Yuki Tomino: The reality of an overly hasty fictional world

Translation: Popular Air Friend \ Radissy

Editor's Note: Tomino's sentimental article in the Sunday Daily Supplement in 1995 can be eaten in conjunction with Tomino's Tomino Theory by Toshihiro Uno or Kunihiko Kihara's "Penguin Jar of Turns" in response to the Aum cult that shocked Japanese society

Irrelevant illustrations

While watching the reports on the Aum incident, I always experienced the anxiety of not being able to explain the reason.

And this reason, at a certain date, finally became clear. I noticed that the process by which Aum's actions were transformed into malice, or the context in which his malicious mode of existence was born, was there also animation included in it?

"Isn't Aum's organizational activity a realistic way of putting into practice the doctrines, norms of action, and other things that we have made up in order to create hostile characters in robot animation?" Such a touch caused me to be anxious. I harbored an indescribable sense of anxiety.

As a provider of animation software, when there is no Yu Yu to make up the fiction neatly, and when it is too eager to be realistic, I have a feeling that I can't help but see the process of the work becoming more and more rough in their figures, and I will "Ah——! He cried out in a pinch.

Becoming more and more coarse, it is about the lack of consciousness of beauty, or the process of loss. But if you think about it, this kind of thing is not something that only Ohm can see.

The reality of fictional haste can also be seen in example how the attitudes of Japanese animation audiences have changed so far.

After the war, before the TV animation stabilized, all the objects such as animation and manga were nothing more than children's toys. These things will be abandoned around the time of elementary school and forcibly transferred to the position of Iwanami Bunko.

This situation lasted for some time even after the start of the TV animation, and in the time of "Little Flying Dragon" (72 years), the times clearly changed. For the first time, the audience opened a fan club. Moreover, this did not happen overnight, and continued after the TV show was broadcast. The club manifested itself in a more prominent form, and sure enough, in "Leiting the Brave" ('75), which appeared on the robot in SF's work, turned out to be this: Our studio came to the younger fans and said, "If there is a celluloid drawing board, can you give me some?" ”

Although I was still thinking about what this kind of waste thing was going to do, I learned in hindsight that it was actually an extraordinary turning point in the times, which meant that fans were the first to develop a psychology of collecting celluloid.

Four years later, Mobile Suit Gundam began airing. At that time, even if "Letin" has been broadcast, for example, half a year has passed, as long as the fan club activities are held, it will always gather more than a thousand people.

Until then, I felt like it was just a weekly cycle, making "disposable" works that were thrown away as soon as the playback was over. But at the time,

"Animation production, which has dragged on for so long, has become completely different from the past." Television animation is no longer a thing that is worn out and lost. ”

In my memory, I should have been scared and blue.

The next time the fans change, it should be around 81 to 82 years, right? Because that's when the robot genre was produced in large quantities, and there was a significant expansion of the market for groups such as Anime Freak and Mecha Freak and plastic models. Even the "hand-made" thing that directly modeled the characters in the animation came out.

I couldn't help but think, "Celluloid and characters, you can't love it to this point." Why not look out the outside world? Where is the beauty of the handmade that copies the image of the animated celluloid——""

Crucially, there is the question of beauty consciousness. Among them, the emphasis is especially on visual beauty awareness.

Is this part also inseparable from the problem point of adult society that sm magazines and general books are sold in Japanese bookstores, as the saying goes, in adult society? This means that in the 50 years after the war (45-95), in the era of emphasizing economic reconstruction, something incomparably heavy was gradually missing from the Japanese.

It is precisely the problem of aesthetic consciousness that is closely related to the theory of culture, folklore, and customs. I might even wonder if this is enough to demonstrate to universal customs the power of norms, to allow the influence to affect parts of the question, such as ethics and morality. The so-called morality that supports the consciousness of beauty should exist.

In the 50 years after the war, did the Japanese accumulate a history of abandoning it?

The Japanese talk about image culture or visual culture, but in terms of their artistry, I am afraid that they have not been able to make any serious cultural theory and art theory.

Looking at the images of the facilities and other facilities in Jokuishe Village [Aum Stronghold], it seems that there are various buildings such as the living area of ordinary believers or the chemical laboratory building, but I really can't think that the form (appearance) of the service for the purpose is considered. The visual signs that should be attractive to believers are too poor. I wondered to myself:

"There will be Japanese people who have forgotten the habit of cleanliness and self-improvement." In terms of the five senses, is it possible to win believers at such a low level? ”

But criticizing them and the animation audience like this is certainly a question of returning to our soft material providers. While I was amazed by the image of Shangjiuyi Color Village, I also felt a sense of anxiety driven by it - "Does my own work have to be denied?"

When we were also making TV animations, we always spread vulgar paintings through television. We failed to show the children real images, real human figures (carvings).

I think, are we harming the beauty consciousness of anime fans also missing? At the same time, if enough young people to become believers have appeared through such a poor facility of visual experience, are we also accomplices in this matter?

Remorseful, we were unable to tell these young people that even the worship did not care about signs, that it would be nice to hear things like the sounds and music that fascinated us, and that it would be nice to order something else.

This, I think, for people in the video media industry, needs to bow down in awe and think twice.

How much care have we, those of us, put into Japanese society with care about the mechanisms that visual culture originally had?

In this regard, under the convocation of such a visual sign, the young people have made such a move, and this phenomenon contains quite deep problems.

As I understand it, the events in Aum are throwing us these questions.