Eastern Anime and the Concept of ‘Ma’
Donata Pellizzari of Boulder Media Ltd talks to Nobuyuki Tsugata, Animation Historian and lecturer at University in Osaka and Kyoto.

Mr Nobuyuki Tsugata was interviewed following his lecture series entitled ‘Power of Japanese Animation’, held from the 1st to the 3rd of October 2007 in the IFI, DCU and TCD. Co-hosted by the Embassy of Japan and Japan Foundation, the series was organised by the Japanese Embassy as part of the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Ireland. The topic of anime attracted more than 200 enthusiastic fans, who eagerly listened to Mr. Tsugata’s historical research on the secrets of Japanese animation’s popularity.

Donata: Could you talk about your background before you became an Animation Historian and lecturer?

Nobuyuki: I studied Agricultural Science at University; I specialised in Entomology, which was my graduation subject.

When did you switch?

I worked for an environmental assessment company for 10 years. During those 10 years, animation was my hobby in my spare time. After ten years I quit my job and started working with animators and made animation my occupation from there. I am not a normal average guy working in the animation industry because of my other background. I came from outside the industry.

Have you ever been an animator yourself?

No, I haven’t.

At the first lecture in the IFI I could see that the topic ‘Power of Japanese Animation’ raised a lot of interest not only in anime fans, but in animators, directors and animation teachers. In the past few years, Japanese animation has gained a stable position in the western mainstream full-length features, thanks especially to the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Even though some European countries have been watching animated series on TV since the early ’80s, it seems that anime has only recently been fully appreciated in the western world. Why?

I mentioned in the lecture that even Japanese people themselves wonder why their animation is appreciated so much outside. The reason is the diversity of stories and characters, which appeal to the people outside Japan: those are the ones who are not present in the western mainstream and that's why they became popular.

The different style in terms of motion and movement are due to several factors. You mentioned that budgetary issues were sometimes the cause of limited movement or amount of frames per second. Does this apply to TV series rather than feature films?

In general TV series are very limited in budget. For feature films, it depends on which film. For instance, Miyazaki’s films can attract many sponsors with big budgets; so the difference depends on the sponsor, how much budget they have.

When you showed the scene of the bus stop from Totoro [pictured], in which we have high quality animation, you pointed that humour and emotions can be expressed effectively by still shots. Could you explain what causes this effect?

Each piece is a different matter; if we take that piece from Totoro, Miyazaki gives the impression that in all his movies there is a lot of running and flying involved, he is one of the directors who like to animate movements; from that point of view, if there is only running and flying or action all the way, people might get bored or tired. So the continuing action causes tension within the audience and the effect of still pictures in between releases all this tension.

That particular scene has the little girl and the huge Totoro appearing next to her. The still picture of the three (Totoro, the little girl, and the little sister) gave the perspective to the audience of the general position and size of these three characters. That still picture reveals the difference in size of Totoro and also the surprised expression of the girls. Both of them have a good effect on the audience. Then we have the tree branch loaded with rain water about to drop. The amount of animation there is an absolute contrast.

Back in time. One of the most interesting parts of the lecture was the revelation of a Disney style of animation and you showed a piece made in 1943 to explain how the Japanese were animating in an American style. Then in the ’60s we have a switch to a totally different way of animating. Was it a rebellion against the western style or simply the will to express their own?

I think it is a bit about going away from the American style and also creating their own. I would say both.

Could you tell how much Japanese culture is reflected in anime, say in the look, interpersonal behavior, the gestures?

Maybe I can just give you an example. There is one technique to have only the mouth moving when they talk while standing still; and it was criticized because in terms of technique it's cheap and also in terms of expression it's not likely that only the mouth is moving. But one animation director said that it is close to the reality of Japanese people, to the way they talk. So westerners use gestures and expressions while Japanese people don't move as much as they talk. So in that way, the Japanese way of talking and behaving is reflected in animation.

This is a question that I believe many anime fans would like to ask: in anime the facial features, clothing and hair color seem to be strong attractive elements. But to a western audience it doesn’t seem to match the Japanese appearance. Could you talk about this phenomenon? Are characters only meant to be attractive, or is the character designer expressing him/herself artistically? Or are they close to fashion icons?

Among the three points you mentioned I think the first one (the character being attractive) is the most important. But also, as you can see, many times the actual characters are not too different from Japanese faces (the size of eyes, hair colour). For instance, in reality there are girls with green hair.

Among the concepts you elaborated at the lecture was the lack of movement. Referring again to the use of still shots, could you explain how you recall the ‘ma’ form?

Well, you know that for animation to be animation, the pictures have to move. If the pictures don’t move, it’s a comic book or an illustration book. But in Japanese animation there are many interesting scenes made by pictures that don’t move. Not many people can say why this happens; and my hypothesis to explain this ‘why’ comes from the Japanese classical art form and the idea of ‘ma’.

As I showed, in western pictures, many use every part of the canvas as a space. However, in Japanese pictures there are ones with a lot of blank space. That doesn’t mean that there is nothing in there: there might be air or wind blowing in that space; some people might see a sky. That allows viewers to use their imagination.

In picture drawing in general it’s not so positive to have nothing in a big space, but the Japanese people don’t see it as lacking something.

Going back to Totoro’s still picture, it gives a sign to the audience to imagine what the girls are thinking or feeling. In animation, which is supposed to be moving we have pictures that intentionally don’t move and these pictures provoke this effect of leaving the spectator filling the space with their own interpretation; that is how I recall the idea of ‘ma’.

Did you write any dissertation or book about this theory?

No, I haven’t, these are my recent thoughts coming up. From talking about it here I’m starting to think that this concept is interesting!

About the Evangelion series and other anime set in a post-apocalyptic age, could you explain why this theme has been depicted so often?

The reason is that two streams came together. The post-apocalyptic themes came up after 1980. That was a time in Japan and in the world when environmental and nuclear issues became a probable part of our future. At the same time Japanese animation started depicting adult themes and the University students started to face environmental issues. So these two streams, environment awareness and adult themes introduced such animation.

You said that Japanese animation does not aim to sell worldwide and that anime is produced primarily for the Japanese audience. Could you explain this and why very little western animation (other than Disney/Pixar) is popular in Japan?

The majority of Japanese animation is to please animation fans and ‘otaku’ (animation fanatics). It is produced with the ‘otaku’ in mind. Many anime have robots, toys, merchandise that sells… So that’s also convenient. These products make a lot of business locally, that’s why they are so oriented to the domestic market.

The situation changed in the 1990s. At that time there was news that anime was selling well abroad so they started selling to outside markets but without knowing it was happening. See the example of Pokemon in 2000. It was popular in Japan, but the people who produced it were trying to sell it outside Japan too and it was a very big success. After those two decades the Japanese animation industry has more of an eye outside their own market. Even now, the minority of anime is oriented towards foreign markets.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why foreign animation is not popular in Japan. There are two reasons mainly for that: I think Japanese anime fans are too used to Japanese animation and the domestic animation industry is sufficient; they don’t need to import foreign ones. There are many good-quality animation products coming to Japan but they are not as popular as in the west. Really only Disney and Pixar can guarantee success.

For more information on events organised by the Embassy of Japan in Ireland see www.ie.emb-japan.go.jp