"PUI PUI Molcar" is a stop-motion animation that suddenly gained popularity mainly on social media in 2021, and I'm sure there are many readers who were captivated by the charm of this work and started watching "PUI PUI Molcar". Although some time has passed since then, it is still easy to watch, so there are probably many people who still enjoy this work! If you look at this work as a pure animation work, you will see that it is a particularly interesting work in the long history of animation! In this article, I would like to introduce the position of this work in the history of animation. The content of this work is very bland, but when you consider the recent state of animation, it is a very deep work, so please check it out!
What is stop motion animation?
Now, before introducing the position of this work as an animation, I would like to introduce the animation technique called "stop motion animation", which is the biggest feature of this work. If you do not understand stop motion animation, you will not be able to understand the true appeal of this work, so be sure to understand this carefully.
Traditional Methods
Stop motion animation is a technique that uses an optical illusion to depict the movement of still images by overlapping and moving multiple still images.
The most basic of animation
It is the most basic of animation techniques and can be said to be an extremely traditional method. It is a technique that is often seen not only in "PUI PUI Molcar" but also in various other works.
Recently attracting attention
Although it is a very classic technique, stop-motion animation has actually been attracting attention again in recent years. From here, why has stop-motion animation, including this work, been in the spotlight in recent years? I would like to consider this while carefully looking back at the history of animation so far.
Let's look back on the history of anime production! !
Now, why has this work been attracting attention in recent years? Let's look back at the history of Japanese animation to solve this mystery. I think this is a very useful summary of the contents when considering many animations other than this work "PUI PUI Molcar", so please make use of it when considering other works!
Early animation works were of high quality
First of all, it can be said that the origin of modern animation is America, including the American company Disney. Animation technology was used in works with the concept of visualizing fairy tales that have been passed down around the world, such as "Snow White," which Disney produced in the early days.
A huge budget,,
Japan started producing animation a little later than Disney, but at that time, it seems that animation production required a huge budget in both Japan and the United States.
Anime from this era is also highly rated
At the time, animation technology had not been developed and each and every picture was drawn by hand, so the characteristic of anime works from this era is that many of the works are superior in terms of their pictures compared to later anime works.
The advent of tracing machines has led to successful budget reductions
The anime industry had developed through the push for high budgets, but the appearance of a certain piece of equipment changed the history of the anime industry dramatically. A piece of equipment called a tracing machine was introduced, which draws the boundaries of characters and objects. With the arrival of this tracing machine, animation production suddenly became low-budget (although it is still by no means a cheap budget).
Making full use of tracing machines to depict even more complex images
With the advent of tracing machines, anime production has become much more budget-friendly, but compared to older works, the tracing lines are drawn by a machine, so there is also the drawback that the pictures are not as beautiful. Therefore, the anime industry has evolved to be able to draw more complex pictures in various ways, such as focusing on background art while still making use of tracing lines.
The advent of CG has led to successful budget reductions
Thus, the anime industry has pursued more beautiful works through the synergistic effect of tracing machines and manual labor, but from the 1990s to the 2000s, a wave of CG animation came in as a new technology.
Anime production has become even easier!
CG has expanded the scope of animation expression even further than tracing machines, and has succeeded in reducing the budget. It has brought about a technological revolution that makes it easy to draw depictions that were previously difficult to draw with pictures.
Hand-drawn animation is back in the spotlight
The impact of CG was so great that it was said that there were almost no animations in the 2000s that did not use CG. In such a situation, there was a growing demand for animation with a warmth that could not be fully depicted with CG, and hand-drawn animation began to attract attention. Many works that successfully combined CG and hand-drawn techniques came out during this period.
The wave of even higher budgets
In this era, it is natural that the trend towards higher budgets in anime production has accelerated. It has become difficult to recover budgets for works aimed at the domestic market, and there is a growing movement to recover budgets by actively challenging overseas markets. (It is well known that the entirely hand-drawn work "The Tale of Princess Kaguya" directed by Isao Takahata had a production cost of about 5 billion yen and a box office revenue of 2 billion yen.)
Low-budget stop-motion is attracting attention! ?
In this expanding anime production industry, attention is being drawn to "stop-motion animation," a classical video expression technique that allows works to be created on a relatively low budget.
In this environment, "PUI PUI Molcar" is a hit!
Thanks to the success of this film, "PUI PUI Molcar," it has become clear that even stop-motion animation can compete with high-budget animation!
Stop motion that goes well with the modern world
Looking back at the history of animation in this way, I think you can understand that the background to the times is that the rapid increase in budgets has caused problems for the animation industry, and low-budget stop-motion animation is attracting attention. However, the reason stop-motion animation is attracting attention is not just because of the increase in budgets for animation, but also because modern society and stop-motion animation are a perfect match.
The era of popular short videos
This is because in modern society, videos with a slightly shorter length such as YouTube and TikTok are more popular than television. Therefore, in modern society, animations of about 3 minutes such as "PUI PUI Molcar" are more suitable for people's lives than the feature-length animations of the past. Stop-motion animation is more suitable for short videos, so in that sense, stop-motion animation may be attracting attention.
Is 30 minutes long? ?
In this way, there seems to be a tendency in modern society to demand faster, more concise works. In that sense, the length of a typical animation, 30 minutes, may seem a bit long and boring to modern people. In fact, it seems that many people use the double-speed function when watching TV animation on Amazon Prime and other services.
Suitable for spreading on social media
Furthermore, with a film as short as this one, it is easy to spread it on social media, and in today's world where we often check trends through social media, short video works that are easy to spread are a great match, so it could be said that the buzz on social media for this work in 2021 was inevitable.
A work that fits the modern era
In this way, it can be said that stop-motion animation, including this work "PUI PUI Molcar", is a technique that is extremely suitable for the modern era. It is very moving to see that stop-motion animation, which is a particularly classic technique among animation production techniques, has come full circle and matched the modern era.
Summary
What did you think? This time, we introduced the reason why this work "PUI PUI Molcar" became a hit through the history of animation works. Stop-motion animation is a historic expression technique, but it is also an interesting technique that continues to evolve in modern times, so please check it out for yourself!
