ANIMATION BREAKDOWN: Azur Lane’s Kashino Skin Trailer Shatters Volume Conventions; Squashy-Stretchy to a New Maximum!
Azur Lane’s new controversial trailer animated volume conventions in an unnatural way, remarkably weaving its own thread with the fundamental animation principle that is squash and stretch, to refer to how volumes behave in order to produce believability… The pudding-like acting of Kashino’s chest breaks the immersion, and probably enacts an iteration of some fetish lying asleep in the potentialities of the animanga visual culture. This visually captivating spectacle can be put into perspective with the Western tradition of luscious animation, however, and I think that’s an interesting way to put the trailer into perspective.
Hypersexualization is rampant in some notorious gacha games, and the feud of yesteryears opposing the target demographic, alienated fans and feminists alike has been stirred anew. While I consider my interests aligning overall with the feminist movement, I do think some people out there could benefit from a little sexual positivity, and that it alienates some women out there (notably sex workers and lesbians)… But even as someone that’s fond of shows like Azur Lane, Kantai Collection, High School Fleet, Arpeggio of Blue Steel, basically anything with girls and warships, and fine with some degree of sexualization — which is not to say all those titles are equal in that aspect, as it would be a lie to formulate it as such — , I did think the trailer for Kashino that was recently released was a bit too much (well, perhaps in Azur Lane standards it’s actually not… Again I’m not an active player). It seems to be the public sentiment on the matter. After all, if we consider the great range of character designs, voice-actings, personalities and backgrounds the cast has to offer, and that’s without considering yuri dynamics like sisterhood between Akagi and Kaga, or a master-servant relationship betwixt Belfast and Enterprise, that probably implies a great variety of players with several different attractions, biases, crushes…
So we have a case of hypersexualization that even alienates the gacha’s horny, harebrained fanbase. From an animated perspective, there is in animanga culture the habit of a particular way of animating breasts in particular. I’m talking here about the breast jiggle, the aerodynamics so to speak. For example, streamer and 3D modeler Shonzo himself gained popularity for “creating models with realistic jiggle-physics” within the VRChat community, and I think that speaks for himself as he does have a starting price of $5000 for a modeling commission. Character designs seem to jump to mind with 3D models, but you have to consider that rigs and physics condition the animation that then applies to it, deforms it in spacetime… This is a particular strand of the anime culture however, the part of it that strays from the mainstream community (as you shouldn’t expect every Genshin Impact player to accept Azur Lane, so that probably also applies for the Chinese playerbase, its home country?) to expressedly address, and embrace the erotic tradition.
The depiction of breasts is fundamentally about volume, so we should redefine it. Whether it be drawing or 3D modeling, basically all representational visual arts, volume is a notion referring to the perception of three-dimensionality, adding depth to height and width. Volume conditions how the space is occupied, or even the way lighting and shading applies to a given surface or material, not to mention spacial composition — how visual elements form an overall sense of balance, harmony, chaos or imply some emotions when perceived in their entirety. Volume, by translating how space should expectedly be occupied, also has to do with elasticity and firmness. And this is where squash and stretch as a fundamental animation principle kicks in. Squashing is akin to compression or contraction, stretching to flexibility. This idea that elasticity and firmness, contraction and flexibility interact together is best illustrated in the famous animation example, the bouncy ball, where midair acceleration kicks in the ball to stretch it, and the phenomenon through which contacting the ground, forced by the acceleration, the surface of the volume flattens.
The hypnotizing motion of the volumes in the trailer, I believe, is a fashion-like statement. In that it is so obviously an exaggeration, so unapologetically unrealistic, that it redefines the categories of perception — at least inasmuch as Azur Lane has set a standard for its own place in the animanga ecosystem. And it does it visually, while exacerbating something fundamental to reality, or its representational simulacra — the place of the squash and stretch in reference to the previous examples set in motion in animanga. The fact of the matter is, it’s not the most unique thing ever as most of the target demographic likely to know about it has been exposed to worse. The reason it’s breaking the Internet again, like the phoenix as it were, is because like McLuhan coined it, “The medium is the message.” That something as big as Azur Lane promotes hypersexualization so aggressively, by redefining squash and stretch standards, is the message.
And it’s not one I really like… That’s without considering the curves and how the clothing itself conditions the perception. Further reinforcing the absurdity, the miserable attempt at censoring is, as is often the case in erotic animanga culture, trying to bend it as a supporting pillar. The entire trailer, beyond commoditizing women, contributes to the metapolitical environment that Azur Lane would be most valued in? By metapolitical, I wish to reify a worldview where fundamentally political concepts are intertwined in the fabric of reality, of society. Azur Lane with such public communication is obviously in favor of some wicked sort of free-speech absolutism (a surrogate for libertarianism), where censorship through the clothing is a reified notion, a stand-in for authoritarianism.
While I’m at it, I could also mention how the traditional character design for the clothing, and overall artistic direction of the trailer, are probably going to cater more to a conservative audience. I kind of hold the belief that being a fan of Kantai Collection, or now Azur Lane, can be some sort of red flag with the hyperfocus on a depolitized, and thereby rendered mainstream, culture where fascism (or even its ghost) is so unrepentantly present. At the same time it may spark contradiction to light within my own inclination towards the genre — and perhaps this very realization is making me wanting to take a stand against this possible, reductory equation.
But truly, this is all kind of tangential. Squash and stretch is utterly and aggressively redefined in this Azur Lane trailer, and that is probably the one animated part that most people will keep in mind. Especially because it occupies the center of the frame, being slowly zoomed-in. The chest has an unnatural jiggling, breaking any possible immersion, being more akin to pudding… What’s more, I wish to add, the character has cow ears, thus such a great focus on her chest is also relative to how anthropomorphization makes use of key features defining the perception of an animal or concept, to give it human shape. However, lustrous squash and stretch isn’t something unique to Japan as this review so far might have shaped you to believe — though it’s not pudding-like in the example I’ll be exploiting.
“I was put off by the squashy-stretchy 1940s cartoon style” Richard Williams, The Animator’s Survival Kit (2001)
Who Frame Roger Rabbit (1988) is a very interesting Western interaction between the cartoon tradition and live-action filmmaking, with animation directed by late animation legend, Richard Williams. In The Animator’s Survival Kit, a cult book on the craft and referred to directly by many an animator, Richard Williams evokes his designing philosophy in approaching a 40-year-old tradition: “I was put off by the squashy-stretchy 1940s cartoon style” and then “It’s ironic that forty years later I would become best known for my work on Who Framed Roger Rabbit — drawing in precisely the same style that had put me off learning from Preston [Blair]” Russer Hall, animation supervisor, is credited for the scene I’m referring to, and luscious curves (for both breasts and hips) exploit hypnotizingly the “squashy-stretchy” that, 35 years later, Azur Lane also exploits. While less revealing, the clothing is also emphasizing feminity and sexuality. I just found that there was interest in trying to recontextualize the trailer in a longer tradition than the buzzing noise of online news and consumer culture, therefore I do hope this article could be a droplet in the draught to put into perspective something many may only perceive as outrageous, or dismiss as meaningless waifubait. Do comment below if this review changed your understanding of the trailer, or sparked some other ponderous thought.
