper and W i l l Knight i n the

New Scientist rev i ew of IlIlIocence p ll b l i shed upon the fi l m's U . K . release in October 2005 , i n advanc i n g this hypoth­es i s , Oshi i "exp lores what Richard Dawki n s cal l s the extended phenotype , s t ruc tures that arc gene t i ca l l y encoded, but external to the body. The beaver's dam and the sp i der's web a re natural i l l ustrat ions o f th i s , and , i n the fllm, melllory i tse lf has bCCOIllC external ized in th i s l11a l1 -n e r " (Hooper and Knight ) .

2. Atsuko Ta naka, the actress prov i d i n g the Major's voice, has a l l uded to th i s role in descr i h i n g her own approach to the character : " I p layed her as though she coex­isted in s ide of h i m [ i . e . Batou]" ('Ianab).

Chapter 8 1 . " Doom is a 1 993 computer game by id Software that

i s among the landmark t i t les i n the firs t-person shooter genre . I t i s wide ly recogn ized for i ts p i o n e e r i n g use o f i ll1mers ive 3 D graphics , networked mu l t i p layer gam i n g o n

Chapter Notes 197

the PC platform, and the support for p l ayers to create cus­tom expansions . . . . Doom was down loaded by an est i mated 10 m i l l ion people w i th in two years , pop ular iz i ng the mode of gameplay and spawn i n g a gam i n g subculture ; as a s ign of i ts impact on the i ndus try, games ftorn the rn id- 1 990s boom of tirst-person shooters are often known s i m ply as . Doom clon es' " ( Wikipedia, the Free ElIcycfopaedill �

Doom) . 2 . The theme of a seemingly perfect soc ie ty, a l l facets

of which are flawlessly organ ized, yet hosts unsavory tru ths at i ts core, has reta ined considerable appea l w i tb in the un i ­verse of an irne s ince the publ icat ion of the App/eseed manga . A recent i nstance of th is topos can be fo und i n the TV show Ergo l'rm,y (d i r . S huko M u rase, 2005 ) , a series that exhib i ts several points of contact w i th App/eseed in both i ts manga and an ime configurations . The domed c i ty of Lomd is a u to p i a ostens ib ly u n marred by c r ime or hatred, i n which humans are free t o i n d u lge i n l uxury a n d le i sure wh i l e andro ids take care of every th ing e l se . However , Lomd 's t r u e nature i s far from i m peccable, a n d i t i s up to the char i smat ica l ly tough hero i n e Rea l Mayer and her android ass istant I ggy (redolent of Deunan and Br iareos respectively) to p lumb the dar k secrets it conceal s .

Chapter 9 I . The aesthetics of steampunk have also i nfluenced var­

ious aspects of fashion , mus ic and i n ter ior design , by both expand ing and d ivers ify ing ex is t ing s ubcu l tural styles . The most promi nent (and cu r ious ly res i l i ent ) among them i nc lude the goth , punk and i ndustr ia l movements . The dis­ti nctive trend emergi ng from the amalgamation of s team­punk mot ifs with elements der ived from other estab l ished vogues i s often descr i bed as " Neo-Victor ian i sm," i nsofar as one of i ts most d i s t inct ive and recurr ing character ist ics i s i n deed the syn thes i s of Victor i an aes thet ic tenets and contemporary sens ib i l i t ies and technologies .

2. A recent i nstance of th i s trend can be found in Le Chevalier D F.01l, a mult imedia project compris ing an anime (dir . Kazuhiro Furuhashi ) , manga and novel ser ies s imul­taneously released i n Japan i n the sU l l lmer of 2006. The s tory h i nges on the h i s tor ica l fi gure of an e ighteenth­century hench ar istocrat who spent the second half of h i s l i fe i n female disguise. The p rogram's protagonist i s a mem­ber of the secret pol ice i nves t igat i ng a series of murders in the c l imate of pre- Revo lut io!l Pari s .

Chapter 10 1 . In order to s i t uate contextua l ly the s ign ificance of

Howls Moving Castle's voice cas t , the fol lowing comments by anime expert Jonathan Clements seem espec ia l ly use­ful :

The concept o f a voice act ing fandom fi rst arrived i n Japan i n the early 1980s, w i th newly founded m agazines such as Newtype and Animage i n search of fresh subjects for art i cles . . . . Whereas video an ime tend to use relat ive un knowns, often rendered a l l the more unknowable by the ( 0 010100 use o f pseudonyols to p reserve u n i o n s tatus , an ime fea t u re re leases in Amer ica regu lar ly use "s tunt­casting" � the use of actors famous elsewhere . I nc idences date back to the use of F rank i e Avalon in Alakazam the Great ( 1960 ) , and have i nc l uded cameo an ime perform­ances from Orson Welles and Leonard Nimoy ( in the Trtl/lS­formers movie) . This has even happened in Japan , where the prod ucers of the Armitage III movie l'o/ymatrix decided [0 make it exotic hy h i r i ng fore ign actors and re l eas i ng the

movie i n Engl ish i n Japan , with the voices of Kiefer Suther­land and El izabeth Berkley. American s tunt-cas t ing roles has become even more not iceable in recen t years w i th the release of Srudio Gh ib l i films in America, ut i l i z ing such [al­ents as La uren Baca l l and Jean S i m mons (llowls fl.loving Castle) , or K i rs ten D u n s [ and Debb ie Reyno lds (Kiki 's Delivery Service) [Clements] .

2. Readers keen on fantast ical bes t i ar ies a re advised to sample the TV ser ies KamiClm! (d ir . Koj i Masunari , 20(5 ) , a veritable documentary on character des igner Takahi ro Chibis i m ag inat ion , offer ing a motley parade of often sur­rea l and i nvar iably capt iva t ing gods and sp i r i ts of var iab ly a n i ma l for m . The s runn i n g array of ta l k i n g a n i ma l s encountered by the yo ung hero u pon cross i n g the thresh­old to an a l ternate u n i verse i n the feature film Brave Story (d i r . Kouich i Chig ira , 2006) are also eminent ly worthy o f not ice . An aesthet ica l ly less a l l u r i n g but u n den iably enter­tai n i ng pantheon of b izarre beasts i s a lso offered hy the ser ies l'apuwa (d i r . Ken ich i N i sh ida , 2006) .

Chapter 11 1 . An ime Expo ( a . k . a . AX) takes p lace on the Ju ly 4th

weekend for 4 days every year in Southern Cal i forn i a . The convent ion i s hosred by the non-p rofit "Soc iety for the Promotion of Japanese Ani mation" (SPJA) . S PJA has also held An ime Expos in New York and Tokyo . The largest an i me convent ions of 2006 i nc l uded the fo l low i n g :

• A n i m e Expo ( Ju ly, Southern Cal i forn ia) � 41 ,000 total • Anime North (May, l()ronto) � 12 , 500 total • A- Kon ( J u ly, Win!l i peg ) � 12,000 paid • Anime Central (Sp r ing , Rosemont) � 1 1 , 500 total • Fani meCon (May, San Jose) � IO, ()OO pa id • Anime Boston (Spr ing , Boston) � 9 ,354 total • Katsucon (February, Washi ngto n , D .C . ) � 6,400 total .

For addi t ional dera i l s regardi n g An ime Expo specifical ly, and an ime convent ions ge nera l ly, p l ease see : http://en. wikipedia. orglwikiiA llimejcxpo and ht tp : //en . w i ki pedi a . org/wi ki /Li st_oCani llle_convent ions .

2 . Fest ivals , conferences and convent ions could be seen as complementary and even part ia l ly overl app ing events, yet reta in certa in d i s t i nct ive tra i t s . Ernru Townsend has usefu l ly e luc i dated the most sal i ent character i s t ics of these three types of gather ings as fo l lows :

Conferences lean much heav i e r toward i n d us try and ar t , w i th l i t t le focus on aud ience ; the S I G G RA P H a n d the Sociery for An i mat ion Stud ies conferences, for i n s tance, are jam-packed wi th profess iona l s a n d academics i n the tiel d . Conventions , on the o ther hand, lean far more toward tans, tho ugh the profess ionals that do attend arc every b i r a s la id-back and access ib le a s those at fes t ivals . Fes t ivals fal l somewhere in between , though rhe closer you get ro a "true" an imation fest ival ( l i ke those held i n Ottawa, Annecy and Zagreb) , the closer yo u get to a balance between the three elements; fest iva ls l i ke Fantas i a , which concentrate more on screen ings than workshops or panels, t i lt more i n the d i rection o f convent ions [Townsend 2006a, p . 3] .

It is also common for convent ions to i nc lude an ele­ment of "cosplay" (a portmanteau of the Engl ish words "costume" and "p lay" ) . Com pet i t ions are he ld in which fans masquerade as the i r favor i te a n i me or manga charac­ters, pose for photos and arc awarded pr izes . Numerous fans take cos p lay very ser ious ly i n deed, and devote several months to the des ign and exec u r i on of the i r cos rumes . Anime magaz ines s llch as Newtype conta in ded icated sec­t ions w i th in thei r regular co l u m n s in which the cosp lay scene is d i scussed in detai l .

1 98 CHAPTER NOTES

3. The Japanese word "otaku" comb ines the honori fic part icle 0 and the kanji for "ho use" and may thus be ren­dered i n Eng l i sh as "yol l r honorable house . " The te rm can be used to address a person i n an exaggeratedly reverent ial fash ion . and is reputed to have been or ig ina l ly connected w i th an ime enth us iasts on the premise that they wou ld be lonesome and i nadeq uately cncul tured ind iv iduals . inc l ined

to use an art i fic ia l ly i n Hated rhetor i c due to socia l i nept i­tude .

4 . A more comprehens ive l i s t of u n i vers i t ies a n d co l­leges and re la ted cou rses can be obta ined from . http : / / www.comercdange l . com/amwess/an ime _on _campus .h tm .

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"Amazing Exh i b i t i on of Anime and African Masks Paint i ngs by Lore Ecke lberry. " 2006. eMedia Wire, 9 September. www. emediawire . com/releases I2006/ 9/emw4 3 5 2 0 2 . h t m .

Anime Archive on Neon Genesis Evangelion. www.­ani me-archive . netl eva/.

Appleseed Complete Book - Prometheus Montage. 2004. Tokyo : Media Factory.

Ara m a ki , S . 2004a . " S h i n j i Ara m a k i t rans lates Masamune Shi tow's m anga m asterpiece i nto b ig­screen magic w i t h Appleseed - I nterview by Todd G i lchr is t . " Science Fiction Weekly. www. sc ifi . coml sfw/ issue4041 i nterview 2 . h tm I .

Aram aki , S . 2004b. "The B i rth o f 3 D Live An i m e . " Appleseed DVD . l\vo-Disc Li m i ted Edit ion . Disc 2 . Geneon Enterta i n m e n t , I n c .

Aram aki , S . 2 0 0 5 . " S h i nj i Aramaki - I n terv iew by Nicholas Rucka . " Midnight tye. www. m i d n ight­eye . corn l in terviews Ish i n j i_.a ram aki . sh tm l .

Arnold, M. 2004. "J apanese A n i mat ion a n d the Ani­m a ted Cartoon . " Midnight Eye. www. m i d n ight­eye . com I fea tures I an im a tcd_ cartoon. sh t m i .

Arseneau, A . 2 004. " Review of Memories ." DVD ver­dict. www. dvdverdict . com/ rev iews / m e m ories . php . He Art of Howl's Moving Cast/e. 2 0 0 5 . San fran­cisco, Cal if. : Viz Publ icat ions .

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Ace Combat 4 147

Adamson, A. 80

The AdveJltllres of Baron Mun­challsen 44

Al 74

Akira 71, 72, 137, 142-143, 144,

172, 173

Akiyama, K. 1.34, 172

Algol 86

AliellS 172

"Among School Children" 82

The A"imatrix 34-36, 97, 170

Anno, H. 18, 54-7(), 114, 135, 140,

186

Aoshima, C. 179

Appleseed (feature film) 18, 121·136,

171, 176

Appleseed (OVA) 121

Appleseed: Ex Machil/a 136 Aramaki, S. 121-136

Artaud, A. 109

Ashida, T. 28

Asimov, 1. 115

Astro Boy 72, 74, 79, 170, 173 Allin Shinrikyo 59, 1%

Avalon 117

Bancroft, T. 88

Batman 86

Batman Begins 27

Bauhaus Movement 84

Beavis and BUllhead 101

Besson, L. 91, 126

Blade Runner 73, 74, 88, 91, 106,

172

Blood: The Last Vampire 64

Bont,J.de 90 Box, S. 6 Brazil 44 Bubblegllm Crisis 134-135, 172

Bunraku 112

Burton, T 6, 86, 155

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 83, 86 Cameron, J. 122, 172 "Cannon Fodder" 141

Index

Clplaill !farlock 140 Cars 16

Ca ulfield, I' lOl

Charies, R. 82

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 156

Christianity 59

Ci "derefla 96

CLmical Creece 125

Clockll'ork Orange 143

Colu mbus, C. 91

COila". Boy oft!" Fllture 140

Confucius 115

Cook , II. 88

Coppola, E F. 91

Cowboy liebop 71

Cronen berg, D. 91

Crouching 71ger. lJidden Dragon 35

Cuartin, A. 91

cyborg 115-116

D: Demoll Dealhchase 28

The Da Vinci Code 91

[lark City 91

Date , H. 181

Delacroix, E. 76

[)"I/onballf 7 181

Derain, A. 184

Descartes, R. 115

The DijJermCf Fngil/e 139

Disney 2, 14, 76, 90, 155, 164, 174,

178

Docter, P. 15-16, 154, 165

Doctor Zhil.ago 7(,

doll figure 110, 115, 131

Doll, 112

Domu: A Childs Dream 44, 137-

138 Doom 122 Dragon Wi/rrior 18.�

Duchamp, M. 181

Du "'Lwricr, D. 45

Eastwood, c:. 25, 154 Eckelberrv, L. 184-185

Elemellfal G"lade 140 eXistenZ 91

207

Fahrenheit 91II 103

fauvism 186

The Fijih Element 91, 126

Final F,mtasy series 183

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within 18, 87-lO2, 115, 131, 171

The Final Flight of the Osiris 97

Fireball 137

Fleischer, M. 2, 76, 96

Freud, S. 59

I�dlmetal Alchemist 140

Furukolojioni 58

Gaslight 45

Gaultier, J.-1� 126

Ghost in the Shell 23, 64, 68, 103,

107, 117, 135, 170, 173

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence 18,

19, 103-120, 131, 171, 172

Ghost in the Shell 2: Inllocence: M/lSic Video Anthology 116-119

Giant Robo 174

Gibson, \YI. 27, 49, 99, 139, 179

Giger, H. R. 118

Cilliam, T. 24,44

Godard, J.-L. 63, 115

The Godfother 91

Cohda, H. 134, 172

Gone with the Wind 146

Grimm, J. 115

GUr/dam 172

.hackIIG.l!. 181

.h.lckIIRnots 181

lIamlet 41

Hanks, T. 100

Haraway, D. 115 -116 lJarry ['otter saga 91 Hayakawa, A. 174

Hayashi, H. 134, 172

lIeallY Metal !O1

Heidi, Girl of the Alps 174

Herge 76 Hitchcock, A. 45

House of Flying Daggers 26, 34 Howard, R. 91

208

IIowl's MOi'ing Castle 6, 19, 127,

139, 154-168, 171, 176

"I Can't Stop Loving You" 82

Idont 49, 99

Ikeda, R. 139

jenson, V. 80

johnson, M. 6, 155

johnston, j. 98

Jones, A. 97

Jones, c. 60

Jones, D. W. 157

jones, T. 24

The Joy Luck Club 88

Jubei-chall the Ninja Girl 21

Jumanji 98

Iungle Emperor Leo 74

furassie Park 89, 90

Kabbalah 58

Kabuki 128

Katayama, K. 121

Kawai, K. 109, 116-119

Kawajiri, Y. 17-18, 21-36, 135, 170,

186

Key the Metal Idol 40

Kiki's Delivery Service 168

Kikuchi, H. 28

Kill Bill 24

Killers: .50 Woman 117

KishimolO, M. 181

Kishi" Hoku Demonbane 181 Kitakubo, H. 64

Kitano, T. 112

Kitayama, S. 169, 186

Kobe earthquake 37, 195

Kojiki 58

Kon, S. 18, 37-53, 114, 134, 171

Kondou, Y. 162

Koons, J. 178

Kunikata, M. 179

Kuroda, M. 174

Kurosawa, A. 112

Lang, F. 71, 72, 74, 75, 143

Laputa: Castle in the Sky 156, 168

Lara Cru/t: 70mb Raider movies 90

Lasseter, J. 16, 80

Lean, D. 76

Lee, A. 35

Lee, W. 42

Legend 0/ the White Serpmt 169

Leone, S. 25

Levi-Strauss, C. 2 Linklater, R. 16, 101-102

Macross Plus-The Movie 40 Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

147

"Magnetic Rose" 51-52

manga 174-175, 177

Marks, B. 49

Marlow, R. 49

Mashimo, K. 181

masks 107-108

Masuo, S. 181

Matisse, H. 184 The Matrix movies 13, 27, 34, 35,

It-;])FX

91, 93, 100, 101, 103, 135, 170

172

Matsumoto, L. 140, 172

matsuri 107, 110

McCay, W. 8, 76

Mead, S. 172

Megazone 23 1.)4-1.)5

Memories 51-52, 141

Messmer, O. 76

Metropolis 18, 71--86, 92, 139, 141,

171, 172, 173

Millennium Actress 50-51, 52

Million Dollar Baby 154

Milton, J. 115

Ming Na 88

Mitchell, M. 146

Miyazaki, H. 6, 19, 23, 45, 89, 90,

127, 139, 140, 154-168, 171, 177,

183-184

Mizushima, S. 140

Mobile Police Pat/abor OVA I 117

Mobile Police Pat/abor OVA 2 117

Mobile Police Pat/abor TV series 117

Moebius 183-184

Momotaro 169

Monet, C. 155

!lIonsters, Inc. 154

Monty Pytholl alld the Holy Grail 24

Moore, M. 103

Morimoto, K. 141

motion capture 94-101, 129-132

Mulan 88

Murakami, T. 178-179

My Neighbor Totoro 168

Nadia: The Secret o/Blue Water 64,

140

Nakamura, R. 49-50, 134

Nara, Y. 179

Naruto 181

NaTl/to: Ultimate Ninja 181

Nausicaii o/ the Valley o/the Wind 168, 177

Neoll (;enesis Evangelion 18, 54-70,

113, US, 141, 171, 172, 176, 179

Neuromallcer 27

Newell, M. 91

Nihonji 58

The Ninja 27

Ni IIja Resurrection 21

Ninja Scroll 17-18, 21-34, 37, 135,

171

Nillja Scroll: jfJe Series 21

Nishimura, S. 140

Noh lOS

Obari, M. 134, 172

Ohnishi, N. 184 Okamura, T. 141

Omnibus Japan 68

On Your Mark 168 Oshii, M. 18, 64, 68, 103-120, 135

otaku 179

Oromo, K. 19, 44, 45, 127,

137-153, 172

Paranoia Agwt 50, 52-53 Park, N. 6, 155

Pat/abor I: The Mobile Police 73, 117

Pat/abor 2: lhe MOI.ie 68, 117

Pat/em Recogllition 27

Peckinpah, S. 25

Perftct Blue 18, 37-53, 134, 171, 176

Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete 38

performance capture 100

Piranesi, G. 151

Plato 135

PoUmoll 71, 137, 173

Polar E>:press 100, 101

Pom f'oko 162

Porco Rosso 168

Primrose, J. 81

Princess MOllonoke 23, 45, 89-90,

168

Production I.G 18, 64, 68

Program 18, 34-36

Proyas, A. 91

pjJcho 45

Raimi, S. 91

Ratner, B. 143

Rear WilldolV 45

Rebecca 45

The Red Spectacles 117

Renaissance 16-17

The Republic 1.35

Rilltaro 18, 71--86, 92, 114, 139, 173

Robida, A. 139, 155

Robotali 40

The Rose o/ Versailles 139-140

roroscope 94, 96, 101

Roy,t/ SplIce Force: T he Wings 0/ lIonneamise 64, 140, 184

"Sr. James's 1nflrmary" 81

Sakaguchi, H. 18, 87-102, 131, 171

Sakakibara, M. 89

Sara, T 38

A Seallller Darkly 16-17, 101-102

Scott, R. 73, 91, 172

Serial Experiments rain 49-50, 71,

134

Shinto 58, 107, 110, 149

Shirow, M. 121-122, 128

S!JOlfllfli Tantei Rock ffome 77 Shrek 80

Singer, B. 143

South Park 101

Space Cruiser Yamato 140, 172

Spider-Mall movies 91, 143

Spielberg, S. 74

Spirited Away 89-90, 155, 162

Square 88

Stilr Wars movies 90

Ste,lInboy 19,45,127, 137-1'i.3, 155 steam punk 139-141, 142 Sterling, B. 139

StrllY Dog: Kerberos f'anzer Cops 117 Sullivan, P. 76

Superrlimensio/lal Fortress Macross 40 Superflat 178-179

synthespian 94--101

Tachiglli - The Amazillg Lives of the Fast Food Grifters 117

Takahata, I. 162 , 174 Takauo, A. 179

Takayama, F. 134, 172

Talking Head 117

Tarantino, Q. 24

Teenilge Mutallt Ninja 1imles 90

Tewka, O. 2, 19, 71, 74, 77, 139,

169, 173, 186

71m Burtolls The Corpse Bride 6,

16,17,155

Time Bandits 44

Titanic 89, 122

Tokyo Godfothers 50, 52

Tomino, Y. 172

Toy Story 89

Triglln 140

]urner, J. M. W. 151-152

Twenty ThouSilfld Leagues Under the Sea 140

Ueda, S. 140

universal capture 100

Umsei Yatsura 23

Index

Vampire HUflter D 28

Vampire HIIllter D - Bloodlust 28

Van Lustbader, E. 27

Vermeer,). 155

Verne, ) . 139, 140

video games 90-91, 179 -183

V laminck, M. de 184

Volckman, C. 16

Wachowski, L. and A. 34-35, 91,

100, 171

Waking Life 101

Wallace alld Gromi!: The Curse of tbe Were-Rabbit 6, 155

Wand, W. 88

Warhol, A. 178, 182

Warner Brothers 178

Weaving, H. 13

Werckmeisler, H. 86

West, S. 90

Wbisper of the Heart 162

Wicked City 27-28

Wiene, R. 83

Wittgenstein, L. 115

Woo,). 136

X-Mm movies 88, 94, 143

Yamaga, H. 147

Yamagawa, Y. 174

Y;mlilto 2520 172

Yates, D. 91

Yeats, W. B. 82

Yimou, Z. 26

You Only Live 'livice 27

Yume 112

Zemeckis, R. 100

209