Slashdot Mirror
The Significance of Anime
angkor writes "'More Animated than Life' - Fascinating article discussing the significance of animation to the Japanese and why it is not what Westerners expect."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Many Americans find anime a lot more appealing than a lot of stuff on TV because anime isn't as constrained by the American Standard that effects many of the popular programming.
I watch anime constantly, always on top of the latest fansubbed releases, picking up the DVDs of series that are especially good and make it to North America. I support the full circle of anime, and all of the fruit it bears.
Of it all, I've met new people, made some good friends, and experience a whole culture that I would have otherwise been completely oblivious to. I find anime to be informative, entertaining, and especially enjoyable.
Civil war documentaries, or porn
Many Americans find porn a lot more appealing than a lot of stuff on TV because porn isn't as constrained by the American Standard that effects many of the popular programming.
I watch porn constantly, always on top of the latest fansubbed releases, picking up the DVDs of series that are especially good and make it to North America. I support the full circle of porn, and all of the fruit it bears.
Of it all, I've met new people, made some good friends, and experience a whole culture that I would have otherwise been completely oblivious to. I find porn to be informative, entertaining, and especially enjoyable.
that being said, I couldn't come up with an explaination of why I like Anime, other than, it's high quality animation, and the allure of something from a culturally different background.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
Two comments and the link (and possibly an intercontinental internet pipe) has been slashdotted!
.MHT compressed file - there must be something else equivalant that works with all other browsers - hell, even make it a standard zip file with the .slash extention and associate that extension with a script or batch file that uncompresses and views when clicked on.
The question of a cache should not be met with a vague grumbling about "content owner permission" rights.
Stop being so damned irresponsible! Cache the complete first page of any linked articles!
Hell, this could even be done without slashdot footing the bill for the extra bandwidth. Before posting an article:
(1) compress the first page of every article link to a single file.
(2) share that through a peer-to-peer system such as bittorrent.
It would work. Everyone would win - slashdot readers and linked sites. AND it would be a Genuinely Good Use(tm) for the peer to peer tech.
----
Tech notes:
Internet Explorer can save complete pages as a single
Bittorrent: It's seriously underappreciated, and - the part I love - it ONLY shares the CURRENT FILE that you're downloading. As soon as you close the "file download" box when your download is done, you drop out of the peer to peer network that was made specifically for that file. It is neat.
Same reason. American Hardcore porn lacks any real emotion or acting or plot. American softcore porn lacks any hardcore action.
Anime porn has more emotional content, better plots, etc. Plus you can really dive into darker things like domination, shame, without creating a snuff film. That can make things more exciting and makes topics available for self-examination without actually watching a real person get beat up or whatever.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
There's anime that covers every possible category that a TV or film can cover. I think a better question would be what the hell are you doing renting sick anime? :)
First off they are Japanese, so they eat things with Tentacles, you know -- Sushi. We eat Hotdogs, pickles, carrots, and other long things. Haven't you every played with your food????
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
"One should also note that Rei has blue hair and red eyes ?rather remarkable traits for a Japanese girl!!"
Uhm... unnatural hair colors like purple, blue, white and green look nice. That's it, they look nice. No need to think about *why* they chose that color, it just looks nice!
I think the author of the article is overanalyzing things.
Does it have an obnoxious little kid who screams and jumps around? Every time I try and get into an anime at my friends' request, I am repulsed by the outrageously obnoxious characters. Most specifically, small round girls who shriek and bounce around. Really annoying. Even 'serious' ones like a movie about Hiroshima (I forget the name, it's been a couple of years.)
Cowboy Bebop is great SciFi. The way music is used is really creative--sax solo during a space ship chase scene. The world-view is also very interesting: a BladeRunner like gel of every culture. Basically can't say enough good things about the show.
Law & Order, CSI, sitcoms, American TV in general have nothing on it.
He painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm askin' ya, what's it breathin'?
Not exactly in a Disney-like way. In every major Disney animation I can recall*, the hero's problems are the work of a villian (usually a magician or, prototypically, a witch) who is defeated at the end.
Sometimes its merely her plan that's foiled, but usually the villian's existence is terminated as well. Death, dissolution, imprisonment, or at least public humiliation- the Wicked Witch is not allowed to return to her tower with pride & power intact. The villian doesn't get to become happy with everyone else.
Unlike 2 other Miyazaki movies that Disney has imported (Kiki's Delivery Service and Mononoke Hime), Spirited Away had a well defined antagonist in the person of "Ubaba". In fact, she was even a witch! But her comeupance was not nearly the simplistic Good-Conquerors-Evil that a Mouse storyboarder might create. Her pride was hurt a little, maybe she learned a lesson about caring, but her livelihood and position of control were not harmed.
* I haven't watched enough Disney movies to tell if this is really the pattern, but its the impression I get from a small sample (Cinderella & Alladin, Beauty&Beast). Its notable that the Pixar movies, although influenced by Disney writers, haven't fallen much into the "hero vs villan" mold either. They're more "man against nature".
Well, I'm used to read such nonsense from people which don't know a thing about anime. It's really sad. : :) :) :) And then I read nonsense about asians not beinat advantages on screens : very sad to read such stupid things...
The article is seriously stupid, and the author doesn't know a thing !
Point by point
- Yes, Yamato was a shift in anime, but it didn't cause a boom : the boom was a long time before 1977, and that's why Yamato came. The major thing Yamato changed, was in the songs used in anime. Before Yamato, there were 5 assigned singers (3 men, 2 women) for anime (I remember some names like Mizuki Ichirou, Kooro Gi, and of course the great Horie Mitsuko). Since the Yamato film, which used pop artists, every anime started to use people whose it was the job to sing
- A lot of anime were indeed adult and successful before 1977, Yamato being one of them. The guy is sickening now...
- Nausicaa was NOT a big success ! Nausicaa was renowned among anime fans, that's true. Miyazaki didn't overturn anything. Toei made more bucks with his films than those of Miyazaki, until Mononoke. Miyazaki started to be a success in Japan since Mononoke Hime, when more money was put on ads. Only anime fans reverred Miyazaki well before that time.
- The gold years of anime where the 80s, NOT 90s ! 90s where the decline, and then, the end of cellulo. It seems to be going back nowadays.
- this guy clearly doesn't know a thing about animation : the biggest mistake he makes is the same 99% of people do. He takes it all backwards, thinking anime is a subset of live movie. But it's the other way : live movie is the simplest and less powerful animation : it's limited to still images of reality, and not even perfect images at that. That's why there was always the need to blend special effects or other forms of animation (like CG) in live action films, because it's too limited. On the other hand, drawn animation is the most powerful of animation (the only limit is your imagination and skills), but as such, the most difficult to master. Some people I know who study animation don't even know when live animation started to be predominant, but I think one of the reason was that it looked more real ! Remember the Frères Lumières and their first show
- The only thing that made people think that animation is for children is Dysney !!!! Animation, in the start, was NOT considered for children !!! It was for adults, were presented in theater, and even served as propaganda during war ! Sone like this guy saying anime was for children principally is a cretin which doesn't even know history... And to add to the bad things Dysney have done, they shut down every other animation (be it japanese or from east Europe), threatening festivals were they were broadcasted, from the start until now. But I guess a lot of people do not know that, taht was the goal. They even continue nowadays.
- Anime can be as, even more convincing than live. But a lot of the performance is dependent on the voice actors. The "fleshy presence" is a nonsense. Anime can be more powerful than any live. You can't dismiss the power of pictures because they are not taken from "reality". Sone tell this guy that horror or porn in anime can not be shown to small kids : even without "flesh" presence, the subjective power is still stronger than anything. Imagination has always been more powerful than reality.
- The guy is stuck on "visual realism". That is, he can't even understand animation, as "visual realism" is only one feature of live animation. You can not judge anime by "visual realism", that's not one of it's features, though you can put such pictures in anime (it has even been done already). The purpose of anime is to present sth, not to be "realist".
- Another common pitfall. The author himself falls in it without even knowing. One of the power of anime, is that you can more easily identify yourself to a character. I mean, a japanese, looking at an anime character, will see a japanese. And an european will see an european, an american will see an american (except if it's too "realistic"). That's why the guy doesn't see a japanese in the characters. And the eyes have nothing to do with nationality : look at Tintin !
Or think that nobody has so wide round open eyes as you can see sometimes, or has blue or pink hairs
- The author apparently comes from the "caste" of people which rejects Japan history. All japanese are not among this group, and there is conflict, even in manga, on the subject. This turns into politics after that, and I'm tired already of this guy. Surely, I don't love all japanese (and surely not this one)...
Yeah, very interesting article.
Sad that there is alot of "Nihon-jin banare" is still around. It has really been pumped into Japanese culture over the decades. Especially during the 80s. I reckon that there is a collective rejection of this way of thinking coming to the fore however. The "White way" is becoming less popular with the yute, and, unlike Michael Jackson, the Japanese are proud to appreciate and celebrate the inherent non-whiteness of their condition. In time, I believe we will see more and more anime, manga, video games etc propogating the "obviously" Japanese as main characters.
On a racially neutral aside,. I've noticed that anime are extremely popular in the US aswell as the mother-land. I read an article saying that you will be getting plenty of anime on cartoon network etc. The same just doesn't apply here in Europe. They're really popular with you guys eh?
I am in the UK and speak from the viewpoint of having a Japanese wife who has downloaded loads and loads of anime.
I like most of the biggies, Ghost in the Shell being my fave. A truly exceptional animated movie. Akira, Fist of the North star etc. But I aint overly crazy about them. I saw the first couple of stand alone complexes too.
Ghibli Studio work is certainly of a higher standard than Disney too, for the most part. Maybe its just me, but I think that culturally we in Europe/UK really don't appreciate anime half as much as you do in the US.
Anyway, this is a good topic for me. A car will be arriving in less than 2 hrs to take me to the airport where we will be getting on the wonderful 12hr flight to Tokyo. FUckin' A. HEere I come!
The best images come from the viewer's inmagination. I wonder what books he reads if he has to be spoon-fed every detail.
A good example is the movie "Pink Floyd - The Wall". It has both, good live-action and stunning animation. But the animation is far more intense than the live-action here.
How did this link make it to /.? The "review" of anime isn't even starting on good premises for a decent review of animated film. In short: he doesn't get it.