A Delvin animation director has spoken of wanting to “make something that looks cool in Irish” as Cúla4 broadcasts the first ever Celtic inspired, Irish language anime show.
Craig Fish worked as an animation director on Lí Ban, working with the story of an Irish legend surrounding the formation of Lough Neagh, of a woman who turned into a mermaid.
The show, which first airs on Cúla4 on Tuesday, 15 October tells the story of Lí Ban at 12 years of age, and how she must travel through ancient Celtic tales to find answers on her adventures.
Transformed into a mermaid and a sea otter, Lí Ban and her faithful dog Con spend centuries scouring the watery kingdoms of Celtic legend meeting gods, monsters and giants as they search for answers.
Working as the animation director for Paper Owl Films, former Delvin NS student, Craig said: “It is about a young girl who transforms into a mermaid during the age of Celtic myth. The reason it is important in terms of animation is that this is potentially Ireland’s first anime inspired cartoon.
“In no way are we copying anime, that is Japanese animation. What we wanted to do was to make something that is uniquely Irish. This is not a copy of anime style. We basically built an entirely new animation style to fit the story, the designs and direction of Lí Ban.
“We had really strong writing, direction and design which is unusual when you work on some projects. This had everything so by the time it came to the animation, we had to do the design and direction justice.”
IMPORTANCE OF IRISH
Asked about the importance of modernising Irish, Craig told Topic: “It is important to make something that looks cool in Irish and that was one of the main drivers behind this.
“Everyone knows Finn McCool and the basic myths but there are hundreds of others. Even for me, growing up in Westmeath and I didn’t know Lí Ban. Lí Ban is actually the first written record of a mermaid, who used to live in Lough Neagh and I never knew that.
“I wanted to introduce everyone this mythology but also to update it. The design animation and writing is modern and then, put that in Irish. We are making an Irish show that is not twee, not a stereotype and is not made by someone else outside of Ireland with an idea of what something Irish should look like. We had a blank canvass to do this.”
Working in art and animation was always Craig’s ambition. He said: “I was never going to do anything else. From the age of 12, I knew I was not going to do anything else. All I did was draw so this had to work.”
