The world’s longest-running cartoon is to go fully digital, its Japanese broadcaster said today, abandoning hand-drawn celluloid-based animation after a run of 44 years.<\/p>\n
Fuji Television Network said episodes of “Sazae-san” aired from October would be produced entirely digitally. The move will mean there are no hand-drawn cartoons left on Japanese television, according to the Association of Japanese Animations.<\/strong><\/p>\n Until the 1990s many cartoons were created by artists working directly on celluloid, a painstaking process that meant characters had to be drawn in many different postures to give them impression of movement as the camera was repeatedly started and stopped.<\/p>\n Two decades ago, computer animations began to become widespread, slowly squeezing out the traditional method.<\/p>\n “Sazae-san”, which first aired in 1969, revolves around the life of the Mrs. Sazae of the title, a cheerful but klutzy full-time housewife who lives with her parents, husband, son, brother and sister.<\/p>\n The 30-minute episodes, which can readily garner more than one-in-seven Sunday evening viewers, tend to focus on tiny incidents in the family’s everyday life and are dotted with seasonal festivals.<\/p>\n “Doraemon”, a Japanese cartoon about a robot cat from the future that has a following across Asia went entirely digital in 2002.<\/p>\n “Sazae-san”, whose broadcast denotes the end of the weekend for many Japanese, began the switch in 2005.<\/strong><\/p>\n