Galaxy Express 999 - Ginga Tetsudo Three Inn

...Alongside the animation of this classic children's book, the sci-fi space war story "Space Battleship Yamato" was made as a six-month consecutive series in the same year, 1974, and established the two major trends in television anime that followed. A compilation of "Yamato" was released in theaters in 1977 and became a huge hit, sparking a competition to produce feature-length animated films for the theater. This led to the creation of masterpieces of adventure anime with content and technique that would satisfy adults as well, such as "Galaxy Express 999" (1979), based on an original story by Matsumoto Reiji and directed by Rintaro, which took advantage of the visual beauty of the large screen of the theater, and "Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro" (1979), directed by Miyazaki Hayao and with animation direction by Otsuka Yasuo, with its flexible plot, thrilling animation, and fantastical gags. In spite of the profusion of commercial animation in Japan, which has the highest number of films produced in the world, experimental independent animation was also actively produced, and Kuri Yoji's series of nonsense comedy animations (Human Zoo, 1962, Age of Murder, 1967, etc.) first attracted attention overseas, followed by Furukawa Taku (Head Spoon, 1970, Surprise Edition, 1975, etc.), Kawamoto Kihachiro (Demon, 1972, Fire House, 1979, etc.), who studied under J. Trnka, and other puppet animations, and Okamoto Tadanari (Mysterious Medicine, 1965, Towards the Rainbow, 1977, etc.), won awards at international film festivals around the country and gained worldwide fame.

*Some of the terminology used in "Galaxy Express 999" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…この名作児童文学のアニメ化と並んで，同じ74年にSF宇宙戦争もの《宇宙戦艦ヤマト》が半年連続シリーズとして作られ，その後の連続テレビアニメの二大路線を築いた。《ヤマト》の総集編が77年に劇場公開されて大ヒット，これが劇場用長編アニメ競作の口火となり，松本零士原作，りんたろう演出の《銀河鉄道999》(1979)のような劇場の大画面を生かした映像美をたんのうさせる作品や，宮崎駿演出，大塚康生作画監督の《ルパン三世･カリオストロの城》(1979)のような緩急自在の作劇，痛快なアニメート，奇想天外なギャグなど，おとなも満足させる内容と技術をそなえた冒険アニメの快作も生まれた。製作本数だけは世界一という日本の商業アニメの濫作状況の中で，実験的な自主アニメも活発に製作され，久里洋二の一連のナンセンス･ギャグ･アニメ(《人間動物園》1962，《殺人狂時代》1967など)がまず海外で注目され，次いで古川タク(《Head Spoon》1970，《驚き盤》1975など)，J.トルンカに師事した〈人形アニメ〉の川本喜八郎(《鬼》1972，《火宅》1979，など)，岡本忠成(《ふしぎなくすり》1965，《虹に向って》1977，など)らが，各地の国際映画祭で受賞して世界的な名声を得た。…

※「《銀河鉄道999》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

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