anime director dies at 46

)DAmn it. This blog is supposed to be about Korean animation & comics, but I keep finding stuffs to write about Japanese anime. The trouble is that I prefer film over paper, and animations from Korea are few while there are plenty of Japanese anime's to watch.)

Satoshi Kon died on Tuesday this week, which would be August 24, 2010. He is a noteworthy anime director who produced Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers, Shounen Bat, and the Millenium Actress, two of which I've watched and are definitely my favorites. I would compare him to Hayao Miyazaki, except I never got the point of any of his films, including Spirited Away and Laputa. Oh wait - Howl's Moving Castle was awesome!

What surprised me was that Satoshi Kon was merely 46 years old, but he was killed by pancreatic cancer. And I had thought he would be around for a long time.

His works were awesome, so much that I think they improved anime's overall image and the scope of what's possible and what to expect. I remember there was so much thrill and mystery in Paprika, and Dr. Chiba was drawn so nicely too. I was able to enjoy the same sort of mystery and complex storytelling in Shounen Bat, and I shouldn't forget to mention that I also watched the Millenium Actress, whose distinctly Japanese looks I appreciated very much.

I think Satoshi was concerned largely with people's memory and its psychological aspect and mystery. If you think about it, most of his works seem to come down to that small thing concerning memory.

I think Ms. Napier's tributes were appropriate. I just wish she'd have said something about the importance of memory.

I kind of said this before, but, if there is another thing to mention about him, it's that he really did try to draw Asians at their best, which is quite hard to do in an anime style as I've found out in my own trials. He didn't give up and start drawing something like this:

(Yea Suzumiya looks great, but can you tell a trace of Asian-ness in her?)