Though some may feel that Japanese animation is not a serious form of art but I think that anime is definitely a serious art form. As with other types of art forms, where artists have to go through various steps to achieve the final piece of work that they had worked hard planning, working through, and finalizing, anime artists has to go through the same, if not, similar course of action to achieve their final piece of work.
Having visited the exhibit KRAZY!: The Delirious World of Anime + Manga + Video Games at the Japan Society I can get a clearer sense of the process that is taken by artists who create Japanese artworks. Upon entering the exhibit you are first presented mainly with manga and also with a few small screens showing anime. Walking through the exhibit I saw finished pieces of work by Takashi Okazaki from “Afro Samurai.” There were four pages of final prints from that manga and they were all done using mostly black, white, and gray colors for the pieces. With these features and also with the realistic emotions of the characters, the artist was able to portray in the pieces a dark and mysterious feeling to the viewers. There were also pieces of work form “Sakuran” by Moyoco Anno that showed very detailed and colorful girls dressed up in Japanese outfits and had Japanese hair do’s with incredibly large eyes. Finished pieces from both “Afrom Samurai” and “Sakuran” are able to present to viewers the emotions that the artists had intended viewers to experience while reading their manga. These artists had spent a great amount of time perfecting their works of art in order to achieve the outcome they planned to have.
When looking at Hisashi Eguchi’s “Stop!! Hibari-kun! Vol.1” art works, you can see that the artist had to go through various steps to achieve their final prints. On these pieces there were a few that had corrections using whiteout, note markings, and measurements on them, and also words that had been pasted onto the paper that was meant for captions for the characters. There was one piece by Hisashi Eguchi that showed a girl with a kimono on and she was drawn and colored with colored pencils. It also showed measurements on the border of the piece. Another piece by Hisashi Eguchi was on tracing paper. Artists have to go through various steps to create manga and Hisashi Eguchi’s work is a good example; constantly correcting and perfecting to achieve their final print.
As I went farther in the exhibit I saw pieces by Hitoshi Odajima from “Mu: For Sale – The Afterlife of a DJ.” A lot of the pieces were more like rough drafts for the manga series. The artist was jotting down ideas for the story and not going into much of the details but it gave a sense of how the artist wanted it all to look. There were also blank spaces in some areas for the “Mu: For Sale – Tharis” manga by the same artist. The paper the artist used looked like it was scrap paper since the drawings were done on the backs of paper that had printing on the front. From this process you can see creating manga takes a long time. You have to think of the story, how you want to draw it out, and how you’re going to bring it all together in the end.
As you move towards the back of the exhibit there is also a game room and a room where you can view anime screenings. The anime, “Akira,” by Katsuhiro Otomo was full of realistic actions and it was also filled with imagination and creativity as well. The most memorable part of “Akira” was when one of the characters was in the hospital and suddenly huge stuffed animals came to life and tried to attack him. The background music used for that scene and also for a lot of the parts in “Akira” went well with the parts of the film to give it a very eerie feeling.
All in all, I believe anime is a serious art form because in order to create anime, artists have to go through many steps or processes and spend a lot of time, just like how other art forms are done, to be able to achieve their final piece. Anime artists are able to create such brilliant pieces through hard work and with a great creative edge, but most importantly because to them anime is a serious form of art.