From animation to anime: drawingmovements and moving drawingsTHOMAS LAMARREAbstract: Thisessaydealswithtwokindsof movementcommonincelanimation: drawingmovements and movingdrawings. Drawingmovements iscommon intraditionalcelanimationthatstrivesforfullanimation. Thelattermovingdrawingsbecomespronouncedintechniquesof limitedanimation,common in anime. The goal is not, however, to identify and consolidate differencesbetween animation and anime. On the contrary, this paper explores how drawingmovements entails a decoding of live-action cinema,which is intensied in the tech-niques of moving drawings that are prevalent in anime. Thus, anime is seen as a partof movement away from one kind of cinematic experience, towards something likenewmediaandinformation. Thegoalof theessayistothinkacrossmedia, toexplore the ways in which different movements have an impact on narrative, genreandspectatorship. MiyazakiHayaosTenkunoshiroRaputa (Castleinthesky)(StudioGhibli, 1986)providesasiteforanalysisof thewaysinwhichanimetechnique generates and exploits potentials such as atness, jitter and weightless-ness. Miyazakisemphasisonoatingandglidingpresents one waytodeal withanime-ic potentialsonethathasdeniteconsequences fortheimaginationofgender, history and nature, as well as the anime-ic experience of information.Keywords: animation, anime, limited animation, new media, gender, MiyazakiHayaoIntroductionAs the express train to Narita airport goes through a tunnel, it passes a series ofguresactually, aseriesof imagesof ahumangureindifferentpositions,silhouettes sketched with neon lights which the speed of the train serves to blurtogetherandthustoanimate. Thetravellingviewerseesananimatedguremoving on the dark wall of the tunnel. This animation by train works much likethe frames of a lm, only here it is the movement of the viewer through a tunnel,rather than that of celluloid through a projector, that transforms a series of staticimages into a moving, animated gure.Japan Forum 14(2) 2002: 329367 ISSN: 09555803 print/1469932X onlineCopyright 2002 BAJS DOI: 10.1080/09555800220136400This scenario calls to mind two kinds of movement common in cel animationdrawingmovementsandmovingdrawings. Traditionally, incelanimation,outline drawings are traced in ne ink on a thin, transparent sheet of celluloid, acel. The outline drawingsare meticulously coloured in, resultingin an opaquecolouredshapeonthetransparentcel. Onekindof movementiscreatedbyphotographing a series of sketched and painted images (a gure or gures). Then,projectingtheseriesservestoanimatethegureorgures. Itisamatterofdrawing movements. This is what one usually thinks of as the art of animation.Itisalsopossibletomovethedrawings. For, atthesametimethatcelsareprepared, backgroundsaredesignedandpainted. The celcanbe pulled acrossthebackgroundinvariousdirections, orthebackgroundpulledunderthecel.Similareffectscanbecreatedonamoreelaboratescale: celscanbeplacedinslots to create a scene with multiple layers or planes, in which case camera move-mentscanproduceasenseof relativemotion betweenlayers. Suchtechniquesenableanotherkindof movement, onethatmightbedubbedmovingthedrawings. Itresultsinaninducedmovement, thatis, aneffectof relativemovement. It is like that which arises when you feel that the platform not the trainmoves as your train leaves the station. Or, as two trains pass, one train seems tostand still. In the instance of the animation-by-train scenario, as the gure comestolife, thespectatorspositiontemporarilyseemstostandstill. Inducedmovement brings into play a complex set of mobile relations between foreground,background and spectator.Thisarticlebegins withtheotherkindof movement, oneusuallyassociatedwith animated lms drawing movements. It subsequently turns to the complexmobile relations that arise from moving drawings. This latter technique movingdrawingsbecomesquitepronouncedinmanyJapaneseanimatedlms,commonly refered toasanime. Inthis respect, thedistinction between drawingmovements and moving drawings enables a consideration of differences betweenanimationandanime. Yet the goal is not to identify andconsolidate differencesbetween animation and anime. Rather, it is to attempt to think between media, inorder to explore the ways in which different approaches to movement have a greatimpact on narrative, genre and spectatorship.Drawing movementsIncelanimation, whenonedrawsmovement, itisamatterof drawingandpainting images of a gure that are photographed and run through a projector images of a human, an animal or even inanimate objects. Drawing movement isthus a composing of movement. Or maybe it should be called a recomposing ofmovement, insofarasthemovementsof thegurearerstdecomposed, sotospeak. Theartistbreaksdowntheguresmovementintoaseriesof discreteimages, which aredrawnorpaintedsequentially, andthen the speed of projec-tion recomposes the movement.From animation to anime 330Themoviecamerasetstheshutterataxedintervalinordertorecordmovement by parsing or decomposing it into images snapped at equal intervals.If the animator is to produce uid, seamless movements like those in cinema, shemust think and work like a movie camera. Matsumoto Reiji, for instance, speaksof a time during the war when he constantly watched lms of Mickey Mouse andPopeye at home: And since they were 35 mm lm, I could see the lm and under-stand how animation works, how each frame was slightly different from the othersin sequence. . . . By the age of ve or six, I was already familiar with the mechan-ism of animation (1997: 150).Animation artiststake onthe taskof the shutter, drawingagureinvariousstages of motion, at relatively equal intervals. They replicate the cameras way ofdecomposingliveaction butwithsketchesratherthansnapshots. Now, aseveryoneknowsfromplaying withip oricker books, if themotionisnotbroken into equal intervals, the resultant movement when you ick through thepagesisratherawkwardandjerky. Toavoidjerkiness, theDisneystandard, forinstance, demanded that the artist draw approximately twelve frames per second.This means that, at projection rate of twenty-four frames per second, one drawingappears over two, maybethree frames fastenough tofool theeye into seeingcinema-like movement, unbroken and uid.Toachieve uid movements, it is notuncommonfor animatorsto basetheirdrawings on lm clips. There is, for instance, rotoscoping in which the artist re-draws a lm clip frame by frame. In some instances of rotoscoping, the animatorsimply turnsto lm sequences that arealreadyavailable, andreworks them. Inother instances, live-action sequences arelmed in order to produce aseries ofimagestobeduplicatedbyanimationartists. Thiswasthecasewiththerstfeature-length colour animated lm produced in Japan after the war Hakujaden(The story of the white serpent, 1958). Most of the lm was shot with actors onsoundstages, andthefootagewasthenredrawnbyanimationartists(seeYamaguchi and Watanabe 1977: 64; Miyao this issue).Nonetheless, even with the rotoscoping of live action, there are still differencesbetween the live-action footage and animation. Because there are real differencesbetweentheintervalsthatthehand willdrawandthose ashutter willtake, theanimators work is not really an exact replication of the cameras procedures. It isa recoding of them. Such differences are not merely differences in precision: it isnot simply that cinematographybasedon photography is more accurateor realthan paintingor drawing. Animation presents qualities of movement that differprofoundlyfromlive-actioncinema. Conceptually, thenotionof recodingprovides a way to discuss different qualities of movement that potentially arise indifferent uses of lmic media or even between media. Animated lm is arguablymultimedia or intermedia in that it traditionallyutilizes drawingandphotogra-phy and, more recently, digital colouring and computer-generated images.Recoding is not the same thing as replicating, copying or reproducing. To saythatanimationrecodescinematicmovementisnottosaythatanimationisThomas Lamarre 331imitative, derivative or secondary in relation to cinema. On the contrary, recodingis intended to show the responsiveness and expressiveness of animation. Never-theless, for a variety of reasons, animation is often thought of as secondary, eveninferior. First, thereisthecommon wisdomthat, if almcanbemadeinliveaction, then it should. Animation is then reserved for those scenarios impossibletorealizeinlive-actioncinema. Second, thereistheubiquityof cinemaintheglobal marketplace, especially big-budget Hollywood action features. Not surpris-ingly then, producers of Japanese animation or anime show a keen awarenessoflive-action cinema. Even a cursory glanceatJapanese animatedlms is enoughto make one aware of cinematic precedents and procedures. And, in their inter-views, famousanimatorslikeYoshiyukiTominoorMiyazakiHayaodisplayaprofound understanding of cinema. Given such global biases towards cinema overanimation, itisnotsurprisingtohearYoshiyuki, renownedforhisworkasadirector and writer, express bitterness that in Japan he could not afford to makelive-action lms but was constrained to animation (1993: 10).On the one hand, the impression that animation is secondary or inferior to live-action cinema comes of economic and demographic concerns: cinema has largeraudiences, adult audiences, and hence largerbudgets. On the other hand, thereis a sort of reality bias that comes with photography. There is a bias that photog-raphy-based cinema inherently has greaterrealityeffect thanthe drawingsusedforanimation. Cinemabasedonlive-actionphotographycanclaim(andoftendoes)thatitmerelyrecordsorrepresentsactual, live movements. Thuslive-action cinema seems to occupy a privileged relation to movements and actions inthe world to which animation is supposed to defer.This sense of cinema is rapidly changing. Cinema and photographys privilegedrelation to the world was (and is) often based on a sense that the process of photo-graphicdevelopmentinwhichphotonscontacttheemulsionandgraduallyeffect a chemical transformation afforded a contact with the sensible world andits movements. More recently, such sensible contact is seen to be undermined bythedigital, broadlyconceivedasamediumforcarryinginformationwithnosensuous link or contact with the world. Lev Manovich, who deals at length withsuch issues in his work on new media, remarks, The pretense of modern media[cinema] to create simulations of sensible reality is similarly cancelled [by binarycode]; mediaarereducedtotheiroriginalconditionasinformationcarrier,nothingless, nothingmore (2001: 25). Analogously, ThomasLooser, inhisarticle in this issue, deals with the problematic of analogversusdigitalin orderto resituateJapaneseanimation. Indeed, the emergenceof new medianotonlyforces us to re-think what cinema is, but also promises new waysto think aboutsomething like anime.Historically, cinema has had a reality edge on animation, due to the sense thatit connects with the sensible world and its movement. And this still informs thesenseof what animationis. Intermsof studioproduction, differences betweencinema and animation have been extended into, and stabilized in, different typesFrom animation to anime 332of characters and actions, genres and themes. The sense that cinema is in contactwith movements in the real world even extends to different generic takes on realityitself. Byconvention, animationisdeemedtobegenericallysuitedtootherrealitiesandotherworlds: childrensstories, sciencectionandfantasy, andcomedy, parody, burlesque. In cartoon comedy and burlesque especially, there isa tendency to cite or caricature characters from lm and to restate, lampoon anddisgure the conventions of live-action cinema. This has traditionally provided away to mock and overturn the perception that animation is secondary and deriva-tive, as is stressed in the work of Paul Wells (1998).There is, however, another way to look at animation and at anime, that of therecodingof movement. If Ihaveevokeddifferencesbetweencinemaandanimation, it is not to stabilize the entrenched, generic distinctions between them.I set forth such a comparison to foreground the fact that animation, as a lm art,works frame to frame to recompose a movement during projection. Historically,live-action cinema became (and to some extent remains) the privileged model forrecomposingmovement withlm. Tobegin withrecodingisthusintendedtohighlight the importance of movement and the lmic nature of animation. Yet itis also intended to open questions about other kinds of movement, in other multi-media like anime.Animation presents other possibilities. For, to compose a movement, animationmustrstdecomposeordecodeit. Evenwhenanimationcloselyfollowsthemodels of live-action cinema, it does not merely copy or replicate. It recodes, andthus decodes. Decoding goes beyond an imitation or reproduction of live-actioncinema, andopensup new possibilities forexpression. It reaches into so-calledlive action and unravels it. It thus goes to the heart of what is live. This is a poten-tial of animation that becomes especially important in anime. Anime cuts to thequick of the live.FlatnessThe perception of animated characters as cut-outs, as at and two-dimensional,often plays into negative assessments of animations potential as a serious, matureform of expression. What kind of seriousness can be attained in a world in whichcharacters do not seem to have weight or depth? One way to open new venues fordiscussionistosituateanimationinthelineageof aprestigiousart, suchaspainting.It is not unimaginable, for instance, that stills from ananimated movie couldbe viewed as art, displayed in museums, and in that context, their atness comesinto dialogue with traditions in art. Questions can be posed about composition inanimation, abouttechnique, aboutline, colour, perspective, visualorganizationand so forth. What might otherwise be dismissed as lack of depth, provided it islinkedwithcurrentsinarthistory, thenoffersnewpossibilitiesforthinkingabout art. Animationthusbecomesallied withaestheticseriousnessby wayofThomas Lamarre 333art-historical traditions and commentaries. A good example is the recent exhibitand volume called Superat, put together by Murakami Takashi (2000).Murakami identies a lineage of superat sensibility across a range of ukiyo-eprints, which he traces into anime and manga and into contemporary Japanese artandphotographyaswell. Thereare, of course, certainpitfallsinassociatinganimation with gallery art. There is the risk that animation will serve only to recon-rmthelegitimacyof hallowedlineages, tobreathenewlifeintoauthoritativetraditions. This is a potential problem with Murakamis account, much of whichseems intent on re-articulating a relation between traditions of artistic expressionin Japanandthe West. As aconsequence, his discussion of anime asJapaneseexpression runs the risk of a simple retrieval of tired, tendentious oppositionsbetween Japanese and Western traditions. And there is the risk that art criticismthen functions merely to legitimate the aesthetics of mass-market commodities.Theinteractionof artandanime iscrucial, however, if onlybecausecelanimationisproducedwithdrawings. Moreover, manyanimatorsdeliberatelydraw inspiration from or cite traditional art styles. It is not uncommon to locatetheoriginsof Japanesemanga (comics)andanime intwelfth-centuryart(seeSchodt 1996: 22; Takahata 1999; and a fuller discussion in Miyao this issue). Andanimators may deliberately evoke graphic styles that have been enshrined withinJapanese art-historical narratives. A prime instance is Miyazaki Hayaos evocationof nihonga-stylelandscapesinMononokehime (PrincessMononoke)(StudioGhibli, 1997). And, as arthistorians like Jacqueline Berndt (1999) have arguedwith reference to nihonga in Princess Mononoke, certain styles bring with them veryconservativeandproblematicconnotations. Somethingimportantislost whenanime is entered into art historical lineages, not least of which is the historically-specic cinematic or multimedia dimension of anime. Needless to say, this is alsoone wayin which anime and gallery artcan serve to sell each other, to accumu-late mutually a kind of cultural capital.What interests me in Murakamis account, however, is its hints of somethingthatmaynotbeimmediatelyrecuperablewithinarthistoricallineagesorreducible to the massproduction of commodities movement. This is becauseattention to movement in anime potentially leads beyond aesthetics to consider-ations of experienceandspectatorship, and whataresometimes calledculturesof consumption. Murakamis account suggests that, if one is to think across mediaand between lineages, then one has to think about kinds of movement. He doesnot centre his account of atness or two-dimensionality on movement per se. Yethis discussion invariably returns to, and turns on, the problem of movement. Hesignals, for instance, akind of visualorganizationin earlymodern Japaneseartthat serves to draw the eye across images in specic ways. And it is this movementthat serves to dene anime for him as a distinctive form of expression.Murakamialsonotesthatit wasinthe1970sthatconsumersinJapanrstbecameawareof adistinctiveanime aesthetic. Thisawarenessemergedinresponsetotheartof animatedtelevisionseries. Of particularimportancetoFrom animation to anime 334Murakami Takashis account is the work of animator Kanada Yoshinori. Kanadaworked on two television series based on works by Matsumoto Reiji, Uchu senkanYamato (1974), which was later adapted and televised in North America as StarsBlazers or Space Cruiser Yamato, and Ginga tetsudo three-nine or Galaxy Express 999(1978). It wasinsuchseriesof the1970sthatthetransformationsinJapaneseanimation of the 1960s came to be fully expressed. At the same time, the appear-ance of a journal devoted entirely to anime, Animage, underscored the new aware-ness of a distinctive anime aesthetic. In short, between the 1960s and 1970s, animewasbornasadistinctformof expression. Awarenessof adistinctiveanimeaesthetic grew out of the art of limited animation. Limited animation, which Ishall discuss in more detail throughout this article, might be thought of as a seriesof short-cuts used by animators to convey a sense of movement in animation withthe most limited of means.Murakamihimself doesnotdiscusslimitedanimationingreatdetail. Heiscontent initially to note that it informs the work of an animator like Kanada Yoshi-nori, with its emphasis on shape-shifting and metamorphoses and on timing andmovement (2000: 1215). Subsequently, he mentions that it makes use of two-dimensionaldesignsinspiredbyclassicalJapanesescrollsandstatues, anditallows for special movements and explosive effects (2000: 11415). And, gener-ally, he is content to speak in terms of something like an aesthetics or poetics ofJapanese animation, which involves an emphasis on internal conherence of worksrather than broader considerations of experience of objects. Nevertheless, lookingat limited animation provides a way to begin a discussion of animation and animethat raises a number of interesting questions.The emergence of an anime aesthetic is typically traced back to the technicallimitationsplacedonanime productionduringtheglobaleconomiccrisisofanimationinthe1960s. Financialconstraints weresuchthatstudioscouldnotaffordtoproduce fullanimation, in which animatorsdrawasmanyastwelveframesper second, in which animagelastsonly twoframes. It wasaroundthistime that the rst animated televisions series emerged in Japan. Notably, Mushiproduced one of therstseries, TezukaOsamus Tetsuwan Atomu or Astro Boy,whichbeganinJanuary1963andendedafter193episodesinlate1966.Constrained to work with drawings that could be sustained for ve or six frames,animators adopted different strategies for composing and conveying movement,other than drawing it frame to frame. The result was limited animation, which hadprofound aesthetic consequences.Animatorsbegantoplaceemphasisonthemostvisuallyandemotionallyimportant poses,which could last over many, many frames. Whence one of animesstaples: the protagonists face racked with emotion, rather like a close-up but withnomovementorextremelyrestrainedandrepetitivemovement(forexample,browsorlipstwitchinginanger). Animatorstendedtosuppressintermediatemovements, whichresultedinjerkyorawkward, lessgracefulactions, orex-plosive anduncontainedtransitions. TherealsoaroseatendencytomovetheThomas Lamarre 335drawing rather than to draw the movement a reversal of the conventions of fullcel animation. Rather than drawing each stage of a gure walking across a back-ground, alessfullyanimatedgurecouldbepulledoverthebackground.Moreover, asaconsequenceof theemphasisonstaticimages, cameraeffectsbecamemorepronouncedpanningacrossimages, followingobjects, trackingup or back, framing in or out (to use some of the terms deployed in Miyazakiswork; see Studio Ghibli (1984b: 153)).These andother featurescametodenethelook andfeelof anime. And, asanime emerged as a form of expression conspicuously different from other modesof expression, itisnotsurprisingthatmanyanime artistsbegantoexpressbewilderment over the global popularity of their work, and many insist that theirwork is by and large specic to Japan and probably intelligible only there. Whatis more, it is still common in discussions of anime to link its differences to somekindof Japaneseness. ThisisusuallydonebyopposingJapaneseanimationtoWesternanimation, oftenthroughcomparisonof somemajorJapanesegure,such as Tezuka Osamu or Miyazaki Hayao, with Disney productions.Yet, to reduce the complexity of anime to Japaneseness is to ignore the complex-ity of Japan in particular, and of the modern nation in general not to mentionthe importance of globalizing forces in the production of mass culture. Here it isnot possible, and probably not desirable, to take up a critique of broad, abstractoppositions between Japan and the West. It should be evident, however, that mystrategy of exploring different qualities of movement is intended as a way to dealwith the specicity of anime and, at the same time, to raise the possibility of differ-ences among various anime, without recourse to abstractions like Japan versus theWest. Look atthe wayin which animatorslike TezukaOsamu, MiyazakiHayaoandMatsumotoReijidescribetheirearlydelightinthe workof DisneyortheFleischer Brothers andtheir subsequent interest in European comic artistsandanimators. Orconsiderthenotionslikejapanoid thatspringupinJapanesecommentariesonsciencectionandanime (asinTatsumi(1993)andsubse-quently in Ueno (1998)). In the instance of anime at least, the operative relationbetween Japan and the West is not a monolithic one of resistance, opposition andrupture. Onthecontrary, therelationinvolvesprocessesof multiplicationof,departure from and mutation within sources and models for animation. It is thesekinds of processes that played into the generation of new media experiences, andeven new, global cultures of consumption, around anime.Inthe1960s, fornancialreasons, animationcouldnotcontinueintheoldways, and, by the mid-1970s, something new was emerging, something that beganto show awareness of its distinctiveness, in spectators, producers and anime all atonce. What was it about Japan of the 1960s and 1970s that enabled the emerg-ence of anime? What kinds of conditions lent force to this sort of relation betweenJapan and the West that was not one of dependence or resistance, but rather oneof multiplication and mutation?Here it is no longer aquestion of Japanand the West so much asit is one ofFrom animation to anime 336Japan in the world. There are so many different socio-historical forces at work thatit would be rash to establish asingle set or to seek some narrowly causalexpla-nation. Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore the intensication of the logic ofcapitalismandconsumerisminJapaninthewakeof theso-calledeconomicmiracle an intensication that reached its fullest expression during the bubbleperiod (198592). Ithinkthatitisnocoincidence thatanawarenessof animeemerged in conjunction with the notion of the information society. As Morris-Suzukishowsinherpath-breakingstudy(1988), theideaof theinformationsociety, coined in Japan in the late 1960s, steadily achieved greater currency andpopularity in the 1970s and 1980s, because it promised a means to continue high-growth economics by reducing the costs of production (thus ensuring increasedprots without changing wages). Thus technical innovation, based on informationtechnologies, became the perceived solution to sustainingeconomic growth, forit would atonce streamline production andenable adiversication of productsfor consumers. In a very real sense, when looked at from the standpoint of produc-tion, limited animationdid something analogous. It allowed for technical inno-vationsthatreducedproductioncosts. Thisisitseconomicdeterminationornancialculture, sotospeak. Notsurprisinglythen, technicalinnovationandexperimentation also became central to anime stories, and many stories deal withthepassagetowardsaneworder, pivotingontheriseof computers, robots,cyborgs, biotech and so forth, albeit often with great ambivalence.Limited animation also shaped a new kind of viewing and consuming, one thatentailsscanning, re-reading, searchinginformation, discerningtechnicalinno-vation and so forth. In other words, one might say that anime generated a viewerexperience that wasverymuch like anexperience of informatization itself. Andthus I think it no coincidence that anime emerged, and is still emerging, into theglobal market in conjuction with the new economies of globalization and informa-tization. Thisisbecausepost-wareconomictransformationssituatedJapaninrelation to new kinds of totalizing forces, ones that are now described in terms ofglobalization, informationsociety, thedigitalcultureandsoforth. Soitisnotsurprising then that so many anime also spin tales about totalizing forces. Thereare so many anime in which Japan occupies the place of the globe Japan or theworld is invaded by aliens; Japan or the world is on the verge of total destruction;or Japan as the world saves the globe from destruction. It is probably no coinci-dence that glocalization is also a term coined by marketers in Japan.Now Murakamilinks the emergence of ananime aesthetics its atness tothe restrictions imposed by limited animation. This is now the common wisdomabout anime. Intent on putting a positive spin on anime, Murakami does not callattention to socio-historical conditions or economic determinations. He ignoresthem, in fact. He turns to the productive aesthetic consequences of the economiclimitations placed on animation in Japan. What is important is that his emphasison aesthetic consequences hints at something more than the mere appearance ofa commodity with a new look and feel. The emergence of anime involved a newThomas Lamarre 337awarenessinproducersandviewers, anewexperiencethatmightbecalledanimetic or, touseLoosersturnof phrase, anime-ic. ThisistostretchMurakamis aesthetics a good deal, maybe to the breaking point. Yet the hint ofan anime-ic awarenessor experience is not without possibilities. In particular, itopenspossibilitiesforanaccountof anime that wouldnotreduceittosocio-historicaloreconomicdeterminations, yetthat wouldallowonetoreconsiderthosedeterminations withgreatercomplexitypreciselybynotrulingouttheways in which consumers might makeanime, asthey read, view andexperienceit.I have alreadymadeone suggestion in passing that the experience of animeis an experience of informatisation. And this is the one that I wish to explore, thatI wishtoconsiderfromthegroundup, sotospeak. Partof thatexperienceispredicated on a breakdown of a certain model of live-action cinema. Anime, as itemergedthroughlimitedanimation, createdanawarenessof theprocessofdecoding that is part of any recoding of live action (even the cinematic). Such anawareness of decoding can also be extrapolated from Murakami Takashi.Murakamiinsists on the atnessor two-dimensionality of anime, thus restat-ing the common wisdom about anime emerging from limited animation in a rathernovel way. His comments areremarkablybrief; he limits himself to the atnessmanifestedin themetamorphoses andtimingof GalaxyExpress 999 andSpaceBattleship Yamato. Buthowdoestheparadigmof atnessleadtoaninterestinmetamorphosisandtiming?Aboutthisconnection, Murakamistextremainssilent. Yetmetamorphosisdoesseemlogicallytofollowfromatness. Thisisbecause, if one thinks about atness in terms of two-dimensional surfaces, thenthe logicalquestion becomes: howdoesanythinghappeninthissurface world?How doesanythingcome forth orvanish?Andhowissuchchangeexpressed?Clearly, eventsandchangecanbeexpressedonlyintermsof aninteractionofsurfaces, as a movement of surfaces on surfaces, as shift from surface to surface.I should like to stretch Murakamis superat, and think of a superat that entailsatinteractionsoratarticulations. Thatis, the superatbecomes aqualityofmovement, change or transformation.In effect, the supposedly at and depthless characters and gures in anime aresuperat. In their veryatness, they are traversed by a potential for interaction,motion and transformation. They move on a specic eld of forces.There is another, maybe easier, way to think about this. In limited animation,animatorstendtosuppresstheintermediatepositionsinamovement. If ananimatorcanmakeagureappear to walkusingonly three drawings one legout, both legs together, the other out why then draw all the intermediate stages?The resultis obviouslyrecognizable as walking. Withthisminimal approachtopresentingmovement, however, somethingnewappearsinthemechanismofrecognition, something that troubles it. The walking, so minimally presented, mayevokeasenseof skippiness, jerkiness, awkwardnessorarticiality. Thegurebecomesnotsimplya walkingautomaton. RatheritbecomesanautomatonofFrom animation to anime 338walking. It is amachine of walking, in amannerof speaking. It walksobjects andpotentiallyanythingbecomesanobject: humangures, animalgures,stones, trees, machines, crowds, planetsandsoon. Onebecomesawareof amachine of walking, because one is aware of the interval between images, betweenpositionsof movement, betweensurfaces. Animationthenbecomessomethingother thanaprocessof animatinggures, of drawingallthestagestoproduceseamlessmovement. Itisaprocessof inventingmachinesof movementmachines of walking, of talking, of running, leaping, ying, andso forth thattake up all manner of objects.Itmight beconcludedthat limited animationsimply makesviewersawareofthelmprocessitself, of theprojectionof twenty-fourframespersecond. Byextension, one might construe it as a kind of modernist take on cinema, or as anexperimental response. But this is not exactly what anime is about.Thegreaterpartof thelmsconsideredtobeanime aremainstreammass-culture products rather than avant-garde art experiments (if the distinction canstillbesaidtohold)albeitonesthatfrequentlyinvolvesubcultures, interestgroups, fan cultures or communities of affect. This means that, by and large, theawareness of jerkiness or awkwardness is supposed to be suppressed or relativelyneutralizedby the narrativedriveof the anime, or by its overall effect. This wasTezukaOsamusfeelingaboutlimitedanimation whenhemadeAstroBoy: hesubmittedthatviewers would accepttheshortfalls of limitedanimationif theywere sufciently interested in the story. For Tezuka, narrativeis to absorb spec-tators, overcomingtechno-artisticlimitations. Probablyheneverimaginedthatthoselimitationsmightbeperceivedasaestheticchoicesandtechnicalinno-vations.Yet there comes a moment (as Murakami points out) when animators begin tothink of limited animation as a distinctive form of expression, as the attraction.And then the jitter the jerkiness or skippiness in the animated gure becomescentral to the story. Storyless or non-narrative elements begin to have an impacton stories, to inform narratives and to generate new narratives. It is not just thatautomatonguresof allkinds(mecha, cyborgs, robotsandsoforth)becomecentraltoanime narratives. Toresorttothepriorexample, itisnotsimplyaquestion of a walking machine, a ying machine, a living machine. Rather, it is aquestion of a machine of walking, a machine of ying, a machine of living suchmachines traverse and organize narrative. And the Tezuka-style stories, in whichonecomestounderstandthehumanityof theautomaton, steadilygive waytonarrativesin whicheveryone, everything, ismachinic, automaton. Ratherthanhigh-culture critique or avant-garde experimention, anime strives to generate newcultures. As a consequence, it does not only spin narratives of the future but alsoproposes futures of narrative.And so, to those who think of animated characters as somehow at and depth-less, the reply is: Of course, and not only that, they are superat. The superatof limited animation opens a sense of the interval, in two sites in particular: (1)Thomas Lamarre 339one senses the interval within the movements of individual characters or gures;and(2)onefeelstheintervalbetweensurfacessuchasforegroundandback-ground. Thissecondfeaturewillbediscussedinthenalsections. Atthisjuncture, Ishouldsimplyliketomakeapointaboutthesuperatoranime-icexperience: anime does much more than tell stories about machines, automatonsand monsters. Anime goes far beyond a concern for how to deal with articial life.As limited animation pushed animators to seek the minimum for the expressionof movement, anime became concerned with the minimal conditions for life, andwith the question of how to generate life from movements.Becauseanime oftenndslife whereverthereisthetraceof amovementorenergy, the world of anime is one in which so many alternative lifeforms come intoexistence. Lifecouldarisefromthecirculationof electrons, fromthewhirofgears, from the combination and recombination of bytes, from light through therainor, fromthemovementbetweenlinesinadrawing, betweensurfacesorbetween frames. In other words, through animes exploration of the limits for life-like movement, it arrives at a new world in which autopoetic entities seem able toarise anywhere there occurs a repeated interval. This extends to themes and topicsas well. There areso manyanime about discoveringor inventingother forms oflife, oraboutconfrontingorbattlingotherformsof life. Therearefrequentlyalternativelifestylesas well. Andagainandagainthecentralconcernisposed,generally with an aura of childlike or adolescent innocence: we do not yet knowwhat life is. Not only do we not yet know what life is biologically, chemically, phys-ically, spiritually, metaphysically and so forth; but we also do not know we refuseto know even as we strive to know what this world is. We do not yet know whatthis world, this life, is of. How then to know what this life is for?Ineffect, economicobstaclespromotedtechnicalinnovation, whichinturngenerated the positive unconscious of anime (minimal movement = minimal life= information). This positive unconscious became operative in the aesthetics oflimited animation precisely where limited animation began its break with the repli-cation of live action aspired to in full animation. Of course, it is possible to see,retroactively, thesamebreaksoccurringeverywhereinfullanimation(andincinema too). For, in order to recode live-action cinematic movement, animationhad always to decode it. With limited animation, however, the decoding of cinemaispushedtothepoint whereliveactionitself isdecoded, andthusthe live ofaction is called in question, and so ultimately is life.This automaton effect, this machine of moving, this informing machine, lives atthe core of anime-ic form. Yet, because it is a kind of positive unconsciousness,it is never fully or simply expressed. I would venture to say, however, that the mostinterestinganime arethosethatstrivetowardsapureexpressionorsustainedexploration of it. For allitsimmediacy(youcansee it, experienceit), it entersinto various layers of treatment. It shuttles along, pulses, pushes one way or theother, combines with other effects, buries itself in continuousactions, traversesstories, surges forth as an enigma and so forth.From animation to anime 340Toexplore therangeof anime-ic expression, I wouldideallyliketolook atanumber of different lineages that have developed around different studios; arounddifferenttechnologies; aroundspecicanimators, writers, producers, characterdesigners; andarounddifferentvarieties, genresandcultures. Yetthisessaypermits only treatment of one lineage, and so I turn to the animation of MiyazakiHayao, and especially to Tenku no shiro Raputa (The castle in the sky, 1986).Thereareacouplereasonsforthischoice. BecauseMiyazakisareoftendeemed to be the most cinematic of anime, they allow further exploration of theproblematic of an anime-ic recoding/decoding of cinema. Not only does Miyazakishow a marked preference for producing anime for theatrical release (rather thanfor television or video release), but his anime lms are usually deemed to be verycinematic in style. Moreover, the budgets for his productions are large enough toallow full animation. Finally, Miyazaki is involved at every level of production: henot only writes and directs but also oversees and works directly on animation andstoryboards. He thus introduces an overall continuity in style and story a cine-matic sort of auteur effect. This differs from many anime directors who prefer toletthestylesof individualanimatorsshow, toallowforavisualplaybetweendiverse styles. Thus, in many respects, Miyazaki appears to be the least anime-icand most cinematic of animator-writer-directors.Nevertheless, there are profoundly anime-ic tendencies in his lms as well. Inrecent lms, for instance, he has recourse to techniques of multilayer composit-ing that potentially reduce the sense of slippage between foreground and back-groundand increase the cinematic feel asin the 1997Princess Mononoke (seeStudioGhibli(1999: 1801)foranoverviewof multilayercompositing). Yet,despite such possibilities for compositing, his lms tend nonetheless to empha-size the play between foreground and background in a very anime-ic way. What ismore, despite the budget for full animation, the animation of human and animalcharacters in his lms evokes forms of movement that are quite unlike anythingthatoccursincinematicmovement. Inaddition, asisfrequentlyremarked,Miyazakiexpressesadeepcommitmenttocelanimation: althoughPrincessMononoke usessomedigitaltechniques(especiallyforcolouring), thesetech-niquesareattheserviceof averytwo-dimensionalcel-animationaesthetic.Finally, Ghibli lms, especially those of Miyazaki, have achieved such popularitythat, for many viewers, they have come to dene a sense of what anime is or canbe. In sum, there is pronounced tension between the cinematic and anime-ic inMiyazakis lms and that is the focus of this essay.I shall discuss a tendency in Miyazaki to emphasize another crucial featureof animation what I will refer to as weightlessness in a way that at onceevokes and minimizes the machinic effects discussed above. He deploys veryanime-ic effects (and themes) but tends to manageandcontrol those effectsinawaythatminimizestheirmachinicpotential. Oddlyenough, itishisskillful management of anime techniques that imparts a cinematic feel to hisfilms. Hiscarefulmanagementof themalsoexpressesoneof hiscentralThomas Lamarre 341concerns: thenecessityforhumankindtousetheminimumof technology,safely and wisely.WeightlessnessTenku no shiro Raputa or Castle in the Sky opens with a view over banks of clouds,in which we see a tiny ying ship (hiko sen), that is, a sort of airship or dirigible.We cut closer, to see a small yet bulbous craft with two propellers. There is someactivity on board. One of the crew, a woman later we learn that she, Dora, is thepirates leader points out a large yet stately ying ship below them in the clouds.From the pirates airship emerge small planes with wingsthat whir like dragon-ies apters. Thus begins a pirate attack on the large ying ship.Wecuttoaviewof agirl(Sheeta)throughoneof the windowsof thelargeying ship it appears to be a sort of passenger liner of skies. Sheeta gazesoutthe window. She ignores food offered by one of the men who attend her men indarkglasses. Shepreferstogazeoverthecloudsatthefullmoonthatappearsamidthewhitebillows. Suddenlyastonishmentcrossesherface: thepiratesapters whirpasther window, andDoralooksdirectlythroughthe windowatSheeta.As the pirates storm aboard the sky liner, a battle between the pirates and thedarkglasses ensues. Theleaderof thedarkglasses, Muska, retreatstoSheetasroom toradioforhelp. He opensacase withanantennaandbeginsto wireamessage in something like morse code. Sheeta takes the opportunity to knock himout; she smashes him over the head with a bottle. She retrieves a pendant with ablue-green stone from him. It is her pendant. She ties it around her neck, and, asthepiratescome crashingintoherroom, sheslipsoutthe window. The piratesattempt to capture her as she clings to the outside of the ying ship, but she losesher hold and plummets down into the clouds, earthward.The opening sequence establishes two groups battling for the girl Sheeta thepirates and the darkglasses. The sequence also calls our attention to her pendant,and so we realize that it is somehow central to the story. But only later do we learnthat the darkglassesandtheir leaderMuskahavekidnapped Sheeta in ordertoseizeherpendant, whichisayingstone (hiko seki) withmysterious, gravity-defying powers (thus often glossed as levitation stone). Similarly, the pirates andtheir leader Dora wish to wrest Sheeta and thus the stone from the darkglasses.Thus begins a kind of action-adventure treasure-hunt story. The pirates pursuethetreasureoutof greed, outof desirefor wealth. Thedarkglassespursuethetreasureoutof desirefor mastery, fordominion over the worldfor the yingstone is the key to a mysterious power source. Sheeta and a new friend, the boyPazu, will follow a parallel track their encounter with the ying stone launchesthem on a personal, quasi-spiritual quest to learn the secrets of the ying stoneand the ying castle, Raputa.The opening sequence is dense with informational elements that pregure theFrom animation to anime 342course of the action. It also establishes an initial directionality for the lm: down.We look down from the pirate airship at the sky liner. We look down from the skyliner at Sheeta falling earthward. In fact, in the rst portion of the lm, the actionmoves from the skies to the bowels of the earth from airships above the cloudsdown to the earth, then from a cabin high on a hill down to the town below, thendown amineshaftintotunnelsdeep within the earth. Subsequent actions leadback from the depths to the heights, up to the castle in the sky. Working their wayup into the heights proves arduous for the two heroes, Sheeta and Pazu. It is asmuch physical effort as moral journey a trial of courage and values.Inbrief, fromtheoutset, thelmestablishesatopologyfora worldarrayedvertically. Lowest are the mines, above them the miners village, and cut into thecliffs and on the hill tops are other dwellings and worksites. Pazus shack standshigh above the village, it is fairly part of the sky; and he tends birds and dreamsof building an airplane to soar into the clouds. Pirates and armies command theskies, but above and beyond them oats the castle in the sky, Raputa.Action sequences largely scenes of pursuit tend to be laid out horizontally,as with the rst pirate attack. Yet the lm develops its overall movement along thevertical topology of its world: it circles down from the skies to the depths of theearth, then back up into the clouds. This establishes an initial rhythm for the lmssequences: pursuitandbattlescenesoccurprimarilyalongthehorizontal,followed by escape by falling downward or ying upward. So it is in the openingsequence: pirates storm through the ship, and Sheeta falls and escapes.Of specialinterestishowherfallingisrendered. Initially, intheopeningsequence, her fall is renderedasif seen from the yingship. There is ashot ofclouds, parted to show the earth between them, and the gure of Sheeta becomessmaller and smaller, as if receding from us. How do we see this decrease in sizeas movement away from us? How do we know that this movement away from usis downward movement? After all, we are looking across at the image, not down.How do we know that she is not being sucked into a distant point on the horizon?There are all kinds of visual cues that guide one to perceive her moving away(not shrinking) andfalling(not movinghorizontally). Visualcues prepare ustosee falling: the scene takes place on an airship, and so the view is from the ship;we recognize clouds and the lights of a city on the earth things that are below.Thus we perceive downness. As for receding-ness or depth, the background isdarker, and the gure becomes fainter as well as smaller thus we see depth andmovement into it. Still, these are conventions, and it is not impossible for someoneto think, shes shrinking or shes being sucked into another dimension.The potential for confusion about depth and direction is especially pronouncedin cel animation in which the cel for a character is laid on top of the backgroundorplacedinaslotinfrontof it. Usually, thebackgroundisrenderedinmoresubduedtones andcolours in order to impart asense of depth, yet foregroundandbackgroundarethenseenasdistinctlayers. Thisiswhytechniquesofcomputer compositing are now widely used with big-budget animated features: toThomas Lamarre 343smooth out the relation between foreground and background, and thus to imparta sense of real depth and of real movement in and out of it. Castle in the Sky,however, drawsandpaints such effects, with gradationsof colour anddarknessto create a sense of movement in depth, in conjunction with visual cues.Still, eventhoughonecouldsaythatthisisanadequate solutiontotheproblem of rendering movement in depth, the preference in Castle in the Sky, asinmuchof Miyazakis work, isforscenesin whichguresmoveacrossback-grounds, notintothemoroutof them. The scenesof movementindeptharerelatively brief and used primarily in the manner of establishing shots. They estab-lish the movement of the action to another level, below or above the actual scene the vertical topology. There are all kinds of panoramic views in Castle in the Sky,and the lm provides innumerable viewsdown into valleysor up into the skies.Yet the lm usually avoids a presentation of the movement-in-depth itself unlessin the form of a distant trace mapped upon panoramic view. There are, as I havesuggested, pragmatic reasons for this. Yet it also enables an aesthetic emphasis inMiyazaki for dealing with movement both in the overall story and for his heroes.His is a preference for oating, gliding or circling. He values weightlessness, light-ness, buoyancy achieved with the minimum of technology.Forinstance, theopeningsequenceestablishesthatSheetaisfallingtowardearth, then (after the title sequence) we return to Sheeta falling through the darkskies. Now, however, it is ahorizontal or lateralview, from adistance. She fallshead rst, arms at her side, immobile. The viewing position comes closer to her,and we seethat shefalls, eyesclosed, asif asleep orunconscious. Signicantly,her body does not move through the frame. As if to emphasize her unconsciousdreamlike state, she remains in the same position in the frame as if not movingat all. Given an immobile gure and static frame, how do we perceive falling?Inadditiontocontext, thereareanumberof cuestoorientaperceptionoffalling. Mostobviously, sheisupsidedown, whichsuggestsfalling. Moreover,when framed distantly, her body is positioned just above centre in the frame toreinforce the sense of a downward direction to the gure. Framed closely, she isstill positioned above centre, with much of her body out of the top of the frame.And her skirt utters.There are so many ways to assure that our sense of her falling is sustained, evenas the framing changes. Yet such techniques should also serve to remind us of oneof theothercentralproblematicsof animation: theweightlessnessof gures.Whichistosay, withoutspecicindicationsfordirectionof movement, thesesketched and painted gures, in and of themselves, are oddly buoyant and light,seemingly weightless, not rooted or anchored in theirenvironments. Again, thiseffect is partly due to the fact that the cels for characters are laid atop, or slottedin front of, backgrounds. There remains a sense of a gap between gure and back-ground. This is particularly true when one moves the drawn gure over the back-ground. Thenthesensethatthegureisunmooredcanbecomepronounced.Whence the dictum: draw the movement, dont move the drawing. But the effectFrom animation to anime 344of weightlessness also arises at the level of the drawing of the gure, in the erasingof lines in order to clean up sketches. This merits a brief digression.When animators render gures in movement, they sketch lines that show weightshifting, that is, lines of implied mass. Forinstance, thereis the movement ofthe hip as weight shifts from one leg to another what is drawn is a bulge at thehip that shifts as the person or animal moves. Thus an animator might try to givethe impression that this is real walking, that is, walking under earthly conditionswith physical laws of mass and gravity. Such natural laws and forces, however, donotarisenaturallyindrawing. Theanimatorstrivestocreateanimpression ofthem.It is worth noting in passing that this is one respect in which animation seemsverydifferent from cinema, because naturallawslike gravityare alreadypart ofthe world recorded by the movie camera. Nonetheless, without careful construc-tion of natural lighting and depth, lm characters also become easily unmooredand oat against depthless backgrounds. In animation and especially in anime, akindof montageinternaltotheshot isofteninevidence. Onceoneisaccus-tomed to the internal montage of anime, one becomes more attentive to, rathersuspiciousabout, theallegednaturalnessof the worldrecordedbythemoviecamera. Anditseemsthatcinema, likeanime, hasalreadytransformedtheworld intosheetsof informationandcomposited them(informatized theircomposition).To return to the drawing of animation, the general tendency in animation is toclean up sketches, and the erasure of sketch lines lessens our sense that animatedgures move in accordance with physical laws. The evocation of implied massesis much diminished. Klein notes such effects in his account of morphing (2000:23). Klein does not mention, however, that there is a pragmatic reason for erasingorcleaningupsketches, forcreatingsimplecontours. Whentheanimationofgures is limited, when intermediate stages of movement are removed, the guresthemselves mustbe drawnmoresimply. Thisis because viewerstend to acceptlimited animationfrom simpliedcharacters. If the characteris drawnin greatdetail, the omission of intermediate movements becomes overly evident jittery,jerky, stuttering, awkward. And so, between the character sketch and the outlinetracedon the cel, lines mustbe erased. Sketches arereduced tosimple lines ofcontour. A blizzard of sketch lines often becomes asingle line. This is a waytodiminish the viewers awareness of gaps in animated movement. Simplication oflinesandgurespotentiallyservestomanageordirectthemachinicpotentialinherent in animation.Withsimplication, however, anotherpotentialisintroducedasensethatthese simple gures, whose movement now appears graceful and uid rather thanawkwardandjerky, do not obey our natural laws of movement. This is becausesimplication dramatically reduces our sense of the weight and mass of the gure.Only the barest evocation of implied mass remains. As aresult, the movementof animatedguresdoesnotgiveusthesenseof viewingmassesthatactandThomas Lamarre 345interact in accordance to physical laws. Figures in animation seem to obey otherlaws. Theyseemtoactfrom, andtogenerate, other non-natural forces. Howeasily the actions of animatedguresseem to dovetail with supernatural, extra-terrestrial or metaphysical forces!A number of reality options exist for introducing laws and forces into a poten-tially lawless space. At one extreme there are all the current attempts to simulatephysicallawsincomputer-generatedimagery, tomakethoseyingstsandcrashingbodies appeartohave weightandsubstance, tohavevideogamesfeelmore like real ghts (Zardonella 1999). And it should be noted that the animationfromDisneystudiosinrecentyearshasgonetogreatlengthandexpensetogeneratecreatures withlocomotion likethatof realanimalsforinstance, theBeastin Beauty and the Beast with scientic advisorsto develop proper skele-tonsandplausiblemusculatureandsoforth. Thisemphasison real anatomycompensates for the unreal weightlessness of animations simplied characters.It increases the reality effects of the fantasy world.Generally, anime exploresotheroptionsforintroducingforcesandlawsofmovement into its worlds and characters. Its solutions are as varied as the mechatransformers of the Gundam universe, Guyvers biobooster armour, Jubei in NinjaScroll, Lum in Urusei Yatsura or the Angels and Evas in Evangelion too many toexplore here. Yet there seems to be a general trend away from constructing resem-blances to organic beings in natural worlds. Many anime tend to be interested inthe movement of inorganic, machinic entities. Many anime deal with the interfaceof machinesandorganisms, attheboundariesbetweeninorganicandorganicforms. Manyintroducecharacters whose verysketchinessandsimpleness seemreasonenoughfortheir weightlessness: soaringcharacterssuchasLumdonothave anatomical or morphological features to explain their ability to y (they donot evenhavecapes). Otheranime havecharacterssuchasninjaor swordsmenwhose ability to perform gravity-defyingstunts with greatself-control comes asan extension of acrobatic training, spiritual discipline and stop-motion weight-lessness. Yet none of these examples strives to recreate physical laws on the basisof resemblancetoorganicentitiesornaturalworldsanatomy, physiology,biophysics or even classical mechanics. This does not mean that anime avoids thesciences. To the contrary, it is full of sciences andscience ctions. Sciences arenot mobilized, however, to produce characters who correspond via resemblanceto the natural world.Insum, oneresponsetothe weightlessnessof animatedcharactersstrivestointroduceasenseof realitywithanemphasisonimpliedmasses, anatomicalcorrectness, gravity and so forth. This is a system of correspondence-via-resem-blance thatultimatelydiminishesasenseof weightlessness. Of course, therealwaysremains the potential for so-called non-natural abilities and forces, but itiscarefullymanagedandchannelledwithresemblances. Thereisanotherresponse, one more pronounced in anime, which is to play with non-natural forcesandothersciences, to workthemdirectlyintocharactersandstoriesandtoFrom animation to anime 346followthepotentialimpliedbydifferentcharacterdesigns. Thedifferenceis:applyingmovementtocharactersversusfollowingthemovementsimpliedbycharacter design.Mypointisthatanimatedguresarenotconstrainedtoconstructresem-blancesbysimulatingnaturallawsorforces. Infact, the wayin which theyareproducedtendstolessencorrespondence-with-resemblance. Animatedcharac-ters are, in essence, entities traversedby seemingly non-natural forces, of whichweightlessness is the most evident. In the instance of gravity-defying characters,characters are generally designed in such a way that their weightlessness appearsto be generated by the conguration of the characters body. Of course, there areoften narrative explanations for characters weightlessness too. Thus their weight-lessnessfrequentlyderivesfromsomespecialcongurationof theirbodyorcondition or world, that appears at the level of line, character design, movementand narrative form.ThisisthecasewithSheetainCastleintheSky. AsSheetafallshead-rstthrough space, the ying stone suddenly begins to emit a blue-greenish light, andher falling is slowed. She turns gracefully onto her back and oats downward asgently as if asleep in bed. There is now a marvellous cause for the suspension ofgravity. The ying stone (or levitation stone) is a kind of anti-gravity device. Thelm thus directs our attention to Sheeta as a special case of buoyancy. We noticeless that all the characters in this world are weightless, for weightlessness is guredvisually in Sheeta. At the same time, because all the other characters actually areweightless, Sheeta can appear to be the only character able to realize a potentiallatent in all characters the weightlessness (or freedom) of all humankind.This follows narratively as well. For, oddly enough, only Sheeta can activate thestoneanditscounter-gravitationalforces. Initially, shesummonsitspowersunconsciously, as she falls. Subsequently, she calls upon it in reverie. Onlynearthe end does she call on it consciously, andthen to prevent its use for destruc-tion. Indeed, her story is one of becoming aware of the stones powers, of realiz-ing that this marvellous power is a mixed blessing and of taking responsibility forthis legacy. It is signicant that Sheeta tends to summon its powers unconsciously,defensively, protectively and not actively nor aggressively.The stone is linked to her body in some unexplained way. It is activated by hercalls for help, both unvoiced calls and calls voiced in an almost forgotten language,the language of her people. Sheeta apparently is one of the last in the lineage ofa people who once mastered the power of ying stones. Miyazaki thus invents anatural connection between Sheeta andthe stone, one that is vaguelyracializedas a historical connection between a people and a power source. As it turns out,the leader of the darkglasses, Muska, is also of the lineageandcancontrol thestoneonceSheetareawakensit. He wishes, however, touseittodominatetheworld. His active, aggressive command of it contrasts dramatically with Sheetaspassive, protective calls to it.Although Miyazakilinksthestonenaturally(thatis, racially)toapeople, heThomas Lamarre 347doessoinorderto stageaconict withinapeople as wellasbetweenpeoples.Which is to say, his evocation of an ancient bloodline is not one that afrms racialpurityorethnicharmony. The ancient bloodline isevoked toestablishthattheheroine is coming to terms with an historical legacy of conict and destruction.Moreover, in manyrespects, the conict between Sheeta and Muska is a mani-festation of a conict within her. Sheeta is a kind of every-human who realizes apotential latent in all people, not just in her lineage. Hers is also a personal conictbetween delight in and fear of the stones powers. Thus, in effect, Miyazaki estab-lishes an analogy across every level of conict within the story: it is within a person(Sheeta), withinapeople(betweenSheetaandMuska), withinhumankind(conicts between various groups and war between people of the sky and peopleof the earth). Sheetas natural/historical connection with the stone makes her theembodiment of all of these conicts. Her body, her decidedly girlish body, thenpromises a site of resolution. How is this achieved?I would argue that oating becomes an expression of a specic sort of freedom,embodied in Sheeta, which is neither aggressive striving nor fatalistic resignation,neither progress nor retreat. As Sheeta gradually realizes the potential for weight-lessness and learns to oat and glide, she achieves freedom within her world. Atthe same time, this is a story in which an animated character realizes the weight-lessness constituent of animated characters. In other words, her oating is also anexpressionof apotential withinanime. Thishascertainconsequences, whichdemand fuller discussion, especially as regards the matters of gender and genre.Floating and glidingLike so many anime stories, like so manyMiyazakistories, Sheetas is akind ofcoming-of age-story. It is a narrative of the passage from childhood to adulthood.Miyazaki does not tend to visualize this transformation in the hyperphysical wayprevalentinmanyanime, withmorphingandmutatingbodiessuchasmecha,cyberbodies, werewolves, monsters and so forth. (Such transformer designs fore-ground the machinic potential of animated movement, which Miyazaki tends tode-emphasize, even to counteract.) Sheetas transformation is not visualized in atransformativecharacterdesign. Apparently, hersisaninnertransformation, amoral or spiritual transformation.I say apparently because her transformation is nonetheless rendered visually.It is supercial, in the positive sense. If one attends only to dialogue and narra-tive, thereissomethingroteandpredictableabouthertransformation; itisaratherconventionalcharacterarc. Narratively, forinstance, hertransformationinvolves learningabout the ying stone how to use it and what it canbe usedfor amorallesson. Visually, however, hertransformationhasfarmoreattrac-tiveness, forithingesontakingtotheskies, of realizinganabilitytosoarandglide.Sheetahasanatural gift, theyingstone, whichenableshertooatsafelyFrom animation to anime 348down from the skies rather than plummet like a rock. Later, captured by the dark-glasses, in a reverie of her childhood, she awakens a giant robot who has fallen tothe earth from Raputa. The robot, to protect her, lays waste to the fortress wheresheisheld, as wellasthesurroundingcountryside. Sheetaseesthedestructivepowers of Raputas energy source, the ying stone, for the rst time. Pazu, whohas joined company with the pirates to save her, comes to her rescue in a apter.Sheeta is whisked away and, with Pazu and Dora, ies back to the pirates ship.Asissooftenthecaseinthiskindof story, theeccentric, irregular, smallergroup proves rather kindly, and in order to combat the vast, impersonal, mightyforces of the army and the darkglasses, the hero and heroine strike up an alliancewith this band of irregulars. Thus Sheeta points Dora and the pirates in the direc-tion of Raputa. The military airship carrying Muska, his darkglasses and an armyto Raputa appears in the clouds below the pirate ship. To scout the way, Sheetajoins Pazuin a glider attachedby a long cord to the pirate ship. As the militaryairship attacksthe pirates, Sheeta and Pazus cord breaks. The two sail into thetremendous bank of clouds that encompasses Raputa. Buffeted by electric stormsand winds in the glider, they arrive at the island in the sky before the darkglassesand the pirates.Raputaisalabyrinthine worldof expansivegardensanddomed towers, withstately arches, arcades and bridges. At its centre stands a towering tree, for Raputais a lost world, unpeopled and now overgrown by nature. It is a world where giantrobots, once built to ensuremilitary dominion, nowtend gardensandbefriendsmall animals. Sheeta and Pazu wander and marvel.The darkglasses arrive, allied with the vast armies of the military. The soldiersbegintoloot theancientedices. SheetaandPazurunoff toaidthe capturedpirates. Theyareseparated. MuskaseizesSheetaandtakeshertothecentralcontrols deep within Raputa, where anenormous crystalof ying stone powersthe island. Muska usesthe stone tounleashthe destructiveforcesof theyingfortress, waging war across the earth and sky. Meantime, Pazu stealthily cuts thepirates bonds. Then, while he tries to nd Sheeta, explosions rock the island andsend him ying. He clings to the dangling roots, climbs while dodging robots andother obstacles. He eventually gains the interior and hears Sheetas cry for help.Sheeta has grabbed the ying stone from Muska and ed with it. She hands it toPazu. Then, Muska threatens to kill her if Pazu does not return the stone to him.Inresponse, SheetaandPazudecidetointonetogetherthewordsthatmakeRaputa self-destruct, even though this could mean their death as well. Thus themachines of destruction fall away from Raputa, as the giant tree, with the ying-stone crystal in its roots, rises heavenward.As this overview indicates, Sheetas journey seems quite passive at least untilthe moment when she stands up to Muska, but even then her power lies in wordsnot battle. Similarly, she accesses the stone in an unconscious or dreamy fashion.She is kidnapped, rescued, whisked away, passed from group to group almostasif she wereone withthestone, merelyanobject withlatentenergies. EvenThomas Lamarre 349though she decides to join Pazu in the glider, she does not pilot it. Ultimately itistheforceof eventsthatcarriesheralong. Sheisbuffetedalongasif onthewinds. To statethis morepositively, one might see her role asone of buoyancyand pliancy rather than mere passivity. Hers is an ability to ride the ux of events,but with intuitive connections that lead her in the right direction.Pazu, on the other hand, is all effort and exertion. He clambers, climbs, leaps,formsalliances, ghtsandsoforth. Itishe whodesirestondthelegendaryRaputa(toprovehisfatherright; forhisfatheroncesawandphotographedRaputa, butnoonebelievedhisstory). Especially inthe courseof theupwardjourney, imagesaboundof Pazuclingingandclimbingupward. Thiscontrastssharply with Sheeta who is always being carried along and escaping. Unlike Pazu,Sheetahasnoparticulardesiretoy; but, unwittingly, shehasinheritedthepotential.It is not surprisingthatmanyconsiderCastle inthe Sky to bePazus story, aboys adventurestory. For he is the activecharacter. In Miyazakis plans for thelm, he conrms this, proposing hypothetical titles: Young Pazuand the riddleof the ying stone or Captive of the sky castle or Treasure island in the sky orThe ying empire (1984: 394). Yet, even if it is his story, the key to it is Sheetasability to oat her buoyancy or weightlessness, so to speak. Pazu is drawn intothe game to get to the heart of this mystery. Unlike Muska, however, he does notwishtocontroltheyingstone, buttoprotectitandher, toaccompanyandunderstand.BecauseCastle in the Sky clearly assignsabilities andenergies on the basis ofgender, questionsarealwaysraisedaboutMiyazakisintentionsandabouttheeffects of such gender distinctions. As for his intentions, Miyazaki makes clear inhis interviews that he resorts to heroines because girls, as principal characters inactionstories, disruptcertainnarrativeconventionsandexpectations(seeMiyazaki 198494). Miyazaki suggests that women with guns or a resolute stridecreate a sense of something unusual. He also expresses broader concerns aboutthe action genre, particularly in his interview with Murakami Ryu (1989: 3634).In the same interview, Murakami expresses his admiration for Miyazakis abilityto achieve a happy ending without humanism which demands a certain intelli-gence, a way of thought. It is this topic resolution without totalization (happyending withouthumanism)thatappropriatelyleadsMurakamitoposeques-tionsabouttheadvantagesof lmscentredonheroines. Miyazakisresponsemakes clearer why he would introduce a heroine into a boys adventure like Castlein the Sky. Generically, Miyazakiexplains, such adventurestories present aboyor young man who has a great deal of energy but who initially does not know howor where to direct it. He nds his way only after a long detour.Miyazaki, however, expresseshisdiscontentwithsucheasystories. Hecomplains that such narrativesentail a simple resolution, in which the defeatofthe villain solves all problems. With a girl as the lead, things do not close so totally;one issue is resolved, or one obstacle overcome, andnow the heroine continuesFrom animation to anime 350on with that knowledge. For Miyazaki, the introduction of a girl into the action-adventure genre is, rst and foremost, a way to surprise viewers and to open thegenretonewnarrativepossibilities. Inbrief, Miyazakipreferstoworkwithheroines to avoidcertain totalizingtendencies which, asI shall discussbelow,comprise both male adventure stories and narratives of technological progress.Such remarksmakeclear that Miyazakipositions his work within the logic ofgenre. As a result, even when he introduces a girl to open the male genre, he stillreliesheavilyongenericexpectationsandgenderconventionswhencehisremarks, forinstance, abouthowunusualitistosee womenhandlinggunsorstriding purposefully. And of particular importance is the empathy, understand-ingandfeelingthatMiyazakiattributestowomen. Womendonotstrivetoconquer and defeat, they come to terms with things.So it is that Miyazakiresorts to conventional, even stereotypical ideasaboutwomen in order to transform the action-adventure story, which is coded as male.What is interesting is his awarenes that he works within genres. He even showsan awareness that his use of heroines potentially reinforce certain gender expec-tationsandconventions. GirlslikeSheetaorKiki, whoseskirtsintermittentlyutter in the wind to revealtheir panties (in all innocence, of course!), do notexactlybreak withcertainkindsof expectations(andafford erotic possibilitiesthatMurakamiRyuisquicktonotice). Asproblematicasthesestereotypedimages may be, it is essential to note that this sort of visual signature for the girlscharacter implies more for Miyazaki than this is a cute girl. Miyazaki codes suchgenderdifferencesintolarger, almostmetaphysicaldifferences. Theutteringskirtsof theadorablegirlalreadyimplyacertainpotentialforbuoyancyinrelation to the natural forces, to the wind which creates other kinds of gendertrouble.All in all, Miyazakidoes not tryto break with genreor genre/genderconven-tions, he attempts to transformone genreby introducing the other gender. Hisgesture can be read as either instrumental or critical. On the one hand, it can beread as an instrumental use of stereotypes about femininity as a means to trans-formandrevitalizereceivedmasculinenarratives. (Itisasif thereisonlyonegenderor genre, male; andthe female is agenrethat is not one.) Onthe otherhand, it can be read as a critical use of feminine paradigms to challenge masculin-istnarratives. ThisisarguedpersuasivelybySusanNapierinherdiscussionofMiyazakis youngheroines: Playingontraditionalconventions withacontem-porarytwist, Miyazakiisclearlynotonlyattemptingtobreakdowntheconventionalimageof thefemininebutalsotobreakdowntheviewersconventional notion of the world in general (2001a: 125). Which is to say, to playwith gender is to play with genre. Yet the question persists: is Miyazakis play withgenre/genderinstrumentalorcritical?ItwouldbereductivetoseeMiyazakisreworking of gender/genreconventions assimply instrumental, asif there werenothing else to them. Then, too, it would be too much to attribute to Miyazaki aradicaldeconstructionof genderoppositions. InMiyazakithelogicofThomas Lamarre 351genre/gender is such that the two critical and instrumental impulses are insepar-able. As a consequence, a feminist critique concerned with representations of girlsinMiyazakiquicklyencountersmetaphysicalquestionsabouttechnologyandnature (to be discussed subsequently).Castle in the Sky is ostensibly a boys adventure story into which Miyazaki intro-ducesasecond hero, the girl Sheeta, whobecomes atleast importantasPazu,andmaybemoreimportant. Thusthelogicof genderlogicinCastleinthe Skymightbestyledascombinatory. Itdoesnotputthegirlintheboysplaceasseems to be the case with Miyazakis prior lm Kaze no tane no Nausica (Nausicaaof the Valleyof the Wind)(StudioGhibli, 1984). Nordoesitaimforasortoffeminineadventurestoryas withKikisadventuresinthesubsequentMajo notakkyu bin (Kikis delivery service) (Studio Ghibli, 1989). Castle in the Sky bringstogether boy and girl. They are distinct and different but are to work together. Andtheir friendship or union must remain innocent to sustain this combinatory logic.Miyazaki lets them laugh, play, hug and touch provided it remains innocent. Onlyonce, as they roll on the grass of Raputa, is there the eeting suggestion of an eroticpossibility, which immediatelydissolves into ebullient ts of laughterandantics.Their innocence assuresthat theirsis acombination orpairingof twoindepen-dent genders/genres, not an overcoming of them by union or fusion. It is signi-cant that innocence and chastity sustain their autonomy as if sexual union andreproduction were imagined to be the site of social subordination. It is as if boysandgirlseach had their distinctive energies, interests andactions, andthese canwork together, at once autonomously and co-operatively but only at a momentthat precedes yet anticipates sexual interaction.Miyazaki works with two characters with two storylines that intersect yet seemto sustainsome degree of autonomy. Indeed, in the climatic scenes on Raputa,Sheeta and Pazu work together, but their actions continue to be distinctly codedfor gender (she ees Muska while Pazu blasts his way through walls to help her).And for all the overtones that Sheeta and Pazu are a pair, the nal solution is notthat they nd one another. They come together, act in unison. In brief, Miyazakidoes not simply introduce romance interest into the action genre. (This is surelybecausetheactiongenretypicallyusesromanceasawaytosubordinatethewomantothemalehero.) Miyazaki, onthecontrary, inventsanactionlminwhich there are two heroes with very different energies, masculine and feminine or rather proto-masculine and proto-feminine boyish and girlish.Inimaginingtheinteractionof boyenergies andgirlenergies, Miyazakigenerally construes them rather conventionally. Boys like Pazu or like Tombo inKikis Delivery Service are extremely active and expansive; girls like Sheeta or Kikiare far more introspective and reexive. Moreover, in Castle, Pazus memories areof his father, Sheetas of her mother. And, as already noted, these differences areinscribed in character design, character movements and actions. Signicantly, allthesedifferences between boys andgirls typically revolve aroundtheirdifferentrelationtoying. Boysaremechanicallyminded; bothPazuandTomboareFrom animation to anime 352budding engineers who strive to build ying machines that will take them into theskies. Their skywarddreams andaspirationsareexpressed in machines, literallyand concretely. Girls, however, have stranger, more fantastical devices. Sheeta hasthe ying stone, while Kiki has her broom, both of which are posited as inheritedpotentials. In both instances, the potential for ight seems at rst to be embodiedentirely in the object itself, in the pendant or broom. Subsequently, the girls learnthat these objects are expressions of an inner potential.For both boys and girls in these two lms, transformation is presented on thevisible surfaceasaprocess of learningto y, of takingto the skies, with all thespiritualramicationsimplied byight. Girls, however, seemtohaveakindofnatural gift for ying this is true of Nausicaa, Sheeta, Kiki and evenMei andSatsukiinTonarinototoro (Myneighbour Totoro)(StudioGhibli, 1988). Itissomething that is already there, naturally as it were, but that needs to nd expres-sion. ThisishowMiyazakidealswiththedifferentrelationshipthathefeelswomen have with nature.In Kikis Delivery Service, for instance, when Kiki temporarily loses her abilityto y, she visits her girlfriend Ursula, a painter, who is a few years older and thuswiser. UrsulatellsKikithatallartistsorcraftfolkhavetheirki orchi, atraditional term which in this context means something like spiritual energy orcreative force. Thus is Kikis inner potential for ight associated with a kind ofartistic, creative, quasi-spiritualrelationtonature. ThisisverydifferentfromTombo with his bicycle retooled into a primitive ying machine, which he strainsand sweats to pedal fast enough to get airborne. In sum, these different energiesof boys and girls imply different actions, attitudes and storylines; that is, genderalways implies genre and, if Miyazaki emphasizes the girlish, it seems intendedto complement the boyish in a way that does not allow for subordination of oneto the other. It is crucial to note, too, that Miyazaki uses gender conventions in awaythatreinscribesanoppositionbetweenthemechanicalandthespiritual,between technology and nature. This merits attention, for it is at this level that heattempts to create some new relation.To anticipate my argument, I see this new relation as one in which the mechan-ical or technological is to be minimized and redirected. It is analogous to the waysinwhichthefeminineSheetaisdesignedtominimizeandredirecttheboysadventure story. Miyazakis lm does not simply try to create a new story out ofaninteraction between gendersandgenres. His heroines ability to yis calcu-lated as an alternative to received narrative genres. In an analogous way, his lmaims to nd some new potential within the art of animation, some potential thatpresents an alternative to received technologies.Minimizing narratives of technologyIt is difcult to be precise about alternatives to received technologies in Miyazaki.In all of his stories, there is a broad and general critique of the use of technologyThomas Lamarre 353for destruction and domination. It is as if all received technologies are inherentlygenerators of social unevenness and destruction. Indeed, it sometimes seems thatMiyazaki sees no alternative, that his response to this problem is to destroy andrefusealltechnologies as with the naldestruction of RaputainCastle intheSky. His response is not so pat asan elimination of technology, however. He iswellawarethathisart, animationitself, reliesontechnology. Hisalternativeinvolves a minimization of technology within his narratives as within his anima-tionsthroughanexplorationof alternativeenergies. Suchanexplorationinvolves the creation of specic kindsof alternative worlds and histories. Again,Castle in the Sky is a prime example.Attheoutset, intheopeningsequence, therearehintsthattheactiontakesplace in an alternative world with another historical framework, one that is morefully evoked in the subsequent title sequence. As the piratesstormthroughtheship, for instance, we see that it is a kind of luxury liner of the sky. There are menand women in ballroom attire, who, naturally, screamandscatterasthepiratescrash by,while shots are exchanged between the pirates and the darkglasses. Thesearebutbrief glimpsesof somethinglikeperioddressandmanners. Historicalevocation is sketchy and obviously subordinate to action. Yet these are dress andmannersthatevokea worldreminiscentof latenineteenth-orearlytwentieth-centuryEurope. Indeed, CastleintheSkyissometimesbilledasMiyazakisTreasure Island, and commentaries establish the period look as nineteenth century.Theperiodlookcomesprimarilyfromperiodtechnologiesof communicationandtransportationaswiththeoutdatedtelegraphandMorsecodeusedbyMuska to call for help. Likewise, the ying ships and machines recall earlier tech-nologies of ight. In the title sequence, we see what Helen McCarthy describesasapanoplyof magnicentlydottyeighteenth-andnineteenth-centuryyingmachinesrenderedinagraphicstyleandgentlecolourschemereminiscentofantique prints (1999: 97).Thisisanalternativenineteenthcentury, however. Theoutdatedcommuni-cation technologies may or maynot be the sameas those used in our historicalworld. And the earlier technologies of ight arelogically extendedby Miyazakiinto a range of possible ying machines possible, that is, on the basis of thoseearlier technologies. McCarthy remarks, All were designed by Miyazaki himself,and despite their extravagant appearance, all are workable according to the tech-nology on which they arebased (1999: 98). The title sequence thus inventsanalternative history of ying machines, one that extends the possibilities of nine-teenth-century technologies.Weknow itisintendedasahistory becausethe title sequence adoptsratherold-fashioned, quaint-lookinggraphicsandcolours. Thereisonlyoneothersequence in the lm that uses the same colours and graphics the one in whichMuska tells Sheeta about how the robot fell from the sky. A similar look is adoptedforanoldphotograph. Theshifttoolder stylesingraphicsandcoloursisevidentlyintendedtosignalhistoricalrecordratherthanpersonalmemoriesFrom animation to anime 354(which are rendered in the same colours and graphics as the rest of the lm, aswithSheetasmemoriesof hervillage). Thus, withitsevocationof outmodedgraphics, the title sequence establishes the back story for the story about SheetaandPazu, asahistory. Indeed, itisthetransformationof thebackstoryintohistory that lends Castle in the Sky its epic quality.The title sequence opens with an image of the wind personied: acloud witha womansfaceblowingthe wind. Thisrstandmostbucolic imageisaccom-paniedbyoneof apersonstandingalongsideahuman-sized windmill. Subse-quent images show humans progress in harnessing the power of the wind. Windis harnessed to power machines that dig deep into the earth. Then humans or,rather, men, it would seem conquer the skies with ever grander and more elabor-ateyingmachines. Finallytherearevastyingcastle cities, islandsinthe sky.Thistriumphisfollowedbydisaster. Thereareindicationsof agreatstorm,imagesof darkcloudsandlightningfollowedbyayingcityinruinsontheground. Streamsof peoplepourfromthefallencastle. And, asif comingfullcircle, we return to the shepherd girl next to the windmill designed to pump water,a girl who seems to be Sheeta.Inthetitle-sequence history, the sourceof powerforthe yingcastles is notspecied. Indeed it is misrepresented as giant propellers, as if the authors of thishistory could not understand the ying stone. Subsequently in the lm, we learnmore of this history: pure crystals of ying stone were mined from the earth andused to power the castles in the sky. Moreover, we learn that these castles, as thetermshiro implies, areindeedyingfortresses, militaryinstallationsinthesky.While thetitle sequencehintsatthesepossibilities, itshistoryremainsdeliber-atelysketchy, incomplete. Theappearanceof yingcastlesissituatedasyetanother stage in the development of mens ability to harness wind-power. And thefall of the castles in the sky is caused by storms rather than by apocalyptic wars.Thesequencedeliversahistorysobroadandobliqueastobemythicalthenatural rise and fall of a civilization. It is a natural history that has to be relearnedin the course of action in the lm world in an alternative nineteenth century.In the course of the lm, together with Sheeta and Pazu, we learn that the yingcastles were of a highly advanced civilization highly advanced in military techno-logicalterms that haddestroyeditself some sevenhundred yearsearlier. Thelmsalternativenineteenthcenturyischannellingitsenthusiasmfortechno-logical progress andpower into the quest for the ancient civilizations source ofpower, towhichSheetasyingstoneprovidesthekey. This, then, isapost-apocalypticnineteenthcenturyanineteenthcenturyinwhichtechnologicalprogressdoesnotmoveforwardbutloopsbackward. Andthetitlesequenceprepares us for a circular story, too from simple to complex to simple, from ahuman scale to a gargantuan, monumental scale, and back to a human scale.Thisloopyhistoricalframeworkisreminiscentof Miyazakispriorlm,Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Both adopt a post-apocalyptic stance in orderto question the uses of technology for domination and destruction. Not only doesThomas Lamarre 355the advancedtechnology lie in the past, but the present of this post-apocalypticworld appears to be located in our own past. In Castle in the Sky, the use of analternativenineteenth century thus produces oating or hovering history, whichgivesallthesignsof historicalperiodsandperiodization yetonlyinordertoconfuse their temporal order, to confound a sense of historical progression.Thus Castle in the Sky offers its critique of our received technologies and ourideas about them. With its period-extrapolated wacky machines, it seems to seeksome alternative to our received technologies. Yet, in the lm, it is not so muchreceivedtechnologies themselvesthatprovetroublesome. It isthe waythey areused and imagined, and how they are handed down and received. In brief, it is aquestion of how technologies arenarrativized. The villain tobe defeatedisnotonlyMuskabutalso whatherepresents: anineteenth-century-derivedfaithintechnologicaladvancesasthebasisforprogress. WhatMiyazakicallsintoquestion is a totalizing narrative about technological progress. This is an issue alsoevoked by Napier (2001b) in anessayon Princess Mononoke that calls attentiontothewaysinwhichMiyazakislmforcesviewerstoaddressmythsaboutprogress. What concern me, however, are the ways in which Miyazakis problemwithtechnologybecomesoneof narrativization, comprisingbothgenreandhistory and form.As we have seen, at the level of genre and narrative, Miyazaki calls into questionthe male adventurestory, because it istotalizinginits logic of progressionandresolution. With Castle in the Sky, he delivers an action-adventure plot that movesswiftly and relentlessly forward. And Castle in the Sky imparts a greater sense ofresolution than subsequent lms such as Kikis Delivery Service or My NeighbourTotoro, due to the prominence of the boys adventurestory. Nevertheless, Castlein the Sky centres on an enigma, one that entails learning about the past in orderto move forward. As aconsequence, the story tendsto loop back into the past,notjustintothebackstoriesof theheroes, butintotheentirehistoryof theirworld. It advances and retreats, advances and retreats. It circles. And, true to hisdislike of complete resolution, Miyazaki does not resolve the enigma totally. Simi-larly, the temporal loops inscribed by the post-apocalyptic setting make it imposs-ible to sustain any simple narrative about scientic or technological progress. Insum, Miyazaki resists a totalizing narrativizationon both fronts genre conven-tions and teleological history by centring on an enigma.Thisstyleof enigma-centredpost-apocalypticnarrativecouldbestyledhermeneutic, because it moves in circles between past and present in an attemptto resolve the problems of present. But these areonly partiallyandtemporarilyresolved. In fact, there is no narrative solution to the problem of narrativization,forasimpleandtotalsolution wouldmerelyrepeattheproblem. Andsothequestionaboutalternativestoreceivedtechnologiesreturns, withgreaterprecision: are there any alternatives to the masculine narrativesof technologicalprogress with their impulse toward domination and destruction of nature?Castle in the Sky, centred as it is on the ying stone, directs our attention to theFrom animation to anime 356possibility of alternative sources of energy or power. The ying stone is so magicalyet strangely natural, with its unexplained luminosity and resonance across greatdistances. It is asif the magnetismof the loadstone of the Laputa in GuilliversTravels (oneof Miyazakismanyintertexts)werealliedwithluminosity. Itswondersseemtopromiseamagicalalternative, atleastinitially. Ultimately,however, the ying stone proves asopen to mundane abuseas anyother powersource. Miyazaki does not opt for a magical solution. Still, the wondrous promiseremains, andthequestcirclesaroundthepossibilityof analternativeenergysource. This is a quest that cannot be fullled with anactual material (coal, oil,gas, uranium or such) for these are subject to possession and allow for dominationand social imbalance. If the ying stone holds our imagination, it is because it islesstangible, manipulable. Yet, becauseitcanbemined, renedorotherwisemanipulated, it can be held, controlled, mastered. The alternative could only bean energy that cannot be thus held and wielded. There is only one such form ofenergy that Miyazaki always supplies in abundance: the wind.Of particularimportanceisthatthe windresistsnarrativization. Itisnottheobject of the treasure hunt, it is not the goal of the epic quest. Nor is it the site ofa hermeneutic enigma like the ying stone. Rather it is the vehicle for all the lmsactivities vehicle in the double sense of medium and transport. The wind carriesalong everything and everyone, and, even when destructive, it is a positive, almostvital force an animating force. It is worth recalling that the word animation itselfderives from animus or wind. The wind is the vitality of nature itself. Or rather,I should say, of nature herself. For, in the title sequence, the wind is given a face,and that face is decidedly a womans. The wind is personied and rendered quaintlyas a female deity, blowing the air and clouds. The feminization of the wind shouldcome as no surprise. After all, does Miyazaki not introduce the feminine in orderto break with male genres? Analogously, an animistic feminine force is evoked tobreak with masculine narratives of technological progress.If Castle in the Sky is seen as Pazus story, this is the effect of the wind: to temperandredirecthisboyishenthusiasmformachines, awayfromdominationanddestruction, towards something safer and gentler, something that follows naturerather than battles it something like the glider or the windmill. For, if there arereal alternatives to received technologies in Castle in the Sky, they are those thatride and channel the windand that also function on a humanscale the gliderandthe windmill. The lmdelights theimagination withyingmachines of allshapesandsizes, andlurestheviewertoagargantuancastleinthesky. Yetitdestroysthepossibilitythatsuchwondrousachievementspresentrealsocialalternatives. Forthosetechnologicalachievementsarebasedonpowersourcesthat can be held. The implication is that forms of power that can be held invari-ably allow someone or some group to hold that power over others. Power sourcesthat can be acquired or held also entail a plundering of nature, a conquering ofthe natural world. Ultimately, both the airship technologies and the ying-stonetechnologies lead to domination and destruction.Thomas Lamarre 357The glider, however, entails the least degree of technology for ying. Nor canits power source wind and human ability be mined and owned. Its pilot followsthe wind rather than controls it. And it is, of course, the glider that saves Sheetaand Pazu in the end. We last see them gliding into the sunset.Narrativelyandconceptually, Miyazakissolutiontothequestionof alterna-tivestoreceivedtechnologies withtheirdestructionanddomina