Though different in style, the Japanese and American cultures
share an affinity that runs deeper than baseball and Pokemon. And
though cartoons are rarely taken seriously in America, the merits
of anime are starting to change perceptions as they make their way
west.
University of Texas professor Susan Napier demonstrated the
potency of Japanese animation Monday night in the UCLA EDA Space of
the Kinross Building. Sponsored by the department of design and
media art, Napier’s lecture touched on nostalgia and
liminality, or being in a continual state of transition, in the two
Japanese animation films “Spirited Away” and
“Serial Experiments Lain.”
While the topic may initially seem to be too deep an analysis of
what most consider to be popular culture, Napier assured the
audience that in “Spirited Away” in particular, you
can’t read too much into it. Recently released in America by
Disney, the Hayao Miyazaki film features the prototypical Japanese
“shojou,” or coming-of-age girl, trying to navigate a
strange, fantastic world a la “Alice in Wonderland.”
Napier connects it to issues of identity, nostalgia for traditional
Japan, and the fantasy of being in a transitional world.
“Miyazaki says he just let his subconscious flow on this
film,” Napier said.
In contrast with the colorful, lavish animation of
“Spirited,” “Lain” provides a much darker
view of a shojou.
“”˜Lain’ is also asking questions about God,
identity, and again (it) problematizes the family,” Napier
said.
With its depictions of dysfunctional family life, numbing
technology, and ominous conspiracies and secrets,
“Lain” provides a stark contrast to bright and shiny
American animation. Perhaps precisely because of this polarization
of the archetypal Disney film, American audiences are warming to
anime.
“In Japan, there is no border between being an artist and
working for a game company or anime production because animation
and games are respected fields,” said visiting professor
Machiko Kusahara, referring to anime and another Japanese import,
video games such as “Final Fantasy.”
Kusahara organized the lecture with associate professor Erkki
Huhtamo as part of a series of lectures called “Media
Bunka,” which invited mainly Japanese artists to speak about
their cutting-edge work. Kusahara introduced Napier as a current
authority on anime.
Yet, according to Napier, she didn’t really get interested
in anime until her students pointed her toward 1988’s
“Akira.” As the child of an art historian, Napier was
introduced to Japanese fine art at a young age, such as woodblock
prints, tapestries and scrolls. An expert on Japanese culture and
literature from Harvard, Napier brings her critical lens to anime,
which she says is ripe with culture.
“I consider anime, some of it at least, genuinely high
culture,” Napier said. “This is really
thought-provoking sophisticated work.”
“I teach anime, but I always say this is not an easy
A,” Napier added. “We’re going to talk about the
relation between technology and the body, technology and the
spiritual, questions of gender identity, pornography, violence
against women, and the whole question of violence in the
media.”
In Japan, the government actually supports anime with awards for
the annual achievements. It’s no mistake that Napier chose to
talk about “Spirited” and “Lain,” both of
which were past award-winners. With the lack of comparable support
of animation in the United States, Napier’s efforts are
considered by some as even more necessary to keep vital discussion
about the subject alive.
“I really appreciate Napier’s approach to deal with
anime from her background analyzing literature and film, making
relationships with other studies so that people here understand
that animation can be dealt with seriously as a field of
research,” Kusahara said.