Ever since reading about Tadanari Okamotoand Kihachiro Kawamoto’s joint Puppet Anime-Shows (川本+ 岡本パペットアニメーショウ) on Anipages, I have wantedto learn more about them. Had the two Japanesemasters of puppet animation met working on puppets for stop motion pioneer TadahitoMochinaga’s MOM Productions – the studio that famously did the puppet animationfor Rankin/Bass’s beloved children’s classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) – or had they met earlier? How did the idea for the Puppet Anime-Shows develop? What was screened at the events?
According to Kawamoto's account in Kihachiro Kawamoto: Animation and Puppet Master (Kadakawa Shoten, 1994), Kawamoto and Okamoto met for thefirst time at the farewell party Mochinaga hosted for Kawamoto when he departedfor Prague to study under Jiri Trnka in 1962. Okamoto’s enthusiasm for the future of puppet animation in Japan madequite an impression on Kawamoto and became the basis for their friendship.
Shortly after Kawamoto’s return to Japan,Okamoto quit MOM Productions and founded his own animation studio in 1964 whichhe named Echo Productions. Okamoto’sfirst independent film A Wonderful Medicine (ふしぎなくすり, 1965) impressed Kawamoto with its fresh style and subjectmatter. However, from the very beginningit was clear that the two men had very different approaches to puppetanimation. Okamoto was able to producemany more films than Kawamoto because he took advantage of the need foreducational films for schools. Thismeant that Okamoto had a steady source of income for producing animated puppetfilms and employed a studio system of animating. He employed a team oftalented artists including Sumiko Hosaka, Fumiko Magari, and Hirokazu Minegishi to assist with the construction of puppets and assisting with the animation.
In contrast, Kawamoto worked as anindependent artist in the 1970, making the dolls himself, making theircostumes, constructing the sets, and doing the animation with very little moneyfor staff to assist him. Much ofKawamoto’s work was funded by making puppets for NHK’s children’s programmingsuch as Okaasan to Issho (1966), Cinderella (1973), and Yan Yan Mū-kun(1973-75).
In the early days of their independentwork, Kawamoto and Okamoto began to spent a lot of their free time together,not only to talk about their work but also going on ski trips and otherexcursions together. It was on one suchouting that Okamoto, who had already hosted a solo show of his own work, suggested putting together a joint puppet animation show.
In hosting their Puppet Anime-Shows,Okamoto and Kawamoto faced two major obstacles: finding enough material toscreen and funding the event. Becausepuppet animation is a time consuming process, Kawamoto could only complete anew work every couple of years. EvenOkamoto, with his larger staff, could only produce two to four short films ayear. With only a handful of new works,they needed something to fill out the programme to make it a proper event. Kawamoto came up with the idea of includinglive puppet theatre performances. Notonly would this lengthen the programme, but live shows could also incorporatethe humorous aspects of puppet performances.
Hosting these Puppet Anime-Shows in addition to their usual puppetanimation production schedules was hard going for Kawamoto, Okamoto, and theirstaff. The positive reaction of the audience tothe screenings and performances outweighed any hardships that they experiencedand made it all worthwhile for them. Kawamoto has said that if it were not for Okamoto and the PuppetAnime-Shows his work would never have amounted to much. The period during which they held the PuppetAnime-Shows was the time that Kawamoto felt that he truly became anartist. Ten years after the curtainclosed on the final Puppet-Anime Show, Kawamoto was able to pay a final tributeto his friend and puppet show collaborator by completing The Restaurant of ManyOrders (注文の多い料理店, 1991), the film that Okamotoleft unfinished when he died suddenly of liver cancer at the age of 62.
Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011
What puppet films were screened at the Puppet Anime-Shows? Read Part II to find out.
To learn more read:
- Kihachiro Kawamoto: Animation and Puppet Master (KadakawaShoten, 1994)
- Tadanari Okamoto: The Heart of Animation (Benjamin Ettinger, Anipages, 2005)
- Kawamoto Kihachirō: Ningyō – kono inochi aru mono (Heibonsha, 2007)
- Midnight Eye Interview: Kihachiro Kawamoto (Jasper Sharp, Midnight Eye, 2004)
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