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Week Six: Anime

Is Anime High or Low Culture? 
According to Napier (2005), anime is seen as a popular, or low art in Japanese culture. But this is very much the view of the high culture elite. The younger generation of Japanese consider it a “cultural staple.” Regardless of whether it is high or low, Napier’s chapter “Why Anime?” points out that this is irrelevant. Due to its instant visual appeal and huge range of potential subject matter, audiences and styles, Anime, as an art form, is above judgement over its worthiness for the canon. It’s widespread acceptance has made it a cultural phenomenon, and it has become a mainstay of popular culture.

Subgenres
Rather than looking at anime as a genre, it’s much easier to look at it as a medium. “Watching anime” is like saying “I’m reading a novel” or “I’m listening to music” – You don’t know what the novel, or the music, or the anime is, it could be for kids (J.K. Rowling/The Wiggles/Pokemon) or it could be heavier stuff (Lovecraft/Burning Witch/Berserk). Anime contains a wide variety of genres within itself, many of which are familiar to western audiences, but some of which are not. Some of these unfamiliar ones are….
Josei & Seinen – Josei is aimed at women 18-40, usually has very realistic themes about love, romance, every day life. Seinen is highly sexualised, violent and phsycological. They deal with this subject matter in mature ways though. Aimed at adult men, 18-40.
Shonen & Shojo – Shonen contains a lot of action and adventure and are aimed at young boys. Alternatively, Shojo contains a lot of drama and romance and is aimed and young girls.
Shonen-ai & Shojo-ai - Similarly themed as above but these relate to same sex relationships, aimed at young adults.
Yaoi & Yuri – Taking cues from Shonen-ai and Shojo-ae, but with much more graphic content.
Mecha – Contains robots, a Japanese cultural obsession.
Bishounen – Usually deals with an androgynous male character whose “beauty exceeds gender.” These are usually aimed at young women in Japan.
Akuma – Like fantasy but deals more specifically with demons.
Ecchi – Light-hearted and full of sexual innuendos, these are usually aimed at young adults, kids in their early teens.
Hentai – Animated pornography, which presumably has many subgenres of it’s own.
Samurai – Mostly based in Japan’s Edo Period or contains themes from that time.
Tournament – Takes elements from some of the other genres (action, adventure etc) but focus’ around a tournament. This genre is borrowed a lot more in Japanese culture than in Western.
Frenetic – “Wild and weird”

Although some of these are familiar to western audiences, it’s usually not in a capacity as wide as a popular genre. Additionally, some of the themes therein are familiar to such audiences but usually not in an animated form. 

"Complete List of Anime Genres" Ani Recs. 29 August 2011. Web. Retrieved from http://anirecs.infinityanime.com/facade/anime-genre-list-with-descriptions on 16 September 2012

Napier, S. (2005). Why anime? In Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp.3-14). Hampshire:  Palgrave/ Macmillan

 Yumeka "What are the genres of Anime?" Mainichi Anime Yume. 3 May 2010. Web. Retrieved from http://animeyume.com/blog/2010/05/03/what-are-the-genres-of-anime/ on 16 September 2012

Week 7: Themes and concerns according to Brown

Brown (2001) identifies several themes and concerns in the novel, one being the examination of the universe through the principals of interconnectedness – or Jungian synchronicity. Tagomi, Juliana, Baynes and Frank Frink are like everything in life: interconnected. Then that the world in “The Man in the High Castle” is anything but an illusion, better worlds might exist. What if the Allies had lost the war? Dick is telling us that there is hope for a better world. In our real world the Allies have won the war but maybe Dick’s idea of a better world is the world of “The Man in the High Castle” in which the Allies lost. I think Juliana is a very close version of Dick.

I think the novel within the novel “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” could be a real work of science fiction in our real world detailing an alternative world in which the Allies lost the Second Word War.

He also identifies the fear of implicit evil, the claustrophobic sense of being imprisoned in a world seemingly without hope, accretes inexorably.

But I think the main question Brown says Dick has raised is how might the march of circumstance effect the ordinary citizen.

Week 7: Science fiction / Speculative fiction

I don’t read or watch science fiction so I am not familiar at all with what it is but I have looked it up on the internet and this is what I found.

The difference between science and speculative fiction is that science fiction deals with imaginary but more or less plausible content, for example: future settings, futuristic technology and science, parallel universes, paranormal abilities, aliens… where as speculative fiction has a “what if?” condition that can be realistic or not but the rest of the story has to revolve about it in a strict scientific rigour, for example: a story set in the 1700’s in which white people would be the slaves and black people are the “upper race”. We start the story by “What if the roles were reversed?” and then the rest of the story would be very normal following that particular “what if?” condition.

I think “The Man in the High Castle” is a speculative fiction, according to the definition I have of it, it fits the characteristics of a speculative fiction with a “what if?” condition which is the victory of the Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in a WWII that went from 1939 to 1947. Then the rest of the story follows a quite scientific rigour.

Anime's Status

Anime especially in Miyazaki’s films has a classical approach in terms of its appearance and contexts. This focus on historical elements and the way Miyazaki tries to make it relevant in the modern world definitely suggest Anime can be considered a highly conceptual medium. In Princess Mononoke he uses the history of Japan’s industrialization to try and get across messages about environmentalism which are very relevant in this day and age. He uses philosophical arguments that indulge in traditional spirituality to explore different viewpoints of the natural world. Many animated films don't have this much historical depth in 

In Japan, Anime has widespread appeal that is much more impactful than in the western world. It doesn't mean Anime hasn't enjoyed great commercial success overseas (Pokemon being the obvious example) but it normally has a ‘fan boy’ status outside of these more phenomena moments in the western world. 

I think in general Napier (2005) tends to consider Anime a high culture product which has a cross generational appeal. In contrast to more commercial animation like Disney, there is a genuine and constant effort to put out works that explore more high end concepts and visuals. There is also works that are targeted towards different interest groups and is much more fragmented in their approach in dealing with audiences. The advent of magna could be seen as a by-product of anime which caters to a large amount of people in Japan. Magna especially focuses more on adult themes and tend to be much darker in tone and shows how animation can be much more flexible in catering towards older audiences.

Week Six Anime: Miyazaki, messages for the young

And my conscience feels slightly stricken now after reading what J.A Lent and D Cavallaro had to say about anime. Until late I had completely turned a blind eye to this pop culture phenomenom that accounts for half the movie tickets sold in Japan. In the past I kept on chalking it off to a childrens genre, but I was utterly mistaken. I could not agree more with J.A Lent (2000) when he stated in his introduction: "Japanese animation merits serious consideration as a narrative art-form, and not simply for it's arresting visual style."
I now harbour, and rightfully so, a very high regard for the masterful Hayao Miyazaki.

I think what appealed most to me while watching a few of his films (Mononoke, Spirited away, Howls moving castle) was the depth of thought involved within the narration and the importance he places on the challenging underlying themes of the story that carry worldwide relevance.
These important and often neglected issues/themes include things like feminism (very inherent with Miyazaki's frequent use of a Shojou as a protaganist in his films), the fate of the eco-system, pacifism, the abscence of or ambiguity around villains, and also the feelings of discontent towards the foolishness of war etc - All of these are positive messages if recieved and interpreted correctly.
I think these undertones speak a stark truth to all children watching his films. Children are often sheltered from these realities in the world, and Miyazaki is telling them, showing them, through his narrative, that things aren't so black and white in real life, life is messy, you don't always get a happy ending, there isn't always a clear-cut bad guy, there is violence in the world; which is such a scorching contrast to the messages that a disneyesque or Western animated film would more than likely portray.
Cavallaro, D (2006) encapsulates it perfectly: "Miyazaki is eager to show that no ostensible resolution to the quest for self-fulfillment is ever likely to be conclusive. His endings, therefore, steer clear of consolatory, tidying-up messages, offering instead purely provisional closures which audiences can scarcely anticipate or presuppose. The plots themselves tend to follow life's own unpredictable flux more than the narrative and dramatic criteria codified by mainstream spectacle."

Miyazaki tries to offer children (and adults) a positive world view, a world view free from over simplified conventions of good and evil, and he does this in a way that the audience may not be accustomed to. His films show more transparancy towards life's sorrows and intricacies and truths. The issue is not that children should'nt be exposed to worldwide problems and violence - children know that there are problems and violence in the world - the real issue, I think, that comes across in his work is: How do we control these problems? How do we find a balance?
Miyazaki's films call upon self-examination, world-examination (as difficult a task as that may seem to prove), and cyclical harmony all throughout society and the environment.

Week 5/6: Shoujo and Femininity

I found the definition of shoujo a particularly interesting idea within anime and Princess Mononoke. When I Googled ‘shoujo’ it came up as a genre of anime targeted at girls aged about 11-18 years, however after doing a bit of further research it seems that it is much more than this and there is extensive comment and research on femininity and its representations within manga and anime. Napier (2005) notes that anima is an appropriate art form for the turn of the millennium particularly due to uits fascination with gender roles and gender transgression  (p.11) highlighted in romantic comedy anime, narratives aimed at young girls and in pornographic anime – all while characterising a world in which women’s roles are rapidly changing. As seen in Princess Mononoke ,where Miyazaki focuses on the changing historical identity and traditional roles in relation to fast-changing modern world.   

Anime conventions and, particularly Miyazaki’s work, tend to redefine feminine physiognomies (Cavallaro, 2006). Heroines are wide eyes, lipless and with seemingly Caucasian features at a young adolescent age and therefore cannot dismissed as plastic dolls or the ‘hero’s accessory’. Cavallaro goes on to explain that Miyazaki’s heroines are undeniable shoujo in that they are active independent, courageous and curious – which are characteristics that in Western or more traditional genres would be attributed to a male protagonist (like Tintin).

This being my first andonly experience of feminist themes within anime, I was tempted to praise the modern views and non-sexualisation of female figures. However, upon further investigation I found that this is not true of all anime genres. And this particular anime blog (http://angrogynousfemales.blogspot.co.nz/)  with the post titled The New Feminism in Anime in which she raises the point as to why these heroines have their female sexuality minimalised to the point that they could be pre-adolescent boys. So, they are given modern day female characteristics but then have their breasts and womanly figures downplayed. As the blogger, who goes by the name Sennac, states: 'This (the erasure of femininity) is due to the imbalance of characteristically feminine and masculine qualities in dominant female characters' - however, she focuses quite specifically on post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk anime. It appears that more independent heroines radiate more subtle feminine features while the more passive female characters are drawn to embody their gender. However, interestingly, Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke is an undoubtedly feminine figure. She cares for the sick and 'rescues' girls from brothels and is an overseeing mother figure within Iron Town, however, she simultaneously embodies masculine qualities with ruthless actions towards the forest and a very keen interest in warfare and its weapons. And then contrasting this is the character of San.

San's body is physically represented as female without being overly sexualised (as seen in other anime genres where the female heroines appear to resemble animated Playboy Girls). Her demeanor is no doubt feminine but is contrasted by her bestial behaviour and dominance and steadfast opinions. However, aligning San to a more feminine character is that she is very much akin to Mother Nature and her care for the forest which hold reference to more traditional female values. 

Having said this, not being a particular fan of Western comics and superheroes nor anime and manga, I still prefer the Japanese representations of femininity within shoujo and Miyazaki's texts in comparison to the overly sexualised representations of women through the likes of Superwoman in her knee length boots and mini skirt or Catwoman in her skin tight catsuit or even the role of Lois Lane and her never-ending dependency on Superman for survival.