Anime

Anime, Japanese animated films, although technically similar to the child-oriented cartoon offerings of American animation studios, are distinguished by their adult themes and complex story lines. The word anime, sometimes written as animé to make the pronunciation clear, is a shortening of the English word animation.

The earliest Japanese animated films, which date from 1915, dramatized folk tales using traditional artistic techniques or imitated the pace and humor of Western cartoons. In 1937, under strict government censorship, animators were restricted to producing cartoons for military propaganda.

Following World War II, studios continued cartoon production. However, release of Osamu Tezuka's TV series Astro Boy (1963–1966), based upon his manga (Japanese comic book) series, transformed animation. The series' futuristic, action-packed story line, sparse graphics, and wide-eyed characters set the tone for future anime. Tezuka cited Disney's animations as his inspiration. The adventures of the boy robot Astro Boy, created to replace a scientist's dead son, were immediately popular. Astro Boy also became popular with American audiences. Following Astro Boy, Tezuka (who is considered today to be the father of anime) established animation as acceptable for all ages by creating ever more sophisticated stories with adult themes along with children's entertainment.

Anime are a commercial art form made for specific age groups, though most are for adolescents and teens. All genres found in live action films are used in anime, including children's stories, fairy tales, science fiction, fantasy, historical drama, romance, horror, paranormal, thrillers, and erotica and pornography. The most popular anime combine themes (action, romance, science fiction, etc.) and explore the shifting nature of identity in modern society.

Artistic styles vary widely, though anime studios generally have an established style that the artists follow. Fewer details and frame changes per scene Page 97 | Top of Articlethan most Western animation give anime a choppy feeling, though the artists make up for this by also including scenes with many more details and frames for emphasis.

From 1963 to the 1980s, most anime appeared on Japanese TV. In the 1980s, the introduction of video recorders allowed artists to create animation that did not conform to TV requirements for length, number of episodes, and costs. Popular titles were adapted to TV or film formats. Theatrical releases, half of Japan's film output in 1999, have higher production values. Anime that contemplates the fluidity of one's character in modern society and combines a science fiction, action, or romance motif have proven to be the most successful.

Many of the anime that followed Astro Boy replicated the series use of the science fiction genre, reflecting both society's fears about the destructive power of science and its positive attitude toward technological innovations. These stories were eclipsed by series that explored the problems of a technologically based society and by epics focusing on giant robots such as Gundam. (Originally introduced in 1979, Gundam movies and television series remain popular today.)

One aspect of anime that separates it from cartoons is reality. Heroes often fail or even die, sometimes without any apparent reason. Although this seems harsh, anime fans see it as reflecting real life, in which triumph and justice are not always accorded to those trying to do right and be good.

Though clearly set in an unreal landscape, Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, released in 1984, contained themes of environmental destruction that led to its brief banning in some European countries. The film created demand for socially conscious anime in both Japan and the United States. The significant alterations made to the American release, which changed it from a dark story of ecological danger to a rather tame adventure story, also led to Miyazaki's insistence on "no-edit" clauses for future releases. Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2002) won the Oscar for best animated feature-length film at the 2003 Academy Awards, and his film Howl's Moving Castle (2004) set box office records when it was released in Japan.

American imports increased in the 1990s, with some on TV (Sailor Moon, 1995–1997; Gundam, 2001) and others on video or DVD. In 1998, Ghost in the Shell (1995) topped the Billboard video sales charts. Twenty anime series were broadcast on American TV in 2003. Some fans complain that editing to remove objectionable content, generally sex and violence, turns anime into cartoons; these fans prefer DVD releases, which allow selection of original, dubbed, or subtitled versions. Controversial is the prevalence of fansubs (fan-created subtitles) for bootleg series not released in America. Some fans decry this; others claim fan translations create demand for the DVD.

Most American fans are teens and college students. Many American fans consider Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira (1988), which graphically depicts government corruption and individual alienation in modern society, to best illustrate the genre's vitality.

Studies of anime suggest that it can play a positive role in a variety of literacies. A study of the impact of the Pokémon anime series, which was introduced on American TV in 1996, suggests that, far from being detrimental to learning and literacy, anime encourages an active, pleasurable learning experience that can help improve literacy. Studies also suggest that anime, along with manga, are a particularly rich source for the production of fan fiction by adolescents. Fan fiction, or fanfic, is genre of text production in which fans use popular culture to provide a starting point for their own stories. The construction of fan fiction, which is often written in collaboration, allows adolescents to learn to read texts more deeply and contributes to development of their literacy skills.

—Tamara Swenson

Japanese Art, Contemporary

The signs of Western childhood play a very prominent role in post–World War II Japanese popular art, which has become increasingly global in its reach. This imagery, which is loosely called anime, takes many forms, including animated films, books, still drawings, playing cards, clothing, accessories, and toys.

Begun in reaction to the events of World War II, anime have been described as both evidence of Japanese cultural vitality in the face of trauma and an escape from it. The great anime pioneer Osamu Tezuka codified the genre in the 1960s, establishing an anime facial type and a distilled drawing style that eschews fluid realism and emphasizes metamorphosis. Overall, the look of anime has been dubbed "superflat." Classic examples of anime film include Princess Mononoke (1997) by Hayao Miyazaki (the highest-grossing Japanese film of any genre) and Ghost in the Shell (1995).

The salient characteristic of Japanese popular art within the history of childhood is its wholesale adoption of distinctly Western conventions for representing the ideal of innocent childhood–hybridized with traditionally Japanese manga comic drawings and mainstream Western cartoons. Most importantly, the large, round-eyed facial features of the stereotypically innocent child quickly became the standard mode of representing anime heroes and heroines, despite their clear racial difference from Japanese facial features. The complete roster of Western childhood toy and costume imagery also reappeared in anime, and, intensified, has spread through Japanese popular culture to become a popular esthetic, sometimes called kawaii.

Kawaii can be translated as "cute," "cool," "pretty," and "sweet," but also "smart" and "elaborate." But although the Western image of childhood is often translated into Japanese culture in a hyper-cute mode, just as often anime are about extremes of sex and violence (and also often deal with post-nuclear environmental issues). The stereotype of the Western schoolgirl, for instance, dressed in white blouse, pleated plaid skirt, socks, and flat shoes, has become a highly sexual image in Japanese popular art. The many people, referred to as otaku, who are preoccupied with kawaii, anime, and manga, are hardly all children, but rather a growing group of all ages that has spread outward from JAPAN.

Since the mid-1990s, the globalization of culture in general, and, more particularly, trends in contemporary high art to adopt the styles of popular art, have brought attention to Japanese popular art on a new scale. The work of leading otaku artists such as Yoshimoto Nara and Takashi Murakami are now widely exhibited in the West in galleries and museums. Western artists, moreover, have begun to incorporate anime imagery into their traditions, causing the stereotypes of childhood to reappear where they came from in radically new modes. A group of artists led by the award-winning French conceptual artist Pierre Huyghe, for instance, created a series of works made between 1999 and 2002, collectively titled No Ghost Just a Shell, based on an anime girl character called Annlee. These works addressed a range of distinctly adult concerns. As with other aspects of a post-modern, global culture, the signs of what was once considered inherently natural, in this case innocent childhood, have been detached from their content.

ANIME

Anime, the Japanese term for animated films, refers to Japanese animation. Since the early 1950s, when the father of anime, Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989), created such famous series as Jungle taitei (known in the United States as "Kimba the White Lion") and Tetsuon atomu (known in the United States as "Astro Boy"), Japan has produced a stream of innovative and original animated films. Artistically, anime are known for their use of color, their textured and detailed backgrounds and foregrounds, and their complex camera points of view, which approximate those of acted films. Sympathetic characters are often depicted with enormous eyes, oddly colored hair, and childlike features. Story lines tend to be complex, and many anime appear as long series of episodes, with a multitude of characters and subplots.

Anime often have their roots in manga (comic books, or graphic novels), though not always; in recent times computer games have also inspired anime, as in the case of Pokemon. Other children's anime that have crossed the Pacific to intrigue U.S. audiences include Mach Go! Go! Go! (U.S. "Speed Racer"), Uchu senkan Yamato (U.S. "Starblazers"), Dragonball Z, and Sailor Moon. There are also many anime aimed at an older audience, which feature graphic sex and violence. Some anime are serious films; Princess Mononoke, the 1999 U.S. version of a full-length animated film by Japan's premier anime director, Miyazaki Hayao, received critical acclaim in the United States.

Michael Ashkenazi and Francesca Forrest

Lrn2screamaimfire!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoT1oRnSK88
Bullet For My Valentine~Scream Aim Fire!

Hitomi Takahashi + Beat Crusaders (who the f? ) - Wo Ai Ni

I'M SO GETTING THIS ALBUM ^_^ THIS IS HOW ANIME SONGS LIKE XD







Anyone who doesn't like this song will be like my arch nemesis on AE!

Is it mah turn to nerd rage defend?