Cartoons had me cracking up

By Taira Hara

Special to The Yomiuri Shimbun

This year's Yomiuri International Cartoon Contest was most enjoyable. I have attended many contests as a judge, but had never before cracked up laughing when judging cartoons.

Not only the Grand Prize winner, but many others were very entertaining and the level of the contest high. When compared with cartoons submitted to past contests, this year's submissions showed more variety in terms of ideas.

But I felt contestants in the Junior Division were not making good use of the one-frame cartoon, including those that had more than one scene. Very few cartoons successfully captured a story or a drama in a single image.

I believe a one-frame cartoon expresses more than a multi-scene cartoon. For example, picture a man standing on an island with a palm tree. You then start wondering how he ended up on the island. Did his airplane crash or did his ship sink? Will he survive or die on the island?

You start imagining all sorts of things from a single cartoon. Ten people could come up with 10 different stories before and after the scene described in the picture. This is why a one-frame cartoon is entertaining and also difficult to create.

I am not necessarily saying the level of Junior Division was particularly low this year, but I felt many of the cartoons in the division did not have a profound storyline that developed from the cartoon itself. This was probably because young people do not have as many opportunities to see one-frame cartoons as was possible at one time. In short, I don't think they are exposed to enough of them.

In that sense, I constantly worry about the future of one-frame cartoons, but I don't think cartoons of this style will necessarily become obsolete. Above all, the one-frame cartoon is the basis of all styles of cartoons and is one that requires no explanation. The humor of a single picture is enough to make people laugh the world over.

I hope the younger generation is inspired by the works in the General Division. Going through all the contestants' cartoons is an exhausting task, physically and psychologically. But this year, I was overjoyed at seeing some excellent cartoons.

Hara is a cartoonist and a member of the Selection Committee.