Dragon Ball and Fullmetal Alchemist veteran mixes real-world environment with amazing hand-drawn animation.
Since we’ve all been stuck at home for the past several weeks, odds are that you’re pretty sick at looking at the interior of your apartment. Spending hour after hour in the same spot as you work or study online, then being in pretty much the exact same place for your leisure time with no change in scenery can make even the most tastefully decorated living space start to feel painfully dull.
But what’s important isn’t so much what there is to see, but how you choose to look at it. For example, when Yuya Takahashi (@TTSoolBNiuIb6jG on Twitter) looks at his desk and living room walls, he doesn’t see a sheltering-at-home prison, he sees the site of a ninja battle!
Using his real-world home as the setting, Takahashi put together a short anime video which he calls Ninja vs. Animator. That’s his hand reaching out to grab the very tiny but extremely agile ninja, who’s in no mood to be caught.
Outsized but in no way outclassed, the ninja skillfully evades his adversary, triangle jumping up to a higher tier of the desk before using a grappling hook to swing to safety via the wall-mounted air conditioning unit and winding up with the high ground, perched among some of Takahashi’s electronics.
What makes the whole thing especially realistic is the way Takahashi scales the shinobi’s size appropriately as he moves farther away or comes closer. Combining hand-drawn character art with a real background also allows Takahashi to move the camera in a way that would be prohibitively complex and time-consuming in a purely illustrated environment.
▼ One online admirer even added sound effects for an even more dynamic effect.
If you’re thinking the video’s quality is too high for some amateur doodler, you’re right. Takahashi is an anime industry pro, having worked as an animation director or key animator on such powerhouse productions as Fairy Tale, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Lupin III, and Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
▼ Takahashi has also posted the video on his YouTube channel.
So remember, the next time you’re stuck somewhere and feeling bored, just imagine there’s a ninja there, and things are sure to look at least a little better.
Source: Twitter/@TTSoolBNiuIb6jG via Japaaan
Top image: YouTube/高橋優也 アニメ作画 公式・ YUYA TAKAHASHI ANIME SAKUGA Official
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