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Anime - Anime is the affectionately
shortened name for animation in Japan. It's written in Katakana, as a derivative of English and
general refers to any animation conceived and drawn in Japan. There is however a certain style and method to anime
that can be recognized the world over as unique to Japanese animation. The
simple, exaggerated character features and surprisingly detailed settings
along with the actual thematic content, usually a coming of age story of some
sort. Some character’s development through a series of trials via uniquely
Japanese morals of perseverance and strength.
Baka - Japanese slang for stupid. It’s affectionately used to
describe every goofball, oddball, and erstwhile character in an anime.
Usually applied by a female toward a male, it’s best defined as the catch all
insult for a nerdy, insecure male (and sometimes female) who accordingly does
something stupid. Hence, Baka.
Cosplay – The unique and overwhelming practice by anime fans the
world over of dressing as their favorite anime and video game characters for
the sake of meeting up with other extreme fans and comparing their realism.
Because anime is drawn (mostly) to scale, and the clothing is generally
brightly colored and completely impractical, characters are easily recognized
on those who have a particular talent in this arena. Expos are held for cosplayers annually, as well as contests. It’s something
of an underground phenomenon in the culture that’s become much less
underground in recent years.
Doujinshi – The Japanese word for fan created manga based on existing
characters. Pretty much the anime equivalent of the Star Wars novels. There’s
a huge market for these fan created fictions in Japan, and because of the massive pool of talent they’re
often of equal or greater quality than the source material. Seems like a good
way to go. Keep your future employees on the outside, drawing for free.
Ecchi – A Japanese word that roughly translates to ‘pervert’.
Basically it’s used to describe all those school girl animes
in which the skirts stop about two inches above their panty line, and yet
somehow magically stay on. It’s not quite the caliber of Hentai
as it tries not to be pornographic, but the fan service and suggestive themes
quotient are fairly off the map.
Fan – For American anime connoisseurs
especially, the fan is one of the only ways to get access to some anime, and
until recently pretty much the only way. Fan stands for Fansubbing
(the fan produced subtitling of shows ripped straight from Japanese television ), Fandubbing (the
slightly less done, and often much funnier dubbing of the same material by
fans), Fanfiction (the written form of Doujinshi, often involving a whole lot of Ecchi), and Fan Service (in which a show will purposely
do something over the top or suggestive because they know that’s what their
fans are looking for). The fan is what floats the market for anime,
especially in America where until very recently the market was mostly a blackmarket.
Gundam – One of the original fathers of anime. Around for 25 or more
years now, Gundam has produced more than 25 series
and movies since it debuted in 1979, and continues to be one of the most
popular series on each every year, with an exponential growth of productions
of late. The show was one of the pioneers of the giant mech
anime and an underground favorite in America for years….and it makes for some pretty funny cosplayers.
Hentai – And of course, with any art form, when you have a large
enough fan base, someone perverts it. Pornographic anime has something that
normal pornography does not though, lots of creepy weird tentacles and
occasionally a plot. Yes, in line with many of Japan’s finer arts, Hentai does
try occasionally to inject a bit of intelligence into their mindless sex. And
the production quality tends to be higher even than normal productions.
Speaks to the nature of porn, I guess. It runs the industry.
Idol – The idol mentality runs the
Japanese pop culture sphere. Their singers are everywhere, their movie stars
are singers, their movie-star-singers are tv hosts. Their movie-star-singer-tv-hosts
are voice actors. It’s all cyclical and it means mass exposure in a crowded
country of a 140 million. And it leaks over in the shows they make, and the
mass production of the shows (usually one a week every week until the show’s
done…for some shows that’s years) and the production values all speak to this.
Jump – Shonen
Jump is the monthly manga publication in Japan that broke some of the biggest names in anime. Dragonball, Naruto, One Piece, Kenshin and so on. The super popular children oriented
anime that rules the charts comes out of this little gem repeatedly. And now
it’s here in the US. Power in circulation.
Kawaii – Japanese adjective for cute. And that’s how you describe
half of what they produce. Super cute, to the point of nausea at times. The
ability to turn the ugliest, most disturbing things into cute and cuddly
mascots is a distinctly Japanese ability. Just look at half of the Pokemon. Butt ugly, but cute nonetheless.
Love Hina –
Love Hina didn’t invent it, but it did it best –
the dorm fantasy anime that is. And it is its own subgenre
now. A dorky young male who has no luck with the
ladies finds himself thrown into a situation where he’s surrounded by women
daily, who ultimately assault him and make his life a living hell, at the
same time as falling in love with him. Ecchi
moments abound and often our altruistic hero ends up with a bloody nose on
the rocks outside of a hotspring somewhere.
Manga – Ah yes, the birthparent of the
whole thing. Manga is the comic book, hand drawn formula for the whole craze.
Started as an offshoot of the woodprint art forms of the 19th century and
earlier, Manga took compelling stories and serialized them into fun, easy to
read comic books. Not to say that the Supermans and
Detective Comics of America didn’t help this fad along.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
– A derivative of the giant mech anime, Evangelion broke into new legions of fans by being what
some anime had dared before, but few had fully succeeded at – mature and
intelligent. A common enough theme these days, Evangelion
managed to take biblical, complicated social, and personal themes and craft
them into an often times funny, apocalyptic epic 24 episode series and 2
films.
Otaku – in what is actually an insult
in Japan, translating roughly as ‘you’…but more commonly known
as 'no-life geek who spends all his time building GUNDAM models...' The
definition is slightly less caustic on our side of the Pacific, generally
referring to someone who merely enjoys the depths of Japanese pop culture,
watches anime after school, and draws characters from their favorite shows on
their notebooks. More of a clique in school than a mock-worthy subculture.
But, that is quickly changing of course, as the anime arena is growing so
rapidly here in the states.
Pokemon – Pokemon is the new generation of
child-oriented anime born of marketing necessity, used to sell video games,
video games used to sell the show. It’s been on for almost 10 years now, and
still new episodes pop up. If the Japanese do anything right, it’s sell stuff, and Pokemon
continues to sell, actually marketing to an entirely new generation of kids
these days.
Queen Emeraldas
– I’m copping out a bit here because Q as we all know is the crappiest letter
in the alphabet to do an ABC list with. Queen Emeraldas
is a good anime though. An OAV produced in 1998 as an offshoot of the Harlock and Galaxy Express 999 series, Queen Emeraldas continues the story of a popular character that
if you haven’t seen either of the previous shows will make no sense to you.
Rurouni Kenshin – Kenshin
is the epic tale of a wandering samurai in the Meiji era of Japan known as Kenshin. He finds a
small martial arts school in the new capital and after saving the young heir
he stays with her and undertakes various quests to help the government which
he helped to form a few years earlier survive. He’s an incredibly badass swordsman and attracts a nice little entourage of
characters. I don’t know if it’s the most important thing in the world in
terms of anime, but it’s one of my favorite shows, so it’s on the list.
Shoujo – The term used to describe anime targeted to young girls.
All the Sailormoons and Cardcaptor
Sakuras out there fit here. It’s actually a nice
niche to have and does extremely well here as well as Japan. It’s a testament to the popularity of a sub culture
when it actually takes the time to stop drawing violent battles between half
witted males to appeal to young girls as well.
Tezuka Osamu – The Walt Disney of anime, Dr. Tezuka
created Astroboy, Kimba
the White Lion, Metropolis and countless more anime classics that more or less
established the art form. He’s the guy you want to look at whenever you ask,
“who’s responsible for all this?”
Urusei Yatsura – A monstrously popular
1970s and 80s franchise spanning almost 200 episodes, 10 movies and a handful
of OVAs. It’s pretty much about a group of
“obnoxious aliens” (the actual translation) that invade and goof up earth.
They’re all girls, and were a part of the beginnings of what made Love Hina happen, a lecherous teenage boy surrounded by
strange, sexy women. Yup, they sure know how to make shows over there.
Voice acting – Come on. It is
animation right? Unlike the US animation sector, Japan’s voice acting pool is vast and actually talented. US companies use the same people over and over and pay
them peanuts, and they generally suck at what they do. In Japan, the respect from doing what they do is that much more
pronounced…and they don’t suck.
Wings of Honneamise
- Another landmark anime, this is the first film produced by super studio Gainax (the guys who did Evangelion
among others). It’s essentially a science fiction, military fantasy with some
twists to history and technology. One of my favorite examples of how anime
bends the genres in which it operates as well. It’s out there and that’s why
we love it.
X - Yup, just X. From Clamp, a group
of female artists whose fan base (and quality of workmanship) is obscene, X
is one of their earlier films, later made into a series. The style is best
described as Shoujo without the service to only
girls.
Yaoi – The slightly homosexual version of Ecchi,
Yaoi is usually a homoerotic fan service of male
characters in typical situations acting sexually ambiguous and often getting
rather close to each other. When out put is so
great, you can expect anything right, and the chic-gay of Yaoi
is immensely popular in Japan.
Z, Dragon Ball – I cheated again, so
what. Dragon ball Z was one of the key reasons that anime spread to the
mainstream here in the states after all, with a couple hundred episodes and
memorably long (and I mean looooong) fights, Dragon
ball Z captured the fan base of all the young violence prone kids nationwide
and kept them enthralled into their 20s (yeah, yeah…quit looking at me).
And
there you have it. 26 keys to understand the anime sub culture, a veritable
A-Z of what you need to know…minus Q and Z.
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