On Defining Sakuga’s Notion Of Character Acting
One of the major changes that the sakuga paradigm has brought to the perception of Japanese animation can be the light shone upon the core of the works of animators, the ephemeral and infinitesimal parts of anime that we call at times a ‘cut’, a ‘frame’, or a subset through the ‘key animation’ or the ‘in-between’ of a ‘cut’. This animation-centric speech about anime, however, is a living entity shared culturally between members of the ‘sakuga community’, and an article titled Exploring sakuga — Part 1 : Birth of otaku, birth of sakuga, published on Animétudes the 22 August, 2020 is an interesting attempt at tracing back to Japan the birth of the ‘sakuga community’, using for instance the testimony of Otaku no Video: “But in its meta narrative, that is what Okada has to say about otaku, it’s even more interesting : it is, in a condensed version, a little demonstration of the impact the video tape technology had on otaku culture. Add to that the fact that this scene comes just after the (fake) interview of an otaku whose main occupation is recording shows on TV and dealing his tapes around, and it all comes full circle”.
But Matteo Watzky went further in his attempt to historicize the sakuga paradigm with the What is sakuga? series, and in Exploring sakuga — Part 2 : The birth of Western sakuga, published on the 5 September, 2020, he takes a look at how Internet led to the birth of a wider sense of a ‘sakuga community’ in the West, especially glancing at the French-speaking Catsuka and the anglophonic Anipages. In Exploring sakuga — Part 3 : The sakuga debate, published on the 19 September, 2020, the Sakuga Blog and Sakugabooru are mentioned to specify how changed the ‘sakuga community’ in the West in the 2010s. This article has, however, more to tell us than just the setting for an animation-centric speech to exist among fans of Japanese animation. Two sentences mention ‘character acting’ as a notion which, if not strictly defined, rings a bell the second one is shown the kind of scenes the speech refers to: “the delicate character acting from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” is a generalization of how some viewer perceived the animation of its characters, with a sentiment of delicacy. How he writes “I believe that the sakuga community did play a part in the critical reevaluation of the studio, highlighting its history and its talented staff.” matters for our purpose, for Kyoto Animation is an exceptional studio in defining the notion of character animation.
An Anipages thread dating back to May 23, 2010, discussing Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu, is described by the article’s author as such: “But even though they try to exercise contempt for Kyoani as pure otaku bait, there’s clearly some sense of bewilderment in considering the quality of the animation. It’s interesting to see that the specific qualities of the Kyoani style are acknowledged (“gesture animation that expresses subtle body movements”; “felt like full animation”; it’s “something else” than “action sakuga”) […] And even the animation meets resistance: it’s too smooth, giving this kind of “melting” effect. […] I think what’s going on runs deeper than rejecting what was perceived as Kyoani’s catering to otaku audiences : there may very well be a general rejection of the studio’s realism and almost full animation techniques.”. The most interesting part of the quote might be about the “full animation”, as ‘limited animation’ is a notion that has once been used to characterize anime’s specificity as anime in the sakuga community.
The difference established between the character acting found in Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu and “action sakuga” notwithstanding, we can say that merely the act of separating the two reflects an admiration toward both notions as qualitative animations that emphasize dramatically the role of characters in motion. Because “action sakuga” lends itself better for recognition at the time of the post, we can at least accept for now the idea that the action genre has intrinsically spectacular motion to deliver. However, the way “realism” is used in the article to define Kyoani’s animation style can also resonate with the drama genre, as most of the studio’s greatest pearls were in this genre. And as we just concluded that a genre might lend itself better for character acting, perhaps can we entertain the thought that other genres but action or drama may put characters in situations where motions and gestures are granted more importance onscreen. For example, sports (Mou Ippon! this season), where more complex motions can occur; or comedy, where over-the-top motions can greaten the impact of a skit (Nichijou by Kyoto Animation).
If poses and the angles that go with them can lead to deformation, through the use of foreshortening for instance, this means that the composition — a part perhaps less thought of when discussing Japanese animation — was giving much importance to poses, and overall the human subject. Kyoto Animation is a studio and serves as a useful conceptual entity to discuss the animation of titles globally, linking the entire staff together, but composition might be more tied to storyboards and the direction itself. And so it is possible that Kyoto Animation’s fame for its “realism”, or what I would also call its humanism, may be in part credited to Naoko Yamada — at the very least in the titles she directed or storyboarded. For example, the narrative trick of telling a story through the characters’ feet, thus putting a lid on most of the human subjects and granting more focus on a part of their general behaviors at a given moment. An Amino post titled Stepping Into The Universe// Naoko Yamada and published on May 13, 2020, analyses it further: “Why is Naoko obsessed with creating scenes of only cut-off moving feet? Yamada sees these strange yet fascinating leg shots as a window to the soul. Most animators use body parts like eyes and hands to express an emotion better, but Yamada takes it a step further. Posture as well as the way you present yourself is a major essential to her work. The body’s movement is one of the most important things to think about when it comes to your characters. After all, you want them to be as human as possible. Legs tend to express how you carry yourself as a human being. It’s what Yamada likes to depict and that very thing is what fascinates me so much about her.”.
This humanism in character acting can also be found in the facial expressions of characters, and Eiga Daisuki Pompo-san provides at multiple times very fluid — and thereby attractive — changes in facial expressions, depicting more complex sentiments. For example, as Gene Fini reads and compliments a script written by Joelle Davidovich Pomponette, she is depicted as both trembling and blushing, becoming embarrassed. Her head rises as her entire pose follows suit, describing a thunder-like motion as she alternates from left to right to left to right. Her mouth is drawn as fuzzy and she flares gradually. There’s also the scene where Nathalie Woodward starts crying as her dream seems too far too reach, before hiding her face, clenching her cheeks and forcing a smile by stretching them. This purposeful, self-determined deformation of the facial expression by the body in motion is character acting at its finest, and the director and storyboardist, Hirao Takayuki should be credited for this humanistic character acting.
This article has sought to define character acting as a notion. And yet, a conceptual definition to neither character or acting have been given. Instead, we have tackled the idea of a sakuga paradigm giving birth to a self-evident concept, spreading through visual analogy. We have also pinpointed to the Kyoto Animation studio, the action, sports, drama and comedy genres, specific titles, the example of feet — and thereby poses — in the composition of the director Naoko Yamada, as well as that of facial expressions in Hirao Takayuki’s work on Eiga Daisuki Pompo-san. Were we to put words onto character acting as a notion in use among the sakuga community, they would sometimes perhaps be contradicted by anime itself as a cultural phenomenon that has yet to achieve its final potential. And this article is still incomplete, as we have only tackled the human subject. Qualitative animation is found in Pokémon (2019), notably in its opening featuring battles with one sleek Corviknight, and so we may have to consider characters as the life-like subjects of animation, and acting as any form of motion depicted through the means used for animation of life — or natural phenomena.
