Humanity's Imagination and Creativity given form.
Name: Shahnan Khandaker
ID: 24141018
What is Animation? How does it affect our world?
As a little kid, I remember sitting on front of the TV the
whole afternoon, watching my favourite cartoons until my mother would call me
to get up and study. I would laugh at the hilarious and absurd antics of Tom and Jerry, gawk at
the awesomeness of Ben 10 or
do a ‘KAMEHAMEHA!!’ with Goku while watching Dragon Ball.
As I grew up and started watching life action movies and other forms of media,
I came to realize that animated shows and cartoon have a certain charm to them
that cannot be matched by any other medium. Animation has a unique ability to
portray emotion, movement and even facial expressions in such a way that it
elevates the scene to a whole other level. Contrary to what many believe,
animated media is not only for children to view as many animated shows nowadays
target an older demographic more. The style of animation plays a huge part in how
the tone of a scene is set. A scene where a man is being brutally beaten if the
animation is goofy or if the tone style is comical. Animation style can also
intensify mundane emotions to an absurd degree as well.
Animation has had a long history. From Walt Disney to Toei Animation, there are many
greats when it comes to animation. In modern times, animation has been
categorized mostly by which hemisphere it originates from, Western animated
media is generally just called animation while Eastern animation is called anime. Western animation is
something almost everyone has watched when the were kids, such as Tom and Jerry
while anime is something not everyone might has watched, especially 10-15 years
ago when it was not as popular as it is today. Both of these forms of animation
have improved significantly over time and in recent times have become a huge
part of popular culture.
One of the most recent examples of this is the new animated
Spider-Man movies “Spider-Man:
Into the Spiderverse”. The story follows a young Miles Morales as he
struggles to fit in to his high school and how one night when he went to do
some street art with his Uncle Aaron changed his whole life as he becomes
Spider-Man and meets other spider people. The movie’s excellent blend of colours
gives it’s a very unique feel compare to other animated movies coupled with its
distinctive stuttering 24fps character animation style, where the characters
are animated in 24fps and the background is done in 60fps, this movie has
cemented itself as one of the greats in the animated movies category. Additionally,
the movie also uses and very comic booky style as well to pay homage to the
source material. This can be seen most clearly during the origin story scenes
of the various spider people, as they literally show the first comic book issue
they were featured in.
When it comes to anime and Eastern animation however, there
are many great animated movies and shows to choose from. Many call anime the ‘peak’
of animation, and I too believe its to be true to some extent. Nowadays, a lot
of Japanese anime shows have movie level animation and tend to dominate the
internet space for quite some time. I, on the other hand, would like to talk
about an anime that is a little less known to the general mass. Its name is Mob Psycho 100, and it is by
the same author of the popular anime One-Punch Man. The show follows
the life of a young psychic names Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed ‘Mob’ due to both
his name and appearance, as he hunts down ghosts with his mentor/employer
Reigen Arataka while also attending middle school and doing club activities.
While that small synopsis may make the show out to be a superhero battle story,
it is in fact the complete opposite as it focus more on Mob’s life in school
and him growing as a person. In the middle of all the intense fights, the
scenes that stand out and stick with you the most are the ones that one might
think are mundane like Mob struggling to confess to his crush or him spending
time with the Body Improvement club he Is part of. It is an amazing
coming-of-age story of a boy who due to some trauma keeps his emotions hidden.
The animation style also complements the emotions that are being conveyed as
well. Initially it may come off as simple and doodly, like something you would
draw and the back of your book while you are bored in class, but as the
emotions rise the animation style takes a complete 180 and gives us some of the
most intense and beautiful scenes in animation as a whole. Mob Psycho 100 makes
use of many different animation styles to portray a variety of emotions and
each and every one of them are very well done.
Reading so far, you can probably tell how much I love
animation and animated works. Many people still look down on animation and say
that any form of animation is ‘for kids’, but there are so many other stories
that can be told through this medium. It is a form of media that can give form
to even your wildest imaginations and so I believe that simplifying it to just ‘something
for kids’ does a disservice to what it stands for. Animation in itself is an art
form that was born in the modern era with a rich history and deserves to be
treated as such.
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