Random Tomino interview

Random Tomino interview, partially summarised/partially translated by TE spoiler guy !HccvJPE8Dk
Source: http://archive.foolz.us/m/thread/10945671/


The anime industry is in a transitional phase, and though you can't tell from the outside, the industry is self-aware of this
Frozen became popular only because of the music. A lot of people in visuals think that you need to copy Frozen to be successful, but they're wrong. But the sponsors and such just don't get it. For example the visuals are mostly made with "motion picture" (Translator's note: I'm no expert but I think he means motion capture)- This isn't just in Frozen, Pacific Rim and so on do that too- And this can be said of all movies that use CG and 3D- They start to go in a direction where they start to think this is the only way they can make movies. In animation, using "motion picture" is a lot easier and faster than drawing stuff by hand, and when people realise that they start to head that way. But I have reason to believe this is wrong. Why does CG end up going in a realistic direction? Because the visuals are left to "rika-kei"* operators, and there are no artists art work. Everything is based on technical prowess. Among the bunka-kei there may be artists who are losing to this reality of of how there's no choice but to use CG technology, and they don't realise that they're losing and think they're just using using a convenient tool.

*(Translator's note: In Japan, educations are divided widely into two types, bunka-kei/bunkei and rika-kei/rikei; Bunkei is mostly literature and humanities, while rikei is maths and sciences.)

However, I can say for certain that 3D is not an absolute method of expression. One of the reasons is super realism which surfaced in New York in the 70's. It was popular, but lost steam really fast, and contemporary art after it was closer to hand-drawn anime characters than it. I thought about it and realised that that's because expressing something realistically is in fact not an act of expression.

Also, one more thing. Even though movies and anime are so popular, manga never went into repression. It never died out to be replaced by anime. In fact manga is business-wise a bigger success, and when asked which of movies and manga is a superior form of expression, the market and masses will not necessarily pick movies. It's not just because of how easily you can pick one up: Whether it's a realistic or simplistic art style, regardless of what type of manga, manga art is a bigger business than weird anime or weird movies, and if asked which is more enjoyed as a method of expression, which is more accepted, it may be that manga's power as a medium of expression is higher than that of movies and anime. This is my second piece of evidence.

Interviewer: Is it because the reader is free to interpret static images in their own minds?

That's right. It's by getting used to that that expressions are more easily accepted. From what I've seen, because you have to draw the characters and backgrounds in anime, the expressions are all being forced into realism, and I can't say it's a good thing.

In the end, Frozen is not at all strong, and that's because like you said you need leeway for the receiver's interpretation for there to be diversity. There are many parts where the receiver adds on to or understands something differently inside their own head, and the current trend of all expression heading towards realism is wrong. Also, what I realised through working on hand-drawn anime is that anime is close to symbolism. When you use symbols to tell a story, whether you can convey the story's message depends on how good the anime's potential, and anime may have more potential than movies, and manga may have more potential than anime. I want to create a story that actively uses symbolism, and in my case, G-Reco, the message takes priority over the story, and I'm leaving many things I want the next generation of children to think about.