O corpo em combate na animação Dragon Ball: um estudo sobre processos de criação e imaginário

Abstract

The current thesis is a communicational study on how the body in combat is translated in Japanese animations, specifically in the Dragon Ball series (1986). The series chronicles Son Goku's adventures on his path to becoming the greatest fighter in the universe. Sketches and interviews were analyzed at first, based on Leão and Salles' approaches. The second chapter proposes to apply Gilbert Durand's method in search of images contained in the novel Journey to the West that are reflected in Dragon Ball. The analysis of the author’s drafts and interviews alongside the cartography of the imaginary, are methods linked to the line of research on creative processes in communication and culture contained in the Communication and Semiotics program at the Pontifical Catholic University. At the end of this stage, some concepts from Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism were identified in the work Journey to the West and were later translated into the Dragon Ball series by the original authors. One of those elements was the concept of ki. Starting from the interpretations of Yasuo and Tokitsu, it was possible to understand the perspective of ki, as a “sensation of the flow of variations” that can be detected by the body. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the analysis of the way the characters' bodies are illustrated and the type of relationship between form and content that Dragon Ball establishes from these images with specific narrative approaches. Through the usage of Gestalt alongside the author Kuriyama, the model sheets of the characters were analyzed and an increase in the amount of detail of the illustrated bodies was detected throughout the series. At the same time, the humorous passages of the story were reduced. The greater detail of the figures makes use of certain approaches that show the distance of those illustrated bodies from the scenario around them. Chapters 5 and 6, by using the authors Tarkovski, LaMarre and Okano, analyzes the implications of how the ki translation process occurs in Dragon Ball, when the character’s illustrated bodies are set in motion. Episodes produced using analog methods, such as painting on celluloid, had a greater limitation of frames. In turn, the productions carried out with the aid of digital tools allowed for a greater number of frames. Thus, the scenes in which the protagonist's body was illustrated in a simpler way, during the digital context, proved to be the most favorable for the translation of the concept of ki, especially during the dodging movements. The results of the research show that this is mainly due the fact that such sequences allowed the character's body to approach the scenario, evoking an absence of separation from the space in which he finds himself