Review of Stevie Suan. Anime’s Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan. United States, University of Minnesota Press, 2021. Traditional scholarship on anime has left the identity of the media form as de facto Japanese, reducing a global industrial network into…
In 1910, Congregation minister Herbert Jump published his Religious Possibilities of the Motion Picture, preaching boldly for producing short visual parables that could teach faith and ethics. Throughout the 20th century, numerous animated films sought to inculcate viewers in matters…
In China, the most-watched TV news program, News Simulcast (Xinwen Lianbo), usually ends with another daily show, the Weather Report (Tianqi Yubao). Launched in 1980, Tianqi Yubao is co-produced by CCTV and the National Meteorological Center (CMN, 2020). The broadcaster,…
When it comes to useful animation, many think of standard examples, such as motion graphics used in advertising or documentaries. However, useful films are any piece that is “made to sell, promote, or to teach” (Petter 2019, 74). While many…
We all know that animation has commonly been used to bring products to life, create dynamic visual aids for educational films, or provide a stimulus or communication tool for scientific experiments. Yet, in scholarly efforts to elevate animation as art…
In this post, I illustrate how the early Chinese ink painting animation showed oriental aesthetics, conveying implicit and meaningful emotions. It was closely related to the traditional Chinese ink painting and reflected the unique philosophical concept of the Chinese ancients:…
Review of Jez Stewart, The Story of British Animation, London: British Film Institute, Bloomsbury, 2021. Jez Stewart’s role as a curator at the BFI National Archive positions him well as author of this detailed history of British animation. The book…
While the theme ‘violence in animation’ might mostly be associated with indestructible cartoon characters, here I reflect upon the capacity of non-figurative animation to directly assail the senses. Can abstraction be as effective as figurative art in communicating issues of…
The episode of the Netflix anthology series Love, Death, and Robots (2019-2021) titled “Snow in the Desert” follows a white-haired, middle-aged man named Snow as he traverses a dangerous alien landscape, pursued by human and alien bounty hunters. In a…
Violence and animation have a long-established bond. Through Tom and Jerry (1940-1958) and Looney Tunes (1930-1969), animated violence has developed a reputation as a comedic tool, but is also a common subject for animated documentaries with a serious ‘truth-telling’ agenda.…
