Amerika thinks Anime = Porn

As I come to the end of an academic year advising an after-school program on Manga/Anime culture, it becomes more and more clear What Is Going On. A lot of people who are peripherally exposed to anime, like the readers of the Wall Street Journal, seem to have the impression that Anime = Porn. In the editorial “Manga Mania” (Aug 31, 2007), Bianca Bosker presents a convoluted and flawed, badly-researched argument that using anime to promote Japan’s image overseas is a bad idea. There is a pretty good analysis of the editorial by la_contessa here.

Basically la_contessa critiques the tendency of ignorant Amerikans (including the over-educated Bianca Bosker, a fellow at the Far Eastern Economic Review) to

1. collapse all anime – a diverse and rich medium of expression - into a single genre and 
2. assume that All Anime Is Porn.

Here are some choice quotes from Bosker’s article that help la_contessa to make such a critique:

Perhaps the biggest problem is the highly sexualized nature of the form, which can be exceptionally seedy, if not illegal.

Anime and manga also tend to perpetuate negative images of daily life in Japan.

What la_contessa fails to do however is offer any analysis of why they tend to do this. Here are my two cents:

1. Ethnocentric Amerikans think that the little they see of anime is representative of the entire phenomenon. This is comparable to how many Amerikans think that All Asians Are The More Or Less The Same.
2. The most ubiquitous anime available in the US is online and in video stores and is unabashedly pornographic in content. Why? Because it sells, duh!

And if I may, I’d like to make the following extended metaphor:

The Amerikan perception of anime is like the Amerikan perception of hip-hop. The highest-selling hip-hop and rap songs/videos are the super-sexual and most hedonistic, but does that mean there aren’t rappers and emcees writing really good music? Take 50-Cent, the Ying-Yang Twins, Lil Kim (back in the day). Then take a look at the Coup, Blackalicious, Talib Kweli… the list goes on in both directions. Byron Hurt has a really great documentary on this phenomenon of producing gangsta rap, who profits, who gets exploited, and who ultimately suffers the consequences. It’s called Beyond Beats and Rhymes.

 

Anime History 1

Some students in one of my classes proposed doing a research project on an aspect of Japanese culture and history. In honor of their desire for deeper understanding, I have decided to do presentations of my own! One of my dreams is to write a book on representations of different races and ethnicities in Anime. For now, let’s start by talking about the history of anime in Japan and beyond. There are many histories related to anime, but I am going to try to present this in a way that’s easy to follow.

To begin, TEZUKA Osamu is considered by most anime and manga historians to be the “God of Manga.” He created some of the first modern manga in Japan and inspired the “Golden Age of Manga” in the late 1940’s. He created some of the most famous characters in the world, like Astro Boy (1963), Kimba the White Lion (1965), etc. Here is a clip from Youtube:

One of the first things that you mght notice is that Astro Boy has massive eyes that take up well over a third of his face. Compare to this animated short of Betty Boop, a major source of inspiration for Tezuka:

Notice that this particular clip of Betty Boop shows her as a ringleader for some kind of Third World freak show, ahem, I mean “Talent Show,” with caricatures of all races. Betty Boop was created in 1930, way before the Civil Rights struggles of the 50’s and beyond. The Betty Boop series wasn’t the first popular spectacle to make a profit off of racist stereotypes. Minstrel shows like the show Betty Boop puts on in this animated short were popular as far back as the blackface minstrel shows of the 1800s.

Also, going back to Astro Boy, notice that he can fly faster than a speeding train, he can fly around the world (there is a shot of milk maids in the Swiss Alps), and he can explode through mountains. The production date (1963) of Astro Boy indicates that it was made for a post-war (read: after World War II) era in which Japan is struggling to heal from the destruction of the incendiary bombs from the air raids on all major cities. Not only that, the Japanese government, under the Allied (American) Occupation, was trying to promote technological advancement in order to become a “First World” nation.

I think that’s enough for now. More next week! Don’t forget to post your comments!

2,890,000 students worldwide

In October 2007 the Japan Foundation announced a 26.4% increase over the past 4 years in the number of people studying Japanese around the world.

The Foundation cited the dissemination of Japanese pop-culture, including anime, movies, and video games, as a major reason for the increase. Countries with the highest number of students were: Korea, China, and Australia. The most common reasons for learning Japanese were “to gain more knowledge of Japanese culture” and “to become able to communicate in Japanese.”

Source: Daily Sun New York No.1212, 11/01/2007

My hero: Yumi Tamura, a.k.a. TAMU-SENSEI

Now that I’ve finally established Animator, I’m going to embark on a project that will span many posts and many months: extolling the virtues of BASARA, a manga title that seemed to flop when it turned into an anime, but which has such literary and artistic value that I really feel it deserves a good critical treatment. (Usually manga titles that do really well in sales and build a strong fan base tend to be turned into anime. Most producers won’t take on a project unless it first proves its worth as a manga. Unless of course, it’s a project of Hayao Miyazaki. But even he had to prove his debut project’s merit by creating a manga fanbase for it first, before anime producers would consider making a movie out of it.)

So, what is BASARA? (click on the link above for a wikipedia article)
BASARA is epic. BASARA is Shakespearean. And yes, BASARA is a manga.

There is too much to say. For now, I will just put up tantalizing images and write some prose inspired by them. 

*Sarasa meets the descendant of a failed revolutionary in an underground cave. She claims the name “Tatara” for the first time. from vol 2, p87.*

 

Blogging rocks my socks.

Wow I just learned so much by compiling this blog from old stuff I had written. So fun!

I so nerdy.

Manifesto

I am Sei Kino and I humbly re-present what you see and don’t understand. Read this blog about my escapades in the escapism and hyper-realism of the worlds of manga. Learn, Teach, and Enjoy the show!