Last Thursday and Friday, I got the opportunity to attend two lectures (one detailed here) by Shibata Motoyuki, who is a professor of American literature at the University of Tokyo and who has translated over fifty English-language texts into Japanese. There’s a good (and humorous) article over at NeoJaponisme that discusses a panel he spoke on in 2006 about translation. Shibata is also known as an associate of Murakami Haruki (the popular author), and the two have consulted each other frequently for a number of translations.

The Thursday lecture, which I believe to be the exceptional talk of the two, dealt with the reception of translations of English-language literature in Japan. Shibata designated two periods of reception in Japan: the first, instructive, the second, aesthetic.

In the first period, from the late nineteenth century through the war and up to 1975, the translations of American and English literature were seen as instructive. At first, it seemed that Shibata meant used to instruct Japanese in the English language; however, he meant that Japanese readers wanted to learn about foreign ideas and philosophy. For instance, Shibata explained that the 1884 translation and publication of Benjamin Franklin’s “Autobiography” was read mainly as a self-help book. These books could been seen as educating a generation of Japanese on inventing an autonomous self. Reading English literature as instructive media, according to Shibata, changed in 1975, when these translations were finally read mainly in appreciation of the literature’s style and aesthetics. However, he inferred that contemporary American fiction tends to be read for its ideologies rather than its artistic merits.

Shibata’s lecture was supplemented by a response dictated by Prof. Robert Chodat, of the Boston University English department, who explained the same general principle — literature as instructive in its initial reception — related to the receipt of English literature (denoting the country, not the language) in America at the time when the colonies were just beginning to seek independence from England (which then extended into the later periods of American literature). The comparison was drawn between William Faulkner and Soseki Natsume, the former whose self was torn between Southern and Northern values, and the latter between conservative Japanese and new Western values.

What I want to preserve from this lecture is the concept of viewing media across cultures. More specifically, I would like to apply that concept to thoughts on the progression of the anime fandom in the United States. If we consider the initial reception of Japanese animation in the United States, do we see more viewers flocking to the media because of an attraction to new ideas (narrative structures, characterization, novel concepts/approaches to genres) or because they’re hooked on the aesthetics of the new medium (character designs, color schemes, animation styles). Shibata interpreted the frequent, post-war trend that translations of American literature would be published close to the original publication date in America as an effect of the Japanese interest in emulating the United States after 1955, meaning that the reception still depended on a magnetism toward ideas and not aesthetics. I wonder, then, looking at the contemporary trend of streaming anime online on the same day the episode premiers in Japan, if part of the cause, ignoring the major incentive of business, is Americans’ persistent attraction (continued from the 1970s) to the appealing ideas of anime.

One Day Later: More thoughts…

Reflecting on the reception of anime early on in the United States, I assume that it became popular not because of the theatrical releases of movies like Alakazam the Great but when ex-pats or Japanese friends of Americans sent VHS-recorded episodes back to America. Because most of the material was not subtitled, the translations were (to my knowledge) written in America, but a number of fans ended up seeing footage straight from Japan in the original Japanese, without any English-language aids. Because of this method of reception — watching ordinary Japanese-language anime — it would seem that fan reception in the United States would have highlighted the aesthetics of the medium. But from numerous interviews I have read and listened to, it seems quite the contrary: fans dealing with the language barrier would attempt to either analyze the existing plot without knowledge of the dialogue or would make up their own story based on the visuals. Therefore, I would say that the initial reception of anime in America was in fact based on the ideas in the anime (to reiterate: narrative structures, characterization, novel concepts/approaches to genres, etc.) instead of the animations’ styles or designs. This would make sense too, because older anime from the 1960s and 1970s clearly was not making many strides, steeped in forms of limited animation among many other shortcomings.

But I also wonder: At what point did the change from ideas to aesthetics take place? Or has it at all? Even today Japanese animation is praised for taking a step beyond American cartoons in terms of plot and characters.

If the change has already taken place, and the artistic elements of anime attract as many fans to the medium as its stories, I would pin the cause on digitization and higher budgets for anime films, imported to America as theatrical releases. In 2008, Scott from the Anime Almanac made a claim that the Matrix marks a turning point in the focus of production studios in Hollywood. The Matrix (1999) did, in fact, win four Oscars for film editing, sound effects editing, visual effects, and sound, and Scott affirms that the Wachowski brothers’ novel presentation of special effects showed directors what could be done with films influenced by or directly depicting works of popular culture (eg., comic books, anime, kung-fu films, etc.). Could we say, then, that films such as Ghost in the Shell created many fans of Japanese animation not because of its story but because of its beauty? While it’s true that Spirited Away won an Oscar in 2002 because it showed so many Americans in local theaters that Japanese animation illustrates sensational adventures and incredible dreams, perhaps it also drew viewers in because of its fluid integration of hand-drawn and digital animation: something never before seen by such a wide audience in the United States. Perhaps it is also true that anime is still sensationalized in the U.S. due to the releases of films like Paprika, which make monumental use of computer graphics and integrate them elegantly into the animated style (while of course at the same time depicting fantastic stories to intrigue potential ticket buyers).

If the change has not occurred, then I wonder what strides animators must take to create a visual masterpiece. There have surely been attempts: look at Steamboy, released in 2004, which held a budget of over twenty-five million U.S. dollars ($25,000,000), but at the same time did not draw in enough American fans to the medium as expected. Instead, we see the evolution from limited animation to ordinary animation to hyperfluid* animation (the most prominent example being the works of the animation studio Kyoto Animation), the latter of which currently draws in thousands of fans in Japan as well as abroad and keeps them on the edge of their seats waiting for more (ie., the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya).

I do not believe that computer graphics will push Japanese anime to a new level of acceptance in America. The use of 3D and CG has been tried (and has not impressed in certain instances). But how will the aesthetics of anime evolve in the coming years? And will it attract a new wave of fans?

• Will talk about this more (read: explain) in the near future. Look for the related articles.