Source: @Tencent Animation, Shilu World Wind Topic

Introduction: Swim against the current

Whatever happens, if you fall into a cycle of "fixed patterns", it will inevitably provoke a wave of resistance.

In the 60s, when Toei's artists were working diligently with full animation, Osamu Tezuka pioneered the system of TV animation with "inferior" low-count animation; In the 70s, when young radish slices were popular, Yuki Tomino awakened the enthusiasm of the elderly for animation with his almost neurotic thick stories; In the 80s, animation studios STUDIOZ5 fight back against the shoddy production of OVA with high-quality paintings; In the 90s, GAINAX used EVA to cut off the retro trend of the early Heisei ......

And this year, another animation that has a huge contrast with today's mainstream style has fallen from the sky, leaving animation lovers stunned and crazy likes. Why does this anime, called "Ping Pong", have so much magic? Let's start with Masaaki Yuasa, the animation director of "Ping Pong".

What is "Ping Pong"?

"Ping Pong" is a manga serialized by Taiyo Matsumoto in the weekly magazine BigCom Spirits from 1996 to 1997, and a single book is sold in 5 volumes. After the work was launched, it was not only well received by manga lovers, but also received high praise among some members of society, so much so that it attracted the attention of the film industry, and was adapted into a live-action movie five years after the end of the serialization.

Ping Pong is a classic manga that has been adapted into a live-action movie

The animation of "Ping Pong" is the first time in 12 years that the work has been presented in front of the audience in the form of "image". As for overseer, it was Masaaki Yuasa, who was known for his efforts to construct a "distorted fantasy-style world" with a rich personality.

This manga shows the manga artist Taiyo Matsumoto's consistent personality - an artistic style of painting, using a variety of bizarre perspectives to construct realistic worldly worlds, and using "sketch-style" jitter lines to express the characters. If it were left to an ordinary director, it would probably not be possible to restore these interesting details. Therefore, the compatibility between the director and the original author is an important issue.

"Ping Pong" is a realistic work, but it cannot be realistic through "accurate calculation" like "Ghost in the Shell: Innocence"; "Ping Pong" has exaggerated parts, but it can't be blindly exaggerated with wild and violent lines and colors like "Tianyuan Breakthrough". It is a difficult problem to better express the view of the world presented in the original work in a restrictive environment.

Is there a director in the industry who is familiar with this? When it comes to "constructing the world realm with a bizarre perspective", there is probably no one more suitable than Masaaki Yuasa. And Nobutaka Ito, who has been partnering with Masaaki Yuasa for a long time, is also an animator who is good at realistic style. It is very suitable for these two people to shape the world of "Ping Pong" together.

A history of the metamorphosis of a surreal genius

Just using the "distorted fantasy world" to explain Yuasa Masaaki's style seems somewhat pale. The world he created is by no means an unfounded fantasy, nor is it a cinematic reality, but a slightly wonderful pictorial space between the two. However, behind this "surreal fantasy kingdom", there is the blood of another genius in the industry. And the cooperation with him became a turning point in Masaaki Yuasa's transformation from a "funny animator" to a "surrealist genius".

☆ Stand at the end of the wave of real systems

Masaaki Yuasa entered the industry when he was a student and was influenced by Takashi Nakamura, a star animator at the time. After more than a year of animation experience, he started working on concept art.

Masaaki Yuasa, who has just worked in concept painting, does not highlight his style from the beginning like many talented animators. Compared to the absolute self-confidence of a genius, Yuasa seems to be working more with a sense of inferiority. For example, when Yuasa's work in "Cherry Maruko" and "Crayon Shin-chan" was well received by the audience at the time, he suddenly realized that "maybe my level is not very bad". Before that, Yuasa almost gave up the road of animation because of the reason that his work "makes less money and consumes his body".

At the end of the 80s, the wave of reality swept the entire animation industry. Super animator Utsunomiya Ri used the technique of full original painting for the first time in "Long Live the Ancestors" supervised by Mamoru Oshii, and quietly paved the way for the evolution of "real animation". In the early 90s, the retro trend suddenly rose, and young and comic animation became the mainstream. However, this does not prevent the quiet advancement of the process of three-dimensional and realism: Shinya Ohira's "Antique House" and Hashimoto Shinji's "Four and a Half Stacks of Crusoe" have given a great impact to the industry; The three gods of Production I.G, the core figure of Mamoru Oshii's design draft system, Satoshi Kon, also emerged at this time. At this time, Masaaki Yuasa was groping for his own style from the easy-to-move "outline animation" of "Crayon Shin-chan".

☆ The talent of the animator and the talent of the artist

In the limited TV anime, Yuasa learns and uses a "limited" animation method. Works like "Maruko" are more of a piece of paper-like movement, and they can't be related to "realism" in any case.

Yuasa's I-stream style practiced in the 92 Maruko theatrical version, and you can notice that the space and colors are very unique

I wonder if he felt the limits of "funny manga" performance, but in 1992's "Cherry Maruko Theater Version of My Favorite Song", Masaaki Yuasa began to experiment with experimental acting and painting. In this work interspersed with daily narratives and song MVs, he independently completed the painting and performance of the two MVs of "Buy Things" and "1969 のドラッグ?レース". In the short film, Masaaki Yuasa uses psychedelic colors to create a world that contrasts greatly with the style of the feature film, and gives people a strong visual impact through the abstraction of objects, the change of mixed colors, the unstable jitter lines, and the distorted background space. The exaggerated character movement also caters to the performance style and color design of the short film. This kind of experimental approach is not so much about showing the talent of an animator or director, but rather about the temperament of Yuasa—the temperament of whimsy, the temperament of art.

☆ The real is an opportunity to break out

Yuasa Masaaki's talent was discovered thanks to a man named Shinya Ohira. Although he was one year younger than Yuasa, he was labeled as a "genius original artist" early on. Shinya Ohira, who entered the industry, also drew a lot of things like "Tengen Breakthrough" at the earliest, but in the process of imitation, he gradually found his own style and changed his realistic style as an animator.

The encounter between Masaaki Yuasa and Shinya Ohira is not as romantic as imagined, and even seems a little hasty. One day, Shinya Ohira, whom he had never met, suddenly called and invited him to participate in the production of "The Legend of the Eight Dogs". The powerful animator in charge of the real OVA animation, actually called himself who made "Crayon Shin-chan"? Faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Yuasa finally decided to take the job.

In order to integrate into the working environment as soon as possible, he found Shinya Ohira's "Antique House" for appreciation. This work refreshes his view of the world. What unfolded before his eyes was a completely unknown world: a reality completely different from Ghibli's, outlined in dirty lines, a strange reality that would shock any animator.

"If I want to make realistic works, I want to do this" - after reading the work, Masaaki Yuasa let out such an exclamation. After possessing comic-style exaggerated acting skills, he chose to open up a more vivid and heavy path.

☆ The realm of genius

After joining the production team, Masaaki Yuasa realized that this job was not simple. The personal style of the storyboard is very prominent, and there are detailed instructions for the performance. Yuasa found that the original character design of the animation could not show the effect that Ohira wanted. As a painting supervisor, he suddenly had a premonition of a bitter battle.

To add insult to injury, the production company at the time also showed distrust of "Yuasa who made small balls". The inferiority complex from "funny animation" makes the burden on him heavier. Due to his lack of adaptation to the style of his work, Yuasa had to share his work with Shinya Ohira and Shinji Hashimoto. Even so, the pace of work is extremely slow.

However, this slow work process has become the most valuable experience of Yuasa's life. While he was under tremendous pressure, he tried to integrate into the unique world of Ohira Shinya. Those characters who seem to be demons and monsters, but in the strange lens space, in a deformed way of movement, convey the reality of the animation at every moment. Losing your center of gravity because of fear, twitching your muscles because of anger, and writhing your body involuntarily because of mental disorders...... For the real sense of details, Ohira Jin is also very persistent. This puzzled Masaaki Yuasa, who had been in the "limited animation" system for a long time, and also made him deeply realize that it is not enough to express the feelings of the characters by relying on emotion to complete exaggerated paintings.

☆ Legends

Masaaki Yuasa probably didn't expect such a strong work to make huge waves in the industry. "The Return of the Hama Road", the fourth episode of "The Legend of the Eight Dogs", is presented in front of people with a unique attitude that has broken away from the category of commercial animation. The most chaotic part of the real world is brought into the animation without reservation. Investors may scoff at such a work that does not show off, but for those who understand animation, this work is a supreme carnival, a wild realistic legend, and a classic that can go down in the history of animation.

"The Return of the Hama Road" has become a window for people to recognize Masaaki Yuasa, and it has also made Masaaki Yuasa suddenly upgrade from "an animator who does "Cherry Maruko" to "a representative of animators in the 90s". But just when people were looking forward to seeing that kind of "reality beyond the times" again, Masaaki Yuasa quietly stood in the ranks of directors with his "psychedelic style".

Ultra Style Practice! The road to "Ping Pong".

Masaaki Yuasa's talent in animation is not as close to absolute as some geniuses. And when it comes to the work of acting, he may not be as good as many people. But what Masaaki Yuasa has created is a unique artistic atmosphere, a kind of worldly view of the world that belongs to him, where clarity and psychedelic, exaggeration and reality coexist.

☆ Rhapsody Experiment Collective - "Mind Game"

In 2004, to everyone's surprise, Masaaki Yuasa, the animator who had been fighting on the front line of funny animation, attacked strongly as a director. "Mind Game", a little-known manga, helped Masaaki Yuasa become famous and won many awards.

Masaaki Yuasa chose this manga adaptation, somewhat of a taste of pursuing "de-commercialization" and free creation. Robin West's comics have always been experimental. And it turns out that Yuasa is interested in this kind of experimentation. In his works, Masaaki Yuasa boldly practices a variety of whimsical performance techniques. For example, cut out the faces of the characters in the photos and stick them directly on the faces of the corresponding animated characters, and draw the lines of the faces to make various "facial features"; Let the characters in a more realistic style carry out various "wild performances" to convey the feelings of the characters to the audience in an exaggerated form; Adjust the background color to render the atmosphere of the story and the picture, and manually "light" the scene where the character is located; The characters and spaces in the film are often stretched or distorted to create a comical look...... He tried every way he could think of a performance, keeping the audience glued to the screen, looking forward to the next show of "Yuasa Fantasy Show".

The picture exudes a strong atmosphere of "unclear and powerful", but attention is paid to the rendering of the atmosphere and the expression of emotions everywhere; The story shows a "sickness" beyond human comprehension, but the foreshadowing and the handling of the details are just right. After watching "Mind Game", people realized that the original rhapsodic "art" can also be so popular - this is probably the reason why they are "poisoned by "Mind Game". No matter how unfriendly it may seem, it's fun to be fun.

"Mind Game" labeled Yuasa's proof as rhapsody, but "rhapsody" was only a prologue to this wild recital.

The main colors of the different scenes in "Mind Game" are contrasting, and the chaotic lines highlight the instability of the space

☆ Intensifying - "Beast's Claw"

When everyone thought that Masaaki Yuasa would stick to the position of theater animation, Yuasa returned to the front of TV animation. In August 2006, "Claw of the Beast", a slightly bitter R-15 "violent horror love comedy", was presented in front of the audience.

"Claw" largely inherits the style of acting practiced in "Mind Game", such as drawing animated outlines of real-life fish. Compared with the human face, which does not have a strong sense of dynamics, this sense of incongruity between animation and real action can make people feel more visual impact. In this work, the space built by Yuasa can still only be described as bizarre. It's just that compared to the linear composition of "Mind Game", "Beast Claw" has more of a mixed material flavor in color. This subtle change is exactly the new visual experience that Masaaki Yuasa wants to bring to the audience.

If "Mind Game" is already the wildest line style in Japanese animation, then "Beast Claw" is wild enough to reach the world's top of the world. The opening animation clearly conveys this to the viewer – one is surprised to find that only indescribable black lines dance on the solid screen. This kind of super-style painting is not seen even in "Mind Game". In the feature film, this ugly hyper-realistic style is used to depict things that should be "beautiful and graceful" in people's impressions. For example, the tranquility of women, such as the union of men and women. Through this depiction, the viewer feels a fear of extrahuman creatures, rather than the beauty and elegance that women should have.

In addition to the inheritance and change of style, "Beast Claw" let the audience see Yuasa's side as a "story creator" for the first time. He is good at using joking lines to control emotions, and he is good at creating gaps with incoherent narratives. Moreover, there is a little romance in the brushstroke.

"Beast's Claw" introduces the prototype of the "Yuasa World Realm" that was practiced in "Mind Game" into the TV animation that has been restricted. In this way, I try to give full play to my personal style in a limited environment. At least at this point, Masaaki Yuasa achieved his goal.

☆ Comics, color blocks - "Seahorse"

"Claw of the Beast" is undoubtedly a refreshing attempt, but it is a painful experience for investors. Masaaki Yuasa also knew that it would be difficult to achieve commercial success without striking a balance between market tastes and personal style. But he doesn't intend to compromise with reality in his bones. So, he began to try to change in a different way.

After more than a year of silence, in April 2008, the sci-fi fairy tale "Seahorse" began to be broadcast in the late night slot of WOWOW. This work, which is very similar to Osamu Tezuka's manga in terms of both the characters and the world, invites big-name voice actors such as Noriko Kuwashima, Mamiko Noto, and Park Lumi to join - not only to change the style, but also to create gimmicks. However, all this did not finally change the fate of "Seahorse". Although he won the Excellence Award in the animation category of the 12th Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan, DVD sales were still dismal.

Compared with the "challenge to the limit" of "Beast's Claw", "Seahorse" is more down-to-earth. The simple and sleek lines highlight the art style of the whole work, projecting the colors of a fairy tale atlas into the eyes of the audience. This is not a work that seeks to find a breakthrough in the way of animation, but a work that conveys the message of the story to the audience through the visual effects of composition and color.

The story style of this film is close to the "fairy tale of memory", the narrative is slow throughout, and the characters' emotions are relatively low. Therefore, in the treatment of colors, cold colors are the mainstay. There are no fierce conflicts, no surging emotions, and the space is relatively stable. It is true that "memory" involves the spiritual world of human beings, and it is inevitable that there will be abstract parts, so abstract techniques are occasionally used in expression. But whether it's lines or colors, Seahorse doesn't look cluttered. This can be said to be completely different from Masaaki Yuasa's previous two works.

However, this does not mean that the "Yuasa element" has completely disappeared from the work "Seahorse". We can still find the dynamics of the characters that are distorted into a space like a mirror and swaying like Chaplin. Discovering Masaaki Yuasa's style in a work called "Osamu Tezuka-style" is as if seeing Mr. Osamu Tezuka and Masaaki Yuasa on the same stage and achieving a dreamy co-performance, which makes people feel even more intimate.

☆ Sorting and Refining - "Four Stacks and a Half Mythological Series"

After experiencing the wildness of "Beast's Claw" and the changes of "Seahorse", Yuasa began to sort out the fragments of the past, splicing and beautifying them. These inconspicuous details were most gorgeously transformed into Yuasa's masterpiece - "Four and a Half Myths".

If Shinya Ohira's blood gave Yuasa his initial wildness, then Tomihiko Morimi gave Yuasa a "psychedelia" that really suited him. crazy and grotesque, but with a sense of humanity; Laughing and scolding, but with a hint of magic. From the fantasy of the spiritual world to the reality of the four-and-a-half huts, he has not lost the romance that only belongs to the fantasy world. Yuasa's technique is integrated with Morimi's original system, and it is natural.

"Four and a Half Stacks" tells a somewhat neurotic story of youth. In order to embody this neuroticism, Yuasa's royal servant, Nobutaka Ito, put a lot of thought into the design of the character. On the basis of the realistic style, a comic-style exaggeration is carried out. The protagonist's dramatic eyebrows, Ozu's monster-like face, and Master Higuchi's huge spherical chin are all on the curtain in a few strokes.

"Four Stacks and a Half Mythological Series" perfectly inherits Yuasa's perspective and tonal sense, and the contrast between realism and fantasy style is strong

There are linear sketches, and there are also eerie colors; There are distorted realities, and there are natural fantasies. Masaaki Yuasa makes full use of the practical results of the previous works and shocks people through wonderful combinations. In this way, an unusual Kyoto stage and an unusual story of youth are displayed in front of people.

Masaaki Yuasa's performance style, although it has maintained a unity of the whole for a long time, is constantly developing and changing. From the early blind wildness, to the search for change, to integration and precipitation. We discover that Masaaki Yuasa is no longer an unruly prodigal son, but a multi-talented craftsman. This sleek and mature has created today's fantasy ** "Ping Pong".

Incredible ping-pong

☆ Shaking lines, wonderful table tennis world

When I saw "Ping Pong" for the first time, it is estimated that many people will notice the characteristic jitter lines. Some people will even release Kong's special period-style mockery: "What is this? What about children's graffiti? However, the world world constructed by this "primary school line" has made many people immersed in it and unable to extricate themselves. What's going on here?

The answer is actually quite simple - such lines are not "schoolboy lines". This line is used, first of all, as a tribute to the original. Matsumoto Taiyo's original manga is originally composed of small curves, and the style is unique. Secondly, this kind of line that looks like graffiti is not low in technical content. Instead of straight lines, use curves of ballpoint strokes when modeling your character. While stylized, it greatly increases the difficulty of accurate styling. It can be said that a painter who does not have a certain skill cannot control this style at all. The painting supervisor of this work, Nobutaka Ito, I don't know how much time it took to revise the original painting of the newcomer. This is not only not a child's graffiti, but also a high-level skill.

And because of the use of such lines, the dynamics and space of the characters in "Ping Pong" have become extremely strange. The silhouette of the character is no longer rigid and stable, as if it is given the freedom of expression by the lines. And the jitter lines of the background seem to blend into the whole distorted background. All exaggeration and distortion look so natural, so "real".

Take the battle scene between Ah Bian and the fat man in the Tamura Table Tennis Hall in the first episode as an example. In order to express the sense of speed of table tennis, the ball is "deformed"; Through "deformation", Ah Bian looks swaying, thus showing Ah Bian's self-defeating mentality; When pumping the ball, Ah Bian's hand was "deformed", showing the strength of the ball, as if he was slapping the fat man's face. If you use ordinary lines to express this paragraph, it will seem too regular and too stiff. And the existence of the jitter line just makes people feel the fun of ping pong.

☆ The focus is not on painting, but on the atmosphere

Although the jitter lines may seem imaginative when moving, they also limit the dynamic talents of newcomers, thus greatly weakening the feasibility of dynamic painting. We soon found out that the pulling ball in Kong's special period was completely a piece of paper sliding on the screen, and Xiao Ye's chopping ball did not move all over his body except for his wrist, and the sense of speed that table tennis should have was gone.

What makes up for this is Yuasa's performance skills. After reading the first episode, many people reported that "Kong Ye is so handsome when he plays". Is it really because he moves too well and gives people the impression of "handsome"?

You can imagine that if you just give a frontal shot of a hole standing in place during a special period, no matter how handsome the painting is, the action itself will look relatively monotonous. And what adds color to this action is Yuasa's "performance magic".

We can briefly analyze this lens. At the moment when Kong Ye served, the lens gave an elevation angle slightly. This kind of lens will make the person look taller and stronger. Then swing the beat, the urgency here is obvious, and we can remember this rhythm for a while. Then, the ball bounces off the table and flies up, and the camera moves back. You can carefully experience the rhythm of this pinball and the camera movement, and you will find that it basically matches the rhythm of the swing racket. The longer the time the ball flies in the air will give people a sense of "floating". This creates a rhythmic aesthetic as a whole.

However, even if the ball is stuck in the air, it needs to move forward at a certain speed to maintain the overall movement of the picture. In this case, the creation of a sense of distance is very important. Because of the existence of distance, the process of ball flight is more convincing. Yuasa's finishing touch here is to stretch the table exaggeratedly and objectively create a "distance". Of course, as a reference for the flight of the ball, the original artist did not forget to put the acceleration line on the table. In this way, the information that the audience gets from the picture is: 1. Confucius is very strong; 2. Kong Ye's movements are very powerful, and the ball is fast, floating, and turning. As a result, the overall perception of "Confucius is very handsome" was obtained.

Through the above analysis, we can see that an ordinary serving action, after Yuasa's lens interpretation, does become more attractive.

In addition to adjusting the angle and space of the camera, Yuasa uses a storyboard-like approach to some scenes. He divides the picture into equal parts, representing the flow of time in a right-to-left order. Or cut the screen into small pieces to represent the status of different characters at the same time.

This kind of performance technique is very ingenious, on the one hand, it brings in the atmosphere of the original work, and the original party has a blue sky on its head; On the other hand, it saves money and labor, and there is no need to draw transitional movements.

The existence of the jitter line just makes people feel the fun of ping pong

In addition, while the design style and performance are restored, Yuasa also deliberately added some descriptions that were not in the original work, such as "The Hero in the Heart of Xiaoye" and "Summer in the Heart of Egami", which also made the image of the character fuller. Even if it's just a passerby who leaves the stage immediately after debuting, he has his own youth.

☆ Authentic Chinese voice actors! The important and true part

"Fierce bulls, in my bed, lots and lots of fierce bulls." - I believe many people still remember the joke of Xie Er's bed of fierce bull in "The Big Bang Theory". But in fact, most of the Chinese dubbing in Japanese animation is also half a pound and two with Xie Er. In "Full Metal Mania" and "Empty Can Girl", the Japanese voice actors read "Chinese that Chinese do not understand". And although "Moe Learning" invited Chinese dubbing, it is a stick reading with no acting skills.

"Is it so difficult to find a serious Chinese dubbing?" Before the broadcast of "Ping Pong", everyone took it for granted that the dubbing of Kong's special period would definitely use Japanese.

However, the supervision of Masaaki Yuasa presented a huge surprise to the audience, especially the Chinese audience. The two voice actors invited by "Ping Pong" are Mr. Wen Yexing, a Chinese voice actor in Japan, and Mr. Cheng Bo, a veteran voice actor of Liaoyi. As soon as Chrysostom opened, the skills were shocking. For a while, "your backhand is not fine, and your forehand is weak" has become a popular buzzword on the Internet.

If you want to show a down-to-earth sense of reality in your work, details are often the most important. Superintendent Yuasa obviously noticed this, so he made the effort to invite a professional Chinese voice actor. It not only increases the persuasiveness of "the character is Chinese", but also closes the distance with the Chinese audience. "It's comfortable to listen to", you say it can't be hot?

☆ The youth of the big open and close

"Ping Pong" is a story about youth. In this day and age, cookie-cutter youth is no longer so valuable. But Masaaki Yuasa uses his unique lens language and delicate context to make the tired and bitter youth unique.

We can taste the delicate inner activities of Xiao Ye in the exaggerated deformation, and we can also pay attention to the twitching muscles at the corners of Kong Ye's mouth between the plain words; You can follow Axue to calmly open the album of memories when you are angry, or you can insert Kazama's "toilet rhapsody" when you are indifferent. Such freedom, no matter in which youth story, is not available.

Perhaps every period of youth is unique, but it is not tolerated and expressed. And Masaaki Yuasa's "Ping Pong" gives youth the strength to devour everything.

Epilogue to make the animation more interesting

As soon as "Ping Pong" came out, Masaaki Yuasa, who insisted on freedom and dared to resist, was once again pushed to the altar. However, Yuasa is not a god, he does not have a top-notch dynamic talent, nor does he have an absolute performance skill. What he has is imagination and feeling, uninhibited and yearning for freedom beyond ordinary people. He can't make the animation system more perfect, he can't make the "calculation" of animation more accurate, he is not someone who can change the entire animation industry, but he is the one who can make animation more interesting. That's why the youth story of Ah Bian and Xiaoye is so interesting, and "Ping Pong" is so interesting.