anime from akira to howl's moving castle experiencing contemporary japanese animation

[...]... 2002 I walked into a small newspaper shop in a little town in Burgundy to find five different journals devo ted to anime staring a t me from the magazine rack Anime is also being taken seriously on an aesthetic level In December 2004 I had the opportunity to see a Parisian e xhibition comparing Miyazaki's art to tha t of the popular and enigmatic French comic artist Moebius, Walking into the stunning... Away, not to mention the fantastically designed moving cas tle that dominates his most recent release , How l� Moving Castle, On a quieter note , we might think of the sepia- toned Old Home in the world beyond death of Haibane Renmei Although I have already touched on the worldwide swing of interest toward fantasy, it is useful to speculate briefly on the question of why anime has turned toward that... desire to escape the complexities of the contemporary world Miyazaki's decision to set Spirited Away in a mise-en-scene that contrasts an alluring traditional culture with a disappointing contemporary world is also related to this , although Spirited Away is more a call to arms for change than a simple fantasy of escape Looking into the futu re , it will be interesting to see how animators respond to the... A TO WESTERNERS it may seem surprising that an artistic form tha t has been known to them largely as children's entertainment could encom­ pass so many varie ties To understand the reasons behind this varie ty, we need to understand something of the history and role of anime in Japanese society Firs t of all , it is importan t to appreciate j ust how significant a force anime is in contemp orary Japanese. .. pioneer animators Even today Japanese animators are strongly aware of American animation But, virtually A N I M E A N D L O CA L / G L O B A L I D E N T I T Y * 17 from the start, postwar J apanese animation has tended to g o i n a very different direction, not only in terms of i ts adult orien tation and more complex s tory lines but also in i ts overall s tru c ture I t is important to emphasize... important new director whom I was able to tou ch on only briefly is Kon Satoshi Kon's films-Pe tject Blue (Pafekuto Buru) , M i l l ennium Actress (Senen joyu) and Tokyo Godfathers ( To kyo Godofazasu)-are all so memorable (and each so different from the other) tha t critics have given him the backhanded compliment of IO asking why he does not do live action Kon's most recent e ffort, a foray into television... also p en etra ted Europe, from th e United Kingdom , wh ere A k i ra was a top-selling vid eo i n the year a fter its r el ease, to France, a country not known for its gen erosity to non-native cultural 6 * ANIME fROM A K I R A TO H O WL' S M O V I N G C A S TL E products , which in th e mid 1 990s carri ed over 30 hours a w eek of J apanes e cartoons, In America as w ell, anime' s popu larity has grown... only to sma ll subgroups among science fiction fans , ani m e is increasingly moving to at least a margina l niche in the mainstream Wh ether it will ever b e totally integrated into Western pop c u lture is still d ebatable Indeed, a strong part o f its app ea l, as will be s een , is its di fference from the Western mainstream D espite (or thanks to) this differenc e, anime c lubs continu e to attract... down ubiquitously from billboards , while Sailor Moon related paraph ernalia-ev erything from "moon prism power - wands" to bath tow els-were snapp ed up by d evoted fans o f the s eries , largely young girls who w ere attracted b y th e characters' uniqu e combination o f cuten ess and fantastic powers 8 * ANIME FROM A K I R A TO H O WL ' 5 M O V I N G C A S TL E On a more ominous no te, Japanese society... identity Wha t animation scholar Paul Wells describes as " the primacy of the image and its ability to metamorphose into a ,, completely differen t image , 1 8 is a function of animation that has powerful resonances with contemporary socie ty and culture Such a pro tean art form as anime is impossible to comple tely sum up in a single book and I shall not attemp t to do so Ra ther, I intend to look at