Anime and Manga

Today we have had a rather exiting theme to work with. We had a few texts in our book to work with and all of them where centered on Japanese English and culture. I worked on this with Heidi Emilie, Julie and Marie. The theme we chose to focus on was anime and manga. For me this was perfect since anime and manga is a personal hobby of mine.

Anime and manga are similar to comics in the western world, but there are many differences. For example an anime usually has a lot more episodes and they are much more connected to each other. Because of this we get to know a lot more about the main characters and we get much more into the story. This makes anime very addictive, which I know very well. The drawings are also very different from American comics. In shojo-anime (girls anime) the drawings are very beautiful and perfect, and in shonen-anime (boys anime) the drawings are not always as flawless but still very different from other comics. Even though the anime series are called boy’s and girl’s anime they are suited for both genders.  Anime does not only suit both genders, but also all ages. It is a common misunderstanding that anime, like comics, are a children’s thing. Many anime series are directed at young adults and a lot of them also have a age limit at 17+.

Another difference between anime and comics is that in anime there are a lot of references to Japanese culture.  This can be all from festivals and cherry blossoms to references to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many anime series are inspired by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was first after this crisis the anime became an important part of Japanese culture. The references are not usually direct, but in anime it is not uncommon that the story ends tragic of that the main characters are orphans. A lot of anime series also have some kind of disaster that could destroy the world in them. Other than this anime series also contains more violence and grotesque scenes than comics.  Examples of anime series that has some kind of hidden reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is: The spaceship Yamato, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira and the movie Barefoot Gen.

In class today my group decided to watch an anime and compare the culture to ours. We watched Ouran High School Host Club which is an anime about some students in a school for rich people who are in a Host club. They are, as they say in the prologue, boys with way too much time on their hands who entertain girls who also have way too much time on their hands. From this anime we managed to come up with a lot of cultural differences and similarities. First of all, Japanese people use honorifics just like in English. Like the English people use Mr., Mrs. and miss, Japanese people use san, kun, sama, chan, sempai and so on. These are added in the end of a person’s name and all have different meanings. For example using sama means that you are talking to a person you have a high opinion of or who has a high position in the society.

Another difference is that it seems they are much more open to homophiles and cross dressers in Japan.  I think this is a good thing because and hope that the western culture will take after them. They are also very straight forward in the way they talk. I also noticed something that I find very interesting. Although they speak Japanese in anime series, they use English slang words just like they do in Norway. It is very funny when you suddenly realize that you can understand what they are saying. The intro song to several anime series that I have seen also has an English name. You can hear them sing some words in English and the rest in Japanese. This shows that also in Japan, which is a country very fond of their culture, English has a great influence.

I think that we were pretty productive today and I like the way we were allowed to work in our own way. I am also fascinated by Japanese culture and hope that we will learn more about it.

Sources:

Anne Thelle, Anime – hva er det?, oslo 2009, Omnipax

The Movie vs. The Book

Once again I will write a blog post about the kite runner. This time I am going to compare the movie and the book. Truth be told, I have not seen the entire movie, but I can compare the book to the part I have seen.

As far as I can tell the movie has been very true to the book. Of course there a few scenes here and there that has been cut too much for my taste, but when you make a book into a film it is unavoidable. There are also a lot of mistakes with the characters in the movie that makes it a bit difficult to immediately understand which characters they are. What I mean by that is that a lot of the characteristics from the book have been dropped in the movie. Examples of this are Hassan’s harelip, Assef's blonde hair and Ali being crippled.

In English class we have made a double entry journal about the kite runner. I will now compare what I wrote about self realization to the movie.

In my double entry journal I wrote about the moment when Hassan is leaving the house and Amir is watching him from the window. I used the quote "I was sorry, but I didn't cry and I didn’t chase the car." that can be found on page 94 in the book. I used it because I thought it was a good example of self realization. In the book Amir compared Hassan leaving to a Hindi movie, which was something Hassan and Amir enjoyed watching. In a Hindi movie Amir would have run after Hassan and cried and said he was sorry, but in real life he just stood there. I was moved to tears by this in the book, but in the movie I just didn't feel it.

In the movie this scene only takes a few seconds. You can see Amir looking out of the window, the car leaving and that's it. I believe that this was an important turning point that got way to little attention in the movie. I can understand that it is difficult to use the Hindi movie comparison in a film since we can't hear what Amir is thinking, but still it was disappointing. If I had only seen the movie and not read the book, I would not have marked this scene as an important moment of self realization.