Our most recent slew of Anime Spotlights have focused on character, story, and theme. It’s fun to hone in on societal preoccupations and highlight our favorite guys. But lest we forget, the primary distinction of anime as a media format is a visual and a temporal one. Art, editing, movement, color, geometry, violence, tranquility, experimentation, influence, reference: let’s talk about the anime that reminds us we’re watching a medium that is always evolving!
Golgo 13 (1983) and Aim for the Ace! (1973)
Director Osamu Dezaki is the man responsible for popularizing, if not outright creating, the "postcard memory" (also known as "harmony cels"), an expression in which a frame of animation crossfades into a repainted version of itself featuring heavy shadows and crosshatching. It's one of many ways Dezaki's body of work highlights the commonality between shoujo and seinen melodrama. Also check out his adaptation of Key's visual novel Air (yes, seriously), where he experiments with digital animation, often to baffling results. -hazel
I see Dezaki as a director who melds melodrama with impressionism: "an art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience." -xoe
Dororo (1969)
Limitation breeds creativity, and animation is a medium that deals primarily in limitation. Especially television animation. Adaptations of Osamu Tezuka's manga from the first decade of TV anime's existence feel like manga. Dororo is dry. Quiet. Entirely still more often than not. In a way it's refreshing, if nothing else a reminder modern anime has deviated so incredibly far from the conventions and form of its source medium. But it's not just a history lesson--it operates with the precision and decisiveness of a samurai. Long takes of wind blowing through tall grass are occasionally punctuated with a swift, shocking brutality that forcibly remind you where Kentaro Miura got his best ideas. The dog is awesome too. -hazel
His and Her Circumstances (1998)
What do you do when your production is falling behind schedule and you need to make sure something, anything makes it to air on your designated time slot? You will find many suggestions but no clear answers in Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou, Gainax's first and only try at adapting a girls manga. The mysteries of Kare Kano's production in some ways supersedes the show itself--did lead director Hideaki Anno voluntarily leave midway through? Was it to protest TV censorship, or over disputes with the manga's author? Whatever the truth is, if we have it to thank for its 19th episode, in which the show gives up on being animated at all, and becomes a ramshackle paper theater nightmare, we should all be deeply grateful. -hazel
Adolescence of Utena (1999)
Revolutionary Girl Utena the tv series has made multiple appearances in this spotlight before. It’s a series already famous for its distinctive look and feel, but this time I want to call out the movie specifically. Imagine a cast of shojo characters were pokemon-gameboy-commercial-style flattened into an MC Escher print to tessellate their ghostly psychosexual trauma ad infinitum. This movie also makes use of very limited animation. Behind character tableaus elaborate paintings hang, and slowly revolve, undulate, and warp like moving PC backgrounds. What does a blizzard of rose petals symbolize? -xoe
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (2004)
During my ill-fated year of 4-year college in 2010-11, one shining light was the weekly anime gatherings held in a lecture hall, marathoned anime towering above me as I drank Dr. Pepper like water (The Intellectual’s Drink). Watching Gankutsuou was the first time I saw the “characters moving over static patterns” layered animation style and it’s always stuck in my brain -captivating and trippy. Revisiting it for the spotlight, I love the sci-fi take on the Dumas story, everything setting-wise looking like a 1800s period piece, up against a backdrop of space ships and flying to home planets, etc. Not much changes regarding the classic revenge plot, but again, I couldn’t take my eyes off all the glorious chiyogami-like patterns, detailed and colorful and wondrous. -mira
Inu-Oh (2022) dir. Masaaki Yuasa
I love this hyper-stylized rock-opera set in 14th century Japan about a blind biwa playing monk and a socially ostracized dancer who is physically transformed by music and their pure, loving friendship. You’ve got character designs by Taiyō Matsumoto of Tekkonkinkreet fame, with art ranging from the roughest sketchiest lines soaring through the air meant to depict spears to incredible set pieces and the flowiest, most gorgeous animation with ear worm songs throughout, I just. Okay, okay, I saw this twice in theaters, cried at the ending (both times), literally pre-ordered the blu-ray and have sat as many people as I can down in front of it. It’s fantastic and the songs by QUEEN BEE vocalist/composer Avu-chan (アヴちゃん) are killer. Go watch Inu-Oh. -mira
The Night is Short, Walk on Girl (2017)
Director Masaaki Yuasa is possibly the number one guy to come to mind when thinking of contemporary, auteurish, truly unconventional looking anime. He directed not only Inu-Oh and The Night is Short but Cat Soup, Ping Pong: The Animation, Mind Game, Kaiba, the Netflix Devilman Crybaby remake, and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! as well as an episode of Adventure Time. His art style and animation can often feel just as much or more like The Beatles’s The Yellow Submarine as they do traditional anime. Themes tend to orbit the cycle of birth and death, cruelty, and the transcendence of optimism, and vacillate between self-seriousness and whimsy. I watched The Night is Short one day while I was home sick, and really enjoyed trying this recipe for Tamagozake featured in the movie:
150ml sake
1 egg
1tbsp sugar
Whisk in pan over boiling water until hot and creamy. Careful not to overcook!
SOME PLACES TO START (if you like a title grouped under this heading, you might like one of the others. These titles could be grouped in infinite combinations under infinite headings but here’s one vibes-based take):
IMPRESSIONISTIC
Heightened and vivid visual technique to capture the essence of an emotional and sensory experience
Golgo 13: The Professional (1983)
Aim for the Ace (1973)
Belladonna of Sadness (1973)
Kaiba (2008)
Madoka Magica III: Rebellion (2013)
SURREALIST
Atmosphere, transmutation, visual nonsense, and visual metaphor
Angel’s Egg (1985)
The Adolescence of Utena (1999)
Tekkonkinkreet (2006)
Cat Soup (2001)
SAKUGA (everyone argues about this term, just be cool)
Tasty, hyper-articulated animation
Inu-Oh (2022)
Kill la Kill (2014)
Redline (2009)
Dead Leaves (2004)
The Animatrix (2003)
MIXED-MEDIA
Traditional animation, live action, CGI, paper art, photography, etc.
His and Her Circumstances (1998)
Mononoke (2007)
Funky Forest (2005)
Taste of Tea (2004)
Twilight of the Cockroaches (1987)
BRO I DUNNO THESE ONES ARE ALL JUST REALLY COOL AND DIFFERENT LOOKING
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (2004)
Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust (2000)
Dororo (1969)
Ongaku Our Sound (2020)
Live Action
Speed Racer (2008)
