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In the recent decade, the anime industry has gone through plenty of changes. The industry admittedly struggles with plenty of issues like an oversaturated market, low animator wages, and such, which have been called out by veterans like Hayao Miyazaki and Shigeo Akamori.
Shigeo Akamori is an animator who entered the anime industry during its golden age, the mid-1980s. He has worked as a key animator, in-between animator, and even animation director and character designer for studios like Madhouse and Ghibli. Akamori has pointed out what animators need to focus on in the current age.
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Inan interview with Gamebiz, Shigeo Akamori talked at length about the anime industry at large as well as his own experience and the different people he has worked with. He also pointed out how the anime scene has changed in the last decade. He has been an animator in Ghibli’sThe Tale of Princess Kaguya,The Cat Returns, and many other notable works in the anime field.
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The animator accepted that in the early days of anime, talented creators were free to innovate and create their own masterpieces. This attracted even more talented individuals to the field. However, things have changed.
In the past, there was a lot of creative freedom even for manga-based works, but nowadays, it is important for manga originals to be faithful.
In the current generation, anime that don’t strictly follow the series are often criticized. Filler episodes are no longer appreciated, and anime is supposed to be simply an extension of the manga’s story and nothing else. Shigeo Akamori has noticed this trend and advises new animators to stick to the story to survive.
Stick to the manga, unless you are Hayao Miyazaki
Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator ofMobile Suit Gundam, talked about the genius ofHayao Miyazakiinan interview with Full Frontal. He states that Hayao Miyazaki has always been his enemy because he is in the same era as someone he can never surpass. He claims Miyazaki to be an auteur, while he himself has low artistic abilities.
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He further stated:
If you say he’s a craftsman, you don’t know anything. He’s an auteur. Look, he made an animated film without a happy end (The Boy and the Heron). That’s impossible if you do things halfheartedly.
But what is the difference between an auteur and an animator? A craftsman is someone who adapts from existing source material, while an auteur isone who creates original and unique storiesor transforms existing scripts according to their own artistic flair. Shigeo Akahori highlighted the need for craftsmen in the industry, but at the same time, he has another fear.
If things stay the way they are, I think it will be difficult to produce people who can be called masters in the future.
Auteurs like Hayao Miyazaki are rare and hard to come by. Makoto Shinkai is another creator whose movies have the ability to bring talented individuals to the field. Akahori realizes the risk of only having manga, webtoon, or light novel adaptations without any original series. Despite advising animators to be faithful to the materials, he also points out the importance of original creators.
Aaheli Pradhan
Anime Content Writer
Articles Published :1558
Aaheli is an Anime Content Writer at FandomWire with 1300+ published articles. With five years of experience under her belt, she is a living, breathing encyclopedia for anime and manga. From Shonen and Shojo to the most niche anime, nothing escapes her radar. Her poisons of choice are Assassination Classroom, Gintama, Ouran High School Host Club and every Ghibli movie ever. She believes in living a slow life, surrounded by incomplete art projects and her beloved cats.
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Hayao MiyazakiStudio Ghibli
