What’s funny about this is that at the time some theorists tried to rationalize what was going on. Some even claimed that we were in a new age, one of “limited animation,” where too much emphasis on making drawings move only hindered story development. They started saying that use of the tome-e, still images employed for effect, was a “new form of

Loss of motive. Japanese animation is testimony to the horrors that occur when people keep producing works that don’t assign independent motivations to the protagonists based on some sort of value system.

I want to find something that can become our core principles. I haven’t figured out what that is. But I think I might find an entry point for the film in my hazy thoughts about how our country has not yet made a full accounting for the Second World War.

As I developed into a youth and young adult, I came to realize that I shouldn’t be just a good kid, that I should look at things with my own eyes and have independent ideas. This led me to attempt to turn my back on even my fundamental purity as a child and, combined with the dark time of studying for entrance exams, I came to draw nihilistic gekig