Japanese culture has had a giant impact on Western culture lately.
I'm not sure why this is. Maybe the arrival of Pokémon and its accompanying television series kicked the door in for animé in general.
Either way, you can't walk down the streets nowadays without seeing someone dressed like they think they're a Japanese animé character.
It wasn't such a problem a few years ago when this was more of a niche thing, and when it was only gamers going to conventions who dressed like Final Fantasy characters.
But these days everyone's into it. And again, this isn't really a problem either.
Trends, be they idiotic or not, come and go and it's not the fault of the few originals that the trends happen.
Just ask Ian Mackaye, who basically invented straight-edge and emo by accident and has spent the ensuing twenty-odd years distancing himself from it.
The thing I dislike about it is how everybody seems to be so completely okay with what goes on in the TV shows and films that most of these people love.
These shows are unrelentingly bizarre and yet nobody seems to notice this.
Down to the very basic elements of Japanese animation, there are things that make no sense to us, like the way they constantly beat each other over the head with fans. I for one don't think a fan would hurt that much, but what do I know.
There's the fact that every single boy looks like a girl. Or at least, they certainly don't look like boys.
And the unsettling fact that every girl is ridiculously proportioned, disturbingly young yet also pubescent, and wearing preposterously revealing clothing.
But it's not even all of that that I'm talking about, it's the weirdness that goes one step further than that.
It's the Cat Bus in (I think) My Neighbour Totero.
It's the weird tree creature projectile vomiting in a film that I think was Spirited Away, but I forget.
I saw on (I think) Cowboy Bebop, blood dripping downwards slowly out of a giant hanging eyeball.
Pokémon, which consists of tiny monsters living in balls that you keep in your pocket, is practically USUAL next to that!
And I could handle all this weirdness were it not for the fact that all of these things just whistle by and animé fans don't react. They don't say 'that was totally weird, but it was awesome nonetheless.' They just accept it.
So stop it. Grr.
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Well you bring up the interesting issue of whether something has to be logical to be enjoyed/appreciated/worthy of critical aclaim. We know cartoons aren't real so why do we have to try and make them as real as possible? When people look at surrealist art everyone thinks about interpreting it and the techniques used, they don't go "what?! This is really strange!" Everyone knows it's weird, there's no point stating the obvious. Surely the bizarre elements in anime are just a part of its genre and it doesn't get us any further in enjoying it, so why talk about it?
ReplyDeleteI wasn't suggesting things need to be realistic, nor was I suggesting they had to be not weird. It's just the total acceptance of it that I find odd, because most of these people do not seem the kind to enjoy something as bizarre as that, and it doesn't sit right with me them simply not reacting.
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