Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!news.heimat.gr.jp!news.tutrp.tut.ac.jp!news.cc.tut.ac.jp!nfeed.gw.nagoya-u.ac.jp!news-sv.sinet!ns04b.ous.ac.jp!nd-os001.ocn.ad.jp!dojima-n0.hi-ho.ne.jp!not-for-mail From: Ernest Schaal Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: Re: RASHOMON Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 21:09:12 +0900 Organization: hi-ho Internet. Lines: 82 Message-ID: References: <1108439605.544379.140890@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <42133E63.7600F77A@yahoo.co.jp> <1108589259.092407.72510@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1108676590.202043.39580@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: gif2-p180.flets.hi-ho.ne.jp Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dojima-n0.hi-ho.ne.jp 1108728673 85553 219.126.225.181 (18 Feb 2005 12:11:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: dojima-n0.hi-ho.ne.jp NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 12:11:13 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.1.0.040913 Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:25360 in article cv4jqn$l57$1@bgsv5647.tk.mesh.ad.jp, kuri at cc@dotmel.cam wrote on 2/18/05 8:33 PM: > > "Ernest Schaal" wrote in message > >> What I was going to expand on is comments on anime, especially the non-porn >> type. I don't hate anime, I just think that it is a genre that hasn't >> produced as good cinema > > It has not produced any cinema at all as it's a different thing. Anime appears in both film and television. The film part is definitely a film genre, like the Western, or the samurai flicks, or film noir detective movies. >> Over the years, I have seen a lot of anime, more so when I was away from >> Japan. Much of the anime seems to be television based, with the movies being >> simply longer versions of the television series that have been around for >> years. Often, the films are not as good as the series upon which they were >> based. > > That doesn't make people that appreciate animes otaku or childish. The > Japanese anime amateurs I know are not otakus. By definition otakus don't go > out so I have no idea what they watch and probably we'd be surprised. Anime does seem to be targeting those two demographic groups: the otaku and the children. > At the local shotengai, when they show animes, I see families (parents + > kids, grand-parents + kids, parents without the kids, grown-up kids in > couples, small groups of OLs, etc...), very few people on their own. As a > gaigin, when I visit people's houses I do what nihonjins do when they visit > my place, I indiscretly check all the objects/books/videos that are in their > living-room. In Osaka, many families have a number of animes, and they watch > that in family, that means often without kids. These people are not > particularly fan of the morning brats. > > In France, in this season, they are doing the Japanese anime festivals and > the audience is also hard to put in one category, the 3 unrelated persons > that mailed me about it this year are people in their 50's that went the > first time with pre-teen kids and now go on their own. They are people that > are very sensitive to the easthetic and atmoshpere of anime, even of > relatively plain ones. France thought that Jerry Lewis was a film genius. Go figure. > Now about the *porn* comment. I imagine (and I'm not interesting in > checking) that there exist very specialised *adult anime* sold more or less > openly. We are not talking about that. > > There are more or less *familial* ones, but a symbolic rape by a plant or > Nobita-kun having fantasies don't make a mainstream anime obscene. I have > not grown up in a puritan society that tries to hide nudity and the > existence of erotism and sex to children, so I don't see the necessity for > that. And I think in addition it's impossible to really cut that aspect of > life from fiction, and children need to hear about it. You've read the > psychanalistic works about traditional "kiddie" litterature (Bettleheim, > etc) ? That was written in your time, I think. > > I don't think the people that refuse the presence of that aspect of life and > the unreasonable fantasies in fiction can like movies, litterature or even > graphical art. Do you put your hand on your eyes to avoid seeing "crass > porn" when you visit your ukyo-e expositions ? > > Certainly everything is not good for everybody. But in Japanese context, you > get more risks to feel ill at ease with *officially good* litterature (like > Kawabata's Sleeping beauties) than with your average anime. My problem with the porn anime is not that it is erotica, but that it tends to be poor erotica. > People that like that don't come to tell me opera is a porn-otaku-childish > thing... I don't understand your attack on anime's audience. Unless that was > a joke. Again, I was talking about the target demographics. There is some anime that I like, like there are some Disney films that I like. In both cases, some of the films are good enough to cross over into adult audiences.