now I see it everywhere
5 Aug 2010 12:31 pmOne of the oddest by-products of watching anime and/or reading manga comes from the issue of whether animanga-style illustrations show white/anglo faces or asian/japanese faces. Ever since the neighbor asked the almost textbook question, I've been thinking about my own first exposure(s) to anime.
First there was Spirited Away, which I never even thought in terms of race (as in, "are these characters ___") because the story itself was so incredibly, unquestionably Japanese, swamped in folklore in nearly every frame. I couldn't watch it and not say, "this is a Japanese story."
Having watched that, I went back to the classmate who'd recommended, and asked, "what else?" And he sent me onto FLCL and Rurouni Kenshin. The former, again, I never even thought of raising the question of "who are these characters (in racial or cultural context)" because I was too bloody busy going, what the hell is going on, here? The latter I watched, somewhat ambivalently, while it was broadcast on Cartoon Network, but even with the English-language soundtrack -- and the random odd haircolor or facial feature or clothing -- the story remained unquestionably Japanese: the backdrops, the clothing, the cultural references, and so on.
But the next major-length anime I watched from start-to-finish was Gundam Wing, and that's about as far from the previous as you can get, especially when you raise the issue of racial identities. The characters are canonically given (or fanonically, where canon goes silent) a variety of cultural/national connections, so visual-style I'd learned to associate with "this means Japanese" was being re-associated with "this one is American, and I simply have to accept that even if otherwise he generally looks the same as the one being identified as Arabic, or even the one identified as Japanese." In fact, what leapt out the most at me was that the only character in that series who gets major racial identifiers that I could reasonably peg was the Chinese character (and no, I'd say I didn't miss the racial/cultural implications of that detail).
Watching the various animes -- because later, there was Saiyuki* and Cowboy Bebop and then Escaflowne and then Serial Experiments Lain -- and the latter two on DVD and thus finally with subtitles -- I couldn't not associate the stories as Japanese, couldn't un-see them to see them as non-Japanese. If I ever slipped for a second, there was the dialogue to remind me that I was watching another culture's story. If I saw anything that for a second made me think, "hey, that's like me," the dialogue would remind me: this is not a character "like me," except insofar as this might be how someone else, in that other culture, might see someone "like me".
( Things that make me go hmmm: animation visual styles, cold-war-era thrillers, representations of other-language in this-language, privileged characters in plot points take seventeen, exceptions to the racism rule, and back again to animanga. )
Hmmm.
First there was Spirited Away, which I never even thought in terms of race (as in, "are these characters ___") because the story itself was so incredibly, unquestionably Japanese, swamped in folklore in nearly every frame. I couldn't watch it and not say, "this is a Japanese story."
Having watched that, I went back to the classmate who'd recommended, and asked, "what else?" And he sent me onto FLCL and Rurouni Kenshin. The former, again, I never even thought of raising the question of "who are these characters (in racial or cultural context)" because I was too bloody busy going, what the hell is going on, here? The latter I watched, somewhat ambivalently, while it was broadcast on Cartoon Network, but even with the English-language soundtrack -- and the random odd haircolor or facial feature or clothing -- the story remained unquestionably Japanese: the backdrops, the clothing, the cultural references, and so on.
But the next major-length anime I watched from start-to-finish was Gundam Wing, and that's about as far from the previous as you can get, especially when you raise the issue of racial identities. The characters are canonically given (or fanonically, where canon goes silent) a variety of cultural/national connections, so visual-style I'd learned to associate with "this means Japanese" was being re-associated with "this one is American, and I simply have to accept that even if otherwise he generally looks the same as the one being identified as Arabic, or even the one identified as Japanese." In fact, what leapt out the most at me was that the only character in that series who gets major racial identifiers that I could reasonably peg was the Chinese character (and no, I'd say I didn't miss the racial/cultural implications of that detail).
Watching the various animes -- because later, there was Saiyuki* and Cowboy Bebop and then Escaflowne and then Serial Experiments Lain -- and the latter two on DVD and thus finally with subtitles -- I couldn't not associate the stories as Japanese, couldn't un-see them to see them as non-Japanese. If I ever slipped for a second, there was the dialogue to remind me that I was watching another culture's story. If I saw anything that for a second made me think, "hey, that's like me," the dialogue would remind me: this is not a character "like me," except insofar as this might be how someone else, in that other culture, might see someone "like me".
( Things that make me go hmmm: animation visual styles, cold-war-era thrillers, representations of other-language in this-language, privileged characters in plot points take seventeen, exceptions to the racism rule, and back again to animanga. )
Hmmm.