Aslo a common thing in France. I never understood why art schools were so openly anti-anime (or manga) style. I remember hearing nonsense such as "except Miyazaki movies, anime is not *real animation*. Paprika, Ghost in the Shell and such are too realistic to be called animation"
When working on my student movie, most of the teachers couldn't understand what we wanted to make, even though we were showing them references (Mind Game or Dead Leaves). We were told "we are an ANIMATION school, we don't want any ANIME here". WTF seriously?
We just decided to do our movie the way we wanted, even though we knew the school will never support it.
Only one year after graduating, I found a job in an animation studio in Tokyo. And I've been working in the anime (or anime inspired french animation) industry since then
A couple years later I came back to my former animation school as a layout/storyboard teacher. I gave my students exercices using only anime storyboards, and showing examples taken from anime together with western animation and live action.
I invited artists like Masaaki Yuasa, Sushio, Koyama Shigeto to visit the school, show their work and interact with the students. I hope that in the future some japanese animators/directors will be able to make master classes in western schools
Never let any art teacher ever bring you down because you like anime and like drawing anime style. There are some people here in Japan who would like to give you work someday, if you have good drawing skills and are willing to work hard to create the future of anime!
This is getting more attention lately, but the most important is my last message of this thread >
Never let any art teacher bring you down bc u like anime & drawing anime style. Some studios here in Japan could give you work someday, if u have good skills & are ready to work hard
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I'm starting a thread to share some rather obscure/arty anime. Japan has one the most diverse animation production in the world, and I think some works deserve more attention. 1/ Noiseman Sound Insect
Production studio 4C
Director: Koji Morimoto
Animation director: Masaaki Yuasa
Most jp studios are hiring foreign animators not bc they are craving for exotic new talents. They're just doing so bc most young japanese are running away from animation jobs due to terribly low salary. They're basically giving you the job that japanese don't want to do anymore
It's still a super fun job and I'm not saying that you shouldn't give it a try if you are passionate. It's hard to negotiate at the beginning, you have to prove that you can do the (very demanding) job first. But if you manage to go on for 8~10 months, start to increase your rate
From all my tweets on the subject this one got a little bit too much exposure and just serves as another confirmation bias that "japanese animation = slavery". That comparison oversimplifies the issue.
People who will argue that "it's not plagiarism since they redraw everything" are missing the point.
Animation is not (only) about drawing. It's about movement. Timing and spacing. Frame composition and Camera work.
Retracing every pose means you steal all that hard work
This is the actual work of a japanese animator. Do you notice all the annotations, spacing scales for inbetween, time sheet? You can replace the character with anything, there will still be that unique sense of timing, spacing, staging. Retracing every frame is stealing that work
If you are so sure that retracing every frame of an animation and changing a character for a professional/paid work is not plagiarism and is OK, why don't you try to do it with some Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks animation?
Are you so sure they will not sue your ass if they find out?
According to Netflix, you create anime by taking baths, eating dango, singing in karaoke and cosplaying as gothic lolita in Tokyo.
Damn, I've been believing all that time it was all about sitting in front of a computer actually drawing/animating... How could I have been so wrong?
Ok, enough with the rant. Instead of watching that poor netflix commercial, I recommend you to check those great making off:
- Millenium actress
- Tokyo Godfather
- Little witch academia
Thread/ Hi, Yann here. I’ve been working with japanese anime studios/artists and making collaborations with western studios/artists for more than 10 years. Currently working for a french/japanese studio in Tokyo with a team of french bg artists on an american/japanese project.
After the recent discussion about the awful condition of animators in Japan, many suggested that japanese animators should go work abroad and/or work for foreign, better paid projects. I think that’s a really good idea.
Japanese animation is super popular abroad, but it’s really hard for foreign artists to get the « japanese anime style » right, and many western studios seems to be eager to work with japanese studios/artists.