Anime is generally defined as an animation in the Japanese style, featuring much exaggeration of human figures. Anime has enjoyed a long-standing level of popularity in the United Kingdom for decades. This has been largely due to the fact that we have privately-owned distributors of anime such as Manga Entertainment (which, paradoxically, does not actually publish any manga). When one goes to an expo, he is surely likely to find an entire diaspora of anime fans, or, as many often derisively refer to them, weebs. But where are the animators who work independently to produce animation in the Japanese style?
It has been difficult to find British anime-makers. British animation has always been, in a sense, homemade. All the childhood classics that one watches, from The Wombles, all the way through to Postman Pat, all possess that homemade charm about them, presumably because they are intended at children. However, the greater contrast to be examined here is: British animation is stop-motion, and hand-crafted while anime is handdrawn. British animation embraces its low budget, while anime has all kinds of budget at its disposal. Unfortunately, stop-motion in this day and age is drawing in less and less money at the box office and the British film industry has been rendered smaller and less profitable by its sole refusal to move with the times. One would naturally think, given anime enjoys a fervent cult following in Britain, even if the rest of the country outside that cult derides it due to cultural dissonance, that at least one person would have done animation reminiscent of Japanese animation; however, I do not know where to begin with my research, so consider yourself properly warned.
My previous book was on the history of British manga, of which there was discovered to be a fruitful amount. On the situation of manga in Britain, in Manga An Anthology of Cultural and Global Perspectives, Paul M. Malone stated of British manga and the genre’s popularity in Britain: “Although UK publishers are less given to censorship than their American counterparts, in most respects they will probably remain a manga colony of the United States as much as of Japan.” No further nonsense could ever have been spouted from an American’s mouth. Witness, then, the stupid egocentrism of the Americans, that which they term American exceptionalism, which blinds them to the real truth.
The results of my research shows that we British have assimilated manga into our culture in a way which speaks to our cultural value. We are not a colony as the writer seems to believe, no more than our former territories. We have therefore much potential to assimilate anime as well. Also, one must not confuse British anime with British animation. Both are distinctly different categories; I wish to analyse animation produced in Britain in a Japanese style, so the works of Aardman, Cosgrove Hall and Smallfilms will not be included, especially seeing as their style could not be more dissimilar from what meets the criteria for inclusion in this book. So then, without further ado, we begin our examination.
The first work of British sort-of anime that I have discovered is Angus Beer, who does silent animations and video game design. Beer’s character designs are somewhat drawn from anime, in particular they possess a style reminiscent of Studio Ghibli. The hair is luxuriant, the noses are tiny and the eyes are large, with large black pupils. Wholesome in content, they can be poignant, moving and generally focus on a Ghibli sense of slice-of-life whimsy. Two of his shorts have been reviewed by the cult Internet reviewer, Jambareeqi, who also hails from Britain. However, they still have yet to reach any level of high acclaim internationally, which is, to put it bluntly, simply a considerable amount of the deepest shame, because he most definitively deserves much more praise in life than he already has.
Spirit Bakery concerns itself with a young girl who encounters a baker who brews all manner of confectionery, somewhat surprisingly, for ghosts. The animation is accompanied by soft piano music, which perfectly encapsulates its mysterious, bittersweet tone. However, I would still hesitate to consider it an anime because it features influences from other things too. In particular, the art style also reminds me of Hilda, which is a British graphic novel series incorporating elements of Scandinavian folklore. It is also worth noting that many of the baker’s deceased clientele are, in fact, spirits of young children. What this means, why the baker cooks for them, and how they can even eat remains unclear.
Beer has also produced a short called Axria Okoraize Episode, itself purporting to be an episode of a television show from the 1980s. The art style here is especially reminiscent of the chibi-esque style that some artists who try to imitate manga are especially fond of using. It also features elements of the art style of Scott Pilgrim, the cult graphic novel series, namely a young girl appears who bears a striking resemblance to Ramona Flowers. The narrative concerns a young girl who finds someone in a snowy bar, becomes lost and fights monsters. The narrative of the short does not actually make much sense; in fact, scholars may opine that it has no actual narrative but merely appears to be a metafictional exercise concerning the creation of manga, this is because it contains multiple references to media that has come and gone before, including a scene where the heroine is gifted a book entitled “Rosebud”, recalling Charles Foster Kane’s famous childhood sleigh. It contains very little dialogue, save for one especially surreal scene where someone pops their head up from a table – such an event which is so ludicrous and so non-sequitur that it has simply to be witnessed rather than described – and offers the burly man sitting playing cards at the aforementioned piece of furniture six hundred dollars, only to be shot down by the man.
There are moments when the short will transition to visuals reminiscent of a side-scrolling video game. Indeed, the short’s soundtrack itself is highly reminiscent of a video game produced during the 1990s. Beer has confirmed that he was largely inspired by these video games. To further supplement this ludonarrative influence, several video game characters make cameo appearances in the short. Beer also confirmed that he wished to provide the viewer with a nostalgic experience reminiscent of watching a show via a VHS cassette, which would doubtless have been used prior to their slip into obsolescence, a plight which has become mirrored in recent times by the inevitable extinction of the Digital Video Disc. To further add to the feeling reminiscent of a video game, Beer has stated that he used the programme Microsoft Paint when animating the short.
Afterlife is an interesting short film, which has been made quite recently. Its narrative concerns a soldier, recently killed in battle, who meets a goddess who decides his ultimate fate. Despite the Classical facade on the surface, the short actually has a multitude of Christian symbolism. This manifests itself in the goddess deciding the whether the soldier deserves hell or heaven. The morality of the soldier himself is never particularly made clear; however, given the goddess’ final choice, one might perhaps surmise that he was a somewhat amiable fellow in life. The music, composed by William Burroughs, has something of the aesthetic of Classical lyre, which supplements the Classical feel of the film. Therefore, much like British anime itself, the film is a fusion of two radically different cultures, both of which somehow blend together surprisingly well.
The afterlife judgement system depicted in the film also has some elements of Egyptian mythology. The goddess carries two orbs and when she raises one, horns appear on the soldier’s forehead and when she raises the other, wings appear on his back. This is very reminiscent of the weighing of the heart that precedes the entrance to the Egyptian underworld. Whether the goddess depicted functions as a personal judge or psychopomp is never clarified, but what is certain is that she shows some affection for the soldier, as shown when she pushes him off the cliff, not to murder him but to educate him in the art of flight.
Unfortunately, in contrast to British manga, of which there was a plentiful amount, there is almost nothing in terms of other examples of Japanese-inspired media present within the United Kingdom. Anything that comes out of Britain tends to overwhelmingly be stop-motion, which has its own charm but none of the lucrative advantages that anime has. So I must turn to my own work in order to find a basis for my research. Of course, when one covers one’s own work, there is an exceptional potential for bias. This, of course, I shall not do, for I am well-aware of the flaws of my brief experimentation into independent animation, which I made during lockdown. Perhaps I ought to start with a digression, in order that some proper context may at least be provided.
Growing up, my favourite book series (one of them, at least) was the Chrestomanci series. A nice little sequence, where everything was light-hearted without being saccharine. Much like the Oz books, there were still some dark moments in them, themes of neglect and abuse, but also magic and wonder. As the years wore on, I wondered whether there was a film adaptation of Chrestomanci being developed. I had missed the radio adaptation of Witch Week, waited for eight years waiting to listen to it again, and wanted more of the books’ extraordinary world. I had already written (and drawn) a manga based on one of the short stories. As soon as lockdown hit, and the latest young-adult novel to be adapted into a film, Artemis Fowl, flunked miserably on television, I realised this one, convenient truth: there was no Chrestomanci movie, no studio would ever produce one, and the fans were too lazy or too scared to produce one! And that was the moment I decided… to make one. Alone. Unaided.
The Lives of Christopher Chant was the book I chose to adapt, and its art style was very much inspired by anime. I did have some problems. Firstly, this was the first time I ever did animation, and it opened my eyes to how slow such a process was. Secondly, I still hadn’t figured out how to draw children. All I was good for drawing at that time were young adults. It was only during my drawing one of the frames for the mermaid scene that I discovered this vital piece of information in Christopher Hart’s book Manga for the Beginner: “The younger the character, the larger the eyes.”
Thirdly, in terms of what I could do, my Art Set application had just done a reset, and so I was more limited. This is because new canvases were required to be drawn by pencil rather than what I was accustomed to, and there were no rubbers I could use to remove anything I had made a mistake on. Several times I redrew the same frame, recycling it in order to make it easier for me. During the scene where the mermaids are playing with Christopher, only the wave moves. I suppose I wanted to spare myself most of the hard work.
Indeed, the artwork does not look nearly as good as it should have been, but then, just as nobody is perfect, so too is no work ever perfect. Fourthly, it was tough trying to compress the entire narrative of the novel into six minutes. I opted to draw some scenes which had not already been depicted in the fan art; an innovative choice, to be sure, but one which should confuse people who have not read the book. Last, but certainly not least, there was the issue of being unable to find voice actors to voice the characters. I certainly didn’t want to do the voices myself at the time, so I just left it silent. I am trying to produce a director’s cut, with another five minutes appended on it. This director’s cut will include more details and scenes from the book that didn’t get put into the five-minute cut, including more context for Christopher’s dysfunctional home life and his meeting with the Goddess – a character who only appears towards the end of the film. But as it stands, much like “adaptations” should be, it was intended to be an advertisement for the book, nothing more and certainly nothing less. However, I did add to the film a final battle between Christopher and Uncle Ralph, which is not in the book.
Footage from my Christopher Chant film.
More recently, I have begun to experiment in adding sound effects to my animations. These sound effects are derived from the BBC Sound Effect Library, which has been immensely useful to others. Of course, I have experimented on creating at least one other short anime film, The Last of the Sky Pirates, based on the novel of the same name by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. I have to take some liberties with the novel’s world in order to fit the art style.
I am considering producing a web series set in the World Oak, the fictional multiverse I created. It will be a prequel to the manga series I produced, concerning the fictional history of the snow world and how it was torn apart under the Dorian Gray-like rule of Vanderbilt the Tyrant. This, of course, I have not done, but merely written the screenplay, which, of course, I am still in the process of making. As I have learned from bringing The Lives of Christopher Chant to life, animation is an arduous process, in which it is not easy to be consistent and so it is probably best if I consider placing a hiatus on any animations I produce in the future. Maybe someday I shall either begin Vanderbilt’s tale, or I shall return to the extraordinary world of Chrestomanci, perhaps proving that, much like the hedgehog himself, no copyright law may hinder me.
The Line is an animation studio based in London, who have done work mainly inspired by anime. They do not produce original anime series, however, as their function is merely to produce animation for advertising. Nevertheless, The Line are proof of the belief that British anime can and must inevitably succeed. Their trailer for the video game Wargroove, itself produced by a British company known as Chucklefish, is heavily inspired by Japanese anime to the extent of replicating the movements. Of course, the trailer does not tell the full story of the game, since no trailer really does, but the trailer is imbued with a sense of intense action akin to most boys’ magazine manga. The character designs are also spectacular, feeling as though they were lifted from a unique anime series to begin with.
The company has also produced a short that was commissioned for the League of Legends, known as Worlds 2020- League of Legends. The short’s narrative is, unfortunately, far too complicated for me to summarise alone, so the word of the creators themselves should suffice: “Our film tells the story of two young players, who travel to a fantasy realm to battle a series of iconic tournament winners from years gone by. With each consecutive battle our players learn and grow, as they realise that they themselves can become the pros of the future.” The animation is very reminiscent of anime, with speed stripes, overly eccentric hair and a fair amount of rock music and action. What should be noted, however, is that it is not a proper short, per se, just a music video with a voiceless narrative attached.
Two-thirds of the runtime through, the audio briefly stops before a gigantic and ridiculously detailed pilum threatens to annihilate the protagonist. The character and location design is just stunning; even without external dialogue, one is able to determine the identities of these characters simply from their appearances and movements. The protagonist and many of the opponents he faces are all extremely skilled at martial arts and athletically proficient. The world he travels through is beautifully realised, from a picturesque coastline to an icy tundra pockmarked with oversized weaponry, to an Asian-influenced city.
Izzo, another short they have made, is an advertisement for a bicycle. The company have stated that they were commissioned to produce it by a bicycle company known as YT Industries, and were specifically requested for an anime fight sequence. This they pulled off single-handedly, portraying an exceedingly grisly swordfight as a masked ninja fights his way through an assortment of Japanese-styled horror monsters in a city reminiscent of a Japanese one.
Finally, and most famously, the company have produced a short known as Super Turbo Atomic Ninja Rabbit, concerning a lapine samurai who fights against an evil vulture wizard. This is a very personal one for them, since the short was the brainchild of a prominent member of the company, Wesley Louis, who drew the inspiration for the short from a ten-page comic that he had drawn during his early adolescence at the height of the 1990s. Louis has stated that he was more inspired by the cartoons of these era, rather than anime specifically, and while it is important to respect authorial intentions, I feel that it is also best to refer to it as British anime by default, for the reason that many of those cartoons tended to have origins in anime. The short quickly acquired popularity on the internet as a result of this prank, with many people to this day wishing they could have seen it. It received significant news coverage.
The comic concerns a rabbit known as Fu who is in the middle of martial arts training with his father when their home is set upon by Vultanor, an evil avian wizard who wishes to gain a sword from their family (doubtless, that sword, had Louis continued the comic, would have been especially important to its narrative). The wizard separates the duo, both by time and by place. Since two parallel universes exist within the comic, the wizard sends Fu forwards in time while still in the universe inhabited by anthropomorphic creatures while his father is sent to a reality inhabited by human beings. The comic is quite impressively drawn for something drawn by a child, and it is quite obvious that Louis missed his calling long ago as an independent comic creator.
As for the short itself, even for imitating a cartoon of the 80s and 90s, those which I feel have all the charisma of mud, the artwork is spectacular. Even if the characters do not speak during the introduction, one can immediately deduce what they are like. Wyatt the frog is the intelligent and more proficient one of the group, with Samantha the Fox as the warrior maiden, Harland the rooster as the arrogant, muscle-bound man and Fernando the bear as the one who does not speak much but, when he shows emotion, he is a force to be reckoned with.
On this note, Canadian reviewer James Thompson has stated this: “Body language in cartoons is just as important as it is in real life. After all, who would want to watch a cartoon full of bland characters with bland designs? Heck, even their vehicle has a cool design, complete with rabbit-like buck-teeth!” Louis has stated that he drew inspiration for the character of Super Turbo Atomic Ninja Rabbit from Stan Sakai’s character Usagi Yojimbo, but has also stated that he is fond of anime. Louis shared his creation as a prank on various social networking websites, where it became a media sensation, spawning several faked merchandise, which was then sold on the internet using a Japanese friend’s internet account, and even some furry fan art, a subculture to which Louis had been previously oblivious, and even spawned an entire virtual reality attraction in which the player could sit inside the vehicle of the protagonists as they travelled into territory controlled by Vultanor.
I had no exposure to The Line Animations until I was researching the predecessor of this book. I have been having trouble finding anime made on British soil, and considered pioneering some kind of animation that could combine anime with British homemade charm. But what The Line has taught me, in all the weeks and months that I have known them, simply put, is that British anime can exist, that Britain has the potential to produce it, and all they have to do is to accept it instead of resorting to live-action.
A show entitled Matt Hatter Chronicles is another work I have discovered during my research and it is a co-production between the United Kingdom, Canada and the former British territory of India. In fact, recording for the voice acting was enacted at Britain’s famous Pinewood Studios in London. What surprised me is that its aesthetic does appear to be heavily inspired by Japanese anime. It’s narrative concerns a young boy, Matt Hatter (whose name is an apparent pun on the common misnomer applied to the Lewis Carroll character, the Hatter) who resides in a cinema in London where his family have screen horror films for generations (or at least, a century since the Lumiere Brothers invented film). His grandfather is kidnapped by a malicious sorcerer, which enables him to enter an alternate dimension, where many of the monsters in the films that his family line have screened do in fact exist.
What I have stated, although it already sounds unoriginal, fails to state the obvious; in short, even for an anime-inspired show, the series is ridiculous, and that is perhaps the reason why it has slipped into obscurity and shall never gain a cult following. I certainly didn’t know about it until doing the research for this book.
While, upon close inspection, the character designs appear to be inspired by anime, due to the level of CGI involved, they appear as though they were made of plastic. Even their hair lacks any kind of actual substance as it does not even move. Speaking of character design, the characters are very obviously inspired by anime, with spiky hair, square jawlines, and large eyes. Unfortunately, the show does not feel innovative enough to shed the American influence, as the show’s accents are too similar to those of the Americans. The only British accent utilised in the show is the voice of Matt’s grandfather, himself voiced by Kevin Eldon, a prominent British actor and comedian who has starred in a small range of family television. How grandfather and grandson do not have the same accent despite them being related is quite beyond my logical sense of reasoning. Eldon also voices the antagonist of the piece. In defence of the acting, the protagonist is voiced by a Canadian-Irish individual, which serves merely to increase the unbearable tendency to have American or Canadian actors in traditional anime roles.
The soundtrack, of course, tends to have elements of rock, which has been a traditional soundtrack for anime since the very beginning. The studios maybe should have utilised a different kind of soundtrack in order to enable the series to be less obnoxious; Classical music, for instance. Unfortunately, in scenes of combat, as far as anime is concerned, Classical music has most certainly never been a popular choice.
There are character archetypes which are too reminiscent of many anime. One has the athletically prodigious ninja warrior maiden, and the whiny companion who believes that wearing a bandana around his forehead will convey an appearance of fortitude and prowess. Indeed, Gomez (for that is his name) is a particular aspect of the show that I absolutely could not endure. He is the Oliver Twist or Peregrin Took to the more experienced characters.
Secondly, the name of the setting, the Multiverse, does not make much logical sense. Is not a multiverse a series of alternate realities, rather than just one? That is but one of the things that this ridiculous show has to offer. Skeleton knights armed with lightsabres are not especially unusual in the Multiverse (capitalised as such so as to differentiate it from an actual multiverse). Thirdly, the main antagonist, Lord Teneroc, is exceedingly generic as an antagonist, being less similar to the likes of Svengali and more reminiscent of Lord Voldemort. However, it is a children’s series that he drives the central conflict of, so it is obvious that he cannot be too villainous. However, he merely sits in his lair rather than actively affecting the conflict of the narrative, so his intimidation as an antagonist is considerably undermined.
In conclusion, Matt Hatter Chronicles is an absolutely terrible series, which is cheaply animated and even more poorly scripted. Perhaps if the studios involved had put in more effort to differentiate it from other anime-inspired series of the early years of the present century or indeed had animated it better, perhaps it would have stood more of a chance of being fondly remembered. Even Smallfilms could do better, and so could Cosgrove Hall, and unfortunately both companies are defunct, and so they cannot. If this is the degradation to which British television has sunk, then it must swiftly be remedied.
In doing the research for this text, I have discovered a short British anime-styled animation of around twenty-one seconds that was written and drawn by Morag Lewis of Sweatdrop Studios (of whom in the previous volume I have discussed). Despite the fact that there is not enough to speak of, I have decided to discuss it anyway. It is adapted from a particular scene in her classic webcomic, Looking for the Sun, where Kite, the protagonist pokes her friend Saryth, who refers to it merely as “tickly evil” (hence the title of the short).
In particular, one must note the accents in which the characters speak. It is not exactly British, but not especially American either. It is as if they attended the Warthog School of This Is What an American Accent Sounds Like. There are only three lines of dialogue in the entire short, and even they are not enough to provide a consistent assessment of what the characters as envisioned by Lewis sound like. Nevertheless, this has to be the very first time any work of Sweatdrop Studios has been adapted into another medium. Further research reveals that they are voiced by Morag Lewis and her husband, Sergei.
The soundtrack for the short is piano music, which was composed entirely by Lewis herself. The piano music does tend to add a sense of endearing character to the scene itself. The character movements, which are comprised mostly of walking with only the occasional close-up and anime-ish mouth movements, are very reminiscent of anime itself, highlighting how well Lewis did, and, in my humble opinion, how she ought to experiment with animation more often. However, nothing else in the characters’ environment, a country footpath, appears to move, not even the clouds in the sky. Another particular complaint I wish to address is that Kite is not depicted wielding her staff as she does in the comic, yet that is probably a minor grievance, given that the staff was removed in order to better animate her movements. Her husband Sergei also appears to have provided the technical advice, but otherwise the short is produced almost entirely by Lewis herself, with no external studio or company necessary.
Indeed, further research reveals that it was intended for the International Manga and Anime Festival 2006, and that it adapts a mere side-story which has probably considerably little bearing on the canon of the manga itself. More precisely, it adapts an omake, which the author merely appears to have drawn for humorous purposes as a diversion from her main narrative. As much as anyone who read Morag Lewis’ masterpiece during their childhoods would wish for a proper anime adaptation of her work, it is, of course, extremely unlikely.
The only other pieces of animation that were made by Lewis appear to be some character animations she published on the website for her slice-of-life epic, A Pocketful of Clouds, depicting the protagonists’ pet felines, Cloud and Muffin. Other than the fact that she has edited some anime footage together into a series of animated music videos, which are a genre of filmmaking that I absolutely deplore, none others are to be found on her personal website. Indeed, since the website was launched during the early years of the century, it is a miracle that, even after nearly onescore years, it is even still standing. If it can survive now, it can surely survive for future generations.
In conclusion, while experimenting in animation is quite rare for a British mangaka, I would have to say that it works exceptionally well. Lewis’ animation pulls in much effort when it comes to bringing her written and drawn works to life. If she did it more often, then who knows what would happen. Nevertheless, Tickly Evil Omake deserves to be considered yet another example of hidden British potential in the anime field. Not to mention that her art style in this instance is utterly, utterly adorable; as adorable as the cats she features so often in her comics.
To supplement further the history of British anime, we have to move from the realms of the independent to the mainstream, to examine Edgar Wright, the fabled English film director and the man who adapted the aforementioned Scott Pilgrim graphic novels into a film. While Wright is not one to often diverge into animation beyond writing a film adaptation of Hergé’s classic Tintin books and a few voiceover roles in certain projects, including the Carl Barks adaptation where he voiced a cygnus film director, he is known for his quirky visual style, which is part of the reason that his adaptation of Brian Lee O’Malley’s video game-fuelled opus worked so well. Recently, Wright has announced that he intends to produce a Scott Pilgrim anime. The director has, in recent years, been both vague and optimistic about the anime’s production: “We’ve been talking with Bryan and with Jared [LeBoff, executive producer] for a while [about]: What if we did something with the books in anime form? It’s being discussed as we speak.” At the same time, several of the news articles of which I partook alluded to the possibility of a continuation of the film’s original source material. However, whether Wright’s experiment will make it past the greedy, unimaginative studio executives, their fancy suits hiding a facade of corporate ruthlessness, remains to be seen.
Jambareeqi, whose name has already been mentioned in this book, has released an independently-produced radio drama known as Echogeddon. The overall feel of the radio drama is quite inspired by anime – anime is even referenced in the first episode. The narrative concerns itself with a young girl who, during an attack on her hometown by a monster, finds herself welded into a gigantic mechanical suit devised by an eccentric scientist. The voice actors definitely put some effort into replicating accents; however, unlike traditional dubs, which have absolutely no reason whatsoever to use an American accent (The Seven Deadly Sins is a prime example of this, despite its very British setting, which aggravates me to no end), the accents here make logical sense: the radio play is set in the United States, and not the United Kingdom.
The accents are pulled off as spectacularly well as the acting. The only true American on the cast, however, is Jambareeqi’s longtime business partner, Viva Becker, who does not even need to pull one off. Unfortunately, the series only lasted five episodes before being placed on permanent hiatus following Brinton’s voice actor’s employment at the Texan dubbing company Funimation, rather than the more reasonable solution to recruit a new voice actor for the eccentric scientist. However, Jambareeqi does intend on reviving the series as a stop-motion (regrettably) animated feature, to which I advised him to instead draw it as an anime. He has not responded at this time. When advised to write the series as narratives on his website, he also alluded to this being a possibility.
The Rose of Buckingham Palace, which I previously covered in an earlier volume, was intended at one point to be adapted into an animated film. No further progress has been made. Personally, I for my part hope that it not be adapted into a film, especially given how absolutely awful American dubbing is, and how British actors are stigmatised against appearing in anime dubbing. Although, it is perhaps for the best that The Rose of Buckingham Palace be left imprisoned within one medium.
A blog dated from around 2010 describes the examples of at least two British-made anime, which have, unfortunately ended in what I can safely describe as complete and utter disaster: Dominator and Natural Born Kittens. Dominator, based on an original British manga I refused to write about in my previous volume because it was out of print, seemed to be hit with disaster from its very conception. The film was intended to be a series, but this was hindered by the fact that the director, showrunner and creator of the comic, Tony Luke, was diagnosed with cancer, but despite the fact that he recovered, I can safely say that perhaps his film would have been better if it was hand-drawn, not computer-generated. I perused a clip from the film and was disgusted by the poor quality of the animation. A reboot that would have been better animated was to be filmed, but this was unfortunately hindered by its creator’s death. I was hesitant to include it in this work, lest I be struck by the curse that this film is known for.
Shot of Dominator characters
Nevertheless, Luke appears to have been what I can only describe as utterly and stupidly optimistic, or presumably, much like Richard Williams before him, not particularly psychologically equipped to deal with reality. On the production of the film, he noted that: “I’m delighted to see that other animated works are in the pipeline — the more, the merrier. I’d like to see a much more active animation industry in the UK, period. So there’s room for everyone. Animators, creatives and fans in the UK should be working together, not fighting with each other.” Luke originally intended to produce a sequel to the film, but the film’s absolute failure meant that it could only produce two short films: A Brief History of Hell and Heavy Metal vs. Dominator. Following the absolute misfire, the film faded into obscurity, until reviewers on the Internet helped bring it to attention. Nevertheless, Luke also appears to have been a passionate campaigner against the anime fandom’s exclusive and elite nature. Maybe someday his manga will be brought back into print, and given a second lease on life, but for now, this is all I can write on it. Internet critic Jambareeqi opined thus on the film: “I strongly disliked this film because it bored me to death. It’s dull, unengaging, unfunny, sexist, and looks unappealingly messy.” However, an Internet critic styling himself Bjorn the Stormborn had this to say: “Looking back on the film, it hasn’t aged well, with terrible CGI mixed with some cheesy dialogue (but most of it was funny) doesn’t quite fit well to today’s standards. However, I thought the plot was a fairly decent story with a good mix of comedy and lore.” However, this is only a minuscule amount of positivity, because the film’s narrative potential is drowned out by the animation quality. But, of course, Bjorn (whose surname remains unknown) states that the film was impressive for its time when using a British animation studio to produce an anime film.
Natural Born Kittens was struck with disaster, but of an entirely different kind: it was heavily and widely shunned by the UK anime network, which forced the creator of the show, Larry Bundy Jr, to defend himself in a poorly-written letter: “It wasn’t accepted on six strips, no program on earth is accepted on just six strips. NBK isn’t a webcomic. Theres hundreds of pages of words and artwork involved on this and the only reason that you havn’t seen any of this is because of the site is owned by a company who no longer has the rights to NBK so we can’t update it for a few months.” Unfortunately, the show was barred from airing in the UK.
The Geordie cast of Natural Born Kittens
However, despite the lack of commercial interest in British-made anime this has not hindered British independent filmmakers from experimenting in Japanese styled animation. Furthermore, all of the information which this volume conveys is to be derived from the blog which I have perused. I apologise to whoever it was who wrote it if I have illicitly used it, but I also thank them. One particular example is the BAFTA-nominated example of Kamigah’s Correspondence, which as the article noted imitated Japanese animation almost to a tee, to the extent of even including a Japanese setting and some Japanese language. The Royal College of Art appears to have been the source of its production, but it appears to have first aired in Iran for some reason. It turns out to have been produced by a student of the Royal College of Art who came from Japan. In 2003, Alex Heatherington produced a short anime film known as Glasgowland. The article mentioned this film’s animation style thusly: “The film doesn’t directly mimic mainstream Japanese animation, but rather uses anime-influenced character designs as one aspect of the brightly-coloured pop culture world that its protagonists inhabit: a land of toys, cartoons and sweet wrappers.” Another example is Rolighed by Paul Duffield, adapted from a manga written by the British mangaka Kate Brown which makes considerable use of the meta fictional elements of writing and drawing comics. Duffield began producing this surreal animation as a final project for his university, and it won the International Anime and Manga Competition. I think that Rolighed deserves to be considered an underrated masterpiece, and that it would put even Otomo’s opus Akira to shame.
It’s not entirely accurate to the style of anime itself, but it deserves to still be remembered as a true piece de resistance of experimental filmmaking. It features quite surreal visuals, including a scene where a colonnade folds up into fingers. In keeping with the metafictional themes, the short often features panel layouts during scenes of human interaction. The protagonist is apparently a creation of a writer at his desk; a boy who wishes, Pinocchio-like, to become real. Yet he is warned by the writer that his insurgence into reality may come at a cost. Nothing is explained about the surreal setting of the short, nor why the people exist beneath the colonnade. However, based on the fact that they have wings, including the youthful protagonist himself, my personal interpretation is that the writer is a metaphor for God and that the boy represents either one of his angels or one of his creations; the metafictional elements would seem to support the latter hypothesis, thus invoking a whole God-as-author scenario.
The writer refers to a “list” on which he records names; presumably this refers to a list of those who are being judged or will be judged on the Last Judgement. The writer appears to be cold and indifferent, personifying the attitude that is felt regarding God in modern times, that of the apathetic tyrant who could not care less for his creations. The writer and the boy communicate in a strange constructed language reminiscent of German, although the dialogue is translated via subtitles. This unearthly language is perhaps intended by Duffield to represent the language that angels or divinities communicate in. What I have found is that the short is based on a scene from a narrative by Kate Brown; presumably things are much better explained in this manga than they are in the short. Indeed, it is never specified what fate befalls the boy, although one can assume, based on a close-up shot of the writer’s hand as he slides a knife towards him, that the writer murders him for his insolence.
In 2004, Mark Bender and Garry J. Marshal wrote and produced a 24-minute short film entitled Rogue Farm, which was described at the time as “the first ever British anime to be commissioned by a UK broadcaster and film body”. Similarly to Natural Born Kittens, the film was scoffed at by the anime community, which caused Marshall to step up to defend it: “In any case, neither of us were interested in copying or otherwise adapting the style or content of Japanese anime – after all, we’re not Japanese, it’s not our background as artists. What we did have, though, was a story that had certain elements that were unmistakably anime-esque.”
He also said that “if you’re making a short animated sci-fi film for an adult audience, about the only model, both in terms of how to achieve the production, and how to to sell it to an audience, is Anime.” I personally think that the film is a solid effort, despite the ostensibly cheap animation. Indeed, I would not consider the animation necessarily cheap, more stylised than anything else. The short has just as much production value placed within it as Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, but merely in its own special way. The characters speak with a Russian and a Scottish accent respectively, which I consider a great relief and a sign of true innovation. Indeed, its animation quality despite its cheapness outranks the likes of Dominator by a mile.
In 2007, a short set in an anime convention aired at the convention itself. It concerned itself with a magical girl known as Ame-Chan, who defended the convention from a stereotypically cartoon supervillain. What particularly differentiates this short is that its language is in both Japanese and English; the protagonist speaks Japanese, while everyone else communicates in English. The accents the Anglophone characters use is most ostensibly intended to be a British person’s impression of an American accent; save for the villain, who uses a Northern accent, which I should have to applaud as an innovative choice and a movement forward to anime’s redemption.
One thing I would have to complain about is its length. For a video intended to signal the opening of a convention, it is quite long – well over seven minutes. This may wear down the ordinary viewer’s patience. Furthermore, the fact that the protagonist speaks Japanese while everyone else around her speaks English makes considerably little sense, all things considered.
Finally, a more successful example is Freefonix, which, similarly to Matt Hatter Chronicles, was a co-production between Britain and its former territories of India. Created by the musician and lyricist Magnus Fiennes, already a scion of a prominent British family of creatives – he is one of the brothers of Ralph Fiennes – it was commercially-produced and it was produced by Cinnamon Entertainment and Isle of Man Film for CBBC. Despite the fact that its animation has all the charisma of plastic, as Matt Hatter had, I would have to conclude that Freefonix is obviously an impressive feat for its time. Indeed, if it had had the urge to drop the American accents and experiment with some things, it may perhaps have been called the British anime of the century.
The series bears a 7.8/10 rating in its Internet Movie Database entry. The series also appears to have spawned a soundtrack album at least a year after the show’s conclusion, and features vocal performances from the likes of Alastair Cook, Fiennes’ brother Joseph (best-known for his role as William Shakespeare) and Haylie Ecker, the founding member of the Australian musical group Bond. As it turns out, the one complaint I have is that, based upon watching at least a minute of it, it seems most obviously targeted towards a child demographic, which serves as a textbook example of British condescension (along with the electric guitar used in the show) and a reminder of the disgracefully-low standards that are often applied to children’s entertainment.
Finally, the article also cites a short animation that was made by Pete Candeland for the 2002 World Cup, which depicts footballer Gary Lineker as an anime character. This short was produced following the integration of anime into British culture, with the series Pokemon airing on ITV, where it runs in syndication unto this very day, and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. In the early years of the century we find the earliest traces of anime culture in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but also a great love for Japanese video game culture as well. Hence why we find a series created by a person known as Matt Haynes, known as Super Mario Brothers Z. As its title suggests, Super Mario Brothers Z is a crossover, between Mario himself (the popular but heavily racist Italian plumber) and Sonic, the hedgehog who couldn’t speak a word of Latin to save his life, with the structure, action and feel of Dragon Ball, as the Latin letter Z in its title suggests. Released in 2006 on the website Newgrounds, the series ran for eight episodes from that year all the way to 2009, with the final episode being released incomplete in 2012. It immediately became almost staggeringly popular, with 30 million views as of the present time. Rosa Fernandez, an obscure American journalist (though undeniably of Spaniard descent) described it as “a cult series which has been reborn.” Emmanuel Gent, another journalist, referred to its premise as “explosive”. The series’ existence demonstrates how well the anime culture had become implanted within the United Kingdom, and how much potential it has to become implanted even further until young and old can appreciate it.
A rather more unusual example is that of a British company based in Hertfordshire adapting a pre-existing work of anime into a short film. Just as in my previous work, I must apologise for bending the rules to accommodate my discoveries. K&K Productions, a filmmaking company highly esteemed in the British anime community, produced at least two short trailers for Toriyama’s work Dragon Ball. They intended to spawn two full miniseries, but due to Japan’s strict copyright laws, they were prevented from doing so. The film crew does a spectacular job when it comes to adapting Toriyama’s universe into live-action, something which the mainstream film industry was unable to do, resulting in a film that fans wish to this day did not exist. The short, five minute trailer for the Saiyan Saga was shot on location in the Peak District of England, in order to keep with the grandiose, brightly-saturated nature of Toriyama’s fictional world. The cinematography is stunning, the visual effects much better than anything Hollywood could create and the actors even bear a close resemblance to their characters. What is even more impressive is that the crew manage to whittle down Toriyama’s grand narrative into six minutes, retaining key elements of it such as Chiaotzu’s sacrifice, Nappa destroying East City and even Tien’s loss of his arm. What I would complain about is that, due to these events have been compressed into a single sitting, there is little context to evenly pace them out. Because the film moves at breakneck speed, many of the events fly by incredibly quickly. K&K have also made appearances at the London Anime Con and SunnyCon 2014, where they encountered the Dragon Ball scholar and fanatic Lawrence Simpson, known to his acolytes as MasakoX. Their only other significant pieces of work are an X-Men fan film and a film set in a WWI bunker.
An anime parody of Pingu was released on the Channel 4 website Mashed, which has been immensely successful in distributing anime to the UK, via All 4, its streaming service. Mashed’s parody involves Pingu becoming a hulking, musclebound superman (or super-avian, as the case may be) and decapitating a leopard seal who wished to devour him. The parody is made all the more obvious by Mashed’s hypocritical claim to originality. The animation is stunning, not only in how it replicates anime movement but also in how fluid and expressive it is. When the adult Pingu shrieks “I WAS FAR AWAY” and tears off his cloak to reveal his muscular exterior, one cannot deny from the movement depicted that the action has escalated. The short is left purposely open-ended.
The superhuman Pingu stares down where he has killed his opponent
Elizabeth Garwood, whose work has been covered in the previous volume, has produced animation. Such animation, which is done in a distinctly anime-inspired style which is familiar and yet all her own, tends to not be the kind to tell full narratives, but is merely a couple of seconds in length. They tend to be part of four-minute animation memes and collaborations with other artists for Multiple Animator Projects (a particularly common trend on YouTube). The animations on her YouTube account, often featuring characters from other media, have thus far garnered over three million views in total. The program she uses tends to be Clip Studio paint, but she has also experimented in puppetry and 3D filmmaking in addition to this. She has mostly produced these short animations following the anime boom of Britain, and, while she has yet to produce a full animated series – since she is a manga artist – I still maintain that she has been absolutely crucial to the continuation of independently produced animation within the national boundaries of Britain.
IAmAmory is another British animator who created a series, albeit one which did not last more than an episode. The series is entitled The Grove and removes around a half-elf and an angry dwarf who he wronged in the spirit of playfulness as they go on a quest to find a place called the Frozen Hue Grove. Amory is as inclined towards manga as she is towards Western works such as Harry Potter, and it shows. The narrative is a Pratchettesque mockery of various fantasy tropes, and more commonly these tropes as they are applied to role-playing games. The animation is very anime-influenced, although its animation style is not quite accurate to the anime style. For example, although the exaggerated facial expressions are retained, the movement is much more fluid than one tends to find in anime. The series was projected to last for three episodes, but due to losing the equipment to make them, the series was scrapped.
Another British creative, Paul Johnson, has produced various videos in the style of anime from the 80s. He may or may not have produced the Doctor Who anime from 2011, which is a great masterpiece all by itself. Watching it was something of an interesting experience. He has admitted it takes him two years to animate. He also produced a Star Wars fan film, known as TIE Fighter, which was apparently influential enough to spawn a Wikipedia article of its very own. I think he shows promise; he has replicated the style employed by Shirow Masamune and his contemporaries to a tee. He is the pinnacle of excellence for the animators on this list. He was even reviewed positively by various websites. I personally think his Doctor Who anime is a highly amusing experience. Influenced by the Jon Pertwee era, it uses audio recordings from the Classic Who era to create a new story about the Third Doctor visiting Japan, where he karate-chops a bunch of suspiciously British muggers, before being rescued by an anime girl in a skimpy outfit. All this within the first few minutes before the Cybermen, led by the Master, and the Daleks, led by Davros, begin their invasion. What I find most amusing is the sense of humour employed by the short, which is a blend of both British and Japanese. When the anime girl (who is never named) rescues the Third Doctor, his response is a very droll “For heaven’s sake, girl, go put something warm on.” A running gag involves said anime girl telling any of the antagonists in the short that “if they’re going to cause trouble, to do it in their own damn country/on their own damn planet.” There are plenty of cameos for the fans, including both Classic incarnations of the Master, the Cyberleader and Davros.
Fig 8. The Third Doctor and the anime girl inspect Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart’s spy truck
In conclusion, while it may not look like much, the United Kingdom has, in fact, produced more anime-inspired animation than it is generally given credit for. Indeed, who knows what other anime-inspired British animation could be out there? I don’t. Indeed, it is for the contentment of the reader to know that such examples have been retrieved from across the Internet as a result of my hard work and effort, and even more of them appear day by day.
Since anime, admittedly, is not as popular in Britain as it is in, per say, France and Latin America, it would stand to reason that there would be little original English language anime actually made in the United Kingdom. An owner of a manga shop in Britain stated in a magazine article that was published in around 2009: “People in the UK are not as open to this type of ‘cartoon’. They’re used to Disney.” Used to Disney? Therefore, it stands to reason that the British people have been indoctrinated, brainwashed, hypnotised by the poison that is American soft power. It is this foul hypnotism which has allowed authors that were actually good to rot in obscurity for eighty years! Disney, the poison! The black blight of alleged “magic” and “assembly-line whimsy”! The bane of the existence of every writer who is desperate to live on after their deaths! Travers suffered under Disney, as did Felix Salten, Margery Sharp and all of them! Good authors, who deserve to have been laced with better treatment.
Forgive my little ramblings, but I am quite simply disappointed, not to mention mystified. Did not the British accept satirical criticism from Jonathan Swift, H.G. Wells and Gilbert & Sullivan? Did they not accept the violence abundant in Tolkien’s works, or Philip Pullman’s, or even their own ancient literature, like Beowulf? Are not a vast majority of nineteenth-century novels rife with exceedingly violent content, and even ancient literature itself? Did you not lap up the grotesqueries of James Gilray, or the erotic art of Aubrey Beardsley? Do you deny it, my countrymen, or indeed, any of you in Europe who are reading now? Do you deny that you have drunk too deeply of the American poison, the poison that has allowed Chris Sabat, Vic Mignogna and all their untrained ilk to gain power in the anime fandom, they who have never acted in the work of our immortal Bard, they who have never had a knighthood? Do you intend to suffer for this outrage?
Anime has never been popular in Britain, that is true, but it has the potential to become popular. Because animation is not just for children to watch, and for parents to entertain their children with. Animation is an art form, just like Rococo, watercolour and sketchwork. It deserves far better than this, far, far better. And the potential of British independent anime has never been greater, and surely it must be something our culture must become accustomed to and accept with open arms. As the article that I used for research concluded, “while British animation that takes influence from Japanese animation is here to stay, the idea of a “British anime” movement is likely a thing of the past.” These opinions are, of course, erroneous, for what my research has proved to you is that the anime produced in the United Kingdom has significantly increased in quantity since the early years of this century, and will continue to increase. Thank you, and sweet dreams. Think of a better future.
REFERENCES AND SOURCES
Literary sources
Hart, Christopher. Manga For the Beginner. New York.
Johnson-Woods, Toni (ed.) Manga An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives. New York
Britannia Rules the Anime 