22 February

アニメ『The Last Unicorn』の展示を開催します

3月17日（日）〜3月31日（日）の期間、和洋女子大学九段キャンパスにて、日本文学文化学科　文化芸術専攻主催のアニメ『The Last Unicorn』の製作資料の展示を開催します。全学教育センターの黒田誠准教授の監修です。https://www.wayo.ac.jp/academics/teacher/int_comm/tabid/398/Default.aspx



日時：3月17日（日）〜3月31日（日）　10時〜16時
場所：東京都千代田区九段北1-12-11 和洋女子大学 九段キャンパス スカイフォーラム3階

3月17日（日）、24日（日）、31日（日）の3日間（3時〜4時）は、黒田誠准教授による、アニメ表現の主題解説講演会も実施します。

今回の展示会では、アニメの映像表現と原作の主題―シナリオと絵コンテから製作過程を探っていきます。

著者ピーター S. ビーグルの著作と作品研究資料はこちら

　原作：The Last Unicorn、原作の注釈書：『Annotated Last Unicorn』、
　原作の研究書：『Peter S. Beagle The Last Unicorn 論』、
　アニメの研究書：『研究　アニメーション The Last Unicorn』、
　アニメ研究資料集：『アニメThe Last Unicorn とシンクロニシティ』

また、和洋女子大学で開講されたThe Last Unicorn講義資料と研究レポートも当日に配布されます。


関連リンク：　幻冬社ルネッサンスアカデミー　コラム
アニメThe Last Unicornー新資料から作品の主題や映像表現を考察する
http://www.gentosha-academy.com/serial/beautiful-nippon-1-3-3-2/
第1回「原作の再評価の機運とサブカルチャー文化の影響」
第2回「サブカルチャーと一元論」
第3回「シノプシスと絵コンテ」
第４回「絵コンテと日本語訳シナリオ」






Preface

I have been studying Peter S. Beagle’s fantasy novel The Last Unicorn for more than 45 years and have taken it up as a subject of lecture at university. But it has always been my regret that true evaluation has not been made yet to this masterpiece of fantasy literature in the academic field. Then I came to know the work was made into animated film, and was astonished to have discovered that the Japanese anime production Topcraft took the part of visual expression and attained supreme visual description transforming the novel’s profound philosophical subject. Noticing many Japanese anime and games share similar philosophical, psychological and cosmological ideas to The Last Unicorn, it has been my deep concern how I should understand the cause of this mysterious phenomenon. It seemed to me that Beagle’s fantasy masterpiece enfolds deep psychical layer that has produced various Japanese subculture trends.
After I was able to gain some opportunities to interview with the staff of the anime and was allowed to have access to the collection of data that is supposed to disclose the process of the creation of the work, I feel I have gained some clue to the question long harbored in my mind. I have discovered an interesting instance that suggests a hypothesis deeply concerned with both depth psychology and cosmology, which not only explain the process of the collaboration between the productions of USA and Japan, but also may establish an integral understanding for fictional meaning relationship between original work and alternative works. It is a metaphysical discovery which can be applied not only to the working of the mind of the staff who were engaged in the creation in both countries, but also to the essential mechanism of consciousness that constructs positive meaning in appreciating fictional works. And that must be what the most profound subject adopted in The Last Unicorn implied in its superb philosophical description of magic.
After I have tried to give the newly arranged data as much detailed reference as possible to other relating subjects, this book has turned out to be something like a hub connecting all the writings I have hitherto produced as literary study. I hope this data book in which the process of the creation of animated film and the relating subjects are discussed will function as a clue to understanding not only for subculture phenomena represented by anime and games but also for integrated cosmological theory including fictional world.







Outline of the main text


Though it is not commonly recognized, The Last Unicorn is not a typical fantasy work. Actually, it quite often goes beyond the norm of the genre in its peculiar attempt of description of the impossible and maintained attitude of denial of the traditional value system generally adopted in usual romance. Against those subversive tendencies, the main subject of the work “magic” has to be reconsidered as an attempt for speculative creation in view of metaphysical reassessment of fictionality.
The systematic nature of magic that “comes and goes” from and to outer region other than personal domain and also at the same time improvised by correspondence between the subject of consciousness must be considered in comparison with cosmological theories that have deep bearing with consciousness such as David Bohm’s implicate order and Jack Sarfatti’s information theory of retro causality, arguing the nature of its notion implying the existence of cosmic evolutionary law in a way similar to ones such as clinamen, entropy and providence.
These philosophical motives were developed through verbal description in the original novel that must be fundamentally impossible to be reflected in visual expression. But surprisingly, superb transfigured expressions were attained in the anime, in some quite different scenes from the original novel but also in a way very similar in their deepest layers. The fact demands reconsideration of the meaning of identity between original work and alternative creations as well as between various kinds of existence, phenomenon and personality, revealed through many phases to be perceived or cognized.
The miraculous success of the anime expression seems to produce a vigorous instance of the working of synchronicity, the ability of consciousness to be able to intuit the primordial state of oneness where discretion of space or time exists any more. Actual process of the making of the anime interestingly seems to testify the deepest subject of the original work introduced through the motif of magic. This data book is conceived as an attempt to delve into the concept of synchronicity through various data such as storyboard, scenario and synopsis that must testify the process of the creation of the anime.