Defining "anime" (was Re: Yasui Yoshio's anime book E+J)

[Dion A. Madrilejo]

In my own experiences with anime; there really seems to be a few
definitions of anime depending on who you ask.

For older US anime fans; anime represents 'modern' Japanese animation
(Post Tezuka) although pretty much everyone doesn't watch anything farther
back than the 80s. Everyone knows about TETSUWAN ATOM and MACH GO GO GO
but other than that, the rest of the anime timeline is a big blank. While
these fans got interested in the artform by the visuals, most stay because
of the typically better written stories than US cartoons and even most
live-action shows.

For younger or newer fans; they see anime as the most recent or most
popular series to come out. The majority of today's fans were brought in
on series like SAILOR MOON, DRAGONBALL (with or without the Z), or films
like AKIRA or the current preferred anime cyberpunk film GHOST IN THE
SHELL. In contrast to the older fans, newer fans are still in more of the
'gosh, wow' stage with their priorities on high quality visuals, serious
action/fight scenes, and, for guys at least, the fan service.

As far as I've seen, there hasn't been an english text on an academic
definition of anime. Most of the texts I've seen base their view of anime
as a derivative of manga as opposed to a fully-function artform with
definitely ties to film. I personally have been trying to write a text
defining anime via its ties to film techniques as opposed to its manga
roots.


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"Stun settings are for       | Dion A. Madrilejo     dmad at umich.edu
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