Learning About Animation in Tokyo, Losing Scavenger Hunts, and Samurai Again

Next day started with knots in our stomachs. Jason, the animation professor, was taking an unusually long time to get downstairs (we met every morning in front of the hotel), and Dove and Goto gathered us all up in a huddle in the middle of the street as small cars honked their way past us. Ray Goto informed up that he ‘made Jason angry last night’ which we didn’t really react to. “He punched me,” he said in order to instigate a response. To which we all fell back a bit and inspected his face for any evidence. His explanation is that he and Mark Shultz, while we were at the zoo went to meet Geoff Darrow.

This was interrupted by some gasps, mostly from the sequential group, and everyone else (myself included) who paused and pretended to look informed.

The professors insisted that we “know about this stuff we just don’t put his name to it”. Turns out he’s the artist behind things like Hardboiled and the Sentinels from the Matrix.

Anyway, he goes on to tell us about Darrow’s invitation to his ‘office’ which turns out to be Madhouse Studio (Movies such as Paprika). There was a slight uproar but Dove (who before had been as disappointed in them as we were) quieted us down, assuring us we got the better end of the deal. Apparently the studio was actually quite depressing. Cubicles were only big enough to hold a light table and half a person. If someone wasn’t drawing in their cubicle, they were sleeping on the floor of it! The legs in sleeping bags sticking out of the doorframes. Apparently animators, though admired and skilled, are paidd less than American’s minimum wage, and the average animator is working 16 hour days on two scenes. “They’re fanboys,” Ray said appropriately. “They’re guys that just love it so much, they don’t care how much they’re being paid for it, even if it kills them. Which it is!”

But it came later. First we were off to the scavenger hunt, which despite being somewhat excited for, turned out to be a disaster. We were doing pretty well until we got lost in… some station or other. It may have been the Omote-Sando, but I feel like that’s on the other side of the map!

So my group took an absurd amount of time looking for the Kusunagi Masashige statue- the one which we wouldn’t have known what on earth it was if it weren’t for the fact Charles and I had stuck around after the Imperial Palace to draw it. (That samurai equestrian statue!)

Whilst sketching a gesture of it again, we noticed there was a group of what we assumed to be Chinese businessmen. Two of them came up to me and started asking me questions in Chinese. They seemed disappointed when I informed them “Er, English.”

Another spot that took us a while to find was Zojo-ji Temple (I think that’s how it’s spelled) to fine some Jizo statues. It was really pretty, and I took some time to take photos since we’d clearly lost.

The meeting point was the Ueno National Museum, and it turned out all he groups failed to meet on time except one.

The National Museum had too much cool stuff to talk about at once. In the end, all that I actually paid attention to was the samurai armor hiding in the back. Probably took about 75-100 refs per armor.

And of course after this was listening to Geoff Darrow. I’m tired and can’t type much more (so I’ll go over it later) but I’ll say one of my favorite parts of the night, on the subject of when he was working with Hannah Barbara- “You have a plane. People on the plane, everyone’s tired, not too funny. Now, you put a bear on that plane… that’s funny.”