“Animation Platforms: Yoshiyama Yū, Tropical Rouge! Pretty Cure, and Sakuga As New Media”, 2024-06 ():
This article analyzes the work of animator Yoshiyama Yū [ANN] on the series Tropical Rouge! Pretty Cure by considering how her animation esthetics respond to new forms of animated media consumption on digital platforms.
The author examines how the affordances of Sakugabooru and Twitter enable animation enthusiasts (“sakuga” fans) to take a deliberately partial view of anime centered on animation and animators. While a full account of sakuga must go beyond an analysis of the fan community’s favored platforms, study of the sites themselves allows for the most direct engagement with the specific modes of perception developed by sakuga fans.
The author argues that this way of seeing anime enhances traditional narrative-based readings, makes space for alternative interpretations, and drives a labor advocacy movement surrounding animation workers.
…Asuka’s most important scenes—her transformation sequence, her finisher attack sequence, and the climax of a tennis match with Yuriko that resolves her arc—are all animated by Yoshiyama.
Sakuga, which in Japanese simply refers to drawn animation, has been appropriated in Western fan discourse to refer specifically to “particularly good animation.”1 As the popularity of sakuga spread to the West, the website sakugabooru was built from the template provided by the moebooru anime image board system.2 On sakugabooru, users upload clips of standout pieces of animation and tag them with information to make the database searchable. Ke video player built into the site features 5 speed settings (from 0.2× up to normal speed) and a framestepping function. There are social features as well, a comments section on every post and a forum. Posts on sakugabooru are often downloaded and reshared on Twitter (and other social media sites) to a broader audience. The sakugabooru uploads for Yoshiyama’s work on the series can be found by a search for her name with the series title.
I examine Yoshiyama’s animation by engaging in sakuga viewing practices, with attention to what the affordances of certain platforms do and do not reveal about the way sakuga fans build knowledge of anime production, make value judgments, and act as labor agitators.