• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.31
• /
• pp.117-152
• /
• 2013

is a comics that the original Yoshokawa Eiji's novel . Since the series started in 1998, it's epic that records the 54 million or more copies of the cumulative sales volume to 1.7 million unit volume average in the book, 34 are currently up to volume has been published. proceeds with narratives in a way of following naturally the personality of a character based on the rule of an author, which is 'people should be described as what they are'. Accordingly it features very unique characterizing. This study focused on the fact that numerous characters in maintain a structural balance through the establishment of a character composition in an antipodal relationship although those characters have strong personalities. In order to analyze the relationship of such characters, the study utilized as an analytic frame MBTI personality types theory which is a psychology test tool. First, the study inferred personality patterns as the temperamental characteristics of MBTI, and tried to analyze the antipodal character composition based on the combination of cognition and judgment which are assumably the most important functions. From this, the study was able to discover the following three structures applied to those characters. (1) The antipodism between Musasi, the main character and Kojiro, a mirror character becomes central to the work, (2) The antipodal relationship between their fosterers and the character playing the mentor's role extends the character attribute of Musasi and Kojiro. (3) The Yoshioka family was also established in the antipodal composition as a role of exchanging influences with Musasi and Kojiro. Through this, the study reached a conclusion that in the pairs of characters in contrast were established as if to reach a dialectic synthesis. As such, the antipodal structuralization of the character composition shown in is deemed to differentiate the inner sides of numerous unique characters; thereby make it possible to describe their inner sides in-depth. Finally, the following common context is found: works in the field of successful comics and animation in terms of criticism and performance are focused on characters. It is probably because their consumers are relatively very interested in those characters as the characters in comics or animation become differentiated from those of novels or movies. Subsequently, it is expected that the analyzed results of characterizing can be referred to during the production of contents by preparing the results as database.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.50
• /
• pp.75-99
• /
• 2018

Makoto Shinkai, an animated film maker in Japan, has been featured as a one-person production system and as a 'writer of light', but his 2016 release of "Your Name" was a departure from the elements that characterize his existing works. At the same time, by the combination of the traditional musubi(むすび) story, ending these, it was a big hit due to its rich narratives and attraction of open interpretation possibility. As it can be guessed from the title of this work, this work shows the encounter between the Japanese ancient language and the modern language in relation to the 'name', and presents the image that the role of the name(language) is repeatedly emphasized with various variations in events for the perfect 'encounter'. In this work, the interpretations of $Signifi\acute{e}$ for characters and objects are extended and reserved as a metaphorical role of the similarity, depending on the meaning of the subject which they touch. The relationship between words and objects analyzed through the structure of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ is an epoch-making ideological discovery of modern times revealed through F. Saussure. Focusing on "the difference" between being this and that from the notion of Saussure, Derrida dismissed logocentrism, rationalism that fully obeyed the order of Logos. Likewise, dismissing the center, or dismissing the owner had emerged after the exclusive and closed principle of metaphysics in the west was dismissed. Derrida's definition of 'deconstruction' is a philosophical strategy that starts with the insight on the nature of language. 'Dissemination,' a metaphor that he used as a methodological concept to read texts acts as interpretation and practice (or play), but does not pursue an ultimate interpretation. His 'undecidability' does not start with infinity, but ends with infinity. The researcher testifies himself and identifies that we can't be an interpreter of the world because we, as a human are not the subject of language but a user. Derrida also interpreted the world of things composed of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ as open texts. In this respect, this study aimed to read Makoto's works telling about the meeting of a thing and a thing with name as a guide, based on Derrida's frame of 'deconstruction' and 'dissemination.' This study intends to re-consider which relationship the Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ have with human beings who live in modern times, examine the relationship between words and objects presented in this work through Jacques Derrida's destruction and dissemination concepts, and recognize that we are merely a part of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$. Just as Taki and Mitsuha confirm the existence by asking each other, we are in the world of things, expecting musubi that a world of names calls me.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.26
• /
• pp.1-30
• /
• 2012

The purpose of animation is to give interesting stories to an audience through motion. To achieve the purpose, over the past century since its inception, animation has adopted many kinds of technologies, and thus developed diverse narrative methods and visual expression techniques. In addition, with the advancement of expression techniques, all elements making up animation have gradually been systemized, and at the same time, have helped express the worlds beyond the reality. As a result, people have faced the era when an audience can watch everything imaginated by an animation director on a big screen. These days, more efforts have been made in order for the audience to feel much more than enjoy pictures moving in a frame. In other words, the purpose of the animation is changing from the passive viewing of animation to feeling and sensing stuffs through the animation. In the center of the changing process is 3D technology which gives new interesting to an audience. Sometime ago, a 3D animation movie was produced in Korea. But it did not bring out box-office profits, for it failed to give satisfaction to an audience who expected high perfection and beauty being able to be rivalled to those of international 3D animation movies. The failure is attributable to the fact that the domestic 3D animation production industry is merely in the early stage, and has not sufficient human resources, technology, and experiences in producing 3D animation films. Moreover, the problem is that most studies on 3D focus on the technologies related to reenactment, but that few studies on the images, which an audience directly faces, have been conducted. Under the domestic circumstance, the study on stereoscopic image screen of , a 3D stereoscopic animation film which was released in 2010 and has been seen as the best successful 3D stereoscopic animation, is worthwhile. Thus this thesis conducted theoretical consideration and case analysis focusing on the visual direction that creates the pictures to deliver abundant three dimensional effect so that it can be used as a basic data when producing high quality-domestic 3D animation and training professional labor forces. In the result, it was found that the 3D animation was not a new area, but the area which has been expanded and changed by applying the characteristics of 3D image based on the principles of the existing media aesthetics. This study might be helpful to establish the foundation of the theoretical studies necessary for producing 3D animation contents for realizing the sense of reality.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.41
• /
• pp.533-552
• /
• 2015

The environment of images in VR-based animation is constructed to generate and promote interactivity between the images and the viewer without any physical space like a screen, or a monitor. In this process, the images and the viewer are combined as a complex through the media technology, that is, an interface. And it is far more in the case of the animation consisted of the bio-feedback interface closely connecting with the body of viewer. As a result, the viewer experiences a permeable interaction between ego and images world, namely virtual reality. That is different from the way of seeing and interpreting the images from a distance. So it needs to analyse the perception of viewer in the world of virtual images. This paper examines the complex phenomena of both the VR-based animation and the viewer mediated by the interface in light of Media Aesthetics. Media Aesthetics is effective in analysing the phenomena of VR-based animation, for it is concerned with the perception of viewer mediated by the media technology. The perception in VR-based animation is a full-body immersion, or embodied immersion, and it is different from the contemplative immersion in that it is remediated continuously by the technological apparatus. The viewer as an immersant, especially with a bio-feedback interface, can immediately touch and control the images in VR-based animation. Such an immersion, therefore, is new every single moment. And the world of VR-based animation is ultimately constructed through the viewer's full-body, or embodied immersion crossing between the virtual and the real. So the animation is not interpreted, but embodied. And the meaning of it is constructed and reconstructed by the viewer's embodied immersion as an immersant. Here, a new frame of animation more oriented to the viewer's participation as an full-body immersant can be created.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.41
• /
• pp.75-106
• /
• 2015

Animations characterize space as a strategy to effectively show the inner conflicts of characters and to highlight the theme. During the process of inner conflict, characters unconsciously use defense mechanism to protect their egos from the fear that came from deficiency, and because of the self-deceptive quality of self-defense mechanism, the reality is distorted and conflicts get intensified. This study focuses on the concept of anti-house, the space where conflicts get intensified, analyzes animations to find out the aspect of inner conflict, and interprets the characteristic of space that is used for metaphoric structure frame. Also, it aims to reveal how the defense mechanism, which intensifies the inner conflict of characters, is characterized as anti-house. The analysis in this study was mainly done with the TV series, , and the theater version of . It is because the characters have serious deficiency from broken home and have a psychological quality of closed boundary that is symbolized as 'A.T. field'. Especially, the core character, 'Shinji Ikari', shows how a character uses compulsive self-defense mechanism to deal with inner conflict and as a result, goes through ego-collapse and then introspection. This process of the character's experience is the core of the whole plot. Through analysis, the relationship between the character's self-defense mechanism and the space, anti-house(which expands to Anti-city), was inferred. The space is made up of three axes, x-axis of horizontal space, y-axis of vertical space, and in the sense that all the space has no exit, z-axis of deeper contradictory space. This thesis started with the decision that is the most suitable work in analyzing the metaphorical relationship between self-defense mechanism and anti-house. There was limitation, however, as the typical characteristics of Japanese animations, pedantic composition and the possibility of broad interpretation, hindered clear verification. Hopefully, this limitation will be overcome by following studies and this study is expected to show the importance of space in interpreting the text of animations, and to serve as database for other creative works.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.39
• /
• pp.59-83
• /
• 2015

Magical realism, blooming and improving in Latin America, opened the new vision about reality and rationalism, coming out from the out-styled frame of past. While having common points with unrealistic literature, which uses fantastical components, magical realism is different from Surrealism and fantasy literature that is focusing on reality and realizing reality intensely. In the early stage of this research, magical realism was restricted by the characteristics of literature of Latin America, but the research of magical realism is expanding in planning Post-Modernism nowadays. Lately, the influence of magical realism is identified in literatures, arts, films, and animations over the world; according to the research, however, research about magical realism in animations was not done in Korea before. A Korean independent animation "A coffee vending machine and its sword" was evaluated positively in many international film festivals is valuable as the research of magical realism. Throughout this study, this animation "A coffee vending machine and its sword" was analyzed by its narrative and images. The analysis of narrative consists two parts. One is about the form of narrative and the other is about contents through the story. Analysis of Image is also divided into two parts: background image and character image. In this animation, the protagonist is narrating about the fantastic accidents in his life and his own feelings towards it. The narration leads audience to understand his situation and feelings in meta-fiction. On the surface, audience watches the love story of a normal girl and coffee vending machine in this artwork, but deep inside the animation, it is visible that the directors tried to make audiences think about the life of 880,000-won Generation in Korea. The background image was represented as real places in Seoul including the landmark of Seoul, making mimesis of reality in Korea. The character image has two conflicting aspects with reincarnated warrior, Jinyoungyoung and a coffee vending machine. It is a hybrid-character transmogrifying between two characters. Likewise, "A coffee vending machine and its sword" has the characteristics of Korean magical realism through form, content and image. Through analyzing the Korean independent animation "A coffee vending machine and its sword", this research tried to find a way of using factors of fantasy, of representing reality as a dramatic device and of using magical realism of Korean animation for bond of sympathy with audience.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.36
• /
• pp.281-302
• /
• 2014

Human beings have advanced to release instinctive desire. Among the human desires, sexual desire is classed as a basic desire with appetite and has been expressed in many ways from prehistoric times to present. Despite the social and ethical restriction, expression of sexual image has been evolved with change of time and medium's development. Thanks to inventing the photograph technique, Change of pornographic image has showed a dramatic aspect since early 20th century. The video which delivers message more directly than the picture boosted this change, and the animation has experimented the expression methods and techniques numerously exceeding the limit of realistic image which reappeared by the device. In this thesis, I want to discuss how human beings express sexual desire in animation based on society's sex culture, and analyzed Japanese pornographic animation as its obvious cases. Japanese pornographic animation should be interpreted as the result of culture and society system's history. Through Heian, Edo and early Meiji period, Japanese sex culture has been kept very openly and preposterously. Transformation, metamorphosis, pedophilia, tentacle sex and exposure of specific body parts that are frequently appear in Japanese animation can be interpreted by ancient Japanese open sex culture like Wakashu, polygamy, sleeping in mixed sex group and pederasty. These Japanese odd sex culture is hard to find elsewhere and settled as intrinsic sexual expression in Japanese animation. This situation was institutionally severed by European Modernization's force at the end of World War II in 20th century. However, it seems they have been keeping their influence in a proper form until now. In this study, I discussed that pornographic animation should be interpreted in a frame of cultural phenomenon by researching the series of procedure that ancient Japanese open sex culture has been changed by the system. Sexuality which is found in general Japanese animation was started from their history, and the dichotomous expression about women can be understood that it is bent by institutionally regulated sexual opinion. Japanese history and culture can be understood that it is transformed to the dichotomy that are simultaneously according freedom of eroticism to the pornographic animation, and the fear and irresistible temptation about the woman's body as the other.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
• /
• s.29
• /
• pp.173-207
• /
• 2012

The four-phased plot which consists of introduction, development, turn and conclusion in the long-story structure tends to be patterned and schematized. The behavior of characters is in line with the beginning of human beings and the plot of comic strips basically has four phases. It is, however, not a simple arrangement but a complex one which was developed by organizing patterns of human power, behavior and emotions. With the results from a survey with college students studying comic strips, this study aims to categorize four characters from the archetypal system by Carol Pearson, four phases of the hero's journey by Joseph Campbell, and the four phases of the plot based on Aristotle's theory, which is the frame of the comic strip structure through supporting evidence extracted from comic strips in an integrated way. In this study, the categorization is performed by simplifying and systemizing a character's life cycle, which is a factor of a story structure in complex comic strips. This study is to identify what comic strip writers express by using the metaphor in the complicated long-story structure of comic strips This study reveals that the structure of introduction, development, turn and conclusion based on the plot theory by Aristotle is the metaphor of human life and fate and that the phases of development in the archetypal system by Carol Pearson, a Jung researcher influenced by Jung's theory are the metaphor of human life and fate. Also, the theories of Joseph Campbell, who also was influenced by Jung, are the metaphor of human life and fate as they projected complex emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure onto the archetype of heroes and used the metaphor of the hero's journey. Lastly, the theories are introduced with the approach of 'guide to screenwriters' by Christopher Vogler. Meanwhile, this metaphor is the objective and goal of this study. The comic strips selected for this study seem to have long complex stories which have characters leaving their homes, going through adventures and difficulties, meeting the world in another way, experiencing tension, competition, wars, and hardship and returning home with compensation. They grow mentally and psychologically through their journeys and finally become heroes. They express the meaning of our introspection in a narrative through plots and images of comic strips. This appears complex but the basic structure of long comic strips has four phases of plot. The life style of an extraordinary character traveling for adventures and growing in long comic strips can be divided into four phases symbolizing childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and senescence and it is a psychological growth process. The archetypes of the character can be divided into four phases and the growth process can be explained. The hero's journey symbolized by the character can be also divided into four phases. Through theories, the complex arrangement of four-phased plots in comic strips corresponds with the growth process of introduction, development, turn and conclusion through the stages of life. At the same time, this study found that the characters becoming heroes are the metaphor of introspection and that the characters' growth and life correspond with the four phases in life through long comic strips. Long stories in long comic strips written by comic strip writers show that characters go on their journeys and change their lives through hardship and difficulty by logical construction of plot and their growth processes are presented in archetypal images and they reach introspection as heroes. The readers share time and space through images in comic strips and realize that they had the same experience as the characters emotionally by being moved by the stories.