Of Contexts and Ideas: The Animated Space of Anime Across Cultures

Pauline Adrineth D. Luzon | II-BS Health Sciences | 112374 | SA21 P

Of Contexts and Ideas: The Animated Space of Anime across Cultures

“The world and characters of anime… [comprise] an uncanny evocation of a protean world of imagination that is both popular and unfamiliar to the viewer—a world of simulations, possible states, and possible identities. What is visible through anime's technological mirror is an uncanny and fragmented collection of conditions and identities… [having] a culturally specific resonance...”^[1]

In its most traditional definition, animation is anything that bestows movement and life to inert materials. Technically defined, it is a medium wherein images are captured through a camera to generate a series of alleged movements.^[2] Apart from such conventional and technical identities, animations produced in Japan, collectively branded across the globe as anime, are generally perceived as contemporary artistic products with distinctive features, local forms of popular culture, and artifacts of Japanese imagination.

The oldest origins of anime date back to the 10th century BC and the Medieval Ages, the periods when comic animal scrolls and Zen cartoons—concepts and imagery from which anime rooted—became prevalent. But in fact, it was only in 1917 when the first official Japanese animation, a one-reeler, five minute-motion picture titled Imokawa Mukuzo Genkaban no Maki, was created. In the 1920s and 1930s, more Japanese animations were produced by individual film hobbyists who were inspired by European and American animators; as a consequence, anime had been intertwined with the Western animations for decades. However, several years after World War II, anime industry began to shift away from the West as it significantly developed, beginning with the establishment of the first non-Western anime studio (Toei Animations Co.) in 1956 and the release of Japan’s first original animated television series, Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy in 1963. ^[3] 

In the dawn of the 21st century, anime has already surpassed Western animations, in terms of both quality and popularity. It is even regarded at par with global box-office hits, as anime currently holds three positions among the five top-grossing films in Japanese history: Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (1st), Howl’s Moving Castle (4th), and Princess Mononoke (5th).^[4] Its fame continues to skyrocket, to the extent that anime in Japan is almost everywhere:

“Anime excelled at imitating reality, exaggerating it, and showing audiences impossible things. Now, in Japan, it is reality that seems to be imitating anime. Pictures of big-eyed baby face anime-type girls are smiling everywhere in video games, how-to-manuals, arcade game parlors, train ticket machines, maid cafes, and even in the sex industry.”^[5]

Such popularity, on the other hand, would have never existed without the presence of anime fanatics who describe themselves as otaku (“general term referring to those who indulge in forms of subculture strongly linked to anime...”^[6]).  In the same way, anime is certainly incapable of establishing an irreplaceable niche in the Japanese culture without the incessant growth of anime fandom, globally referred to as otaku culture.

Within Japan, otaku culture has been most evident in the fascination, or obsession in several cases, to: [1] various anime series, together with their characters and original soundtracks (OSTs), available in television, DVDs, and internet; [2] compelling anime-based offspring, including manga (Japanese graphic novel), fan fictions, specialty magazines, and original video animations (OVAs); [3] diverse accessories, figurines, and other anime-related merchandise; and [4] anime-themed events such as cosplays (costume plays), conventions, and cafes. Further reflections of this culture are several otaku communities, organized through anime gatherings or social networking sites, for the core purpose of broadening the popularity of anime and of deepening their appreciation of anime fandom.