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Every other month, members of Animation Resources are given access to an exclusive Members Only Reference Pack. These downloadable files are high resolution e-books on a variety of educational subjects and rare cartoons from the collection of Animation Resources in DVD quality. Our current Reference Pack has just been released. If you are a member, click through the link to access the MEMBERS ONLY DOWNLOAD PAGE. If you aren’t a member yet, please JOIN ANIMATION RESOURCES. It’s well worth it.

Lately, Animation Resources has been researching the early history of Japanese animation. We have been searching out video copies of 1960s anime to add to our Animation Archive, and we have accumulated dozens of complete series— 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.
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SD VIDEO:

Early Anime Batch 01

"Sabu & Ichi’s Detective Stories" / "Fight Da Pyuta" / "Space Ace"

Japanese animation blossomed on television in the mid-1960s. Many different kinds of series were produced. Some were serious and were aimed at an older audience, some were goofy to entertain kids, and some pioneered the concept of the animated superhero. In this and upcoming Reference Packs, we will be sharing a variety of different episodes from this seminal era.

Like many early Japanese animated shows, Sabu & Ichi’s Detective Stories was adapted from a manga series. Created by Shotaro Ishinomori and published in the Weekly Shonen Sunday beginning in 1966, the series focused on the adventures of Sabu, a young shogun and his partner, the blind master swordsman Ichi. Set sometime in the Edo period of Japan (the 17th through the 19th century) the duo travel across Japan helping the common people by solving mysteries and righting wrongs. Sabu is engaged to the daughter of his boss, a police officer in the Tokugawa shogunate.

This series is animated in an animatic style with very sparse animation. It resembles the title sequence of the American TV show, Wild, Wild West. The show has the feeling of what we now call an "animated web comic". The drawings are rough, but extremely expressive, and the posing reveals great understanding of human anatomy. The layouts are well composed and the background paintings match the drawing style perfectly. But the really important aspect of this show is how it handles action scenes. With only a few drawings and careful spacing and timing, extremely complex movement is perfectly conveyed. Note for instance the fight scenes at 00:21:32 and 00:22:40. Creative use of blur effects occasionally enhances the animation as well, see 00:06:12. The limited animation is actually used here as a strength to convey the feeling of the original manga.

REFPACK041: Sabu & Ichi Ep35

MP4 Video File / SD / 25:48 / 271 MB Download

The next early Japanese TV animation we are sharing is called Fight da!! Pyuta. It was created by Tsunezo Murotani and directed by Tameo Kohanawa in 1968. The year is significant, because it puts the show two years after the debut of Ralph Bakshi’s Mighty Heroes. The debt to Bakshi’s series is obvious. The show had to have been influenced by it.

Instead of mining Japanese folklore, like Sabu & Ichi’s Detective Stories, Fight da!! Pyuta takes a Western approach, employing pop art and imagery from American comic books as well as an underscore that features surf guitar and jazzy latin bongos. The backgrounds are often psychedelic and the sound effects are expressed in bam-balloons with English lettering, like in a superhero comic. Astronauts from various countries are represented by caricatures of world leaders, a speech by Lyndon Johnson is even slipped into the soundtrack at one point. Cultural stereotypes and references to pop culture media are milked for humor as well.

This series is very unique. We haven’t found any other Japanese shows that are remotely similar. In fact, it most closely resembles "wacky" cartoons from the early 90s, like "Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures" and "Animaniacs". There are some wild takes in this show, and the anthropomorphizing of inanimate objects to make them resemble the characters is very clever. I imagine this might have appeared to be a little too "American" for Japanese audiences, but it makes the show very accessible to we Americans.

REFPACK041: Fight! Da Pyuta Ep11

MP4 Video File / SD / 25:35 / 386 MB Download

The last series we will be featuring this time is called Space Ace. Based on a manga series created in 1964 by Tatsuo Yoshida, the creator of Speed Racer, Space Ace hit the television airwaves very quickly the following year.

Wikipedia describes the show like this… Space Ace is the story of an alien young boy named Space Ace (or Ace for short), given to homesick stargazing with the faces of his loved ones ghosted across the heavens. His tool of preference is the galaxy ring, a flat white hoop he can produce from his fingers to be thrown or ridden upon. The supporting cast includes Dr. Tatsunoko, who is almost a father figure to Ace, and his daughter Asari, Ace’s love interest. Providing the show’s comedy relief is crusading investigative reporter Yadokari, who usually bursts on the scene riding his jet skycycle at the worst possible moment, screaming for Ace to give him interviews and so on. One of the show’s most important characters is "Ebo", Ace’s imagined projection into the night sky depicted as a humanoid robot.

This particular episode is titled "Haunted Space Ship" and it is a great example of a bunch of totally different ideas being mixed together for maximum fun. The show starts out with skiing, then suddenly takes a turn towards science fiction when a space ship lands. The interior of the space ship turns out to be like a haunted mansion. The action becomes more and more surreal until an alien brain in a glass helmet is revealed. A flying dog shoots gum into Ace’s mouth like a Pez dispenser and the candy makes him powerful enough to destroy the alien brain. There’s wonderful James Bond style music and some truly amazing explosion effects. You really don’t need to speak Japanese to appreciate this show.

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.

REFPACK041: Space Ace Ep39

MP4 Video File / SD / 26:05 / 474 MB Download

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Friday, August 20th, 2021

RefPack041: International Section

REFPACK 041

August-September 2021

HD VIDEO:

Adventures of Mowgli – Ep 2: Kidnapping

Roman Davydov / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1967
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In this Reference Pack, we’re continuing Roman Davydov’s series of films based on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. The story was broken into five short films, which were produced by Soyuzmultfilm between 1967 and 1971. In 1973, the five films were trimmed and merged into a single feature film, and in 1998 it was released in America in a dubbed version narrated by Charleton Heston. Over the next several Reference Packs, we will continue to share the five shorts with their original soundtracks. Although the dialogue is in Russian, if you are familiar with the books or the Disney version, you’ll have no trouble following along.

Davydov’s first film was produced independently of Disney’s Jungle Book and was released the very same year. They make an interesting subject for comparison and contrast. Disney’s version relies heavily on the personalties of the voice actors, rather than the characters in the story itself. It’s funnier, tending towards being goofy at times, and takes a relatively light-hearted pass at the story. Davydov’s version couldn’t be more different. It follows the book more closely, seriously addressing the themes of death, duty and the meaning of being a human being.

This time we are presenting the second episode, titled "Kidnapping". Here is Wikipedia’s synopsis of the action:

Rakshura’s cubs, including Mowgli are being taught to hunt by Baloo. The bear scolds Mowgli for running like a man. They arrive at a watering hole full of crocodiles. Baloo teaches Mowgli the call of the jungle, “We are of one blood, you and I.” Bagheera arrives and teaches Mowgli to climb trees and jump from one to another. A group of monkeys in the trees see Mowgli free an elephant from a trap laid by the villagers. They decide that even without a tail, he could be useful to the pack of monkeys. While Mowgli sleeps, the monkeys kidnap him and sweep him off to the ruins of an abandoned city in the jungle.

Baloo and Bagheera run after them, but realize that they need more help to rescue Mowgli from the gang of monkeys. They enlist the help of the python, Kaa. An eagle flying above them tells them that he saw Mowgli being carried away by the monkeys. Mowgli had asked him for help invoking the call of the jungle. The eagle tells them about the abandoned city, and the three set off to find it. Baloo and Bagheera arrive first, but they are quickly overwhelmed by the monkeys. Kaa arrives and the monkeys form a circle around him. Kaa performs a hypnotizing dance, and the monkeys are tempted to come closer and closer. Bagheera and Baloo are nearly caught in the trap as well, but Mowgli takes the opportunity to drag them away and go back home.

We will have part three for you in the next Reference Pack.

REFPACK041: Mowgli Ep02

MP4 Video File / HD / 20:03 / 1.2 GB Download

SD VIDEO:

Well, Just You Wait Ep.02

Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin / Soyuzmultfilm, Russia / 1970

We continue the Russian Wolf and Rabbit cartoons with episode 02, "Fairground At Night".

The premise of Nu, Pogodi! (which translates into English as Well, Just You Wait!) was pitched by a writing team of satirical humorists to many directors at Soyuzmultfilm, but was rejected every time. Finally in 1969, Gennady Sokolsky agreed to direct a 2 1/2 minute pilot for the series in an omnibus film called "Happy Merry Go Round". The general consensus at the studio was that the cartoon was "low class" and beneath the dignity of Soyuzmultfilm, but director Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin strongly believed in the concept, so the studio decided to take a chance and allow him to direct a few episodes… and then a few more… and then more.

Kotyonochkin was proven correct. The cartoons were a huge success. Between 1969 and 2006, Soyuzmultfilm ended up making 22 episodes, and in a 2014 poll of audiences all over Russia, Well, Just You Wait! was voted the most popular cartoon series of all time by a landslide. Although the series resembles both Tom & Jerry and the Roadrunner and Coyote series, the director, Kotyonochkin claimed not to have ever seen any of these Hollywood cartoons until 1987 when his son got a video tape recorder and Western tapes began to be imported.

In these Russian cartoons, there’s almost no dialogue, and the action almost always occurs on screen. Static tableaux are rare, as are detailed backgrounds and "on model" drawings. These cartoons focus on expressive poses and movement, and save time and expense by avoiding the careful cleanup required for character model details and overlapping action. The theory here is, if it moves funny, it’s funny… and they are right about that.

Shamus Culhane once lamented that television animation consisted of mostly lip-sync animation. He would have preferred to do away with lip-sync entirely and just have simple drawings that really move. Well, Just You Wait proves that he was correct.

We will have more Wolf and Rabbit cartoons in upcoming Reference Packs.

REFPACK041: Well Just You Wait Ep. 02

MP4 Video File / SD / 09:32 / 139 MB Download

SD VIDEO:

Dog, Cat And… Ep 2

Zofia Oraczewska / Studio Miniatur Filmowych, Poland / 1972

In this Reference Pack, we are sharing another short cartoon from a series produced by Studio Miniatur Filmowych, Pies, Kot I… which translates to Dog, Cat And… This is a different sort of take on the Tom & Jerry model, with the opponents outsmarting each other instead of just chasing each other out of hate or hunger. There is more to the relationship between the characters than just rivalry. The relationship of the characters makes it easy to see how it relates to slapstick comedy teams like Laurel & Hardy and Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton. The dog and cat are not just generic animals, but individual personalities with a dynamic relationship that is much more engaging than most “cat and mouse” or “dog and cat” cartoons.

These cartoons are almost devoid of dialogue with the focus on loose, funny animation. In fact, the drawings are often hilarious on their own, even removed from their context within the gag sequence. The facial expressions are well observed, and the poses employ clear silhouettes that form funny graphic shapes.

Well, Just You Wait!, and Dog, Cat And… both are very efficient at what they do. They could easily serve as a model for internet animation. The internet encourages repeat viewing more than television does. When you watch a dialogue driven cartoon on TV, once you’ve heard the jokes, you don’t need to watch it again. However, a short cartoon that looks and moves funny is entertaining no matter how many times you watch it. And for the animator who is making the cartoon, it’s a lot more fun to animate simple funny characters than it is to animated a lot of tedious lip-sync.

Dog, Cat And… looks like it was a lot of fun to make. The film makers at Studio Miniatur Filmowych didn’t feel constrained by the ordinary lives of animals. Their characters can drive cars, build their own houses and go to exotic places. That freedom allowed the animators to keep their series fresh, and gave them the opportunity to experiment within a 10 minute format. Simple drawings, funny movement and no rules… these are the kinds of series that would work well as episodic internet cartoons.

We will have more episodes from this series in upcoming Reference Packs.

REFPACK041: Dog Cat And… Ep02

MP4 Video File / SD / 09:12 / 124 MB Download

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

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Tuesday, July 27th, 2021

REFPACK040: Animation From Around The World and MORE!

LAST CHANCE! The next Reference Pack will be posted this weekend and RefPack040 will be deleted from the server. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, do it now!

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!

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 RefPack040…

In past Reference Packs, we have shared the first animated feature made in Japan, Momotaro’s Sea Eagles (1943) as well as the first color Japanese animated feature, Toei’s Panda & The Magic Serpent (1958). Today we are sharing the next feature in the chronology of Japanese anime, Magic Boy (1959). We are presenting the original Japanese version, titled Shonen Sarutobi Sasuke. We hope you find this useful in your studies.

In our International Animation section, we are presenting five amazing films… The first chapter in a Russian adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book directed by Roman Davydov. We will be sharing the entire story in five parts with our members over the next several Reference Packs, so don’t let your membership expire. Also included is a gorgeous Russian puppet film "Two Greedy Bear Cubs", and the first episode of the most popular cartoon series in Russia titled "Well, Just You Wait…" Rounding out the International section are two fantastic films from Poland, Koziolek Matolek in "Singing Competition" and the first episode of "Dog, Cat and…" These Polish films are great models for simplified internet animation.

Next in line are a pair of rare Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons from the Walter Lantz studios. One of them is made by the legendary animator Bill Nolan, and rivals Ub Iwerks’ animation of Ozzie for originality and fun. The other is a lavish fairy tale story with detailed backgrounds. Two completely different approaches to the same character! You won’t want to miss this.

In the Slapstick section, we feature the second episode of a landmark three part documentary on one of the greatest slapstick performer/directors who ever lived… Buster Keaton. If you have never seen a Buster Keaton film before, this documentary will give you a taste of what you’ve been missing. If like me, you have studied all of his films over and over many times, you will learn new things about Keaton and his creative process that you didn’t know before. It’s a rare opportunity to sit at the feet of a master, and even though these films were made a century ago, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow allows you to do just that.

Followers of our podcast series, Animated Discussions will be happy to find a new entry on the Members Only page as well. This one is an interview with animator Joe Murray, talking about his creative process. We’ve had programs covering advice for finding your place in animation, Chuck Jones’ bar sheets, how to break down slapstick films, examples of great background layout and more… They’re all there when you log in, so you can spend hours learning and getting inspired!

We also have a fresh batch of breakdowns- short clips of great animation, slowed down so you can see the nuts and bolts of how it works. Build your own library of breakdowns. Organize them into folders by subject, like “walk cycles” or “takes” and refer to them when you need inspiration in your own animation.

We aren’t done yet! With every Reference Pack, we’ll be including a bonus video or e-book from one of our past Reference Packs. This time we are sharing illustrations from the landmark German magazine, Jugend. Titled after the German word for “youth”, Jugend was at the forefront of the arts and crafts movement. In fact, in Germany, art nouveau came to be known as “jugend-stil” (Jugend style). Utilizing state of the art color printing techniques to reproduce hand drawn lettering and beautiful sketches and paintings, Jugend set a standard in graphic design that continues to be felt to this day.

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.