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Re: How have the drawings changed over the years?

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 8:32 am
by davemerrill
DKop wrote: Wed Mar 11, 2020 1:40 pm

Ah, that explains why CG looked better in Lensmen than Golgo 13 ;) .

Doing a quick google search, this was the company I remember doing the Lensmen movie, but they're from Japan, not New York (kinda hard to be a "japan" CGL company and be in New York, that makes no sense to me).

https://youtu.be/5RaDIBXkU3U
Japan Computer Graphics Lab is in the credits for Lensman, as is... Computer Graphics Laboratories, Inc. After writing 2500 words on the Lensman movie, my brain had to retain *something*. But don't take my word for it:
lensman credits.jpg
lensman credits.jpg (65.38 KiB) Viewed 1476 times

Re: How have the drawings changed over the years?

Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2020 2:23 pm
by DKop
Thanks for clearing that up Dave.

Re: How have the drawings changed over the years?

Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2020 7:37 am
by davemerrill
speaking of CG and Lensman and the physical techniques of Japanese anime production, when I was researching anime based on Western literature sometime a while back, I came across a guy named Mitsuru Kaneko, who produced an anime TV series based on the classic children's novel The Yearling. He, as I put it, "...walked away from the anime world in the 70s and went to USC film school, and who later returned to Japan determined to drag the anime industry kicking and screaming into the modern world via computer technology. He founded the first commercial CG studio in Japan and his Yearling cartoon was the first Japanese TV anime to be colored digitally. MK Company went on to work on Lensman, which makes sense."

The Yearling anime was licensed and dubbed by MGM/UA and has shown up on a few dollar-store DVDs under the title "Fortunate Fawn". I don't know if it made it to any TV markets anywhere, however. The colors on the show do seem different from other anime TV shows at the time, but I don't want to make any serious determinations about production quality based on viewing dollar-store DVDs.

FUN FACT: The Yearling is based in Florida and the 1946 film was shot in the area: my great-uncle claimed to have screen-tested for the role of Jody, but, of course, the part went to Claude Jarman, Jr.