Why yugo sako epic is still the best indian mythological animation ever?

We Indians are still clinging onto a mythological fab.we still make those quirky animated movies
every year.First it was giant titles like mahabharatha and ramayana, then came the BAL/chotta series.
It was raining mythological  animated stories one after another.Not one was worth the praise.

What's disappointing is that something of religious importance is made with such carelessness & WITHOUT devotion.

And the example i've shown here is the best in those worst titles."Hanuman(2005)  was promising and son of ram(2012) was a sign that we can do better.

But all these movie still fails in front of the classic 1992 movie Ramayana - The Legend of Prince Rama(ラーマヤーナ ラーマ王子伝説).

Directed by Yugo Sako and Krishna Shah, this adaptation of the hindu mythology combines the techniques of  Manga(japanese comic art), and those of Indian classical painting which have been updated by Ram Mohan, the father of Indian animation.

The film have an outstanding detail that none of it's successors was able to accomplish.With addition to an excellent soundtrack, one could feel the devotion and respect he gave for the story.Yet it never made sense for Indian govt to reject his invitation for a bi-nation collaboration for the movie.

Court said "Ramayana is not a cartoon" - clearly unaware how sophisticated, and popular, this art form has become in the last 20 years.

-a quote from hinduismtoday.com-



-another interesting quote from chakra.org-

As Krishna Shah observes, "Anyone can tell a story, because Ramayana is a plot-oriented tale, but the key to Sako is that he finds humanity in his characters. Indeed, this is not a cardboard Ramayana, and the characters from Ram to Hanuman to Kumbkharna are three-dimensional ones. Sometimes, you forget these are merely animated figures, for the film almost has a lush, David Lean kind of ambience." What Sako particularly likes about the Ramayana and feels is a message for today's generation is the loving co-existence between the humans and the animal world that it depicts.

The character design may be a little manga-ish with all the sparkling eyes, but he made sue it was just a normal size.Researching Ramayana top to bottom,  he was able to give his animation such depth.

To verify my fondness for this animated movie, i watched Ramayana - The Legend of Prince Rama, Pandavas - The Five Warriors (2000),Hanuman (2005),Krishna (2006),Ramayana: The Epic (2010),Bal Ganesh (2009) with a much wider audience.Most of them were my family,hindu devotees and friends . As expected Yugo sako wins them all.They were a little troubled with "pushpaka vimana"(air chariot) depicted in the movie.Except for pandavas and the prince Rama movie, most of the audience left midway.

It's okay if we did some random story without such detail, but when it comes to a legendary story that lives in millions of hearts, it must be given a great deal of respect,detail and devotion.Then only will it be worthy of being called a DEPICTION.



Bibliography

https://www.hinduismtoday.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1025

-a letter from yugo sako included in the article-

http://www.chakra.org/discussions/BMOct07_05.html

-an article about ramayana movie and it's distribution problems- 

http://www.designinindia.net/design-thoughts/masters/ram-mohan/interview-ramayana-meers-sara.html
http://www.recess.ufl.edu/transcripts/2004/0629.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana:_The_Legend_of_Prince_Rama
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=7792

EK ANEK AUR EKTHA - the first and the best

The "ek anek aur ekta", the first small step of india to cartoons. Though the giant leap is yet to come, "ek anek aur ekta" is a must see for animation aspirants as well as all the indians.

The animation is quite straight forward, a sister teaches her brother the strength of unity.

Directed by Vijaya Mulay and released by Films Division of India (Government of India),the show first aired on Doordarshan.Thanks to their hardworks, the show quickly got to the children(i suppose that time would be when my father was a kid).This  1974-animated show was animated by bhimsain* using traditional 2d techniques.the details were very beautiful and presents a natural indian style drawing.For a hand-drawn animation,it was pretty fluid(considering the time ),way better than some currently aired indian animations.

note:thanks to  shantanuy for uploading this video.(when i was born,dooradarsan was pretty much dead,).
*A bio on bhimsain @ IMDB.

Wishing a hopeful future-the intro

I've spent most of my precious time watching cartoons and i was waiting for india to come into the bigstage.(SOMETHING so similiar to our south-eat asian neighbours).
Practicaly drooling over anime,i thought....MAY BE INDIA CAN DO THIS TOO.....

leaving hopes aside, can i ever see from India that's not from mythology?
Then i thought," what could be the reason for the absence of a good full length feature film from India"?

Upon further searching the net, i found archives of D'source and there, i learned about a lot of talented Indian animators.It is that feature films needs a lot of budget and lack of  more skilled animators.(a full length feature animation is always hardwork of many animators).

I wish india can overcome this in future.i'm starting this blog to write some points on
indian ANIMATION,animation concepts and some related topics.Also i'll be adding something of my own...