Anime and genre

Todd Brown todd at twitchfilm.com
Thu Sep 28 14:56:33 EDT 2006


They _should_ be but they aren't.  Particularly not when the mainstream
press consistently refer to them all as japanimation and the public face of
anime in North America are 30+ year old cosplayers.  The otaku movement and
the fansubbers have had a huge impact in generating a niche audience for a
lot of great animation from Japan but the public face of that community now
has an awful lot to do with the glass ceiling anime releases have.  Nobody
in the list I mentioned, or any other worthwhile directors, will break
through in North America in any meaningful way as long as the media and the
masses equate their work with Pokemon and cosplay.  It'll never happen.

 

I'd kind of like to see a Kieslowski attempt at Commando, though.  That'd be
fun.

 

Todd.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: tetsuwan at comcast.net [mailto:tetsuwan at comcast.net] 
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 2:26 PM
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: RE: Anime and genre

 

The "anime" tag only does a disservice to the directors you mention if the
word is interpreted in its Western common parlance. "Anime" really value
neutral, however, it has come to mean a variety of things to a variety of
people. A feature length film is a feature length film, animated or not.
Gatekeepers (critics, web masters ;)) are able, or should be, to make
distinctions between sen to chihiro and Pokemon as well as they are able to
make distinctions between Trois Coleurs and Commando.

 

--
Mark 
http://dorknation.wordpress.com

 

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Todd Brown" <todd at twitchfilm.com> 

> I think there are certainly distinctions within anime and a lot that 
> certainly doesn't stand up to cinema standards - though you could say the 
> exact same thing about a huge number of films - but there are also a
growing 
> number of animation directors in Japan who are increasingly ill-served by 
> having the anime tag applied. Mamoru Oshii, Satoshi Kon, Hayao Miyazaki, 
> Masaaki Yuasa among others are all legitimate auteurs in their own right
who 
> are not accorded the respect they deserve because they are forced into the

> otaku ghetto. 
> 
> Todd. 
> 
> > -----Original Message----- 
> > From: Brian Ruh [mailto:brianruh at yahoo.com] 
> > Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 9:28 AM 
&! gt; > ; To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
> > Subject: Anime and genre 
> > 
> > --- Lewis Cook wrote: 
> > > 
> > > 1. No idea how others on the list think about this - I don't have an 
> > > interest in theoretical debates about genre per se - but I don't 
> > > consider anime to be of the same basic genre as 'movies.' 
> > 
> > I know that you say above that you're not interested in genre debates, 
> > but I just have to ask -- why is "anime" separated from "movies" in 
> > your estimation? (Of course, not all anime is experienced in a cinema 
> > setting, so that might be one good reason.) And do you consider anime 
> > to be a genre? 
> > 
> > I'm curious about such perceptions of anime and how it's thought about 
> > and categorized. I'm interested to hear what others might think about 
> ! > th is as well. 
> > 
> > == Brian 
> > 
> > Brian's Essential Reading: 
> > Book: http://www.oshiibook.com 
> > Research: http://www.animeresearch.com 
> > 
> > __________________________________________________ 
> > Do You Yahoo!? 
> > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
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> > 
> 
> 

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