Japanese Animation and New Media
Lecture Two
Let’s begin with another clip from the anime adaptation of Maruo Suehiro’s manga, Shôjo Tsubaki (dir. Harada Hiroshi, 1992).
In this clip, you can see that it is possible to draw backgrounds using one-point perspective, yet without implying or striving for movement into depth. There is sliding of the viewing position across the image, and a sliding of layers within the image. At the end of this clip, we seem to be moving into the image, but in fact, as I will discuss in greater detail later, this is not movement into depth in accordance with one-point perspective. The viewing position is getting closer to the image, and the image is becoming larger. It is magnification or enlargement.
In other words, there is some degree of Cartesianism at the level of drawing but not at the level of movement.
This sliding of the layers of the image and of the viewing position is what I am calling ‘animetism.’
