Destroy All Podcasts ST Episode 23 - Jumping by Osamu Tezuka

I first encountered "Jumping" back about 14 years ago, and by accident as part of a video compilation I had picked up in a public library's book sale. The video was entitled "Award-Winning International Animation 1980-85", and was basically composed of a lot of animated short films that had won awards in many film festivals and often got seen as 'filler' on HBO on the side. "Jumping" was the last short on the tape, though another of Tezuka's shorts, "Broken Down Film", came around the middle part of the tape.

While Jeremy things it's a frog, I kinda felt it was a little girl who was going through these things. Of course we don't have much of a clue as to who the POV is besides the three things this person says, *gasp*, *scream* and *sigh*. "Gasp" when she jumps over the car, "scream" when she falls through the mushroom cloud, and "sign" after being lifted up at the end.

It was quite an interesting short, and there are those moments in there I often still-frame through to see those hidden details, like the ASIFA billboard that shows up (ASIFA is the International Animators' Society, of which Tezuka was a member of), let alone the one or two humans that show up in there such as the woman suntanning or the guy taking a nap on a railway track. I also like how somewhat sympathetic the devils in Hell where in giving the jumper a boost back up to the surface.

From what I understand, it took three years to complete this film, and some 4,000 cels were used in the production. The film would take the Grand Prize at the Zagreb Animation Festival.