How to use this Page

A Japanese beverage company is encouraging its drinkers to animate their drink bottles after they’ve finished drinking its contents. They are printing a series of Disney characters on the sides of their tea-drink packaging. Each drawing is numbered, like this:

After someone has collected all the bottles in a series, they can photograph the draiwngs to create an animation sequence:

More details (in Japanese) HERE.

(Thanks, JL, via Cartoon Brew’s Reader Submission Forum)

As most Cartoon Brew readers are aware by now, we’ve had a “no crowdfunding” policy in place for a long time. But times change, and as more animation filmmakers incorporate crowdfunding into their production plans, we feel that it’s necessary to provide a platform for noteworthy projects that need funding. Starting today, we’re going to try something new by featuring a curated selection of crowdfunded animation projects on Fridays. We especially aim to give exposure to promising animation that may slip through the cracks due to a lack of exposure in mainstream media.

For starters, I’d like to highlight WONDER 365 Animation Project by Japanese filmmaker Mirai Mizue. Mizue creates his abstract films the old-school way by drawing and painting onto paper, but he uses digital compositing techniques to fantastic effect:

If you follow Mizue on Vimeo, you know that he’s been working diligently on WONDER 365 for the past 365 days in a row. Mizue received a grant from the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan, which allowed him to hire over 150 painters to help color the film, but he’s still looking for funding to complete the music recording and post production.

The Wonder 365 crowdfunding effort continues through April 30. The project is currently 22% funded. Here is the film’s trailer:

Within 15 seconds of hitting the play button on Kou Kou by Takashi Ohashi, I did something I rarely do when watching films on my laptop: I turned off the lights at my workspace to create a dark theater environment. Good abstract animation, like a good song, demands the audience’s full attention, and I sensed this was going to be something special.

Takashi Ohashi, who has been featured on our Animated Fragments feature, has created a masterful piece of abstract animation with Kou Kou. Ohashi does something rare for abstract filmmakers, which is to organize his visual ideas with the clarity, pacing and dynamism of a more traditionally narrative storyteller. The second ‘movement’ that begins around the 4-minute mark packs a real punch. The competing red and blue offsets create tension and instability in the imagery, which serves to heighten the visual excitement.

To a non-Japanese speaker, the film is a beautiful visual experience, but the Japanese speaker will enjoy an additional layer of depth. Ohashi sent Cartoon Brew the following explanation of the film:

Kou Kou is a visual work based on an abstract animation synchronized with a song comprising the unique syllabic sounds of the Japanese language, without actually using any full words.

It is in the elements of sounds from which words are made that we find syllabic sounds. In the case of the Japanese language, the linguistic roots, or ‘Yamato Kotoba,’ each individual sound possesses a unique meaning. For example, words containing ‘su’ exhibit a frictional characteristic and hence are used to represent a linear or direct movement. In modern-day Japanese, ‘sasu’ or ‘susumu’ represent a concrete, tangible action.

Furthermore, words with fewer syllables are used to express simple onomatopeia-like words, whereas the more syllables a word contains, the more concrete it becomes.

However, although a given syllabic combination may not be understood despite its constituent syllables possessing their own meanings, there are particular instances where we are able to discover meaning from a meaningless word.

This is what I feel is most interesting about the Japanese language and why I’ve thought to express myself by combining just how good the combination of vowels and consonants unique to Japanese resonates with music synched to abstract animation.

This musical composition was made by recording 6 natural voice vocal tracks from singer Luschka and selecting lyrics with Japanese syllabic combinations which afforded expression. The track comprises words which themselves are meaningless, but carefully combining syllables and their respective unique resonances ensured highly musical peaks and troughs.

CREDITS
Director: Takashi Ohashi
Composer: Yuri Habuka
Mixing: Masumi Takino
Vocal: Luschka
Drums: Kyojun Tanaka (from DCPRG)

11 March 2011 the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck Japan.

The country is still rebuilding from the natural and nuclear disaster that resulted from the quake.

Books are beginning to appear to help students understand this tragedy.

Click for Interview with Contributors Leza Lowitz and Shogo Oketani.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, resulted in a massive tsunami that caused the loss of life and livelihood for thousands of people in the northern Tohoku region of Japan. So many teens in Tohoku have lost parents, siblings, relatives, friends, homes, schools, and huge swaths of their cities, towns and villages. Their teen worlds have been upended.

Tomo was published on March 10, 2012. Proceeds from the sales of Tomo will go to organizations that assist teens in the quake and tsunami hit areas. Tomo, which means friend in Japanese, aims to bring Japan stories to young adult readers worldwide, and in so doing, help support teens in Tohoku.

Click to find out how you may be able to obtain a free copy

In just over a week, a group of unpaid professional and citizen journalists who met on Twitter created a book to raise money for Japanese Red Cross earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. In addition to essays, artwork and photographs submitted by people around the world, including people who endured the disaster and journalists who covered it, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake contains a piece by Yoko Ono, and work created specifically for the book by authors William Gibson, Barry Eisler and Jake Adelstein. “The primary goal,” says the book’s editor, a British resident of Japan, “is to record the moment, and in doing so raise money for the Japanese Red Cross Society to help the thousands of homeless, hungry and cold survivors of the earthquake and tsunami. The biggest frustration for many of us was being unable to help these victims. I don’t have any medical skills, and I’m not a helicopter pilot, but I can edit. A few tweets pulled together nearly everything – all the participants, all the expertise – and in just over a week we had created a book including stories from an 80-year-old grandfather in Sendai, a couple in Canada waiting to hear if their relatives were okay, and a Japanese family who left their home, telling their young son they might never be able to return.” ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the price you pay (net of VAT, sales and other taxes) goes to the Japanese Red Cross Society to aid the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. If you’d like to donate more, please visit the Japanese Red Cross Society website

The oldest bird in the world, documented with banding, is Wisdom, the Midway Albatross. She was on Midway when the Japanese Tsunami hit and this is her amazing story of survival of manmade and natural disasters for over 60 years. She has survived the dangers of living wild, plastic pollution, longline fishing, lead poisoning, and the Japanese earthquake. At 60, she’s still laying eggs and hatching chicks. It’s a story of survival and hope amidst the difficulties of life.

This title examines an important historic event – the March 11, 2011, earthquake that spawned a devastating tsunami in Japan. Easy-to-read, compelling text explores the dual disaster that resulted in thousands of deaths and left many people homeless. This book also details the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant near Japan’s northeast coast and the recovery efforts following the disasters.

“Cirrus” directed by Cyriak (UK)

“Yamasuki Yamazaki” directed by Shishi Yamazaki (Japan)

“Tourniquet” directed by Jordan Bruner (US)

Music Video for Hem. Animated by Greg Lytle and Jordan Bruner.

A Gum Boy (Kuchao) by Masaki Okuda is a 2010 student film produced at the Tokyo University of the Arts. The film addresses difficult subject matter—adolescent ostracism—through a creative and non-literal use of animation that marries the fluid grace of a watercolor style with frenzied use of camera and cutting. Okuda’s mastery of film technique, narrative and visual style elevates Gum Boy beyond the average student film, and for that matter, the average professional short film as well.

CREDITS
Direction, Animation and Editing: Masaki Okuda
Music: Daisuke Matsuoka
Song: Yushiro Kuramochi
Sound Design: Kyohei Takahashi
Samisen: Kohdai Minoda
Sound Design: Kyohei Takahashi
Mixing Engineer: Yoshito Morita
Music Mixing Engineer: Shinpei Kusaka

Felicia Hoshino, Japanese translation by Akiko Hisa,
Sora and the Cloud
Immedium, 2012.

Bilingual: English/Japanese

Ages: 3-8

Sora and the Cloud is award-winning illustrator Felicia Hoshino’s debut as an author. Featuring Sora, a little boy whose name means “sky,” this very delicate, whisper-like story in English and Japanese is about Sora discovering the world with the help of a fluffy cloud friend. And how appropriate that cloud and sky should come together!

While Sora and Cloud float around town dreaming up adventures, little Sora gets to see many familiar places (some readers will recognize the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Chinatown) and to learn more about his Japanese heritage. “Like a mobile in the breeze, Sora’s sky adventure spins all around him,” until he drifts gently into sleep and back down to earth, where more adventures await. The last page shows Sora and his family relaxing together under a big tree – the image of his little sister looking up to the sky and saying hello to a cloud fittingly pointing to the universality of children’s sense of wonder and boundless imagination.

Fans of Hoshino’s illustration work in A Place Where Sunflowers Grow and Little Sap and Monsieur Rodin will find the watercolors/mixed media in this bilingual treat a treasure trove to pore over and marvel at. The double spread of cute ants busily moving around town, matching Sora’s impression of people as tiny ants when seen from up above, is priceless. It adds a touch of sweet humor to a story that is all warmth, delicacy and gentle embrace.

Sora and the Cloud soars in more ways than one, and is a perfect story to share with very young ones who are starting to look at the world with wonder and amazement.

The short Japanese phrases and cultural references sprinkled throughout the book are translated and explained in the end matter, where we also learn that a portion of the book’s proceeds go to the Japan Earthquake Relief.

Aline Pereira
December 2012

Review as part of our current theme  of Cats and Dogs in Multicultural Children’s Books

Betty Jean Lifton, photography by Eikoh Hosoe,
Taka-chan and I: A Dog’s Journey to Japan by Runcible
New York Review Children’s Collection, 2012 (reprint of 1967 edition)

Ages: 5+

Illustrated with luminous black-and-white photographs by the art photographer Eikoh Hosoe and inspired by her experiences in 1960s Japan, Betty Jean Lifton’s wry and witty 1967 Taka-chan and I, is, happily, back in print.

Hosoe’s photographs of adorable 5-year-old Taka-chan with Runcible, Lifton’s Weimaraner-narrator, evoke a fabled timelessness. (Children and parents may recognize his name as Edward Lear’s invented adjective.) Runcible lived in Japan with Lifton and her husband, psychiatrist and writer Robert Jay Lifton. His story begins on Cape Cod (US), where a particularly enthusiastic dig in the sand takes him far underground with no way home. At long last he discovers that he’s dug his way to Japan. The photograph of him emerging from the sand nose-to-nose with Taka-chan, bowing from the hip to greet him, is priceless.

Taka-chan is being detained by the Black Dragon. Ominous images of girl and dog in his shadowy “palace” create suspense; the dragon is later revealed to be an elaborate sculpture (embodying, folk-tale fashion, the dragon spirit). He’s peeved that Taka-chan’s disloyal fishing village has ceased to feed dragons who protect the fishermen, but if by sundown Runcible places a white flower before the most loyal person in Japan, Taka-chan will be free. Runcible negotiates: Taka-chan escorts him on his mission.

Off they go, Taka-chan in a little straw hat and pinafore dress. In busy Tokyo, they are separated. Runcible looks for her in the Emperor’s gardens, then gets fed at a sushi shop. A deer tells him the most loyal person in the land is Hachiko, the dog who returned daily to Shibuya Station for a decade after his master’s death and whose statue commemorates his loyalty.* Dog and girl are reunited, flower is bestowed, girl is released, and eventually Runcible loyally digs his way home to his own master.

Lifton’s story is a delightful take on the traditional Japanese folk stories she loved; Hosoe’s images imbue her text with magic. Taka-chan, in a summer kimono, feeding Runcible with chopsticks at a formal low table in a tatami room, is unforgettable, her gesture and expression as ingenuous as Runcible’s soulful look. A photograph of the author, photographer and dog at the back of the book accompanies amusing brief biographies of each. Taka-chan and I is a classic to be cherished for generations.

Charlotte Richardson
December 2012

*Hachiko’s story became a Japanese film in 1987; a 2009 adaptation for American audiences starred Richard Gere.

There is a mind-boggling breadth of expression and experimentation across the contemporary global animation scene. The short animation clips and exercises that I offer in Animated Fragments represent just a glimpse of the fresh ideas being explored by today’s animators:

“QQQ” Trailer by YungSung Song (South Korea/Japan)

“Feuerwerk” by Joshua Catalano (France)

“More Than A Feeling” by Matt Reynolds (US)

“CVTV” by Saigo No Shudan (Japan)

“Feminine Flow” by Rickard Bengtsson (Sweden): “This animation, except the subtle background texture, is created 100% in After Effects. All of the animation is created and keyframed by hand using lots of masks and layers.”

The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

• Langstaff, John. 1955. Frog Went A-Courtin'. New York: Harcourt Brace. Illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky.

• Mosel, Arlene. 1972. The Funny Little Woman. New York: Dutton. Illustrated by Blair Lent.

• Yorinks, Arthur. 1986. Hey. Al. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. Illustrated by Richard Egielski.

• Yolen, Jane. 1987. Owl Moon. New York: Philomel. Illustrated by John Schoenherr.

• Young, Ed. 1989. Lon Po Po:A Red-Riding Hood Story from China.  New York: Philomel.

Children’s and YA Books in Translation from Japan ~  by Holly Thompson

Part 3 of 3 (read Part 1 here and Part 2 here)

Over the years of raising our children in Japan, I have kept my eyes out for Japanese children’s books translated into English. Sadly, far more titles go from English into Japanese than from Japanese into English. Having peaked in numbers in the 1980s, nowadays few Japanese children’s and young adult books are translated into English each year.

The reasons for so few Japanese books being sold to English-language publishers are layered and complicated ranging from cultural differences and weak English copy or sample translations used for marketing books to foreign publishers, to stagnant picture book markets in English-speaking countries and a lack of interest from markets that are focused intently on books set in their own countries.

Currently, most of the children’s books translated from Japanese into other languages are sold to other countries in Asia—particularly Korea and Taiwan, and more recently, China. The International Library of Children’s Literature in Ueno, Tokyo, held an exhibit in 2010 Children’s Books Going Overseas from Japan and much exhibit information on translated Japanese children’s books appears on their website.

Because our children are bilingual, when they were young we read most Japanese picture books in Japanese, but we searched out English translations of Japanese picture books as gifts for relatives, friends or libraries in the U.S. Some of the Japanese picture books in translation that we loved to give are Singing Shijimi Clams by Naomi Kojima, The 14 Forest Mice books and others by Kazuo Iwamura, and books illustrated by Akiko Hayashi. Our all-time family favorite Japanese picture book was the widely read Suuho no shiroi uma, published in English as Suho’s White Horse, a Mongolian tale retold by Japanese author Yuzo Otsuka, illustrated by Suekichi Akaba, and translated by Peter Howlett—featured in this PaperTigers post.

R.I.C. Publications has a number of well-known Japanese picture books and some Ainu folktales in translation. Kane/Miller Book Publishers now focuses on books set in the U.S. but used to focus on translations of books from around the world; their catalog has a section on Books from Japan including the hugely successful Minna unchi by Taro Gomi, translated by Amanda Mayer Stinchecum and published in English as Everyone Poops. And recently Komako Sakai’s books have traveled overseas including Ronpaachan to fuusen published by Chronicle Books as Emily’s Balloon and Yuki ga yandara released as The Snow Day by Arthur A. Levine Books.

0 Comments on PaperTigers’ Global Voices feature with award winning author Holly Thompson (USA/Japan)~ Part 3 as of 1/1/1900