AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - Why is there so much inner thought in anime?

roriconfan · 2009-08-21, 02:12

Excuse me, but you don't seem to remember the roots of anime. Anime prior to WW2 were like cartoons. They aimed to be humorous or inspiring to kids. After the WW2 defeat, their modern looks and artistic style were provided by Osamu Tezuka. Now, Tezuka made sure that his works will inflict feelings to its viewers with different camera angles, background that changes acording to the person's feelings and even state some cruel facts around injustice.

Cartoons on the other side were not given the option to be philosophical. Walt Disney didn't make works aiming to make the audience think about unhappy things. America was at its prime and people had no reason to want to watch disturbing imagery, unlike Japan which just experienced a catastrofic loss, both in morale and manpower. Remember that it was nuked, its prideful navy was destroyed and it even lost the emperor worship (a positive feature for them) after being taken over by a foreign power for the first time in its history.

Meaning, America had no reason to question its morals (at least up to that time). Japan on the other hand was full of "Why did we lost? What went wrong? What does the future have for us now that we are dominated?" So many works were kinda looking into that.

Another reason is the MacKarthy era in America. The American extremists were so afraid of communism that they banned a ton of artistic expressions in all media. Sencorship was inforced in all forms of entertainent. So, all the directors had no choice but to follow a formula where Americans are wright, there is always a good ending, death, sex, cursing and violence are forbidden and even go through evaluation of their Americanizement. Many artists and directors were exiled for not making "politicaly correct" works. In fact, this term was invented just around that era, showing how much narrow minded the American thought had to be. You probably heard of the comic book public burnings or Lucky Luke having a straw instead of a cigarette on his mouth after awhile. Well, unlike Japan America was forced NOT to use inner thought to question its ideals.

Also, Puppet theatre. Japan was quite traditional up until 40 years ago. So, its marionette plays were about puppeteers using strings or flip carton images to tell fairy tales about samurai heroes fighting oni and stuff. Unlike television animation in the western world, depicting what exactly happened, string and carton puppets working on the spot was much harder to do the same. So the puppeteers were doing narration to explain the plot as it was going on and even changed the background with cartons depicting the mood of the scene. So, it was all mostly an inner monologue that actual dialogue. Another thing that went straight into anime.

And finally, lets not forget that Japanese tradition had a habit of making even mundane action to look like a spiritual journey. Drinking tea was to them a whole procedure of showing respect and honor. So was calligraphy, poetry and even bathing. Nothing was irrelevant to tradition, meditation, and honour. So, unlike most of the West, everything was already an inner journey of training and concentration. Not hard to see why all their works seem so ... mental.

There are more reasons but they elude me right now.

2009-08-21, 02:12	Link #8
roriconfan Banned Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Thessaloniki - Greece	Excuse me, but you don't seem to remember the roots of anime. Anime prior to WW2 were like cartoons. They aimed to be humorous or inspiring to kids. After the WW2 defeat, their modern looks and artistic style were provided by Osamu Tezuka. Now, Tezuka made sure that his works will inflict feelings to its viewers with different camera angles, background that changes acording to the person's feelings and even state some cruel facts around injustice. Cartoons on the other side were not given the option to be philosophical. Walt Disney didn't make works aiming to make the audience think about unhappy things. America was at its prime and people had no reason to want to watch disturbing imagery, unlike Japan which just experienced a catastrofic loss, both in morale and manpower. Remember that it was nuked, its prideful navy was destroyed and it even lost the emperor worship (a positive feature for them) after being taken over by a foreign power for the first time in its history. Meaning, America had no reason to question its morals (at least up to that time). Japan on the other hand was full of "Why did we lost? What went wrong? What does the future have for us now that we are dominated?" So many works were kinda looking into that. Another reason is the MacKarthy era in America. The American extremists were so afraid of communism that they banned a ton of artistic expressions in all media. Sencorship was inforced in all forms of entertainent. So, all the directors had no choice but to follow a formula where Americans are wright, there is always a good ending, death, sex, cursing and violence are forbidden and even go through evaluation of their Americanizement. Many artists and directors were exiled for not making "politicaly correct" works. In fact, this term was invented just around that era, showing how much narrow minded the American thought had to be. You probably heard of the comic book public burnings or Lucky Luke having a straw instead of a cigarette on his mouth after awhile. Well, unlike Japan America was forced NOT to use inner thought to question its ideals. Also, Puppet theatre. Japan was quite traditional up until 40 years ago. So, its marionette plays were about puppeteers using strings or flip carton images to tell fairy tales about samurai heroes fighting oni and stuff. Unlike television animation in the western world, depicting what exactly happened, string and carton puppets working on the spot was much harder to do the same. So the puppeteers were doing narration to explain the plot as it was going on and even changed the background with cartons depicting the mood of the scene. So, it was all mostly an inner monologue that actual dialogue. Another thing that went straight into anime. And finally, lets not forget that Japanese tradition had a habit of making even mundane action to look like a spiritual journey. Drinking tea was to them a whole procedure of showing respect and honor. So was calligraphy, poetry and even bathing. Nothing was irrelevant to tradition, meditation, and honour. So, unlike most of the West, everything was already an inner journey of training and concentration. Not hard to see why all their works seem so ... mental. There are more reasons but they elude me right now.