Western Influences in Anime

How could people from space possibly be
Japanese? That doesn’t make sense.Japanese animation (or anime) is very similar to Hello Kitty from a cultural perspective. Western fans expect anime to be all over the place when they visit Japan, but it is actually quite hard to find.

Some comic books can be bought at corner news stands but they kinds of things that anime fans want like DVDs, CDs, animation cells, posters, and trading cards require a great deal of work to find.

When I was in Kyoto on a study abroad tour to get to the Japanese animation store in the city I had to walk on block east to get on the subway, ride the subway from Ninth street to Third street, walk west three blocks, walk north halfway through a covered shopping area, go down an ally, up a set of stairs, and down a dark hallway. This store was the only anime store in the city we could find and it was only about the size of a 7-11.

Anime fandom in Japan can be described as a sub culture, and that’s the nicest possible description. Most often the Japanese call it an “Otaku” culture. Otaku is literally the Japanese word for house and it’s usage in this sense implies: “You’re such a loser that you sit around at their home all the time and watch anime.”


Please don’t let your friends dress up like
Anime characters.Unfortunately because of the Japanese origin of Otaku-ness the behavior has become chic within some circles in America. It’s the Hello Kitty Syndrome. I am a recovering otaku myself. I realized I had a problem on day after I tracked down the phone number of someone I haven’t seen in years just to let him know that I was right, the girls from space in Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki are in fact Gaijin (Westerners) and not Nihonjin (Japanese).¹ Separating one’s self from reality via anime is not something that should be celebrated.

Despite the tendency of some to take anime a little too seriously Japanese animation is very different from it’s American counterpart. In America Disney animation is the is the norm. All animated films and television shows are produced solely for children, and stupid children at that.

You can count the number of words longer than six letters in the average half hour of prattle on one hand! Of course the Japanese also generate animations for the empty headed too, we can all recall the dark years of the Pokemon invasion. But anime isn’t limited to only this type of program.

There are many different animators and anime companies, each of which has evolved to fill it’s own niche in the entertainment market. Today there’s almost an endless variety of content from Ghibli’s intelligent family-friendly feature movies, to Gonzo’s stunning computer generated television series, to Shinkukan’s extreme hardcore demon tentacle rape OVAs².

Footnotes:
1. In the second episode of the third (and newly released) Tenchi Muyo OVA Tenchi is visiting his old neighborhood and some of his old friends come up to him and ask him if it is true if he is now living with a bunch of cute gaijin girls. I am right!
2. OVA – Original Video Animation, term used for an anime that is released directly to retail sales without appearing in theaters or on television first.