Animation and Media
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4/29/2004 I am happy to offer my paper Progress Against
the Law on the web. Progress examines the history of fan distribution
and copyright law between 1976-1993, coming to several startling conclusions.
Get it here.
I teach the first
class on Japanese animation at MIT. The course number is SP.270, with
title "Japanese Animation: Still Pictures, Moving Minds." It is now in
its third year, with over 15 students.
Japanese animation is an exciting new field of study, and
I am glad that MIT has given me the opportunity to teach it.
My research interests include international intellectual
property law, digital copyright management with Asian media products,
cross-cultural communication between the U.S. and East Asian countries,
cinematic, non-photorealistic rendering, histories of professional and
fan-oriented animation groups, and large-scale database concerns related
to the previous problems.
What is the value in studying anime, you say, a
"genre" of "entertainment" for children? To answer
this question, and others, consider taking my class this spring!
This
snapshot empitomizes the anime style of the early 1990s, particularly
from the AIC studio. Drawn of
Tenchi Muyo! (1992-) female characters, five figures are visible
with clear anime-style markings. Hair is drawn in large tufs for the top
two characters. The child Sasami, who appears in the center, is clearly
the youngest. In addition to being smaller than the others, her eyes are
especially rounded and placed towards the center of her face.
All characters are colored with two-tone facial colors, dividing the faces
into "light sides" and "dark sides" (towards and away
from the light source, which we surmise is from the perspective of the
viewer). Little attention is given to the background, which is a simple
gradiated hue, due to the complex planar interactions in the foreground.
(image (c) by AIC and Pioneer)
There are many good resources on what anime is all about: if you cannot
take my course, I recommend you read one or more of the books listed
in the MIT Anime Club book page.
Last updated 4/29/2004 by Sean Leonard
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