90-705: Satoshi Kon ( 今 敏 , Kon Satoshi , October 12, 1963 – August 24, 2010) was a Japanese film director, animator , screenwriter and manga artist from Sapporo , Hokkaido , and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art University . He is best known for his acclaimed anime films Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress (2001), Tokyo Godfathers (2003), and Paprika (2006), and
180-509: A courtesan in a brothel at the end of the Edo period to a schoolgirl in the Taishō era . Her family's store is destroyed in an air raid , but on a surviving wall she finds a portrait of her painted by the artist and a promise of their reunion. After World War II , Chiyoko becomes a popular actress, but never forgets the artist. However, one day during filming Eiko secretly steals the key. When asked by
270-479: A budget of approximately 300 million yen), and centered on the themes of homelessness and abandonment, with a comedic touch worked in. The screenplay was written by Keiko Nobumoto . This work also marked the transition from celluloid animation to digital animation. In 2004, Kon released the 13-episode television series Paranoia Agent , in which Kon revisits the theme of the blending of imagination and reality, as well as working in additional social themes. The series
360-493: A cameraman's movements). As a result, some studios now hire nearly as many lighting artists as animators for animated films, while costume designers, hairstylists, choreographers, and cinematographers have occasionally been called upon as consultants to computer-animated projects. Millennium Actress Millennium Actress ( 千年女優 , Sennen Joyū ) is a 2001 Japanese animated drama film co-written and directed by Satoshi Kon and produced by Madhouse . Loosely based on
450-531: A chance of restarting. The theme of "mixture of fiction and reality" is a keyword that symbolizes Kon Satoshi's works, and he repeatedly depicts the relationship between "fiction and reality" with various approaches in each of his works. In Perfect Blue , Millennium Actress , Paranoia Agent , and Paprika , the boundary between fiction and reality gradually became blurred, and the characters were portrayed as going back and forth between fiction and reality. At first glance, Tokyo Godfathers does not seem to deal with
540-470: A character as a 2D drawing or painting, then hand it off to modelers who build the character as a collection of digital polygons. Texture artists "paint" the character with colorful or complex textures, and technical directors set up rigging so that the character can be easily moved and posed. For each scene, layout artists set up virtual cameras and rough blocking . Finally, when a character's bugs have been worked out and its scenes have been blocked, it
630-644: A collaborative gaze in Millennium Actress before arriving at a new type of gaze in Tokyo Godfathers which revels in uncertainty and illusion. Dean DeBlois said, "Satoshi Kon used the hand-drawn medium to explore social stigmas and the human psyche, casting a light on our complexities in ways that might have failed in live action. Much of it was gritty, intense and, at times, even nightmarish. Kon didn't shy away from mature subject matter or live-action sensibilities in his work, and his films will always occupy
720-399: A comeback?" This film is famous for making many audiences feel betrayed by Chiyoko's last line. Kon said that the process of human growth is a repetition of death and rebirth, in which the values we have accumulated up to that point become unacceptable in a new phase, and even if we rebuild them once they are broken, they become unacceptable again in a new phase, and he involved the audience in
810-611: A fascinating middle ground between 'cartoons' and the world as we know it." Kon stated in 2007 that the music of Susumu Hirasawa had been the greatest influence on his expressive style. Kon said that he has learned a lot from Hirasawa's attitude towards music and production, and that he owes a lot of the stories and concepts he creates to his influence. Kon's idea of fractal control of film comes from Susumu Hirasawa, who has applied fractal-generating programs to music production. Hirasawa's lyrics sparked Kon's interest in Jungian psychology and
900-399: A feature film. By doing so, the completed piece could 100% be that person's work, and I'm OK with that. I also considered about doing a documentary of Kon." However, Maruyama has not completely given up on the production. He says, "If a talented director from overseas is willing to take on the project, it is not entirely without possibility," suggesting that the project is not entirely without
990-461: A fictional world where the actress' past and the movies she appeared in intersect, making the story a mixture of reality and fiction as well as a tribute to various classic movies. The main character is modeled on Setsuko Hara and Hideko Takamine , and the movies that appear in the film include a period piece in the style of Akira Kurosawa 's Throne of Blood , a film by Yasujiro Ozu , a chanbara (sword fighting) story featuring Kurama Tengu ,
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#17328693817331080-419: A film a kind of The Adventures of Old Lady Blowing Smoke by mixing fiction and reality to the point where it becomes meaningless to distinguish between them. There are various kinds of trompe l'oeil paintings, but one example that Kon gave to the staff was Utagawa Kuniyoshi 's ukiyoe " At first glance he looks very fierce, but he is actually a kind person " (みかけハこハゐがとんだいゝ人だ). At first glance, it appears to be
1170-428: A fun adventure, turning the film from psycho-horror and suspense to a tricky and humorous entertainment. In the previous film, he tried to confuse the audience by depicting the inner turmoil and chaos of the main character through the mixture of fiction and reality, but in this film, his intention is not to confuse the audience, but to let the audience enjoy the mixture of fiction and reality itself. He aimed to create
1260-473: A given scene was hand-drawn, then transposed onto celluloid, where it would be traced and painted. These finished "cels" were then placed together in sequence over painted backgrounds and filmed, one frame at a time. Animation methods have become far more varied in recent years. Today's cartoons could be created using any number of methods, mostly using computers to make the animation process cheaper and faster. These more efficient animation procedures have made
1350-669: A matter of months after being diagnosed. Kon died on August 24, 2010, at the age of 46. After his death, Kon was mentioned among the Fond Farewells in Time ' s people of the year 2010. Darren Aronofsky wrote a eulogy to him, which was printed in Satoshi Kon's Animation Works ( 今敏アニメ全仕事 ) , a Japanese retrospective book of his animation career. In November 2010, Madhouse , the animation studio that had previously produced Kon's works, officially announced that they would continue to produce
1440-430: A member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). Following Ohayō , Kon began work on his next film, Dreaming Machine . In May 2010, Kon was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer . Given half a year to live, Kon chose to spend the remainder of his life in his home. Shortly before his death Kon composed a final message, which was uploaded to his blog by his family upon his death. As Kon explained in
1530-421: A minimal advertising campaign from Go Fish Pictures , a division of DreamWorks SKG . Although the scale of the release was not large, the merit of the theatrical release was not only in the box-office revenue, but also in the fact that critics would view the film and publish reviews and criticisms in general newspapers, magazines and websites, which would raise awareness of the work and reach an audience outside of
1620-468: A monster story that borrows images from Godzilla , and a science fiction story. The story follows the personal story of Chiyoko Fujiwara, an elderly actress, and gradually becomes a muddle of reality, dreams, and movies. Each episode repeats a series of scenes of "chasing, running, and falling" in different situations and times. Her life, the sum of all of these, also repeats various setbacks and revivals while continuing to chase after Man with Key, who
1710-522: A movie out of only one manga he had ever read, it would be that one. He was also influenced by the New Wave [ ja ] movement in manga started by Otomo and others, and decided to not only read but also draw manga himself in his high school days. He was enlightened by the New Wave's way of overwhelmingly depicting a story in which nothing in particular happens, focusing on a character who could never be
1800-462: A scene from one of Chiyoko's films, and from this point forward Chiyoko's memories and films become intertwined. Recalling that Ginei's film is set in Manchuria, Chiyoko becomes an actress and travels there in the hope that the artist will recognize and find her. She meets the general manager's nephew and aspiring director Junichi Ōtaki as well as Ginei's lead actress Eiko Shimao. During filming, Chiyoko
1890-722: A suitable director to complete Kon's work. Before his death, the storyboard and script, even part of the keyframe film was already completed. Then I thought, even if someone can mimic Kon's work, it would still be clear that it's only an imitation. For example, if Mamoru Hosoda took the director's position, the completed Dreaming Machine would still be a good piece of work. However, that would make it Hosoda's movie, not Kon's. Dreaming Machine should be Kon's movie, him and only him, not someone else's. That means we cannot and should not "compromise" only to finish it. I spent years to finally reach this hard conclusion. Instead, we should take only Kon's "original concept", and let somebody turn it into
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#17328693817331980-405: A team of story artists, and synchronizing lip or mouth movements to dialogue already prepared by a screenwriter and recorded by vocal talent. Despite those constraints, the animator is still capable of exercising significant artistic skill and discretion in developing the character's movements to accomplish the objective of each scene. There is an obvious analogy here between the art of animation and
2070-459: Is not a character; most commonly vehicles , machinery , and natural phenomena such as rain, snow, and water). Stop motion animators do not draw their images, instead they move models or cut-outs frame-by-frame, famous animators of this genre being Ray Harryhausen and Nick Park . In large-scale productions by major studios, each animator usually has one or more assistants, " inbetweeners " and " clean-up artists", who make drawings between
2160-410: Is almost an illusion. This work is basically a repetition of the same episode, a cyclical story like Boléro in music. Kon said that this idea of a fractal structure owes a lot to the music of Susumu Hirasawa. The story also reflects the hospitalization Kon experienced after his debut as a manga artist, and the frustration and struggle he felt at that time: "Everything is ruined, but can I still make
2250-417: Is closely related to filmmaking and like filmmaking is extremely labor-intensive, which means that most significant works require the collaboration of several animators. The methods of creating the images or frames for an animation piece depend on the animators' artistic styles and their field. Other artists who contribute to animated cartoons , but who are not animators, include layout artists (who design
2340-880: Is complete and has been perfected through the " sweat box " feedback process, the resulting data can be dispatched to a render farm , where computers handle the tedious task of actually rendering all the frames. Each finished film clip is then checked for quality and rushed to a film editor, who assembles the clips together to create the film. While early computer animation was heavily criticized for rendering human characters that looked plastic or even worse, eerie (see uncanny valley ), contemporary software can now render strikingly realistic clothing, hair, and skin. The solid shading of traditional animation has been replaced by very sophisticated virtual lighting in computer animation, and computer animation can take advantage of many camera techniques used in live-action filmmaking (i.e., simulating real-world "camera shake" through motion capture of
2430-427: Is handed off to an animator (that is, a person with that actual job title) who can start developing the exact movements of the character's virtual limbs, muscles, and facial expressions in each specific scene. At that point, the role of the modern computer animator overlaps in some respects with that of his or her predecessors in traditional animation: namely, trying to create scenes already storyboarded in rough form by
2520-456: Is led to northern Manchuria by a fortuneteller bribed by Eiko. The train she is riding is attacked by bandits before the setting shifts to a burning Sengoku period castle. Chiyoko, in the role of a princess, is tricked by an old wraith into drinking a cursed tea that will cause her to "burn forever in the flames of eternal love". In Chiyoko's continuing search for the artist, the setting and Chiyoko's role changes in quick succession, ranging from
2610-543: Is one of the directors greatly influenced by Kon, especially Perfect Blue . In an interview with Kon in 2001, he said that any scene in Requiem for a Dream that seems to be influenced by Perfect Blue is a homage to it, and that he still wants to make a live-action version of Perfect Blue . His 2010 film Black Swan was also pointed out by several critics for its similarity to Perfect Blue , but Aronofsky denied any direct influence. Christopher Nolan 's 2010 film Inception
2700-413: Is suddenly transformed into an unfamiliar world in order to disorient the audience. This is the reason why he insisted on animated films instead of live action. When asked about his interest in female characters, Kon stated that female characters were easier to write because he is not able to know the character in the same way as a male character, and "can project my obsession onto the characters and expand
2790-417: Is supposed to be recounting her life story, but her memories get confused and the various roles she played in the past begin to blend into it, creating a tumultuous story. " The structure of the story was decided at the rough plot stage when Kon fleshed out this sentence, and the last scene remained intact in the finished film. He then worked with the scenario writer, Sadayuki Murai, and the producer to develop
Satoshi Kon - Misplaced Pages Continue
2880-413: The "key poses" drawn by the animator, and also re-draw any sketches that are too roughly made to be used as such. Usually, a young artist seeking to break into animation is hired for the first time in one of these categories, and can later advance to the rank of full animator (usually after working on several productions). Historically, the creation of animation was a long and arduous process. Each frame of
2970-493: The Graphic Design course of the Musashino Art University in 1982. While in college, Kon made his debut as a manga artist with the short manga Toriko (1984) and earned a runner-up spot in the 10th Annual Tetsuya Chiba Awards held by Young Magazine ( Kodansha ). Afterward, he found work as Katsuhiro Otomo 's assistant. After graduating from college in 1987, Kon authored the single-volume manga Kaikisen (1990) and wrote
3060-524: The North American rights and re-released the film theatrically in its original Japanese language version on August 13, 2019, and in an all-new English dubbed version on August 19, 2019. Commercially, the film performed modestly on its US release earning $ 18,732 on its opening weekend and $ 37,285 during its full three-week release. The film was shown almost exclusively in New York and Los Angeles and received
3150-558: The TV series Paranoia Agent (2004). He died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 46 on August 24, 2010. Satoshi Kon was born on October 12, 1963. Due to his father's job transfer, Kon's education from the fourth elementary grade up to the second middle-school grade was based in Sapporo . Kon was a classmate and close friend of manga artist Seihō Takizawa. While attending Hokkaido Kushiro Koryo High School , Kon aspired to become an animator. Kon entered
3240-428: The animation industry, in order to make sure that the movie would have reach audiences both within and outside the spectrum of animation fandom. Some of the character designs were done by Kon himself, and all the posters of Chiyoko in the movie were also drawn by Kon. This is Kon's last movie to utilize cel animation , as his later works were produced using digital ink-and-paint among other digital methods. And most of
3330-420: The animator's job less tedious and more creative. Audiences generally find animation to be much more interesting with sound. Voice actors and musicians , among other talent, may contribute vocal or music tracks. Some early animated films asked the vocal and music talent to synchronize their recordings to already-extant animation (and this is still the case when films are dubbed for international audiences). For
3420-401: The animators who have the skills and abilities that Kon would like to work with are usually those prefer to draw key frames rather than the animation director, making it difficult to ask them to continue their work. For the character designs, Honda was chosen because he is someone who draws elegant pictures that can appeal to those outside of the animation community and is genuinely talented in
3510-569: The appeal of Yasutaka Tsutsui's work is "deviation from common sense." What he learned from Tsutsui was "doubt the framework of common sense." Kon has had a great influence on directors around the world even after his death, and artists and works have been influenced by his realistic visual expression and vivid editing. Kon's influence on foreign filmmakers was more pronounced than in Japan, with directors such as Darren Aronofsky and Guillermo del Toro expressing their support. American filmmaker Aronofsky
3600-401: The art of acting, in that actors also must do the best they can with the lines they are given; it is often encapsulated by the common industry saying that animators are "actors with pencils". In 2015, Chris Buck noted in an interview that animators have become "actors with mice ." Some studios bring in acting coaches on feature films to help animators work through such issues. Once each scene
3690-467: The artist as a military policeman in the past approaches Chiyoko on a journey of atonement and hands her a letter from the artist. Chiyoko boards an express train to the artist's hometown in Hokkaido , but the conclusion of her trek proves fruitless. During production of Chiyoko's final film, an earthquake causes the set to collapse, and a young Genya, working as an assistant at the time, rescues her. Seeing
Satoshi Kon - Misplaced Pages Continue
3780-470: The aspects I want to describe." With a frame of reference up to Tokyo Godfathers , Susan J. Napier notes that while the theme of performance is the one obvious commonality in his works, she finds that the concept of the male gaze is the more important topic for discussion. Napier shows the evolution of Kon's use of the gaze from its restrictive and negative aspects in Magnetic Rose and Perfect Blue , to
3870-630: The awards of Best Animation Film and Fantasia Ground-Breaker at the 2001 Fantasia Film Festival . It was awarded the Feature Film Award at the 8th Animation Kobe . The movie took home the prestigious Ofuji Noburo Award at the 2002 Mainichi Film Awards , and was honored with the Orient Express Award at the 2001 Festival de Cine de Sitges in Spain. The film was nominated for four Annie Awards in 2004, including Outstanding Direction and Writing. It
3960-400: The backgrounds, lighting, and camera angles), storyboard artists (who draw panels of the action from the script), and background artists (who paint the "scenery"). Animated films share some film crew positions with regular live action films, such as director, producer, sound engineer, and editor, but differ radically in that for most of the history of animation, they did not need most of
4050-602: The crew positions seen on a physical set. In hand-drawn Japanese animation productions, such as in Hayao Miyazaki 's films, the key animator handles both layout and key animation. Some animators in Japan such as Mitsuo Iso take full responsibility for their scenes, making them become more than just the key animator. Animators often specialize. One important distinction is between character animators (artists who specialize in character movement, dialogue , acting , etc.) and special effects animators (who animate anything that
4140-406: The demolition of the company's obsolete studio. This would be her first interview in thirty years after her sudden retirement from the entertainment industry. Documentarian Genya Tachibana, a fan of Chiyoko, visits her house as an interviewer along with his cameraman Kyoji Ida, but before the interview, Tachibana gives Chiyoko a small box that holds an old-fashioned key. She remarks that the key "opens
4230-411: The distribution company for Perfect Blue (Rex Entertainment) went bankrupt. Coincidentally, Kon's next work would also feature a film studio going bankrupt. In 2002, Kon's second film, Millennium Actress , was released to the public. The distribution company for the North American release was DreamWorks-affiliated Go Fish Pictures. The film centers on a retired actress who mysteriously withdraws from
4320-413: The distribution company for Perfect Blue , Rex Entertainment, went bankrupt. The project for Millennium Actress came from the words " Let's make a movie that looks like a trompe l'oeil " by Taro Maki, who decided to produce Kon's film because he thought his previous work was amazing. The script writing began with a sentence that Kon came up with: " An old woman who was once touted as a great actress
4410-417: The episodes and detailed character settings to be included in the plot. Unlike the previous film, which he was hired to direct, this one was his original project, so he was able to express his own opinions, and decided to put more emphasis on the sound, especially the music, and asked Susumu Hirasawa , who had been adored for a long time, to compose the music. There were about 250 staff members in total, and
4500-405: The face of a single person, but upon closer inspection, one can see that many people are intertwined, and he likened this characteristic of the painting, "non-faces coming together to form a face," to the concept of this work, "lies piling up to reveal the truth. The film has a complex structure in which the staff members who visit the legendary actress for an interview experience her life story in
4590-442: The family's confectionery store after marrying, Chiyoko remains uncertain. She meets a political dissident painter who is being pursued by the police and hides him in her home's storehouse. The next day he takes off for Manchuria to join his allies, leaving behind for Chiyoko the key to his box of art supplies. Chiyoko fails to catch the artist before his train departs, but vows to reunite with him. Genya tearfully recognizes this as
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#17328693817334680-470: The film "as a rumination on the place movies have in our personal and collective subconscious, Millennium Actress fascinatingly goes where films have not often gone before". Kevin M. Williams of the Chicago Tribune gave the movie 4 stars and put his feelings for the film this way: "A piece of cinematic art. It's modern day Japanese animation at its best [...] It's animated, but it's human and will touch
4770-551: The film crew about the significance of the key, Chiyoko despondently realizes that she can no longer remember the artist's face, and she resigns herself to a married life with Junichi. She eventually finds the key hidden in their home and confronts Junichi about it; Junichi, having been aware of Eiko's role in the fortuneteller incident, coerced her into stealing the key on his behalf in order to secure Chiyoko's hand in marriage, and Eiko admits to being motivated by jealousy of Chiyoko's youth and innocence. An old scarred man who had pursued
4860-466: The film with "Kihonteki na story igai wa subete kaeta" ( 基本的なストーリー以外は全て変えた ) —roughly, "Everything but the fundamental story was changed." Much like Kon's previous works, the film focuses on the synergy of dreams and reality. He participated in the TV program Ani*Kuri15 broadcast by NHK in 2007. His one-minute short film Ohayō was aired along with works by Mamoru Oshii, Makoto Shinkai and others. That same year, Kon helped establish and served as
4950-453: The filmmaker whose works and books he had read the most is Akira Kurosawa. As for novels, the works of Ryotaro Shiba , the Japanese historical novelist, had a great impact on Kon in terms of his own relationship with Japan. He was also very much inspired by Haruki Murakami , whose works have been translated into many foreign languages. He had seen the film Blade Runner (1982) before reading
5040-464: The fractal of the film by asking them whether they would be able to get up and continue to "chase, run, and fall" even after they "fell" at the end of the film. Kon said, " There is no single solution - that's what I want most for my work to be. I want people to see it in many different ways. " Millennium Actress was favorably received by critics, gaining a 93% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes . Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan said of
5130-439: The hardcore anime fandom. Millennium Actress began with a request to make a trompe l'oeil movie like the previous Perfect Blue . However, it was only a film technique, not a film theme. Both works share the same methodology of "blurring the boundary between fiction and reality," and both works are like two sides of the same coin for Kon. The previous film focused on the negative side of human nature, while this film focuses on
5220-435: The hero of the chambara film Kurama Tengu , or the great Japanese star Godzilla . The film that directly influenced Millennium Actress is George Roy Hill 's Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). When he was in college, it was not one film that influenced him the most, but the entire body of work of Terry Gilliam , including Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989). However,
5310-486: The highly acclaimed Perfect Blue . It was planned by Masao Maruyama and produced by Taro Maki. The film is partly based on the life of Japanese actress Setsuko Hara , although it was produced and released more than a decade prior to her death. Following the release of Perfect Blue , Kon considered adapting the Yasutaka Tsutsui novel Paprika (1993) into his next film. However, these plans were stalled when
5400-415: The lives of actresses Setsuko Hara and Hideko Takamine , it tells the story of two documentary filmmakers investigating the life of a retired acting legend. As she tells them the story of her life, the borderline between cinema and reality gradually becomes blurred. Chiyoko Fujiwara, a renowned actress who was a prominent star for film company Ginei, accepts a request for a retrospective interview amidst
5490-452: The majority of animated films today, the soundtrack is recorded first in the language of the film's primary target market and the animators are required to synchronize their work to the soundtrack. As a result of the ongoing transition from traditional 2D to 3D computer animation , the animator's traditional task of redrawing and repainting the same character 24 times a second (for each second of finished animation) has now been superseded by
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#17328693817335580-511: The manga Seraphim: Wings of 266,613,336 , which was written by Oshii and drawn by Kon. The manga was serialized in the monthly anime magazine Animage starting in 1994. However, as the series progressed, the opinions of Kon and Oshii became divided, and the series went on hiatus and ended unfinished. After this work, Kon ended his career as a manga artist and devoted himself to making anime. In 1997, Kon began work on his directorial debut Perfect Blue (based on Yoshikazu Takeuchi 's novel of
5670-406: The message, he chose not to make news of his rapidly advancing illness public, in part out of embarrassment at how drastically emaciated and ravaged his body had become. The result was that the announcement of his death was met with widespread shock and surprise, particularly given that Kon had shown no signs of illness at relatively recent public events, as the cancer progressed to a terminal state in
5760-404: The modern task of developing dozens (or hundreds) of movements of different parts of a character in a virtual scene. Because of the transition to computer animation, many additional support positions have become essential, with the result that the animator has become but one component of a very long and highly specialized production pipeline. In the 21st century , visual development artists design
5850-516: The moment when landscapes and people that look as if they are real suddenly reveal themselves to be 'fiction' or 'pictures'. His ability to depict a realistic world, which he has demonstrated in order in the films he has participated in as a staff member, such as Otomo's and Oshii's works, is utilized in his own works to most effectively show the drop of "transition from reality to fiction". The world that appears to be real in Kon's works does not remain real, but
5940-474: The most important thing" and begins reflecting on her life. Chiyoko was born during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake , which took the life of her father. As a schoolgirl, she is scouted by Ginei's general manager as an actress to appear in a government-sponsored film to inspire troops serving in the Second Sino-Japanese War . While her mother strongly opposes the idea, intending for Chiyoko to inherit
6030-457: The motif of "fiction and reality," but it does have a device in which the "fiction" of "miracles and coincidences" is successively introduced into the realistic life of homeless people in Tokyo. Because of the character designs and the way they are expressed, Kon's works seem to be aiming for realism. However, Kon's goal is not to "depict landscapes and people that look as if they are real" but to "depict
6120-412: The movie on Kon's deathbed and promised to see the project to completion. However, the project was halted in 2011 due to financial reasons. As of 2013, the completion of Dreaming Machine remains uncertain due to funding difficulties, with only 600 of the 1,500 shots being animated. At Otakon 2012, Madhouse founder Masao Maruyama, who was involved in all of Kon's films from Perfect Blue to Paprika and
6210-502: The movies on video and made it a routine to draw manga based on the setting, format and direction of the scenes. Ninety percent of the films he watched were made in the U.S., and he said that he learned a lot about his own style of visual expression from Hollywood films . However, he was not influenced by any particular film or director, but by everything he had ever seen. For example, Millennium Actress has scenes that borrow images from Kurosawa's Throne of Blood , Yasujiro Ozu 's films,
6300-493: The novel and had not read all of his works, but Philip K. Dick was one of the authors he wanted to read and he became very interested in images of nightmares under his influence. He has been a long-time fan of Yasutaka Tsutsui since before he directed Paprika , and was especially influenced by reading Tsutsui's works intensively when he was around 20 years old. It was such a fundamental influence that even he did not know how or where Tsutsui's work influenced him. According to Kon,
6390-452: The policeman confessed to him that he tortured the artist to death. On her deathbed, Chiyoko thanks Genya for the interview, saying that the key unlocked her memories of the artist and revived the young girl she was before. With her last words, she decides that whether or not she sees the artist again, she had fallen in love with her search of him. Millennium Actress is the second film directed by Satoshi Kon and his first original work, after
6480-421: The positive side. The previous film depicted the gradual blurring of the boundary between fiction and reality, while this film seamlessly connects fiction and reality from the beginning, and shows the characters freely moving back and forth between fiction and reality. The technique of mixing fiction and reality was used to express the protagonist's uneasy inner world in the previous film, and used in this film for
6570-437: The production period was about two years. The 20 or so main staff members were almost the same as in the previous work, with only the animation director changing. In the previous work, the character design was done by Hisashi Eguchi and the animation director by Hideki Hamasu, but in this work, both were done by Takeshi Honda . The reason for this is that the animation director is a very important and burdensome position, and
6660-438: The protagonist of the story. Kon has also said that his drawing style has been influenced by Otomo, as he used to work as Otomo's assistant when he was a manga artist. After entering the animation industry, he was greatly influenced by animators Hiroyuki Okiura , Toshiyuki Inoue , Takeshi Honda , Masashi Ando and art setter Takashi Watabe. He had been watching only live-action films since he started college. He watched most of
6750-415: The public eye at the peak of her career. Having the same estimated budget as Perfect Blue (approximately 120 million yen), Millennium Actress garnered higher critical and financial success than its predecessor and earned numerous awards. The screenplay was written by Sadayuki Murai, who utilized a seamless connection between illusion and reality to create a " Trompe-l'œil kind of film". Millennium Actress
6840-406: The same name). It was the first film by Kon to be produced by Madhouse , and producer Masao Maruyama invited him because he was impressed in Kon's work on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure . A suspense story centered on a pop idol, Kon was initially unsatisfied with the first script based on the original and requested to make changes to it. With the permission of the original author, Yoshikazu Takeuchi, Kon
6930-542: The scenes are drawn based on Kon's layout. The budget was initially 130 million yen, and the final budget was around 100 million and a few tens of millions of yen, one of the lowest production costs for an animated film in Japan. The film was released in North America on September 12, 2003, distributed by DreamWorks ' arthouse and foreign movie publishing company Go Fish Pictures , with a total of six screens. Theatrical anime distribution company Eleven Arts acquired
7020-501: The script for Otomo's live-action film World Apartment Horror . In 1991, Kon worked in anime for the first time as an animator and on background design for the film Roujin Z , which was written by Otomo. He began working around 1992 as a scriptwriter, layout artist and background designer for Magnetic Rose (directed by Koji Morimoto), one of three short films in Katsuhiro Otomo's omnibus Memories (released in 1995). This
7110-579: The soul of anyone who has loved deeply". In February 2004, Cinefantastique listed the anime as one of the "10 Essential Animations", stating that it "represents a new maturity for anime, one where the technical achievements of 40 years are finally put at the full service of an emotionally rich story." Millennium Actress received the Grand Prize in the Japan Agency of Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival, tying with Spirited Away . Additionally, it won
7200-400: The unfinished "Yumemiru Kikai", and that the animation director Yoshimi Itazu would be acting as the director. According to Takeshi Honda , animator and frequent collaborator with Satoshi Kon, Kon disappeared in the middle of production on the movie. He had not informed most of the staff on the movie about his pancreatic cancer including producer Masao Maruyama . Maruyama recorded the script to
7290-414: The wraith's appearance in her prop helmet, Chiyoko flees the set and retires from acting. In the present day, Chiyoko, once more seeing the wraith in her reflection, acknowledges that she was no longer the girl the artist had met. Upon the end of the interview, another earthquake strikes, upsetting Chiyoko's fragile health. En route to the hospital, Genya confides to Kyoji that after Chiyoko left for Hokkaido,
7380-415: The writings of Hayao Kawai , Japan's foremost expert on Jungian psychology, who has psychologically deciphered ancient myths and folktales, which greatly influenced his storytelling and direction. All of Kon's works, from Perfect Blue to the suspended Dreaming Machine , have been inspired by Hirasawa's lyrics and songs. Susumu Hirasawa's "Rotation (LOTUS-2)", which is the theme song of Millennium Actress ,
7470-411: Was allowed to make any changes he wanted, except for keeping the three elements of the novel ("idol," "horror" and "stalker"). The screenplay was written by Sadayuki Murai, who worked in the idea of a blurred border between the real world and imagination. Following Perfect Blue , Kon considered adapting the 1993 Yasutaka Tsutsui novel Paprika into his next film. However, these plans were stalled when
7560-473: Was also his friend and collaborator, stated: "Unfortunately, we still don't have enough money. My personal goal is to get it within five years after his passing. I'm still working hard towards that goal." In July 2015, Maruyama reported that Dreaming Machine remains in production but they are looking for a director to match Kon's abilities and similar vision. In August 2016, Mappa Producer Masao Maruyama said in an interview: "For 4~5 years, I kept searching for
7650-440: Was also noted by several critics and scholars to have many similarities with Kon's Paprika (2006), including plot similarities, and similar scenes and characters. Animator An animator is an artist who creates images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animation
7740-540: Was an avid watcher of anime titles, such as Space Battleship Yamato (1974), Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974), Future Boy Conan (1978), Galaxy Express 999 (1978) and Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) during his junior and senior high school years, which Japanese anime fans of the time were crazy about. Otomo had a strong influence on him, and his favorite works were Domu: A Child's Dream and AKIRA , especially Domu , which he liked so much that he said if he could make
7830-430: Was created from an abundance of unused ideas for stories and arrangements that Kon felt were good but did not fit into any of his projects. In 2006, Paprika was announced, after having been planned out and materializing for several years. The story centers on a new form of psychotherapy that utilizes dream analysis to treat mental patients. The film was highly successful and earned a number of film awards. Kon summed up
7920-534: Was played at Kon's funeral. Kon says that he is influenced by everything he has been exposed to in his life, including writing, painting, music, film, manga, anime, television and theater. He has learned a lot from Osamu Tezuka and Katsuhiro Otomo in manga, Hayao Miyazaki in animation, Akira Kurosawa and many other great Japanese and international directors in film. He was familiarized with Tezuka's manga and animation works such as Astro Boy , The Jungle Emperor and Princess Knight in his childhood. He
8010-481: Was the first Satoshi Kon film to feature Susumu Hirasawa , of whom Kon was a long-time fan, as composer. In 2003, Kon's third work, Tokyo Godfathers , was announced. The distribution company for the North American release was Sony Pictures-affiliated Destination Films. The film centers on a trio of homeless persons in Tokyo who discover a baby on Christmas Eve and set out to search for her parents. Tokyo Godfathers cost more to make than Kon's previous two films (with
8100-420: Was the first time he adopted "the fusion of fantasy and reality" as the theme of his work. Kon worked as one of five layout artists on Mamoru Oshii 's Patlabor 2: The Movie in 1993, along with other animated films. He worked as a key animator on episode 2 of the 1993–1994 OVA JoJo's Bizarre Adventure , and he worked as the writer and storyboard artist for episode 5. Kon then worked with Mamoru Oshii on
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