The 1990’s saw a shift in cultural Japan, with the export of ‘anime’ – a Japanese abbreviation for animation. Although this concept was already considered a ‘popular’ or ‘mass’ culture in Japan, in America it was only deemed a ‘sub’ culture (Napier, 2005) but in the last decade it has been shown that this is starting to gain more and more popular in the Western world. Anime could have been popular in the Western world, before it was even understood that it was anime gracing our tv screens every afternoon (with shows like Pokemon and Sailor Moon). It is said to be an Easternised ‘Disney’ although the themes and elements would all be seen in ‘live action films’ rather than a characterised television show (Napier, 2005) something that Westerners could not perhaps wrap their heads around quite as easily as those in Japan who deem this great tv.Cavallaro puts it best when he mentions that the ‘themes are closely bound with Western culture due to literary and cinematography elements...(but are) distinctively Japanese in their use of tradition and lore” (2006). He makes aware that some of Miyazaki’s films (such as Princess Mononoke) should not be considered more Eastern or more Western just because the setting are more in one place or another. They are movies that, regardless of setting, are works which do not follow either uncritically or uniformly the Japanese...aesthetic (Cavallaro, 2006).
I don’t think anime has a specific home in either the West or East culture. It is very much a Japanese idea but one that the Western nations are very quick and willing to add and adapt to everyday culture.
References
Cavallaro, D. (2006). Introduction. In The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki (pp. 5-13). London: McFarland & Company.
Miyazaki, H. (Director). (2006). Princess Mononoke. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli Productions
Napier, S. (2005). Why Anime? In Anime: From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp. 3-14). Hampshire: Palgrave/Macmillen
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