Forum - View topicAnime is war
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caulfield
 Posts: 80 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Is it pretty much an accepted concept in the fandom that a large body of work in anime is inspired by the devastation which occurred during World War II, and in particular the horrific bombing of Hiroshima? And I don't only mean historic epics like Grave of the Fireflies and Barefoot Gen. I'm referring more to stories which reference apocalyptic power, like Doomed Megalopolis, Evangelion, Akira, and Laputa. So often these features seem like animated fables retelling a history which has proven difficult to speak of outright. Few of my RL friends seem to agree with me on this, but I'd like to know what the fandom thinks in general.
,Caul |
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king_micah
 Posts: 994 Location: OSU |
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Often anime is influenced by the battle over history. The Japanese want to remember Hiroshima. It makes them feel better about their nation because it makes them feel like victims. They refuse to live up to their 50 years of tyranny that stretches from Korea to Taiwan. They rather remember Hiroshima and Dewey and too often get in a poor little Japan mindset harmful to her development. Japan needs to accept her past to create a new path. Anime often exists outside mainstream culture in Japan and can challenge the victim stance. Historical manga as well as future manga have the guts to show Japan as a nation, but not as a holy nation. Mostly, though, the anime and manga show a picture of Japan that the elite of Japan deny, a country that is broken inside.
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caulfield
Posts: 80 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I agree with you somewhat, but often I sense the idea in anime that something as horrible as Hiroshima had to happen for Japan to develop past a certain point and progress to what it is now. Don't get me wrong, as horrible as I deem the idea of a single bomb destroying a city to be (no matter WHO uses it), I accept that there are reasons civilizations enter warfare and create such weapons. As for the victim syndrone, I find myself in disagreement, at least where anime is concerned. In End of Eva, a character said that such power (intrumentality I think, but I'm not getting into THAT) must be eliminated with no hope of humanity ever discovering it again, and specifically said "especially ol' Tokyo", which if Eva references WW2 at all does imply blame on Japan for its actions in global warfare. And in Laputa, the main characters accept the power and devastation of the spell of destruction as something which had to occur to restore balance and order because humanity could not be trusted with such power (either side in general).
And I am not really asking about the ethical angle of the issue here. I am just curious about the possible influence of a horribly tragic event over an artform. This occurrance is seen in many other works than Japanese animation. In literature for example, existentialism has many of its roots in the destruction caused by warfare. In cinema too, neo-realism originally came about as a style which protested film formula due to the extent that France and Italy were left annihilated by WW2. I am wondering here if it is a generally accepted notion that the recurring motifs of power unto destruction unto growth in anime are in any way influenced by the destruction of Japan as a country in the global warfare of the second world war. Thanks for the reply! ,Caul |
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