'The Red Turtle' is a 2016 French Japanese animated film I viewed at the Manchester Arts Festival (MAF 2017). It's a bizarre interpretive fantasy film showing the story of a man stranded on an island. He tries to escape but is stopped over and over again by a mysterious red sea turtle.
The film starts of with him trying to survive and gradually going insane from not being able to leave the island because of the Red Turtle. In a fit of rage he attacks the Red Turtle when it emerges onto land and leaves it on its back. At this point the film starts to introduce it's bizarre fantasy side when the red turtle turns into a woman with whom he makes a family with.
The man and his family made with the turtle woman
Through it's bizarre concept it tells a story of a cycle of life in many ways besides the family itself. It does this subtly through moments such as the tsunami scene. It destroys a huge portion of the trees on the island which we see later on being replaced with new plant shoots.
With the family it shows a cycle of life similar to that of a sea turtle only with the man involved. When the child becomes old enough he leaves the island in search for a new life, similar to that of baby sea turtles once they are hatched and ready they leave the land to go out to sea. After this we follow the parents as they grow old and after the man dies of old age the woman turns back into a turtle and leaves for the sea as well. This is reminiscent of how a real female sea turtle would return to the sea after it's finished it's role in the cycle of life.
The animation was also well done, simplistic yet detailed, beautiful and an art style that looks like something out of the pages of a book.
'Phantom Boy' is a 2015 French film I viewed at the Manchester Arts Festival (MAF 2016).
It a very interesting supernatural crime film set in New York City which follows the story of a detective and a boy named Leo who has discovered his ability to leave his body to move around in spirit form. With his special ability he helps the detective hunt down the villain known as "The Broken Face".
The Broken Face making a video threat
What I liked most about the film is it's sense of humour especially with the main villain. He clearly has a serious agenda and reason behind what he is doing but their are constantly many funny distraction in the film interrupting him from explaining his backstory which leaves you wondering at the end of the film "what was his reason for being evil?" which leaves you with a humours impression of the film. The animation is well thought out and done, even the use of audio, despite using a very simplistic art style. This shows that as long as the animation is done right almost any art styles can be used to create a great animated film.
This is an American live adaptation of the anime film 'Ghost in The Shell' and shows various interpretations/references from the anime version of the film.
Anime film 'Ghost in The Shell'
Personally, as far as I can recall from the original's (anime version) story it seemed very hard to follow. It would question a lot about when does a cybernetic human stop being human without feeling it's a part of the main storyline (as the main character, Motoko, is a cyborg woman). However, I felt that the visuals of the live action are not as impressive as the drawn animated visuals of the original anime film.
The various similarities I can show:
Overall, I believe they bring different interesting interpretations to the story of 'Ghost in The Shell'.
'Your Name' is a Japanese film that came out in 2016 and is a supernatural mind blowing romance film. It demonstrates amazing visuals with great detail and is probably one of the best animated films I have seen so far.
The story follows the story of two high school students, one lives in the city (the main boy character) and one lives in the countryside (the main girl character). One day they think they are dreaming about each other's daily life when in reality they are switching bodies every time they sleep. Using this concept it creates a very mind blowing film you need to watch to see for yourself for the major plot point.
One of my favourite parts of the animation is how it creates it's own animated time lapses, perfectly capturing reality in a beautiful animated interpretation. The use of lights and clouds make it look very convincing. This goes for most of the animation as we see the characters go about their daily lives with beautiful visuals.
Gold is the recent film in the One Piece series for 2017 and a fun action packed adventure with quirky imaginative designs and concepts. It also presents a meaningful story with dark themes of oppression.
The film takes place on a island sized ship created to be the biggest and most wealthy casino ship in the world, "world's largest entertainment city". The owner, Tesoro, is extremely wealthy. The ship and buildings within it are mostly made out of gold, he can pay off the marines (the law enforcements) and even has the power to telekinetically manipulate gold. However, he has more sinister intentions then running a casino as he finds pleasure in placing other in debt due to his backstory.
Tesoro
Tesoro was a victim to the oppression of the World Nobles and it's suggested he was once a slave as he was branded with the symbol of the World Nobles. He then branded himself with a star to cover up the World Nobles' brand. Now with his wealth and new powers he now subjects those with wealth how he felt when he was helpless against the oppression of the World Nobles as if to satisfy himself. He does this by secretly placing a sort of bind on those who enter his casino which is hard to get rid of. Once he tricks you in going into debt you are trapped and subjected to serve him to pay off your debt if you want your freedom. The main characters, the Strawhat Crew, fall victim to this and have to make the "ultimate gamble".
As shown in the trailer for this film Tesoro expresses what he knows about money as well as what he may have gone through when he didn't have as much wealth as he does now:
Tesoro: "Money is power! Money can buy anything! Sooner or later those without it will have nothing! No love! No Dreams! No strength! No freedom! And once it all sinks in no HOPE".
Some of what he says seem very true and as he has clearly suffered at the hands of bad people it sets him up as a very interesting villain (who is clearly insane!). The money he has does provide him with the power to do anything he pleases as he can pay off the World Government and afford his own security already making him a dangerous individual. Money can buy him anything but it doesn't help get back what he lost because of the World Nobles, the saying of "money doesn't buy you happiness" is true but I think to an extent. True many rich people or celebs experience depression despite their wealth but there is still a majority of those who are content with their wealth (this depends on each person).
While he expresses that without money "sooner or later" you won't have "love, dreams, strength, freedom" and "hope". True to an extent, money would make life a lot easier, it's not a hundred true as is the underlying message of the One Piece story that sear determination can achieve anything as long as you try.
English Dub of the Gold Trailer:
Examples of animation, gifs and videos:
Baccarat's first appearance
Luffy, Chopper and Usopp in the Turtle Race, Hot Shell
Sabo and Lucci clash
Turtle Race, Hot Shell:
Film Introduction:
First Fight Sequence:
Final Fight at the end of the film, Luffy Gear 4 vs Tesoro:
At first glance this series wouldn't look all that serious. Besides the fun, comedy and action packed adventures the series explores very dark and serious issue. In particular how discrimination, prejudism and oppression are brought up throughout the series in various ways.
Fishmen and Humans
Arlong and his Pirate crew
One part of the series that shows discrimination and oppression is the Arlong Arc. During this part of the series we are introduced to Arlong and his crew, a group of what are called 'Fishmen' a race of humanoid creatures in One Piece. They took over a village of humans and threatened to kill if they didn't pay them money. Fishmen are superior in many ways, mainly their physical capabilities and they can breath both water and air. Arlong and his crew constantly used this to gloat about how superior Fishmen are over humans calling them weak and they should learn to respect their superiority. With help from a corrupt navy officer to turn a blind eye the residence of the village are left at the mercy of Arlong's oppression having to pay off his taxes or else they'll die.
You learn that one of the main characters (Nami) is effected by this as her adoptive mother (Bellemere) was shot and killed by Arlong himself when she was only a child. She then offered her services to Arlong in order to pay him off for the village.
Arlong shooting Bellemere
This has create prejudism towards Fishmen as they are seen as dangerous abnormal looking monsters in the eyes of humans. Though it is discovered there is a reason behind Arlong and his crew's actions as Fishmen themselves were subjected to discrimination and oppression from the beginning.
Fishmen don't have a huge population, even under water, compared to humans whom populate most of the land providing them to be more prosperous then Fishmen. This leads to humans having more power in terms of numbers and military prowess. Consequently, humans saw Fishmen as abominations and since Fishmen dream of living on the surface just as the humans do some of them end up getting kidnapped and put into slavery. This caused Fishmen like Arlong to develop prejudism against humans seeing them as lesser being undeserved of their power.
One Fishman crew in particular that Arlong was a part of was the Sun Pirates lead by Fisher Tiger, a hero amongst the Fishmen and is introduced during the Fishman Island Arc.
Fisher Tiger with fellow Fishmen Arlong and Jinbei either side of him
Fisher was a happy man who showed great enthusiasm for the surface and, just like many other Fishmen, longed to live on the surface just as the humans did. However, after a long time before returning back from his last trip he tells how he saw humans when he visited the surface and was shortly put into slavery. He was branded with the symbol of the World Nobles showing he was a slave, owned by the World Nobles. This is why they have a sun symbol on their bodies, those with the slave branding branded over the World Noble's to replace it with the Sun branding (a symbol of their dream to live under the sun).
Symbol of the World Nobles branded on Boa Hancock's back as she was once a slave during her childhood
After escaping and freeing slaves this changed who was once a happy man into a pirate out to fight for the justice of his people with a level of prejudism against humans for what they do to people like him. However, this just led to more conflict, fear and hatred between humans and fishmen, creating more prejudism and hatred.
Fisher doesn't show much hatred for humans since he is against killing humans as he strived to be better then them. He took on a human child (koala) to take her back to her home as she was also one of the slaves he rescued. Despite being a human the crew grew close to her and she learned how many nice fishmen there are and boasts how she'll tell everyone how many nice fishmen there are. However, because of Fisher's prejudism against humanity he didn't think her love for them would last forever and that "she'll grow up into a mean-spirited human like the others". So far Koala did go on to join the Revolutionary Army and learned a martial art created by the fishmen, this shows her experience with them did change her and that she probably joined the Revolutionary Army to help change the world for the better and for the rights of fishmen.
Koala and the Sun Pirates:
Unfortunately Fisher's prejudism against humans went to his grave as he was attacked by Kizaru shortly after returning Koala to her home. After being severely injured Fisher needed a transfusion but all they had was human blood (human and fishmen blood are similar). But Fisher's prejudism is so strong that he won't allow human blood to enter his body.
Fisher Tiger's response to a human blood transfusion
Whether it's his own stubborn prejudism or the fault of human's discrimination towards fishmen is no doubt they have factors into the caused of his death. Another case of this conflict causing death is when one fishman (Hody Jones) assassinated their queen in order to frame a human and cause an uproar against humans. He is even involved in punishing fellow fishmen for harbouring humans in their homes. Even the way they dress up when they did this along with flaming torches looks like a reference to the kkk.
Fishmen responding to the rumour of a fishman harbouring a human in his home
It uses blood to symbolise the hatred and conflict created by the prejudice between these two races/species. But towards the end of the Fishman Island Arc blood is also used to symbolise a connection between Fishmen and Humans, that they all share the same red blood.
Fishman Jinbei shared blood with main character Luffy:
This creates a beautiful and meaningful message towards the end of the arc and cleverly uses what is usually used to show conflict and horror for something more positive.
Chopper's Discrimination
Tony Tony Chopper
Chopper was a reindeer born with a blue nose and just like Rudolf the red nosed reindeer Chopper was also subjected to being treated differently from the other reindeers because of his blue nose. Later on Chopper encountered and eats what is called a Devil Fruit which made him part human causing him to be completely rejected from the other reindeers. He even tries to approach humans from a nearby village using his human form but is seen as a monster and is chased out by the villagers.
Chopper's background story:
Thanks a man called Dr. Hiluluk he showed Chopper the kindness he never knew and is the reason why he started studying medicine to become a doctor. When Chopper encountered the main character Luffy Luffy didn't hate or fear him because he was a monster but was more interested in him and wanted to be his friend. Even when Chopper tried explaining to Luffy that a monster doesn't belong among humans Luffy didn't care what he was talking about and doesn't take no for an answer. Chopper always wanted to be human but learned not to care whether he was a monster, if it's for his friends and especially for Luffy he doesn't care if he becomes a monster.
Chopper wants to become a monster helpful to Luffy:
This creates the message that you shouldn't care about what people think about you and that there are always people who will accept you for what you are.
Celestial Dragons
The World Nobles
Celestial Dragons are also known as the World Nobles, descendants of the founders of the World Government. Because of this they have high authority, do as they please without consequences and if anyone opposes or harms them will be in big trouble. They even see themselves as higher beings and anyone who isn't of their blood are lesser beings. This has caused them to subject people to their oppression and ruin their lives causing hatred towards them especially those I have mentioned whom were subjected to their slavery.
However, the series also demonstrates how the hatred towards these Nobles has also caused prejudism towards them. It's discovered that the Warlord Donquixote Doflamingo used to be a World Noble and his father and mother wanted to become one with the "lesser" people as they are all human. But as a result of the history of World Nobles' oppression on common people when the villagers of the village Doflamingo's family tried to settle down in found out they were no longer Nobles they were targeted for revenge. Their hatred for the World Nobles were so much that they wouldn't listen or believe they were trying to be good, consumed by the prejudice belief that World Nobles are all horrible people.
Doflamingo's family being attacked by the villagers
Due to this as a child Doflamingo discovered his inner power, shot his own father and became the evil tyrant known as the "Heavenly Yaksha". Discovered during the Dressrosa Arc he took over a country by force using a Devil Fruit ability he gained to frame the King (Riku) and the army of said country for mass genocide of its citizens. He then presented himself as the hero who stopped the mad king only to subject his own oppression on the people. This also caused prejudism towards Rebecca, a descendant of the king, only hated for what the king did. Thanks to the power of one of his subordinates people's existence are wiped from the memories of others. With no power over this they are helpless as their loved ones carry on with their lives with no memory of them while they are subjected to slavery. Even after this curse is broken the damage in many cases is already done e.g. Kyros' wife died with no memory of him.
Doflamingo controlling King Riku like a puppet
This shows how, at times, people always expect the worse out of people, that it's hard to believe they have chanced their ways after what people like them have already done. Lumping them all together with the prejudice idea that they are all the same. It's possible that if Doflamingo's parents didn't decide to live as normal people that he wouldn't have turned out as evil as he is. But it can also be said he would have been a better person if those villagers didn't subject him and his family to their prejudice hatred or at the least he wouldn't have turned out to be the man he is now.
While the series doesn't have the best animation most of the time it provides meaningful stories and characters who are linked together due to issues of discrimination, prejudism and oppression.
With these I can say I can adapt to most drawn animation and design briefs with my range on different styles and design ideas. I don't have much skills in 3D animation, I have basic understanding but it isn't my primary interest in animation.
I also do well in collaborative practices as I have been able to come to agreements that favour everyone as well as express my own ideas even if some of them aren't used.
My Weaknesses:
- Too ambitious designs
- Specific interest of animation
- Don't draw many backgrounds
- Time Management/Need to focus more time on work
I need more of an understanding of what my time limits are for each brief so that I can determine detailed my drawing should be and the amount of detail put into the animation. Keeping a specific interest in animation may limit me but I wish to work around this. I also need to focus on making backgrounds but I think I am improving on how to make these effectively.
Improving on these will hopefully help me for my future in the art industry.
I've been thinking of how many couples in animation and film show a relationship between a monstrous looking man and a beautiful woman. Beauty and The Beast, King Kong and Phantom of the Opera demonstrate the monstrous looking male character as misunderstood and/or had a tragic past to cause their angry personalities while the woman is shown as beautiful and kind. You never see or at least regularly see this combination between a male and a female character, as if to say men can't be presented in a beautiful and kind way, that this is only a trait appropriate for women.
In Hunter X Hunter I notice a difference to this stereotypical male monster and female human couple with the characters Meruem and Komugi.
Meruem and Komugi playing Gungi
Despite being a non romance anime series they are probably one of my favourite and most emotional couple relationship I have seen. Demonstrating a unique developing relationship between a monster and a girl.
Meruem
The monster Meruem doesn't look that monstrous most of the time, but he certainly isn't fully human. At most he had a very inhumane monstrous personality who had no concern for life. Even straight from birth he forced his way out of his mother fatally wounding her and then left to start his human killing spree leaving her to die. He even kills his own kind for not doing as he pleases.
In the following video shows him killing the first humans he encounters:
As shown in the video Meruem's respect over life is non existent at the beginning. By the fact he kills the parents and child only to decide they are "inedible" to him essentially making their deaths even more pointless. The series perfectly illustrates this even further by adding no sound effects to the deaths of this innocent family as well as no voice acting to show how disposable these characters were. Meruem is a monster, though not monstrous in appearance he isn't fully human and acted monstrously. So already he is completely different to those like Phantom of the Opera, having no tragic cause for his personality, pure evil from birth.
Komugi
The female character Komugi isn't described or even shown shown to be pretty, at most cute. As shown by how scruffy her hair looks, bushy eyebrows and snotty nosed. She is also blind and lives with a poor family of twelve and the only way she provides of use to her family is to participate and win in Gungi (a board game in Hunter X Hunter) for money.
Meruem encounters her when he tries beating multiple professional board game players to prove his intellect and show his superiority in more then just his born abilities and physical power. He sees her as the most feeble human he has ever met and yet he finds himself getting closer to her as he never manages to win a single game against her yet finds their games enjoyable, asking himself questions and wonders what he wants to do with her. This starts to develop his humanity and learning to protect those weaker than him
As shown in this following video as he ponders whether he should kill her or not his actions surprise himself:
Komugi exclaims how no one has treated her so nicely before she met Meruem is very ironic after we know how evil he was and the fact he was deciding on killing her. This could be illustrating how easy it should be to be nice to people that even a monster can learn to be nice and that people can change their ways given the chance ("even a monster"). Also, this can be due to the fact that Meruem is only a few days old, he still has much to learn.
I also appreciate the ending not being a soppy happily ever after, more of an anti-happy ending. After Meruem's fight with Netero (an old man sent to eliminate Meruem) Meruem barely survived and was poisoned by a biological weapon. As shown in the following video, he explains to Komugi that the poison is slowly killing him and it will effect her as well if she stays around him, however he wishes to spend his last moment with her. Despite hearing this she wants to join him in his final moments saying she is the most happiest she has ever been and they both believe they were born for this moment together.
Not only making a unique relationship between the usual male monster and female human but making emotional and impactful moments then a typical happy ending romance story. It even makes it look like Komugi is beautiful in Meruem's eyes towards the end of that video, watching her lips and looks like a bright light to him despite being a dimly lit room. The same with Komugi, despite being blind Meruem is the most amazing man she has ever met.
When it finally ends towards their death the black and white pieces from the Gungi board game are used to symbolise their connection as playing Gungi is how they first met (the black piece is Meruem, the white piece is Komugi).
- Heroman written by Stan Lee: Masahiko Minami (Producer), Toshihiro Kawamoto (Chief Animator, Animation Director, Opening Animation Director).
First animation I have seen from the series is the original Fullmetal Alchemist series, but the Brotherhood version is my favourite version. In my opinion the art style is better, the story is better and makes more sense.
- How do you go about selling your ideas to animate (writer and director)
- Better ways of colouring in animations
- What is the best option to do what you want
When I graduate I would like to create my own stories and characters for animation. However, this might take a long process and I would be happy to be involved with work I find enjoyable otherwise.
I also need to figure out what options I have and what is best in order to achieve this.
5 skills I think are my strengths:
- Imagination for character design and story telling
- Range in art style
- Simplistic and/or detailed character design
- Digital Animation skills in Photoshop
- Sociable and Approachable
I've always been developing and experimenting with different art styles for a while so I have no real problem character designing. As well as utilising my imagination as much as I can.
I need to prioritise when simplistic and detailed characters are appropriate so that I don't end up using too much unnecessary time and effort.
5 things I want to improve:
- Productivity of my animations
- Be less ambitious
- Find more motivation
- Consider deadlines before hand to identify what's more important
- Don't focus too much time on one part of my animation
5 practitioners that demonstrate your interest in animation:
- Satoshi Kon
- Hayao Miyazaki
- Yasuhiro Irie
- Byron Howard
- Glen Keane
5 websites/online resources that demonstrate my area of interest in the studies:
ONE is the pen name used by a Japanese Manga artist famous for his series 'One Punch Man', which he originally released as a webcomic in 2009. Despite the poor illustration it had received millions of hits by 2012 for it's unusual storyline. This caught the attention of another manga artist called Yusuke Murata who contacted ONE and offered to redraw the webcomic for the manga website 'Young Jump Web Comics', first chapter published on 14 June 2012. Announcements for the anime adaptation being made by the popular 'Studio Madhouse' were released on 10 March 2015. The first season was aired on 5 October 2015.
Webcomic, redrawn Manga and Anime comparisons of One Punch Man
As shown above, 'One Punch Man' progressed from a poorly drawn webcomic to the amazing animation of Studio Madhouse in just 6 years. This is a huge jump from where ONE started but he hasn't stopped there.
Mob Psycho 100 manga cover
ONE also created another webcomic called 'Mob Psycho 100' which he published on 18 April 2012. This was also adapted to anime by another popular studio called 'Studio Bones' and aired on 12 July 2016. ONE's popularity shows as in just 4 years another one of his stories goes from manga to an even more amazingly animated series.
Mob Psycho 100 Opening:
Amazing charcoal animation done by Studio Bones, Mob Psycho Ending:
Presentations must communicate meaningful information for sharing ideas, thoughts, concepts, progress and/or the result of a project to an audience (your peers and tutors). This gives you a chance to receive constructive feedback in order to consider and/or improve.
Considering your audience you should assume they know nothing about your work. Therefore, you need to inform and explain to them about every detail of what you are doing.
The presentation must not be about yourself and not be stressful if you are prepared. Know what you are talking about and keep it simple. Don't use clip art as it suggests you are lazy or rushed. Use other imagery to illustate your point when it is needed and never use too much text. Slides should be readable from a distance (8ft rule).
Show that you are enthusiastic, persuasive and expressive. If you made a mistake don't fret over it, overcome it and correct yourself. Prepare yourself a script so that you have an idea of what you want to inform your audience about and prepare your presentation (NOT AT THE LAST MINUTE).
Finally, make sure to arrive early to set up and be ready to present so that your audience isn't left waiting for you.
Copyright - gives the owner, creator or author the rights to control how their content is used.
Such content include films, games, animations, music, computer apps, stories, scripts, lyrics, literary and drawings.
Basically things created as a result of a person's, your own or collaborative effort can be copyrighted so that no one else who wasn't involved gets credit or profits from it.
Things such as copying, adapting, distributing and public transmission without persmission from the content creator is a breach of copyright.
The only case where content belongs to another party other then the creator is when it is sold to said party. However, buying a single copy of something like a game or music CD doesn't mean you own the copyright.
Copyright does have a certain time limit depending on the content:
- Literary, artistic and photographic work: Life of creator + 70 years
- Sound recordings: 70 years
Permission is granted through contacting the owner or organisation who represents them. This is not always necessary unless it's for commercial purposes. Non-commercial, educational, research, private study and teaching is fine.
Claiming copyright can be achieved by:
- Ensuring your work is properly marked: displaying a copyright notice shows your awareness for copyright and infringements of your work.
- Register your work: evidence may be needed to help prove your claim to copyright. Copyright Registration Services can be used to provide proof with a verifiable date and content of your work.
- Keep or register supporting evidence: proof of evolution of ideas such as early drafts and sketches over a period of time. Posting it to yourself with dated stamp intact will prove it's existance at a certain point in time.
- Contact the person: if your work is being copyrighted contact the person to get to the bottom of the situation.
'One Piece' is a Japanese animated series originally created by Eiichiro Oda (manga writer and illustrator) and animated by Toei Animation. The series released in 1999 and is still making episodes till this day.
There are many things I enjoy about the series. The story is very unique and inspirational using following your dreams no matter what as the main plot device ("If I die trying at least I TRIED" - Monkey D. Luffy). Concept of the powers such as the Devil Fruits (mysterious fruits that grant a person great power once eaten, however the person loses ability to swim) are very imaginative. This provides the author almost endless possiblities of how many of these fruits exist. Also, the consequence is very risky since for the majority of the time characters who possess Devil Fruit powers travel mostly by water. Finally the art style is what makes it unique compared to most anime which uses similar art styles. Though elements of "anime art style" exist it's mixed in with a very western cartoony style such as bizarre features or facial proportions.
Franky has a triple chin and giant torso with giant arms.
Usopp has an extremely long pointy nose.
Brook, even though he is just bones, has a jaw that stretches out unnaturally when he yells.
Many females in the series may have a similar sexy body proportions, but that doesn't mean all female character look similar:
Miss Monday
Kokoro
Giolla
Examples of the wacky cartoonistic exaggerated facial expressions featured in One Piece:
Considering how the long the series is, the quality of animation the studio usually produces is not the best. There is slight inconsistency as there are moments in the series where episodes are better animated than previous or subsequent episodes. Animations like the recent One Piece films show great animation. Over all I enjoy the series for it's designs and story.
