I've always been into this "stylized realist" style in anime - it never dominated the anime industry but from the late 1970s - early 2000s it was a rare and interesting treat that could be found in prestige projects.
I kind of feel like the origins of it can be traced back to the Isao Takahata's world masterpiece theater shows of the 1970s esp. 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother which pulls heavily from Italian neo realism. I feel like the style hit its absolute peak with Okiura/Oshii's "Jin-Roh", but then quickly started to fade away after that. Even Satoshi Kon's was starting to move in a more surrealist direction with Paprika and I could see an acceleration of that trend with the art released out of his never finished film "Dreaming Machine" -even Takahata himself abandoned it with 1999's "My Neighbor's the Yamadas" never to return again in his career.
One of my biggest frustrations with modern anime is that this sort of film just isn't really made anymore. I think hints of it survive with Yasuhiro Yoshiura's work (esp his short "Bureau of Proto Society" from the Japan animator expo) but its just not a thing anymore. I miss this sort of realism and mature storytelling that tended to accompany it.
(I accidently posted this on the older version of this article, put it here instead)
Super thoughtful comment! Thank you. The roots of this stylized realism, as you call it, can definitely be traced to some of the '70s World Masterpiece Theater stuff (and arguably to the '60s, with Takahata's film Horus).
For us, it's still visible in most of the work Satoshi Kon and Ghibli were doing in the 2000s, not to mention Steamboy and some others. You saw flashes of it in the 2010s (Miss Hokusai, Katsuhiro Otomo's Combustible, Studio Ponoc) but it was definitely not as prominent. Lately, the style has moved to Europe, which has picked up the torch from directors like Takahata and Miyazaki with films like The Summit of the Gods, I Lost My Body, Another Day of Life and The Swallows of Kabul. A lot of really exciting stuff is happening over there.
I already knew about "Summit of the Gods", but these other films are ones I really need to check out. Thank you for the recommendations :).
Europe's and especially France's animation industry is definitely one to watch, I don't watch enough of their films and should totally watch more. Even Corto Maltese back in the 2000s kind of had this style, might be an early European example of it.
No problem -- happy to share them. We're very excited about European animation right now and there's still so much of it we need to watch. The 2000s Corto Maltese is one we haven't seen a lot from, but, looking at screenshots, elements of that style are definitely visible. Cool to see!
So much great 2D work is being done in Europe, and most of it doesn't even get released in the US! The people who say "2D is dead" would be amazed if they could see what was happening there.
GKIDS is doing a great job releasing these films to North American markets. However, the releases are limited to home video and select theaters. What they really need is increased visibility among prominent movie and animation aficionados.
Hope you enjoy it! We haven't watched the '80s version ourselves, but apparently Visual 80 (the studio behind the 1992 film) was involved in that one as well.
I've always been into this "stylized realist" style in anime - it never dominated the anime industry but from the late 1970s - early 2000s it was a rare and interesting treat that could be found in prestige projects.
I kind of feel like the origins of it can be traced back to the Isao Takahata's world masterpiece theater shows of the 1970s esp. 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother which pulls heavily from Italian neo realism. I feel like the style hit its absolute peak with Okiura/Oshii's "Jin-Roh", but then quickly started to fade away after that. Even Satoshi Kon's was starting to move in a more surrealist direction with Paprika and I could see an acceleration of that trend with the art released out of his never finished film "Dreaming Machine" -even Takahata himself abandoned it with 1999's "My Neighbor's the Yamadas" never to return again in his career.
One of my biggest frustrations with modern anime is that this sort of film just isn't really made anymore. I think hints of it survive with Yasuhiro Yoshiura's work (esp his short "Bureau of Proto Society" from the Japan animator expo) but its just not a thing anymore. I miss this sort of realism and mature storytelling that tended to accompany it.
(I accidently posted this on the older version of this article, put it here instead)
Super thoughtful comment! Thank you. The roots of this stylized realism, as you call it, can definitely be traced to some of the '70s World Masterpiece Theater stuff (and arguably to the '60s, with Takahata's film Horus).
For us, it's still visible in most of the work Satoshi Kon and Ghibli were doing in the 2000s, not to mention Steamboy and some others. You saw flashes of it in the 2010s (Miss Hokusai, Katsuhiro Otomo's Combustible, Studio Ponoc) but it was definitely not as prominent. Lately, the style has moved to Europe, which has picked up the torch from directors like Takahata and Miyazaki with films like The Summit of the Gods, I Lost My Body, Another Day of Life and The Swallows of Kabul. A lot of really exciting stuff is happening over there.
I already knew about "Summit of the Gods", but these other films are ones I really need to check out. Thank you for the recommendations :).
Europe's and especially France's animation industry is definitely one to watch, I don't watch enough of their films and should totally watch more. Even Corto Maltese back in the 2000s kind of had this style, might be an early European example of it.
No problem -- happy to share them. We're very excited about European animation right now and there's still so much of it we need to watch. The 2000s Corto Maltese is one we haven't seen a lot from, but, looking at screenshots, elements of that style are definitely visible. Cool to see!
European theatrical animation gives me hope for the future of 2d Western animation.
So much great 2D work is being done in Europe, and most of it doesn't even get released in the US! The people who say "2D is dead" would be amazed if they could see what was happening there.
GKIDS is doing a great job releasing these films to North American markets. However, the releases are limited to home video and select theaters. What they really need is increased visibility among prominent movie and animation aficionados.
I love that story. Although I have only seen the Fuji TV 1980 version. It will be interesting to see the 1992 too.
Hope you enjoy it! We haven't watched the '80s version ourselves, but apparently Visual 80 (the studio behind the 1992 film) was involved in that one as well.
Thank you for this. I'd never heard of it, and I look forward to watching it.
Awesome -- happy to send it your way! Hope you like it.
Another great post. Very interesting to see what is happening at Douyin at the minute and how that could grow.
Thanks, Jon. And yeah, absolutely agreed about Douyin -- it's yet another sign of the rise of indie animation in China.