I really like the styles of Japanese animation and American animation, but they are totally different.
In unit 2, my drawing style is more like Japanese animation, but it is not what I originally imagined. I want to find a style between Japanese animation and American animation, which has both Japanese animation(anime) high-quality realistic painting and American animation smooth acting and exaggerated performance. I also want to understand the differences in industry running models between these two styles, and the possibility of combining them together. So I did research on the combination of Japanese and American animation and the differences in working models within the industry.
There are essential differences in the audio-visual language and narrative between Japan’s commercial animation series and American animation.
On March 29, Adult Swim in the United States released a 5-minute short film “Samurai & Shogun” from “Rick and Morty”, which attracted much attention with its unique style.
Different from the previous “Rick and Morty” short films, this “Samurai and the Shogun” is set the times in Japan’s Shogunate time. Rick became a samurai named “Rick WTM72”, and Morty became a young general on the run. To protect Morty, Rick fought fiercely with a group of ninjas.
Adult Swim has found the Japanese animation team Studio DEEN (representative works of “Rurouni Kenshin”, “Showa Genroku Rakugo “, “The Virgin”, etc.) to cooperate. The director/screenwriter is the new director Huaichi Sato who has made a name for himself at overseas film festivals, and the storyboard is handled by the experienced veteran director Hiroshi Watanabe (his representative work “Arrest Warrant”). Even the dubbing was done by the Japanese version of “Rick and Morty”.
Outsourcing project
As early as the 1960s, Japanese animators were already participating in the production of American animation.
In 1966, a TV animated series called “The King Kong Show” was broadcast on American television. This series is adapted from the famous American movie “King Kong”. Each episode is broadcast for 30 minutes. In addition to King Kong-related plots, it includes an additional series called “Tom of T.H.U.M.B.” (Tom of T.H.U.M.B.).
What few people know is that the producer of this American TV animated series is the American Rankin/Bass company. The script was also provided by the United States, but the actual production was all completed by Toei Animation in Japan. Participants included a large number of Japanese original painting masters including the “God of Japanese Animation” Mori Yasuji. This is also the first time that Japan has outsourced 2d animation series from the United States, which has ushered in Japan’s era as a major animation outsourcing country.
With the popularity of television in the 1960s, many people in the animation industry turned to television animation, and some emerging companies also took advantage of opportunities to enter this field.
