Xia Animation in the 21st century in China As one of the earliest popular genres in China, the culture of xia (侠, or roughly translated as swordsman) inspires many creative works and adaptations in literature, fine arts, cinema, and animation. Animation in particular has demonstrated a close affinity with the genre since the beginning of the Chinese animation history, especially the subgenres of wuxia, which insert their characters in a martial arts world, and xianxia, where

Is There A Chinese New Wave in Animation? An Examination of Student Animation in China The beginning of the millennium was important for Chinese animation. It not only began the rejuvenation of the Chinese animation industry, which embodied “the promise of the modernization of Chinese visual culture,”[i] but also saw the creation of a surprising range of works that can be categorized as independent animation. Additionally, it was a significant period for Chinese animation edu

Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca, edited by Stefanie Van de Peer. Abstract of book review Animated films produced in the Middle East and North Africa tend to be overlooked by western scholars, who they may only be familiar with a few titles or nations from this part of the world. Stefanie Van de Peer’s edited book, Animation in the Middle East: Practice and Aesthetics from Baghdad to Casablanca, reveals a dichotomy whereby, desp

A Combination of Novelty and Nostalgia: CGI in Japanese Animation Production In October 2019, Lupin III: The First (Takashi Yamazaki, 2019), the first 3D-CGI feature anime of the long-run franchise Lupin the Third, was released. Created by Monkey Punch in 1967, the franchise has remained popular for over the fifty years with the publication of 35 volumes of manga, seven series of TV anime and several OVAs (original video animation), live-action and animated films, and video g

Empathizing with the Animated Bodies In our everyday life, we meet the animated figures on the screen and feel touched by them in surprising ways. We cry for Mary when she drowns herself in alcohol because her best and only friend Max refuses to write letters to her by sending her the “M” of his typewriter. We get nervous when Jerry is caught by Tom and hope he could get away before Tom puts him on the stove. Why, and how, do we empathize with the animated beings even though

The Traced Performance: Rotoscope in The Case of Hana and Alice Computer graphic imagery (CGI) has blurred the aesthetic boundaries between animation and cinema in the digital era.[1] For instance, what does perceiving character “body” mean in the cinema when the figures are modeled and motion-captured with a 3D software? Does mise-en-scene matter for performance body? The digital version of rotoscoping, the technique that was created a century ago, makes the definition of th

An introduction to a type of Chinese opera, Zaju (杂剧) October, 2019