“Malleability”: a key graphic concept? – Mediamixing (1)

Isn’t “malleability” one of the primary properties of any graphic production? If I choose to use here the term “malleability”, it’s to clarify my intention : consider a graphic capacity to be shaped, altered (as if we were dealing with a material somehow designed for modification), “trans-de-re-formed” (as if the graphic form itself were not fundamentally definitive but potentially always available for redefinition and transformation). I’m not referring here to a “work in progress” process, to borrow the artistic term that designates (according to me, experts welcome) a work that refuses any form of completion, even if it’s graphic (for example, the On Kawara’s datation painting work). In the present post, I wish to question productions, commercialized and available to the public, drawings already distributed (published or broadcasted) and giving way to adaptations in the broadest sense: new editions with renewed visual aspects, interactivity in the case of games (video or not), animation on large or small screens (is this maybe very French distinction still relevant today ?).

“Malleability” : identifying the first drawing?

Figure 1. First appearance of Dragon Ball (and Goku character) in the Weekly Shonen Jump, n°838, december 1984. © Shueisha and Akira Toriyama

In that perspective, my research area refers to the ideas of “adaptability and malleability” (Kopylova, p.191) that Olga Kopylava (professor at the Graduate school af art of the Tohoku university) mentions, quoting Ito Go (which I unfortunately cannot read, translation welcome), in her very insteresting paper: “ Drawing Works Together: Anime Media Mix and Graphic Style as a Shared Cultural Resource”. Published in an annual issue of Mechadamia, under the patronage of Marc Steinberg, this paper (and this journal) might make cultural studies history because it analyses through excellent contributions a mode of production of cultural goods based on their mediatic circulation. The mediamix question is addressed in exhaustive and eloquent terms : “It is a set of models for how to do media business; how to organize media production and distribution; how to merchandise products; how to think about media conglomeration and its effects, even” (Steinberg,2023,  p.1). In other words, a concept to be considered on multiple levels: economic, logistical, marketing… and adaptation. Or, more precisly, a circulation process within other economic, logistical, and marketing… systems.

First “graphic leap”: from print to anime

Figure 2. Photogram from the anime Dragon Ball (episode 1 and 153), writing director Takao Koyama, directors Minoru Okazaki and Daisuke Nishio, produced by Toei animation, first broadcasting on February 26, 1986 (Japan). © Toei animation

I use this “systems” term because I can’t find any other word that suits my intention. It would be scientifically more appropriate to speak of “media”, but the term seems somehow artificial or problematic considering the graphic productions I’m interested in. Quoting Olga Kopylava’s “adaptability and malleability”, I refer to a process of such fluidity and simplicity that it seems almost self-evident and comparable to a kind of “graphic continuum” which I believe is perfectly illustrated by the Dragon Ball series. This work was first published in Jump n°838, December 1984, with a cover featuring the shaggy hero (a capillary mode that can be seen all the way through to Naruto) and the more apprehensive Burma with her blue hair. These pages establish Akira Toriyama’s graphic signature: eyes, mouth and other facial features just highlighted and barely inked, contrasting with the deep black of the thick hair and constantly expressive eyebrows (from joy to anger, with all kind of « V-shape » signaling the hero’s strong will).

Print, animation: what do we adapt?

Figure 3. Photograms and cover of the video game Dragon Ball: Shenron no Nazo¸produced by Bandai, first released on Novembre 27, 1986 (Japan) on Famicom. © Bandai

Described this way, “malleability”  is organized around (to use Marc Steinberg’s terms) “a particular combination of name and visual design that is in some sense independent from any particular medium” (Steinberg, 2012, p.83). I would can even go further than this “visual” term and speak instead of graphic design: it is indeed a drawing that links print and anime, as shown by the Dragon Ball “first media leap” leading to the Goku’s adventures broadcasting on TV beginning on February 1986 (I’m only using the Japanese release dates in the present post). The scrolling of anime images seems to be organized around this same abundant hair, which are both highly visible (the only truly dark area within this universe of almost acidic colors) and incredibly moving (Son Goku’s capilar spikes having an incredible hability to move from left to right according to the different situations defined by the narrative). The comparison of two photograms (from the first and last episodes: cf. figure 2) shows it perfectly: the character’s height and build (not to mention his personality: following at first his grandfather’s footsteps, he later becomes a father himself) evolve far more than his hair.

Narrative renewal: Goku grows older and muscular…

Figure 4. First Dragon Ball Z episode, writing director Takao Koyama, director Daisuke Nishio, produced by Toei animation, first broadcasted April 26, 1989 (Japan). © Toei animation

Manga and anime seem to converge around a common graphic process: the modelling of this hair, whose configuration evolves according to the construction of the lines of force or perspective needed to guarantee the visual dynamism of the images. Of course, this is just a hypothesis, but it allows me to pose a question that I would say fully “mediagraphic”: how do we establish the “independence from any particular medium” mentioned by Marc Steinberg? How do we ensure the establishment of a “graphic continuum”  that transcends the boundaries specific to a mode of creation, production, and distribution? There is absolutly nothing simple about this question since it implies a capacity to respect a kind of signature or “graphical identity”, to mobilize tools that in some way extend the hand of the “author-inventor-designer” (how can we name him or her?) of a narrative and its protagonists towards horizons no longer determined by a specific medium.

Adapting adaptations : mediamixing?

Photogram of the Dragon Ball Z anime series and page of the same scene in the Dragon Ball Z anime comics (books created from images of animated series or films laid out in the style of a manga).

Figure 5.On top.Anime Dragon Ball Z, scenario Masashi Kubota, animation director Yūji Hakamada, episode 272, broadcasted August 8, 1995 (Japan). Down. Anime comics Dragon Ball Z. 8^ème partie. Le combat final contre Majin Boo (tome 4), scenario and drawing Akira Toriyama, Glénat, 2019 (France).

His or her equipment is by no means simple to use and master: nibs, pencils, brushes, felt-tips, pens, erasers and correctors of all shapes, sizes and materials. And then come into play other design tools (storyboarding and “screen-cutting” of the narrative), media (celluloid, layers, even film), recording devices (“banc-titre” or photo table, sound design creation tools…)… Technology progress advancing, the production organizations are evolving into forms that can be dizzying, as aptly demonstrated by Steevie Suan (p.12-13) writing about the Shirobako series: production in Japan, character animation in South Korea and Philipines, « backgrounds » in Viêt-Nam… To the extent that it’s almost surprising to consider a manga as a “national” or “local” production, unless one acknowledges that imperialism is an acceptable graphic notion.

The media : a relevant graphic question?

Selection of goodies featuring the character Son Goku. From left to right: USB key, keychain, cosplay outfit, and wig

Figure 6. Products from the Gokushop. URL : https://goku-shop.fr/ (accessed April 11, 2024).

The works of Marc Steinberg and Olga Kopylova, and more broadly the notion of “mediamix”, invite me to refine my research field. If I have chosen to title it “mediagraphic”, it’s to study the evolution and development of graphic design in a media environment. And, conversely, to consider media in the light of graphic design. In this perspective, a first concept emerges: a “malleability” that I apprehend as an ability to play with the medium, to valorize a graphic expression through a “media conglomeration”, to quote Marc Steinberg once again. In this perspective, a phenomenon catches my attention: a real graphic effervescence, a blooming of “twin” images that perhaps need to be understood in terms of… variation, interpretation, appropriation? Graphic questions in any case, which involve questioning intentions (of creators, producers and readers), creations (of drawing and their mode of animation or interaction) and associations.

Bibliography

Kopylova, Olga, 2023. “Drawing Works Together: Anime Media Mix and Graphic Style as a Shared Cultural Resource”. Mechademia, Volume 16, Number 1, Winter 2023, pp. 190-211. URL : https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/23/article/910026 (accessed April 10, 2024).

Steinberg, Marc, 2012. Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.

SUAN, Stevie, 2018. « Consuming Production: Anime’s layers of transnationality and dispersal of agency as seen in Shirobako and Sakuga-Fan practices ». Arts 7, no. 3, p.27. Stable URL : https://doi.org/10.3390/arts7030027 (accessed January 3, 2024).