Category: Anime

The Fascinating Career Of The Legendary Hideaki Anno

Published September 9, 2021

I recently wrote about Hideaki Anno and his passion for Japanese popular culture and I mentioned the possibility of discussing his filmography someday. Considering how positively that article has been received, I’ve decided to take a look at the legendary Hideaki Anno, his fascinating career and his impact on the anime industry.

While I’m going to be focusing predominantly on series and films that Hideaki Anno directed, I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss his career prior to directing. Ever since Hideaki Anno was a child, he’d always been interested in art and film, to the point of being considered a “problem child“. He later attended the Osaka University of Arts and ended up working as an animator on Super Dimension Fortress Macross. He was eventually kicked out of the Osaka University of Arts for not paying his tuition but not before he teamed up with a number of other students to create “Daicon III and IV Opening Animations”, short anime films that were made on a shoestring budget in a friend’s house. He eventually went to work on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind under Hayao Miyazaki where he was assigned the task of working on the God Warrior, a very complicated scene that ended up becoming an impressive set piece in the movie. He, along with the other students who had worked on Daicon III and IV, founded Daicon Film in 1984 which was later renamed as Gainax.

The cover for the Daicon IV Opening Animation.

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The Amazing History Of The Medium Of Manga

Published August 30, 2021

I think it’s fair to say that manga has seen explosive growth worldwide within the past 30 years and this has led to several misconceptions about the age of the medium of manga and the amazing history behind it. I quite often hear people describing manga as a new medium and I can’t help but feel that saying this is belittling to the many people who’ve worked hard to make the medium of manga what it is today and the many cultural influences behind it. Taking all of that into account, let’s take a look at the amazing history of the medium of manga.

It’s interesting to note that the word “Manga” is much older than many people believe it to be. This word, which is made up of the characters “漫画” which translates as whimsical pictures, was originally coined by Santō Kyōden in 1798 to describe one of his picture books. Later on, the legendary Japanese artist Hokusai drew a collection of sketches covering a wide variety of topics that would later be referred to as “Hokusai Manga”. While these uses of the term manga are quite different to the modern incarnation of the word, they’re nonetheless an essential part of manga history.

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My Complete And Total Opposition To Piracy

Published August 26, 2021

When it comes to the general anime and manga fandom in the West, I’ve noticed that there are many who not only embrace piracy but hold it up on a pedestal, criticising those who point out the problems with their practises by claiming that true anime and manga fans pirate, that they can’t afford it, that anime and manga take too long to be translated officially etc. Today, I thought I might take a look at the history of anime and manga piracy, the flaws in the arguments in favour of piracy and why I have both a complete and total opposition to the practise.

First, we should take a look at the history of anime and manga piracy and why the modern implementation of it is completely different to the historical. Around the 1980s, anime clubs began to be established in numerous cities within the United States. These clubs access to anime was restricted as anime was rarely licensed in America and, when it was, tended to be butchered from its original form. In order to show anime at these clubs, VHS copies of anime in their original format with fan made subtitles known as “Fansubs” began to be produced so that fans could watch these shows. However, while technically illegal in that a copyrighted work was being distributed without the express permission of the copyright holder, the scale was so limited and controlled, due to the fact you needed to have a physical VHS in hand, that they were often ignored. In contrast, modern fansubs are produced for and distributed via the internet, a platform that is notoriously difficult to control content on and the scale is no longer a few thousand people but millions upon millions.

海賊版、無くしていきたいです。
海賊版が次から次へ湧いて出てきても、読者の方々が海賊版を読まないでいてくれさえすればいいのです。
お金を払ってまで読みたくないな、と思われたならそれは私と作品の実力不足なのでそれはそれでいいのです。海賊版で読むくらいなら読まないで欲しいです。
— Gino0808@❄️🦀ドラマ化！ (@0808gino) January 4, 2021

The manga artist Gino0808 stated that they didn’t want you to read their manga at all if you were going to pirate it.

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Hideaki Anno, The Ultimate Otaku

Published August 23, 2021

With the release of Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time and the announcement that the OVA series Gunbuster is getting a Blu-ray release in America with a brand new English dub, the name “Hideaki Anno” seems to be on everyone’s tongues recently. However, while I could certainly write an article on the filmography of Hideaki Anno (which I should probably do someday), I’ve become more interested in him lately due to his lifestyle, his passions and being, in my own words, the ultimate otaku.

I should probably first define what an otaku is. The term “Otaku” is basically the Japanese equivalent of the word “Nerd” and while the word can refer to a variety of interests in Japan, in the West the word is typically associated with enthusiasts of Japanese popular culture, specifically anime and manga. While the word is considered to be offensive in Japan, typically because it implies a lack of social skills, the word has been embraced by the Western fandom to identify themselves. However, even the most seemingly passionate of Western otaku pale in comparison to Hideaki Anno, the ultimate otaku.

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The Fantastic And Wonderful Anime Director Mamoru Hosoda

Published August 12, 2021

I was perusing the news recently when I spotted something quite interesting. Mamoru Hosoda’s new film “Belle” debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and the audience responded after a screening by giving Mamoru Hosoda a 14 minute standing ovation! This news reminded me that, while I have written about other anime directors before such as Makoto Shinkai, I have yet to write about the fantastic and wonderful director Mamoru Hosoda himself, something which I’m going to rectify.

Mamoru Hosoda started off his career by working at Toei Animation, one of the oldest and more revered anime studios in Japan. During this time, it’s notable that Mamoru Hosoda directed two Digimon shorts films, “Digimon Adventure” and “Digimon Adventure: Our War Game!” which would later be recut along with another Digimon film into the Western release of “Digimon: The Movie”. Later on, Studio Ghibli chose Mamoru Hosoda to direct Howl’s Moving Castle but, after creative differences, he ultimately left the project.

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Why Toonami Was So Important For Western Anime Fandom

Published July 29, 2021

The late 1990s and early 2000s was a very exciting time to be a fan of anime. What had once been a relatively niche product which often saw dramatic edits and changes to try to appeal to Americans began to hit mainstream popularity and, while many edits continued to occur, series and films began to be released in a more loyal fashion. While there were many avenues that the burgeoning Western anime fans could pursue to experience the world of anime, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at one particular source, Toonami, and how it contributed to the rising Western fandom.

First, let’s discuss the origins of Toonami. Originally releasing as a programming block within Cartoon Network in 1997 to replace the Super Adventures block, it oriented itself as focused on action animated series, in contrast to the comedy series typical for the channel. The early years predominantly focused on Western animated series although we did see a smattering of anime series such as Voltron, Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z. However, the brand was refocused in 1999 with the establishment of a new host for the channel, T.O.M., and the announcement of Toonami Midnight Run, a programming block that would air after midnight and show content too violent or inappropriate for the daytime Toonami block.

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The Tokyo 2020 Olympics And Japanese Popular Culture

Published July 26, 2021

As this article is being written, the amusingly named Tokyo 2020 Olympics are due to begin on the 23rd of July, 2021 and proceed until the 8th of August, 2021. Barring some catastrophe, it seems unlikely that they are going to get postponed again like they were last year. Taking this into account, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and how Japan has decided to use it as a vehicle to promote Japanese popular culture worldwide.

First, I should clarify that I myself have little to no interest in the Olympics and I can only imagine that I’d end up watching them if someone physically restrained me to a chair and forced me to watch them! However, I do confess that I’m quite interested to see how the Japanese government handles their “Cool Japan” push in the context of the games and whether this is ultimately a success.

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The Unusual Genre of Harem

Published July 19, 2021

One of the reasons that I originally fell in love with the mediums of manga and anime were the variety of genres and storytelling formats that had developed in contrast to the, at the time, stale stories told by Western animation. However, a controversial genre commonly seen in manga and anime and certainly one of the more unusual ones has to be the harem genre.

First, I should explain the origins of the word “harem” since that by itself explains quite a bit about what you’ll find when you begin to explore the genre. Harem is originally a Turkish word that referred to areas within a house that were exclusive to women. Interestingly, this word developed from the Arabic word “Haram” which literally translates as forbidden. However, the word harem tends to have a different definition in the English language, that being the women who make up a polygynous marriage. When it comes to the harem genre of manga, anime etc., it is this particular definition that is closest to what you will experience.

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Why Product Placement In Anime Is So Fascinating

Published July 15, 2021

Developing entertainment media can be quite an expensive process and there is always the risk that the media in question may end up losing money. Therefore, any attempt that can be made to guarantee revenue before the uncertain consumer spending comes into the picture can be incredibly important. I recently talked about the relationship between anime and sponsorships and I thought it might be fascinating to take a look at product placement in anime.

Firstly, I should explain what product placement is in general. When it comes to entertainment mediums such as movies or TV shows, product placement refers to any situation where a company that develops a product pays the creators of the movie/show to display the product in an overt fashion. This could be as simple as having the characters mention the brand in a sentence, having the brand appear in the background or it could show the characters using the product in question.

An image from Tiger and Bunny advertising Pepsi. — Tiger and Bunny had an interesting mix of real and fake product placement.

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The Interesting Relationship Between Anime And Sponsorship

Published July 1, 2021

When I was first getting into the hobby of anime, one of the first series that I began watching was Naruto. I collected the Manga Entertainment releases and, whenever I was watching them, there was an interesting moment that occurred after the opening but before the episode actually began. There would be a faded still image from the opening while a section of the opening music played again. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but, as the years went by, I eventually discovered that this spot was where the sponsors would be listed, also known as the sponsor card. Given this information, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the interesting relationship between anime and sponsorship.

First off, I should give some details when it comes to the sponsor card itself. They’re typically removed for streaming and home video releases (I honestly have no idea why they remained in the Naruto releases) but they can occasionally slip through. Whenever they show up, they are blank with no sponsors listed. This is because the anime company themselves only provide the still image with the sponsorships being added by the TV network they’re playing on.

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