Anime,
Hollywood and Hybridity
Anime, Japanese limited animation
video, along with manga, the Japanese comic
books on which it is often based, form a large part of the Japanese visual
arts. Both share a distinct style that has become popular around the world over
the past several decades as many manga and anime have been exported to the
United States and many other countries worldwide. They have also had a major influence
on American TV and movies and have been inspired by them in return. Like their
American counterparts, manga and anime earn tens of billions of dollars each
year making the Japanese and American industries the dominant visual
entertainment providers in the world (Davis xiii). My goal in this paper is to
discuss the symbiotic relationship that has existed from the start between the
Japanese anime industry and the American Hollywood industry and to explain how
this influence and adaptation on both sides has led to the current popularity
of hybridization of styles in Hollywood television series and live-action
movies.
Anime and manga have always
reflected the Japanese culture and history. As Frederik L. Schodt
wrote in the foreword of Japanese Visual Culture:
Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime, “They are an open window onto
the Japanese id, a view – not necessarily of reality itself – but of a
culture’s aspirations, dreams, nightmares, fantasies and fetishes” (Schodt vii).
People in the West find the Japanese anime and manga to be quite different from
the American animated films and cartoons. They are drawn to the interesting stories, different animation and the
memorable characters. Also, manga and anime can be seen as a way for foreigners
to better understand the Japanese culture. While Japan has assimilated a lot of
Western culture in recent years, it has retained a lot of its customs, food,
and etiquette, and glimpses into these are seen in anime and manga (Odell Kindle
Location 390-391).
Japanese anime artists have drawn from
their historical and cultural past to create their unique product that has
attracted significant interest from audiences in nations around the world.
Manga and anime's success can be attributed to the creative talent of Japanese
artists in different visual media throughout the past century. The artists who
make the current anime turn to the work of manga artists and creators of films
for sources of creative material and artistic techniques. Japanese films, which have been praised for
their artistic qualities, have had a significant impact on today’s manga and
anime. Many of the cinematic techniques used in film were adopted by the
artists who developed the distinctive style of manga comics, and these
techniques continue to be used today both in manga and in anime.
However, while we see anime as a Japanese
art form, the industry was not developed in a vacuum. American films and
television shows have been shown in Japan since the post-World War II period,
and anime products have been extremely popular in America since the
introduction of Astro Boy in 1963.
Anime artists have been influenced by the visual arts of the United States (and
other countries), including live action and animated films and television
shows. And, in return, anime releases have had a serious impact on American
television and film industries.
While the first anime was made around a
hundred years ago, the modern anime industry got its start after World War II. World War II and Japan’s subsequent defeat brought a halt
to most visual art production. After the war, Japan’s infrastructure was
severely damaged and they were lacking in resources. Therefore, their anime
industry was curtailed. As a result, the wealthier United States was the first
to send animated shows abroad. Western animation, especially Walt Disney
films, such as Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, and Sleeping Beauty, flooded Japan (Clements
203-205). The Japanese people packed the theaters to watch these movies.
American television shows also were sent over to Japan. The first American series that was shown was the animated Superman (1955). This was followed by Popeye, Huckleberry Hound, and The Flintstones (Davis 188). Soon after,
there came live action shows. These movies
and TV shows influenced early modern anime artists but, over time, these
artists created their own unique style which is quite different from that of
the West.
During the rise of TV, it
was interesting that the American live-action shows, not
American cartoons, inspired the anime artists. For example, the live action Adventures of Superman, not the
Fleischer cartoon version, was most popular in Japan. It was one of the
highest-rated TV shows ever in Japan (Clements 203-205). This is probably because the Japanese audience wanted more mature
shows that would appeal to adults as well. When Batman came to Japan, the mangaka who was adapting it realized he
had to change some of the childish aspects. He felt the Japanese would not
understand why Batman would stop to answer riddles in the middle of a
life-or-death situation. Artists on both sides of the ocean
came up against cultural differences like this that confused the viewers in their
country (Davis 189).
Bewitched
and
I Dream of Jeannie were two other
live action TV shows that inspired adaptations by the Japanese anime industry,
including Little Witch Sally in 1966 and Comet-San in 1967. These shows would refine their stories and their
characters in later seasons and, along with Osamu Tezuka’s
Marvelous Melmo (1971), would help
create the anime genre of Magical Girls (Davis
188).
An increase in anime production was seen
in the 1960s with the rise in TV ownership.
Japanese television viewers questioned why Japan did not have its own TV
shows for them to watch, so eventually, the Japanese anime industry responded
to the influx of American TV shows by creating their own shows. This gave the
anime artists a new audience for their shows and they responded by making
made-for-television series (Poitras 50).
With
the entrance of manga artists, especially Tezuka Osamu, into the world of anime,
Japan’s anime industry came into its own. Many manga artists began working on
anime by the late 1960s, but the industry has Tezuka to thank for much of its
distinct style. While he wanted to be an animator he started working as a
mangaka, and soon became Japan’s most popular manga artist as he developed the
style of manga that is popular today, earning him the title of God of Manga (Ito 35). Tezuka changed
the style in which stories are told from a straightforward stage-like approach
to a more action and emotionally oriented style (Phillipps 68). He wrote
complex stories that would stretch scenes out, creating works that unfolded
like films, using cinema techniques to tell the stories and get emotions
across.
Tezuka’s
Tetsuwan Atom or Astro Boy, which was the first anime to be broadcast outside of the
country, was based on his manga series also called Tetsuwan Atom and is “generally taken to mark the beginning of a
new age in Japanese animation” (Clements 116). While Astro Boy was a hit in America, it was not seen in its
original state. Again, changes had to be made due to cultural differences
between the two countries. Sex and violence images had to be altered and
religious imagery was removed. Most of the machine gun action emanating from
Astro Boy’s rear end was cut. Also, since death is seen as inappropriate in
American children’s entertainment, the audience was told a corpse was
unconscious (Davis 205-208).
In
the time since Astro Boy, American audiences have loved Japanese anime and
their Western adaptations. Japanese television series, such as Dragon Ball Z, Rurouni Kenshin, Naruto and One Piece, have filled time slots on
Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and other media sites, and fans can’t get enough.
Cartoon Network even created a block of airtime called Toonami that featured
anime to satisfy fans. Due to anime’s popularity, foreign companies began
investing directly in Japanese works so they could obtain the rights. For
example, Manga Entertainment invested in Ghost
in the Shell (1995). Now, some anime companies will not even start
production until they have foreign investment (Clements and McCarthy 203-205).
Of course, you could say that Japanese and
American visual works have always been hybrids, in that they have taken aspects
of each other’s styles and made them their own. For example, Osamu Tezuka took
his iconic large eyes from Betty Boop and Bambi. And as we have seen throughout
the history of modern animation, animators from the United States and Japan
have adapted each other’s works for their own audiences, making changes as
necessary. This back and forth between Hollywood and the anime industry
continues to this day. But, while the two industries have a lot in common due
to their shared past, they have developed distinct products and have tended to
continue to create works in their own style. When Hollywood was not adapting
anime, it was making American style works.
However, a new trend has become popular in
recent years. In Manga & Anime Go to Hollywood,
Davis talks about the current inclination by Hollywood to incorporate anime
techniques and styles in what he refers to as “hybridity” (Davis xiv-xv). In these works, the artists, writers
and directors make a conscious decision to mix styles, taking from each as they
see fit. So now we are noticing classic tropes and styles from anime inserted
into Hollywood animation and live action films.
We see this hybrid approach in the
Wachowski sibling’s Matrix Trilogy and Speed Racer films. The Matrix was the Wachowskis’ first attempt to create a hybrid
anime/Hollywood style live-action film. In
describing how they first pitched their idea for The Matrix, Joel Silver, their
producer said, “the Wachowski brothers showed me Ghost in the Shell and they showed me what they wanted to do with
that type of action and photography and make it with real people, with real
actors, and create a hybrid” (Davis 21). While the
movie is a Hollywood action film, it has a lot of anime features. The
design team on The Matrix studied the
movement of the characters in anime and wanted to achieve the same effect in
their live action film, so they designed a camera rig that replicated the anime
approach of shooting a scene from several angles. This enabled them to mimic
the time decompression seen in anime (Davis 22). They also had the actors train in wire-stunt work so they could
get the controlled, stylized movement of anime fight scenes (“The Matrix”).
The Wachowskis took the idea of hybridity
further in the Matrix family with the
creation of Animatrix, an anthology
of nine short animated stories based on the world in The Matrix. The work involved the collaboration of Japanese and
American animation artists and directors, with much of the work being done in Japan
(Davis 196).
The Wachowski’s live action adaptation of Speed Racer incorporated features from
the original Japanese anime and the Americanized version. It also included
classic manga/anime tropes such as speed lines and sliding backgrounds to give
the impression of motion. The film’s visual effects supervisor John Gaeta described
a process the team developed to achieve an anime look in live-action as follows: “We would take the real world, treat
it as if it was animation layers, repaint, recompose, but in our version of it
we would add some other stuff. We would add really super fancy 3D in the
foreground like cars, crazy cars, and we wanted the crazy cars so that we could
do outrageous action [like often occurs in manga/ anime]” (Davis 248). This live-action adaptation was a
really well executed example of anime/Hollywood hybridity.
Several other fairly recent movies have
been heavily influenced by anime. Daron
Aronofsky, the director of Requiem
for a Dream and Black Swan, paid for the rights to Satoshi Kon’s anime
Perfect Blue. He copied the bathtub
scene for Requiem directly from the
anime. Also, Black Swan has many
similarities to the anime, though he denies the influence. (Osmond) Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim is
another example of an anime influenced film. He acknowledges that he grew up on
anime and was influenced by Gigantor and Tetsujin 28. Pacific Rim has classic
Japanese monsters that are even called kaijū in the movie (Donovan).
In recent animated television
series, we are seeing hybrid animated shows that have the look of American
cartoons, but feature some elements of anime as well. What is different about
these hybrids is that the artists are not trying to make an anime-like Western
creation. In Avatar: The Last
Airbender, the artists expressed their love of anime and Eastern philosophies
and produced what could be considered an Ameranime - an American cartoon with
an anime-esque style. The designers specifically set out to make an anime-like
series. On the other hand, Steven Universe is an example of the new hybrid. In this
way, Steven Universe can be set apart
from explicitly anime-like Western creations. The hybridity is seen in the
character design, where the characters have traits of both anime and American
animation. They each have their own style, some having purple or spiked hair of
anime, but are more simply drawn like American cartoons as seen in the faces
and eyes. Steven Universe places
these hybrid characters in aesthetic-driven scenes with multiple camera angles
and background music usually found in anime, while using more American style
narratives. The show manages to
work with its mix of both art forms.
The anime industry and Hollywood have both
benefited from the assimilation of aspects of each other’s art forms that has
taken place since the end of World War II. This has really helped both groups
develop their own style that has resulted in many great works of art on both
sides of the Pacific. Audiences have enjoyed these works, and the current
generation has been exposed to both forms throughout their lives. I think the
mixing of styles that we are experiencing in the newer hybrid works, such as The Matrix and Speed Racer, is the way
of the future. American filmmakers have grown up reading manga and watching
anime and truly appreciate many aspects of these art forms. They are more
capable of understanding the subtleties found in the Japanese works and to
reference them appropriately. This is a lot different than taking a Japanese
show and changing it to make it more American. The fact that these filmmakers
are purposely incorporating anime styles into their own work, and in some cases
working with the anime artists, is a tribute to the anime and manga industries.
I hope we see more of this cooperation, as it will be beneficial to the viewing
audiences.
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