Chapter I Introduction Japanese Anime Has Been Receiving

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Chapter I Introduction Japanese Anime Has Been Receiving Chapter I Introduction Japanese anime1 has been receiving worldwide attention and interest over the past few decades and several books on Japanese popular culture or on anime in specific have been published.2 The term “anime” originates from the Latin word, “anima,” which means “given to birth” or “animated.”3 It not only serves as a powerful cultural product that permeates different regions but also possesses discursive potentials that inspire scholars such as Susan Napier and Dani Cavallaro. Napier describes how Japanese anime has assumed an important position in Americans’ everyday life: “[T]he Japan of the 1990s began to develop a new export, animated films and videos—anime, a Japanese abbreviation of the English word ‘animation.’ Anime has now entered the American vocabulary as well, to the extent that it has appeared in recent years in New York Times crossword puzzle” (5). Nobuyuki Tsugata, as a Japanese anime scholar, also recognizes the growing importance of anime and other Japanese popular cultures following the passing of the Contents Promotion Law, which aims to regulate and stimulate contents industries:4 In order to develop our contents industries, inclusive of comics, animation, and computer games, the House of Representatives passed the Contents 1 The term anime (アニメ) specifies Japan-produced animation. There is no doubt that Japanese anime was deeply influenced by Walt Disney’s cartoons, whereas after the Second World War, Japan gradually developed a unique kind of animation. The first Japanese anime that enjoyed international fame was Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy (鉄腕アトム). 2 Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism. (2002), Cinema Anime (2006), Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture H as Invaded the U.S. (2006), and so on. Japanese anime, or Japanese popular culture, has caught the sight of more and more critics and scholars. The recently published books mainly fall on two categories. One is to articulate the unclaimed anime history and by so doing anime can be repositioned in Japanese culture. The other is to account for the economic and cultural impact of Japanese anime on the global scale. 3 For a more detailed picture of the development of Japanese anime, please refer to Yamaguchi’s History of Japanese Anime (Japanese), in which the reader is also given clear definitions of different types of animation. 4 Contents industries refer basically to culture-related industries. Chan 2 Promotion Law in May, 2004. A report by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is first referred in the law, which states that “to construct a society that values their culture,” it is necessary to extol “the promotion of media arts.” In addition, the media arts which include animation and computer graphics are regarded as “the culture that our country can show off to the world,” and hence the promotion of the media arts is of necessity.” (9; my translation). 5 Anime, along with games and comics, has hence been acknowledged as one of the most significant culture exports. It is not until 1970s was “anime” rendered a term widely used in America, but now it is almost impossible to find anyone who never hears of it. When it comes to the relatively short history of anime, two historical events, the Kanto Earthquake and World War II, brought massive impact on its development. In this chapter, I will offer an overview of anime history in an attempt to justify how and why it should be taken seriously and properly as a global culture phenomenon. Anime has long been considered a subgenre of movies and is often marginalized in the field of film studies. However, anime, as one of the original forms of cinematography, is actually on the way of claiming its territory nowadays. After a brief introduction of the history of anime, I will narrow the discussion down to Mamoru Oshii’s works and his filming style. Oshii is now a very important anime and live-action director in Japan, and his anime has attracted worldwide attention due to 5 The original text goes, “漫画、アニメーション、コンピュータゲームを含む「コンテンツ産業」 の保護育成を目的とした「コンテンツの創造、保護及び活用の促進に関する法律」(通称.コ ンテンツ産業振興法)が二〇〇四年五月に衆議院で成立したことを筆頭に、二〇〇二年四月の 文部科学省文化審議会答申「文化を大切にする社会の構築について」では、「メディア芸術の 振興」が謳われ、アニメーションやコンピュータ.グラフィックス(CG )などのメディア芸 術を「我が国が世界に誇れる文化」であるし、その振興を図る必要性を訴えている.” Chan 3 the great success of Ghost in the Shell released in 1995. Its sequel Innocence is even the only two animes to be in the finalists for the coveted Palme d’Or prize.6 Oshii’s latest anime The Sky Crawlers has just been put on screen in August, 2008, which is based on Hiroshi Mori’s novel of the same title. In addition to this latest anime, Oshii has remade Ghost in the Shell with the aid of 3D CG techniques in celebration of the screening of The Sky Crawlers .7 In the last part, I will give an outline of this thesis and map out the main issues that are going to be raised in the following chapters. A Brief History of Anime Nobuyuki Tsugata sketches a clear picture of anime history in his book Introduction to Animation Studies , which is very helpful to our understanding of the vicissitudes of Japanese anime. Rather than focus on the historical moments that hindered this genre’s development, Tsugata marks the time that contributed most to the rapid growth of anime. In the 1930s, the technique of celluloid animation 8 was first introduced in Japan. A decade or so earlier, it was already frequently in use in western countries, a time when Japanese still adhered to paper animation. 9 According to Tsugata, such belatedness might result from the shortage or inaccessibility of celluloid board in Japan. During the wartime, the reason for Japanese animation to gain visibility was a political one. The government made great investment in anime industry for propaganda-making. Noted for its visual intensity 6 The Palme d’Or prize is the highest prize given to the winner of the nominated films in Cannes Film Festival. Innocence is described by the festival as such: “the political tone has given way to a philosophical one, a hymn to life. Furthermore, the technical rendering is much more formal, mixing 2D, 3D and computer graphics.” (Please refer to the official site of Festival de Cannes: <http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/article/42971.html>.) 7 The remade Ghost in the Shell , called Ghost in the Shell 2.0 , has been put on stage in Japan since July 2008. 8 One form of the plane animations. Animators draw pictures on the special celluloid board and then have them photographed and made into moving pictures. 9 Another form of the plane animations. Animators first cut out the silhouette of characters and then have it perform against the background. Chan 4 and the palpable yet effective connection of images and words, Japanese animation was first taken as a military or educational tool to convey ideological messages. The advent of the Second World War put a halt to anime production due to the great loss of animators, since many young people died in war. The lacking of materials such as the celluloid boards made the situation even more difficult, but the industry welcomed its renaissance with the establishment of two influential anime studios in the postwar years: Toei Animation ( 東映動画) in 1956 and Mushiproduction, Co. Ltd. ( 虫プロダクション) in 1962. Both introduced new production skills, themes and forms of anime, made a groundbreaking innovation in broadcasting style, and played very essential roles in shaping the so-called “Japanese anime.” Toei Animation brought about a great change to the function of anime. Before the war, anime aimed to cater to political or didactic needs but, after the establishment of Toei Animation, most anime was produced to gain profits. Probably due to the decline of the Japanese political power or a general cry for economic revival, anime turned to satisfy the desires and interests of the public rather than serve the government. As for its themes and audience, Japanese anime has since then been granted with a privilege of flexibility and diversity, compared to the mainly-for-kids western cartoons. Besides, Toei Animation produced the first featured anime in Japan—The Legend of the White Serpent (白蛇伝) directed by Taiji Yabushita ( 藪下泰司) and it turned out to be very popular. Receiving positive responses from the public, Toei Animation continued to make featured anime, leading Japanese anime to a path diverse from western ones. Interestingly The Legend of the White Serpent is a combination of eastern narrative and western filming techniques. As for the content, the story was adapted from the Chinese folktale of the same title; as for the filming techniques, Chan 5 almost all staff members were trained in foreign countries and they certainly followed the western filming style. However, the importance of The Legend of the White Serpent is not that it first attempts to present an eastern story with western filming style, but that the form of “featured anime” turns out an essential trait of Japanese anime production. Mushiproduction, Co. Ltd., on the other hand, adopted an unprecedented way of anime broadcasting. There had been no anime shown on television in an episodic form all over the world until Astro Boy appeared on screen in 1963. Episodes were shown on television weekly, meanwhile causing problems such as budget constraint and time limitation, as it was almost impossible to make an episode within one week. In order to solve these problems, Mushiproduction, Co. Ltd. made efforts to lessen the number of frames per second, 10 and finally came up with something called “limited animation.” The most outstanding difference between “full animation” and “limited animation” lies in the extent of adjustment on each frame.
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