“I’m not trying to watch Anime bro” — What is Anime? A brief history
I find it quite hilarious, though I’m glad. This journey through Anime I have been privileged to venture into has stemmed from moments of exclusion. Such vibrant ideas were an intrusion on an young susceptible mind. It was a decade ago, aged 13. I was often alone when grounded or excluded from school and such emptiness fuelled me to fill that gap of space and time with a variety of refined idea of arts. Silence in an empty home, gaming, documentaries, creating stories or watching a random TV show. I was not thoroughly involved but now I acknowledge the brilliance of what you feed yourself. The youthful eye and my lack of reading apt, I was captivated by these colourful views and smacked by the demand of subtitles. Smarts elevated and projected as a notion, eye capturing animation, aided by wholesome, rich sounds and a profound approach to the realities we face as well as the fantasy our minds can stake. Of course then I couldn’t pinpoint the extravagance of this form of art, yes Anime is a form of art. Though the idea of foreign, especially the mystified Asian otherness in contrast to our usual Eurocentric appeal, makes Anime distant and a bother to digest despite the influence it has.
The quirky characters and vivid colours, I imagine if I was not entrenched in watching such shows I would feel alienated too by what seems like a child like prose. It may have been easier for me to digest, as Dragonball Z and Pokemon already captivated youth during the 90s to late 00’s. If you are a real one and stayed up for mature Anime like Cowboy Bebop, Tenchi Muyo, there’s no wonder why Anime’s an ease to appease us. Though Anime, like Film, like Music, has numerous ways of conceiving it. A great thing about Anime to me is how they are mostly released as Manga’s beforehand, which are read backwards — right page to left. Most have black and white mangas, with coloured pages every now and then. Studios and artists, writers, work together to produce an Anime. Shows get revisited and revised, movies arise, merchandise and games are developed, conventions are lit.
It is really a phenomenal field unlike no other, not simply cartoons despite them having a similar grounding in many Society’s. They also witness genres through demographic and its intended appeal, with shonen manga intended for young boys, shojo for young girls, seinen for mature men, josei for mature women .. you get the idea. It is segregated to a point there are so many different works of manga which will appeal to countless audiences. I myself am a sucker for seinen work, as they usually include a lot of moral, societal and psychological emphasis.
Jet Black: Have you heard this story? A man injures his leg during the hunt. He’s in the middle of the savannah, with no means to treat the wound. The leg rots and death approaches. The last minute he’s picked up by an airplane. He looks down and sees a land of pure white below him, glistening in the light. It’s the summit of a snow-capped mountain, the mountain is Kilimanjaro. As he gazes down he feels the life flowing out of him and he thinks, ‘That’s where I was headed…
Spike Spiegel: And?
Jet Black: I hate stories like that. Men only think about the past right before their death. As if they were searching frantically for proof that they were alive.
I thought it would be cool to offer a quote from Cowboy Bebop, one of my favourite Anime’s — it is considered to be seinen. Such a conversation slipped over my head, it’s only in my later years had it become as insightful. Like Characters within a book, these creators have so much to play with. Such a conversation encourages me to ponder about living. Hence Characters like Jet remain a beautiful part of this art. I had a brief look at the history of Anime and found myself to be quite generally inspired by the progress and effect its had on wider life having somewhat effected us all. The beginnings of Anime has been recognised as stemming from short animations in Japan around 1907. Though due to the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 having such an impact on the state of Japan, many of their animation this era was burned and lost. This tragedy itself sounds like a heavenly disaster, fire tornado’s, people melting into tarmac, buildings thrashed and normality sacked. Such themes and extremities are evident within Anime’s representations of the Japanese.
The Japanese need to catch up to the prosperous Disney, who at the time were releasing films such as Alice in Wonderland, producing Characters like Mickey Mouse, entering the WWII Era with Snow White. Whereas a lot of Japanese animation at that time contained propaganda, addressing issues which were steadily rising to the breakout of WWII. Of course America had its own propaganda, utilising characters like Daffy Duck to stress the importance of drafting into the Army and anti-Nazi animations. So this contention through animation has its historical and political groundings. After the War, Animation studios and their techniques began spreading and having more of an impact of the state of Japanese animation. The Japanese Animation Studio founded in 1948 was bought by the now famed Toei Animation company in 1956 which shows the longevity of such companies. Mushi Productions was the company that helped spark Anime into the World.
Mushi released Astro Boy in 1963, it is recognised as the 1st popular Anime series. It drew inspiration from Disney through Characters though Astro Boy was very much its own thing. The story is based on a World where Humans and Robots coexist. The main Character Astro is an Android created by a Doctor who wanted to replace his Son who died in a Car Crash. Influence between American animation and Japanese Anime has been evident since such periods. Kimba The White Lion is an infamous example of this American and Japanese exchange of ideas, or rather gross inspiration. Disney’s Lion King offers a strikingly familiar story, except has no animated series. It is hard to, but we have to consider budget and investment when recognising animations. It has an incredible impact on the flow of what it inspires, also creating a demand. This period of animation seemed to witness a greater spread in genre’s and approaches.
Anime and sports is a quite interesting area of this to me. Especially since it has inspired some of the greatest Football players I admire. Captain Tsubasa is about a boy called Tsubasa Oozora, an 11 year old who dreams of winning the World Cup for Japan. This Anime is about his rise to stardom as a player, eagerness, training, teamwork and beauty of the sport itself — I can only imagine how such a sport which reflects a lot in reality could inspire so many young Footballers. It is brilliant. Lionel Messi, the greatest Football player ever, Iniesta, Del Piero, Sanchez, Torres and even Zidane were inspired to play Football because of this Anime. When you amount how many lives and beautiful moments just these players have encouraged I feel such a medium deserves more respect. Looking at the gif below, I feel like I have seen a disappointed Sanchez, Torres, Messi, with their heart tied to the game. Tickles me to think this was a heavy causation in the state of Football today.
Ashita No Joe, an Anime based on Boxing — including themes from the sport such as rivalry, violence, corruption and injury. Many of these anime’s and mangas can be quite insightful in that sense. Hajime No Ippo is another brilliant boxing Anime, segregated into three parts. It follows the manga which is the 8th longest manga running in history with over 1000 chapters. One of my favourites, been reading it whenever its released since 2008. This manga has a heavier emphasis on boxing styles, the reality of the sport in Japan, as well as their historical realisation of Japan’s position in the boxing World. This manga almost made me a boxer, though I opted out after realising you cannot punch people with Samurai Swords and Guns.
In 1972, Madhouse animation studio opened — taking on pro animators from Mushi productions. Madhouse’s reach and spectacular animation style has always been appreciated by anime fans. Most of my favourites come from these productions, including films and even parts of TV shows I did not recognise — they animated some scenes in Boondocks. From the beginnings of Madhouse and the 70s with anime, increasingly become evident in the eyes of the World, a stream of great influential works would grace the next few decades. Madhouse worked on such titles; BeyBlade, Death Note, Hajime No Ippo, One Punch Man, No Game No Life, Marvel anime, game animations like Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry. Not only works and studios inspire but key people. The great Hayao Miyazaki embarked on his famed career in the 60s — breaking through in the late 70s and 80s. One of my favourite Anime films is Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind, a film often deemed to be the beginning of the fantastical Studio Ghibli. It is often grouped with the studio as it is was written by Miyazaki. His ideals are evident within his work, graduating in political science and economics.
Within his work you can spot such a background, Nausicca is an ecological tale that pits the disturbed Earth against the terror of Humanity. It is honestly amazing, the ideas and anthropomorphic detail within the film is captivating. I encouraged everyone to watch. Miyazaki once visited Disney’s studios with other animators to present a clip of a Lupin the Third movie he was working on. A young John Lasseter was so impressed by the clip it has impacted his career — becoming one of Miyazaki’s biggest fans. He became a creative director at Pixar, working his way to the position after joining Disney as an animator. His inspired efforts gave us Beauty And The Beast, Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, A Bugs Life — he has also worked on English releases of Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle. With films like Big Hero 6 being released, the Japanese influence is very much alive.
See this interconnectivity, where influence is so powerful, when recognised it alters the respect of such things. Through Anime I realised the adopted, sometimes even stolen and tainted ideas so evident within Western cultural products. As a “Westener” who absorbs such art from another World that is Japan, I would just rather people revere and take in more notions such people are so willing to share. The 90s was my era for Anime, with Dragonball Z being released in 1993 — revitalising the greatness of Dragonball and pushing it out to the wider audience. The Budokai gaming series, GBA, SNES games — it was a beautiful time for me. For me, the cult followings of such shows or rather franchises give birth to a wave of new fans and notions that find their way into products we admire today. Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh, Dragonball Z, Naruto. Cult followings within Anime kind of highlight the variation of fans, and their love for the story. Hardly different from fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter and such — especially since they break down into so many avenues, can be reinvented and adapted by its creators and fans.
To conclude, I feel even the word Anime has that stigma of childishness — though so many are fantastic stories which contain so much social, political and historical content. There are shows about abuse, such as Erased, depression and anxiety, Welcome to the NHK, time travel, Steinsgate, fantastical stories which include themes of racism, corruption, this East and Western divide we feel so inclined to abide by like within Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Police brutality and governance within Psycho Pass, morality is the strongest theme in Death Note and Code Geass. People ask me at times, why are you so smart — and not to play toward some arrogance I refuse being smart I just realise I have fed myself with a spread of ideas. Mostly, it has come from these shows which offer so many other lenses on our forever expanding World.
In my next two posts regarding Anime, I want to highlight the influences that directly inspired great films we admire. Also my top 10 suggestions for getting into it.
