Slashdot Mirror
More Anime College and University Courses Being Offered
Ninja Master Gara writes "Anime News Network reports New York University is offering a new courses on the anime industry and culture. Anime is slowly expanding from University Clubs into mainstream college courses, many of which begin at the 'What is anime?' level. Several Universities and Community Colleges already offer similar courses, or incorporate anime into existing studies." If any school decides to offer a course on the Gundam series, I'd be happy to teach a class.
Understanding anime should be an advanced course for writers and artists. The stylistic conventions are different from Western practice, but not incomprehensible. They can be studied and taught. Read Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics". (Skip his later Internet book.)
Especially considering the majority of Slashdot readers are fat middle-aged men whose only joy in life is infact wanking to the aforementioned hentai. Perhaps this is just their obscure method of social denial, and a way to escape the horrifying truth that they will probably forever continue the sub-existence that they have been living out for decades.
we have had courses in Star Trek, Star Wars, Wine Appreciation and whatever.. but the point is here.. what will this mean for your future..
.. i am a big fan of anime.. its just that i think that a college course on it, while cool, would be a waste of money (yours/your parents/your state's) and time that could be better spent (on girls/brews/parties)...
i am not arguing that people need not be given a grounding in the arts, far from it.. but lets face it folks, this is POP ART.. i doubt that other than the history of anime, this "course" can teach you anything that you and your friends can't learn by just sitting in front of the tube for a few brews and talking about it..
the point i am trying to make is that there is a LOT of art history out there.. stuff that people take for granted.. stuff that people don't BOTHER to learn...
Colleges are offering this kind of course to make you pay for a course that will not mean anything on your transcript (unless you are going into the anime field) and is nothing but grade padding.. in the same vein you may as well take a course in Britney Spears
don't get me wrong
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
Anyway, I wonder how much they will be teaching what they think anime should be, versus what it really is? I ask as I've read this book on Takarazuka Revue which describes it basically as a hot-bed of azn lezbo tranny pr0n, whereas everyone Japanese who I've spoken to (including my wife, who studied at the associated drama school and college) says it's just fantasy escapism, especially because the average real-life Japanese man is so crap, the otokoyaku[*] provide an idealised view of what men could be.
[*] Obligatory Japanese word inserted to pretend I know what I'm talking about.
I just wonder how many people realize where the word "anime" really comes from. For those who never knew, `anime' is really just the Japanese-truncated pronunciation of the American word `Animation'. So it amuses me that "anime" now essentially signifies "Japanese cartoons", when in truth everything from Batman to Donald Duck are "anime" as well.
gotta love how cultures mix and bounce things around.
-Q
The fact that it is art is what makes it logical to teach a class on. Early philosophy teachers used popular poetry, and film schools today use feature films as point of example and discussion.
Why is anime any different. There is a wealth of ways one could approach the class. First you could look at the original artwork, in it's native culture. Then you can look at the citizen's response to it. Or you could examen foriegn audiences and their interest in the genre.
There is probably a great deal to learn, the best way to become wise is to teach yourself how to think, not what to think.
"Only when you are looking for them will the Red spades and Black Diamonds appear" - Ray (Christopher Lloyd, Interstate 60)
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
Go and get the whole series of NEON GENISIS: EVANGELION , watch it with the 2 movies afterwards and then come back and say anime sucks...
Considering that it can be called a valid art form as any other form of hand-drawn animation is then it's hard to see why there is anything wrong with this at all. In fact, I find it interesting that something like this wasn't already in place.
Sure, anime hasn't been very mainstream up until recently, but I have seen some absurd art classes in my life. I'm not lying, but I have seen classes advertised as being "Studies of Hungarian Art from the 13th Century". Well, a class on anime can't do much worse, can it?
I remember in the early 90s when my university had a major Japanese film studies department. Now all the serious scholars have moved on to serious Ivy League schools like Columbia or Princeton, leaving the "film studies" department dumbed down to the level of anime studies. I'm not surprised that serious scholars are desperate to move to schools that take film seriously.
I could see them offering a course that uses anime as a sort of 'case study' for some real academic field, the way art majors examine a particular period or movement and fit it into their overall study of art.
Unfortunately, that's not what seems to be happening here. This looks like another pop-culture cop-out course.
I know people will get upset and point out that entertainment and pop-culture are worthy of study. That's true, but it should be serious study. If you want to teach a 100-level course on pop-culture, keep it broad and stress the basic themes and concepts of pop-culture with a variety of examples. If you want to focus on a specific medium/time-period/region combination, make an upper-level class that takes a specific academic perspective and targets a particular major.
In other words:
bad: Sociology 110 -- Sit-coms
good: Sociology 428 -- Sit-coms and wartime escapism in America
-- . . ramblin' . . .
You know, what scares me is that people aren't learning the language to go out and talk to more people. They learn it to go out and watch more anime. It scares me a little.
I submit that any reference to hentai or tentacles in an anime thread has now reached the redundancy level of hot grits, beowulf clusters, et al. It is not now, nor has it ever been funny.
There is a phenomenal amount of anime that is not only prescient, but superior, in a literary sense, to just about any mainstream entertainment this sorry-ass culture can muster.
Oh, and for you capitalist types, there are anime franchises that have financially beaten domestic animation beyond recognition so many times, accurate records were rendered impossible decades ago. Think ELEVEN FIGURES. Think fan bases in the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS.
Joke's not quite so funny any more, is it, smartass?
Gee, being called an otaku is a lot like being called a nerd or a geek, isn't it? What's your point?
If you're just going to college to get help you get work, why not go to a vocational college? Why waste time with the Ivys? (answering my own question) because there's more to life than just work. Live and look around for a change.
Just remember there's much more to Japanese culture than just the parts of it that are infantile, tasteless caricatures of American culture. (like anime)