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Sat, Aug. 28th, 2004 12:11 amArticle in this month's Wired on anime, focusing specifically on the upcoming releases of three big directors: Miyazaki Hayao's Howl's Moving Castle, Otomo Katsuhiro (of Akira fame)'s Steamboy, and Oshii Mamoru's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. I'm actually only really interested in Miyazaki's... never was that fond of Akira or Ghost in the Shell, as both belong to a particularly violent postapocalyptic type of scifi that doesn't really appeal to me. I haven't closely analyzed, but I have the impression not only of a great deal of violence, but a great deal of violence directed toward the female body in particular in some anime that particularly disturbs me -- Kai in Akira (the movie, I haven't read the manga), what I remember of Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion even (though I do like Evangelion), Perfect Blue, and probably some others I don't remember.
It's really interesting looking at how articles on anime have changed through the years -- I had particular fun looking at various newspaper and magazine articles while I was writing my thesis. Everything pretty much up through 1999 was in the vein of: Japanese adults read comic books with weird and violent sex! Japanese adults watch cartoons that are pornographic and violent! Look how strange this is! 1999, which I mainly remember as a turning point because of the popular appeal of Pokemon and the art crowd appeal of Princess Mononoke. Then there were a lot of articles trying to say anime and manga weren't just weird and strange with lots of sex and violence, but there was still a lot of the old "how strange, look at those giant eyes and the strange color hair!" type thing. This one is focused very much on the directors instead of the medium as a whole, maybe because Wired is a fairly geeky magazine that doesn't feel like it needs to explain anime. It was also arguing on how these three major releases may very well (finally) bring anime into the mainstream, although I would posit that it's been moving that way for yeeeeaaaaarrrrsssss (albeit slowly). I think Spirited Away won over a lot of the art crowd types, more so than Princess Mononoke, probably because Princess Mononoke had to do the hard work of breaking ground. Of course, I mainly have this impression because I was actually able to drag my non-anime watching friends to see it and have them like it (it's the purple mouse. No one can resist the purple mouse).
I also found it funny that the article was going on about how Japan's economic power may have waned, but it might be coming into a new power via popular culture. I'm kind of amused, because I got to watch (and participate in) Taiwan going through a Japanese pop culture phase. It's still a fairly big part of the cultural landscape there, but there are no longer ramen stores popping up like weeds. And when I went back about two years ago, it was all about jewelry imported from Korea and K-pop and Korean soap operas. And I know on one hand there are all the arguments about exoticization and fetishism and the like, but it will be interesting to see what happens, if Japanese pop culture does indeed catch on. I sort of figure it will be an interesting contrast to the exoticization/adoption of American culture in Japan (Hawaiian stuff in particular in Okinawa). I guess I would probably feel weirder if it were Taiwan/Chinese pop culture catching on. Actually, I would probably just be happy because it would mean that I could get C-pop CDs and things like that. Living in California often does feel like a mix of Chinese and American culture some times. Not the pop culture things, but foodwise... I find it very, very funny (and extremely convenient) that there are four bubble tea shops just on Castro Street/downtown Mountain View. I speak not of a very large stretch of street! They are all concentrated within a four block radius!
Just read the news: WTF is up with the Paul Hamm thing? Jeez. Poor guy.
It's really interesting looking at how articles on anime have changed through the years -- I had particular fun looking at various newspaper and magazine articles while I was writing my thesis. Everything pretty much up through 1999 was in the vein of: Japanese adults read comic books with weird and violent sex! Japanese adults watch cartoons that are pornographic and violent! Look how strange this is! 1999, which I mainly remember as a turning point because of the popular appeal of Pokemon and the art crowd appeal of Princess Mononoke. Then there were a lot of articles trying to say anime and manga weren't just weird and strange with lots of sex and violence, but there was still a lot of the old "how strange, look at those giant eyes and the strange color hair!" type thing. This one is focused very much on the directors instead of the medium as a whole, maybe because Wired is a fairly geeky magazine that doesn't feel like it needs to explain anime. It was also arguing on how these three major releases may very well (finally) bring anime into the mainstream, although I would posit that it's been moving that way for yeeeeaaaaarrrrsssss (albeit slowly). I think Spirited Away won over a lot of the art crowd types, more so than Princess Mononoke, probably because Princess Mononoke had to do the hard work of breaking ground. Of course, I mainly have this impression because I was actually able to drag my non-anime watching friends to see it and have them like it (it's the purple mouse. No one can resist the purple mouse).
I also found it funny that the article was going on about how Japan's economic power may have waned, but it might be coming into a new power via popular culture. I'm kind of amused, because I got to watch (and participate in) Taiwan going through a Japanese pop culture phase. It's still a fairly big part of the cultural landscape there, but there are no longer ramen stores popping up like weeds. And when I went back about two years ago, it was all about jewelry imported from Korea and K-pop and Korean soap operas. And I know on one hand there are all the arguments about exoticization and fetishism and the like, but it will be interesting to see what happens, if Japanese pop culture does indeed catch on. I sort of figure it will be an interesting contrast to the exoticization/adoption of American culture in Japan (Hawaiian stuff in particular in Okinawa). I guess I would probably feel weirder if it were Taiwan/Chinese pop culture catching on. Actually, I would probably just be happy because it would mean that I could get C-pop CDs and things like that. Living in California often does feel like a mix of Chinese and American culture some times. Not the pop culture things, but foodwise... I find it very, very funny (and extremely convenient) that there are four bubble tea shops just on Castro Street/downtown Mountain View. I speak not of a very large stretch of street! They are all concentrated within a four block radius!
Just read the news: WTF is up with the Paul Hamm thing? Jeez. Poor guy.
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