That Anime Thing: Philosophical Cartoons? (Leela)

It’s official. Cartoons aren’t only for kids. Animation has always been a visual art ignored for its own storytelling abilities. Every year, someone’s complaining how the latest Pixar movie was excluded for Best Picture.  Yet no one can deny the heart warming tale of WALL-E or the fantastic adventure of Princess Mononoke.  Even further, the invasion of Japanese Animation, more commonly known as Anime through the 1980s and 1990s has even further increased the popularity of animation.

Today, if you go into Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, you can find a whole section devoted to Japanese Animation.  Anime shops and conventions are all over the country.  Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away even became the first animated feature to ever win a top festival.[i]   Also, The Wachowski brother’s The Matrix as well as James Cameron’s television series Dark Angel drew heavily on Anime for inspiration as do many video games. Children grow up watching anime like Pokemon or one of the other Anime hundred shows on television today.  Indeed, these days, Anime has become embedded into our media and culture.

Yet, does Anime existing as an art form? Is it delivering a message? Is it mindless entertainment like the reality shows on VH1 and MTV? Or is it the stuff of classics, like we’d find of TCM? The answer would be all of the above.

Hayao Miyazaki has received worldwide acclaim for his films. Known for his pacifist, feminist, and often nature focused messages, Miyazaki has created films that get recognized as films, not just as Anime, but as true animated films.  His most famous include Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, and Howl’s Moving Castle.  Just as many Anime these days, Miyazaki’s films incorporate both CGI and hand-drawn style to create a look that is purely Miyazaki and Japanese in origin.  

Looking at Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki clearly weaves in the themes of humanity, technology and nature. On one hand, there’s Irontown. Irontown cuts down trees, kills the local wide life, and their leader, Lady Eboshi personally wants to kill the spirit of Life and Death. In this way, we see humanity, and technology against nature. It’s the ever burning fires of Irontown versus the vast forests, Lady Eboshi versus The Wolf Girl. At the same time, technology is a savior of the people. Lady Eboshi takes in leapers and prostitutes to employ in the city. Miyazaki further reflects this in his framing of Irontown. In some shots, the fires of Irontown seem endless and ready to overtake the people. In others, people eat and sit together, coming together as a community.  Visually, Miyazaki beautifully weaves in these themes as well as integrates CGI and hand drawn worked eloquently.

Miyazaki’s films are not the only Animes expressing popular philosophical ideas. Death Note, created by Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Ohba, explores morality in today’s society.  Death Note follows the story of a boy, Light Yagami, who gains the power to kill anyone who he knows the name and face of.  Using this power, he kills various criminals, discovering their face and names through a range of media outlets.  As he kills, the crime rate gets lower and people start to revere him as a god.  Ohba and Obata question whether Light is a savior or a murder, does ultimate power corrupt, or  is murder acceptable if you’re killing criminals? What is the value of a human life, even an evil one? Visually, Death Note is almost Hitchcock-ian,   taking techniques from Hollywood and incorporating them into the style of Death Note, as well as a variety of Animes.  This exchange goes both ways, however, as seen in The Matrix and other movies. Even further, currently, Death Note has been optioned by Vertigo Entertainment. [ii]

These thinking cartoons often go further than Hollywood movies, even with similar budgets. Princess Mononoke was created for a whopping $20 million, not far from the $35 million The Hangover costs.  Yet not every anime is gold, of course. Like many movies today, Japan has its fair share of non gold. Luckily for most of us in the US, most of that doesn’t make it over the ocean.

 Nonetheless, it is easy to see how Anime has grown in popularity.  Approaching popular philosophical questions via a new and entertaining animation style has lead to a major fan base, not only in the US, but all over the world. And what sorts of things are coming up now? How about Ikigami? Ikigami tells the story of a government worker who delivers Ikigame(life papers) which tells individuals they have 24 hours to life. Or how about Higurashi no Naku Koro ni(When the Cicada Cry), which plays with time and narrative format?

Either way, I, for one, hope to see more from Anime artists in the field of storytelling.

 

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[i] Japan’s National Cool – Douglas McGray http://pub.idisk-just.com/fview/bDGRfnKGJ679cGhnn63IZ6P3hpgfuHXKsmo80UFp14sUwMPPFBhVrutQ7qDmFu09/Z3Jvc3MtbmF0aW9uYWwtY29vbC10ZXh0LW9ubHlfMDkwNDIx.pdf

 

[ii] Vertigo Entertainment developing US Death Note Remake – Anime News Network http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-06-02/vertigo-entertainment-developing-u.s-death-note-remake

Comments

[Inhye]

YES!!! A Miyazaki post!! I was going to do one on him last semester but his work is so epic I was intimidated. He exploits the versatility of animation like no other.

Have you heard of Paprika? It's a but mature than Miyazaki's stuff. I wanna see it so badly but alas, my two-week trial of Netflix expired

[Michelle Pendlelton]

There are a lot of anime that cannot be seen by kids. Take, for example, the controversial "Kite" by Yasuomi Umetsu. It's a dark, graphic and violent story of a teenage girl assassin. In direct contrast are the heartwarming, family-friendly works of Hayao Miyazaki. Japanese animators are not afraid to explore the dark depths of the human soul. But they also bring out positive things about people.