Napier (2005) suggests that Anime would be considered as a high cultural genre as he goes on to say - The culture to which anime belongs, is at present a popular or mass culture in Japan and in America is exists as a sub culture. Indeed in Japan over the last decade, anime has been increasingly seen as an intellectually challenging art form, as the number of scholarly writings on the subject attest.
Furthermore, anime is a popular culture form that clearly builds on previous high culture traditions. Its is widely influenced by not only the medium shows from Japanese traditional art, but also makes use of the worldwide artistic traditions of the twentieth century cinema and photography. Napier (2005)
He goes on to say; due to its popular reach they affect a wider verity of audiences in more ways then some less accessible types of high culture exchange have been able to do. So animepretty much clearly appears to be a cultural phenomenon worthy of being taken seriously, both sociologically and aesthetically
Sub genres would include the ‘Mecha’ genre and cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is a genre focusing on dystopian features in which humans struggle in an overpoweringly technological world where the difference between human and machine is increasingly amorphous. ‘Mecha’ or otherwise known as Mechanical genre privileges a favourite form from Japanese popular culture, the robot. Classics like Tezuka and Astro boy.
references:
Napier, S. (2005). Why anime? In
Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp.3-14). Hampshire: Palgrave/ Macmillan.
Napier, S. (2005). Anime and Local/Global Identity. In Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp.15-34). Hampshire: Palgrave/Macmillan.
I'm thankful for the discussion Napier raises. When I'm in the mood for a good, intelligent movie I go looking for anime. As much as American movies recycle the same old plots and themes I wish they would copy the high brow themes and concepts in anime movies like "The Ghost in the Shell" more often.
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