Picked up a disk called The Astonishing Work of Tezuka Osamu, a collection of short (i.e., ranging in length from 13 seconds to 39 minutes) animated pieces by the good doctor, from 1962 to 1988. The pieces are, as follows:
1)Tales of the Street Corner (1962)
2)Male (1962)
3)Memory (1964)
4)Mermaid (1964)
5)TheDrop (1964)
6)Pictures at an Exhibition (1966)
7)The Genesis (1968)
8)Jumping (1984)
9)Broken Down Film (1985)
10)Push (1987)
11)Muramasa (1987)
12)Legend of the Forest (1987)
13)Self Portrait (1988)
What's interesting to me is the wide variety of styles used in these. almost none of it looks like what you would call "Tezuka-esque". Instead, some of it seems very much like some types of European animation I've seen, one (The Drop) seems almost like a Pink Panther cartoon and one (Broken Down Film) is strongly reminiscent of Duck Amuck. Much of these contain common Tezuka themes - anti-war, anti pollutuion, and so on. There's also humorous takes on the relationship between the sexes, and some of it is out-and-out surreal.
I found Tales of the Street Corner particularly interesting - it's a look at the inhabitants of a street corner - human, animal. insect, even the images of wall posters - in a town on the verge of war.
I begin to see why Tezuka had such an impact on the history of animation in Japan.
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Been watching a four-disk set called Japanese Anime Classic Collection.. Each set contains about a dozen or so cartoons, ranging from about 1928-1950. Mostly they are re-tellings of Japanese mythology - stories of heroes like Momotaro and Danemon, sonme funny-animal stuff, and so on. The animation quality is fairly poor - to an extent because the originals aren't well-preserved, but also the quality of the animation never seems to go beyond that of the earliest Disney stuff - there's no threats to the Warners or the Fleischers here.
There's not much stuff from the wat years here, and what there is, isn't especially jingoistic. The one recurring military character is Norakuro of the Fierce Dogs Brigade - he appears in three cartoons, moving up in rank from a private, 2nd class, to a corporal to a 2nd lieutenant - but there's no overt America-bashing in any of it.
Each disk includes a sample of a kamishibai - these are traveling storytellers who used a sort of proto-slide show to tell an episode of an ongoing story - super-hero, sci-fi, humor and so on - selling candy to the kids that would come to see the show.
I found it interesting - as someone who's particularly interested in Japanese pop culture, I recommend it.
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There's not much stuff from the wat years here, and what there is, isn't especially jingoistic. The one recurring military character is Norakuro of the Fierce Dogs Brigade - he appears in three cartoons, moving up in rank from a private, 2nd class, to a corporal to a 2nd lieutenant - but there's no overt America-bashing in any of it.
Each disk includes a sample of a kamishibai - these are traveling storytellers who used a sort of proto-slide show to tell an episode of an ongoing story - super-hero, sci-fi, humor and so on - selling candy to the kids that would come to see the show.
I found it interesting - as someone who's particularly interested in Japanese pop culture, I recommend it.