Whose "Who's Who"?
The 1960s stage play The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley offered a rule of thumb about straight guys who dabble in gay sex: one time, you're curious; two times, you're going through a phase; three times or more, you like it. Without getting into that whole controversy, I'd like to borrow the format of the rule of thumb to apply it to Who's Who in Animated Cartoons by Jeff Lenburg:
If you make one serious error or omission, you may have just missed the data; two such errors or omissions, you have a blind spot; three or more times, and there is a serious problem with the author's agenda.
In this case, Lenburg has drastically short-changed anyone having anything to do with anime. Why does it matter? First of all, note that the title of his book does not read Who's Who in American Cartoons. He offers what's supposed to be a comprehensive look at animators, and where he chooses to be so, it is comprehensive. He's offered up plenty of ink on The Usual Suspects: Hanna and Barbera, Disney and the Nine Old Men, Bob Clampett, Paul Terry (of Terry-Toons), John Lasseter, even Ralph Bakshi. It's a pretty thick (360+ pages) book, and comprehensive as far as it goes.
Unfortunately, it refuses to go to Asia.
Of the major movers in anime, Lenburg profiles exactly two, and arguably these are the two that no author could ignore and still keep credibility: Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki. The facts are accurate, as far as they go, and the Tezuka entry alludes to the Kimba/Simba controversy.
The Miyazaki entry omits one fact, but it's a fact as big as a Totoro, and its omission is one of the major clues that Lenburg has a curious tunnel-vision when it comes to anime. The Miyazaki entry mentions that Howl's Moving Castle was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature; yet the entry fails to mention that Spirited Away actually won an Oscar! It was only the second animated movie to do so; yet, Lenburg, who pretty much lists every Oscar nominee who ever was, win or lose, happened to forget this one.
He also forgot that there were more than two significant anime masters. You won't find entries at all for the major names. Katsuhiro Otomo? Alluded to in the Tezuka entry. Isao Takahata? Alluded to in the Miyazaki entry. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the Gundam creator? Not here. Satoshi Kon? Missing in action. The late great Yoshifumi Kondo, whose mastery of facial expressions added to all the Studio Ghibli masterpieces, including his sole direction credit Whisper of the Heart? Fuhgeddaboudit. Rin Taro? Osamu Dezaki? Makoto Shinkai? No. No. No.
After a while, you have to wonder if there's a deliberate animus against Asian (or at least Japanese) animators hard-wired into the book. To be fair, a few are mentioned, but you pretty much have to page through the book to find guys like Koji Yamamura, who was nominated for an Oscar for Animated Short in 2003 (the year Spirited Away won).
Just as interesting, though, are the Asian-American animators who get short shrift. Jimmy Murakami (of Murakami Wolf Studios) gets a sizable entry, although it completely fails to mention his studio's contribution of animation to the Frank Zappa film 200 Motels. And, to be fair, some Western animators are unfairly dissed: the entry for Richard Williams fails to mention his magnum opus, the feature film Watership Down.
The biggest sin of omission, though, is the failure to mention Bob Kuwahara. This man (1901-1964) immigrated to America as a kid, worked for 5 years at Disney and 5 at MGM before doing time in an internment camp after Pearl Harbor. He went to Terry-Toons in 1950 and created a series of shorts about a Japanese mouse named Hashimoto (which may be the first time the word "ninjutsu" was ever uttered on American television--so there, Naruto!) Yet, the only mention of Hashimoto is under another Terry-Toons animator, Arthur Bartsch, who directed one episode; nothing about the guy who wrote and directed most of the other 13 episodes.
Mister Lenburg, for future editions of the book, you may want to learn the word "google." The truth, as they used to say, is out there; your book just needs to find it.
If you make one serious error or omission, you may have just missed the data; two such errors or omissions, you have a blind spot; three or more times, and there is a serious problem with the author's agenda.
In this case, Lenburg has drastically short-changed anyone having anything to do with anime. Why does it matter? First of all, note that the title of his book does not read Who's Who in American Cartoons. He offers what's supposed to be a comprehensive look at animators, and where he chooses to be so, it is comprehensive. He's offered up plenty of ink on The Usual Suspects: Hanna and Barbera, Disney and the Nine Old Men, Bob Clampett, Paul Terry (of Terry-Toons), John Lasseter, even Ralph Bakshi. It's a pretty thick (360+ pages) book, and comprehensive as far as it goes.
Unfortunately, it refuses to go to Asia.
Of the major movers in anime, Lenburg profiles exactly two, and arguably these are the two that no author could ignore and still keep credibility: Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki. The facts are accurate, as far as they go, and the Tezuka entry alludes to the Kimba/Simba controversy.
The Miyazaki entry omits one fact, but it's a fact as big as a Totoro, and its omission is one of the major clues that Lenburg has a curious tunnel-vision when it comes to anime. The Miyazaki entry mentions that Howl's Moving Castle was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature; yet the entry fails to mention that Spirited Away actually won an Oscar! It was only the second animated movie to do so; yet, Lenburg, who pretty much lists every Oscar nominee who ever was, win or lose, happened to forget this one.
He also forgot that there were more than two significant anime masters. You won't find entries at all for the major names. Katsuhiro Otomo? Alluded to in the Tezuka entry. Isao Takahata? Alluded to in the Miyazaki entry. Yoshiyuki Tomino, the Gundam creator? Not here. Satoshi Kon? Missing in action. The late great Yoshifumi Kondo, whose mastery of facial expressions added to all the Studio Ghibli masterpieces, including his sole direction credit Whisper of the Heart? Fuhgeddaboudit. Rin Taro? Osamu Dezaki? Makoto Shinkai? No. No. No.
After a while, you have to wonder if there's a deliberate animus against Asian (or at least Japanese) animators hard-wired into the book. To be fair, a few are mentioned, but you pretty much have to page through the book to find guys like Koji Yamamura, who was nominated for an Oscar for Animated Short in 2003 (the year Spirited Away won).
Just as interesting, though, are the Asian-American animators who get short shrift. Jimmy Murakami (of Murakami Wolf Studios) gets a sizable entry, although it completely fails to mention his studio's contribution of animation to the Frank Zappa film 200 Motels. And, to be fair, some Western animators are unfairly dissed: the entry for Richard Williams fails to mention his magnum opus, the feature film Watership Down.
The biggest sin of omission, though, is the failure to mention Bob Kuwahara. This man (1901-1964) immigrated to America as a kid, worked for 5 years at Disney and 5 at MGM before doing time in an internment camp after Pearl Harbor. He went to Terry-Toons in 1950 and created a series of shorts about a Japanese mouse named Hashimoto (which may be the first time the word "ninjutsu" was ever uttered on American television--so there, Naruto!) Yet, the only mention of Hashimoto is under another Terry-Toons animator, Arthur Bartsch, who directed one episode; nothing about the guy who wrote and directed most of the other 13 episodes.
Mister Lenburg, for future editions of the book, you may want to learn the word "google." The truth, as they used to say, is out there; your book just needs to find it.
posted by Patrick Drazen | 6:32 AM
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