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| Themes and Conventions in Anime | ||
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Roots to Rebels: The Making of an Anime Nation
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Japanese animation, called "anime" in Japan, is an amazingly popular mass medium. It caters to men, women, and children with every genre imaginable in a Hollywood scene (drama, horror, comedy, suspense, action, etc.) and more. The incredible flexibility that animated films provide coupled with the low cost of production put animated films ahead of all the rest, generating approximately 55% of all box office revenue in Japan, not to mention the proliferation of merchandising that precedes and storms through in the wake of each theatrical feature (Yang 55). The merchandising for some films is so extravagant, I have heard, as to make the merchandising for Jurassic Park or Independence Day seem like a quiet walk through the countryside in comparison to the parade of lights and dazzle following each sequel of a popular Japanese animated feature. |
The incredible flexibility that animated films provide coupled with the low cost of production put animated films ahead of all the rest, generating approximately 55% of all box office revenue in Japan.
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| Anime is available in several different forms. Some are feature length movies that are shown at theaters in Japan, some are structured as television series, and others are recorded directly to video for immediate sale (OVAs they are called, which stands for Original Video Animations; or OAVs, Original Animated Videos). Anime began gaining international popularity when visitors to Japan would see, record, and take home episodes of Japanese animation, then translate them for their friends. Eventually, small groups of anime otaku (in America, anime fans) would copy the tapes and add their own subtitles, selling them by mail order for the cost of the tape, shipping and handling, and a small recording fee. Today, most popular animations are copyrighted by international companies, like Pioneer and Viz Video, and are available in stores. Quality professional subtitling and dubbing have expanded anime’s audience worldwide, taking each and every story in new and often previously unthinkable directions. | ||
| Common themes in Japanese animation (as adapted from Eastern Standard Time) include, but are not limited to: 1) Body horror, the transfiguration of the self, or the body out of control (Akira, Ghost in the Shell); 2) Fear of the future/technology, technology out of the control or turning against humankind, nuclear war, the end of the world (Neon Genesis Evangelion); 3) Innocent romance, a continual pursuit of an innocent, forever chaste romance in which characters seem to "perform a tango of ambivalence, missed opportunities, and miscommunication" (Ah! My Goddess!) (57); 4) Innocence lost (or taken away), sexual conquest, or the subjection of the young and naïve to "depraved lusts" (57) [See also "hentai"]; and 5) Gender twists, the reversal of gender roles, often through physical transformation (Ranma ½) (Yang 57). | ||
| I would also like to add to this continuously expanding list a few sub-categories of my own: 6) Transportation to another world, usually by accident, in which the main character usually ends up being the savior or hero of the other world, or gains special powers (Fushigi Yuugi, Vision of Escaflowne, El Hazard); 7) Historical battles/life of a samurai, both fictional and non-fictional (Yotoden, The Hakkenden) and 7) Western medieval fantasy, chivalry, and magic (Record of Lodoss War, Heroic Legend of Arislan). Of course, not all animations contain or depict all seven of these elements at the same time, but rather they combine these elements, sometimes bringing new ones into play as well, continuously adding to the battery of plots and themes to be explored. | ||
| Have you ever wondered why most anime characters look
Caucasian? Anime can be further striated into different
categories, like shounen and shoujo, based on
their cultural, social, and material origins.
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