It was a rainy London day in 2009. I was eight years old, nearly nine. It was a school day, and the dismal weather meant we were stuck inside for lunchtime. The one thing keeping us going was knowing that at lunchtime we’d get to watch a film.
The teacher pressed play and as the Disney trailers played, I excitedly tried to guess which film it might be, hoping for one of the CGI movies I loved. As the trailers ended, a title appeared on the screen: “Spirited Away”.
This is just another trailer, I’m sure… We’ll get to the real movie soon. It wasn’t a trailer. My disappointment was palpable. Why are we watching a Japanese cartoon? I hate these, I wanted to watch [insert CGI movie here]! But there I sat. I begrudgingly paid attention; if I’m going to sit here for two hours, I might as well stay engaged, right?
At that point in my life, the only anime I had seen were cheaply made, bottom-of-the-barrel shows aimed squarely at eight-year-old boys with tiny attention spans. As a result, none of them appealed to me and this warped my perception of anime as a whole.
The Child Who Was Proven Wrong
Watching the film, the first thing that struck me was how stunning everything looked. The watercolour backgrounds made everything feel surreal and dreamlike. Then the music, underpinning each scene with emotion.
Soon, I found myself getting sucked in by the characters, each of them unique, charming and lovable. Chihiro’s quest felt like it was my quest. When she held her breath sneaking along the bridge, I held mine; when her bravery spiked and she demanded a job at the bathhouse, I suddenly felt bold alongside her; when she desperately searched for her parents, you better believe I was searching too.
By the time the end credits rolled, my mind had been blown. I went in expecting to hate it but came out loving every second. I was embarrassed at how judgmental I had been just two hours earlier.
At home, all I could think about was Spirited Away and how badly I wanted to watch it again, or at least watch something like it. I spent many hours combing the internet for more anime, and I eventually discovered one that gripped me.
The Art-Loving Fanboy
Yu-Gi-Oh GX soon became an obsession. I was watching the anime every night, collecting the cards, talking about it at school all day — I was immersed.
As I watched intently and fervently collected the cards, I found myself becoming interested in something else. I now enjoyed drawing. A lot. Beforehand, I wasn’t great at art; I had never found a reason to want to improve. Anime became my reason.
The artwork in Yu-Gi-Oh GX captured my imagination, leading to countless (failed) attempts to trace the characters off of my computer screen so I could emulate the art style. Later, I even started experimenting with characters of my own, each with sparkly eyes the size of dinner plates like the anime characters I had become obsessed with.
After I moved on from Yu-Gi-Oh GX, my passion for art stuck. Every notepad I owned was filled with drawings, hastily scribbled ideas, boredom-fueled doodles, and caricatures of myself posing like a hero.
The Teenage Animator
Fast forward to 2017. I’m 17, but still eight at heart. Now, I’m a full-on animation enthusiast and routinely melt away weekends with anime binges, nerd out over classic Disney animations and, use my drawing as a means of escapism.
Out of the blue, an opportunity arose at school: I could get funding to do a project, of any kind, as long as it was a personal challenge. I told myself that no matter what I did, it had to be something exceptional.
After many fruitless weeks, it hit me. Why don’t I try animation? I had already spent years admiring other people’s animated work, so what was stopping me from doing it myself? I wanted a way to really express myself, and animation was the medium I needed. I believed I could do it. So I drew. A lot. I drew until those characters that had only ever floated around in my imagination were down, on paper, fully
So I drew. A lot. I drew until those characters that had only ever floated in my imagination were down on paper and fully coloured, then I wrote stories and scenarios about those six characters. It struck me that everything I had done was unmistakably inspired by anime.
After weeks of emails, meetings, and more drawing, it was confirmed – I won the funding I needed! I was officially an animator. Eight years ago, I would have laughed if someone said I’d be creating 2D animation. But here I am today, a teenage animator with a tangible work-in-progress. I’m still on the path that Spirited Away carved; every day, I’m learning, drawing, and finding new sources of inspiration.
