Tatsuyuki Tanaka is a big animator in Japan – he worked as a key animator on Akira (pretty much the biggest Japanese animated movie ever), and has done work on music videos, short films and adverts.
He really is an incredible animator – a true master of the craft, but what I fell in love with was his original style and the override atmosphere that seeps through his collective work. Dark and dingy worlds filled with strange but curious machines and characters – almost like a cyberpunk Jan Svankmajer. He’s been one of my favourite artists for a while and when I heard he had released a collection of his work, “Cannabis Works” (Cannabis is his artist alias) I just had to get my hands on it.
It was a little hard to get hold of where I live, but ebay won through for me and the book did not disappoint. The book’s 142 pages are packed with some incredible imagery, the vast majority with a cyberpunk theme. The pictures vary from polished standalone images, sketches, line drawings, storyboards, comics and character concepts. I can’t read Japanese but the book appears to be divided in to several sections, the first appears to be concept art and part of Tanaka’s comic “Boiled Head” – set in dark towering cities of pipes and corrugated metal, populated by rusty robots and strange characters hooked up to bizarre machines. The second section goes even more surreal, with a turquoise haired heroin, a sadistic gang leader dressed up as Santa Claus, psychotic robots and monsters that look like mutated cuddly toys. The final section appears to be a collection of various ideas and concepts, all rich and varied. For example we’ve got what looks like a 50s England (plus giant robots), an alien world of desert cities and tribal warriors and a cyberpunk world of underground tunnels, Escher-like staircases and dying robots (the Moomins even make an appearance, which was a surprise!). All images are brought to life with an incredible detail and skill, each image making you want to see more.
It’s pretty much impossible for me to do this book justice (a picture is worth a 1000 words after all!), but if you like Tanaka’s work and like the sound of the rather lacklustre descriptions I’ve given, then you should definitely seek out this book. It is a truly inspirational collection of work.
