New essay from me on the work of solitary animation production, looking at how the labor animators put into their work shows up in the aesthetics and affects onscreen. The essay is part of an ongoing side project where I work towards a non-auteurist approach to so-called “art” animation, approaching it instead as a space of care for beleaguered industrial, post-industrial, and often non-human bodies. I explored similar themes in a piece on Tsuji Naoyuki for Mechademia a few years back. This new essay touches on animations from Atsushi Wada, Mizushiri Yoriko, Kuno Yōko, and others, building off the curatorial/critical work of Doi Nobuaki and Catherine Munroe Hotes. Do check out the whole book — the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Cinema, edited by Joanne Bernardi and Shota T. Otaga — if/when you get back to a university library. Looks like lots of good stuff!