Academic Article Review

Academic Article Summaries: Anime as a Cross-Cultural Communication in Itself, Through Media, and Through the Japanese Language

Anime, or Japanese animation, shows a lot of Japanese history, folklore, traditions, and religion. When these videos or television programs are viewed by anime fans and other viewers that are not Japanese, or not from or living in Japan, they can become a way of these foreigners to learn and experience Japanese culture. The article “Cartoons from another planet: Japanese animation as a cross-cultural communication” by Shinobu Price really illustrates what the title suggests, and shows how that anime can really be a cross-cultural communication between Japan and many western countries, primarily the United States of America.

Anime is not a cartoon, like western stories that are animated by Disney; it is not full of children-oriented fairy tales about princesses and knights in shining armor with happily ever after endings of endless romance. There is a handful of anime that follow that guideline slightly, but in a very different style. However, there are tons of anime geared towards mostly adults that don’t always have happy endings, and may include the princess being a flesh-craving cyborg and devouring the prince who was willing to die for his code of honor. Most Americans may think that anime is either characterized by characters like Pikachu or school girls in sailor outfits with big boobs and eyes. However, anime is usually a lot edgier, fast-paced, and violent. Although, not all anime, or Japanimation, is geared towards older generations of viewers. It also appeals to many younger viewers of all ages. In actuality, there is not a single literary or cinematic genre that is not represented in anime form. Along with fairy tale fantasies, cyber- and steampunk mythologies, romantic comedies, and classic sci-fi, anime also includes violent pornography, sports dramas, and everyday “slice of life” soap operas. Also, big Japanese productions of animated films, such as “Princess Mononoke”, cost less than a quarter of what Disney films cost to make, and end up making almost five times what it cost to make just at the box office. It seems that anime is, at most, geared only towards viewers under forty years of age, but that trend seems to be changing, as anime fans of the current generation are getting older.
Anime is extemely popular in the west, but many people are surprised to find out that anime is only written and animated with a Japanese audience in mind. Japanimation is full of references and depictions of Japanese culture (such as folklore, legends, history, religion, moral assumptions, and aesthetic standards), shown in many everyday and stereotypical situations and practices. These situations may include eating food such as sushi and ramen with chopsticks, wearing kimonos to a Shinto festival, and sleeping on a futon right on the tatami mat floors of their homes. Scenery such as falling petals from cherry blossom trees is also seen a lot in anime to show either that it is springtime, or that someone is going to die, going with the symbolism that cherry blossoms only bloom for about three days out of the year, which could mean death in a similar amount of time. One other thing seen in anime are male characters getting a nosebleed when they see a beautiful or sexy girl.

This article by Shinobu Price truly shows how anime is its own unique form of media and entertainment through its vast expanse of every typical genre, and hundreds of more super deformed anime-only genres. Price also explained how anime is a cross-cultural communication from Japan to the west through the many Japanese traditions, stereotypes, and events portrayed in the “Japanimated” television and movies geared towards Japan, that are viewed in large numbers by many people of the western countries. This article was published in Spring of 2001, and is now almost eight years old. Based on newer anime that I have seen since this article was written, certain genres of anime (mostly comedy or parody animes) have brought some American culture to the table in the form of American exchange students as characters, such as Patricia Martin from the anime “Lucky ☆ Star”. This also comes in the form of a collaborative American defense agent Ken McGwire who helps a Japanese defense team in the anime “Zettai Karen Children”.

Anime can be viewed in several different ways by non-Japanese speaking viewers. It can be viewed as an internet downloaded video file “fansub” by amateur translators who write and time subtitles for anime airing only in Japan at the time, with official subtitles on DVD or video released by a company that has licensed the anime, or with an official English (or other translated language) “dub” or audio track on DVD or video released by a company that has licensed the anime. In the article “Anime Fans, DVDs, and the Authentic Text”, by Laurie Cubbison, she explains how “otaku”, the self proclaimed geeks of the anime world prefer to watch their anime, how typical viewers prefer to watch it, and what the media companies do to satisfy both groups of viewers.

Otaku prefer to watch their anime uncut from the opening to end credits, unedited and uncensored in its complete original form, not localized with US cultural elements (That’s what cartoons are for, this is anime.), not rewritten to meet US’s political correctness, not inserting use of vulgar speech into the dialogue of a non-vulgar character, not inserting 21st century cultural references in shows set in the 70s, properly timed subtitles, properly translated subtitles, and good voice acting and direction. These otaku are mostly rooted in the group that prefers subtitles and Japanese audio as well. Viewers preferring voice dubbing in their own language are mostly typical, casual viewers who gained the preference by watching anime on television dubs. In the VHS era, the market was split by these two mediums, and VHS’s were released with only one audio track and one video track so only one of the two ways to watch the shows was able to be accomplished with a single VHS. This led the media companies to not be able to satisfy all of their viewers. Now in the age of DVDs, this problem has mostly been solved as all formats are usually available on DVDs of licensed anime. Because of this advancement in technology, most companies are able to meet all of the demands of each group of anime viewers, substantially increasing their sales and satisfaction of the viewers.

I personally prefer watching anime in Japanese with English subtitles, and I am completely satisfied with every anime DVD that I have picked up in America, as they seem to all have this format, and follow exactly, or come very close to the otaku guidelines explained above.

Recently anime and Japanese video games (mostly anime based) has led avid fans to want to learn the Japanese language to the point of becoming fluent in order to understand and play the media without having to use translations. Natsuki Fukunaga, in her article “Those anime students”: Foreign language literacy development through Japanese popular culture”, explains how learning Japanese can not only allow anime fans to enjoy anime in its completely raw and original version, but as a smart choice as a second language for business-minded college students.

Overall, the article shows that the repetitive watching of anime in Japanese language with English subtitles really increases one’s Japanese dictionary and enables the viewer to become aware of linguistic aspects, male and female speech endings, tone of voice, formal and plain forms of speech, slang, and ability to tell the difference between good and bad translation. Most of these aspects of the language are taught in entry level Japanese classes. This reasoning has led students to create their own fansubs of anime and even go on to study, or even major in Japanese to become fluent in the language, use it to watch anime and play Japanese video games, and even go on to use it in their future careers.

I have to completely agree with this article, as I have seen around eighty days or roughly 1920 hours (that’s almost 5760 episodes )of a little under two hundred series, and have been able to use that constant watching of anime to understand well over a hundred Japanese words, almost completely able to understand Japanese honorifics, and also have a general understanding of their sentence structure and use of their form of the word that means “to be” and its many different familiarity variations. I can also tell when a fansubber’s translation is no good, or close to dead on, by watching a good amount of quality subs and seeing a small amount of lower quality subs and being able to tell a significant difference just by picking a part a few common sentences that have obviously been translated wrong.

All in all, these three articles show the cross cultural communication shown in the first article through Japanese culture represented in anime, which can be viewed due to the formats made available that are discussed in the second article, primarily English subtitles with Japanese audio, which is explained in the third article to strengthen one’s Japanese-speaking ability overall creating an even more extensive cross cultural communication through the most important thing in culture, language.