From the `Cinematic' to the `Anime-ic': Issues of Movement in Anime

Abstract

This article explores the way that movement is formally depicted in anime. Drawing on Thomas Lamarre's concepts of the `cinematic' and the `anime-ic', the article interrogates further the differences in movement and action in anime from traditional filmic form. While often considered in terms of `flatness', anime offers spectacle, character development and, ironically, depth through the very form of movement put to use in such texts.The article questions whether the modes of address at work in anime are unique to this form of animation.Taking into account how the terms `cinematic' and `anime-ic' can be understood (and by extension the cinematic and animatic apparatus), the article also begins to explore how viewers might identify with such images.

Keywords

anime anime-ic cinematic `liveness'movement suture

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bordwell, D. and Carroll, N. (eds) (1996) Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Brophy, P. (1991) `The Animation of Sound', in A. Cholodenko (ed.) The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation, pp. 67-112. Sydney: Power Publications.

Brophy, P. (2007) `Sonic-Atomic-Neumonic: Apocalyptic Echoes in Anime' , in A. Cholodenko (ed.) The Illusion of Life II: More Essays on Animation, pp. 191-208. Sydney : Power Publications.

Buchan, S. (2006) `The Animated Spectator: Watching the Quay Brothers' "Worlds"', in Animated `Worlds', pp. 15-38. Eastleigh : John Libbey Publishing.

Cholodenko, A. (1991) `Introduction', in A. Cholodenko (ed.) The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation , pp. 9-36. Sydney: Power Publications.

Cholodenko, A. (2005) `Still Photography?' , Afterimage 32(5): 5-7.

Cholodenko, A. (2007) `Speculations on the Animatic Automaton', in A. Cholodenko (ed.) The Illusion of Life II: More Essays on Animation, pp. 486-528. Sydney: Power Publications.

Crow, H. (2006) `Gesturing Toward Olympia', in S. Buchan (ed.) Animated `Worlds', pp. 49-62. Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing.

Darley, A. (2007) `Bones of Contention: Thoughts on the Study of Animation' , animation: an interdisciplinary journal 2(1): 63-76.

10.

Gunning, T. (1989) `An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)credulous Spectator' , Art and Text 34, Spring: 31-45.

11.

Hutchings, P. (1991) `The Work-Shop of Filthy Animation', in A. Cholodenko (ed.) The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation, pp. 161-81. Sydney: Power Publications.

12.

King, G. (2002) New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris.

13.

Lamarre, T. (2002a) `Introduction: Between Cinema and Anime' , Japan Forum 14(2): 183-9.

14.

Lamarre, T. (2002b) `From Animation to Anime: Drawing Movements and Moving Drawings' , Japan Forum 14(2): 329-67.

15.

Leslie, E. (2007) `Liquid Animation and the Freezing of Reflection' , paper presented at the Pervasive Animation symposium , London, 2-4 March 2007.

16.

Looser, T. (2002) `From Edogawa to Miyazaki: Cinematic and Anime-ic Architectures of Early and Late Twentieth-Century Japan' , Japan Forum 14(2): 297-327.

17.

Metz, C. (1982) The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema, trans. Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben Brewster and Alfred Guzzetti . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

18.

Mulvey, L. (1989) Visual and Other Pleasures. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

19.

Murakami, T. (2000) Superflat. Tokyo: Madra.

20.

Sobchack, V. (2006) `Final Fantasies: Computer Graphic Animation and the [Dis]Illusion of Life', in S. Buchan (ed.) Animated `Worlds', pp. 171-82. Eastleigh: John Libbey Publishing.

21.

Stam, R. , Burgoyne, R. and Flitterman-Lewis, S. (1992) New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics: Structuralism, Post-Structuralism and Beyond. London: Routledge.

22.

Wood, A. (2006) `Re-Animating Space' , animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1(2): 133-52.