THE BIG BOOM OF JAPANIMATION
By Leslie Chung
Let's look at the trend of Japanese animation all over the world with meaningful eyes. Have you watched any Japanese animation on TV? If you have, do you know what a term "Henshin" means? Does it seem unfamiliar to you? Well, if you are a Japanese animation fan, you could easily explain the strange term just like this. "Henshin is one of frequent terms used in Japanimation. This word means a character transforming. Good examples of Henshin are transformation sequences in magical girl shows such as Sailor Moon." Wow, one learns Japanese from watching TV Japanimation shows. Go to any search web site and type a word 'Japanimation' on the blank of search engine. After few seconds, you surely will end up with a great number of web sites about Japanimation to open. All of the web developers are not professional animators or critics in the Japanimation field, but they are ordinary people who are eagerly interested in Japanese animations after watching them, and become a kind of Otaku of Japanimation. What is the otaku? Yes, you now notice there are coming out several unfamiliar words related to the Japanimation from the beginning of this article in order to know what Japanimation is and what its impacts are on the world, especially, on western cultures. Back to the story, Otaku is a Japanese describing maniac fan of Japanimation. Lots of people who are very enthusiastic for the animation called themselves Otaku. You can see this term Otaku online without any difficulty. How these various Japanese terms are common used in the world nowadays? It needs to explain the brief history of Japanese animation.
The trend of Japanimation was originated from the western coast of the United Stated including Hawaii. In 1963, the first TV animation "Atom" was introduced as a TV animation show in the western coast with other animations, but people here didn't notice those animations were made in Japan. However, after a Japanese animation "Robotech" was on the air in all U.S. in 1982, people became interested in the Japanese animation. The number of them increased rapidly in Texas, and New York and Canada. Soon, they made a lot of Japanese animation fan clubs and published magazines. Those fan club members transported by air videotapes recorded Japanese popular animations from Japan as soon as the animations were showed on Japanese TV. Eventually, they visited Japan in-group, and toured around all the places related to animations, as well as the editing rooms of Japanese animation magazines. Due to the situations, Japanese mass media made a new term Japanimation by combining a word "Japan" with "animation." The big boom of Japanimation continues all over the world thesedays. Miyazaki Hayao, one of famous Japanese animators contracted with Walt Disney, and his animations are spread to the world throughout the high world distributions of Walt Disney.
In America, the number of Otaku is increasing more and more, and otaku culture is formed. One of good examples of this culture is Otakon, annual Otaku convention in the state of Pennsylvania. This event takes place for japanimation fans who are fascinated with Japanese Cartoons. In the event, most of participants wear costumes that are same dress to the characters in Japanimation. How about a situation in Europe? In France, the Department of Culture decided to limit the Japanimation show time in TV because they believe almost one hundred percentage audience rating on TV Japanimation shows is a kind of Japan's cultural invasion. While seeing the great popularity of Japanimation beyond the border of a country, I want to mention one important point view. It is that so called japanimation is the made-in Japan animation as it is. That is to say, Japanimation is a product that made in Japan, for Japanese, and on a basis of Japanese emotion. Even though animation is based on the imaginary world, it is one piece of one's culture, and is related to a country's social situation, economy, politics and nationality. Japanimation is not only a genre of art or multimedia, but also Japanese own imaginations invented on the very concrete and limited culture. If so, I really wonder whether foreign watchers properly and clearly understand these japanimation, which is made by Japanese, in Japanese language, and for Japanese audiences. And I also wonder whether its own emotion or culture in Japanimation does not give any heterogeneous feeling to foreigners. Although current animators are targeting their audience toward the world, it is unchangeable truth that their animations are made in Japanese, for Japanese and in their own language. How does this influence on children? Children all over the world are now falling in love with Pokemon. The Japanimation "Pokemon" (A short form of "Pocket Monsters") is developed as a variety of character products, such as cards and dolls, after introduced as a TV animation show, computer game and a movie. Lots of children are trading these character products with a high price each other in school. Therefore, the Pokemon become big issue in the educational aspect now in U.S. and Canada. Moreover, when this TV animation was networked in 1997 in Japan, more than 700 people, mainly school children, were rushed to hospitals suffering convulsions, vomiting, irritated eyed and other symptoms after watching Pokemon. A Japanese television network called in doctors, psychologists and animation experts to find why the cartoon triggered seizures in hundreds of children nationwide. Dr. Yukio Fukuyama, a juvenile epilepsy expert, said that these symptoms could be happened by five seconds' flashing, colourful lights in the eyes of Pikachu, one of main characters in this cartoon. But, the clear cause was not presented. Nevertheless, this animation was exported to all over the world with the computer game "Pocket Monsters" which was developed by Nintendo. The children in the world totally immersed in the program. Various additional products are also produced constantly. Now, let's evaluate Japanimation very simply. 1) Characters in the story are very various. 2) Graphic effects and pictures are cool. 3) Story-frames are well organized and concrete. 4) The contents reflecting Japanese own culture are unique, and they could be interesting to foreigners. There are plenty of good characteristics in Japanimation. However, the more japanimation's popularity is, the bigger the impact of Japanimation as a part of multimedia field over the world is. We are living in the era that needs to see the world with a more international point of view. The time that we could say whether the japanimation's popularity in the world animation market and its big impact on our culture are right or wrong had already passed. However, I feel that we are missing something important if we watch the Japanimation's worldwide impact on our contemporary culture meaninglessly.
