Forum - View topicInfluences on anime from classical western literature?
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AshVanguard
 Posts: 15 |
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Hi all
i am a big anime fan and wanted to tie this in with the dissertation i am doing for my degree in english, the only way i could tie this in and convince my idiot tutors that anime/manga was more than childrens cartoons was by doing my dissertation on the aforemented idea could any of you help me out? it could be anything, from shakespeare influences to canonical texts such as jane eyre, counte of monte cristal, dracula anything, famous texts much love 
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18455 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Your claim of going for a "degree in English" would be more convincing if your post was not rife with grammatical errors.
In a storytelling sense, anime doesn't take much direct influence from classical Western literature. It has, however, made (often inventive) adaptations of many classics from Western literature; the last few years alone have seem anime versions of Romeo and Juliet, The Count of Monte Cristo, Les Miserables, Anne of Green Gables, Moby Dick (kinda), and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea stories. Miyazaki's movies Howl's Moving Castle and The Borrower Arrietty are both based on stories by English writers, too. If you do a search for World Masterpiece Theater, you should find many older adaptations of classic works of Western literature. One series that might be worth looking at in this context is Princess Tutu, an original series which applies European sensibilities about fairy tale storytelling to a Japanese-style Magical Girl series. Overall, though, I think you're pushing it to come up with something anime-related for an English dissertation. But good luck! |
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AshVanguard
Posts: 15 |
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im badly dyslexic and i thought away from the anal tutors at my uni i would be safe from grammar nazis 
good ideas though, thinking of expanding it to film as well |
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Unicorn_Blade
 Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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As key already mentioned above, there is a few titles that were adaptations of Western classics (although I suppose you'd have to limit yourself to those written in English to actually make it work).
However, even if the anime mentioned may be enough to write up a dissertation, you might have problems finding sources to back up your point. There is a certain amount of books published on the subject of anime in general, but the subject you have chosen might be a bit too narrow to find a minimum number of relevant, academical sources that you need to prove your point- I dont know whether you have already considered that. And once you expand the topic, it will fall into a domain of a completely different subject. So although it might be a bit painful, Id suggest going for something elsethat you'd enjoy writing about 
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4630 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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is "dissertation" really the term you're looking for? You write dissertations at the end of your studies, they are exhaustive works based on months or years of study that come at grad school.
Whatever, I don't have a problem giving a hand, but don't alienate your tutors too much, they're going to be much more help to you than some anonymous guys in a forum. Anyways--- You'll have to look more broadly than adaptations if you want to prove that anime is influenced by western literature. Look at story form, the role of the hero, western philosophy. If this is a serious paper think of fine tuning your focus instead of widening it into film. For instance, look at differences and similarities in original Sword and Sorcery type stories between the west and east... Is Record of the Lodoss Warsinfluenced by Tolkien or Authurian Legend or is it just a samurai tale in European armor? I have no idea, won't do your reasearch for you but I do think you'll do better to look at themes and and how stories are told if you want a good paper. |
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AshVanguard
Posts: 15 |
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yes it is the term in looking for as i'm entering the final year of my English BA, and dissertations are generally 6 months long, not 'years' thanks for the help, would have been better without the arsey attitude though. |
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Pantha
Posts: 169 |
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I’ll take this time to announce that years ago I wrote an awesome paper (the professor even wrote that he wanted to talk to me after class) about social mores, using nothing but anime to support my thesis. The professor even let us use recorded media (as citations) if we so chose. I treated him to scenes from Angel Sanctuary and Revolutionary Girl Utena and others. …But enough about me.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Insteading of using the word influence, it'll be better to take an idea that was presented in a book and then write about an anime that used the same (or similar) idea to support what you’re writing about. Examples are below: Pride and Prejudice ------------ Emma: A Victorian Romance Frankenstein ----------- Elfen Lied, Monster, Fullmetal Alchemist Beowulf – any adventure shounen. If you don’t want to use Beowulf, heck, any Greek or Roman epic would do, as well. Gulliver’s Travels -------- Kino’s Journey Macbeth -------- Code Geass Count of Monte Cristo --------- Death Note If you want to talk about heroes in Western Literature, in my not-so-humble opinion, you can do no better than Berserk as an anime example. Good luck! Last edited by Pantha on Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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AshVanguard
Posts: 15 |
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Pantha i love you
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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There was nothing arsey about that other response, however your attitude kind of is. My dissertation took more than a year to finish, so it all depends on university/country, unfortunately we dont have a crystal ball here to figure out who you are and what you might have meant by what you said. If you are writing your BA dissertation though, you might have problems with sources as I said. Tutors/supervisors are usually the ones helping out with a lot of things in this regard, but if your supervisor has no idea about your chosen subject, and moreover has no interest or whatsoever in this field, you will struggle a lot to find relevant books/articles and will have no one to point out faults in reasoning. If they cant help you it does not mean they are idiots, but the theme of anime does not really relate to English lit and you might not find someone who will able to help you out, and I can guarantee you will need guidance at one point or another, evryone does. So yeah, either change your tutor or your subject. Specially that even if you write a good one, your tutor might still not like anime anyways. EDIT: The problem of influences or similar stories is... it is hard to prove in most cases that anime was actually inspired by a westenr concept. You will need to establish a very strong link between the source material and the anime, I am not sure if on BA dissertation level they will just let you compare lets say Count Monte Christo to Death Note. It migh be a bit too broad. But well, that's all up to your department and university, whether they will let you base your dissertation on something so vague, and whether you will be able to prove that it is all linked. |
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AshVanguard
Posts: 15 |
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i have just changed tutors to the lady who runs the film/adaptation module, she gave me a 2.1 last year for writing about the links between jane eyre/Rebecca in relation to Asa Nonami's 'Now You're One of Us' (great novel). she has a rough idea about anime and has seen the basic japanese film classics (Akira Kurusawa's 'Ran' , Battle Royale etc)
thanks for the help so far |
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pomocho
 Posts: 20 Location: Columbus, OH |
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Should we also count Toei's absoludicrous monster mash double-feature of Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned and Frankenstein? Granted, those have less to do with Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley than with Marv Wolfman, Marvel Comics, and copious amounts of LSD (or at least I presume), but perhaps we could argue that they are second generation adaptations of western literature (and textbook examples of adaptation decay). I mean, I'm sure Stoker might have originally envisioned Dracula as a hamburger-munching, disco-dancing street mugger cum pimp-daddy prince of darkness who, on his off days, battled both Satan and the Scooby Doo gang... but, alas, this re-imagining of the character was too bold, and it never came to fruition. That is, until Japan got ahold of the character. Thanks Japan!
I'm also surprised no-one has brought up the adaptations of The Diary of Anne Frank, The Dog of Flanders, and the gruesomely brutal and hyperviolent kids film, Call of the Wild. Last edited by pomocho on Thu Sep 16, 2010 1:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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I'm dyslectic too and English isn't my native language, but at least I try to write readable! Also treating your professors like idiots doesn't work, trust me.
Lots of the motives appear in stories around the world independently to one another. Archetypes like "love stronger than death", "revenge after years", "from zero to hero" don't have to tell that anime was inspired by western literature. We can say that "Death Note" takes similar problems as Crime and Punishment but it isn't shown directly that Russian novel was an inspiration. If you limit it just to the animes that they were claimed to be inspired by Western literature it doesn't solve the problem. Anime adaptations are usually veeery loose- watch RomeoxJuliet- it has nearly nothing in common with the drama, except the names. Do you have a courage to say that most of the changes in that kind of adaptations seems to be very stupid? If I were you I'd really take Kurosawa- it seems that he had been thinking before he wrote his conception of adaptation. What it left? World's Masterpiece Theater? Obscure Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor? And finally: what DN has to do with Count Monte Christo and VRE with Jane Austen? |
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Unicorn_Blade
Posts: 1153 Location: UK |
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That was what I was thinking. I mean, it is a dissertation for English after all. You cant really say that concept X definitely comes from this or that part of the world, so it is up to the tutor and the person who is writing the dissertation to find an approach that would enable to write something connected to the subject and relevant. Personally I think exploring the same themes in Western lit and anime might work if you concentrate on one single conceptand analyse it not in the connection to where it appeared, but on the way it is explored in different cultures, but it is still way too broad as a subject, dissertations tend to be more narrow... It's up to the OP to decide what they will go decide for. And as for DN and Monte Christo that was not my example actually I guess in both you have characters that try to play Gods, each one in their own way. But again, for me too loose to establish any sort of link...
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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I’m absolutely amazed by some of these felicitous examples. I have some more: Angel Sanctuary ------- Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri Nana ---------- Nana Émile Zola Kodomo No Jikan ---------Lolita Vladimir Nabokov Vampire Knight ---------Dracula Bram Stoker Akuma no Eros -------The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov Spiral ~ Lines of Reasoning ------------The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco This topic is so hilarious. |
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poilk92
 Posts: 433 Location: Long Beach California |
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anime is so every "eastern" examining it through the lens of western influence seems to cheapen it. Like asking the western influence on samurai or Buddhist monks. And yes i am playing the devil's advocate
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