Archive for the ‘anime’ Category

Wednesday, December 6th, 2023

LAST CHANCE! REFPACK054: A Peek At The Early Anime Downloads

People who aren’t members of Animation Resources don’t understand how comprehensive our Reference Packs are. Over a couple of weeks, we are posting what each section of our current RefPack looks like. Today we are sharing the Early Anime section. If you are a member of Animation Resources, click on this post to go to the Members Only page. If you aren’t a member yet, today is the perfect time to join! Our current Reference Pack is one of our best yet, and General and Student Members get access to a special Bonus Archive with even more material from past Reference Packs.

What are you waiting for?
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Early Anime

Lately, Animation Resources board member JoJo Baptista has been researching the early history of Japanese animation. He has searched out video copies of 1960s anime to add to our Animation Archive. Over the past year, he has accumulated hundreds of hours of rare television programs. We will be will be sharing some of them with you in our Reference Packs. Our members have asked us to share complete films and publications with them, not excerpts, so we will be sharing complete half hour episodes with you. We don’t claim that everything here is great. But there are great bits. You can sift through them and discover the gems for yourself.

SD VIDEO:
Tiger Mask

Tiger Mask
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Episodes 21 & 32 / 1969
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Tiger Mask was produced by Toei Animation running from October 2nd, 1969 to September 30th, 1971. The anime was based on the manga of the same name which began a year prior to the anime. It may be one of the first wrestling anime, preceded possibly by Animal 1, which was released the year before. Naoto Date, Tiger Mask’s true identity, is a mystery to Kenta, an orphan boy who religiously watches each of Tiger Mask’s bouts in the ring. He is seen in practically every episode cheering Tiger Mask on. However, it was because of Kenta that Naoto had a change of heart. Tiger Mask was once regarded as a ferocious heel in the ring, so much so, that he was regarded as a villain. Kenta wanted to idolize this behavior, but upon Naoto’s realization of this, he began to portray himself in a more positive light.

Tiger Mask

The series’ style is what makes it particularly unique. Its angular designs complemented by the jaggedness of the xerox copy technique transferred to cels lends itself the dynamism of the show. That’s particularly thanks to Keiichirou Kimura, who served as an animation director and character designer. I believe we presented some of his work when we featured Sabu and Ichi’s Detective Tales. His style is particularly unique to the rest of the series. He contributed a lot of animation this series as well, and it’s presumed this is some of his work during the slow motion at 21:12 in episode 21. The limited animation can be particularly strong when a combination of strong poses and timing are used. But admittedly, some of the timing can feel quite clunky in this show at times.

Tiger Mask

One aspect that keeps the show visually interesting is the variety of forced perspective shots. There are upshots and down shots, characters can be away from the camera or in the extreme foreground. Along with quick cutting, this keeps the momentum up and provides visual interest. You don’t notice that there is very little animation. Also, the posing is designed to convey complex action in a bare minimum number of frames. All of the drawings are keys. There are no in-betweens.


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Tiger Mask

A great cheat that is constantly utilized is portraying the wrestling ring as its own reality. The gradient backgrounds, painted with saturated colors are often used to avoid crowd shots. Also, it’s great for not having to avoid the change perspective of the environment when characters are jumping up high or landing. It helps draw attention to the action, and furthermore provides clarity without having to render out masses of crowds cheering behind the ring. At most you’ll get some "finger paint" type blurs or abstract art in the backgrounds to imply the heads of characters in the crowd. When crowds are shown however, they are separate with little to no animation at times.

Tiger Mask

One fun bit is the brief animatic section in episode 22 at 15:56. It’s obviously inspired by the 1960s Batman TV series. It even has the pop art bam shapes, wild 60s coloring and the signature "walking bass line" in the music.

Tiger Mask

In the 1970s, the crush of production necessitated a more "assembly line" approach to production and design. Instead of every show having its own style, the designs began to consolidate— character design, background design and effects animation became standardized. This made it easier for artists to move from show to show, because they didn’t have to learn a new style for every job they worked on. Formulas of how facial features, hair or proportions should be rendered saved time and streamlined the whole Japanese animation industry. While this allowed for the production of many more hours of animation to feed the demand, it took away some of the spontaneity and originality that had flourished in earlier years. Anime from the 80s and 90s is well known in the United States and it has been widely available here for many years, but the early shows from the 60s are very hard to find. These are the ones we will be focusing on in our Reference Packs.

REFPACK054: Tiger Mask Ep21
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MP4 Video File / SD / 23:51 / 261 MB Download

REFPACK054: Tiger Mask Ep32
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MP4 Video File / SD / 24:00 / 223 MB Download


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Animation Resources is one of the best kept secrets in the world of cartooning. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!

It’s easy to join Animation Resources. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


Student Membership Drive

Fall is time to save when you join Animation Resources as a student member. For the next couple of weeks our Student Membership will be discounted to only $60/year! Best of all, you will continue to get that savings every year you renew as a student for up to three years. Yes, this applies to full time educators too. Why should you join? Each day we’ll be highlighting more reasons why you should be a member of Animation Resources. Bookmark us and check back every day.

$60Reference PacksSTUDENT MEMBERSHIP

Discount Ends Nov. 6th!
$70/year $60/year (recurring)

FREE SAMPLES!

Not Convinced Yet? Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

There’s no better way to feed your creativity than to be a member of Animation Resources. Every other month, we share a Reference Pack that is chock full of downloadable e-books and still framable videos designed to expand your horizons and blow your mind. It’s easy to join. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online.

JOIN NOW Before This Offer Ends!
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Monday, November 14th, 2022

RefPack048: A Peek At The Early Anime Section

People who aren’t members of Animation Resources don’t understand how comprehensive our Reference Packs are. Over a couple of weeks, we are posting what each section of our current RefPack looks like. Today we are sharing the Early Anime section. If you are a member of Animation Resources, click on this post to go to the Members Only page. If you aren’t a member yet, today is the perfect time to join! Our current Reference Pack is one of our best yet, and General and Student Members get access to a special Bonus Archive with even more material from past Reference Packs.

What are you waiting for?
Download Page
JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/


MEMBERS LOGIN To Download

JOIN TODAY To Access Members Only Content


Early Anime

Lately, Animation Resources board member JoJo Baptista has been researching the early history of Japanese animation. He has searched out video copies of 1960s anime to add to our Animation Archive. Over the past year, he has accumulated hundreds of hours of rare television programs. We will be will be sharing some of them with you in our Reference Packs. Our members have asked us to share complete films and publications with them, not excerpts, so we will be sharing complete half hour episodes with you. We don’t claim that everything here is great. But there are great bits. You can sift through them and discover the gems for yourself.

SD VIDEO:
Hajime Ningen Gyatorz

Hajime Ningen Gyatorz
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Curated by JoJo Baptista
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Ep.36 / Ep.44 (1975)
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First HumanFirst HumanFirst Human Giatrus is an anime series from 1974, based on the manga by Shunji Sonoyama. The series follows the misadventures of a cave dwelling family set in the stone age. There’s Gon, the son, his father and mother (who usually has several babies and a raccoon strapped to her back) and his friend Dotechin, a gorilla. Sonoyama had a background in doing newspaper strips, and the animation studio behind the anime (Tokyo Movie) did their best to keep his style intact. There’s a note in the style guide to not draw the characters volumetrically, but rather in Sonoyama’s flat style. Lots of funny designs are to be found in this series, along with some simple but effective staging as well.

Hajime Ningen Gyatorz
Hajime Ningen Gyatorz

Episode 36A features some hilarious and recognizably snappy animation, by animator Yoshiyuke Momose—I’ve written about his work in Gutsy Frog before. At 7:15 Gon and another boy are being chased around by a saber tooth tiger on a rotating star. Then around 7:35 Gon calls out to Dotechin for help as the other boy hangs onto Gon from the edge of the star. Dotechin breaks the star into several pieces while trying to dodge the tiger himself, showing off some fun poses in the process.

Hajime Ningen Gyatorz
Hajime Ningen Gyatorz

44B has a short but great fight between a giant ape and a dragon (maybe it’s a pterodactyl?) It breaks some of the “rules” of the established style, but definitely to the show’s benefit. This isn’t a criticism whatsoever. It’s not a complete departure from the usual style at all, as the sequence manages to find a good balance between its usual flat style and the newly introduced volumetric parts. There are several shots making use of dynamic perspective to show off the scale of the two monsters fighting which are really nice as well. I’m not a fan of the slow truck out at around 20:35 though. It really takes you out of the fight, but maybe it was done for budgetary reasons. Be on the lookout for some stylish layouts sprinkled throughout this episode as well!

Hajime Ningen Gyatorz
Hajime Ningen Gyatorz

I’ll have more early Japanese TV series to share with you in our next Reference Pack.

REFPACK048: First Human ep36
Download Page
MP4 Video File / SD / 24:59 / 283 MB Download

REFPACK048: First Human ep44
Download Page
MP4 Video File / SD / 24:58 / 354 MB Download


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Animation Resources is one of the best kept secrets in the world of cartooning. Every month, we sponsor a program of interest to artists, and every other month, we share a book and up to an hour of rare animation with our members. If you are a creative person interested in the fields of animation, cartooning or illustration, you should be a member of Animation Resources!

It’s easy to join Animation Resources. Just click on this link and you can sign up right now online…


JOIN TODAY!
https://animationresources.org/membership/levels/

PayPalAnimationAnimation Resources depends on your contributions to support its projects. Even if you can’t afford to join our group right now, please click the button below to donate whatever you can afford using PayPal.


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Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

LAST CALL RefPack043: Anime, Terry-Toons, Russian Animation and Chaplin!

THIS REFPACK HAS GONE POOF! A NEW ONE HAS TAKEN ITS PLACE.

Reference Pack

Every other month, Animation Resources shares a new Reference Pack with its members. They consist of an e-book packed with high resolution scans and video downloads set up for still frame study. Make sure you download the Reference Packs before they’re updated. When it’s gone, it’s gone!


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Animation Resources is growing. Since we are a non-profit organization, all of the money we take in from dues gets spent on our projects. So as we get more members, we share more wonderful material with them. Here’s an overview of what you will find in RefPack043…

Tezuka

This time we are featuring experimental films by the father of Japanese manga and anime, Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka made these personal films while he was producing television animation and publishing manga.

Tezuka

The purpose of these films was to allow Tezuka to explore new ideas and techniques with complete freedom. The innovations he came up with in these experimental films ended up enriching his commercial work.

Tezuka

These films helped him lay the groundwork for the limited animation techniques that made television anime possible.

TerryToons

Next up is a pair of cartoons from Terry-Toons. Animation Resources Advisory Board member Steve Stanchfield is responsible for sharing these interesting films with us.

TerryToons

These aren’t the best cartoons ever made, but they include some fantastic scenes animated by Carlo Vinci and Jim Tyer. Check them out and see what you can learn from the masters.


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Mowgli

In the International section, we feature part four of Roman Davydov’s five part series based on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book…

Gudgeon

…along with an amazing Russian film titled, The Brave Little Gudgeon…

Well Just You Wait

Next up is a new episode of Well, Just You Wait…

Dog Cat And

…and another crazy episode of Dog, Cat And… from Studio Miniatur Filmowych in Poland.

Cyborg 009

The Early Anime section, which is curated by JoJo Baptista, includes two episodes of the rarely seen Japanese TV series, Cyborg 009 from 1968.

Cyborg 009

It has some hilarious limited animation takes and a giant robot monster animated in a very unique style.


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Charlie Chaplin

And that’s not all! In the Slapstick Section, we are continue the three part series that outlines the working methods of Charlie Chaplin.

L Illustration

As a bonus, we feature three an e-book with two complete issues of the most beautiful magazine ever published, L’Illustration Noel.

Weight

Animation Resources Board Member David Eisman presents a series of breakdowns on conveying the feeling of weight in animation.

Animated Discussions Podcast

And Animation Resources’ Director of Programming Davey Jarrell has a new podcast for us! This time, the subject is what animators can learn from live action movies. To go with the podcast, we are rerunning a supplementary documentary on the history of cinematography from a past RefPack.


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Whew! That is an amazing collection of treasures! At Animation Resources, our Advisory Board includes great artists and animators like Ralph Bakshi, Will Finn, J.J. Sedelmaier and Sherm Cohen. They’ve let us know the things that they use in their own self study so we can share them with you. That’s experience you just can’t find anywhere else. The most important information isn’t what you already know… It’s the information you should know about, but don’t know yet. We bring that to you every other month.

Haven’t Joined Yet?

Check out this SAMPLE REFERENCE PACK! It will give you a taste of what Animation Resources members get to download every other month!

Sample RefPack

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD A Sample RefPack!

Animation Resources is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization dedicated to providing self study material to the worldwide animation community. If you are a creative person working in animation, cartooning or illustration, you owe it to yourself to be a member of Animation Resources.

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