SHAFT: A Visual Journey

Kayson Carlin

Bowling Green State University

February 20, 2018

 

SHAFT

When discussing animation, one attributes certain styles, themes, and techniques to individual production studios. While there exists multiple creative positions within a studio, the talents of all individuals are pooled together to create the final project. Of course, some people influence the work much more heavily than others, but in the end the final product is attributed to a specific studio. As such, many animation companies begin to form their own “markers”. Not only is this apparent in America, where features are described as having “Disney quality” animation, the same is true for Japanese anime. To the eye of a standard consumer, many anime may look alike, if not exactly the same. And while this is a result of Japan’s notion of uniformity, there are also animation studios that strive to be different from the rest. A prominent company that has successfully stood out from the myriad of anime studios, is Studio SHAFT. Through the use of highly stylized design properties, and mixed animation techniques, Studio SHAFT has earned a rightful position at the top of the industry food chain.

Although the first production of Japanese animation took place as early as 1917, the animation industry did not emerge as such until Toei Animation, Japan’s first large-scale commercial studio (then called Toei Douga), was founded in 1956 (Morisawa p.265). Years later in 1963, animation began being broadcasted on a weekly television network, Fuji TV, and gave rise to a studio called Mushi Productions, founded by Osamu Tezuka. In these weekly broadcasts, Mushi Productions gave life to Tezuka’s most famous manga series; Astro Boy. However, Tezuka’s creative vision could not be quelled, pushing for higher budgets and production values which could not be responsibly met, leading to the studio’s bankruptcy in 1973. The dissolution of Mushi Productions led to its creative body branching into several smaller production studios throughout the 1970s, many of which eventually grew into some of the finest production studios in the industry today (Morisawa p.265). One of these production companies, Studio SHAFT, began as a modest animation hub, producing less than a dozen works from 1975 to 2004. However in 2004, a man named Akiyuki Shinbo joined the team, greatly influencing the studio’s signiture style with his unique artistic expression, and forever changed SHAFT’s art direction.

A striking feature of anime done by SHAFT is their use of color, space, and background in the designs of both characters and environments. Minimalist and often abstract/interpretation-friendly backgrounds are one element of this, clear in works from Bakemonogatari (2009) to Nisekoi (2014) to Madoka Magica (2011) (Creamer 2017). Geometric lines and shapes fill buildings and architecture to create a neatly uniformed space within the world environment. However, in place of a flowing, natural landscape, or intricate, bustling city street, the characters will be placed on a two-dimensional space with shapes, lines, silhouettes, or abstract objects such as scissors. This is especially true when dialogue is taking place, even sometimes replacing whole backdrops with stylized live-action photos, or holding on a single image of road signs during exposition. Such stylizations often interrupt the viewer’s immersion, making them acutely aware they are merely watching a screen.

Along with background art, colors work as a semiotic element in SHAFT’s animation, for various emotions and artistic styles (Dai p.37). Basic color pallates paint the world, with heavy focus on bold, contrasting degrees of color. This creates a dynamic feel to the scenes and characters. Reds, blacks, and yellows dominate most of their work, as the nature of each anime is fairly straight forward. The exception to this is Madoka Magica, which starts off using pastels, and slowly adds in more black to demonstrate the narrative getting darker with each episode. This was used to lure viewers into a false sense of security, portraying the anime as cute magical girls saving the day. In reality, Madoka Magica delved into the psychological aspects of having power, the consequences of using it, and the eventual death of one’s humanity.

Studio SHAFT’s most notable design in their animation is the presence of on-screen text. At any point during the episode or movie, text will appear on abstract backgrounds or “cards”, either static or scrolling. What’s interesting is that unlike normal captions with a few words, these captions can be a literal wall of text. The viewer is bombarded with a surplus of information (Wasylak p.432). In some cases, the text is shown so briefly that the viewer cannot even begin to read it unless they pause the video every few seconds. Sometimes, the captions refer to a character’s mood or serve as a comment for the situation, but mostly they are just unrelated babble. The captions in the background or on the cards usually consist of a lot of tiny lines written in small font and are displayed in motion or appear only for a second (Wasylak p.432). Given the limited space, text appears as mostly kanji, a complex writing system of symbolic characters. Interestingly, Akiyuki Shinbo has chosen to use obscure kanji as much as possible. For example, sono (which roughly means “that”) is usually written in hiragana, but they chose to use kanji instead (The Visual Medium 2012), leaving even native Japanese speakers confused. In the case of Bakemonogatari, which centers on a young man with a knack for running into supernatural women, the source material from which the anime is adapted is a series of novels. This fact is reflected with the on-screen captions, occassionally plucking sentences or paragraphs straight from the original novels and displaying them as text. In contrast, Goodbye, Mr. Despair (2007), a parody of school life featuring a depressive, paranoid teacher, sometimes uses text as an explanation to certain jokes, pop culture references, and puns. Given that the Japanese language is complicated even for native speakers, puns can be misunderstood so having just a brief explanation is helpful. However when watching Goodbye, Mr. Despair, it, like Bakemonogatari, only provides flashes of this text, leaving viewers needing to pause the video in order to read the comments. This also jars viewers out of their complacency when watching, bringing attention to the fourth wall, and the separation between audience and screen.

Japanese anime, in general, is mostly limited animation that aims at reducing the overall number of drawings (usually there are twelve drawings per second) when compared to full animation (approximately eighteen to twenty-four drawings per second) as in Disney movies (Wasylak p.428). On average, the standard format of half-hour television animation in Japan is composed of approximately 300 “cuts”, resulting in a jerkier motion (Morisawa p.267). This can be beneficial, as anime uses more static images and an absence of movement that is akin to manga graphics, on which many anime is based (Wasylak p.428). Studio SHAFT is no exception, but instead uses aforementioned stylistic choices to replace actual animation. Limited animation favors graphic design and character design over character animation (Wasylak p.429), which is evident in the make-up of SHAFT’s worlds. CGI is rarely implemented, reserved only for extremely complex movements of both foreground and background. The animation techniques in So Long, Mr. Despair indicate a strong tendency toward manga style (Wasylak p.432), as the source material was originally a manga (graphic novel). The images are composed as if they were manga frames, and onomatopoeic sounds in the anime are accompanied with their written form (Wasylak p.433), akin to sound effects and speech bubbles. While this could be described as design choices, it can also apply to the technicality of the series, making it less taxing for animators, and reducing production costs.

In the anime community, there is what’s referred to as a “SHAFT pose” when describing character movement. These character poses may look cool, but are usually nearly impossible for a real human to pull off. The mose famous of these poses is the “head-tilt”, in which a character is facing away from the camera and tilts their head backwards to look into the lens with their chin towards the air. This is arguably SHAFT’s most trademark style that informs audiences that they are indeed watching a SHAFT production. The head-tilt has appeared in every single anime they’ve produced since 2004 (Swale p.77). In context with the narrative, the character who performs this pose is most often archetyped as mysterious, being deceitful, or possessing knowledge that the protagonist or audience does not have. For example in Madoka Magica, the character Akemi Homura, who is actually a time traveler, frequently stands in this head-tilt pose while providing cryptic warnings to the protagonists of what horrors lie before them.

Yet another commonality between SHAFT works is the ratio of animation to dialogue, described by some as a “spoken novel” (Swale p.79). As discussed previously, animation is limited, and static images are widely employed to substitute for movement and action. As a result, anime by SHAFT is dialogue heavy, taking the focus away from the sparse animation, and putting it on exposition, character development, and character design. This opens the door to multi-dimensional characters who are relatable and engaging to viewers. Such dynamic characters are strongly evident in Madoka Magica, where despite all the characters fighting for the same thing, each has a different history and resulting outlook on the world that conflicts with the main “good guy” protagonist. Viewers can understand the reasoning behind their actions, and care what happens to them even if the line of moral ambiguity is reached. So while restrictive animation can potentially harm shows, SHAFT has found another door to open via its characters to enrich the series as a whole.

The grandious and ambitious style of Studio SHAFT betrays its humble beginnings as a small production company, that slowly released films over a 30 year period. Thanks to Akiyuki Shinbo, the major creative force that forever changed the face of SHAFT, works such as Bakemonogatari, Madoka Magica, and Goodbye, Mr. Despair have brought the studio away from the perception of being one in a hundred. They stand apart, as a pioneer in alternative storytelling due to the incredibly unique, and sometimes bizarre art direction and design. Using their design strengths, they open up a world of possibilities in not only narration but characterization itself, bringing to life otherwise limited animation. SHAFT has truly made a reputation for themselves as a production studio that innovates new ideas for a changing market. Audiences can be sure of certain markers when watching a series or film with the SHAFT logo stamped on it, and are guaranteed a strange yet complex ride through visual storytelling.

 

 

References

AnimePlanet. Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion. 2011. 2 2017.

Creamer, Nick. The Secret of Studio SHAFT. 18 January 2017. <https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2017-01-18/the-secret-of-studio-shaft/.110526&gt;.

Dai, Boyao. “Investigating Visual Differences Between Japanese and American Animation.” Rochester Institute of Technology (2016): 6-42.

Morisawa, Tomohiro. “Managing the unmanageable: Emotional labour and creative hierarchy in the Japanese animation industry.” Ethnography 16.2 (2015): 262-284.

Swale, Alistair. Anime Aesthetics. Waikato, New Zealand: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Print.

The Visual Medium. Shaft Style. 2012. <http://the-visual-medium.blogspot.com/2012/01/shaft-style.html&gt;.

Wasylak, Katarzyna. “Need for Speed: Anime, the Cinematic, and the Philosophical.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 35.4 (2010): 427-434.