World of Animation was a pretty interesting class, I learned a lot about different animations, and where they come from, which isn’t something I ever really thought about. I knew there was often a distinction between anime and Western animations, but I assumed it was similar to the way people differentiate kids’ cartoons, and animated series made for an older audience. So to say I thought it was like a genre, Western vs Eastern; which had subgenres of action, slice of life, mystery, etc. However, after this class, I think I will view it more as an explanation for certain choices and think more about the history of animation in certain cultures. This class was a nice break from the other class as it was much more chill, and involved watching movies, and films. I tried to watch new animated shows outside of class which led me to find some I really enjoy, and some I was shocked to find. Such as I found out “Lookism” (a Korean Webcomic I used to read) recently got made into a 3d animated series. It was really fun to watch although I’m not sure if it’s because I am studying 3d animation as well, I kept noticing strange things in the rendering. I really enjoyed it though, it talks about how the beauty standard in South Korea is a little bit of a problem and causes discrimination towards people who don’t fit the beauty standard. I also watched “Zombie Land Saga” a Japanese idol anime, this also had some 3d animated scenes that stood out a little but were really well animated. It was interesting as it shows off a bunch of different music genres. I also watched “Demon Slayer” as it is a very popular anime recently, and it really made me think about the clothes that used to be worn in Japan, as the show is set in the TaishÅ period, which is one of the shortest era’s in Japanese history, only lasting from July 30th, 1912 to December 25th, 1926. It was fun to think about the fashion of that era, as that was when Western-style clothing was just starting to be introduced to Japan, which is such a fun idea when the only one in Western-style clothing is “Muzan” who is the main villain of the show, it really helps make them stand out, which is a really fascinating character design choice that works really well within the setting.
I also watched, some of JoJo’s bizarre adventures to see some older-style Japanese animation. which was really interesting to see as it really shows how far animation has come, however, it does have an old animation charm to it that is fun to watch, and JoJo’s also has a really interesting use of colours so it is fun to watch and analyse. I also watched “Romantic Killer” which came out in 2022 it was a really good watch, a very interesting premise. The basic premise is what if you got put into situations from a dating sim. I also watched “Spirited Away” to get to see some older Ghibli movies that I hadn’t seen before. I wanted to watch a mix of old and new animations, so I also went to see “Puss in Boots” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in the cinema it was really fun to watch movies from a more analytical standpoint, as it makes me pay more attention to the movies and makes me see things that I wouldn’t notice it I hadn’t been paying extra attention. I re-watched “Spider-Man: into the Spider-verse” as it was an animated film I really enjoyed and they had a really fun way of animating the comic book style that Spider-Man originated from. They also used keyframes and animating on 2’s to add emphasis and effect, in such a cool way, that was really fun to watch and added such interest to the scenes.
I also enjoyed the group work from this module, it was fun to analyse a short film and get to make a poster about a region of animation. the group work was a little stressful as I wanted to make sure everyone in the group was happy and doing things they wanted to do so I took whatever work was left. I regret it a little bit as I wish I could have done it on something other than editing and sound. it would have been fun to talk about character design as I feel like I could have talked about that better but I didn’t want to steal a topic from someone else who wanted to talk about certain topics, because I knew I could figure out enough to talk about any of the topics but it would have been more fun if it was a topic I was a bit more invested in. Then the poster research group project was really fun as I was in a group with my friends and we all worked pretty well together and made a poster I am really happy with, it was also really fun to throw ideas around without the fear of being shut down, because friends are more willing to listen to your ideas and try to make them work, even if we don’t end up using those ideas in the end. Because it is scary to suggest things to strangers in case they shut them down in a mean or harsh way, but thanks to the first group work project, I think most people in the class are really nice, so I don’t think anyone in the class would be overly mean about shutting down ideas. so I don’t think I’ll be as nervous next time we do group work.