Anime

The anime I watched is called "Eden of the East." It takes place in the not too distant future in a time when technology and the internet has become a lot more relevant in our daily lives. The story is about a man named Akira Takizawa who lost his memory, he soon learns that he was one of the 12 people in Japan chosen to improve the state of the world. Each of these 12 people were chosen by a man named "Mr. Outside" and they were given the title of "selecao" and a cell phone with 8.2 billion Yen to spend in whatever way they see fit as long as whatever they spend it on is for the greater good of the world.

Our dependency on technology is a major theme of this anime. Characters are constantly on their cell phones because in the time the anime takes place cell phones have the capability to do almost anything a computer can. A nifty animation technique I noticed is when the anime is showing what the character is looking at on the cell phone, the viewer can only see the screen and not the hand of the person holding it. Whenever a button is pressed, the cell phone moves down and back up.

There is also a lot of panning in this anime. When a new setting is introduced, the animators tend to show the viewer an overview of what the setting is like with a wide shot that pans from left to right or vice versa.

Japanese animes tend to go for a more realistic look than American cartoons do. I've noticed in many animes the outlines on characters and settings are drawn with thin lines. Most Japanese animators like to use thin lines because it allows them to add more detail. Animations with thick outlines look more unrealistic because in real life, there are no outlines around people, outlines are only used in cartoons so that people can distinguish objects or characters amongst the background.

Another good animation technique I noticed in Eden of the East is what happens to a character's eyes when they're shocked or angry. Their eyes will become blank white circles with messy outlines. I find this one interesting because I haven't seen anything like it before in other animes, in most other animes when someone is shocked or angry, their eye pupils will just get smaller.