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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."
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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.
On a related note, here is a link for the Dutch Animation Festival that will be held the upcoming weekend.
www.haff.nl
Let me recommend "Spirited Away" to everyone. This is not your typical jerky graphics, guns blazing loud obnoxious Anime film. The graphics are great. But more important is the story line and the pacing. Its slow and methodical and completely enthralling. Groundbreaking even.
Great movie even for people who don't appreciate Anime.
If anything, it analyses why anime tends to reject Japanese characters and ideals in favor of Western ones.
By the way, since the server is completely /.ed, here is the google cache
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
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.
"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.
is a derivate of the amount of comments posted on a story titled "The Significance of Anime". Based on a recent empirical study, the significance of Anime is just a bit less than that of a "Indiglo Clock Case Mod".
Emotional Content?
When I watch porn, I want to see acts of sex. If I wanted 'emotional content', I'd watch a soap opera.
Yawn- yet another article that praises "worthy" anime like Mononoke Hime and Spirited Away, and ignores the massive diversity of popular TV series and OAVs.
Here is a mini-guide to some slightly more obscure anime to watch for fans of certain series that are well known:
If you like Ed in Cowboy Bebop then you will like the title character in NieA Under 7.
If you like Tenshi, you will probably like Love Hina and Happy Lesson TV.
If you like Oh My Goddess, you will probably like Chobits.
If you like anime with lots of fighting action then take a look at Beserk, Noir, Scryed, Hellsing.
Other good romantic comedy animes are: Onegai Teacher, I my me Strawberry Eggs, Ai Yori Aoshi, Hanaukyo Maids.
There are many more than this. Most of the ones I mentioned came out in the last year or two.
graspee
Does anything matter at Slashdot? BTW, here's a Google cache and a PDF version of the article.
OLPC Australia
And speaking from a Japanese viewpoint, let me clarify one thing.
Miyazaki's works are not the norm.
Its uniqueness, yet similarities to real life is what makes Studio Ghibli's works such blockbuster hits. However, other animations also do rake in cash for studios.
Every spring, when kids get out of school for spring break, the movie studios release several animated features, much like Disney.
Doraemon, an anime about a futuristic cat-like robot helping out a puny kid, is seen every week on television. In its extended movie version, the group goes on a journey to unique lands.
Each flick (which has been released every spring for the past two decades) brings in about $20 mil (2bil yen). Not too shabby, considering it's a domestic release.
Another is Detective Conan - a high school sleuth is turned into a boy and solves crimes.
Noticing a trend here? Childrens' films - those that are despised by anime freaks in the US - are those that gain the most popularity. Keep in mind that it's not only the kids who like them, as opposed to the popularity of Pokemon in the states.
"Classics" such as Cowboy Bebop and other mature-themed anime exist in large numbers, but they do not gain the widespread acknowledgement that kid-oriented shows do.
On the other hand, comic books (mangas) are split in half between the kids and the adults. The mature-themed manga is a booming industry, mostly focusing on modern themes such as corporations and sports. The unique few get turned into anime, and end up in the hands of American viewers who think that what they're watching reflects the Japanese phyche.
Bottom line: The Japanese animation industry is hardly different from the Disney of America - child-oriented shows sell. Mature anime are not the norm, and do not reflect the culture of Japan. For that, you need to watch television programs, domestic films (not Godzilla), fiction books.. and so on.
It is illegal in Japan to show uncensored penises, but it is legal to show uncensored tentacles. This is why you often see them with a little mushroom tip, as well...
More than just symbolic, it's a way to bypass certain laws.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
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)...
"what he meant was that to express within the Japanese cultural framework the same emotion expressed in English by 'I love you,' one must choose words like 'The moon is so blue tonight.'"
Does this mean that for Japanese to truly express the emotion behind, "You're so hot, I can't stand it!" they have to resort to phrases like, "My twin moons are so blue for you tonight."?
The State of Anime Fandom in Japan
Regarding some of the general comments people are making, they seem a bit extreme on both ends, which I guess is to be expected.....both the people saying "anime sucks, it's all porn" and the people who say that "anime rules, it's the only thing that has real plot and characterization and isn't tainted by commercialization like American stuff is" are both equally ridiculous statements. Anime in fact isn't all porn, and like any other medium it has had its share of good stuff as well as a lot of bad shows. And of course, the notion some extreme anime fans have that anime is good because it isn't commercialized is ridiculous, as anime is heavily commercialized, and many shows are made solely based on how well they will sell, which is why you often see a lot of recycled plots, character designs and story concepts.
Just in general, anime is way too broad for I think many of the comments being made here to be very relevant....it has its share of crap and its share of brilliant work. I could say the same thing about movies, television, books, comic books, etc.......take almost any of the comments being made in this thread and replace "anime" with "movies", "television", "books", "comic books" etc. and perhaps this will give you a better indication of how ridiculous some of the statements are.
Anime is not all stale and recycled plots, and it is not all the same big eye style of animation......a few shows that wouldn't fit this mold would include Boogiepop Phantom, Niea_7, Now And Then Here And There, etc. If I had to guess I would say that a lot of the negative comments are being made by people with a very limited exposure to only certain kinds of anime, which would be about on par with making a value judgement on "movies" after watching some pornography tapes.
Tom