| Akio Takami has moved up through the ranks of the animation industry.
He's been a key animator and character designer for several show, and most
recently designed the character and directed the animation for Steam Detectives
(the manga's creator, Kia Asamiya, asked Takami to work on the anime version).
With all of that experience, does Takami want to take the next step up
in the ranks and become a director? Not really, because "When you direct,
you can't draw," Takami said. He'd rather draw his own manga than become
a director. |
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| Working as an animation director already is enough work, he said -
sometimes more work than being the director. While an anime director serves
as a project coordinator, the animation director actually supervises the
creation of the film we seen on screen. That means getting all of the character
movements just right so the action is convincing. |
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| According to Takami, mecha are harder to animate than people. "I have
to make something that does not exist look as if it does exist. With normal
characters I can act it out myself." Like many American animators, Takami
does have a mirror at his drawing table. He uses it to serve as his own
model for many of his drawings - even for female characters! |
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| One of the big attractions that anime has for American fans is its
cinematic movement. The "camera's" point of view is not fixed, but swings,
shifts and flies to complement the action on screen. That style is something
that's developed in the last 15 years. "Over the years, those who have
looked up to artists who could create that cinematic feel have come to
do it themselves. Now there are many people who do this in the industry,"
Takami said. While the trend toward imaginative, realistic action is welcome
in most anime, Takami thinks it's going too far when children's shows are
done that way. |
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