GraphicsMy favourite graphic style.

Anime

Anime is a term for Japanese animation. Anime often covers more serious topics than the typical cartoon. In America, cartoons are considered a form of entertainment meant for children. In Japan, people of all ages watch animeAnime is very simplistic in terms of design as it’s all a single layer on top of a background. It usually contains quite strong colours and has very sharp edges on everything. This makes for very aesthetic art work that appeals to adults and children alike.

A brief history.

1947 - After World War II, Osamu Tezuka became a cartoonist and released his first work Shintakarajima (known in English as New Treasure Island). His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the father of manga", "the godfather of manga" and "the god of manga". Additionally, he is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, who served as a major inspiration during Tezuka's formative years.1951 - Osamu Tezuka created the milestone manga, Tetsuwan Atom or Astro Boy, as it was known in the US. As a result, years later he became a pioneer in anime, and was the man responsible for the success of anime and manga worldwide.In the 1980s, anime was accepted in the mainstream in Japan, and experienced a boom in production. The rise of Gundam, Macross, Dragon Ball, and the Real Robot, space opera and cyberpunk genres set a boom as well. The film Akira set records in 1988 for the production costs of an anime film and went on to become a success worldwide. Later, in 2004, the same creators produced Steamboy, which took over as the most expensive anime film. Space Battleship Yamato and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross also achieved worldwide success after being adapted respectively as Star Blazers and Robotech.

Why I like it

Anime is my favourite graphic style because of a set of anime films created by Haoyo Miyazaki, that I watched religiously as a kid and still do when I’m ill. His most famous film being spirited away which shared the first prize at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Anime as a graphic styleThe layout involves the drawings on a single layer on top of a background. With the type in speech bubbles or onomatopoeia which is common for even small sounds in manga. There are also lines that show movement and a lot of the shading is done with simple lines instead of smudged light pencil shading. The titles as you can see commonly use a lot of red and also commonly have there Japanese translation behind. They are quite bold and have very sharp edges causing them to be more eye catching. They are like this because it’s a similar art style to the drawing just used for type.Now a days the content is made with graphic art but that is why I like Miyazaki’s work in film because each frame is a separate water colour painting and the majority of the time you wouldn’t know.

bibliography• Wikapedia • Google images