Starting the Discussion

Animé: The Final Frontier [For Now]

Drazen, pp. 3-47

This is a pretty straightforward history/analysis of animé, starting with its roots in manga and even tracing manga back to Disney and the Fleischer brothers. The most important figure in the first section is Osamu Tezuka, whose manga seems still to inspire some of the best animé in Japan.

1. What stylistic characteristics did manga take from the French new wave filmmakers in the 1960s?
2. Who was Japan's first superstar character? What was he called when he got the the US and when did he get here?
3. What factors contributed to the easy transfer of these animations from one culture to another, particularly from Japan to the West?
4. How was the civil rights movement in the US echoed in Japan in manga and animé?
5. Based on your reading, what would you say were the dominant characteristics of the first wave of animé to hit the US?
6. When did the second wave start? Was it at all different from the first in its programming?
7. The text makes a reference to the growth of cable television; dreawing as well on your other reading on television and animation, what differences should we expect to find from the first to the second wave of animé?
8. What is Sailor Moon and why was it an important step in introducting animé to the US?
9. How are product tie-ins related to animé production in Japan? How does this parallel US practices?
10. How does a convention differ from a cliche? Does Drazen use this distinction in a consistent way?
11. In watching Akira (and looking back at any other animé you may have seen in the past), can you see anything distinctive about the use of sound in animé?
12. You might note some of the other characteristics of animé as defined by Drazen in this chapter; how many of them might be related to the dominance of Western, particularly US culture in Japan in the period following World War II?
13. How are Japanese conventions of privacy related to the density of population in Japan? How is this related to the ways in which individuals define their own personalities?
14. What do the Japanese mean by ongiri? How does it relate to family and group membership? How is this system of beliefs reflected in animé? How might conventions of politeness be reflective of population density?
15. If you're planning a career in international business or technology, you probably noted Drazen's comment that "vocabulary, and even grammar, can change according to one's age, one's gender, and one's social position relative to the other party in the conversation." What are the implications of this statement for cross-cultural communication? Are there any parallels in American English?
16. How important is wa (harmony) or consensus in the average American action movie? How does this reflect differences in our two cultures?
17. How do Japanese "loners" differ from those in US mythology? What does this reflect about the two cultures?
18. What are some of the ancient stories Drazen finds in animé? What difference does it make that Japanese culture is so much older than that of the US? Does it also matter that Japan can trace a single cultural descent, where the US cannot?

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