anime

Japan

nerd

otaku

cartoon

is the first expressions of what a certain kind of brave, new world truly feels, looks, and acts like in a post-apocalyptic world - which is precisely what Japanese became with the dropping of the atomic bombs.

Takashi Murakami's theories about the origins of manga and anime were more detailed, if not always academically sound: The dropping of the atomic bombs created a trauma in Japanese culture for which there was no precedent in world history. Publicly at least, and perhaps sensing no other option, the majority of Japanese wanted to forget their post-traumatic stresses and move forward quickly (very postmodern, very Japanese). Established artists, working in the realm of tatemae, the public self in the public discourse, largely chose not to address their society's post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—anxieties, fears, rages, and other emotional turmoil—engendered by the bombs. According to Murakami, only manga and anime artists and their otaku brethren could do so, and they did. They were working on a lower cultural frequency, in the realm of honne, or real feeling, and so they were free to express what they (and others) actually felt. They were not only free to do so, they were expected to. Thus, Murakami surmises, Japan became the first truly postapocalyptic society. And Japanese anime and manga—and by extension, its popular or low culture—were the first expressions of what a certain kind of brave, new world truly feels, looks, and acts like.

is the use of the frame in such a way that the artists aren't afraid to break it.

Steve Alpert is an American who studied art history and Japanese literature. He moved to Japan more than thirty years ago. For the past decade, he has worked for Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli as the Director of International Relations. I asked him what he loved about anime style. “The way they used the frame—they weren't afraid to break it!” he said, referring to the volumes of manga he found in Japan in 1974, the year he first visited the country.“You're used to ‘wham!' and ‘bam!' as an American kid, but what about ‘wheeeee' . . . . The perspectives are so evocative. They'll go top down, then from tatami (floor) level. Things will get suddenly perverse and violent. These are unbelievable ways of expression. You just don't see that in the cartoon form anywhere else.”

is an outlet in Japan, a country which, unlike America, is not an idiomatically violent culture. Thus, any explosions it triggres are limited to the imagination.

The University of Tokyo professor and literary translator Motoyuki Shibata analyzed the differences between the two cultures as we discussed manifestations of violence in American and Japanese literary works: “I think it was Nathanael West who said that in America, violence is idiomatic—which means to me that violence is everywhere . . . an almost necessary by-product of American individualism, which can always turn into the everyman-for-himself kind of chaos. If you push individualism far enough, maybe it explodes.” The repressive nature of Japanese culture may keep such explosions limited to the imagination, he said. “If you look at Katsuhiro Otomo's anime, like Akira, the violence is more movielike, and it seems to come mostly from the author's imagination.”

is an aesthetics defined by subtraction. They only draw the parts they want - no ears, no nostrils, smooth-skin on muscular males.

“Japanese expressionism is defined by subtraction,” says Anime Style editor Hideki Ono.“A pretty or cute girl is drawn with huge eyes down to the eyelashes, and the hair is drawn to the fine details—every strand. But the ear is not shown. They only draw the parts they want.The eyes are big for sensitivity,the breasts are big, but no one wants to see nostrils, so you leave them out. And the men? “Smooth-skinned and clean, but also very strong. See, the key is finding that balance: The characters are not possible in real life, but maybe they could be possible, if real life were better than it is.”

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