The Persistence of Animation

To Be or Not to Be: The Controversy in Japan over the Anime Label

Abstract: This paper examines how Japanese animators perceive and relate to the term “anime.” Anime has frequently been loosely defined as an abbreviation of animation written in katakana, and is often used to refer to Japanese animation in general. Nonetheless, some major feature animation directors including Miyazaki Hayao, Oshii Mamoru, and the prominent figure in short animation Yamamura Koji, firmly reject seeing their works labeled as anime and favor the term animation. Employing essays by and about key Japanese animators coupled with some interviews with them, I delineate and analyze the major features of this ongoing debate over “anime” in Japan.

Biographical Statement: Since completing my doctorate on animation at Kyoto University, I have been continuing to work on the idea of selective animation as a more effective analytical term for what has been called limited animation. This proposal reflects my recent research on the relationship between selective animation and the category of “anime.” Despite the popularity of the term, the perceived gap between the label of animation (fully animated, higher quality) and anime (not fully animated, cheaply produced) is pronounced among many Japanese animators. Through this paper I explore the controversy in Japan over the meaning and usage of the term anime to describe animation in Japan. This study is intended to help prepare the groundwork for a book of essays and interviews on Japanese animation.

Animating, Ani-Morphing and Un-Ani-Morphing of the Evolutionary Process in Carl Sagan’s Cosmos

Abstract: The paper examines an animated segment from the 1980 documentary show Cosmos, hosted by renowned astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan. The segment visualized the evolutionary process using ground-breaking (for their time) morphing effects. The paper demonstrates how the segment’s use of morphing effects link it to the artistic roots of animation, found in ani-morphs (as defined by Norman M. Klein) and “Lightening Sketch” stage performances. Like the early animators and stage-performers, the segment’s animation and Sagan’s narration served to both mystify and then de-mystify the animation process, in order to do the same for the evolutionary process.

Biographical Statement: I am a PhD Student at the Communication Studies Department, Hebrew University (Jerusalem) researching animation as a text. My research aim is to build an overall theoretical framework for animation, finding an academic definition for “animation” as a separate and unique textual category, and putting together an analysis method for texts in this category. An aspect examined in my research is the historical and technological development of animation, and how the familiar concept of animation evolved. The proposed paper, which links early 20th century animation practices with the production of a 1980 computer-animated segment, demonstrates the evolution of animation as a concept.