When I was a kid, I loved Pokémon. I’d spend everyday watching reruns and all the films we owned. I remember having a fat pikachu doll that I’d shove in the face of every visitor to our house. When I got my hands on Pokémon Diamond for the first time, you can bet I played the hell out of it.
I loved Yu-Gi-Oh too – and Beyblade, Bakugan, and Digimon. I also happened to develop an interest in the strange wonder of Ghibli films – particularly Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Ponyo, as well as all the other animated films that played late at night on SBS (I can definitely remember falling asleep to Cowboy Bebop).
Fast forward to my early teens, when I became obsessed with Naruto. It’s only then that I began to identify all those things as ‘anime’ – and subsequently became a massive weaboo. I can still remember loving the fact that Australia got its own anime streaming service, and being so relieved to not be restricted to Crunchyroll’s awful mobile app. sorrynotsorry
I guess what I’m trying to say is… most of the ‘television’ I consume comes from Japan. Shocker, right?
But isn’t that strange?
Why are Japanese cartoons, of all things, such a global hit? How do shows featuring electric guitar-wielding aliens or homoerotic ghosts have fandoms that span the globe? And why are they preferred over local cartoons, or even local fiction in general?
Well, I think part of it is due to the general appeal of animation. Susan Napier – a professor of Japanese studies at Tufts University – states that “Animation does not pretend to be reality but rather offers a highly conscious alternative to reality” (Napier 2011) – on which I’d like to add the best animation certainly does, balancing weird and wonderful stylisation with complex (and often relatable) plots and themes. The anime FLCL (Fooly Cooly) is the perfect example of this, as despite its over-the-top shenanigans it ultimately establishes itself as a profound monologue on the weirdness of puberty.
Such combinations are uncommon outside of Japanese animation, and the difference between iconic works of anime versus other mediums is glaring in terms of complexity (even today). Space Battleship Yamato, for example, features epic battles in outer space much like the American Star Wars. Unlike Star Wars, however, Yamato “occasionally questioned the necessity of warfare and even showed some of the enemy as three-dimensional characters with a degree of moral complexity”, and “did not shy away from tragedy but depicted death and sacrifice on… an epic and a personal scale.” (Napier 2011)
The presence of these subtleties combined with the repeated implementation of animation’s best qualities result in a unique and incredibly appealing flavour – anime, then, “is a medium in which distinctive visual elements combine with an array of generic, thematic, and philosophical structures to produce a unique aesthetic world,” (Napier 2001) which I believe is the reason for its global success.
References
VOGUISH ANIMUS 