Anime and Manga

While we briefly looked at anime and manga as art forms there was a focus on the admitidly excellent work of Miyazaki who's recent release Ponyo:

is one of my favourite films. However I get the feeling that these were discussed in the lectures at length while other relevant anime works were ignored for the same reason Miyazaki has become so popular with western audiences... they are westernised and loose much of the traditional art form's quirks and idiosyncrasies.

While looking at 'My Neighbour Totoro' however was eye opening (I have seen it before many times so not the film itself but its playing shortly after discussing the atmosphere and ideologies of western animation especially Disney) where I found that Japanese story telling does often have far less sheltered fearful concepts and celebrates liberation, taboo and escapism while western animation targeted at a younger audience often focuses on the comforts of the familiar.

When I talk about Miyazaki's westernisation I will point out that ponyo is in fact loosely based on the danish tale 'little murmaid' but with that japanese story telling flair of fantasy and otherworldlyness which I believe Bill mentioned in the lecture. However its still a story that a western audience can immediately relate to at least within the accepted fantasy established by disney in their classic murmaid tale. Despite this possible pandering to a western audience I still found it to be a unique and highly entertaining take on the original story, perhaps I should emphasise LOOSELY when I said it was 'loosely based on...'

Some other good anime:

Black Heaven is a great example of anime's unique (and often confusing to a non otaku western audience) flair for humour and situational drama, a show relying more on complex social interaction, relying heavily on writing for entertainment rather than traditional western animation humour which is normally cute, slapstick or just entertaining bussiness or gags within the animation itself.

Death Note is a brilliant 20 or so part series which has a clear begining middle and end, watching every episode in sequence would be like watching an incredibly long and detailed film epic, with character development, mystery and intrigue throughout, for an action thriller it tackles a lot of difficult issues which might not be expected such as crime the concept of a personal vengeful god. Using classically accepted (to a japanese audience) concepts of gods of death. It has a very interesting premise which I will not try to go into now but is defonitely worth a look for anyone trying to get into anime with an appreciation for film as art and discussion.

Soul Eater screamingly funny and at times nail bitingly intense. A great example of the strong blend of character relationships, humour and action within a rich and unique fantasy universe which could never exsist in a modern western animation.

Fairy Tale an intentional satire of western fairy tale concepts as the premise of an entirely opposing traditional fantasy action guild oriented adventure epic.