This Japanese Artist's Animated Paper Illustrations Are Mesmerizing

Jul 24, 2023

I am completely obsessed with paper crafts. Some artists straight-up do black magic with stationary supplies and it’s incredible to see in motion. Artists like Diana Beltrán and Tania Lissom make beautiful, brightly colored sculptures of nature and animals. As we’ve talked about before, some paper sculptures can become eerily lifelike.

Japanese paper crafts artist Shinrashinge is someone whose works I’ve been eyeing for quite some time now. If you’ve never seen these sculptures, you’re in for a treat. Shinrashinge creates flipbook-like sculptures from paper, animating stories through clever construction. You just have to see it in motion for yourself to get what I mean. (Content warning for mental health and attempted suicide.)

This work is called “Corporate Slave,” and anyone who’s ever worked a dead-end 9-to-5 job will immediately relate to it. The story is centered around an office employee burned out from the daily grind of his joyless corporate job and commute. The artist made the flipbook through a series of carefully sculpted paper mechanisms and levers to make it look like it’s animated.

“Corporate Slave” touches on a pretty dark subject: karoshi, which means “death from overwork” in Japanese. Karoshi is unfortunately common in Japan and results from laborers being overworked to the point of negatively impacting their health. Fortunately, more people are becoming aware of this problem and speaking up. In the short, the horribly depressing slogan “Work until you die” is scrawled on a boardroom whiteboard.

The artist also creates plenty of pop culture homages, like the Dragonball paper cup art video above. I lost my mind seeing this because of the many clever ways they utilized three paper cups. The cups are stacked onto each other, and they turn each layer of cup by the brim to animate a segment of the drawing, giving it depth and life. Even the inside and bottom part of the cup is used here. Stunning work.

My favorite part of Shinrashinge’s works is how they can tell a poignant story with just a few pictures. This work is called “Love Days” and features two LGBTQ+ couples falling in love, getting married, and growing old together. It hits you right in the feels, and the animated paperwork is brilliant as always. The way the artist can make the heads of characters turn and emote without losing any of that realism floors me.

In the video above, Shinrashinge flexes their animating chops by showing the most zany facial expressions yet. This one I’m not entirely sure what the story is about, but the technique is incredible, nonetheless. The artist breaks down how they made the animation as well. According to them, the picture uses left and right paper handles to move, and they take advantage of a distortion technique to give it a 3D effect. They put the camera at a predetermined angle, then bend the picture forward so as to give it depth.

The world is a pretty dark and grim place right now, but at least we can still enjoy the works of Shinrashinge, and maybe cheer up a bit. This artist will definitely hold a strong place on my favorites list, and I can’t wait to see their talent progress even further.

(featured image: screenshot)

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Michael Dawson (he/they) writes about media criticism, race studies, intersectional feminism, and left-wing politics. He has experience writing for The Mary Sue, Cracked.com, Bunny Ears, Static Media, and The Crimson White. His Twitter can be found here: https://twitter.com/8bitStereo