Vacation

I haven't been mostly much lately. First I desperately needed a mental break, and then I went on vacation. I wrote during those few weeks, but most of it is unedited or simply the private journal kind of thing. I'll go back and edit something to post in a few days, but meanwhile, I think I'll try and finish up a little post about my faith for the Aniblogger Testimony Project TWWK has going over at Beneath the Tangles, then finish enjoying my vacation.

I'm trying not to make my post too long. Or babbling. I can't even keep comments short, and now he's giving me a whole post!

Anime 101 - Part 6: Worldwide Popularity and Conclusion

Well, this is it; the final segment of Anime 101. In parts one and two, I gave a basic introduction to anime and tried to clear up some misconceptions. I covered manga in part three, and spent parts four and five on history. In this last section, I wrap things up with comments on anime’s popularity and my own experiences with it. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Anime 101 at least half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!

Anime managed to cross the world even before the advent of the Internet. In addition to Astro Boy (originally titled Tetsuwan Atomu), some of the other anime that made their way to American television in the 60s include Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer (Originally Mach Go Go Go), and Gigantor (Patten 46). Many, if not most, of their American viewers in the 60s had no idea that they were watching Japanese shows.

While I never watched Speed Racer on television, I often see it in the channel guide. Not long ago, I viewed a live-action movie based off the show. Still, until I researched anime, it never occurred to be that the title may have its origins in Japan.

In 1988, the ground-breaking movie Akira came to the States. The movie tackled topics that were “shocking, exhilarating, and left audiences wanting more” (Brenner 11). This was no children’s cartoon. Americans saw what anime could be, and the demand for anime and manga in the U.S. skyrocketed as a result.

One of Japan’s biggest anime exports was Sailormoon. Geared towards young girls, the title hit Japanese pop culture first as manga in the magazine Nakayosi, then as an animated feature on TV – with both forms of the plot appearing in the same year, 1992 (Grigsby 59). The anime quickly spread to other countries, becoming “the number one children’s action adventure show in Japan, France, Italy, Spain, and Hong Kong.” An English version appeared in the United States in the fall of 1995, in addition to its showings in Taiwan and Korea. At the time that Mary Grigsby wrote her article for Journal of Popular Culture, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Scandinavian nations were preparing to present Sailormoon as well (Grigsby 59). And the Sailormoon market was not limited to anime and manga. The show is found as musicals and films, on CDs, toys, packages of curry sauce, and notebook paper, to name just a few products. Grigsby summarizes, “Anything bearing the Sailormoon trademark sells well” (59). Sailormoon is just one example of the anime popular worldwide.

Before I began to watch and research Japanese animation, I didn’t realize how much it spread across the world. It’s truly amazing. If I can’t find the anime I want on video or cable, I go online. There, I can often choose between anime with English voice-overs or English subtitles. If I want to, I can type a few words in my search engine and find an anime with subtitles in Spanish, French, Russian, or any of multiple other languages. When I visited Mexico with my church this past summer, I struck up a conversation with another teen about anime and the Japanese words we learned through viewing. I relished our discussion not just as an interaction with a new Mexican friend, but also as proof of anime’s widespread popularity.

Conclusion

Anime is a truly interesting part of pop culture. It combines with manga and over a thousand years of history and cultural development to form a worldwide sensation. Anime travels beyond Japan to viewers everywhere, resulting in an abundance of cultural, sociological, and economical significance. It presents plots and characters to make you ponder, cry, learn, sit in suspense, and sometimes laugh out loud. From Bishop Toba to Dr. Tesuka, anime’s journey to a place in popular culture is rich. There is so much to learn – and, for me, that learning began with a single episode of Naruto.

Picture from Sailormoon.

Sources:

Brenner, Robin E. Understanding Manga and Anime. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited,

2007.

Grigsby, Mary. "Sailormoon: Manga (Comics) and Anime (Cartoon) Superheroine Meets

Barbie: Global Entertainment Commodity Comes to the United States." Journal of Popular Culture 32.1 (1998): 59-80. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 27 Apr. 2010.

Patten, Fred. Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews. Berkeley,

Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2004.

First Half of Fortune Arterial

I’m almost exactly halfway through Fortune Arterial. And by almost exactly halfway, I mean five episodes, six minutes, and thirty seconds into the anime series. Fortune Arterial centers on Kohei, a fifth year (11^th grade) boy who has transferred 10 times because of his dad’s work. He’s finally settled in a place he chose himself – a boarding school where his dad’s work transfers can’t affect him.

At past schools, Kohei stopped trying to connect with classmates. After all, what was the point? He would just be transferred away from his friends and have to start all over. This time, however, is different. He plans to remain at the new school until he graduates, so he feels free to connect with his friends. As chance may have it, two girls he played with seven years ago attend his new school – Yuuki Haruna and her older sister, Kanade. Kohei makes new friends, too. He meets the student council vice president, Sendo Erika, right away. They get off to a rocky start, but, like with most such anime relationships, they patch things up and become friends. There’s also the aloof classmate Kuze Kiriha (a girl, if you’re like me and can’t tell by the name), the mischievous (and questionable) student council president, and an assortment of other characters for Kohei to connect with. The highlighted relationships are with the girls, especially the Yuuki sisters and Sendo Erika. Kuze and another girl also come to mind.

To sum it up: Fortune Arterial seems clearly made with boys’ fantasies in mind. It’s borderline harem with a bit of fan service – not enough fan service to annoy me away from the series, but enough that conservative gentlemen viewers may wish to be on their guard. During the opening theme, we see Sendo Erika wrapped in red ribbon and little (if anything) else. As of episode six, there’s nothing so daring in the meat of the show, but it does say a lot about who the creators had in mind when they made it.

So, why do I continue watching the series? Well, for one thing, it includes vampires, and I’m in a bit of a vampire phase right now. The vampire part, sadly, takes a side role during many of the episodes. In fact, there was nothing at all about vampires in the fifth episode. So the vampires clearly aren’t the deal clincher for me. Another reason I continue watching is that I’m in a rare slice of life mode and felt like watching a school story. And since Fortune Arterial often focuses on the school life side of things, it works.

While Fortune Arterial does serve my purpose, its story is mediocre at best. Some of the ideas incorporated have potential, but I have yet to see them come to full bloom. Profound scenes are poorly handled, with over-emphasis reminiscent of Shiro’s speeches in Fate/Stay Night. Perhaps the plot will heighten in the next few episodes – a few bits peppered here and there imply the intention of some significant developments. For now, I’ll give the series the benefit of the doubt and assume something interesting is about to happen.

*Image from Fortune Arterial

Anime 101 Part 5: History - Tezuka and Beyond

If this is your first time reading an Anime 101 post, then welcome! I started on history in Anime 101: part 4, and gave basic introductions to anime and manga in earlier posts. If you are a stranger to anime, I recommend you read earlier sections before this one.

If American animation had Disney and Mickey Mouse, then Japanese anime and manga have Dr. Osamu Tesuka and Astro Boy. Dr. Tezuka (1925-1989) studied, enjoyed, and was influenced by Disney’s animations, and proceeded to contribute enormously to the next age of manga and anime (Drazen 5). He incorporated styles inspired by Western cartoons, such as large eyes, with his own style. Patrick Drazen affirms, “His forty years as a cartoonist saw massive changes in the form and content of Japanese comic books, changes that usually traced back to innovations by Dr. Tezuka himself” (5). Almost every one of my sources mentioned Tezuka at some point, so that I found there was no choice but to include him in any writing on the development of anime. Robin Brenner, a librarian and researcher, writes, “Tezuka influenced every manga creator that came after him, whether following in his footsteps or reacting against his style, and he single-handedly defined many of the major characteristics of modern manga” (6).

In 1952, Tezuka’s Astro Boy set out in the manga market on its journey to become one of the most famous and iconic Japanese manga and anime characters of all time. Later, in 1963, Tezuka modified Astro Boy into Japan’s first animated television show (Brenner 7). In the same year, an English version appeared on American TV screens (Patten 22). Another of Tezuka’s acclaimed animated TV series, known in the West as Kimba the White Lion, premiered on Japanese screens in 1964. By the late 1960s, animation secured its place in Japan’s entertainment industry, and with no small thanks to Dr. Osamu Tezuka (Napier 16).

Tezuka and many of his contemporaries admired Disney. “But,” comments Napier, “virtually from the start, postwar Japanese animation has tended to go in a very different direction, not only in terms of its adult orientation and more complex story lines, but also its overall structure” (17). Napier notes that weekly TV series enable “certain narrative structures, most notably serial plots,” allowing long plot lines that cinema can’t present. This weekly structure works well with manga-based features, since manga, too, tend to have long plot series (Napier 17).

Anime quickly became a central fixture in Japanese pop culture. By 1988, about forty percent of the features produced in Japan’s studios were animated, and by 1999, the numbers rose to at least half (Napier 15).

This growth meant that anime made its mark in more places than TV. In the 1970s, anime joined the cinema world (Napier 17). Since the early 1980s, OVAs have also gained ground in the market (18). These OVAs, or Original Video Animations, consist of features that were distributed in video form first, rather that originating on television or the big screen. “Also,” writes Napier, “by the 1990s, intellectually sophisticated anime were increasingly appearing.” Shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion and movies such as Princess Mononoke stirred thinking and “scholarly articles” (Napier 18).

Animation didn’t always have center stage. “For a long time,” says Napier, “it was overshadowed by Japan’s superb live-action cinema and existed only as a fairly marginal and largely child-oriented alternative.” Japanese live action is more than noteworthy: it was among the best in the world during the 1950s and 60s (Napier 16). But American films became so popular, Japanese live action found it difficult to compete. Anime, on the other hand, does pretty well. Napier attributes its success to the fact that anime “does not directly compete with Hollywood behemoth but that still appeals to a broad audience” (19).

Of course, a media this diverse and entertaining, not to mention rich in culture, can’t be contained in one country. In the past few decades, anime spread throughout the world. Simon Richmond points out in his Rough Guide to Anime that “every minute of every day some 600 Japanese animated videos are downloaded from the Internet” (Richmond v). This is in addition to any anime watched on television, home video, and online without downloading. Talk about popular!

The next and final segment of Anime 101 expands on anime’s worldwide popularity before concluding with some of my thoughts. I hope you’ll join me as I wrap this series up.

Pictures from Astro Boy and Princess Mononoke

Sources:

Brenner, Robin E. Understanding Manga and Anime. Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited,

2007.

Drazen, Patrick. Anime Explosion!: The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation.

Berkeley, Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2003.

Napier, Susan Jolliffe. Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary

Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave, 2000.

Richmond, Simon. The Rough Guide to Anime: Japan’s finest from Ghibli to Gankutsuo.

London: Rough Guides, Ltd., 2009.

Naruto Shippuden Proceeds

As I wrote the following post at the beginning of the week, before finals and scholarship deadlines swept me away in a storm of stress and responsibility, an idea began to form. Editing it today, the idea hardened, and I made a decision. This is only the first post regarding Naruto, and I will write at least one more. In fact, I already began the next one, and I think it may be perfect for appearance elsewhere.

Warning: post contains minor spoilers if you haven’t watched up to the most recent filler arc.

– Without further ado, I give you today’s main feature –

I sit in front of our home computer since we need to replace our wireless router. I type in “hulu.com/naruto-shippuden” and the familiar page comes up. Laptop in hand, Word document up, I click on episode 197, “The Sixth Hokage Danzo.” The episode delights me, since it means the several months of fillers have finally come to an end. But I’m also hesitant. Danzo. I’ve known since twenty episodes ago that he would be the next Hokage of the Hidden Leaf, but a small part of me hoped it was not true. I like Danzo even less than I liked Orochimaru. At least that snake guy was obvious about how evil he was.

Naruto’s mangaka did not ask my opinion, though, any more than the anime adaptors asked whether I wanted all those fillers. And since I persevered through the fillers, I’m not about to desert Naruto over a small matter like Danzo. The short intro advertisement ends, the Viz Media theme jumps and spins, and one of Sai’s ink rat drawings scurries across the screen. Naruto Shippuden returns.

---

The end credits roll as I grin. Yes, Naruto is back. Besides the obvious conflict with Danzo, the age old Sasuke problem seems ready to return to center stage. And of course, Uchida Madara and the Akatsuki still refuse to leave our heroes alone.

I proceed to watch the next two episodes. Again, it strikes me how much Naruto has grown up since episode one of the first series. Yet some things, such as his fierce loyalty and friendship, will never change. Despite evidence that Sasuke has continued to stray off the path, Naruto refuses to tell his friend’s weaknesses to those who hunger for revenge. When ninjas from the Hidden Cloud village require compensation for Sasuke’s crimes, Naruto offers himself as a punching bag. Out of the love of deep friendship, he accepts every punch the foreign ninja lands on his face. And when the beating ends, he still asks to accompany the Cloud ninjas to right the wrongs Sasuke committed.

I look forward to the next episode of Naruto Shippuden. Naruto’s maturity stands out clearly after the many filler episodes full of his more childish self. Yet the passion remains and adventure promises to continue. In fact, as I finally prepare to post this, I realize the next episode must already be on Hulu.com. I smile, remembering the thickening plot at the end of the last episode. With the fillers over, a certain spark returns to my Thursday, as does an agonizing decision: do I watch the episode immediately, teasing myself with twenty-two minutes of Naruto? Or do I wait at least a week and enjoy a fuller Naruto session? This internal conflict nearly matches the intensity of the conflict in the show itself. Have I the patience to wait? Alas! This week, at least, I haven’t the will, for my Naruto plot-starved mind recalls the taste of conspiracy, the hope of two groups colliding, and the promise of battle…

Naruto Shippuden returns.