Usually, Disney villains are popular and profitable. Characters such as the Evil Queen (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, 1937), Jafar (Aladdin, 1991), and Ursula (The Little Mermaid, 1989) are showcased in theme park attractions, clothing lines, and even have…
It is well-known that a major source of inspiration for Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee’s Frozen (2013) was Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen (1844). Buck and Lee follow the Danish writer’s story by building the feature’s plot…
I have seen Frozen II (2019) twice now. I think it is pretty great, yet, I have been quite disappointed in the number of bad takes on the film. Many critics have pegged the film as a retread of Frozen…
Review of Caroline Ruddell and Paul Ward (eds.). The Crafty Animator: Handmade, Craft-Based Animation and Cultural Value. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. The Crafty Animator: Handmade, Craft-based Animation and Cultural Value is a coherent collection of essays centered around the production of…
Almost forty years after the spectacle-driven dance concert debuted in London, and almost six weeks after this blog post was written, the film adaptation CATS (2019, dir. Tom Hooper) will be released in theaters. The tagline “You Will Believe” would…
At the time this is published, Persona 5 Royal (Persona 5: The Royal in Japan), an updated version of the smash-hit Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) phenomenon Persona 5 (2016), will have just released in Japan on the PlayStation 4. The…
Japanese cinema and television shows are filled with ‘healing’ (iyashikei) images of cats. Cat actors in these live-action shows and films frequently adorn narratives that allow viewers to consume their kittenish cuteness, their languid decorativeness, or their playful viciousness for…
The work of manga artist Nekojiru is distinctive for two key characteristics: short stories that contrast cuteness with cruelty, and the use of anthropomorphized cats as protagonists. This includes her autobiographical works, Jirujiru Ryokouki (Jirujiru Travelogue) and Jirujiru Nikki (Jirujiru…
Cats have long been part of the lives and imaginations of humans. Egyptians worshiped the cat goddess Bastet, Persians feared these animals as potentially evil, Chinese aristocrats prized them for their rarity, American Puritans associated them with witchcraft, while the…
“In creating new characters for our cartoon films, one of our main sources of inspiration has been the world of animals. And we’ve always been very much impressed with the cat family. This group of carnivora includes more than forty…
