There’s a common conception that anime productions tend to take short cuts in order to reach deadlines and keep costs to a minimum, thus resulting in rather minimal facial and body expressions as well as jumpy animation as a whole. This isn’t entirely unfounded – I’m sure many of you have had your share of anime where the production team very obviously ran out of money – and oftentimes, it’s best for artists and animation students to first learn the basics of depicting human emotions before simplifying their style into anime-influenced minimalism (back in my high school days, my art teacher commented that many portfolio graders of AP Practice of Art students’ work rarely gave out high scores for anime artists).
Like all things, however, there’s always something that defies conception. In this case, the introduction of Haru in The Cat Returns is one of the best character animations I’ve seen in awhile. Without saying anything, all of her movements convey the sort of insecure high school girl not uncommon during adolescence, and even implies her relationship with her mother, who her friend is, and whom she quite fancies. Director Hiroyuki Morita clearly spent a lot of time defining and fleshing out Haru’s character to the extent that without saying anything, we know instantly what kind of person she is from the get go – uncertain, insecure, daydreamy, perhaps a bit passive and clumsy, and undoubtably a perpetual tardy. Here’s a video link for the scene and some following screenshots to illustrate this fantastic demonstration of excellent anime/animation:
After seeing a hand go thump on the cow alarm clock, we see Haru still in bed and rolling over; however, she soon realizes she’s late and jumps out of bed.
As she quickly (and messily) makes her room, we get a sense of what her room is like and just how rushed she really is (it might also be a hint how only a few seconds ago we saw her in pajamas, again emphasizing how pressed she is to get to school).
Haru’s double take with the mirror is a notable directing choice: in the first screenshot we see her getting ready vigorously and run out of frame; in the second screenshot she’s run back to the mirror to double-check herself, making sure that, while still hasty, she still looks decent enough. It’s the double-check, second-guessing quirk of these two screenshots which is more or less prevalent throughout this entire introduction of Haru.
We see Haru running around looking for her bento lunch box, and when she does she quickly puts it into her schoolbag standing up rather than bending over – all in an effort to make up for lost time getting to school.
These screenshots are fantastic for a few reasons: foremost, it again reinforces Haru’s indecisiveness, and second because it establishes the sort of teasing relationship she has with her mother. There’s a moment where we can see Haru really wants to sit down have a bite but is conflicted about being tardy; she first looks intrigued, then sort of painfully conflicted before grimacing and running out, and finally exclaiming at her mum for not being unfair in the sort of “too bad you can’t have some of this delicious breakfast like I can hee” teasing.
This is a nice establishment shot of Haru running down the street, and sort of the span and distance from her house to school (it’s also a subtle implication of why she panicked upon realizing the time – it’s a pain to be in a rush, nonetheless a long distance to where you need to get to).
These two screenshots are a nice detail about how rushed Haru is. In the first picture, we see that she’s looking forward; in the second, we see that she abruptly turns to cut through the bushes, undeniably trying to minimize the time it takes to get to school.
Of course, with any “unpaved” short cut, getting caught in a branch is possible as seen with the above screenshots. We see Haru quickly swiping away the branch, probably not thinking about a possible rip that could happen if she wasn’t careful or just unlucky.
We see Haru running at full speed, and again finds herself in mishap when her rushing and inattentiveness to certain aspects of the environment causes her shoe to get caught on the sidewalk and removed. The last two screenshots are a nice illustration of Haru’s speed/running, as she has trouble stopping herself due to momentum.
In her panic, she tries to maintain some dignity by skipping towards her shoe (possibly, she may trying to not get her sock dirty).
As luck as it, a baseball team is taking a jog and blocks her path. We see her meekly trying to get through, but it’s obvious that the team is oblivious to her pardons (they probably can’t hear her either), and she soon gives up trying to get their attention in exclaiming “oh no!"
Now at her classroom, we see Haru trying to sneak in inconspicuously…
…but again to her luck, she’s caught by the teacher and immediately stands up obediently. There’s not an ounce of relaxation, and there’s a great deal of nervousness conveyed by how stiff her shoulders are and how straight (and quickly) she stands up.
These two screenshots illustrate immediately who is Haru’s friend in the class, who merely comments "caught again” and does not laugh at Haru, merely smiling in the sort of exasperated manner one does when both pitying and chuckling at a good friend’s mild misfortune. Also, without seeing Haru’s face, we can infer her embarrassment by how stiffly she stands in the first picture, and how hunches and hangs her in a subservient-like manner int he second.
In these five screenshots, we see Haru looking up shyly, and for a moment the camera switches to her POV and reveals that she’s focusing on a boy (who also happens to be laughing in good spirits). Clearly, his laughter bothers her particularly, and she hangs her head down even more in an attempt to curtail the embarrassment of having everyone focus on her and laugh about her tardy mishap. More importantly, it’s implied that she has a crush on the boy of interest, and his participation in the classroom laughter only reinforces her own insecurity.
These last two screenshots demonstrate another aspect of Haru, which is perhaps one of a daydreamer as she stares out at the blue sky. Her friend, Hiromi, stands watching others play on the rooftop; and in yet another unfortunate chance, Haru gets smacked in the head with a ball, snapping her back into reality (Hiromi gets a good chuckle at the accident, of course – really who wouldn’t?)
As you can see (and probably even better from the video), the opening sequence and introduction of Haru reveals quite a bit of her character without explicitly saying so. It works well because of her body movement, and the sort of double-takes, hand swiping and head hanging she acts out – the sort of task the best animators can do without so much a blink of an eye.
A similar (if not even better demonstration) of superb animation bringing a distinct character of life can be seen in this blog article about a pencil test by Milt Kahl and Ollie Johnston on the Disney film The Rescuers. The blog author, Jamaal Bradley, comments on the film:
This clip is one of the reasons why I love animation. The ability to make a character come to life combined with technically achieving line control is amazing. Milt’s animation on Medusa is broad but not overwhelmed with obscure posing and he applies it twice by animating her reflection. Ollie just captures the subtle but unsure movements of a young person. Both characters are completely believable. This is animation at its best….at its best!
The clip can be found here, and I highly recommend anyone to take a look at it!