What impact does American culture have on the roots of manga and anime in the post-WWII era?
THE CAKE YOUR FACE IS FILLED WITH LIESThere is obviously a question there you just have to look for it instead of being spoonfed all your intellectually-stimulating, thought-provoking quanderies.
U_____UAnyways, the thought first occurred to me when I read somewhere that Empowered is considered an "OEL Manga" after I read like the first 1/3 of the volume and started looking online for more info about the series...
And then I learned that the term "OEL Manga" is actually a term used by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_English-language_mangaThis statement and the proceeding discovery of the official term from the JMFA, filled me with
BOUNDLESS RAGEBut then my heart calmed and I realized I wasn't exactly an expert on the roots of anime so I might as well go someplace and have a lively discussion about it. So I masked the opening post of the discussion with a clandestine, inconspicuous little title, "Question". My skills of misleading and covert ops have surprised you!
En guarde!!Anyways, my traditional understanding of the roots of J-animation and manga is that a lot of it was inspired by the american occupation post-WWII and a lot of comic books and animations brought over by the occupying military forces, and particularly Disney animations. Well in some other articles linked to from those wiki articles I apparently discovered (as opposed to discovering for certain, my discovery as you see, was unknown even to me) that there was a growing movement in Japanese scholars to discoutn this notion and introduce the idea that modern manga was a "rejection" of American animation forced on occupied nihon. This therefore obviously explains why other cultural influences, like american baseball and sailor uniforms, as tetsaru mentions, were also keenly rejected by the Japanese mainstream. The preceding statement is true.
This growing movement even went on to say that there were examples of "early manga" in fucking cave walls in like 8th century Japan or some such. Because as we all know, Walt Disney was truly inspired by ancient native american illustrations painted in animal hides with dyes composed of cornmeal and poo.
I dunno.. I mean I dont' wanna sound like a jingoist prick 'n all... but it just irks me. Like every fucking time nowadays some american illustrator puts a few "manga"-style expressions on his characters he suddenly becomes "inspired by manga" to the exclusion of all other inspirations or influences. Like omg he made a character with big 'ol wide eyes that make her look so cute and "anime" style eyes yeah! WTF is this Walt Disney went back in time and made characters with big expressive eyes what a manga ripoff he was.
Sigh... woe is me... I'm just... a prejudiced americanna I guess. Oh well, that leaves just Don Hertzfeldt and
TEAM VENTURE to lead the next generation of truly American animations into the future.
Although I'm sure we'll hear about some discovery in some ancient cave near Kyoto containing pictures of stick figures in nonsensical and unexpected short scenes.
But nobody will touch Venture baby. 'Cuz if they do, Brock will bend them over and ram their own hands up betwixt their buttcheeks. I saw that on a website once.
oh shit wot