Men in Anime

So far in my entries here, the focus has been mainly on the women of Anime, and only once or twice have I really even acknowledged the presence of men in Anime. This is somewhat unfair , since men play equally important roles in Anime. This is something that is worth noting in an of it’s self.

To get to the bottom of this, I must divert my attention away from men again, but only for a moment. I must do this because in actuality, the days where protagonists are primarily male seem to be more or less over. Almost more often than not now, female protagonists are the tougher, smarter, and of course sexier individual in a given story. The men have started to become little more than drooling dogs and fumbling idiots. As I’m sure most people are aware, this was not always the case.

Indeed, in the past, as well as the present, Japanese culture has been very male dominant. The man worked all day, tended to the real business of the household, while the woman cooked, cleaned, bore and raised the children, and did her other womanly duties. In fact, in (at least) less modern Japanese culture, the husband very much owned his wife. Her life was effectively his. If he gambled away his money, he could force her into prostitution to make up for it, or sell her altogether. This was a social norm.

This seems quite barbaric and unfair, and it was. Even today, there is a very strong bias in japan in favor of men. Most women in the United States feel bad about being oppressed and discriminated against. The truth is, women in the US do not have it anywhere close to as bad as women had it in Japan, and truthfully, there are still uncountable numbers of women in Japan who are still in a similar situation.

So what does this mean for Anime? Well, it would stand to reason that in the animated fantasies of Japanese artists, men would be just as dominant. And for a very long time, this was the case. Men were the warriors, and very often they still are. Akira, Macross Zero, Samurai Champloo, Vampire Hunter D, DragonBall (Z, GT etc) – for the people who like stuff with no plot – , Bleach, Gurren Lagann, Samurai 7, all of these have very strong male roles that leave little room for an equally strong female role.

So if this is something that is so common, why is it even worth mentioning to begin with? Again, I must revert back to the topic of women. At the moment, I can think of far more titles that feature strong female roles that are dominant over male roles . Fooly Cooly, Blood +, Jigoku Shoujo, The Girl Who Lept Through Time, Paprika, Guardian of the Sacred Spirit, Mezzo (not Forte), Black Lagoon, just to name a few. And that does not even account for all the T&A type stories which feature weak-willed boys surrounded by dominant women. So what happened here?

The Hypothesis is this: After so much time that men remained dominant over women and preferred it to be that way, a new breed of male began to accumulate and multiply. This new type of male preferred the less testosterone driven dominance, and relished in the idea of being in an equal relationship with women. This new type of male attitude would have a tendency to be replicated. People follow what works best for getting what they want, and what a man wants is a woman. Dominant men would certainly get women earlier on in their life, but later the successful man turned out to be the less dominant male. As with genetics, something that in existing that has a tendency towards success, tends to be successful and is reproduced, obviously.

So, soon enough men began to place their gender-equal or gender-bias in favor of women into their stories, their fantasies. Men began taking on less dominant roles in stories that were created by these unbiased or reversely biased writers and animators. This, I am sure, is part of the reason that despite being dominant, these female figures remain well endowed and attractive. Another , perhaps more obvious reason for this is simply the normal attraction of heterosexual males to attractive women.

This trend can be seen in American television as well. More and more there are dominant female roles, which are surprisingly popular. The reasons for this, however, seem to follow a bit of a different reasoning, even if it stemmed from a similar history of male-bias. Feminist groups have no doubt had an effect in bringing this sort of change in the media. It’s not as equal yet as it could be, but it’s getting there.

In the mean time, significant male roles in Anime as well as in American television is becoming less frequent. As mentioned before, male roles are often fumbling idiots or child-like ignorant drones. If you pay attention to many commercials in the US, you will see many many commercials that depict men as something of little importance or intelligence. Watch the next cellphone plan commercial or electronics commercial. You’ll find a group of bumbling, half-retarded men who rely mostly on basic animal instincts.

So what do we have left of men in Anime? Perverts? Children? Fools? You could easily say yes to each of those, but thankfully the bias has not completely left the male roles in Anime. Men still function as brave soldiers, clever con artists, ingenious inventors and detectives, and just all amusing or facinating characters. Even if the majority of a story may involve a young male role struggling to be of some worth, it’s often these “Coming of Age” stories that end with the most powerful of male roles.

Alas, I personally feel somewhat displeased at times when I see a male role being subdued by so many controlling females. However, I am not biased (at least as much as humanly possible), and thoroughly enjoy a good story with a well designed dominant female role. I think it is important to allow for some change in the norm, so overall I am fine with seeing the balance tipping. The trickiest part of it, of course, it not removing too much weight from either side.

That’s all for now.

See you next time, Space Cowboy!

School Days

High School: A Perfect Petri Dish.

Most people who have watched Anime know that for every Sci-Fi based series or movie, there is at least three that involve a school. Let’s face it, two of the largest groups who watch Anime are still in school, or have a keen interest in people of that age, for whatever deviant reason. Thus it makes sense that there would be so many stories that revolve around schools, namely the later years of grade school. Today I would like to take a gander at some of the finer aspects of this sub-genre and turn a critical eye to what we can expect from it.

Because of the popularity of this sub-genre, I will only make reference to a few specific series or movies for simplicities sake. The first title that I will shift under the microscope is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Because of it’s outrageous popularity at the time of my writing this, it is well worth dissecting. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya  (which shall henceforth be simply: MHS) shares a very common thematic with other school related stories in Anime. This basic similarity is in the subject of the entire Anime (despite being narrated by another character) is Haruhi Suzumiya , the same one mentioned in the title of the story. (SPOILER) This individual is a perfectly (otherwise) normal school girl, save for the ability to mold reality to her will. (/SPOILER)

The concept of a single female entity, namely schoolgirls, which have some unusual powers is very common. The characteristics of these unusual powers vary of course, ranging everywhere from telekineses to pyrokinesis and often the power over the male erection (though the latter is mostly emphasized in hentai). Often this puts these schoolgirls in a position where they must manage these powers and keep them hidden from their teachers, fellow students, and most importantly their love interests.

Now, I’m sure that one thing that is going through your mind this this: But Kintaro, isn’t this sub-genre just a rehash of the Maho Shojo sub-genre?  Well, these stories often also fall into the same category as the Magical Girl sub-genre. However, because of the variances, it qualifies for it’s own sub-genre and thus it’s own article. I should remind you that there need not always be super-powers involved in a school-type genre. In fact, Azumanga Diaoh contains nothing of the sort. In fact, Azumanga Diaoh contains the exact opposite, which is a frequent inadequacy of it’s character’s abilities to accomplish their goals.

Indeed, there are many things that separate MHS from Azumanga Diaoh. As mentioned previously, in the latter there is no super powers, essentially zero involvement of male characters of the school age, near-to no fighting, nothing supernatural even in their surroundings, and no mysteries.  So what we have in comparison to MHS sounds like something utterly droll and boring. This is not the case. While MHS excels in providing a mysterious, comedic , fantasy/sci-fi story of love and malcontent, Azumanga Diaoh provides entertainment in the form of every day humor that nearly anyone can relate to.

These two examples show two very different views on how to go about the High School sub-genre. We can see from this example that even within a sub-genre, there is plenty of room for variation that does not only rely on character design.

To end this article I felt that I would like to provide a short list of themes that you can find in many of these school-related Anime titles. So here is a list of   things to look for in these manner of stories:

 
 
1. Despite her mental control over her powers, a schoolgirl will rarely show the same control over her blush.
2. Nosebleeds are a common reaction to a panty shot, and never cause serious damage.
3. That ultra-serious guy who is also ultra-popular is also a giant asshole.
4. Any schoolgirl who tries to act “cool” will inevitably fail. Hard.
5. There will be a culture festival and there will be fan service during this time.
6. No matter how short that skirt is, it only rarely bellows up in the wind.
7. When someone asks to meet you behind the school at night, never worry about rape, it’s not going to happen then.
8. When you find yourself alone with someone you trust, THEN you need to worry about rape.
9. Just fucking make up already. We all know it’s going to happen.
10. Finally, just when you think the relationship between two main characters is going to reach a new level of intimacy, one of the best friends will come by to fuck it all up.

That’s all for now.

See you next time, Space Cowboy!

Small Update

Just a quick update here. Because of some massive fail on my own, my class, and in general, the whole program I’m enrolled in, updates will no longer be on tuesday, or usually any week day for that matter. Also the update that I missed yesterday will be put up sometime this week, at the latest – this weekend. Sorry for anyone who follows this.

Maho Shojo (Magical Girl) and the Man of Steel, Superman

With last week’s article defining what Anime is, I felt that I might go ahead and begin getting my hands dirty. This week, I felt that it would be fun to take a look at one of my least favorite sub-genres of Anime, the Magical Girl sub-genre, Maho Shojo. To me, there is not much else that can compete with the Magical Girl sub-genre in terms of how unpleasant to the senses something can be. This meaning, I will go out of my way to avoid this sub-genre whenever possible. That being said, I should point out that there is still a reason to pay any attention to it at all. After all, it is a very popular genre, and makes a lot of money.

For anyone not familiar with this sub-genre, I will describe it in brief as unbiased as possible: The Magical Girl sub-genre is a type of story that is appropriate for female viewers or readers between the ages of seven and seventeen. It is also appreciated by many creepy, unshaven, sexually deviant freaks who get their jollies from little girls. The basic construction of the sub-genre involves one young female (usually a schoolgirl), some magical item by which she can cause a transformation into a magical girl, and copious amounts of pink. To explain a little further, the aforementioned magical item can be anything from a ribbon, a bell, a stuffed animal, a real animal, jewelery of all sorts, and hell, probably even food. In fact, the only item I have not seen being used as part of such a transformation is a dildo (and it’s just a matter of time.)

These magical girls often are seen fighting some sort of evil, protecting their loved ones, or just pigging out on sweets. When they are not fighting off demons, fighting their way through schoolwork, getting raped by tentacles etc, there is usually a love interest, and this is where things begin to get oddly familiar for anyone familiar with American comics.

As mentioned in the title of this article, the Man of Steel (aka, Superman) seems to have some qualities similar to that of these Magical Girls. It is interesting to note the similarity between them, especially given how old Superman is. While Magical Girls have been around in Anime since the 1960s, with Sally, The Witch being one of the earliest if not the first, Superman has been fighting bad guys, stopping bullets with his manliness, and having problems with his love life since the late 30s.

The most note worthy of the similarities between these two is one of particular interest. Everyone who knows about Superman also knows that he cannot simply run around in his blue spandex with a bright symbol on his chest, beating people up. No, it’s well known that if you saw someone in tight spandex, trying to stop a bus with his fist, you’d assume him to be insane. For this reason, Superman lives two lives: Clark Kent and Superman.

This is not unlike Magical Girls, who also often live two lives. A Magical Girl will not run around the streets in a skimpy skirt, wearing little to hide their underdeveloped girlish figure and beat people up. If not for the sheer amount of embarrassment one must endure in such a state, the breeze cannot help the comfort levels at all either. So instead, it’s common to find Magical Girls spending most of their day in school, doing their chores, and learning to be a proper Japanese Woman (I’m not lying and I don’t mean to be sexist. I didn’t make up the Japanese Culture). But in their off time, and sometimes interjecting into their personal life, the evil tentacle monsters, or Capitalist American scum will attack unprovoked and force the Magical Girl to transform without being seen in order to fight off whatever. This is similar to the way Superman would have to find somewhere out of sight to take off his Clark Kent clothes and “transform” into Superman to fight off the Commies.

There are other reasons why these two both must conceal their identities from the general public. As people who fight crime or “bad guys” in general, it’s important to realize that what they are doing is legally wrong. The term for what they are is Vigilante, which is someone who fights and/or seizes criminals of their own accord, not as part of the law. For this, Superman and Magical Girls alike have good reason to hide who they are, and to avoid confrontation from the police.

Finally, it is also not at all surprising to find that both the Magical Girl and Superman have a love interest. What becomes interesting in comparing the two though is the difficulties of dealing with this significant other, and what they must do to preserve what they can salvage out of the relationship. I think that Superman has it better off though, in the long run. While Louis Lane will swoon for the heroic Superman, the Magical Girl is more likely to attack the waylay pervert, trying to look up her tiny skirt. Even in the event that a Magical Girl would give away her identity to her love interest, he would most likely run for his life, frightened to death of the girl who can level a building with some fancy hand movements and some sappy lines.

In closing, I would like to mention another reason why the topic of the Magical Girl was chosen for one of my first articles. As is often the case, some of the first exposure that newcomers to the genre have is the Magical Girl sub-genre. In this situation, Anime is left giving the impression that it’s purely for children, it’s all light hearted, silly, and damaging to the spleen. Anime eye do not always rival the lens on the Hubble Telescope, not all Anime girls are donned in pink frills, and pink is not the only color that inkers are allowed to use. No, I assure these unfortunate souls, who have had the Magical Girl genre to be their first experience that there is much more to Japanese Animation. And for those who are more familiar and/or would like to delve deeper into some of the finer aspects of this media, I will gladly lead the way.

Allow me, next week to truly begin ferrying you across the river Styx, into the great abyss. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really.

See you later, Space Cowboy.

What is Anime?

To begin, I decided that it would be best to begin laying down some paving stones, to help guide those who have wantonly found their way here. Before we begin analyzing and probing the subject, it is likely best to begin by giving substance to the topic, before it’s dissected and stored in jars. So to begin, we’ll the first and perhaps most important question of all: “What is Anime?”

As simple as this question is, it does not come with such a simple answer. There are some who would simply define Anime as “Cartoons”, which I do not agree with. Others would give a more broad definition of “Animation”. This, I feel is a bit too broad, and when comparing Sponge Bob Squarepants to something like Jin-Roh, we have an obvious discrepancy. It also does not account for non-motion anime, the Japanese comic art known as Manga. What would be better is a more exact definition. There is a name that has been given to many different forms of media, coined by Scott McCloud (1) , who wrote a series of excellent comics that explained and analyzed comics (western and some eastern) themselves. This name which he coined is simply “Sequential Art”. Indeed, this does explain what Anime is, in it’s many forms, but for the sake of additional exactness, and so I shall define Anime in it’s simplest form: “Sequential Art of a Japanese Style.” This accounts for Manga, Animation, but also set’s it apart from western style animation and comics.

The style of Anime is what sets it apart from most other artwork. For this, it becomes instantly identifiable. Often, the first characteristic of Anime that is noticed is the eyes. The Japanese art style has become well known for large, expressive eyes, which are used to help distinguish the exact emotions that the artist wishes to portray. This is not surprising, given the emphasis that most cultures place on the eyes, which are sometimes referred to the “window into the soul.” This is not true of all Anime, however, and some animations can be observed as having smaller eyes, closer to western animation styles, which were also an attribute of traditional Japanese art.

So far, I have mentioned Western style art a number of times, and this does not go without merit. It is important to point out that the style of Anime that is so popular today, known as “Moe” (Moh-aye), was inspired by western animation styles. It is true that there are many aspects of Anime as it is known today, which was inspired by Disney. Such things as the large, expressive eyes were popular for characters like Betty Boop and Mickey Mouse(2). Not only that, but the Disney style of animation helped start the animation business. Looping animations with relatively few frames let under-staffed or under-skilled animators continue to produce a product within a given time line that they would have otherwise been unable to (3). As much as many Otakus would like to admit, Disney was responsible for helping the Japanese Animation business kick off and grow to the business that it is today.

This might give the impression that Japanese Anime is nothing more than a rehash of western styles. I would like to maintain that this is not true. Though influenced significantly by western styles, Anime still maintains an obvious and large number of new characteristics. These are things like mature themes that western artists cannot get decent jobs from, like sex, violence, and the downward spiral of drug and alcohol induced depression. Though it is true that these things are more common in American comics, it is not nearly at the level of strangeness of extreme that is achieved in Japanese manga and animation. It is not just mature themes that distinguish between western and eastern sequential art either. There are major ideals and themes, which I will selectively analyze, that offer major differences.

This is a general idea of what Japanese Anime is. Now, armed with an idea of what the whole thing is about, we will be better able to tear it apart and get a good look at the innards. Much like splitting open a frog with a scalpel, I will create a path for myself, whereby I can point to and maybe give some insight as to the function and reason behind each piece. Unlike a living creature, of course, Anime offers no stigma towards implying a creator or intelligent design. Because of this, I will allow myself to poke with no restraint, and venture into realms of taboo. I hope to spend some time investigating the Mecha or ‘Huge Robots’ genre, the change in some instances of gender roles, tentacles (and indeed hentai), as well as the phenomena known as “Face Faults”*.</span>See you

later, Space Cowboy!

*this is in reference to the use of things like sweat-drops to express embarrassment, and stress marks.
(1) http://www.scottmccloud.com/
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime#Character_design(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime#History

Hello and Welcome to my Critical Analysis of Japanese Animation Blog!

Hello and Welcome to my Critical Analysis of Japanese Animation Blog!

First off, I’d like to introduce myself. My internet handle (nickname) is Kintaro and I have been observing the popular Japanese Animation scene otherwise known as “Anime” or “Japanimation” for some time now. Though certainly not a seasoned veteran like some folks who are in their mid thirties to early fourties, I still consider myself to be well versed in most aspects of this genre and the sub-cultures that is has created.

My intention with this blog is to use some of my free time to explore and analyze many of the aspecs of Japanese Animation that I find interesting and worthy of discussion. I plan to analyze everything from the art it’self, story line elements, cliches, stereotypes, and even do a few full fledged reviews of certain animations. At times, I will also be taking a close look at certain aspects of the sub cultures that have spawned from the introduction of Japanimation to the rest of the world.

I would also like to mention what this blog will not be. This will not be a blog where I will discuss at great length my favorite characters. This will not be a dumping ground for rants about how much I LOVE (insert series here) and how much I want to marry so-and-so. I have never felt that way about an animated character,  but I will indeed take a look at this attitude at some point in time. And lastly, this will not be a website filled with fan art or fanfiction. These will be discussed, but that is not the purpose of this blog.

I wish to keep this as professional and hopefull educational as possible as I take a critical look at these many aspects of Japanese Animation. Comments and further criticism is encouraged, but please keep it insightful an relevant to the general attitude of this blog.

Have a nice day and I hope to have you return here for my updates!