My Life in 24 Frames Per Second

Metropolis director Rintaro goes behind the scenes of the golden age of anime in his expansive and impassioned debut manga. Born in 1941, Rintaro is captivated by movies from an early age, particularly the first animated “manga film” he sees in a temple converted to a theater: “How is that possible? Drawings that move?” Despite discouragement from adults who warn him against chasing his dreams in Japan’s struggling postwar economy, he finds work as a teenager at some of the country’s earliest animation studios: first Toei, “founded to become the Walt Disney of the East,” then Osamu Tezuka’s Mushi Productions. Later, he works on anime adaptations with manga artists Leiji Matsumoto and Katsuhiro Otomo and launches his own studio, Argos. Rintaro’s crisp, lively art evokes period detail and clearly unpacks the ins and outs of animation. He excels at capturing human movement, including movement through time—with an amusing flourish, he draws himself aging and adopting the fashions of the decades. Some aspects of his personal life remain discreet (he manages to get married and divorced mostly off-panel), but a through line is his fraught relationship with his father, a barber who once dreamed of going into the movies himself. This meticulous portrait of a life in animation glows with love of the art form. (Oct.)