Thursday, 12 March 2015

How To Interpret New Anime Trailers

By Leslie Ball


Cosplay, the wearing of costumes based on cartoon characters, is a hobby that originated in Japan and is sweeping the rest of the world. It is derived from the words, "costume, " and "play." Enthusiasts often base their characters on new anime trailers. Around the world, there are more than 430 anime studios producing the animated videos. Among the most prolific are Studio Ghibli, Toei Animation, and Gainax.

Anime is a form of cartoon animation based on hand-drawn or computerized images. It is an abbreviation of the Japanese word for animation and is pronounced, "any-may, " with emphasis on the second syllable. The genre is characterized by intense graphics, deep characters and highly imaginative plot lines.

Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989), inspired by Walt Disney, is regarded as the godfather of anime. One of his biggest and globally recognizable successes is "Astro Boy." The esteem in which Tezuka is held in Japan is demonstrated by the fact that he was placed on a stamp in 1997, eight years after he died in 1989 from stomach cancer.

The characters in Tezuka's animations were often based on stories derived from western literature and movies. He also dabbled in manga, a form of Japanese graphic novel or comic book. Manga appeals to readers of all ages in Japan. Between the covers of a manga novel may be fouond comedy, suspense, sexuality, horror, romance, historical drama, action-adventure, and more.

Tezuka also produced a baker's dozen of experimental films, one of which is entitled, "Legend of the Forest." It tells the story of what happens to the animal community when a woodsman hacks down a large tree with an axe. Images of squirrels scurrying and other wildlife scurrying to safety abound. While much of his work was aimed at children, he did contribute to the adult market, too. One of his contributions was, "Cleopatra, Queen of Sex." In this genre, there is more flexibility in terms of how much graphic violence and sex is allowable.

Manga has been a large part of the Japanese publishing industry. The market is boosted tremendously by material being translated into English for the International readership. In Canada and the United States alone, the market has been recently valued at 175 million dollars. Some material is published originally in other languages, but these are referred to as anime-influenced animation to distinguish it from the "real thing."

Unlike the type of cartoons that westerners are accustomed to, Japanese animations don't show the characters in motion. Rather, they are a compilation of detailed cels. Each cell, or individual drawing, is shown for a longer interval, as opposed to the cels in a cartoon, that flip by so quickly you can't see the individual frames. Some of the biggest titles include, "Space Dandy, " "Nobunaga the Fool, " and "Witch Craft Works."

All three art forms, cosplay, Anime and Manga have a basis in Japanese. All three are sweeping the rest of the globe. Not bad, considering the west gave them "Friends, " McDonalds and Justin Bieber!




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