Dulcie Barker - Anime/ Mononoke

What place does animation occupy in Asian societies?

Animation in Asia, plays a different role to the typical roles that animation generally assumes in western cultures. Napier (2005) notes that animation in western societies is largely associated with children's entertainment, compared to the many varieties which exist in Asian societies. Time magazine mentioned that by the year 1999 at least half of Japanese studio productions were released in animated form (Napier, 2005).  Napier uses Miyazaki Hayao's film Princess Mononoke, first released in 1997 as an example of an intellectually sophisticated piece of  Japanese animation. Where the content, story-line and visuals are all enjoyable as pure entertainment, the themes embedded in the film inspired a 'plethora of scholarly articles' (pg.18). The most obvious and not so underlying theme which I found present in Princess Mononoke, surrounded environmental concern. This is not particularly a theme which is selective to Japanese culture, environmental awareness is a universal theme common in production all around the world. What Napier does is link Japans unique history with such themes and reminds us that in Japanese societies, these anime productions may read a lot deeper and mean a lot more than initially meets the eye. "Japan is still the only country on earth to have suffered atomic bombing, an experience that continues to affect the society today and that has created for many a collective sense of victimhoood" (pg.28). Japans history as Napier suggests, is directly related to the themes present in its more intellectual anime, such as Princess Mononoke. The film depicts the wage between the spiritual, cultural and natural worlds, which when paired with reoccurring apocalyptic scenarios makes up what Napier describes as the pervasive darkness of many anime. It is this subtle dark undertone, I think, which sets anime aside from other universal forms of animation. Anime serves as much more than mere cartoon entertainment in Asian societies. Miyazaki has admitted that the darker elements in Princess Mononoke are aimed just as equally at children as they are at adults (Cavallaro, 2006). Miyazaki as quoted in Cavallaro (2006) after Lyman (1999) says "I wanted to be honest with the young audience, to tell them that human society is not fundamentally blessed". It is evident, in Miyazaki's works, that anime's role in Japanese society digs far deeper than an average animation. Anime is a part of Japanese culture as it draws off the history and tradition of the land and its people to establish its own distinct genre of film.

References.

Cavallaro, D. (2006). The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki, London: McFarland &Company

Miyazaki, H. (Director). (2006). Princess Mononoke. Tokyo: Studio Ghibli Productions.

Napier, S. (2005). Anime: from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle. Hampshire: Palgrave/ Macmillan.