Japanese Animation and New Media
Week Nine: Chapter Fifteen: Full Limited Animation
Little Norse Prince also uses techniques of limited animation in other kinds of scenes, such as this sequence in which the heroine Hilda wanders in the fields and forests lost in reverie. Note how techniques of limited animation here turn into open compositing: the slow graceful sliding of the viewing position across the luminous landscapes meshes seamlessly with the sliding of the layers of the landscape (movement arising between different layers of the trees and between trees and sky).
In other words, as in Miyazaki’s works, techniques of limited animation are okay when they enhance a sense of the vastness and sanctity of nature by giving us a sense of a dynamic or ‘movementful’ nature that remains beyond our grasp. But the movement of sliding layers is consistently grounded in a unitary frame of reference, Nature. And when characters move, their movement will have to be grounded into relation to Nature. Music plays an important role here: the lone woman’s voice singing a classical song not only underscores the tone of reverie and classical simplicity, but also imparts a sense of organic connection between music and image, reinforcing Nature as the frame of reference.
This is why I have characterized this Tôei-Ghibli lineage of animation as ‘limited full animation’ rather than limited animation. In light of the current Ghibli tendency toward corporate branding, we might somewhat snidely think of it as ‘Full Animation, Ltd.’
Such animation favours ‘productive’ action such as tool-bearing exertion, riding animals, steering vehicles, and more broadly goal-oriented action. Little Norse Prince thus favours the boy hero Hols. The heroine Hilda has to sacrifice herself in order to appear productive and goal-orientated, since her style of animated doesn’t have enough sense of weight or gravity that would anchor her in, or angle her toward, the world. In contrast, Miyazaki’s animations will struggle to orient the shojo character toward the world, yet ultimately, her ‘weightlessness’ continues to orient her more toward sacrificial action than toward productive action.
