Anime fans are familiar with a certain moment called freeze-frame at the ending of an anime. Often dubbed as ‘Dezaki’ effect among certain fans, it is a phenomenon when your anime characters’ movements started to stop and turn into a still image full of line shades and brightly colored. In fighting scenes, it happens before or during the main character striking the opponent...

… or rather appears in dark blue while the character turns into pale and lay unconscious?

Why there are so many animes using this frame? Where is this frame come from?

 The first, the real scene that often parodied or referred badly came from a sports/ boxing named Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe) that aired in the 70s. In this anime, Joe Yabuki the main character, smiled unconsciously after he beat Jose Mendoza with all he ha, resulting in a question whether he still alive or dead in the ring. Then it’s so clear that the scene is a reference (seriously or comedically) to describe someone’s losses. 

The second, the scene was drawn by an animator named Osamu Dezaki; which his name known among anime fans due to his unique pastel drawing.

Who is Osamu Dezaki?

Born on November 18, 1943, before entering the anime industry, Dezaki loves to draw manga and often skip classes during high school. After he graduated, he felt pessimistic to get a job at the manga industry. Pushed by the anime airing for the first time in Japan, Astro Boy, and Disney movies, in 1963, he applied to an animation studio built by Osamu Tezuka, Mushi Production.

Worked as an in-betweener (drawing animations in between of keyframes to make it smooth) for three years until he promoted into a keyframe animator. 

Sometime later, he left Mushi to build an animation studio Art Fresh alongside his brother, Satoshi, and their friend, Gisaburo Sugii. Even so, they still had a contract work for Mushi. When the anime industry hit the rock bottom in at the beginning of the 1970s, Dezaki later built another studio named Madhouse alongside Masao Maruyama, Rintaro, and Yoshiaki Kawajiri.

Seven years after working in Mushi, he finally made his debut as a director by working on Ashita no Joe at 26 years old alongside character designer Akio Sugino who skyrocketed his name as the talented anime director. He later worked on famous animes and movies such as Top wo Nerae, The Rose of Versailles, Golgo 13, Black Jack, Space Adventure Cobra, Clannad, et cetera.

Known as a “chain smoker”, Dezaki died due to lung cancer at the age of 67 on April 17, 2011.

Postcard Memories, When Anime Freezes For Seconds

As one of the veteran anime directors, Dezaki is easily recognized due to his unique visual at his time, often used split-screen effect, bright lighting, rotating camera, and pastel-colored freeze frame. These overall visuals are known as ‘Dezaki’ or ‘Dezaki’s style’ -- but the most famous of all his creations is the freeze-frame.

Freeze frame that becomes his signature on directing said by Dezaki as 'Postcard Memory' -- probably because it’s similar to those pictures with meaningful words in postcards - or also known as 'Harmony' by other animators.

As you can see on the scene taken from The Rose of Versailles below, before the “To be Continued” comes out at 4:34, the freeze-frame changes the visual and the flat anime colors into shading pastel with line shades like a painting or a contrast comic book. Surely your favorite anime featured this style, right?

Many people believed that the freeze-frame moment as a way to prolong scenes without having to draw new movements. But according to Dezaki himself, this moment that’s full of expression pointed to the creativity needs or even the source: the manga that is a pack of still images.

Always placed dramatically in a dramatic situation; either when the hero falls in front of the rival or the hero sacrifices himself for his friends; the ‘Postcard Memory’ surely also serves as a sudden stop that will make the audience focus on a certain scene.

It’s surely thrilling when Ryuko got beaten up by Satsuki and the freeze-frame ends up with the ending song? It’s very effective to put an important scene that serves as the cliffhanger on the audience’s mind to stay tuned for future episodes. As said by Dezaki during an interview, this is used for ‘dramatic’ purposes.

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Source: Crunchyroll.com / Mangauk.com / Otakuusamagazine.com