As a world-famous cultural form, Japanese animation has been widely concerned by all circles of the world. The creation of Japanese animation is extremely rich in national characteristics and infectious. With the help of animation culture, Japan has also become the first cultural exporter in Asia. The development of Japanese animation can be traced back to the middle of the 20th century. After a period of exploration, maturity, and refinement, Animation has developed into an indispensable industrial chain in Japan, and its development model is full of national characteristics and cultural spirit, which makes the development of Japanese animation lasting. Japanese culture is both open and closed culture, that is while insisting on maintaining its own national characteristics and traditions, it is good at absorbing the excellent cultures of other nations. This cultural characteristic is also reflected in Japanese animation — on the one hand to carry forward the domestic culture, on the other hand, to explore the exotic essence of culture. Japanese animation is through this greatly expanded the scope of animation creation subject matter. Since ancient times, there has been a “sorrow for things” culture in Japan. “Sorrow for things” is a kind of “truth reveal”, that is, when emotion and external things have contact, spontaneous or uncontrollable deep and calm emotion. Many Japanese animations works also inherit the delicate mode of emotional expression in Japanese culture, and promote the development of stories through the characters’ “knowledge and sorrow”, which is both natural, smart, and deep. In addition to history and traditional culture, Japanese animation is closely related to and sometimes influences social culture. Japanese animation works often focus on reality, rich in humanistic spirit also causes people to think rationally. For example, Miyazaki Hayao, the world-famous animation master, devotes himself to expressing the simple but most easily neglected theme, discussing human nature and bringing people back to nature and innocence. In short, as a mature and rich subculture, Japanese animation culture is closely connected with Japanese culture and Japanese society, influencing each other’s development.
Japanese animation can be said to be the product of Japanese culture in a specific environment. On the other hand, Japanese culture is also reflected in the animation works. The production team in the manga into its cultural essence will be one by one with national cultural characteristics of the “cultural seeds” spread to every cartoon works, the essence of excellent traditional culture, the meaning, the love story in the street and people collected pursuit and yearning for a better life, make the Japanese culture and Japanese anime together seamlessly. During the period of the Shogunate and the Meiji period after that, the consolidation of political power and social stability were closely related to the samurai class. From this, it can be seen that Samurai played an indispensable role in the development of Japanese society. Therefore, in Japanese animation, a large number of samurai as the theme of creation, widely acclaimed works. For example, In One Piece, Shanks always remembers the agreement with his companions and breaks his arm; Naruto Naruto breaks away from his life in the dark world just for the sunshine he wants. These characters all exude the spirit of sacrificing their own lives for justice, selflessness, fearlessness, and dedication.
As a symbol of Japanese culture, Japanese animation often reflects its national spirit and values and has distinct characteristics. Through watching cartoons, the audience will be unconsciously influenced by the values conveyed in the cartoons while appreciating the beautiful pictures and interesting plots. Through the mirror of anime, we can see some aspects of Japanese national spirit and values. What stands out among them is the Japanese spirit of collectivism. If you have seen more Japanese cartoons, you can find that, unlike American individualistic heroes who defeat their opponents alone through high-tech and other means, in Japanese cartoons, the hero usually does not rely on his own strength, but cooperates with the partners in the team to win. For example, the popular anime One Piece. In the process, each of them makes unremitting efforts to grow, the science of uniting themselves, to overcome the difficulties at the same time, share happiness, share the pain with peers, and even in the necessary time, can sacrifice himself for his companions, the cost of life, work together to gather strength, can have the power to unexpected endless, victory.
This characteristic in Japanese animation is inseparable from the influence of Japanese national culture rooted in their hearts. Since childhood, Japanese people have received collectivist education. The influence of collectivism for a long time has deeply implanted collectivism in their hearts, so as to apply this spirit to their future study, work, and life. The Japanese are fond of cherry blossoms, which are regarded as “sacred trees” and “sacred trees” and become the symbol of “Yamato Soul”. In addition, there is also a “Cherry blossom Festival”, when the cherry blossom will not be able to appreciate the flowers and even respected as the national flower. The characteristics of cherry blossom coincide with the spirit of Bushido in Japan, and they also pay attention to collectivism. The cherry blossoms are gorgeous when they bloom, but they bloom for a very short period of time. They bloom and fall, and then fade quickly after a flash of brilliance. And a single cherry blossom is not really beautiful. And a whole cherry tree, a large cherry forest at the same time, to let people feel the magnificent gorgeous and beautiful. The Japanese, like their beloved cherry blossoms, are fond of collective action. They not only show their individual abilities but also attach more importance to working together for the collective and giving play to its strength.
As a cultural phenomenon, Japanese anime culture is of great significance for discussion. We should understand these backgrounds and combine them with anime works in order to better understand their culture.
References
The Artifice. (n.d.). What the west learned about Japanese culture from anime. The Artifice | www.the-artifice.com. https://the-artifice.com/japanese-culture-anime-west-learn/
David Charles Fox. (2019, November 13). The cultural significance of manga and anime. https://davidcharlesfox.com/cultural-significance-of-manga-and-anime/
Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). Anime. https://www.britannica.com/art/anime-Japanese-animation
Huang, Y. (2017). Study on the transmission of Japanese animation culture. Proceedings of the 2016 2nd International Conference on Economics, Management Engineering and Education Technology (ICEMEET 2016). https://doi.org/10.2991/icemeet-16.2017.111
Nippon.com. (2020, May 31). The evolution of the Japanese anime industry. nippon.com. https://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00043/
Hi there. Your post caught my eye this week and I wanted to respond to it. My daughter and my niece are huge anime fans. My niece is a senior at Montclair University and she’s studying Animation and Illustration. She was inspired at an early age when she was first introduced to the Nintendo game console. Nintendo is a Japanese company who’s history dates back to the late 1800’s when it developed playing cards (Wei, 2018). In the 1960’s Nintendo expanded its market to toys and games and by the 1980’s it had developed it’s first handheld video game called Game & Watch (Wei, 2018). Between 1980 and 2017, the “company developed multiple notable games and consoles such as the Wii, Game Boy, Super NES, Donkey Kong Country, and Tetris” (Wei, 2018, pg. 3).
Game Boy was the game that my niece received for Christmas in the early the early 2000’s when she was about 5 years old. The game she played was Super Mario Brothers, and if memory serves, this was the genesis of her inspiration. She played this game, and several versions of the game, day and night for years and even had plushy dolls and t shirts with Super Mario characters on them. In fact, my son who was born in 2003, also loved the game and he too, had plushies and Mario sheets. The gaming industry was big business. However, my niece’s infatuation with gaming was at another level. She also liked to draw which really started to manifest itself when she was introduced to The Legend of Zelda which had originally aired as a TV show in the late 1980’s (Nintendo, 2019). I think it was the mysticism of the game that drew her to it at first which was to “solve puzzles or explore hidden areas” and receive rewards in return (Nintendo, 2019). But soon into the ‘gaming’ journey, she began to sketch pictures of Link, who is one of the characters, and animals, such as horses. Before too long, she was inspired to write stories and use illustration to animate her stories. Fast forward 9 years when she entered high school, she began to take Japanese as her language in school. She continued to study Japanese through-out high school and is now pursuing her degree in Animation and Illustration which was all inspired by Nintendo!
I often wonder if Nintendo realizes that their games not only created a culture of gaming ‘addicts’ but also inspired young adults to pursue careers in the gaming industry. My niece is supposed to graduate college in Spring ’21 (just like me) and will pursue a career in Animation and would love to work for Nintendo. We’re excited for her future but a bit nervous because, unless she works remotely, she will likely have to move outside of NJ for a role that she wants. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. Thank you for sharing your post. It was nice to take a walk down memory lane (time really flies) and learn something new about the Japanese culture.
Nintendo, E. A. D., Nintendo, E. P. D., Miyamoto, S., Tezuka, T., Kondo, K., Boy, G., … & Wii, U. (2019, September). The Legend of Zelda. In Spin.
Wei, Y. (2018). The Evolution of Nintendo Company.
This is an absolutely excellent and interesting post. To be honest, I myself have always been interested in learning more about Japanese animations because I know that they are such a big part of the Japanese culture.
From what I have seen, I have realized that Japanese anime has become a very popular form of media not only in the Japanese culture but also throughout the entire world. Personally, I have watched the Japanese animation known as Naruto. It is a very popular animation that has gained ground and popularity over these last few years.
From what I have also read, the Japanese put a very large emphasis on each individual character as they embody and emphasize a cultural Japanese trait that had been a foundational characteristic since the founding of Japanese culture (Huang, 2017).
Another cool part that I would love to mention is the way that the characters look! After doing some more research, I realized that the way that they are designed is with very exaggerated features (Shiau, 2014). Usually the body type is normal however when looking at the characters they have enlarged heads and hair.
Overall, this was a great post in order to cover one of the cultural norms of Japan. As we continue to move through the course, it is very interesting to see how other cultures throughout the world all influence each other and how they define with one another. For me, I know that when I hear the word anime, I automatically think of Japan, and the asian culture and background.
Great job!
References:
Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). Anime. https://www.britannica.com/art/anime-Japanese-animation
Horng-Cherng Shiau (2014) The Impact of Product Innovation on Behavior Intention: The Measurement of the Mediating Effect of the Brand Image of Japanese Anime Dolls, The Anthropologist, 17:3, 777-788, DOI: 10.1080/09720073.2014.11891492
Huang, Y. (2017). Study on the transmission of Japanese animation culture. Proceedings of the 2016 2nd International Conference on Economics, Management Engineering and Education Technology (ICEMEET 2016). https://doi.org/10.2991/icemeet-16.2017.111