The Making of Escape anime – Animating life

An Escape anime for a fan of anime

I am one of those fans of anime, animated pictures with undeniable Japanese accents. It is in France that I fell in love with the genre when they were introduced for the first time in Europe. I was hypersensitive to their energy, their original perspective, their ability to connect with many unexplored and sometimes unknown facets of the child in me.

What anime offered me and therefore the Escape anime

They reflected a way out of the constraints of reality, a reality that turned out to be the institutions we supposedly forged to protect us, rather than life itself. And that was the liberation. They united, as I did, emotion and reason, in a beautiful and harmonious mariage. They opened the mind but did not have to close the heart to do so, quite the opposite. I was hooked.

Anime was made for the song Escape

Anime, the genre itself was made for the song Escape.  The liberation of the genre paralleled the real meaning of the song. I was not escaping life, merely trying to express it. The expression felt more real, more whole, just as I felt it without the censorship of our judging rules. And I banned rules from the brainstorming of my art. And once it was expressed, I banned rules from its refinement, not because I did not believe in discipline but because I believed in myself and my ability to know where and when to stop.

Escape anime… Anime music videos only… Oh if I could…

It was only a matter of time before I released an animation, and more precisely and anime of one of my songs. Oh if I could, I would release nothing but song anime. Every song is a story, animating life through the vibration of its mind’s instruments. Animation just projects the full experience from my mind to the audience’s multisensory receptors. Having pondered for a while the impossibility of my plans for an animated picture made from scratch, especially after receiving various financially crushing quotes, I opted for a different tactic. After much search, I came across an option that allowed me to create something meaningful and memorable and to honour the anime creators who have kindled my passion for the genre.

Escape Anime collage or montage?

To dig out what I ended up finding requires a change of thinking. This, I suppose, is what happens to innovators. Going back to the drawing board is not foreign to me. It is not only limited finances that push the imagination to new, extended boundaries. I would not compromise my vision. And I would not ask for money at this point. So I thought differently.

Escape Anime vision, meet otaku

And at the end of that new thinking, I met a very talented video editor. The expert video maker was an otaku (anime super fan) , and sensitive to the power of music. So, we concocted this wonderful anime collage, or is it montage, as a sort of music video of my song Escape.

The resulting Escape anime video

The anime used do not belong to us and are from Utada Hikaru’s Exodus Fluximations and Kämpfer 1. In addition, even though, as you see and hear, they seem to have been created one for the other, they were created completely independently one from the other.

Escape anime Editor’s notes: 

Escape is a Folk song written, composed and performed (vocals) by Tiki Black. The piece incorporates obvious elements of French chanson. It complement the tracks on her debut album Out Of The Black as track number 5 You can find out more about the songs on the Escape song page here or download Escape on Bandcamp here.

In the Escape song like in the Escape anime, the running could be a simply needed detour

Sometimes, you need to look at life differently. You will find that the obvious is rarely so. Art has always had its own way to bring forth the deep, express the difficult. Escape is one of those songs that speak of a common phenomenon among humans, running away from the harshness of reality. But here, this song suggests that this is not out of mere cowardice. Sometimes, running away is a way to run towards the very thing we seem to be avoiding. By giving ourselves the right to continue to function, we can come back to it, certainly the longer way, but the additional time allows us to be stronger.