tezuka osamu is the japanese animator known as the “father of anime”. i grew up watching his work, including “ribon no kishi” (princess knight), “fushigi na merumo chan” (marvelous melmo), and of course “tetsuwan atomu” (astro boy).

in general, i hate anime. i don’t own any manga comics. i just don’t like the style of japanese animation that’s most famous in the west — what people call “japanimation”, with the superbig eyes and supercute faces. i think it’s creepy, in a bad way. people often assume that i’m an anime fan, maybe because i’m japanese and i draw, but i really never pay attention to it.

tezuka osamu created the style with big eyes and cute faces, but somehow i still like his work. maybe it’s nostalgia, but i think his drawings are more beautiful and gracious than the style of the recent anime i’ve seen. my favorite work of his is a manga, “black jack“, which i read as a high school student.

“memory” is an animated short that uses a mixture of drawn animation and cut-out images. none of it looks like anime. you might be surprised by the style — but it looks really cool. the story is insightful about the psychology of memory of individuals and a culture. i like the idea that futuristic people will have a very different idea about us (our “toilet culture”) than we do.