Awayfarer @farawayfarer Twitter profile

Last Seen Profiles

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@ARABkau

@bokeplokalmalam

Awayfarer

@farawayfarer

1 year

People mistaking Shinya Ohira - the world's most organic animator - for a machine really tells you something about the, uh, beautiful diversity of aesthetic sensibilities out there.

Effects Sakuga

@EffectsSakuga

1 year

Key Animation: Shinya Ohira (大平晋也) Anime: One Piece (ワンピース) (2023) #1072

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@farawayfarer

3 years

Opening 2D sequence of Jiang Ziya (Legend of Deification). Stunning Chinese animation that builds on the traditionally stylized form language of co-director Cheng Teng's celebrated student film, Higher Sky.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Thinking about the different modalities of sakuga, or why I adore the powerful simplicity of Arete's design(s) during the second half of the film. The palpable sense of relief, even sensuality, perfectly illustrates the relation between drama, design and "character" in animation.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

"Animation is for everyone", says the person who exclusively watches Disney movies and tv cartoons for kids.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

I've praised Guilty Gear Strive's animation multiple times. However, looking back at Xrd, it is all too easy to see what has been lost - in visual terms - between the games. So here's a mostly non-visual thread about the importance of visual direction.⬇️

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Recent events left me thinking about the singularity of Shinya Ohira's work. Suffice to say the man can fairly be characterized as the most radical of the great post-realist masters of Japanese animation. But what does that really mean?

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@farawayfarer

2 years

On the reduction of "anime adaptation" to "manga emulation." At this point producers are actively overriding whatever creative freedom had historically been afforded directors of manga-based tv anime - effectively robbing the position of any authority, autonomy, or prestige.

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@farawayfarer

8 months

I'm not one to wax nostalgic about "lost golden ages", but it is obvious that Rintaro and Kanada really defined an era of visually explosive, kinetically appealing anime.

Catsuka

@catsuka

8 months

"Final Fantasy - Legend of the Crystals" OVA series directed by Rintaro in 1994 will be broadcased for the 1st time in HD on February 25th by Animax TV channel (Japan). This anime was only released on VHS and Laserdisc. >>

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@farawayfarer

1 year

My view of Fujimoto is that he's a pop art surrealist. CSM specifically plays on the contrast between larger-than-life spectacle and mundane intimacy. Going for strict realism flattens that effect and ultimately reduces the visual identity of the work to that of a generic anime.

Sarca

@sarca_sc

1 year

The idea that not liking Nakayama's myopic approach to 'realism' is wanting a carbon copy experience to the manga is a look into the myopic perspective of such 'fans' themselves

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@farawayfarer

2 years

300.000 likes. Examples like these illustrate the futility of our pedagogical endeavors. The objective cannot be to reform popular discourse, but to empower artists and critics to develop and disseminate various technical knowledges and aesthetic sensibilities.

Anime Visuals

@animevisuals

2 years

Studio Ghibli always makes food look delicious

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Yamashita's idiosyncratic direction being reduced to "MAPPA GOAT" is hardly surprising, but it is interesting how the recent "outsourcing = bad" discourse begets a "good = in house" mindset. This is how popular oversimplifications produce new prejudices and misconceptions.

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@farawayfarer

9 months

A reflection on this expertly crafted scene: Metod, technology and aesthetics obviously intersect with one's "philosophy of animation", but none of them can easily be reduced to the others. We can clearly see when we compare this scene to an early digital-era Disney showpiece.🧵

fullfrontal.moe

@fufuro_moe

9 months

If you've been on anime or sakuga Twitter in the last few hours, you've surely seen this scene. Frieren has kept providing some fantastic animation this season, but Myoun's dance sequence on #15 has become a big topic. Let's get into some of what makes it special

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@farawayfarer

2 years

The underlying point here is that while Trigger is an outlier in Japan, they are disproportionately influential abroad. For all the talk of Miyazaki I feel that, as with Nakamura, Imaishi's influence on the stylistic register of contemporary animation is much more direct.

Awayfarer

@farawayfarer

2 years

Another example is the catchphrase of Space Patrol Luluco, "Where the abnormal is the norm!", which as the origin story of Studio Trigger's mascot at once outlines a studio ethos and marks the point where insular nerd culture ascends to the level of corporate-brand mainstreamism.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

That Disney suit's statement was provocative not because it was wrong, but precisely because it reflects a commercial reality.

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@farawayfarer

5 months

Amazing how many productions try for this beautified (and beautifully realized) aesthethic and, well, let's just say Kyoto Animation stands untouched at the peak. They're rightly influential, but remain (for material/labor/structural reasons) in a league of their own.

アニメ「響け！ユーフォニアム」公式

@anime_eupho

5 months

◤Blu-ray&DVD 発売決定🎺◢ #ユーフォ3期第1巻📀6月26日(水)発売！ ♪初回特典描き下ろし特製三方背ケース／デジパック仕様スペシャルブックレットエンドカード(3枚) ♪映像特典 Extra Episode ほか ♪音声特典キャスト・スタッフコメンタリー #anime_eupho

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Credit, as always, to Imaishi and co. for envisioning and pulling this off more than a decade ago.

Awayfarer

@farawayfarer

2 years

Arcane's ability to render each frame as a textured piece of concept art, Into the Spider-Verse's use of frame modulation, Guilty Gear's emulation of classic anime aesthetics, and other forms of stylized CGI. These hybrid aesthetics seem to me to be the future of animation.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Reflection on US/JP/CN character animation: The expression of character here is executed holistically, through the plastic, jelloish de-formation of every element of the face - lines, forms, volumes, inertia, rhytms, etc. This is the "physical" base material of American acting.🧵

Ole

@OleLoken

1 year

Here is the isolated shot/cut I animated for One Piece episode 1066. If I get the option to release my tiedown/genga, I will share it later down the line. Thanks again for having me on the ship, @henry_thurlow !

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@farawayfarer

2 years

I don't think it is too much for people to recognize the twin truths that the medium of animated film can in principle be for *anyone*, yet it is in practice largely dominated by family entertainment.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

But that doesn't change the fact that the indended audience for a Disney film is the parent-child moneyed consumer unit ("hey, that cute little critter made a raunchy innuendo!").

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@farawayfarer

1 year

One thing I never got around to in my old Heike essay (which I’ve been meaning to revisit) was this deceptively simple shot form the OP. It’s a remarkable image because it encapsulates exactly the kind of "vision" that is enabled by animated cinema.🧵

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Which isn't to say that the medium does not explore and express artistic possibilities beyond these confines; just that very few people, including most self-described animation fans, know or care about them.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

For the record, the mainstream talk about del Toro's approach to animation being uniquely dark, strange and heartfelt belies the fact that Takashi Nakamura's A Tree of Palme is a far darker, stranger, and more heartfelt take on the Pinnocchio story.

Awayfarer

@farawayfarer

2 years

I saw the new Pinocchio. A strange film filled with many powerful yet barely developed ideas, and a suitable antithesis to the moody romanticism of the Disney classic. Just as faithless to the source material, it defines itself by subversive reverence for the story's core motifs.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Great illustration of the aesthetic appeal of different frame rates. The benefits are very much tied to the specifics of the action, type of motion, and desired tempographic effect.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Yes, "everyone" is free to enjoy Hollywood blockbusters - including mostly animated superhero movies - just as they are free to enjoy any form of pop cultural entertainment.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

By the way, I've long wondered if Yoko Kuno's work is deliberately evocative of Tora-chan. Interestingly, while Kenzou Mazaoka's animation is stylistically pre-anime, Kuno's falls on a spectrum between commercial anime and "post-anime" indie animation.

Animétudes

@anime_gaku

2 years

In today's article, I revisit the career of one of the founders of modern anime, Akira Daikuhara, with a special focus on his work before the creation of Tôei Animation - and, in doing so, I explore 20 years of animation in Japan, from 1937 to 1958⬇️⬇️

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Watching Galaxy Express 999 and thinking about what it is that appeals to me about Rintaro's infamously ostentatious direction. A thread about the power of visualist animated filmmaking.

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@farawayfarer

9 months

The film "transcends its medium"? What kind of self-ghettoizing marketing angle is that supposed to be?

GKIDS Films

@GKIDSfilms

9 months

The Philadelphia Film Critics Circle has awarded THE BOY AND THE HERON with Best Animated Film AND Best Foreign Film! 🌟 Find out why Studio Ghibli's latest transcends its medium, now playing in theatres nationwide. ✨ Get tickets:

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@farawayfarer

5 years

A small masterpiece: Notes on Heidi, Girl of the Alps.

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@farawayfarer

3 years

I've long been looking forward to this short film, with its promise of bringing the ink-wash animated paintings of Te Wei and Shanghai Animation into the digital era. Now, as then, the aesthetic stylings are indeed unparallelled.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Casuals complaining about Ohira's work is a tale as old as time. What's changed is the onto-epistemological frame - i.e. the popular conception of what is realistic/possible. Hence things went from: "This drugged-up shit is *bad*!" to "This nonsense must be *fake*!"

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Worth thinking seriously about media illiteracy and aesthetic insensitivity among passionate enthusiasts. It isn't just tech-maximalist prejudice that (re)produces these interpolations - certain objective qualities evidently do not register perceptually with these people.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

I've touched on this before, but one the key things with Imaishi is that he is absolutely commited to his idea of cartoon appeal: Everything he does is a tribute to his inspirations *and* a demonstration of the graphical possibilities of animation.

ibcf

@_ibcf_

1 year

been trying to explain to people that imaishi is just gutsy frog with a few extra steps, fortunately imaishi provides all the needed proof (from imaishi's anime artworks book)

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@farawayfarer

3 years

Reflections on rewatching Gamba.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Most anime is generic and bad, yes. The problem here is precisely that this is trend is sure to make more and not less of it, which necessarily dilutes the overall talent pool and draws resources away from things that could actually be interesting.

Giordano🔆🏳️‍⚧️🇮🇹🇵🇸🇺🇦

@GioPowa2000

1 year

@farawayfarer You mean resources that would have gone to "lightnovel adaptation that gets canceled after1 season n.75"? And the attention thatliterally they didn't have because dc fans and anime fans are not a circle in the venndiagram? Atleast maybe this time they'll be paid more than usual

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Different approaches to otakudom. Miyazaki: I vehemently reject the depravity of otaku! Anno: I am troubled by the way we otaku have helped create and perpetuate an escapist mass culture premised on unthinking mass consumption... Imaishi:

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@farawayfarer

3 years

This is based on the paintings of the Chauvet Cave, which are generally recognized as the prime instance of multiples as a proto-animation techniques for depicting movement. The piece is part of a short film anthology project from Folimage:

Watch 36 000 ans plus tard / 36 000 years later Online | Vimeo On...

36 000 ans plus tard ("36 000 years later") (22min) 15 films-émotion autour de la grotte Chauvet Pont d'Arc / 15 short films inspired by The…

vimeo.com

Animation Obsessive

@ani_obsessive

3 years

Waves (2015), dir. Jean-Charles Mbotti Malolo, Folimage A short animation about being changed by art

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Forgotten films are often dismissed as mediocre, but there are notable gems among them. Who's Left Behind ultimately turns out to be a rather blunt anti-war drama, but even with its unfulfilled ambitions the film speaks to the merits of Studio Ghibli's animation philosophy.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Indie animation is undeniably cool. Loved this ep not only for the overt Yuasa vibes but also the way it taps into the underlying philosophy - expressing the characters' lived experience through overtly stylized means (plasticity/direction/metamediality).

Sublo and Tangy Mustard - Nightclub (Season 3 Episode 3)

Sublo, Tangy Mustard and Tito have a big night out at Toronto's hottest club, Rinse! They run into Katy and Vanessica there. Lots of stuff happens. Sublo doe...

www.youtube.com

Aaron Long

@aalong64

1 year

me when somebody hasn't watched Nightclub yet

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@farawayfarer

11 months

Having nothing but positive things to say about this ED, I still couldn't help but think: The clever transition to "reality" in the final cut unfortunately emphasizes the often unflattering contrast between these indie-animated specials and the look and feel of the actual show...

Catsuka

@catsuka

11 months

"SPY×FAMILY" new ending, directed & animated by @eugene_winter_ .

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Most people look at the OP and see arduously animated foodstuffs. They don't see it as badly interpolated (and stylistically inchoate) pieces of animation, nor do they notice (or care) that many of these sequences are from non-Ghibli productions.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Yes, Ghibli has always weaponized their brand for commercial purposes. But seeing Disney in the business of instrumentalizing all the industry's big names is still worrisome. There's no doubt it changes the calculus of what ultimately gets made, and by whom.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Of course, the real bummer for sakuga enthusiasts re. CSM is that it *could* have been another Mob Psycho-type production. That makes the product a bitter demonstration of the structural effects of corporate conservatism on anime production.

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@farawayfarer

5 years

At the heart of the show is the dedication put into animating the minutiae of a little mountain girl’s life; how she consistently struggles with her clothes, or how she uses the chair her grandfather made her to reach for things - all of it realized with simple, dutiful delight.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

This, it seems to me, is one of the practical outcomes of anime losing its subcultural standing, becoming a mainstream form of global mass entertainment that is beholden to international audiences and transnational financiers.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Yamada pulling a lot of weight as she discusses how to save anime with two old guys who stopped making anime.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Such shifts in public discourse, always framed by an unspoken context, reveal how technology surreptitiously - without personal awareness or insight - operates on our mass consciousness, just as it mediates (shapes) our imagination.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Japan's enthusiasm for AI stands in contrast with the country's infamously tech-illiterate (corporate) institutions. This cultural gerontocracy, which afflicts even young professionals, is the reason why I expect many Japanese industries will struggle to keep up going forward.

Animétudes

@anime_gaku

1 year

Interesting interview about the state of the industry etc etc But I think what's most revealing is when they present using ✨shared files on Google Drive✨ and ✨group chats✨ as the biggest post-Corona innovations This industry is done for, man

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@farawayfarer

1 year

The appeal of CSM isn't really the opulence of Fujimoto's artwork. The personal touch of his draughtsmanship, with its visual ironies, cannot be reproduced through an industrial pipeline. What matters is mood of he expresses through the cast, setting and panneling.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

What doesn't change is human beings are mysterious, wonderful creatures who generally don't know much about anything (except what is germane to their everyday practices and ways of life).

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@farawayfarer

3 years

What is there to be said about Star Wars Visions? Quite a lot, I think.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Social media is rife with tasteless, ruinous and fraudulent pieces of disinformation. This is because specific faculties of judgment are not innate but attained, and so every area of special interest (the arts, sciences, politics) will invite popular misunderstandings.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

FLCL features an empty-headed self-insert being "inspired" by a virtual, meta-medial rock muse, putting out a bunch of sophomoric fantasies about sex and robots, and fighting for the thrill of personal freedom in the midst of corporate-manufactured ennui.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

In essence, my misgivings re. Strive's animation philosophy - described by the developers as a move away from Xrd's direct emulation of 2D anime's "limited" animation towards "cinematic" realism - are directly represented by the obvious lack of (Imaishi-style) Kanadaisms.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Thinking about sakuga epistemology, the material construction of animation and Thomas LaMarre's questionable claim that "Hayao Miyazaki hates movement into depth". A thread.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

The difference is comparable to that between translation (by a creative interpreter, who deliberately transforms the material by bringing it into a new medium) and transcription (where the outward forms of the original are directly reproduced, regardless of cinematic effect).

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@farawayfarer

2 years

@voidroonil @LizardLady03X This is true, but it is worth keeping in mind that the other great Ghibli director, Isao Takahata, was also a terminal perfectionist. In fairness, the overall working conditions at JP animation studios are absolutely terrible.

Ghibli Co-Founder Reveals Dark Side of Isao Takahata: He ‘Destroyed So Many People’

In new comments, Studio Ghibli producer and co-founder Toshio Suzuki talks about the dark side of "Grave of the Fireflies" director Isao Takahata.

www.cartoonbrew.com

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@farawayfarer

1 year

But it also illustrates the material necessity of “sakuga” - that is to say, the achievement of visual effect through mastery (skill, effort) - in the realization of a cinematic idea, aesthetic, and sensibility.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

This difference is particularly visible in the character intros, many of which feature slow, stiff movement defined by automatically interpolated frames (this is no doubt an effect of resource constraints in the context of a fuller animation paradigm).

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Oruorane the Cat Player. This humble OVA perfectly captures the beautiful whimsy of 80s anime, with its penchant for enchanted fairytales and psychadelic surrealism. The pastel visuals remain a hallmark of the era, and an indelible argument for hand-crafted material aesthetics.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Hubley: Animators are "the actors - they make the character move. They perform the character." This is a very interesting point, with critical implications.

Animation Obsessive

@ani_obsessive

2 years

Animation legends Tissa David and John Hubley discuss her one-of-a-kind style in this rare footage From: In Quest of Cockaboody (1973), dir. Howard S. Weaver, Cranbrook

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Remember a week ago when I said different popular and specialist discourses have little to do with one another because they concern different things, have different objectives, and basically operate within different epistemological frameworks?

Zero Gravity 💫

@Z3RO_GRAVITY_

2 years

When the animators get paid

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@farawayfarer

6 years

Mikhail Tumelya’s latter work is relatively unknown, but his skill as a student of western ideas and practices shine through in his work on the aptly titled “The Song of Wolfgang the Intrepid, the Glorious Destroyer of Dragons.” A finely crafted, genuinely humorous little gem!

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@farawayfarer

2 years

"Chainsaw man is (not) horny." What a strange object of contention that is. Fujimoto's manga is explicitly about a dude having his fill of life - "eating", literally and metaphorically - and finding that the taste of it shatters whatever illusions he had about the whole thing.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Nothing against the OP, who is technically correct to make this observation, but the question re. the manga's "much bigger theme" is a good example of how our reading of the philosophical depth and grandeur of Oshii's work demands a certain interpretative frame of reference.

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@farawayfarer

3 years

One of the most revealing of Hayao Miyazaki's many disparaging remarks on the anime industry is this comment on the inherent limits of cel animation, the classical aesthetic of which is neither neutral or natural but an instrumental condition of industrial mass production.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Strive has many merits - superb character designs, complex models, a focus on character expression, a more refined rendering suite, more intricate and tightly spaced frames of animation - but as a sequel the game also features a rather restrained visual direction.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

This emphasis is perfect for fighting games, whose formal constraints demand a sense of impact built on a snappy yet exaggerated animation. Hence the resounding success of Xrd.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

These are both valid criticisms, btw. Indiana Jones' killing of the primitive swordsman is played for laughs, but it remains a supremacist, colonialist joke. Similarly, the LotR movies reproduce, yet do not meaningfully adress, Tolkien's racialized caricatures of non-Europeans.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

"Anime community in shock as expressionist master animator Shinya Ohira comes out as a sakuga fan!"

fullfrontal.moe

@fufuro_moe

2 years

Check out our exclusive interview with legendary animator of Studio Ghibli fame Shin’ya Ohira! We talked about Studio Break’s activities, Mr. Ohira’s career and his future projects. Huge thanks to Mr. Ohira and @promax225 for this opportunity!

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@farawayfarer

1 year

One wonders what kind of "training" this critic, from the "alien culture" of America, would require to appreciate the political dimension of Pom Poko: A study of "western-style" modernization through class, minoritarianism, alienation, assimilation, gentrification, luddism, etc.

ibcf

@_ibcf_

1 year

people still like calvin and hobbes but i feel like in the early-mid 2000s people REALLY liked calvin and hobbes, to the point they would reflexively use it as a point of comparison for "my neighbors the yamadas"

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Reports like this suggest just how anomalous anime history has been. Indeed, Shingo Yamashita's singular animation/directorial work on Naruto was an abberation that, realistically, can no longer be reproduced in such a context.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Pushing the limits of limited animation produces stunning results - in terms of posing, spacing, timing - by foregrounding animation as an expressively exaggerated eurythmic and tempographic form of art.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

The thing that separates these two images is that Miyazaki's character designs haven't evolved substantially in decades, which retrospectively makes them forward looking.

ibcf

@_ibcf_

2 years

tonight i will explain the important and very meaningful difference between an "old" anime and a "modern classic" anime OLD: himitsu no akko-chan episode 28 (1989) MODERN CLASSIC: kiki's delivery service (1989)

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@farawayfarer

2 years

In view of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, I finished up an old essay about “Son Goku”, cyborgism, and what it means for something to be “Dragon Ball”.

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@farawayfarer

9 months

This debate gets at a fundamental tension in sakuga discourse: It's at once politically egalitarian ("credit the workers!"), meritocratic ("celebrate (only) the *best* art/artists!"), aesthetic ("*this* decontextualized extract is sakuga!"), and holistic ("art is irreducible!").

Animétudes

@anime_gaku

9 months

And are names that important? Sakuga fans obsess on crediting like it's a moral duty but I've always wondered what was so important about it Also, could we not imagine that if the interest was purely aesthetic, we could do without names?

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Awayfarer

@farawayfarer

2 years

Sales of Cyberpunk reportedly shot up after the release of Ederunners. Is this the true power of anime?! vs This literal commercialization project demonstrates how the creative forces of otaku subculture have been captured by big capital. Is this the dystopian future of anime?!

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@farawayfarer

1 year

@nise_yoshimi The obvious problem was that they hadn't integrated into Republican capitalism.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

PS. This is a very good breakdown of what they did with Xrd, artistically and technically.

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@farawayfarer

4 years

People say there is no good 2D animation besides anime. So why not try looking outside the mainstream (US/JP) industry? Even ignoring the treasures of independent animation (the short film is the purest vessel of animated art) we are in a golden age of cinematic world animation.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

But it's also seen during gameplay, where it takes the form of a relative lack of distortions, smears, effects - all of which contributes to a reduced sense of energy, style, and "coolness factor." Of course, this also reflects the (literally) more grounded design of the game.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Er, the comedy of this scene is its irony: Oshii uses the obvious super-fakery of the images on display to stage a blunt critique of the idea of photo-media objectivity. It's all illusion and artifice, an unreal sequence starring fictional actors - manipulated and manipulative.

Bauwerks (formerly James Bont)

@_bauwerks

1 year

Ah, the heady days before digital photography, Photoshop, AI, fake news, etc. when this sentiment actually had merit. Suffice to say, it has not aged well.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

By applying sophisticated critical theory to "mass culture", the critic draws attention to the minority mindset underlying all criticism: The abnormal intensity of focus with which specialists - nerds, otaku, scholars - obsess over subsets of works and their sub-elements.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

This is a new golden age for stylized 3D animation. It makes me wish tjr American animation industry was capable of anything but a parade of the same reimagined children's IPs infinitely rolling out of the nostalgia factory.

Catsuka

@catsuka

1 year

New trailer of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" animated movie by Jeff Rowe. Produced by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg. New release date : August 2, 2023.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

"Not everything stylized is a Trigger reference." True! But then, not everything is stylized *like* a Trigger reference. And, more pertinently, not everything frames itself through repeated references to Gurren Lagann iconography.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Mori's work here (storyboard, design, animation) is outstanding, and it is beautifully complemented by Ishitani's mastery of visual nostalgia, but my takeaway from this is a general observation; the emergence of a "new" approach to character animation-centric direction.

Catsuka

@catsuka

2 years

One Piece Red / Ado "Kaze no Yuzue" : a wonderful music video directed by Megumi Ishitani and solo animated by Keisuke Mori (also character designer). Produced by Toei Animation. Full video >>

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@farawayfarer

2 years

This is a good thread, but I'd add that the overall sorry state of social media discourse suggests that these public displays of misinformational anti-intellectualism and clique bigotry are not specific to any community. "Insiders" just catch more of it in their vicinity.

∫obi

@takasugii3

2 years

on the topic btw, im not sure why literary analysis is so frowned upon when it comes to anime/manga. its normal for books and movies and whatever but suddenly its "fake deep" and "dorky"? just say you dont respect anime/manga despite it being the only thing you consume

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@farawayfarer

2 years

Chainsaw concerns itself with sex appeal for the simple reason that sex, like food, appeals to people. But that doesn't make the manga a self-gratifying piece of easy entertainment. Hence why every chance for Denji to "score" is hilariously/tragically subverted.

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@farawayfarer

1 year

We know for a fact that US funded anime productions do not improve working conditions, nor do they elevate product standards. The point is to cash in on a popular medium built on cheap labor. Hence why the entry of Netflix, "savior of anime", hasn't resolved anything.

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@farawayfarer

5 years

Of course Miyazaki’s masterful layouts ensure his presence can be felt throughout. No doubt the environmentalist themes reveal Heidi to be the single most direct forerunner of his own directorial efforts.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

This of course also relates to the fact that Fujimoto's manga is fundamentally a restatement of Devilman. And this penchant for meta-alienation, by the way, is why the sequel isn't about Chainsaw man but rather people dealing with the now popular *idea* of Chainsaw man.

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@farawayfarer

5 years

Yoichi Kotabe’s rustic but spirited character designs possess what I can only describe as a near-timeless, universal quality. There is a purity to the simplified forms and muted yet rich color palette. The aesthetic effect seems to me almost inexhaustible. (Photo via @catsuka )

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@farawayfarer

1 year

"SUICIDE SQUAD ISEKAI" I just love it when moneyed Hollywood producers get niche industries to make commercials for their big IP, which then suck up all the attention and resources which could have gone to worthier projects. This is the hidden cost of mainstreamification.

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@farawayfarer

3 years

Important story, but also a reminder of the complex structures and dynamics of leadership: Even progressive-left labor-unionists like Takahata and Miyazaki can turn into over-demanding authoritarians when placed in positions of corporate responsibility and personal power.

Animation Obsessive

@ani_obsessive

3 years

Back in the '60s, Hayao Miyazaki was struggling as a young animator. But he found a lifeline in his company's labor union. In our newsletter this week, we look at how Miyazaki's time as a labor leader changed his life -- and anime itself:

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Exactly. At the center of this story is not the complex reality of (outsourcing/subcontracting) production history - it's the mythical totem of Ghibli (or, if you are a US tv animation fan, TMS), seen in terms of a supposedly distinguished pedigree of style, quality, and spirit.

Mew

@Magicmew12

1 year

Re the Ghibli/Superman debacle: the real issue here seems to be not people disagreeing on what counts as a studio animating something (no one objects to the definition in any other case), it's that people regard Ghibli as some sort of holy entity that would never sully its hands

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@farawayfarer

4 years

France alone has countless modern masterpieces: Marona's Fantastic Tale, I Lost My Body, The Illusionist, The Girl Without Hands.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

But this lack of discernment is not aberrant - it is the social mean. Society operates behind a veil of ignorance; for good and ill, we do not have direct access to the lived experience of other people. Hence, we can overlook our differences even as we live and work together.

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@farawayfarer

2 years

A selection of personally significant tv anime* released since KLK got me into the scene in 2014. *Not all of these strictly made for tv/"anime", but I had to fill out the list somehow.

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@farawayfarer

3 years

The board for the final confrontation of Gurren Lagann remains one of my all-time favorites - conceptualized as a single, multi-stage extended Giga Drill Break, it’s a simple and straightforward idea executed in the grandest, most outrageous way imaginable.

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@farawayfarer

3 years

This and that other show exemplify how craft-centric sakuga analysis lends itself to a willful form of blindness, in that it deliberately overlooks the artistic whole (subject, theme, intent, etc) in favor of the spectacle of a project's formal execution.

@AnimeFeminist.bsky.social

@AnimeFeminist

3 years

Akebi’s Sailor Uniform – Episode 1 There are a lot of things to like about this beautifully animated slice-of-life show--if only there wasn't also something indefinably creepy about the whole thing

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@farawayfarer

1 year

Also worth noting that, for all their merits, none of the famous JP films about WW2 protray the harrowing reality of extraterritorial violence by the empire, e.g. affronts by the Japanese army in China and Korea. Naturally, Takahata wanted to adress that:

Sarca

@sarca_sc

1 year

Saw someone say Oppenheimer not having the perspective of the Japanese was tantamount to the "erasure" of the victims. I don't know how to tell you this, but the film is biographical and not titled "Barefoot Gen". 'The movie isn't what I wanted it to be' is not valid criticism

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