Taku Furukawa is best known for his doodling style of drawn animation
in films like Phenakistiscope (1975) and Tyo Story (1999) and his much loved
contributions to the NHK’s Minna no Uta series.
He has also played with other techniques of making animation such as direct
animation (painting directly onto the film stock) in Calligraphiti (1982) and Direct
Animation (1987) and he was one of the first indie animators to experiment with early computer animation in Mac the
Movie (1985) and Play Jazz (1987).
Nice to See You (ナイス・トゥ・スィ・ユー, 1975) is a silent film that Furukawa made early in his career. At the beginning, it appears to be an
abstract animation that plays with black shapes drawn on a colourful background. Shaky black squares shot on 16mm dance on a
green background, their blotchy edges occasionally blurring into one another. The black squares then transform into green
circles on black and then back again as if the two patterns were fighting
against each other for control of the screen.
The movement of the shapes is such that it is hard to determine whether
or not the shapes are moving across the screen or the camera is moving across
the paper on which it has been drawn.
The patterns shift and move with the ease of a kaleidoscope.
All of a sudden the shapes get smaller and the camera moves back to
reveal that the pattern of dots and squares were not random, but together make
up the image of an eye. The message of
the film is clear: how we interpret images – and by extension how we see the
world – is determined by our perspective.
The closer we are to something does not necessarily mean that we see it
more clearly. Sometimes we need to step
back in order to see the bigger picture.
Nice to See You appears on the Anido DVD Takun Films and can be
ordered through their website.
Taku Furukawa re-made Nice to See You in collaboration with video
game producer and CG animator Noriyuki Boda and called it TAKU BODA (2009).
Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011
