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My first
exposure to the glories of anime was in 1965,
when I watched the great battles of a giant robot:
Gigantor! He was bigger than big, taller than tall,
quicker than quick, stronger than strong. Not only did
he have a great theme song (covered superbly by The
Dickies in 1980), but a little kid controlled him. How
cool was that to a 5-year-old!
Gigantor
and other heroes like Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, and the crew of the
Argo in Star Blazers are all the products
of Japanese
animation, or anime. Just as these characters
greatly influenced the youth of a generation, so too are
the latest anime creations having an impact on
youngsters and adults alike ... and I'm not talking
about epileptic seizures like those created by
the Pokémon TV show.
 Getting wild-eyed over
anime | Dump any
preconceptions you have about "cartoons," and forget
about singing teapots or happy-go-lucky genies. In anime, the
teapot is more likely to douse you with boiling water,
and the genie is a malevolent ghost who wants to suck
out your soul. Anime isn't made for a strictly kiddie
audience, like Disney films are. It combines spectacular
animation with sophisticated plots and characters that
are fleshed out (often in more ways than one).
As any otaku (anime fan) can tell you,
anime covers a wide spectrum, with movies, TV shows, and
videos ranging from the family-friendly
My Neighbor Totoro to the risque
farce of Ranma 1/2 to the adult themes and
epic scope of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Try to
catch up with the soap-opera relationships in Tenchi Muyo (think Babylon
5 meets Dawson's Creek), or roll your eyes at
the hysterical heavy-metal fantasy spoof, Bastard!!
 In
Japan, anime and manga (the comic books upon
which most anime is based) are watched and read the same
way that American audiences would watch a Spielberg film
or read a Tom Clancy novel. Fully half of the movie
tickets sold in Japan are for animated films. Princess Mononoke, the latest work by
anime auteur Hayao Miyazaki, recently shattered
domestic box-office records in Japan and is due to
arrive in the States in April. Already, Gillian
Anderson, Claire Danes, and others have signed up to
read the English-language script from fantasy/comics
author Neil Gaiman.
This resurgence of
interest in what had been a kid's medium began in
1988 with the release of Akira. Katsuhiro Otomo's
masterpiece is based on the manga of the same name, and
it's a masterful mix of Blade Runner-ish
cyberpunk, violence, action, and apocalyptic imagery.
Akira was an international hit and became the
first anime film to get mainstream attention in the
U.S., thanks to film critic Roger Ebert's praise on
television.
Akira introduced a common
theme in anime. Whereas Western animators like to give
life or humanity to inanimate objects like candlesticks,
anime often shows human beings becoming more
machine-like -- literally. Tetsuo, the tragic figure in
Akira, turns into a horrifying mass of flesh and
cybernetics. Major Motoko Kusanagi, the main character
in the critically acclaimed Ghost in the Shell, is a cyborg
who questions her existence in a world where identities
can be artificially constructed and downloaded.
In recent years, unfortunately, anime's
reputation has been slightly soiled by those who make
X-rated features for a quick buck. Also called
hentai, this type of anime often has helpless
nubile women, sex-crazed demons, and lots of probing
tentacles. Happily, as a longtime otaku, I can
attest that this does not represent more than the
fringe of Japanese animation, just as Jerry Springer is
not representative of humanity as a whole.
Yes,
there is violence and nudity in many anime movies, but
those who hold that against anime in general are
unfairly judging it by Saturday morning standards; think
of it instead as a medium with its own G-, PG-, and
R-rated features. For every naked body and severed limb
in anime, there are family works like the adventures of
Sailor Moon and Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service. I've seen
Miyazaki's work, and he's amazing. My Neighbor Totoru, now on video,
is a delightful fantasy, regardless of your age. If you
don't enjoy it, it's time to call Dr. Kevorkian.
Anime is all over the Web right now, and you can
download pictures, movies, and sounds from hundreds of
sites, as well as buy videos and soundtracks online.
Check out the next page for a comprehensive list of terrific
anime sites.
--Ken
Hart, who hated 7-Zark-7 in Battle of the Planets
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