marcelle

“Jujutsu Kaisen” I know was experiencing massive popularity in the US. Its in the dark fantasy, supernatural action genre. Google says the story line for Jujutsu Kaisen is “Yuji Itadori, a high school student who joins a secret organization of Jujutsu Sorcerers to eliminate a powerful Curse called Ryomen Sukuna, after becoming the demon’s host.” The show has a-lot of fighting and witchcraft. Im pretty sure its on Hulu maybe Netfilx. The series resonated with American audiences because of the very well choreographed fight scenes, Its funny but has very dark themes and also the character relationships are very complex. Acording to Wiki “Jujutsu Kaisen was also extremely popular in Japan, where it originated. It was one of the top-selling manga series and the anime adaptation received critical acclaim domestically as well as internationally.”

“Rooty Toot Toot” uses bold, vibrant colors with high contrast flat, non-naturalistic color fields rather than gradients. The film only uses brown, off-whites, deep reds, purples, blues, yellows, and blacks. The characters are extremely exaggerated like the mistress singer and the lawyer for the plaintiff. They are also bold with their dramatic poses, being shown from all angles. Each character has its own color palette and personality shown in the voice actor but also their facial expressions and movements. Character movements are precisely timed to the jazz soundtrack, creating a visual choreography where actions pulse with the music even more showing you their personalities and really bringing the story to life. I think these stylistic choices definitely effectively tell the story because it is simplistically complicated; it’s able to show you the story of a woman who killed her husband because he was cheating or “cheating” and after her smug but talented lawyer gets her off the hook in court she sees him flirting with the same woman leading her to shooting him too and her being sent off to jail. I feel since I caught the point so easily and it was also effectively funny it shows the effectiveness of these means to storytelling.

Many of the films we saw this week show stereotypical versions of the enemy. Watch “Bust the Axis”, made in the UK directed by an American and “Momotarō no Umiwashi”. How is the enemy portrayed in each of these films? What negative stereotypes are depicted? What means are used in terms of drawing style and movement? What are the behaviors demonstrated by the characters?

Both war cartoons rely on some pretty obvious enemy stereotypes. “Bust the Axis” makes fun of the Axis powers with over-the-top caricatures, the Germans with those pointy helmets, Italians with huge noses, and Japanese characters with really racist features like buck teeth and yellow skin. They move all jerky and clumsy, portrayed as cowardly losers. Meanwhile, “Momotarō no Umiwashi” does the same thing to Westerners, giving them massive noses and stiff movements, showing Americans and Brits as corrupt colonizers who get easily beaten by the graceful, honorable Japanese characters. The animation styles really hammer home these differences – with heavier lines and darker colors for villains in the American film, and sharp, angular features for the Western bad guys in the Japanese one. Classic propaganda techniques from both sides.

I chose Dopey and Sleepy, wile all the dwarves have there big ol cheeks that pop right off the sides of there face, Sleepy has his all droopy and his entire face is like this. First we see his teeth and he only has one and that kinda gives him a sleepy baby appearance but his entire face is almost melting as he yawns. His eyes open and blink at different times and he is the only dwarf with crazy eye bags. Dopey seems youngest, he doesn’t have any facial hair like the other dwarves, his cheeks are also less big and red. His ears seem to be the biggest feature he has. He sits a smiles wile others talk and seemingly just looking happy to be here. He seems very nice but he doesn’t talk.. unlike all the other dwarves because well he never tried. He is just so cute.

We have seen that many early animated films, particularly in the US, were based on print comics. Why do you think that is? What was there about comics that would make them an appropriate subject for film?

Comics are literally 2d animated stories. It is a form of visual storytelling where you have a narrative, images depicting movement and emotion, suspense, a mimic of motion drawn out between slides. Also around this time there were already famous comic characters getting publicized so it was easy to use those characters in animation to test the waters. I made it easier for animators to gain attention and then money for more animations. Comics were so over exaggerated already, with facial expressions and character design. The over the top visuals made it almost seen right to bring these to life. People already had these comics as a constant in their life so the source material was already wanted and there why not grow on it.