I’m not an expert on Kogawa and this post isn’t intended to specify exactly how he influenced the anime industry, but seeing that many people don’t even know who he is, and some of those who know misunderstand his contributions to anime, I thought I might try to shed some light on this topic.Indeed, Kogawa’s influence is trickier to describe than, say, Kanada or Obari. His influence doesn’t exactly materialize in an obvious animation style or effects. However, I think that taking a look at the anime landscape during his time should help a lot in seeing how he indeed made important contributions to the development of anime, TV anime before anything.Going back as far as 1963 and looking at Astro Boy, one could get a good idea of how anime on TV would look like for roughly the next 10 years. Astro Boy was as basic as it gets, sometimes an animation just in name, as it lacked any real sense of smooth motion or sophisticated drawings whatsoever. Now, animators working on Astro Boy didn’t suddenly unlearn animation, the type of project Astro Boy was, as the first weekly TV anime and in turn with a tight schedule, just didn’t allow for doing anything more than the basics of the basics. It’s a philosophy that carries on to this day in TV anime (and to an extent in movies too): getting it out comes first, anything else comes second. If you want to understand what I mean look no further than the short movie Mushi Pro produced in 1962, just a year before producing Astro Boy, to test limited animation, called Aru Machi Kado no Monogatari or “A Story of a Street Corner”. It’s of course not on the same level as Toei’s movies for example, but worlds apart from Astro Boy. And because of that some go as far as to say that Osamu Tezuka butchered the promising japanese animated movies industry led by Toei, which is, in a sense, sadly true.An example from Aru Machi Kado no Monogatari.And all the TV animes that followed did the same until this became the standard for anime in general, both televised and theatrical. The thing is, in an industry that relies on learning by doing, the new generations that grew in such an environment might actually not know how to “properly” animate or draw, and that’s what happened to Kogawa when his properly drawn faces were “corrected” to the standard of TV anime at the time. Kogawa didn’t need to learn animating the anime way, since he was an arts graduate before starting to work on anime, so he most definitely saw the shortcomings in the way anime was drawn. Kogawa himself really emphasizes the importance of studying animating and in particular illustrating. Not necessarily in the sense of a university degree, but more like observing the surrounding world with a scrutinizing eye and always rethinking the way you draw instead of repeating the poor drawings you have been making. And although he may have deviated from this approach later on, I guess he was almost obsessed with accurate illustrating to the point where he wanted to dissect a human body in his 20s’. What is the result of this mentality, then? How are Kogawa’s works any different than his counterparts at the time? This, too, is sometimes hard to pinpoint, but one of the most clear distinctions in his style are the way mouths and jaws work. This might sound obvious, but when you speak the whole jaw moves, not just your lips, and this is rarely reflected even in modern anime. Kogawa’s animes are different, and you can notice that in every scene. It’s such a small detail yet a very important one in convincing the viewer of the three dimensionality of the characters, and one that injects vividness into the scene somehow. Another important trademark of his are the shots where the character is looking up in a somewhat dramatic way. You must have seen it at least once if you ever watched a Tomino show from 1980 to 1984 since he always worked with Kogawa during that period (except on Gundam). His great attention to perspective and accurate anatomical drawings brings a level of realism other animes, either from back then or now, struggle to reach. It’s not that no one knew how to draw like that before, maybe everyone did, but it was very rarely if ever brought to TV anime, and most definitely not in the consistency Kogawa had. Pay attention to jaws and mouths’ movements here.Anatomy and perspective very on point. From Dunbine #10, AD: Tomonori Kogawa. So is it correct to say that Kogawa’s influence was bringing this level of character animation to TV anime? I don’t know for sure, but it definitely was one of the main reasons why most Tomino shows of the era, Ideon, Xabungle, L-Gaim and Dunbine are classics that are still a joy to watch even today. Kogawa started to focus more on gags and funny animation starting presumably with Xabungle, and his special attention to character animation serves as a strong basis for the punchy somewhat comical character interactions, and this is very obvious in L-Gaim and Xabungle. One more thing worth mentioning about Kogawa is his status as a teacher for younger animators around him, which stems from his personality. He once had to heavily correct one animator’s cut, who then, upon watching the final version on TV in the studio, said “Huh, not as bad as I thought.” Kogawa left his cut uncorrected next time to teach him a lesson. He did the same to Ichiro Itano in Ideon: Be Invoked climax, where he purposefully left the poor Solo ship Itano drew uncorrected. He didn’t only think of “delivering a good product”, he wanted to make a meaningful change in the industry, and probably the people who directly worked under Kogawa and their works in and of themselves best embody the mark he left on anime.That Solo Ship. Links:If you want to learn more about Kogawa’s mentality as a creator go read this interview, it’s really interesting. As for the creators Kogawa influenced and his own studio, Bebow, I’d recommend this blog post.Kogawa drawing Dunbine.
May 14, 2021 • Subscribe
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