Hey, GKIDS, Release This: Yasuo Otsuka's Joy in Motion

Now that GKIDS has become the exclusive distributor for all things Ghibli, here is a great opportunity to also release the many catalog titles in the studio's home video library. One terrific example is the 2004 documentary, Yasuo Otsuka's Joy in Motion.

This documentary movie originally aired on Japan's NHK TV network, and covers the life and career of legendary animator Yasuo Otsuka. Many milestones of anime history are covered, starting with the Toei Doga feature films, continuing to Lupin the 3rd, Future Boy Conan, The Castle of Cagliostro and Jarinko Chie. As Otsuka-san was also an "elder brother" to Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, their histories intertwine, and you will find yourself learning about their careers before the founding of Studio Ghibli.

This DVD includes English subtitles for the feature, which is always welcome for overseas fans. There are one or two extras on the disc which do not include subs, but this is common practice.

Joy in Motion was released on the Ghibli ga Ippai label, so it should be easy to negotiate the American distribution rights with NHK. It's not only a great movie about anime history, but also the craft of animation itself. Otsuka retired from animating in the 1980s to become a teacher at the Telecom studio, where he proved to be equally gifted as a mentor to future generations. He spreads his love of drawing and animation, and his students feel genuine excitement at seeing their drawings come to live. Joy in Motion, indeed.

This movie should become standard viewing in every high school in the world. It is an essential viewing for all who are fascinated by animation and wonder, could I do that? The answer is yes, yes you can. All you need is a pencil and a bit of imagination.

C'mon, GKIDS, pick up this title.

Can you think of any other Studio Ghibli library titles that you would like to see released in the West? Share in the comments below.

Tenguri, Boy of the Plains Available on Downloads

 Tenguri, Boy of the Plains (Sougen no Ko Tenguri), the 1977 short film directed by Yasuo Otsuka, with key animation by Hayao Miyazaki and Yoshifumi Kondo, is now available at the Downloads page.  This 22-minute film was produced by Snow Brand Dairy Products, and it's essentially a commercial for Japan's dairy industry.  That said, this is Yasuo Otsuka's only directorial work, and the quality is very high.  Its style and presentation owe a lot to Heidi, and it's an enjoyable little romp.

No doubt Tenguri will score you some cred points among your fellow anime and Ghibli fans.  Big thanks to AnimeCouncil for translating this film in between their bigger projects.

Yasuo Otsuka Turns 80

A big Happy Birthday to the great Yasuo Otsuka, who turned 80 on Monday.  The animation legend is one of the giants of anime, both as an animator and teacher.  We may remember him as the older mentor to Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki, but Otsuka-san has a magnificent career and legacy all his own.  Every anime lover should be deeply familiar with his work.

I'd like to take this time to plug, once again, the fantastic 2004 Studio Ghibli documentary DVD, Yasuo Otsuka's Joy in Motion.  It's the best movie about the craft of animation that I've ever seen, and it's a valuable insight into one of the most pivotal figures in Japan's postwar anime era.  If there's ever a movie to import and add to your DVD collection, it's this one.  Add in Takahata's The Story of Yanagawa Waterways while you're at it, and you'll have two essential documentary films.  The above screenshot comes from Joy in Motion, showing a young Otsuka-san in the 1960s, during the production of Horus, Prince of the Sun.

Reader Christian Heymans writes about Yasuo Otsuka, and he shared his insights in an email to me.  I wanted to share it with everyone here:

I have been interested in Ghibli (and pre Ghibli) for many years.  It probably started when I had seen Mirai Shonen Conan on an Italian TV channel during the Eighties.

Some years ago, I had the chance to meet the master Yasuo Otsuka at the festival of Annecy in France, one afternoon after he finished to arranged an exhibition in the main hall.  The guy was really kind, we started to talk and ended up going for a drink where we of course mainly talked about animation (I have to add that Otsuka is one of the few japanese animators who is fluent in english-he can also speak Chinese!).  So there I was, a young belgian animation student, talking a drink with anime legend Yasuo Otsuka.  I asked him what was his main advice to a young animator and he answered me that animation, it's all about details.   Otsuka was very down to earth, kind, open and you could understand why he is considered a 'natural teacher'. 

Well, I noticed that Mister Otsuka is turning 80 tomorrow,  since he was born on July the 11th 1931.  I thought that maybe it would be nice to send him a Happy Birthday message through the Ghibli Blog, and maybe you were already planning on doing that!  Anyway, I 'm just telling you : )

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Takahata, Miyazaki, Otsuka

In celebration of Hayao Miyazaki's 70th birthday on Wednesday, I wanted to finally contribute the one thing the internets are so sorely lacking: photos of Miyazaki as a young man.  So I popped in Yasuo Otsuka's Joy in Motion, Studio Ghibli's excellent, must-see documentary DVD from 2004, grabbed the digital camera, and took some photos.

The photos are of Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki, and Yasuo Otsuka, taken sometime during the production of Horus, Prince of the Sun (1965-68). The fouth photo shows their ages in 1967: Otsuka, the elder brother anime pioneer; Takahata, the revolutionary director; Miyazaki, the hotshot and ambitious upstart.  For those series of photos, they were filming themselves swinging an axe, as research for what would become the opening fight scene in Horus.  How shocking that scene must have felt to audiences four decades ago!

It's easy to look at the old men Otsuka, Takahata and Miyazaki have become, and think of kindly grandfather figures, Japan's answer to Uncle Walt.  But they were young once, and they were '60s radicals and revolutionaries in every sense of the word.  It feels like a thousand years ago.

Yasuo Otsuka's Joy In Motion - Fansub Download Now Available

Studio Ghibli's excellent 2003 DVD documentary, Yasuo Otsuka's Joy in Motion, is now available as a fansub download.  I've added the link to the Downloads section.  This is an essential movie for all animation students and fans everywhere.  Disney should release it in North America (alongside Isao Takahata's Yanagawa documentary) and donate it to every public school in the country.  No other movie has ever captured the spirit and, yes, the joy of creating in animation.

If Pixar wants to inspire the next generation of animators, Joy in Motion is the perfect tool.  C'mon, Lasseter, do the right thing and bring this movie to the States.  Until then, the rest of you start downloading and sharing.

(Photo: Hayao Miyazaki and Yasuo Otsuka during the production of Future Boy Conan, 1978.)

AniPages Looks at Tenguri

Ben Ettinger takes a good look at Osamu Tezuka's Tenguri at Anipages this month. I've mentioned it in an earlier post, but this was a long-lost 1977 animation project directed by the great Yasuo Otsuka, and including much of the old crew - Miyazaki, Kotabe, Okuyama, Kondo. If you want a more thourough and in-depth look at the film, then enjoy the read.

I still haven't bought the DVD, but I will one of these days. I spend too much money on Christmas presents and furniture and a pile of books (a downtown Borders is closing, putting a 40% discount on everything). Oh, and that Nintendo DS I foolishly caved in to buy, just for that old Animal Crossing fix. Ah, well.

Movie Review: Yasuo Otsuka's Joy in Motion (2004)

Having sent a copy of this DVD to Michael Sporn Animation, I figured it would be a good time to share a few thoughts about it. Joy in Motion is a 107-minute documentary, released in Japan under the Ghibli Ga Ippai ("The Complete Ghibli," or "Full of Ghibli," take your pick) label. It focuses on the life and career of one of the true masters of Japanese animation, Yasuo Otsuka.

For the benefit of readers who are Miyazaki and Takahata fans, here is a sampling of the productions Otsuka was involved in: Horus, Prince of the Sun; Puss in Boots; Lupin III, both the original TV series and Castle of Cagliostro; Future Boy Conan; Jarinko Chie; Sherlock Hound. In other words, he was a pivotal figure throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and remains influential to this day (Goro Miyazaki cites him directly when discussing his intended style for the upcoming Gedo Senki).

The documentary follows Otsuka through his early years, when he almost immediately developed a passion for drawing. Entirely self-taught, he absorbed everything he could, from the Sunday comics supplied by GI's during the post-war occupation, to American animation textbooks. It was also during that time that he discovered the trains, trucks and jeeps that would become a lifetime passion. After a two-year convelescance, Otsuka took up a newspaper ad for an animation audition. It was the Toei Doga (Toei Animation) studio, led by Yasuji Mori; the test required one to draw a man striking a steel hammer against a spike, in five frames.

Otsuka passed the audition and quickly learned he had a unique knack for animation. He was trained under the studio, joining ranks with a new generation of artists, eager to prove themselves and take advantage of what life had to offer. They included Isao Takahata, Hayao Miyazaki, Yoichi Kotabe, Ryoko Okuyama, Akemi Ota, Michiyo Yasuda, and others.



Both Takahata and Miyazaki express their gratitude for their elder brother, and looked to him as an influence. The film offers colorful moments from early Toei classics such as Hakujaden, Magic Boy, and Little Prince and the 8-Headed Dragon. All of these movies, however, were only stepping blocks on the way to the true revolution: Taiyo no Oji, Horus no Daiboken - The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun. Otsuka, Takahata, and Miyazaki all share their memories of the movie's long, difficult production. It's a little humbling that even these giants, the artists who gave birth to the anime era, didn't always know just what they had on their hands.

Otsuka served as Animation Director for Horus, drawing storyboards and the e-konte. His greatest contributions were twofold. One, the film's two great action set-pieces: the opening scene with the wolves, and the thrilling battle between Horus and the giant fish (one of the greatest action scenes in all of animation). Two, and more importantly, his concepts of frame rate modulation, the notion of altering the frame rate (or number of drawings) to heighten drama or action. The giant rock creature and ice mammoth were drawn at 3 frames/drawing, to add weight and mass to their movements. Likewise, the frame rate will be smoothed out, quickened, at the climax, much like a dramatic punch-line.

This, simply, is one of the founding doctrines of Japanese anime. It's probably the most definable trait to Westerners, who are used to the Disney style (1 or 2 frames/drawings). The American style is a consistent 4/4 beat. Otsuka introduced the language of jazz - of modulation, of tempo shifts, of chomatic key changes. It's a concept he refined in later years, with Lupin III and Cagliostro, bringing his talent for detail and realism.

The great thing about Yasuo Otsuka is that he, and the documentary, makes animation look like the easiest thing in the world. He makes it all look fun. It's all intuition and careful observation, much more about motion and personality than strict adherence to detail or form. His presense is a great rebuke to the stale cliches of both modern anime and Hollywood animated film (Ben Ettinger has noted that anime series in the '70s used 5-8,000 drawings, while today's shows only use 3-5,000 drawings, which goes some way to explain why everything is so stiff, so cheap).

For the last quarter-century, Otsuka has served as a teacher and advisor for the Telecom studio. The film takes us into his classes, and for a moment, you, too, feel like you could give this a try. All you have to do is just draw. Draw a face. Make a few drawing of a man diving into a pool. That's a cinch. I could do that. By the end, you'll want to grab a pen and paper and try your hand as well. This is a tribute to the warmth and wisdom of Yasuo Otsuka.

In a perfect world, this DVD would be required viewing in every art class in the world, especially here in America. We'll just have to pass along our copies one at a time, by word of mouth.

(P.S. This DVD documentary is so obscure in the West, it isn't even listed in the Internet Movie Database. Am I, Ben Ettinger and Michael Sporn literally the only Americans who have seen this? Wierd.)