There’s been a deceptively difficult question on the test to get a job at Toei Animation. Below, you can see a drawing that, according to a 2ch user, has appeared on the studio’s employee entrance exam. Toei, of course, is famous for an array of anime, and some of Japan’s most famous animators, including Hayao Miyazaki, got their start there.
The question shows a picture of a boy holding a mallet and tells applicants that it is extremely heavy for the kid. “Starting from this pose, draw five or six pictures that end with him hitting the stake,” the question reads. “Please draw the character without changing his size.”
Applicants, it seems, have two hours to complete the drawings.
Seems easy, no? But as famed animator Yasuo Otsuka, who worked at Toei Animation as well as Studio Ghibli, explained in a 2002 documentary, it’s deceptively hard.
Comments
5 responses to “Becoming A Japanese Animator Is Hard”
A shame that a lot of cartoons from Japan are so lifeless with no impact.
and still more popular then western cartoon
Seems to me that you formed such a strong opinion after watching a handful of cherry-picked examples and then refused to watch any more lest your assumptions would be challenged. Japanese animation is more often than not dramatically fluid when not outright hectic. Much criticism may be piled justifiably on anime, but “lifeless” is just patently wrong.
What, do I really have to go, “I have a black friend”?
Way to be non-sequitur. I’m accusing you of nothing, just saying that if you believe anime to be lifeless you just haven’t seen much.
I agree. there are some incredibly beautifully animated animes out there- Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighnour Totoro (or really, anything Miyazaki) for example.
Really cool little test there.