Via Japan Society
A response to coverage of the KRAZY! anime & manga art exhibit at the New York Japan Society and a preview of my lecture/presentation at the Popular Culture Association national conference on Wednesday 8 April.
If geeks had never thought of anime as cool, it would never have become popular in America. This is a basic but true statement, hands down. One intrinsic tenets of being a fan of something is that we want more of it. So when science fiction geeks back in the ’70s noticed this new thing called anime being shipped over to the States, they wanted to get their hands on more. Once they were able to do just that, the opportunity to discover more about Japan became a reality.
I’m not here to say that geeks in America were the first to jump on the “Japan is awesome” bandwagon. In fact, interest in Japan hit another peak of popularity before the ’70s, when ukiyo-e block prints were exported to the States (to end up primarily at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). It’s almost common knowledge nowadays that ukiyo-e were not respected by creators of high art in Japan; the Wikipedia page confirms this, describing the prints as “mainly meant for townsmen, who were generally not wealthy enough to afford an original painting. The original subject of ukiyo-e was city life, in particular activities and scenes from the entertainment district.” But artists — particularly those Impressionist painters in Europe, like Van Gogh, — thought the prints were cool (or at least different), picked them up like a frequent browser in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and brought them home to share with their friends. The story of art and the story of fans.
