Yama-chan　山ちゃんのこと

By Hayao Miyazaki, Animation film director　アニメーション映画監督 宮崎駿

Among ourselves, we call Nizo Yamamoto by his nickname, "Yama-chan".

I first worked with Yama-chan on the animated TV series Future Boy Conan. It was my first time directing a project. At that time, the number of TV-anime produced rose drastically, causing a staff shortage in the animation industry. In Conan's case the production itself was really difficult.

Our team didn't even have a background art designer. I mean, we had one but our divergences of opinion were too stark, and I had him leave without thinking of the consequences. The production went on nonetheless. Although I now realise this was a decision lacking common sense, I had the background art staff draw without using any image board, simply explaining them my ideas orally instead.

We somehow managed to complete the backgrounds. The result wasn't just "not good enough": It was terrible, a complete and utter embarrassment.

The background art staff is not to blame for this. The responsibility lies with the one who had them drawing without any image board in the first place.

Being an animator, I do not know how to properly use poster paint. I tried to fix the drawings by myself anyway. As one could expect, I soon found myself in a deadlock.

Facing this very dire situation, I asked Kazue Ito, one of the art directors of the studio, for help. I strongly insisted and managed to borrow his assistant, Nizo Yamamoto, for "two or three days". Much to my delight Yama-chan joined us, and we took on together on the pile of background art left. We worked tirelessly, redrawing some backgrounds completely. adding details to others, painting cel backgrounds. 

 

Ultimately the initial "two or three days" became longer and longer, and, using every possible trick I had in my sleeve I managed to have Nizo Yamamoto stay until the end as the art director of the series. We have both come a long way working on Future Boy Conar

Yama-chan did a great work. At the time we were both young and brimming with ambition. Even when faced with a desperate situation, we did not give up.

Yama-chan, thank you for coming and helping me then.

I am so grateful to have met you. 

 

 

 

The Art of Nizo Yamamoto　山本二三さんの美術

By Isao Takahata (Animation film director)　アニメーション映画監督 高畑勲

Around last year's end. I took the opportunity to take a trip to Nara to visit Toshodai Temple. I was relieved to see that even after the major overhaul of the Heisei Era the Temple's large tiled roof and its beautiful curves still had this unique appeal, as if they were playing a subtle melody. Today's kilns allow craftsmen to fire tiles at an even temperature, which means that the roofs of private houses and cultural properties alike end up with a uniform shade, which may look nice but is also dull and insipid. This worried me a lot. At that point I remembered discussing tiled roofs with Nizo long ago, when we started working on the film adaptation of Downtown Story. We talked about how "in the old days each tile had a slightly different hue", how it "gave them more emphasis", how "each tile stood out more", among other things.

Nizo then put this in practice in the movie. I feel that at the time only a few productions put in so much detail in things such as tiles. What Nizo achieved in the art of Downtown Story was definitely out of the ordinary.

While being set in a really prosaic, day-to-day universe, Etsumi Haruki's manga still has some kind of fantasy in it. Not only regarding content, but also Etsumi's drawing style. Each character has a strong individuality and feels authentic, though without being "real". You can only see their faces from the side or the front. Similarly, the universe in which the characters live is thoroughly depicted, but in a simplified and cartoonish way, not in an overly realistic and "dirty" dramatic style. Etsumi Haruki's manga left a strong impression on me, and I wanted its characteristics to be left untouched in the animated adaptation. Regarding the characters only being drawn from the side or the front, it was possible to replicate it using blocking and character acting. 

 

What about the background art then? When Etsumi Haruki coloured his manga covers, he simply applied watercolour on the line art. Taking inspiration from there and using a watercolour-based technique for the animated version, letting in some blank spaces and appealing to the viewer's imagination sounded like a good idea to me. The original manga is well drawn, with enough information. However, it didn't really suit Nizo Yamamoto's distinctive style, and working on this project must have been somewhat frustrating for him, as Nizo always wants to bring the viewers to realistic universes.

 

So how should we depict Downtown Story's world in the movie? Nizo thought about it, and decided to perceive each element of the layout not as a "simplification" of reality, but as the very reality of Etsumi Haruki's world.

 

To this end he increased the level of detail while keeping the layout simple, and, as in the case of more "realistic" animation, gave a more delicate texture to the elements composing it. By doing so, you can recreate another "real" space, which isn't perfectly realistic but where a different feeling of "reality" manifests itself. Then you can increase sharpness and clarity by bringing the right amount of light to the image thus avoiding any oppressive atmosphere. The courtesy contained in Etsumi Haruki's drawings was clearly reflected in Nizo's artworks. Thus, the world of Downtown Story acquired more "reality", more substance, as a fantasy world.

 

Of course, Nizo Yamamoto made various experiments and attempts, but I think the one

 

thing he has always been consistent with is the way of thinking he has shown when

 

working on Downtown Story. His approach remains the same, whether the world depicted

 

in the production is a fantasy one or a realistic one. He puts his heart into giving a detailed

 

matter and substance to each and every object. Let's take a look at how amazing the

 

depictions of burned down areas in "Grave of the Fireflies" are. Even regarding parts that are in the shadows, Nizo feels the need to depict these with great detail, and does so by exposing them to a subtle light. The objects in Nizo Yamamoto's backgrounds are really assertive. Thus, Nizo's art often goes beyond the objective reality to recreate a second "reality" on screen. This second reality, though, is still a variety of fantasy. That's why Nizo Yamamoto's true worth appears clearly when he takes on realistic and true-to-life projects, such as Princess Mononoke's forest, that require drawing a considerable amount of details.

 

In Mamoru Hosoda's masterpiece, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Nizo Yamamoto's art is incredibly subtle and detailed. In every single frame, in every corner of every drawing, it seems like objects are looking in your direction. This goes well beyond simple photographic pictures and could be compared, so to speak, to high-definition television: the whole screen, the entire picture is being "self-assertive". This fantasy, this "second reality" transcends the ordinariness required in this production, to the point where it almost dwarfs the characters.

 

That may be the reason why Nizo's backgrounds were softened through computer editing in the final version of "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time". The editing blurred the background a bit to make the characters stand out a little more. The result came out as a great success when the movie was released. The strength and the precision of Nizo's background art and the "second reality" they created surely had a decisive role in this. However, was this editing the result of a collaboration between film director Hosoda and Nizo Yamamoto? Or did Nizo anticipate the computer editing when he drew his background art? Or maybe did he put too much effort in his background art for Hosoda's liking? I couldn't help feeling somewhat excited.

 

In the field of film soundtracks and video games background music, it is common to extract dense and rich music from an orchestra and edit it, control its volume to then use it as a soundtrack. As a result of the development of computer editing, the same kind of practice has now become commonplace in the world of animation art.

 

This recent trend of computer editing reminds me of a Japanese saying: "Art abides in a realm that is neither truth nor fiction" *

 

* Translation of a Japanese four-character compound by puppet theatre dramatist Monzaemon Chikamatsu,「虚実皮膜」(Kyojitsu-Himaku), literally translating as "there is only a thin membrane between truth and fiction"