Whilst making this transformation, I took major influence from anime (Japanese animation), so I decided to research some of my favourite anime that have famous transformations scenes; such as Sailor Moon and Kill La Kill and analyse the different directors and animators behind it and how they’ve influenced me and this project.
Naoko Takeuchi
Naoko Takeuchi, born March 15th, 1967, is a Japanese manga artist who debuted with her first work, “LOVE CALL” in 1986. “LOVE CALL” won Kodansha’s 2nd New Manga Artist Award, which helped launch Naoko’s career. She published mostly one-shot works until a collaboration project with another famous manga artist, Marie Koizumi, titled “Maria”, based on Jean Webber’s story “Daddy Long Legs”. The manga was a big hit, and gave Naoko Takeuchi more opportunities at Nakayoshi magazine to release longer, serialized stories. From there Naoko’s career took off; her series “The Cherry Project”, “Codename: Sailor V”, and “Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon” all became big hits, with “Sailor Moon” becoming her most well-known work world wide.
Before becoming an internationally known manga artist, she received her degree from Kyoritsu University of Pharmacy in Chemistry, and became a licensed pharmacist. In high school, she also had a keen interest in astronomy and worked part-time as a miko for the Shiba Daijingu Shinto shrine; these experiences later became inspirations for characters and themes in Naoko’s literary works.
Naoko Takeuchi is married to another manga artist, creator of Yu Yu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter, Yoshihiro Togashi. The couple have two children together, and live in Tokyo, Japan.
What I love most about Naoko’s work is while its mostly illustrated work, I really admire her soft, soothing pastel colours and otherworldly aesthetic. Her manga illustrations, especially the cover art is mostly in watercolour, which stands out from the black and white pages since manga is traditionally not in colour, like other comics. But her attention to detail and her soft, elegant colours and how stylishly drawn her characters are. Her colours remind me of films such as Watership Down or old fashioned Disney movies like Bambi or Fantasia where there was more emphasis on the hand drawn backgrounds and
Her editor, Osaka, helped her with the various expressions and poses throughout the manga to make her characters feel alive and emotive and as such make the characters more interesting and identifiable. Despite being in an illustrated line of work, I researched Naoko’s work more for her artstyle and tone. Her work is more traditonally feminine and graceful, often includes some unique thought-provoking elements such Japanese traditions (i.e. miko shrine maidens, which Naoko was at one point in high school), space opera elements like far away galaxies, mysterious exotic locations, futuristic weapons and space suits. There are even themes she writes in these stories, such as grief, suicide, abuse, trust issues, different relationships etc. which shows her work is more appealing to many different types of audiences despite its dainty appearance.
Whats also interesting is how she combines different materials into her artwork, like newspapers, sheets of music, fabric frills etc. She even adds her own unique eccentricities, like giving the characters fashionable clothes inspired by fashion lines or figure skating which Naoko is particularly fond of. She even names characters and their personalities off of chemicals,gemstones and even solar systems, since Naoko was skilled in chemistry and astronomy.
I want to emulate her soft, soothing atmopheric style into my animation to give off the vibe of cosmic space opera, powerful with a graceful sophisticated edge. The warm pastel backgrounds, the otherworldly locations and the heavy and thought-provoking elements hidden beneath the sweet and gentle nature.
Hiroyuki Imaishi
Hiroyuki Imaishi is a Japanese key animator and director. His style is marked by fast and frantic animation combined with elaborate storyboarding and punchy direction. A former animator and director at Gainax, he is currently the co-founder of Trigger. Before his animation career, Imaishi drew manga for a doujinshi circle, and after that briefly worked as a commercially published manga creator. He began his animation career at Gainax in 1995 as a key animator/storyboard artist on Neon Genesis Evangelion.
His series director debut was Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (2007). The anime received an Excellence Prize at the 2007 Japan Media Arts Festival, and Imaishi himself received an individual award at the twelfth Animation Kobe Festival. Later, he went on to work as director in the 2010 anime series, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. In 2011, Imaishi branched off Gainax to form a new studio, Trigger, alongside Masahiko Ohtsuka and others. His first directorial work at the studio is Kill la Kill.
While he’s exceptionally capable in dwelling in different artstyles, Hiro’s signature style is more masculine in tone due to its more graphic and sharper art style in contrast to Naoko’s more gentle and serene art style. Whereas I am influenced by Naoko’s elegant and dainty character design and aesthetic, I’m also influenced by Hiro’s character animation and how cinematic yet action packed it is. One of the anime he’s directed was Kill la Kill, one of my favourite anime due to its sharp, quick and intense action, its over the top nature, exaggeration of certain weapons, body structure and of course like many cartoons, the suspension of disbelief that half naked armour actually makes people more powerful in battle. I also appreciate his gritty and harsher detail to the characters, such as the random splashes of paint or the parallel lines of damage to highlight when they are beaten, pummelled or experiencing some pain, you feel the intensity of each injury and how it gives a more darker, grim tone.
Another detail I praise him is emphasising a certain scenes with different art style or aesthetic. For example, there are etched images of particular scenes where the climax ihas reached, like when a character is pushed to the limit or when saids character is given the final attack. These gives the animation feel more enegaign and a great way of visual storytelling, using differing styles to lightweight an emotion or intensity of a situation.
But its isnt just fight-fight, Hiroyuki is also good at the slower, more emotional moments like when a character experiences loss or is grieving over something, the movement slows down, not only for the audience time to relax form the action and get to know the characters, but also let the animation show the turmoil the characters are feeling, like these scene where Ryuko from Kill La Kill, loses her father’s only belonging, Sensketsu, her sailor uniform he made for her. No words are spoken in this one image, but it lets the animation and the characters expression speak for itself.
I believe a transformation should be action-packed yet with a touch of elegance, as it is a out reaching a higher plane f existence and ascending to your full potential. Transformation is turning into the best form of yourself and I believe it should excite as well as amaze. One minute it is soothing and graceful, but punchy and adrenaline-rushing the next. So I feel combining Naoko’s graceful poses with Hiroyuki’s fast-paced framing, intense action and attention to detail, I feel this would make a great transformation that would not only be a homage to classic anime transformations, but its own thing.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroyuki_Imaishi
