by Have you seen a lot of robot anime?
Some people interested in Japanese animation may be familiar with the term “bank” or “bank system.”
When watching TV animation, primarily works from the analog era, I thought, “I’ve seen similar screens before.” Many people have one. For example, the Gundam raises a beam rifle and fires, the beam saber attacks the Gundam, and the main character, Amuro, pulls the aiming scope toward his face in the Gundam’s cockpit…I’m sure you’ve seen many scenes like this.
This is what is commonly referred to as a “bank cut” in the anime production world. To give you a rough explanation, when creating a TV animation for a 30-minute program, approximately 3,000 to 5,000 “videos” to create movement are required for each episode.
In the analog era, it was necessary to transfer this video onto a transparent sheet called a cel and then apply special paint to each sheet one by one with a brush. Of course, you can understand this is a lot of work, even though it involves many staff members.
That means it takes more time. TV animation is about continuing to create something every week for six months or a year. On top of that, each video and coloring costs a certain amount, which means that the production budget is being cut down rapidly.
Therefore, to find a way to reduce this cost and effort, as well as minimize time loss, during the production of Astro Boy”, a pioneer of Japanese TV animation, which began broadcasting in 1963, the original author and the production companyAstro Boy”, Osamu Tezuka, who was also the representative of Mushi Production” (at the time), came up with this bank system” himself. Bank usually means “bank.” A bank is where you keep your money.
On the other hand, Osamu Tezuka developed a system that would select and store those that could be reused from the cell pictures and videos that had already been completed and used. For example, if you have a scene where Atom is flying in the sky or walking down a street, you can reuse what you created previously.
However, it is not always the same whether flying from right to left or in a different location. However, if the cells are drawn on a transparent cell plate, there is no need to recreate the whole thing if you change the background or trace from the back side, even though the video is the same.
Osamu Tezuka had an excellent memory and could remember which stories he had created so far and where there were things that could be reused, and he told the staff to reuse them so that anyone could use them. The “bank system” systematizes classification and storage.
