FILM303 Module 9 - Lecture notes 9 PDF

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Taught by Dr. Karine Bertrand...

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Module 9: Japanese Animation! 9.1: What is anime?! - complex definition: ! - complex relationship with genre, many styles and content ! - shifts meaning based on understanding of language, Japanese culture, and texts! - not just genre, kind of animation, or only Japanese ! - is “complex cultural phenomenon whose meanings are dependent on context”! - can be seen as way to understand Japanese culture ! - can be seen as Japanese depiction of human characters! - can be seen as sanitized form of Japanese culture ! - can be evaluated through lens of nationalism, cultural specificity as “a cinema of ruins”, rebuilding itself in ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc. ; this destruction and reborn resonates with science fiction ! - in various modes of media and production: ! - advertisements, video games, film, mangas, serialized or 5-minute episode television series, theatrical and straight-to-video! 9.2: Anime genres and sub-genres! - hard to categorize:! - anime’s landscape is constantly shifting! - work is more of umbrella term for many forms of media production ! - genre studies itself (blending, shifting, spreading of film categories) has rapidly grown and diversified ! - traditions in genre studies:! - ritual approach: audience has power and liberty to create genres (ex. going to see films with same stories over and over and classifying that as a genre)! - ideological approach: Hollywood takes advantage of spectator energy and investment in order to lure the audience into Hollywood’s own positions! - examples of genres and sub-genres come up with by fans and scholars:! - categorized by genre, demographic, themes in story ! - action, adventure, comedy, drama, demons, ecchi (sexual themes), hentai (18+ sexual content), fantasy, mecha (giant robots), horror, tragedy, historical, romance, science fiction, josei (targets female viewers 18-40), seinen (targets male viewers 18-40), shoujo (targets girls 10-18), shounen (targets boys 10-18)! 9.3: A small history of anime films in Japan! - 1917-1945! - Namakura Gatana"(Blunt Sword) 1917! - industry began to have audience in Tokyo but then Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923, everything destroyed so had to start from scratch ! - Oira no Yaku"(Our Baseball Game) 1931: used protagonists that are characters that recur in Japanese folklore (rabbits and racoon dogs (tanukis) play baseball with each other)! - Ugokie Kori no Tatehiki"(The Moving Picture Fight of the Fox and the Possum), 1931: uses benshi (performer who would stand by the movie screen and narrate the movie as it was happening)! - 1932: needed new innovations, Ōfuji Noburō created the films"Bagudajō"no tōzoku"(The Thief of Baguda Castle), made by cutting and pasting"chiyogami"(Japanese coloured paper) - first film to make its presence felt outside Japan! - 1945-1985! - after WWII, The General Headquarters of the Allied occupation (GHQ) brought together 100 anime artists in the bombed-out ruins of Tokyo to form the Shin Nihon Dōgasha (New Japan Animation Company) with aim to make anime in praise of democracy, but creators were territorial and many debates occurred !

- 1937: Ōkawa Hiroshi saw Disney’s"Snow White"(1937), overwhelmed by colour of the film

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- 1956, built a modern studio, Tōei Dōga (Animation) with goal of company to become “the Disney of the East” - regularly sent drawings and plot ideas to a crew of advisers at Disney, company made"Hakujaden"(The Legend of the White Snake), and gained success, grew and employed more people! 1970s anime television flourishing: action, music, good narrative: Captain Harlock: Space Pirate, Space Cruiser Yamato and Galaxy Express. On the film front, Lupin III: Cagliostro Castle from Hayao Miyazaki! 1980s: golden era of anime - more mainstream in US and Canada: Candy, Astroboy, Dragonball, Demetan, Albator, Les Contes de la forêt Verte (The Tales of the Green Forest) and Le petit castor (The small beaver)! great diversity in product now, Japan globally recognized and people paid attention to their content! Hayao Miyazaki, “grandfather of the Japanese animated film” ! Studio Ghibli founded by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki - huge commercial success of"Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) anime feature film directed by Miyazaki —> set up Studio Ghibli!

9.4: The influence of Japanese animation on Japan and outside cultures!

- animated feature-length films and shorter television broadcast of animated television shows both popular in Japan and worldwide!

- 1960s: anime too expensive to make full-length films! - most popular genres that sell in the Japanese market deal with science fiction and space and protagonists who gain magical powers!

- anime success worldwide:! - NBC Saturday morning broadcasts of Astro Boy in US! - flashy images, action-packed storylines! - shows like Pokémon had the potential to sell millions of toys to children! - 1980s and 90s: anime widely distrusted in US through piracy ! - US created dubbed versions ! - end of 20th c. 56% of all Japanese television exports to America were anime! - influence on animation styles:! - Ghibli borrows from Western style! - The Simpsons,"Futurama"and"Adventure Time borrow drawing styles, animation techniques, ways of drawing from anime !

- inspired by how animators used what’s traditionally children’s content as adult content: American idea of “cartoons for adults”!

- inspire Hollywood animation: Kill Bill and Matrix use animation similar to anime! - inspire Hollywood film plots: 2014 Inception takes into account storyline of Paprika, some anime being made into feature-length Hollywood films (Ghost in The Shell and Grave of the Fireflies)! 9.5: Techno-orientalism and the stereotypes associated with Japanese films! - negative stereotypes and cultural issues that perpetuate to the present:! - anime films are just ‘‘children’s cartoons"! - anime are extremely violent and pornographic! - anime films are low-budget and low quality! - anime films are based on stereotypes and hold no cultural value"! - techno-orientalism! - these anime stereotypes cause Japan to become “exotic” in comparison to American culture —> techno-orientalism (belief that Japan’s digital and film culture is somehow below that of Westernized cultures)! - fad of Japanese cultural appropriation !

- Americans wearing and following Japanese traditions occur: doing make-up “to mimic Japanese anime eyes”, racist impersonations of Japanese accents, “fandubbing” (dubbing over animated films and anime in an incorrect and therefore racist manner)! 9.6: Themes found in Japanese animation films ! - magic! - sensualize mundane situations, spark the imagination of the protagonists and audience! - Ghibli: talking inanimate objects, objects that grant its protagonist magical powers, protagonists learning about the magic within them, granting them supernatural abilities! - amusement and nostalgia for childhood innocence:! - characters often seen indulging in childhood activities: play with toys, dance and sing loudly, reminisce on how they were happier when they were younger (called yoshioka)! - young girls statistically most commonly used as protagonist! - martial arts:! - means for a protagonist to explore self-discovery and go on a personal journey to discover who they are and to which group of heroes they belong to! - Japanese traditions:! - common aesthetic in the way stories are put on screen! - customs set in the history of Japanese cinema, old traditions in storytelling and artwork! - examples: “paintbrush on canvas” style animation, traditional Japanese stories told throughout film while contrasting them with recent actualities! - journey of self-discovery:! - like European-American road movies, many demonstrate character who goes on physical journey to discover their spiritual selves! 9.7: Aesthetics of Japanese animation! - futuristic: ! - digitized settings common to surround the characters and aid them on their journeys! - animators often want to break the boundaries between what the audience knows to be cinematic and what the audience knows to be real"! - animation of realistic backgrounds, three-dimensional animation and realistic mechatronics! - nature and naturalism:! - objects of nature such as trees, fruits, large open fields hold a lot of symbolic resonance in demonstrating the purity and innocence of characters, as well as the settings themselves! - influence of music: ! - guiding aesthetic ! - opening theme songs are often performed by established rock groups and J-pop artists! - “insert music” used: is a song that's played during the episode/film to highlight an important moral or theme that the protagonist realizes! - aesthetics of innovation:! - unwritten convention where filmmaker “puts the technical ‘cart’ before the imaginative ‘horse’” so that the film may use all its technical means to create an innovative experience for the viewer, unlike any film seen before! - experience of watching the film is prized over its storylines! 9.8: Major directors and works ! - Katsuhiro Otomo! - American and European comics background ! - Satoshi Kon"! - Japanese filmmaker ! - wrote/collaborated on screenplays and directed the action for a series of highly acclaimed dramatic anime films: social commentary, fantastical dreamscapes, glimpses of his vision that people live in multiple realities!

- Paprika ! - The Dream Machine, which he described as a “road movie for robots”!

- Isao Takahata! - Japanese director of animation! - worked for many big companies like Ghibli ! - European as well as diverse world cultures as his influence! - takes stories from across the globe and translating them into animation! - Mamoru Oshii! - Japanese animated filmmaker! - roots in anime: The Ghost in the Shell! - Western cyberpunk films as inspiration and wanted to translate into Japanese setting! - fantastic, sometimes nightmarish sequences of a post-apocalyptic Japan! - Katsuji Morishita! - head animator for I.G. Productions (one of largest being Ghibli)! - work on Kill Bill animation sequence ! 9.9: Readings ! - anime has the potential to generate different types of"cultural influence! - anime and Japanese cultural content (contradicting arguments): ! - 1. anime lacks references to contemporary Japanese culture: lacking clearly identifiable Japanese national, racial, or ethnic markers! - if true, ability for it to generate soft power for Japan seems limited! - but,"if anime includes representations of other cultures, may propagate the appeal of those cultures! - 2. anime does contain Japanese cultural odour, at least before any cultural editing or mistranslation: there is no way to disguise its very ‘Japaneseness’! - understanding race and gender in anime:! - race! - cultural odor of a product is also closely associated with racial and bodily images of a country of origin! - unrealistic, large-eyed, and sometimes blond-haired and light-skinned characters are contained within anime and manga - that these characters look Western reinforces theories of anime as not containing Japanese “cultural odor” but potentially the cultural odor of other groups! - gender! - some say is possible to see Japanese gender roles in anime: example of"“magical girl” sub-genre reflecting gender dynamics in"Japan, reinforces men as dominant over women! - women cooking in this sub-genre provide the “underlying message” that “even in a frighteningly changeable world,” some things remain the same! - the many faces of anime:! - one program can"be focused on Japanese culture, while another generates a fictional world unlike anything in reality, and another combines fantasy and realism! - cross fertilization between Japan and other nations has led to products that draw from"multiple cultures —> Tatsumi agrees"with the theory that “Japanese subjectivity” has always been “creolean” which implies that anime reflects the forces of globalization! - fandom:! - Westerners tend to see a circle with “two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth, free of racial signifiers,"as ‘white,’ while Japanese see it as Japanese! - often project our own race onto anime characters ! - if anime presents multiple faces to viewers, different viewers can look at the same image, pick up on some cultural elements but not on others, leading to divergent interpretations! - “hybrid” images that combine Western and Japanese motifs!

9.10: Screening ! - Takahata, Grave of Fireflies, 1988! - classic of Japanese anime ! - bombing of Kobe, sets the stage for the narrative! - follow two main characters in their quest for survival, among ruins (real and emotional ones) and despair! - realism of the drawings and the attention put to details such as the bombing of Kobe makes us feel as if we were watching an actual documentary! - filmmaker refused to have his tale made into a blockbuster film, but was adapted for a television movie in 2005! - graphic details that create a poetry around the narrative...