Anipages

Might I suggest the addition of your August 21st 2005, post
"Rambling about Toei Animation". It may seem a bit unsubstantial but I think it's a good post that outlines the uniqeness of Japanese animation styles and how the industry now realizes it.

Thanks for the suggestion and input on that post, William. Much appreciated. I will add it. I welcome suggestions like this. I've been curious to know what other people felt were the more interesting posts.

Well noted and as many say you have a stellar blog going here. If I ever get into the industry stateside then I;ll be sure to remember this site as a fountain of information.

Pardon me, Mr. E but I was wondering what your thoughts on the flying ghost ship (1969) were? I haven't seen you cover that film much and I believe it's a classic Toei Douga film that Miyazaki worked on.

Flying Ghost Ship is one of my least favorite of the classic Toei Doga films. I find the story facile and ill suited to a feature, the animation is a rush job with no effort put into it and looks like TV work, the directing is boring with staging consisting mostly of close-ups and nothing cinematic about it whatsoever. I find it to be a real step down from the previous films and a harbinger of an ominous change in Toei's approach to filmmaking. Prior to that they were spending the time needed to make films the right way, but now they're willing to make a feature in 3s in 4 months to cash in on the popularity of a manga, which in my mind is the beginning of the end of Toei Doga. What perhaps makes it interesting is precisely that it's one of the first films that brings in the concepts of TV animation to the big screen, e.g. showing only the results of an action without bothering to animate the action. Miyazaki's scene is great, and I can appreciate the effort Kotabe put into the drawings, which bring alive Ishinomori's characters nicely (and I quite like Ishinomori), but in the end my feeling is that forces beyond the control of the staff doom this film.

Wow i see, I'd like to see it and compare it with Hols and other classic Toei Douga works. The words (like TV) reminded me of the 999 feature by Toei.I could appreciate the animation in one sense but aside from the destruction of Andromeda and some nice animation of Tochiro nothing spoke to me animation wise. I wonder how great that movie would be if it had the old school toei people working on it (not to marginalize Kazuo, Tomohide or Yoshinori's work though)

I always thought this post on effects animation was particularly insightful, especially the 2nd to last paragraph: http://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php?p=166&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Might I recommend your Tokyo Godfathers piece from August 24, 2004 as well as your Gosenzosama Banbanzai article from February 18, 2005 to be included among your highlights?

Thanks, jrsmith and Muffin, for the additional recommendations.