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Title: Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke : Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation by Susan J. Napier ISBN: 0-312-23863-0 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 21 April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.74 (27 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Not what you think...
Comment: The first thing I need to note is that the title of this book is misleading. It is definitely NOT a survey of recent anime history. It is also not explicitly aimed at an otaku audience, although every otaku out there should be interested. In fact, this is an academic work of film criticism, analyzing a variety of themes that appear in recent anime. Keep this in mind and you won't be disappointed.
I did find a couple of things to be annoying. For one, Napier uses a fair amount of academic Newspeak. It wasn't difficult, just distracting, and I don't think it adds anything to the text. Also, some of her analysis appears to be clouded by the need to bow to the sacred cows of PC. Check out her analysis of gender roles in "Wicked City", where she completely ignores the fact that it is the female lead who ends up being the most powerful character.
Don't let my gripes mislead you. This book's positive points far outweigh it's negatives. Most of Napier's analysis is quite insightful, and I've found myself watching a lot of these anime with her ideas in mind. The fact that she compares concepts between different anime was especially interesting; where else can you get a thorough comparison of the apocalyptic themes in "Akira" and "Evangelion"?
I'm sure plenty of people will be disappointed that their favorite anime didn't rate mention (what, no "Tenchi"?!?). Take this book for what it is, and enjoy it. Then pop in those beat up old "Bubblegum Crisis" tapes and see some old favorites in a new light.
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting attempt to define the Anime genre
Comment: I have already read several books on Japanese animes by authors coming from various backgrounds (F. Schodt, G. Poitras, S. Kinsella,...) and I must say that with each of them, I have been introduced to new aspects of and approaches to animes in general. This book isn't an exception to this rule. There is only one flaw that I noticed in all of them: they all tend to equate America with Western culture as a whole! I understand that American culture does have a significant impact in this world, but it has definitely not yet permeatted it to the point of uniformizing it completely to its own standards. And in this respect, I think that the various European national cultures have enough of their own specificities for not being lumped up with American culture in a vague generic concept of Western culture.
Although it bothered me somewhat in the other accounts of animes, in S. Napier's book, it was especially annoying, as she claims insistingly that animes started to really make it in the West (instead of North America!!) only at the beginning of the 90's, when in France and other Latine areas of Europe it has been around for almost 30 years, with a really high peak in France in the 80's! I can still remember several 80's French TV shows for kids on Saturday and Sunday, starting at 7:00 am and lasting until noon, or covering the whole of Wednesday afternoon, broadcasting almost exclusively Japananimations! VHS of these animes were released along with Soundtracks and had a huge success in the Francophone world. Today, people are fighting over the newly released DVD's of such mythical series as Captain Harlock ("Albator" in French)or Saint Seya ("Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque" in French). Most of these people were kids in the 70's-80's and grew up with these series. I cannot say exactly how it was in Italy, Spain and other parts of Europe, but in France and other French-speaking countries, it was definitely a big phenomenon and people were totally aware that they were watching Japanese productions!
This non-acknowledgement of the distinctive European perceptions of Japanimations becomes especially acute when she pretends to survey the behavior of Anime fans throughout the Western world and focuse her study on Texas university students and American youngsters, only mentioning that she sent a few questionaires to Holland! To Holland?? Is it because they speak better English than French or Italian people? For someone who learnt such a difficult language as Japanese, she couldn't make the effort to find someone speaking French or any other European languages to translate the interviews with people from these countries?? On top of it, she doesn't mention at all the answers of the Dutch respondants!! For someone who dedicated part of her life to widening significantly her cultural scope (Hey! She specialized in Japanese literature! What could be more distant from American or European civilizations???), she displays a real lack of nuance in her assesment of Western cultureS, with a big "S", plural!
So, this being said, I think S. Napier does a very interesting job in her attempt to define Japanese Animes as a cinematographic genre, on the same footing as Disney or other cultural trends in the world of animations. By giving some leads to generate a general pattern of what makes Anime a distinctive arts, standing on its own, although in relations to other types of production, she gives a useful starting point for an outline of their nature and influence on popular cultures around the world. She analyses several series or OAV's, with an emphasis on a few ones, which she considers especially interesting with respect to the criteria she uses to analyse the genre, in order to give a hint of the perspectives one might gain from a thorough study of it. Thus, one should not expect a detailed description of the way animes reflect present day Japan (for this, refer to "The Anime Companion, what's Japanese in Japanese animation", by G. Poitras) nor a historical/sociological compilation of Manga(for this, refer to F. Schodt's books: "Manga! Manga! The world of Japanese comics" or "Dreamland Japan: writing on modern Manga"). Also, she focuses on recent Animes that made it to America, which were only a drop in the ocean of Japanese productions that never leave Japan or Asia, thus justifying the limited choice of examples from which she could select cases to study. This is where she differs significantly from several authors on Manga, because she truly describes this genre as an international and transcultural phenomenon of increasingly globalized popular cultureS. Actually, she considers animes as a metaphor for Japan's search for its cultural and political place in the modern world and the exportation of these productions as a symptom of Japan's fullfledge participation to the construction of a global human identity. For this reason, this is an excellent book and I do not think there is such a wide academic jargon in it. Actually, there are only a few really technical terms she uses and they come back frequently throughout the whole book. She indeed made a few confusions describing certain episodes but these do not undermine at all her analysis, because, as I said earlier, her book isn't an analysis of each series or OAV's that were produced in Japan or distributed in the US, but an attempt to highlight the basic tenets around which the anime genre is articulated.
Despite its Americocentrism, I highly recommend that book, along with the reading of those I cited in this review, especially those by F. Schodt! These works will give you a general, panoramic view of the Anime phenomenon, both in Japan and in America (but not truly in the West...for this, there would be a need to analyse the phenomenon in Europe and I haven't yet found a book doing this...).
Rating: 5
Summary: An excellent account of the genre
Comment: This is a definite must read for all fans of anime. It is especially good to novice otaku like myself who only really know of the things I grew up watching as a kid and a few releases here (Force Five, Star Blazers, Battle of the Planets, Akira, Princess Mononoke). It explores central themes around many different types of anime and warns you (indirectly) about what things to avoid. For exaple, no parent after reading this book will allow their children to go anywhere near the Hentai sections of an anime video store, though I did see Legend of the Overfiend a few shelves away from Sailor Moon at one store. BAD IDEA, Newbury Comics!!!
If I have one criticism of this book, it would be that it is written in too scholarly a manner and the author's editor should have told the author to tone it down a bit. There was also to much of a repetition of certain phrases. As a reader, I got sick of the word "privelidge" by the end of the second chapter and there was lots more to come. Still, if it wasn't for this book, I never would have discovered such delights as Ranma 1/2, Nausicaa, or Ghost In The Shell; so I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in anime.
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Title: The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917 by Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy ISBN: 1880656647 Publisher: Stone Bridge Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation : Films, Themes, Artistry by Helen McCarthy ISBN: 1880656418 Publisher: Stone Bridge Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Anime Explosion! The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation by Patrick Drazen ISBN: 1880656728 Publisher: Consortium Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Anime Companion: What's Japanese in Japanese Animation by Gilles Poitras ISBN: 1880656329 Publisher: Stone Bridge Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Anime Essentials: Every Thing a Fan Needs to Know by Gilles Poitras ISBN: 1880656531 Publisher: Stone Bridge Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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