Hey folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be exploring a film that falls a touch outside our usual wheelhouse, but which nonetheless seems like an absolutely essential viewing. Today we’ll be watching Joy in Motion, a documentary about the impeachable animation legend Yasuo Otsuka. Otsuka was a crucial figure right from the beginning of anime’s film history, making key contributions to the early films of Toei Doga, and championing a style of animated unreality that would go on to influence countless future animators.
Along with making iconic contributions to early films like Saiyuki and The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon, Otsuka would also prove to be an essential mentor to the next generation of animators. He served as animation director on Isao Takahata’s landmark film debut Horus, Prince of the Sun, and also worked on early Hayao Miyazaki productions like Lupin III and Future Boy Conan, nurturing two talents who’d come to define prestige anime film productions. His credits stretch across a literal half-century, and his influence even further; rather than inspiring specific individual techniques, it might be more accurately said that Otsuka’s style helped define what cinematic anime would look like in a general sense. Anime would not be what it is without Otsuka, and I’m eager to hear the man himself drop some knowledge on us all. Let’s get to it!
Yasuo Otsuka’s Joy in Motion
We open on a 2002 Tokyo Ginza event, showcasing Otsuka’s roots, including a display of him as a boy sketching passing trains. It seems like a passion for complex mechanical objects is a pretty common route to becoming an animator – Hayao Miyazaki’s work is often mired in the push-and-pull between his love of nature and equal love of cool machinery, and his friendship with Hideaki Anno is in part based in their mutual love of awesome machines. My favorite Akira Toriyama illustrations are also his mechanical designs, which sadly don’t get too much airtime in Dragon Ball
Alongside prints of cars, trucks, and tanks, there’s also a display of images from Hakujaden, the very first film he animated for (and also my own first experience with the classic Toei Doga filmography)
And there’s The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon! Twenty years on, I’m still feeling miffed that I missed this event. On the other hand, it’s an oddly rewarding feeling for all this private study I’ve been doing to actually be put in its historical context, with a whole crowd of art enthusiasts delighting over the same films I’ve been watching alone
There’s his Puss and Boots on the far wall. That’s supposed to be an exceptional one in terms of Hayao Miyazaki’s contributions, and also Otsuka’s final film with Toei Doga – I’ll definitely have to check it out soon
Miyazaki himself drops in to say that Otsuka taught him all about movement, the heart of animation. Yep, movement as narrative is what defines animation specifically among the various art disciplines
“Innovation is the key to learning about movement.” Trust Miyazaki to frame creative restlessness as the most important thing. The man truly hates sitting still, or settling for the comforting and familiar
On the other hand, Takahata frames Otsuka’s mentorship in more personal terms, talking of how he was always happy to answer stupid questions. It’s obviously presumptuous to assume I know these men in any way via their works, but I can’t deny it feels perfectly in keeping with my impressions of them that Miyazaki would say “he taught me the soul of animation was innovation” and Takahata would say “he was a really nice guy”
Delightful footage here of him animating a full sweeping strike from Goemon in about six fluid, expressive frames
Our narrator tells us that Otsuka’s early fascination with locomotives was what sparked his interest in motion more generally. I suppose there’s an odd truth to that; that the disparate pieces of a locomotive might be joined into one fluid, purposeful action is a magic much like animation
Hah, I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that cut of Conan running at this point – here, in other documentaries, and even in Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
“Part 1: Motion Basics.” Oh shit, so we’re not just learning about Otsuka, we’re actually taking a class! Excellent
Apparently, Otsuka’s test to enter Toei Animation was to animate a boy pounding a stake into the ground in four or five images. This test was designed by Yasuji Mori, another of the greatest animators to ever live, and the champion of realistic animation who made Toei Doga’s early films so emotionally impactful. It was Mori who animated that powerful scene of Rin-Rin collapsing in Alakazam the Great, and Mori who influenced their subsequent turn towards more realistic character acting
God, such confidence in form as he executes these drawings
Mori’s last addition to the test is noting the mallet is very heavy, and the boy can’t easily lift it. A clever method of divining who can truly think in terms of how bodies move and react, and effectively reduce that to minimal drawings
Everything he draws, he is taking from his own physical experience of attempting to lift this imaginary hammer. Everything is grounded in how human muscles and bones would react to this challenge
“Animation is just logical movements stitched together.” I wonder what Otsuka would make of pose-to-pose animation
Wild hearing one of the fathers of anime say “I didn’t think I had a talent for animation,” but I suppose that’s how it goes for everyone
Otsuka was first inspired by the sight of a locomotive when he was ten years old, visiting a nearby town and seeing soldiers heading off on the train
Even at fourteen years old, his draftsmanship is impressive. We see a notebook of richly detailed trains, the specificity of their illustration evoking Otsuka’s clear love for their complex internal relations
“You see so much when you observe and draw.” It seems Miyazaki’s philosophy of drawing his inspiration from careful observation of the world around him was first developed by Otsuka. They are not imagining the purely fantastical, they are celebrating what is fantastical about the world around them
Yep, now even the narrator is explaining how the clear systems of motion at play in a moving locomotive were a precursor for Otsuka’s general understanding of motion. What is magical is that it is not magic – the entire system is visible from outside the train
“If you sketch without this understanding, it won’t be convincing. You have to figure out how it moves”
It seems like the Otsuka’s biggest takeaway from the war was getting to sketch a whole bunch of never-before-seen occupation vehicles
Seeing Otsuka page through these teenage notebooks is serving as a fine reminder to save my own old work
“I had this omnivorous mania for drawing anything.” Through the evolution of his sketchbooks, we see his passion for trains broaden into a general passion for capturing the visual essence of things
Apparently Otsuka actually worked for the drug enforcement branch of the government, where an American narcotics agent taught him various techniques for using a pistol. So whoever that random narcotics agent is, he permanently impacted the aesthetics of Lupin III
He proudly displays a political cartoon labeled “military budgets hurt social spending.” So much of early anime history is interwoven with leftist political action and worker rights movements. It is a source of perpetual sadness to me that the medium has embraced a strong thread of reactionary conservatism and insularity, typified by stuff like the proliferation of slave fantasies
Otsuka then came down with tuberculosis, and spent two years in the hospital recuperating. Of course, a two year sabbatical from active work made for plenty of time to study his art – really, the main thing any artist needs to create great art is the time to work on that art, unimpeded by immediate economic concerns
The French film Le Roi et l’Oiseau is mentioned as a key influence, and now I’m absolutely gonna have to track that down
Otsuka entered Toei Animation at 26, when they had two key animators: Yasuji Mori and Akira Daikubara. As I recall, the two of them did all of the key animation for Hakujaden, with Daikubara handling humans and Mori handling animals
“You could see Mori in his animation.” Abundantly clear how much Otsuka values drawing from life and realistic motion
“Daikubura would assign me something to animate, then laugh at it. He’d say ‘this is good – weird, but good.’” So it seems Daikubara was the one who first pinned Otsuka as the guy to animate their wild, fantastical creature movements
Apparently he actually did handle a touch of key animation for Hakujaden – two cuts of the massive catfish near the end
The team at Toei learned about the principles of animation – anticipation, follow-through, etcetera – from a book by Preston Blair, a legend of early Disney and Tex Avery animation
And here’s that classic story of him animating a skeleton so realistically that it actually comes across as comical and sympathetic rather than scary
From this, assistant director Isao Takahata learned the key lesson that comedy can be found in seriousness, a trick he’d use to devastating effect across his filmography
Otsuka’s talent for animating humorously sympathetic villains meant he played a huge role in defining Inspector Zenigata’s animated mannerisms
From Daikubara’s Anju to Zushiomaru, Otsuka learned a great deal about manipulating space within the frame, and the importance of manipulating depth of the frame in order to enhance the dynamism and realism of the world. I hadn’t realized that film was so key in bringing the shot-counter shot language of cinematography into animation
Takahata explains that “The Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon” was the dawn of a new generation of animators – and indeed, the project does feel incredibly fresh and vital. A big moment for Otsuka specifically as well, as he split duties animating the film’s impossibly ambitious final battle
Put side by side, it’s clear to see how Daikubara’s approach to action in Anju to Zushiomaru influenced Otsuka’s boarding of the hydra battle
“Realism doesn’t have to be real. What you want is constructed realism.” So, an internally coherent system of weight and movement, regardless of how that matches to our own reality
Wonderful explanation from Miyazaki of how Otsuka and Mori might each animate a character raising a fork. As the narrator has said, it’s easy to see their own movements and personalities in their animation
“In animation, slow is slow, and fast is blinding.” And yet Miyazaki also has his own preferred style, which seems more efficient in its focus than Otsuka’s exaggerated movements
Miyazaki once again emphasizes how animators must be careful observers of real life, cataloging any new movements they see. His philosophy seems to stem from that observation – no surprise he finds nothing worth celebrating in animators who only engage with insular territories of animation
It was Otsuka who demanded Takahata be made the director of Horus
The narrator explains how the protests of the sixties united the animation team. Today, it’s just about the opposite – animators are spread across the globe, and have basically no ability to collectively bargain for better conditions
Takahata’s only regret regarding Horus is that the main character is always glaring. God, Takahata really does seem like the sweetest guy
They of course highlight Otsuka’s famous scene, that absurdly fluid yet also weighted battle with the great fish
Miyazaki reflects that at the time, only Yasuji Mori understood that the essence of Takahata’s film was the girl Hilda – it was a story of loss, not a rip-roaring adventure. Takahata really was that essential and that ahead of the curve in expanding anime’s range of prioritized experiences – hell, even today, Takahata’s focus on the stories of ordinary people, and the social melancholy that permeates his work, is a rarity compared to works of simple action and bravado
Miyazaki explains this as the world of animation shifting from one of farce to “Chishu Ryu’s world,” one that might open the possibility of meditative, mature works like Tokyo Story
Only Mori understood the intent and possibilities of this shift, and thus Mori’s scenes stand out, just as their sadness and intimacy stood out in previous Toei Doga features
Recognizing how Takahata had fundamentally transformed the nature of their work for Horus, Otsuka also realized that directing simply wasn’t for him – he delighted in the details of specific character movement, not the big picture. Some animators dream of eventually directing, but some are simply born to be animators, and always delight in that fundamental joy of motion
We then cut to Puss ‘n Boots, which the narrator describes as “Otsuka and Miyazaki’s chance to have fun.” And indeed, this extended cut we view is absolutely bursting with playful distortions of form, as well as formally ambitious cuts like this tower plummeting across the scene
After that, Otsuka moved to A Productions, and began working on the Moomins series with director Masaaki Ohsumi
Apparently Ohsumi was a veteran of puppet theater, which was actually where a lot of the first animators came from as cinema began to replace puppet or lantern performances
Otsuka ruefully recalls how everyone at Toei had typecast him as the weird monster animator, but Moomins proved he could do other styles of animation. It seems like this was essentially his answer to not being able to prove himself on Horus
Miyazaki and Takahata thus swiftly left Toei and joined him at A Productions
The prize for Otsuka was working on Lupin III. “I’ve always had three loves: trains, cars, and guns”
Otsuka studied Monkey Punch’s work, and also his influences, like American comic artist Mort Drucker. Pointed out by Otsuka, the similarities are obvious – big feet and tiny ankles, swooping limbs, and specific manners of articulating coat shoulders, hats, and chins
Yep, Otsuka specifically calls out the split chins during a seminar
Otsuka has a personal terminology of “introverted” characters whose limbs diminish as they extend, versus “extroverted” characters who have a smaller core and larger extremities – Mori versus Monkey Punch
They initially envisioned Lupin III as a feature film, then cut for television, and finally aired it to initially terrible ratings. That’s when Miyazaki and Takahata arrived, with Miyazaki’s own love of cars coming through clearly in his work on Lupin
Dear lord. The speed and efficiency with which he can draw a convincing Goemon draw and slash is absurd
While Otsuka worked on Samurai Giants, Takahata and Miyazaki made Heidi, Girl of the Alps, and then Appenine. By the time Otsuka next collaborated with Miyazaki on Future Boy Conan, Miyazaki had essentially grown from a talented animator into a generational director/animation talent, and had begun doing full boards down to character expressions for all of his shows, something that had never been done before. This is where the Miyazaki who labors over every frame of his films was born
With Otsuka extolling Miyazaki’s absurd talent and creativity during this period, it seems to lend some credence to Miyazaki’s claim that animators peak in their thirties
After initially demanding Otsuka be his animation director, Miyazaki went on to discard Otsuka’s work and do the key animation himself. Yep, this is the modern Miyazaki
Otsuka describes Miyazaki’s “production style” as basically just doing all the key animation himself, which is pretty much insanity
He explains the mechanics of what he calls his “peg hole technique,” wherein he actually rips off the pegs from a second keyframe sheet and tapes them to his initial keyframe at an angle, thereby creating a sense of discordance that lends Conan’s movements an animated energy and that “simulated reality” he previously discussed. It’s fascinating seeing such a practical, tactile technique for creating the illusion of animated energy – like the use of aluminum foil to project shimmering light on the frame, I wonder what other physical techniques were lost in the transition to digital animation
Otsuka says that Miyazaki’s consistent demand for a social message in his work is “Takahata’s influence,” something that Miyazaki himself basically admitted in his reflections on Horus
As with Takahata on Horus, it was Otsuka who requested Miyazaki be given the job of directing Cagliostro
In the context of this film, it’s hard not to see some Yasuji Mori influence in this cut of Lupin resisting his urge to actually take Clarice with him
Otsuka has plenty of praise for Takahata’s recruiting and management of Chie the Brat. It seems Takahata was truly the people person he always comes across as, even in his filmography. No wonder he made such fantastic slice of life productions
In Chie the Brat, Takahata was once again expanding the range of drama that was considered “acceptable for animation,” his veneration for everyday people and their activities astonishing animators at Disney as well. Without Takahata, anime might well lack that fascination with finding the poignant or universal in the mundane that actually makes the art form so interesting to me. I’ve already loved all of his work that I’ve come across, but it seems I’m even more indebted to him than I realized
Our narrator frames the serialized publication of Otsuka’s memoirs and the commencement of Nausicaa as the origins of Studio Ghibli
We now meet Toshio Suzuki, producer and former president of Studio Ghibli, who explains that Otsuka was also the one to convince him to join the studio. He goes on to extoll Otsuka’s significance in planning and drawing teams together, and even stuff like negotiating Miyazaki and Takahata’s salaries. He truly seems like the glue holding anime’s prestige end together for decades – in our era, I suppose that role is filled by people like Shinichiro Watanabe and Masaaki Yuasa
Takahata once again frames Otsuka’s support in very personal terms, praising how Otsuka would never push people into anything, and was always clearly working with their best interests at heart. It’s clear these are the things Takahata values most
It’s interesting – Otsuka is precisely the sort of figure you wouldn’t hear much about if you’re thinking only in terms of directors, yet his influence on a production often seems more significant than any given director. He reflects the necessity of a wide-ranging approach to engaging with anime production
“Even when the style is very different from his, he recognizes when something is good.”
“He’s a much better teacher than Miyazaki or Takahata.” It feels like Otsuka elevated everyone around him, playing a crucial but somewhat invisible role in the excellence of Toei and A Productions’ output, as well as the subsequent Ghibli productions
In an art institute lesson on character design, he urges his students to embrace simplicity, and not get caught up in lots of beautiful highlights like flashy eyes or complex hair
“Fast, simple, and original. That’s the way to go”
His ability to reduce any set of actions to a sequence of simplified yet expressive poses is remarkable. Each sequence of doodles he draws tells a story, has a personality, even though they’re barely more than silhouettes
One student, when asked to draw a man diving from a high board, instead drew the character climbing down the ladder and testing the water gingerly, due to his own fear of heights. “It is important to draw what you feel”
“Crude but lively is better than polished but static”
Otsuka then heads to France, describing the important of gradual, sequential movement when it comes to effects animation in order to parse a sense of progression
“It might sound simplistic, but if someone’s been drawing like crazy ever since they were a kid, I think they’ll succeed.”
Watching him teach, the fascinations that guide his philosophy come through clearly – he truly does find nothing more interesting than observing and recreating the small quirks of character movement
As a more pragmatic piece of advice, he recommends conferring with the director on thumbnails of movement before moving to drawing full key frames. He doesn’t really seem to consider character movement in the context of a full layout – he is an animator, not a director
He screens some impressive trainee videos, which end on a sequence of gorgeous running cycles animated by none other than Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. As far as character designers or animation directors go, Sadamoto’s work on Eva and FLCL was essential for inspiring my passion for anime in the first place. Absolutely my favorite character designer
Otsuka admits he wouldn’t want to compete with Sadamoto
Sadamoto went straight from training to working on Royal Space Force
Otsuka wonders why such a talented animator switched to illustration and comics, and Sadamoto’s answer is simple: those were the assignments he was given
And at last, Otsuka rails on the modern state of the anime industry. With films just being adaptations of popular comics, animation is disregarded – “people will come for the voices and story”
At his own animation school, he works to ensure artists appreciate the joy of motion itself
“Today there are a lot of skilled artists, but animation with warmth and impact is hard to find”
“Today is the age of mass-produced entertainment. Just as you desire to eat delicious food, I hope you’ll choose entertainment that has wisdom and passion.”
“See as many foreign and experimental films as you can.” Otsuka providing the same advice every artist and lover of art wishes to impress on the world at large – to broaden your horizons, to seek works made with passion, and to celebrate the truly new
And Done
Jeez, what an impressive man he was! It’s clear that describing Otsuka simply as a legendary animator is doing him a tremendous disservice – through his passion for education and support of his many collaborators, he actually elevated the medium at large, championing the beauty of movement in the abstract in a way that entwined neatly with his proteges’ own unique ambitions. The world needs as many Otsukas as it can possibly conjure, and I’m grateful for this much broader understanding of his personal history, how that history entwines with the course of the medium, and what his significance says about our own modern stewards of artistry. In this era of mass-produced entertainment, only fervent passion can win out against replicable mediocrity – but as long as we’ve got seekers like Otsuka, I think we’ll be all right.
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