I’ve been thinking about The Canon for a while. And, no, I’m not a misspelling perv. But I am a recently-graduated English major that had a large amount of books to think about over the course of four years.
Regarding the concept of a canon, I define it as the fundamental works of a type of media (books, movies, etc.), but more specifically those fundamental works with which a reader (viewer, consumer, whatever) may grasp an elementary understanding of how the media (or a subset of the media) operates as media. For example, the Bible is a critical part of the Western canon of literature not just because it remains the leading text of more than one of the world’s major religions, but also because it has a rich history of dissemination around the world, on top of some of the best (and probably influential) narrative structure in world literature. Another example, for film, would be Orson Wells’ Citizen Kane. While not the most enjoyable movie, it remains one of the foundational films on which film students build their academic careers.
To transition bluntly, a canon for Japanese animation is difficult to generate. However, the anime fandom — or what we know of it in America — has obsessed over “the best” anime for decades, even if we have no idea what we’re really talking about. There have been books detailing “the major works” of the key Japanese directors and animators of anime — such as Patrick Drazen’s Anime Explosion: The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation (even though I’m not sure why Key: The Metal Idol was ever included) and, less so about the canon but still popular (why?!) amongst academics, Susan Napier’s Anime: From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle. Even Lawrence Eng, our forefather of academic otaku studies in America, has written about the topic too, with “A Look at the Four Revolutions of Anime.”
I won’t go into much detail about how American fandom, at least contemporary fandom, is relatively ignorant of even the major cultural works of Japanese animation (eg., the hordes who have never watched the original Gundam, given its huge impact not only on otaku but Japanese culture in general — read: Odaiba Gundam; and I won’t even go into the influences that Astro Boy lent to modern robotics). The evidence for the (passive-aggressive?) statement is, of course, the popularity of panels at conventions such as GeekNights‘ Anime You Should See; or, maybe not the popularity, but the lack of hands that immediately fly into the air when Akira is flashed onto the projector screen.
Although I could call it a problem, the fact that many anime fans today (comprised, if you step offline, walk into a convention, and talk to a bunch of random kids, of people that probably saw something quickly online, or also as common, just watched Bleach or Naruto on broadcast television) haven’t seen many fundamental anime, or just anime in general is a product of ordinary Internet-age modes of media consumption. Of course, there are many other problems that contribute, such as the proliferation of the hardcore fandom online instead of dispersed amongst strong physical/geographical communities. But, while I point out that NQ-fans (“not quite fans”) aren’t watching enough anime, not watching anime isn’t the problem.
Instead, the real problem is that the original and pivotal goal of the early American anime fandom has succeeded too well. This goal, plain and simple, was to make anime available to everyone. In the hundreds of newsletters and correspondence that I read in the Fred Patten collection, the ideal of media ubiquity held strong and pushed the dissemination of early fansubs across the United States in the 1980s and 90s, eventually culminating in the creation of the contemporary American anime industry. And, luckily for all those fans that can’t speak Japanese, there’s A LOT of anime available for fans to purchase and view. On top of the industry side, the online fansubbing community has also made thousands of titles readily available for anyone to download and view in the comfort of both their own home and own schedule.
So, what’s the problem? It seems like the anime fandom is thriving, especially with all the rumors that con attendance has been steadily rising since the early 2000s. We have all this anime, so what’s wrong?
Well, frankly, there’s too much anime for any one fan to watch. Yes, where at the point where ubiquity has become a negative trait. The current overpopulated media environment for Japanese animation means that fans don’t know what to watch. Unless they’re particularly well-connected to other fans — which the majority of fans, I would say, are not — we’re facing a situation where people don’t know what constitutes “the good stuff.” The solution seems to be what I have already mentioned: panels, websites, and educated fans that can tell fellow viewers what’s good. But even these representatives of the larger fandom can’t possibly watching everything out there, unless they want to ruin their lives by pulling a Jason Thompson. And the problem isn’t even that there’s too much anime. If we focus solely on television series, anime is bounded by time: 25 minutes per episode (conversely compared to manga, which can be read at relative speeds). The fact that a fair number of series boast more than 50 episodes, or even in some cases more than 100 episodes, means that if we want to live up to the otaku namesake, we have to spend a lot of time indoors in front of a screen.
Talking about a canon for Japanese animation, I wish to avoid speaking about the content of the canon (specific titles that stand out) and instead wish to emphase the construction of the canon. How do we choose what fans need to watch?
From here on out, I must mention that I am stealing an idea. I’ve had a lot of ideas in the past that I’ve never pursued, and I feel like stealing an idea once in a while saves others from feeling guilty that they cannot pursue their own ideas. This idea, then, is credited to Carl Li, over at Ogiue Maniax. Previously, he wrote about A Comprehensive Guide to Essential Episodes, which I would like to borrow for this article to propose a utilitarian venture to save the future of the anime fandom from complete ignorance of anime (worst case scenario: no newer fans have watched anything!). Carl proposes “a guide to… long shows… pointing out the episodes which are considered, while perhaps not “necessary” to the viewing experience, to be the apex of the show. That way, anybody who just wants to sample the show but in a meaningful way (not just watch the first episode or two and be done with it) can do so and fully understand the reasons that show is called a classic.”
I will state right off the bat that my proposal does not solve the problem of fan ignorance (not having watched enough shows, or enough of a show, to talk about them/it critically). However, it approaches a solution to the degree of good enough. I wholeheartedly believe that the future of the fandom relies not on fans having completed X number of shows, but instead depends on current fans continuing conversation between fellow fans and with potential fans. The only way to continue that conversation, then, is to make sure that fans can talk about shows they’ve watched, even if they haven’t watched all of it. As Carl points out in his article, most shows (especially those with hundreds of episodes) are drowning in a sea of filler episodes that attempt to buttress the main narrative (especially when it begins to weaken — a common occurrence in anime).
So let’s get into technical and methodological details. The goal is to gather information by crowdsourcing the anime fan community. Whether this includes 5 or 500 members, I suppose ultimately it doesn’t matter. We could argue about levels of expertise, or attention to detail, or quality assurance; but, in the end, this project just needs to be completed one way or another.
Websites are simple and inexpensive — I can host a domain and FTP. But if we’re going to go beyond a simple Wiki, I’d also need someone (or a few people) with relatively-solid coding experience to whip up a site with user accounts, along the lines of My Anime List (without all of the egotistical wanking). One page per series, with a short (under 100 words) exposition per episode, with a voting module that ranks watchability: Required or Optional. Even if only one person ranks a 100-episode series, if other fans can understand the basics of the narrative and art direction for that series by watching only 15 episodes, then The Project has succeeded.
So, there’s now a Call for Help. Let’s build the Anime Canon Project. If you’re interested in working on this venture, or at least think it’s a good idea, leave a comment at the end of this article, or email me at alexleavitt @ gmail . com. I’ll see what I can do to gauge interest and pursue some sort of operational model.
MAL users may have certain negative tendencies but the pool of data it represents is a good start, don’t you think?
My criticism to your idea would simply be that what enables a fan to talk about a show they do not finish will vary from person to person; that what people find enjoyable from those tl;dr shows vary drastically. It may be worth a lot of while to first example some examples of what you (or I should say SDS) propose first, and then figure out what mode of representing and ranking the necessary data and user inputs make the most sense. As is, it seems like a glorified popularity chart.
Let’s take Endless Eight for example. Is the entire situation/context/marketing scheme/fan reaction/etc important to fandom? Arguably yes it does. But how do we express this in the form of a “top x recommended episodes”? I dare say it would be very difficult to recommend any more than 2 views. At least with a straight face. And there are quite a few situations like this. How do you want to approach them?
1) MyAnimeList is certainly a good source of data. In fact, I wish it had an API so I could throw it all into a database and trawl through it. But in the end it’s all about watching more than everyone else, lol.
2) My immediate reaction is to wrestle with your word “enjoyable.” When talking about the canon, although I feel bad saying it, I want to assert that enjoyment doesn’t matter. Example: Citizen Kane. It’s not a fun movie, but it’s fundamental. Or, Akira. A lot of people would argue that it’s not enjoyable because it makes no sense, but clearly it’s a fundamental work in the history of Japanese animation. Of course, to avoid a “popularity contest,” we’d have to form an operational definition or set of rules to govern the “Required/Optional” vote. There’s a chance, though, that avoiding a popularity contest isn’t possible. Just look at the Top 250 on IMDB, or Wikipedia: the array of popular culture/entertainment titles gets vastly more response than things that might be considered “more important.”
3) As to that operational definition/set of rules… the goal of the project would be, again, to ensure the ability to produce conversation regarding the narrative structure or the art direction — probably the two fundamental elements of analyzing an animated work. There are, I agree, so many other things that fans could talk about, eg., Endless Eight. But those other conversations make great individual articles for a blog or for one or two class/es in a 15-week seminar. But if we were to talk about Haruhi’s art or story, the project would more helpfully supply information about the chronology of the series, eg.
Hmm, I think it’s easy to point to Mobile Suit Gundam and say it’s influential and classic, simply because it was one of a kind at the time. Same with Akira. From a historical perspective, is this all you’re looking for? Or are you trying to highlight a dialog of sorts? Patlabor is a wonderful little series but it also was quite inspirational in that it has its share of animators looking up to it. I mean from what I get from you, it might be best to just query all the animators in Japan and pick their brains for what motivated them or which shows they look up to when they were younger.
If you want to talk about “narrative structure” between an older work and a later work, the only tangible string connecting the two are the creators who produced the said later work. I don’t think fans would be who you are looking to poll (although they are still a wonderful source of labor/crowdsourcing and information)
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As mentioned on twitter, I have some doubts about logistics and definitions but as a student of history I’m interested in being involved. The distinction of importance vs. quality is key though, as is US vs Japan fandom.
I also don’t support the single/isolated episode approach to canon. The best episodes generally happen in a context within a series that gets missed without that context. An episode should be only a piece of the general message of the work. Perhaps the focus makes it especially meaningful/good, but it is still just a component of the whole.
Anime canon should result in some interesting conversations at the least.
The single episodes or handful of episodes suggestion is for the shows that are really, really episodic, like the old Super Robot shows such as Mazinger Z or Daitarn 3, as opposed to shows with continuing stories like Naruto or Bleach. For Mazinger Z, a vast majority of the episodes are just Dr. Hell plots to take over the world -> Dr. Hell sends out monster -> Mazinger Z totally wrecks said monster -> THE END.
You could watch maybe one or two of these to get an idea of what a “typical” episode is like, but if you can’t devote yourself to watching almost 200 episodes of this, then you pick the ones that stand out for whatever reason.
I want to be a part of this. I’ve been long working on a post entitled ‘every anime that is worth watching for any reason’, and it would be much, mush easier with help.
For the short term, spread the word by throwing up some thoughts on your blog. I’ll keep you in the loop once more developments are made!
This is a fantastic concept! I just met someone who said that he “doesn’t watch anything made before 2003,” which was completely appalling to me. I always do my best to promote influential works, but having a centralized, unbiased system to discover a list of “classics” would be an invaluable resource to those of us who still look at anime as a significant mode of literary and cultural expression. I don’t know a ton of coding, but I would definitely love to find some way to help out with this.
Oh, and here’s an idea: Kate Dacey just recently posted an article (http://mangacritic.com/?p=1785) about the process of picking a “manga canon,” a topic which overlaps in many ways with your idea. Would it be worth it to modify this croudsourcing mechanism to fit both anime and manga into the system? (Obviously sectioned off into different canons.)
I like the idea, a centralized hot spot that highlights classic titles and recommends essentials works to fans new and old. It could work like the ESPN Classic venue for anime. And, however murky it has been defined, the goal is established.
The thing is, if you’ll let me speak in cliches, the inmates can’t run the asylum. To set this project apart from being another MAL/Anime Suki/2chan flame war, popularity/fan polling has to be de-emphasized or separated from the selection process. I’d suggest to start by making a tentative plan.
Step 1: Collecting X number of people with high levels of knowledge, authority, and experience of the medium, through blogs, work in the industry, influence in the community, whatever, and start the discussion there. This group can always be expanded/shrunk, but most important thing to do is find these people, which seems to be part of the purpose of this post.
Step 2: Among this collection of peer experts, set the criteria. Industry influence? Fandom influence? Quality? Because person X or studio Y was involved is title Z automatically given consideration? Whittle down the traits that are going to be the most important, most valued.
Step 3: Make an early list. Lists can always be changed, but make one just to get the ball rolling. It gives the rest of us a better idea of what to look for.
I would hold off on building an essential episode list. Handling that sort of minutiae at this point in time seem more nightmarish than it’s worth.
I would like to help out as well, if that’s at all possible.
I’ll work out some thoughts regarding this in the next couple weeks and throw it up on my blog. But consider this comment a statement of intent. I’d like to work with you.
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I just found this post thanks to a link from 2DT, and as I’m late in reading it I’m not sure how your thinking might have developed. Anyway, I’m slightly unclear on how you’d plan to connect ‘the best’ to ‘the most important’.
From what I can see the thing most important to the development of anime really aren’t always going to be the kind of thing you can recommend to just anyone – innovation (particularly in animation technique) strikes me as something of interest to academics and total completist anime-obsessives but more or less useless to the vast majority of people looking to watch a cartoon or to connect to the majority of fellow anime fans.
That is, Citizen Kane may not be laugh-a-minute stuff, but its security in the cinema canon isn’t just down to original cinematography – it’s outstanding storytelling, well-acted, and emotional hefty. Which means that it is canonised by a combination of technological innovation and the continued love of contemporary cinephiles. It’s canonised because watching Kane pulls you into a larger community.
I suppose, in the end, I prefer to think of informal canon’s than of concrete lists: to encourage the idea that something can be re- or de- canonised by each generation. That might lead to anime having a stunted canon (at least for now), but I think it more accurately reflects the significance of developments in animation technology over the past half-decade to the modern viewer.
What’s wrong with a Wiki approach, actually? I’ve seen it work very well in a lot of communities. It might actually be a wiki that embraces the rest of the web — there’s no need to repeat the sort of profile that Wikipedia has for a series like Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko for example, link to it — but it could serve as a focal point for commentary that links series, genres, and traces influences.
I think a “canon” need not degenerate into an exercise in elitism, and could serve the new anime enthusiast well.
As I mentioned on 2DT’s site (which directed me here), when I first became obsessed with anime, I found my way to a few big review sites (I’m a bit nostalgic to find that some of them are still around, though none of them are as actively updated as they were a decade ago). They were quirky and charming, brief, and clearly marked by their creators’ tastes.
These sites helped me find my way to important (and treasured favorite!) anime series I might never have found otherwise. I suppose sites like MAL might serve a similar purpose, but I don’t see quite the focus there.
Omoikane did not mention it, but there’s an interesting project in this discussion thread and curiously dated predecessor. It’s easy to see how such a thing could be extended to the blogosphere, though it would be nice for it to have a home.
I was about to mention MAL, but looks like somebody else already did..
Thing is, it’s really difficult to judge anime. If you judge it the same way you judge literature, it’s not gonna come out right, ‘cos they’re too different mediums. Manga is another good example- you’re using visual storytelling, which means show, not tell. Then there’s the pacing, storyline, paneling, inkwork, details, etc, to consider..
On the other hand, if you mean Canon as in the really good, old stuff like Cowboy Bebop, Monster, and such, I completely agree.. all I require, really, is for anime and manga to touch people’s hearts, as any good piece of art should do.
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