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The director of the seminal "Mind Game" is back with a new feature film.

The post Masaaki Yuasa Has Made A New Feature ‘Night is Short, Walk On Girl’ (Trailer) appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Berkeley, California is the place to be in early March 2017.

The post Brad Bird and Masaaki Yuasa Confirmed As Guests at GLAS 2017 appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The Internet streaming service has also acquired Studio 4°C's "Tweeny Witches" series.

Annecy is taking over San Diego Comic-Con as the place for Hollywood to preview its major projects.

In their new reel, Japanese studio Science Saru offers a peek into how they produce animated projects in Flash, including the episode of "Adventure Time" that was directed by Masaaki Yuasa.

Finding the perfect book for the beloved animation fan in your life can be a big challenge, but these gift-book ideas will inform and inspire anyone who loves animation and drawing.

Science Saru, the new studio started by Japanese directors Masaaki Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi, has shared a behind-the-scenes look at how they used Flash in the recent TV series "Ping Pong."

How did Aymeric Kevin and his team manage to produce so many quality backgrounds on such a short schedule? Aymeric speaks to Cartoon Brew about the background art of "Ping Pong."

Masaaki Yuasa's fourth TV show wraps up in a fairly satisfying way with a briskly paced and nicely animated climax that brings emotional closure to the story with a cathartic showdown and thread-tying coda.

A sketchbook of production artwork by the innovative animation director Masaaki Yuasa will be published in Japan next month.

Peco and Dragon battle it out in a fierce match, and Peco's victory paves the way for a climactic showdown between old friends.

Peco blazes through the tournament, but his knee begins to act up, leaving his future in question. Only Peco, Smile and Ryuichi remain at the end.

Peco catches everyone off guard at the High School Championship Qualifiers with his newfound skills, skunking Kong in a reversal of the events of the previous championship.

Kaio finally tries to poach Smile, Peco gets into the National Training Center with a little help from the old lady, and we learn about coach Koizumi's storied past. This episode was largely devoted to character development, and finally brought into focus just what a complicated web of character interrelations Yuasa has woven out of the original source material, much as he did in Mind Game. There was no single major driving plot element, but rather various themes and plotlines gradually converging. By this point it feels like what we are seeing is more Yuasa than Matsumoto.

Half a year on from the events of the previous episode, it's a winter of the soul for the various protagonists. We see just how much has changed in the intervening months through the kaleidoscopic lens of one Christmas Eve.

Ryuichi Kazama continues his victorious streak with a singles win at the Youth Olympics, while Sakuma and Peco realize they aren't cut out for the sport after witnessing Smile's continued improvement. At the halfway point in the story, we seem to be in a transitional stage in which the relationships of the players to one another and their attitude towards the sport are changing. The episode didn't have much tension to it partly as a result of that. There was no strong driving narrative force. That made it one of the less memorable episodes so far.

The championship grinds on. After Smile’s defeat at the hands of Kong, the tables are turned and the elite players of Kaio Academy come out on top against both Kong and Peco. This episode was enjoyable if somewhat less tight feeling and less frantically paced than the previous episode. The quality was decent but for the most part on par with previous episodes, with only one standout animation scene. The episode’s animation, though not egregiously bad by any stretch, felt a little more rushed than usual. Like the last episode, the credits list 17 key animators. A long list of key animators is often symptomatic of deadline crunch rather than more and better animation, and that seems to be the case here. The same goes for the animation directors—they bring on more directors because an episode needs help getting finished on time. Where episode four satisfied was in the quality of the matches. Even when the animation wasn’t particularly outstanding, the matches were more deliberately directed than usual, which made them enjoyable to watch. Previous episodes showed the matches largely through virtuosic camera tricks that are Yuasa’s forte, and it made it hard to see the details of each player’s actions. Table tennis is such a quick and precise sport that without methodically depicting each player’s moves you lose its essence. This episode seemed to slow things down and let the player’s moves do the talking. For the first time in the show, it felt like you were actually watching a table tennis match. Remarkably, series director Masaaki Yuasa storyboarded again. It seems that he will be storyboarding every episode of the show (and delegating directing to another person) in order to maintain an even tone over the entire show and achieve exactly the effect he wants. This is a new approach for Yuasa, but I can see its appeal, and it seems something of a natural evolution in his approach. Kemonozume varied dramatically in directing style from episode to episode because Yuasa didn’t storyboard everything and granted his episode storyboarders/directors relative freedom to do their thing, but Kaiba and Tatami Galaxy both seemed incrementally more unified in tone. I find it hard to believe it’s a first, but off the top of my head I can’t think of a single other instance of an anime TV show storyboarded entirely by a single person. Even Future Boy Conan was co-storyboarded by Keiji Hayakawa. It is obviously a huge challenge for one person to storyboard every episode of a show on such a short schedule, and Yuasa is reportedly not the fastest of storyboarders to begin with, so I hope he manages to complete this challenge. The episode was neatly divided into two big matches: the first half between old schoolmates Sakuma and Peco and the second half between Kong and Ryuichi. This was followed by some scenes providing insight into the personal lives of Kong and Ryuichi that began to humanize them a bit. The first match was pleasing for its straight presentation and detailed depiction of movement, even though the movement wasn’t particularly dynamic. Sakuma’s string of increasing long lobs was amusing because it went on and on and on, reminding of the old adage—the more times you tell a joke, the funnier it gets. It was also revealing of his attitude towards the sport. Eclipsed as a kid by the charismatic Peco, Sakuma chose the scholarly path to patiently accrue the technical know-how to defeat his old rival. A humbled Peco cries on the steps of the stadium in the episode’s most heartbreaking moment. Incidentally, perhaps not coincidentally, the World Table Tennis Championships are currently underway in Tokyo. A recent listicle of athletes staring directly at ping pong balls was amusing but highlights the intense concentration required. I like how the close-up slo-mo shot of Sakuma serving in the first match captures exactly the same moment of intensely staring at the ball. The second match was quite different in style and tone. Obviously animated by the ever-amazing Yasunori Miyazawa in his patented eccentric style, it was possibly the show’s most delightful piece of animation yet. Right from the start you know Miyazawa is in the house, with that strange close-up of Ryuichi’s eye as he returns Kong’s serve. The ferocious Ryuichi is visually embodied by his namesake, a dragon hurling flaming dragon balls that shoot down Kong’s dreams of flying home victorious. Shots such as Ryuichi swelling into a giant, and his serve transforming first into lighting and then into a dragon, are classic Miyazawa. It’s great to see that Yasunori Miyazawa will be a regular in the show. Judging by the frequency of his appearances, he seems to be one of those animators who has the rare ability to produce his animation quickly while still making it interesting and full of personality. Animators like him must be a real asset in a situation such as this. Miyazawa’s shot in the opening is obviously the last shot of Peco chewing bubble-gum. His name was misspelled in the credits, in yet another indication of the rushed schedule. After the matches, the players go their separate ways. Kong talks with his coach on a bench outside in one of the series’ most touching scenes yet, while Ryuichi gets in the red sportscar of his beautiful cousin Yurie and drives off while his jealous teammates look on. This brings a close to the show’s first major dramatic set piece and leaves the young characters at different turning points in their table tennis careers. When Masaaki Yuasa adapted Robin Nishi’s Mind Game a decade ago, he opted to fill out the past of the various characters to give the story more heft. He has adopted a similar tactic here. I haven’t read the manga to be able to tell what is interpolated and what comes from the original, but the episode fills us in on personal details about Kong and Ryuichi in a style that is very reminiscent to the way we …

Tensions run high during the high school championships, and all eyes are on the showdown between Kong and Smile. The third episode jumps abruptly from Smile's training in episode 2 right to the championships, and to a Smile who has begun to gain the confidence to show his true potential.

The most fascinating bit of news out of WonderCon last weekend? Japanese director Masaaki Yuasa ("Mind Game") has storyboarded and directed an upcoming episode of "Adventure Time."

Determined to unleash Smile's potential, Coach Koizumi devises a relentless schedule of training that culminates in a death match pitting old veteran versus young hopeful. Smile's resistance finally cracks under the pressure, and he begins to get serious. Meanwhile, the appearance of a new rival - the tough-looking Ryuichi Kazama - sets the stage for a later showdown.

When we started offering recaps of Steven Universe last November, we were uncertain how readers would respond. Your feedback turned out to be overwhelmingly positive, and in fact, the most common request over the past few months has been to provide more recaps. But what show to choose for our sophomore recapping effort? After I saw the trailer a few weeks ago for Masaaki Yuasa’s new series Ping Pong, the choice became clear. So yesterday we recapped the show’s premiere and will continue to provide recaps throughout the show’s full run. The choice to recap a show by Yuasa wasn’t difficult because he pushes the cinematic language of animation more expertly than arguably any director—TV or feature—working in animation today. As I watched the premiere episode of Ping Pong, I was challenged and rewarded by a filmmaker who masterfully manipulates the frame for narrative and psychological effect and explores the expressive potential of the animation medium to its fullest. To do Yuasa’s work justice, I have turned to anime scholar Ben Ettinger, who is the foremost English-language expert on Yuasa’s work. It’s only fitting to ask Ben to write these recaps since it was through his unrivaled anime website, Anipages, that I first learned about Yuasa’s remarkable feature debut Mind Game way back in 2004. Since Mind Game, Ben (pictured right) has kept atop Yuasa’s work as few others, and has cataloged his output including Kemonozume, Kaiba, and Tatami Galaxy. Not only are Ben’s insights on anime art unparalleled, he is also a professional Japanese translator, which means that he will be reviewing these episodes based on their original Japanese-language versions. If you’re looking for the subtitled versions, Crunchyroll is simulcasting the episodes for American audiences.

A recap of the first episode of Masaaki Yuasa's new series "Ping Pong."

Table tennis sounds like just about the last thing that needs an animated series, but leave it to the Japanese to make the sport as exciting as a superhero action-adventure series. This is our first extended look at "Ping Pong," a new 11-episode animated series by Japanese director Masaaki Yuasa ("Mind Game," "The Tatami Galaxy") that will debut April 10th on Fuji TV’s late-night noitaminA block.

Transparency in the crowdfunding community is highly valued, and animators tend to be most successful when they are upfront about the length of the animation they plan to produce with the monies raised. The unintended result of this openness is that the opaque world of animation budgets has begun to fade away.

When Cartoon Brew published a crowdfunding report last month, we cataloged the per-minute costs of various high-profile animation projects on Kickstarter. The costs ranged from $3,333 to 13,750 per minute of completed animation.

Now, we look at two more recent Kickstarter projects that have recently achieved their goals: Michel Gagné’s short The Saga of Rex and Masaaki Yuasa’s short Kick-Heart. At first glance, the two projects could not be more different: Gagné is a former feature film animator who works largely by himself from a home studio, while Yuasa is producing his short using a full crew and traditional production pipeline at Tokyo-based Production I.G..

However, both films share one thing in common: they have budgeted their animation at $15,000 per minute. Gagné set his goal at $15,000 to produce one-minute of film, with each additional minute produced at a $15K increment. Yuasa asked for $150,000 to produce a 10-minute short. This is not a particularly high per-minute rate for the type of animation that they’re producing, but it is higher than the average per-minute rate of many other Kickstarter animation campaigns.

The takeaway: not only are more projects being crowdfunded nowadays, but the per-minute rate for A-list animators is growing alongside it. Even with the aid of digitial technology, animation like the kind that Gagné and Yuasa produce remains a laborious, hand-crafted process. It’s encouraging that the backers of their campaigns recognize this since a decent per-minute production rate will be essential for crowdfunding to make a serious impact in the world of animation production.