Month: January 2022

Topic: How Shin’ichiro Watanabe makes animation with multiculturalism ———The Case of <Cowboy Bebop> and <Samurai Champloo>

Audio-visual presentation:

Presentation Powerpoint

Research topics:

1. How Japanese animation has been impacted by foreign cultures (analysis of Watanabe Shin’ichirō’s trilogy as an example) (mainly Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop )
2. An analysis of why the Joker is held in high esteem as a villainous character

• Areas for research.

I will focus on how Watanabe Shin’ichirō blends the different cultural traits of East and West into his own unique style of animation creation.

• How this relates to design for animation.

Analysing the film and visual style of such a distinctive animation director could help to provide creators with ideas for their own productions.

• Things to look out for and what to pay close attention to

I will probably devote some content to the period in which he created his works, and then analyse some of his scripts and animation techniques in terms of film language.

• Narrative structure

What I think is most worth analysing about his narrative is how he uses stories of Eastern philosophical thinking to reflect traditional Western values. (Like Feminism, Liberalism)

• Use of film language in research

One of the most rewarding aspects of his creation is his blend of movement and background music, which often makes the character’s fighting movements as graceful as dance and his choice of background music is very reminiscent of the character’s state of being.