In the Land of the Rising Sun, anime is more than cartoons.
“It’s not an outside cultural phenomenon, but part of the culture,” explains Christopher Smith, Lecturer at the University of Hawaii’s Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures.
A researcher on Japanese visual culture specialising in manga and anime, Smith tells GN Focus anime works “have a history of tackling mature, challenging and socially conscious subject matter”. An art form that stemmed from manga — Japanese comic books and graphic novels — anime is now moving from a passive to an active experience with video games.
Natural progression
“Although some anime is planned as an animation from the beginning — especially those that gain acclaim outside of Japan, like Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle — the vast majority of anime starts out as manga,” says Smith. “You might even say there is a manga-to-anime pipeline. For example, Naruto was originally a manga serialised in publisher Shueisha’s weekly magazine Shōnen Jump (Boy’s Jump) from 1999-2014. Even as the manga was coming out, Studio Pierrot adapted it into a popular TV anime starting in 2002.”
The series has evolved into a gaming franchise as well — the latest edition, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, released earlier this month.
Games with anime’s particular stylistic and thematic elements have been coming out of Japan for a long time. Street Fighter is an example. The side-scrolling combat series has a wealth of elements common to the art form. “Men with upper torsos like a fridge — their heads the size of a tomato in comparison — and blue fireballs launched out of the hands,” says Aleksandar Stjepanovic, a 27-year-old UAE-raised Marketing Executive and self-described anime fanatic. “Does that sound like anything familiar? Dragon Ball Z.”
Stjepanovic derives equal pleasure from playing anime games on a screen as he does from watching series such as One Piece.
“Whether it’s a fighter [game] such as Street Fighter, Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy and Persona or even a cooking simulator such as Cooking Mama, there is everything you could ask for in terms of excitement, story and gameplay.”
Stjepanovic highlights the importance of stylistic elements. “Anime has a distinct way of identifying their characters that make them memorable,” he says. “The person with the craziest hair shape and colour is usually very important to the story. You can tell the character’s personality from their eyes, posture and shape of the mouth.”
Examples of anime characteristics are also evident in Final Fantasy, a game franchise that has seen more than 110 million copies sold since its first title in 1987. Cloud, the protagonist from part seven (one of the most popular) has pointy blonde hair, ice-blue eyes and a distinctive purple uniform. Thematically, the series tackles issues such as exploitation of the earth’s resources for gaining power and money, preservation of culture in the face of modernity, and the conflict between technology and the human spirit.
Outside-in culture
There is a special meaning in being a fan of anime. In her book From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the West, Susan J. Napier coins a phrase for this: subcultural capital, or “the knowledge and expertise that one gains about the object of one’s enthusiasm that allows one not only to feel more comfortable with other like-minded fans but also to gain status among fellow enthusiasts”.
Indeed, there seems to be a world of difference between the way people appreciate art and popular culture in and out of the country.
“One striking difference between Japan and the rest of the world is the fan culture around anime and manga,” says Smith. “The word otaku means a fan of anime or manga. In Japan, the word has many negative connotations: otaku are seen as unhealthily obsessed or improperly socialised.
“Outside Japan, however, fans seem to have proudly adopted the otaku label. It describes a fan subculture just like any other, without the negative connotations.”
Only in Japan.
