Japanese animation

The Japanese animation industry has attracted much interest in the West, with English-speaking fans avidly adopting Japanese terminology such as anime (short for "animation", but used almost exclusively to refer to animated features originating from Japan) and even otaku (a derogatory term meaning "obsessive fan"). The term anime (アニメ) is the short form of of the Japanese word animeeshon (アニメーション), which is itself derived from the English word animation. Anime shares a similar visual style with its print couterpart manga and both are derived from the works of Japanese artists such as Osamu Tezuka.

The best known anime director in Japan is Hayao Miyazaki, founder of Studio Ghibli and famous for My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke.

As in the West, Japanese animation tends to follow Japanese comic book styles (called manga). An author/illustrator of a manga is called a manga-ka. Many anime begin as manga in magazines such as Weekly Shounen Jump, one of the most popular compilations in Japan.

In recent years, the translation process of anime and manga has come under criticism for the process of "Americanization". This process is the editing of the original works so that they can be made more acceptable for the American public. Episodes are known to be shortened to add more time for commercials. Religious influences and homosexuality are removed so that anime can be shown and marketed to younger audiences. Some directors adopt a policy of "no cuts", where their works cannot be altered and are more literal translations. If this condition is not met, the director will not allow his work to be translated. Some groups of Bilingual speakers have, thus, taken to providing "unofficial" translations for the general public, uploaded to the internet for free. This was one of the major controversies of the SOPA bill that was recently a major issue.

Some non-Japanese cartoons, particularly such shows as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Totally Spies! and Kappa Mikey, have anime-influenced artwork and appearances, showing a heavy influence by the anime style.

Anime genres

Shonen (少年)

Japanese for young boy, Shounen is the most popular genre in Japan and the most well known outside the country. Aimed at young teen boys, Shounen are often action/adventure series featuring martial arts, Japanese and Chinese folklore, simplistic animation and conceptual fantasy and science fiction. Popular titles that have been translated to English include Astro Boy, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (adapted for American audiences by Sandy Frank as Battle of the Planets and later by Ted Turner as G-Force: Guardians of Space), Star Blazers, Robotech, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Dragonball/Z, Gundam, Fullmetal Alchemist, Prince of Tennis, and Sgt. Frog. Pokémon, the 1990s superfad, is also Shonen.

Shojo (少女)

Japanese for young girl, Shoujo is also popular outside of Japan, with such famous dubs as Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura (Cardcaptors in America), Tokyo Mew Mew and Fruits Basket. Within Shoujo there is the subgenre of Magical Girl, where an otherwise average Japanese girl has magical powers with which she saves the world. More often than Shounen, Shoujo are romance tales or rely heavily on romance in the plot. The heroine is often saving the world by night and snagging the boy of her dreams by day.

Seinen (青年)

Japanese for young man, Seinen (or seijin) targets the 18 to 40 male audience, though it is not uncommon to find much older men reading manga on the train ride to work. Good examples of seinen anime and manga include: Ghost in the Shell, Gunslinger Girl, Bartender, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Cowboy Bebop, Elfen Lied, Aria, Bokura no, Hetalia: Axis Powers, as well as the feature films of Satoshi Kon and Makoto Shinkai. Titles like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell are considered classics, while Cowboy Bebop was the first anime aired on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. Seinen shares many elements with shounen, but is often darker and more mature (or immature, depending on the sense of humor) than Shounen, with horror, mystery and suspense. Sometimes, seinen manga features graphic violence, for example in the film Akira. Often it will also take a slice-of-life look at stories, and provide deeper character insights than shounen action-driven works.

Josei (女性)

Japanese for young woman, and targets women in the 18 to 40 age band. Can also be referred to as "redisu" and "redikomi", the latter being taken from the English "lady comic". It differs from shoujo in that the artistic styles of josei tend to be more realistic and restrained, and the stories tend to be more realistic and mature. Examples of josei manga and anime are Paradise Kiss, Hataraki Man and Honey and Clover.

Kodomo (子供向け)

Japanese for child, Kodomo are the cartoons most like American cartoons, as in for small children. They are often moral teachings with simple animation. Astro Boy is the first anime brought to America, having the notoriety that comes with being a child icon for 60 years. Modern titles include Hamtaro and Doraemon.

Anime and Christianity

Christianity is a minority religion in Japan, whose majority faith is Shinto (with Buddhism also prominent to a lesser extent); as a result, very few anime series are influenced by Christianity in that country. Of the few that are, notable ones include Haibane Renmei, Bunny Drop and Clannad.

Criticism of anime

Anime has come under criticism over the years by animation purists due to most, if not all, anime shows (particularly the more recent shows from the 1980s onward) looking stylistically similar in their artwork and lacking a clear-cut distinction between styles, as well as being considered inferior in visual style to American animation. The anime genre has also been criticized for the inclusion of such above-mentioned subject matter as homosexuality, pedophilia, pornography (which has its own anime subgenre, hentai), horror and graphic violence, which tend to make such shows taboo for younger viewers. Another glaring criticism of anime is the poor adaptation of many such shows into English, with poor voice acting (in particular, making some charatcers sound childish), nonsensically-interpreted storylines and dialogue (especially when the dialogue does not match how a particular character feels in a scene), the changing of character names to ridiculous-sounding names, and the elimination of Japanese cultural references and their replacement with more recognizable pop culture for English-speaking audiences. The most looked down-upon aspect of anime is its hardcore segment of fans (the above-mentioned otakus), who often violently react in extreme, histrionic and illogical fashion to any criticism of the anime genre (including even making death threats to the critics and others who are not anime fans), giving such fans much in common with liberals who react in similar fashion to any criticism of any of the liberal sacred cows like "global warming", the homosexual agenda, abortion, feminism, socialism and Islam.

Links

• Anime News Network
• FUNimation Entertainment