Daicon III and Daicon IV Opening Animation - The anime of 1983

Daicon III and Daicon IV Opening Animation - The anime of 1983

Daicon III Opening Animation e Daicon IV Opening Animation are two short 8mm anime films produced for the 1981 Daicon III and 1983 Daicon IV Nihon SF Taikai conventions. They were produced by a group of amateur animators known as Daicon Film, which would later form the Gainax animation studio. The films are known for their unusually high production values ​​for amateur works and for including numerous references to otaku culture, as well as its unauthorized appropriation of the Playboy bunny costume and the 1981 songs "Twilight" and "Hold on. Tight ”by the English rock band Electric Light Orchestra.

Daicon III was made by Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga and Takami Akai, and Daicon IV credits twelve people, including Yamaga as director and Anno and Akai as animation supervisors. Despite the work's questionable legal status, the production of Daicon III incurred debts that were repaid by the sale of the production's 8mm video cassettes and reels, the profits of which went to the production of Daicon IV. In 2001, anime magazine Animage ranked Daicon animations as the 35th of the "Top 100" anime of all time.

Daicon III Opening Animation

The Jet VTOL of Ultraman's scientific patrol descends from the sky to Earth, while a student, carrying her randoseru, watches from behind a tree. The scientific patrol offers the girl a cup of water and asks her to deliver it to "DAICON". The girl greets and runs away, but has suffered problems when Punk Dragon blocks her path. Summons a mecha from Starship Troopers, and he and the girl begin to fight. The girl throws the mecha aside and Gomora rises from the ground. Using a booster hidden in her backpack, the girl flies into the sky and avoids the explosion of Gomora, with the mecha flying behind her. They continue their battle in mid-air. A blow from the mecha knocks the girl over, endangering her cup of water. At the last moment, he has a vision of the scientific patrol and regains consciousness. Grab the cup before it falls to the ground. Resuming his battle with the mecha, he takes one of his missiles and throws it back at the mecha, causing a huge explosion. The destroyed mecha launches a rocket, summoning Godzilla with the Ideon symbol. With King Ghidorah and Gamera chasing her, she flies through the air with her jet-propelled backpack. A Star Destroyer, a TIE fighter and Martian combat machines from the film War of the Worlds (1953) cross the background. Reaching for her backpack, the girl pulls out a bamboo ruler, which magically becomes a lightsaber. After cutting an Alien Baltan in half, the girl launches a series of miniature missiles from her backpack. Hit by one of the missiles, a Godzilla series Maser tank catches fire. The Atragon splits in two when the Yamato, the USS Enterprise, an X-wing fighter and Daimajin explode into complete chaos. The girl pours her cup of water onto a withered daikon buried in the ground. When the daikon absorbs the water, it transforms into the Daicon spaceship. Bathed in light and now wearing a naval uniform, the girl goes aboard the ship, where the film's producers, Toshio Okada and Yasuhiro Takeda, sit at the controls. As the landing gear retracts, Daicon sets out for the far reaches of the universe.

Daicon IV Opening Animation

Daicon IV Opening Animation begins with a shortened 90-second retelling of Daicon III's opening animation set to Kitarō's “Noah's Ark” from the Silver Cloud album. After this, “Prologue” by the Electric Light Orchestra is heard, as the lyrics appear against a field of stars and an outline of the spaceship Daicon passes in the background. The actual film begins with "Prologue" which continues with "Twilight", the song that follows him on the Time album.

The girl from the previous animation is now an adult and is wearing a bunny costume. He battles a multitude of sci-fi monsters and mobile suits, then leaps into a crowd of Alien Metron and throws them aside. So he's in a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader, with the Stormtrooper sitting in the background and the Death Star guarded in the corner. From the height of a cliff, a xenomorph with artificial legs, wielding Discovery One, knocks the girl down with a blast of energy and the robot Dynaman (Dyna Robo) tries to crush her. The girl lifts Dyna Robo from her with superhuman strength and slams her into a cliff. The Stormbringer suddenly appears in the sky and the girl jumps on it, riding it like a surfboard. Some scenes not related to the main plot are shown, such as Yoda as Yū Ida in a Japanese comedy with various characters in the audience. The girl is still riding the Stormbringer when she encounters an Ultrahawk 1 formation. Then the Yamato, the Arcadia connected to the transformed SDF-1 Macross appears, along with an explosive VF-1 Valkyrie variable fighter from Macross armed with a sword. Gundam-style laser. An air battle takes place in an otaku café. The girl is then seen in a world full of American comic book superheroes. A myriad of machines and characters (from The Lord of the Rings, Conan, Narnia, Pern and others) fly past her into space, including a Klingon battle cruiser, HG Wells' First Men in the Moon lunar ship, the Millennium Falcon, Lord Jaxom and the Thunderbirds. Once on the ground, the girl jumps from the Stormbringer and splits into seven parts, which fly across the sky that spits smoke in seven colors. A sequence of famous spaceships is shown crashing into each other. Then, suddenly, "what could only be described as an atomic bomb" explodes over an uninhabited city, leaving behind a flurry of sakura petals. The subsequent upheavals of the Earth give birth to new worlds. As a beam launched by the Daicon crosses the sky, lush vegetation sprouts and grows. The camera then pans across a huge crowd of fictional characters, the sun rises, the camera zooms in on the solar system, and the film ends with an image of the Daicon logo.

Next, a short behind-the-scenes clip is presented (with another Electric Light Orchestra song, "Hold on Tight") showing the character designs, storyboards, early raw animations, backgrounds, animation of the characters. effects and finished editing. The film ends correctly with the girl bowing to the audience as "The End" is displayed on the screen.

Daicon III

In 1981, at the 20th Nihon SF Taikai (nicknamed “Daicon III” because it was held for the third time in Osaka), an 8mm animation was shown. Nihon SF conventions are usually organized by college students in the vicinity of the host city, and Daicon III was also organized by college students in nearby Osaka, including Toshio Okada and Yasuhiro Takeda. At the request of Okada and Takeda, the animation was actually produced by Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga and Takami Akai, all students of the Osaka University of the Arts at the time and who would later become professionals. Anno and his team weren't so enthusiastic, but Yamaga took the lead in promoting the project. Takeda explains in Notenki Memoirs that Anno had experience in animation on paper, but never worked with animation cells. Because they had no professional skills or knowledge, they turned to professional animation studios to learn the techniques and, to cut costs, they tried to use inexpensive industrial celluloid, which is not normally used. They were directed to Animepolis Pero, a chain of anime hobby shops, but found that the cost of the cel was too expensive, so a single cel was bought and brought to a vinyl manufacturer in east Osaka, where they bought a roll for 2000 yen. After cutting and preparing the vinyl cells, they found that the painted cells would stick together when stacked and the dry paint would peel off the cells. To keep costs down, they made their own tap to punch holes in the B5 animation paper used in production.

The work was done in an empty room in Okada's house where their business also took place. While other people were in attendance, the work was shared and Anno, Akai and Yamaga worked full time in production, the direction was unprofessional, but Takeda attributed Okada as producer, with Yamaga directing, Akai doing animation. of the characters and Anno as the animator of the mecha. if necessary, but still credits Yamaga, Akai and Anno for the production itself. The shots were taken from a camera on a tripod and the shots were deleted from Anno because the production did not have timelines.

Osamu Tezuka didn't see the opening film at Daicon III, but it was shown later that night by Akai and Yamaga. After watching the film, Tezuka remarked, “Well, there were definitely a lot of characters in the film. … There were even some that weren't in the film ”. Akai and Yamaga later realized the omission of Tezuka's characters; they were later used in the Daicon IV animation. According to Toshio Okada, the theme of water in the opening represented "opportunity" and Lawrence Eng, an otaku researcher, describes the theme as, "... best use of one's opportunities while fighting against those who would try to steal that opportunity."

The team behind the animation that gathered for the SF convention was supposed to disband and cease operations at the end of Daicon III. However, they regretted the loss of the experience, skills and teamwork they had cultivated in running the event and started an independent film project to nurture a well-trained staff with the aim of holding another Nihon convention. SF, Daicon IV, in Osaka two years later, in 1983. At that time Daicon Film was formed. [8] Okada sold Daicon Film's videos and merchandise in his "General Products" science fiction store and sold more than 3000 videos costing more than 10.000 yen. The profits were used to pay for the production of the next film. Daicon Film went on to produce the 8mm tokusatsu films Aikoku Sentai Dai Nippon, Kaiketsu Noutenki and Kaettekita Ultraman. These films, as well as Daicon III Opening Animation, have been widely featured in anime magazine Animec, and Daicon Film has gradually gained recognition.

Daicon IV

In 1983, Nihon SF Taikai would be held again in Osaka, and it was the fourth ever science fiction convention in Osaka, Daicon IV. The Executive Committee of Daicon IV and Daicon Film, the organizing body of Daicon IV, were practically the same organization.

Originally, Daicon IV was supposed to last fifteen minutes, but the difficult production meant cutting time. The film officially credits a production crew of twelve. Yamaga directed the production, with Anno and Akai serving as animation directors. Tōru Saegusa made the artwork and the animations were made with Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Mahiro Maeda and Norifumi Kiyozumi. Professional animators from the animation production company Artland also collaborated, including Ichiro Itano, Toshiki Hirano, Narumi Kakinouchi, Sadami Morikawa and Kazutaka Miyatake. Anno and Yamaga were invited to Tokyo by Studio Nue, a sci-fi planning group who had noticed the quality of Daicon III's opening animation and introduced them to Artland, which led them to join the television animation staff. Super Dimension Fortress Macross which was produced by them. Their activities in Tokyo became a stepping stone for their subsequent professional careers. Also, Akai's hometown friend Maeda, and Sadamoto, Maeda's major at university, joined Daicon Film, and the main members of Gainax gathered here.

The Daicon IV manufacturing facility was in a dedicated studio in a building called Hosei Kaikan which was owned by a textile union. Takeda called it a real anime shop, the building was closed at 21pm and most of the staff would be locked inside and worked all night without air conditioning. Later, in 00, Daicon Film made a tokusatsu film called Yamata no Orochi no Gyakushu using 1984mm film, which is rare for an independent film of the time. This film was sold by Bandai in 16. In late 1985, with the Royal Space Force project: The Wings of Honnêamise, Daicon Film was dissolved and founded as the Gainax animation production company. The process from Daicon Film to the creation of Gainax can be seen in detail in the production progress series Wings of Honnêamise which was serialized exclusively in the monthly magazine Model Graphix at the time.

Daikon 33

Gainax has revealed the details of a new campaign to celebrate Daicon Film's 33rd anniversary. The new project is called “DAICON FILM 33” and was announced on January 8, 2014. The basis of the project is a “revival of DAICON FILM” and includes the release of several products inspired by the original films of the eighties. The project's official website has begun accepting pre-orders for the first series of commemorative items. A new illustration of the "Daicon Bunny Girl" was drawn by Takami Akai, the original character designer of the opening animated films and one of the founders of Gainax. The art was displayed on the main page of the official Gainax site.

Daicon III restoration

In 2021, Daicon Film got together to produce a remaster of Daicon III, involving an unspecified member of the short film's original staff. The announcement was first posted on Twitter by Femboy Films, a group of fans who previously received a cease and desist notice for their attempt to restore the short film from an 8mm print; the announcement was made with permission from Daicon Film

Technical data and credits

Daicon III Opening Animation

Original title DAICON 3
Original language Japanese
Country of Production Japan
Year 1981
Duration 5:23 mins
Gender science fiction, action
Regia Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga, Takami Akai (generically credited as principal filmmakers)
Music Kōichi Sugiyama, Yūji Ōno, Bill Conti

Daicon IV Opening Animation

Original title DAICON 4
Original language Japanese
Country of Production Japan
Year 1983
Duration 7:23 mins
Gender science fiction, action, musical
Regia Hiroyuki Yamaga
Music Kitarō, Electric Light Orchestra
Art director Hideaki Anno, Takami Akai [1]
Entertainers Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Mahiro Maeda, Norifumi Kiyozumi [1]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/