Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building

Appendix 1

Appendix 1 What follows is the letter from the Wan brothers to film critic, Shimizu Akira. The letter was later published in the film journal, Eiga Hyōron (December 1942 issue). Cartoon Within the Popular Eastern Fairy Tale — Journey to the West, Princess Iron Fan Production Process1 Wan Laiming Wan Guchan As we vaguely recall, about 17 years ago we began our research on cartoon art. We went through many difficulties and failures and tried to achieve satisfactory results. This may be due to the many aspects of a career one has to experience and the hardship posed by the environment. After an episode of success, we estimated that we should produce 14 short animated films which would carry educational contents so that we might obtain employment from the Education Ministry and other educational institutions. Although there were recognizable flaws in the technical aspect, it was the beginning of our successful cartoon career. The greatest problem was that we could not manage an independent business by making short animated films; but this was the only source of income and economic survival. Our initial success encouraged us to further our work. At least, we could work actively in cinema art production with spare funds and continue our hard work. Because we did not have specialist knowledge and senior masters to teach us, we learned by trial and error in the dark. We progressed poorly, how laughable, and it was only after much experimentation that we had the confidence to produce satisfactory results. During that time we also had the help of a company that allowed us to use its facilities for experiments. It eliminated many difficulties. This was also why, in general, artists who adored cartoon art did not dare to try, although there are Appendix 1 170 many who have done so, and have also spent much time and effort; to speak of it, we have been really fortunate. During that time, film company owners felt that making feature-long animated films was a most risk-taking enterprise; nobody had the courage to try it. Film is the utmost scientific industrial product in this century. It comprises light, sound, electricity, investment … and has been recognized as one of the eight greatest arts.2 Besides, cartoon is also a synthesis of all these eight arts with its rich complexity. It is uniquely broad and yet not simple. In the stillness of Eastern cartoon history unfolded a radiant chapter, that is, film producer Zhang Shangkun, who possesses extraordinary foresight and determination, entrusted us to create China’s first feature-long cartoon regardless of any production difficulties. With limitless time, cost, labor, and other material demands, the aim was to nurture the skills for cartoon-making. Ah, we received such care and attention from a significant film producer; it was both gratifying and exciting. Then, we only carried with us a diligent heart and specifically aimed to complete China’s first feature-long cartoon, Princess Iron Fan, which serves as our grateful repayment to our benefactor. Now I shall briefly give you a description of our production. Drama Story Before we began production, a story had to be selected. The criterion was that it should be an educational Chinese legend or fairy tale. If there were few dialogues and too much action in the story, we had to consider changes as many were either swordfighting stories or meaningless fantastical tales. Even Journey to the West could not avoid such storytelling elements. For Princess Iron Fan we made changes at various stages, and extracted the purer elements of the story. Labor During the drawing process, it was necessary to hire over 200 artists and we had to make sure that they all had knowledge of cartooning. So from these 200 artists, we selected the talented and trained them; we let them have a sense of fulfillment in their work and most sacred of all was that they were all willing and self-sacrificing cartoon art comrades. We saw them work over 12 hours daily and continuously for 3 years. They illustrated about 300,000 drawings and 700 beautiful and sophisticated background art drawings, and accomplished more than what was required. Among these great artists, there were over 12 staff members who suffered from tuberculosis because of this project. Whenever we think of this, we feel very sad. However, they still worked silently and endured the pain and achieved success and received honors for their work in the end. [18.226.93.209] Project MUSE...