Paint Drying

Paint Drying

I have heard it mentioned several times recently, and it is a sentiment I too have thought for a long time now, that despite very different styles and dissimilar themes in places, Naoko Yamada is the unofficial "heir" of sorts to Isao Takahata. Though Takahata is no doubt the only Isao Takahata, and Yamada no doubt the only Naoko Yamada, don't get me wrong.

This notion may sound odd to some, but both directors are realists of sorts that yet utilise animation as a lens to escape the constraints of being fully "real", allowing more abstract and metaphorical moments to take centre stage when necessary.

Isao Takahata cares massively for realistic movement with his slower "observational" approach to cinematography, but he is very much unafraid to exaggerate movement and character designs as fits the scene or film (My Neighbours the Yamadas), and will descend into whimsical visuals that are more metaphorical in nature. Some examples include the flying scene in Only Yesterday and that film's background and colour variations between memories and reality, as well as the phrenetic running scene in the Tale of Princess Kaguya.

Naoko Yamada similarly depicts movement with the utmost care, again including exaggerated ones like in the comedic K-On! and Tamako's run in Tamako Love Story. However, unlike Takahata who takes a less stylised and slower (editing and composition wise) observational approach to movement, Yamada often focuses in on emotions, senses, and body language, not to exaggerate or craft melodrama, but to honestly get to the core of the feelings and represent the tangibility of senses with her compositions and rhythmically purposeful editing quirks. She crafts a flow of additive sensory experiences. Mono no Aware and fleetingness.

Yamada, similarly to Takahata, is also unafraid of breaking out of a general feel of "realism", outside of her most obvious body language stylisations, which are actually realist still in my eyes (it accentuates, honestly, but does not too often warp beyond comedy moments and where else fitting). Her flower language, use of butterflies and birds, common tendency to use onscreen text in places, and crafting of colour tones. Moreover, she utilises other visual metaphors, such as the two colours merging in Liz and the Blue Bird, the background becoming a multicoloured palette in Tamako Love Story's run, and the contrails in K-On! The Movie. Also I have to mention the two birds flying scene in Liz and the Blue Bird, where they sway apart and together. The scene shows (to an extent) both her sense of realism in movement, yet care for expressive visual metaphors. It also illustrates she is not limited to "fast" editing. She has her style, I adore it, but commendable malleability, shown also by her switching between moe and tender realism, and more recently through Heike Story.

To summarise, both are arguably realist through extreme focus on careful body language and ultimately down to earth stories and emotional cores yet also embrace cartoony movements, despite their different lenses/ styles to express. Additionally, both are no doubt less "realist" when it calls for it, through breaking away into the more commonly cited strength of animation, visual stylisation and visual metaphors. They can both craft a fantastic sense of "mono no aware" at times too.

Visual stylisation, visual metaphors, and abstraction are commonly seen as animation's real strength. However, realism in movement, stories and approach is also a clear strength of animation, and arguably just as much of one, in my eyes. There is a profoundness to seeing something real recreated through drawn art, a sense of honesty and empathy, yet also the simplified nature of a lot of animation (detail and linework wise) allows these movements and emotions to feel distilled to their very essence. Unfiltered to an extent. Recalling something, thus creating a personal touch. Takahata said something along the lines of "to recall the reality within the drawings, rather than thinking the drawings themselves are real", as well as "anime captures what we do, and reflects more solid reality than how they actually are". I think both directors utilise these ideas masterfully.

Takahata and Yamada understand both strengths of animation. They show us the real that is there and physically tangible, yet also use animation to show us internal emotions, which are just as real to those feeling them.

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