I am now starting my second month at the Yoyogi Animation School* in Tokyo–learnin how to make Anime.
Now, just as my eventual goal is to get adult-oriented (nekked people even!) animation popularised in the US–I’m just hoping to provide enough information that others realise this is a possibility and hopefully to get at least one or two other Yanks over here before not too long.
So, a couple of the quick deal-breakers:
Classes are in Japanese–you need to be able to read at least fairly well in Japanese watches as 98% of everyone trots off
The school is a trade school (aka, a company), so you cannot get a student visa. You will either have to have a job for a work visa (which requires having a college degree) or know a citizen of Japan who will be your guarantor. watches the other 2% go away, leaving only a dog with a party hat
Likes to, and thinks will eventually be able to draw well. My school accepts people who have graduated from middle school, and two years later those kids have jobs–so you don’t have to be Rembrandt.
But, even if no one on the SDMB fits the above…well still glad to answer all questions if you have them.
Crap. I was kinda hoping for better news. One of my nephews has mad artistic skilz and really wants to be an animator. Only problem is he is high school drop out (that is another thread) and his Japanese is probably non-existant (other than what you may need for martial arts). Any ideas for a kid in his situation?
I believe that Canada is the big outputter of animation these days for the Americas–so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some good schools there. It might be worth looking, also, at DigiPen which might be better for 3D art and game animation.
Not certain about the US (…well DigiPen is in Seattle now), as I was concentrated on going to Japan to study.
Animators are in high demand. Besides being able to draw well, you also need to be ready to study things like how to create a room in 3-point perspective and place a character in that room. Or to watch how people and animals move and be able to decide how much you need to move all of the limbs per each frame to get the same motion.
So pretty much, any school for animation will probably be relatively easy to get into and–if you graduate–you will probably be guaranteed a job immediately at a game or animation studio (gaming might be more likely in the US.) The hard part for most is probably the sudden point where they realise that animating requires a lot of fore-planning and math or computer knowledge behind every picture you do (Hey now! None o’ that shootin from the hip stuff!) So for people who are used to a very abstract approach to art will be in for a bit of hard-ship. …Of course that’s why those who can do it well are in demand.
Well I’ll take adult to mean here “Something adults will like” as opposed to
But, it kind of depends on what you like. Where, in the US there’s Disney and everything animated is made for kids–so it’s just all fluff anyhow. But once you’re making stuff for adult minds–you’ve got horror films, romances, actions, Sci-Fi, comedies, and of course people doing the nasty.
A couple of good ones are:
Grave of the Fireflies - Anti-war film about two orphaned homeless children
Jin-Roh - Action/drama. presenting the life of a born-killer in a world losing the need for killers
Perfect Blue - Thriller. A young star starts losing her sanity as a stalker enters her daily life.
Akira - Sci-Fi romp. Mmmm, Sci-Fi Romp with lots of explosions and nifty-cool stuff…
Vampire Hunter D - Gothic Sci-Fi. Vampiric overlords are being hunted in a semi-futuristic world in a state of decay
So, don’t know what’s your style. But if any of those sounds interesting, I definitely recommend them.
I don’t mind mild hentai, but I did mean the other kind of adult. A couple of adult titles that I do like are:
Tokyo Godfathers
Cowboy Bebop
So I like humour, and a bit of social realism, but I don’t really like mecha and space ships unless they aren’t taken too seriously.
Giles, I think you and I could get along famously in the anime department. Tokyo Godfathers was great.
I dislike the same things you do, as well as the anime women who seem to hem and haw and make noises as if they are scared and timid constantly. Buck it up, girls!
No, doing porn isn’t what I personally am striving for. I meant adult-oriented as literally a film targetted towards an adult audience, not “adult films.”
I do think that one definition of being able to make movies targetted for adults is the option to make an R rated film. And while creating “Eyes Wide Shut the Animation” also isn’t real high on my list–some other person in the US may have some story that does require such a level of nudity, but also that can best be presented as animation. Seems silly that we should be ignoring a medium that is by definition only limited to the imaginations of the makers and limiting it to singing animals and children’s stories.
But no, no porn for me. Would be fun to come home and announce to my family though.
Thanks for clarifying. I was confused, because I think of most anime as being adult oriented, while people on the outside see it as kid’s stuff. The same problem that video games has. It is still viewed as kid stuff, when the average age is in the upper 20’s
I guess you already know how hard your path is going to be. I get the sense that even in Japan, pithy anime like the stuff that comes out of Studio Ghibli or by Satoshi Kon are the exception.
My dream is to see George R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice turned into a high production OAV. Full anime style character design and everything. Get working on that will you?
Well, on subject of western stories being turned into Anime, we have Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle., so there is hope yet for you.
P.S. I have no question for the O.P. Sorry, it just when I read the title, I figured we would be asking questions of a person pretending to be an average student in an anime series.
I think I just typed “animation school” into the Yahoo Japan site (though in Japanese.) From there, I just sent a letter to each of the places that came up and that I could otherwise find on the internet and that looked like good schools. In total I was able to finagle three of them to actually send their stuff to the US, and looking through the curriculum schedules and such, Yoyogi seemed to be the best for actually teaching people (though Amusement Media School seemed to have the better advertising department.)
Yoyogi was started in…Yoyogi, and that’s the one I am attending, but they now have something like ten different campusses about Japan (though primarily in the Tokyo and Osaka areas.) And there were definitely several other schools and some with multiple locations as well.
I went to college in Japan. Using much the same process, I found a school that was “international” and had classes in English and Japanese. Gotta love the internet.
Schooling and living expenses are about the same (though your living space is severely decreased.) So actually going to college here isn’t any more difficult than in the US once the school accepts you. Harder to visit home though.
But I have met many “halves” (in college and such) who are at least mostly fluent. I’m not certain if any of them have come here to learn animation–but with family here and being already fluent, it should be fairly possible for at least some percent of the American population to come over fairly easily.
He also did Perfect Blue–though seing Godfathers and Millenium, it might be that Perfect Blue is less his personal style. And I believe the second segment of Memories was his–though that’s really not his style.
On a side note–the guy who directed Utena and Sailor Moon (Ikuhara Kunihiko) is in LA studying how to make live action films. I’m quite anxious to see what he will produce (and where.)
If they released Oshii Mamoru’s Avalon there, it’s quite interesting to watch as almost all of the shots are done with a still camera and they reuse frames… Still a great film, but it was funny to see how much an effect animation directing had had when he moved to live.
“I like 'em big!”
