Eye Magazine

Hiromu Oka’s animated titles for Hodo Station (a long-running Japanese news programme on TV Asahi) make use of an unusually lengthy process: Risograph printing.

By working this way, Oka aims to capture the ‘textural authenticity’ lost by digitally synthesising natural textures and patterns.

He notes that digital methods can add depth and ‘warmth’ to computer-generated imagery, but worries that this is ‘only pseudo’, however much skill goes into the process.

‘By using Risograph to actually print on paper and then digitally scan it, I was able to create an authentic warmth. Being able to find the characteristics of materials, such as the direction of the paper fibres and the differences in ink penetration … I decided that the concept of the animation [for the news programme] should be “information unevenness”.’

The ‘print-to-animation’ process requires time, money, materials and patience, and there is scope for mistakes and accidents, but this did not intimidate Oka.

In his search for ‘analogue expression’, one of Oka’s strategies is to look to ‘something that I have actually touched and have memories of’. He sometimes reaches back to his childhood for inspiration, in particular, the work of Japanese animator Kôji Nanke, best known for anime title sequences such as March of the Big Totto (1980) and Norakuro-kun (1987). ‘He expresses the analogue quality by using paper and brushes,’ says Oka, ‘it makes me wonder what kind of expression could be achieved without any digital intervention.’

Gabriela Matuszyk designer, writer, editor, London

First published in Eye no. 104 vol. 26, 2023

Hiromu Oka on Vimeo