Japan Animation: from Commercialism to Art

Abstract

Guarding children from the too much influence of foreign culture, especially the influence of Western world, Chinese government has been encouraging the production of domestic animation.In China, after 2000, it was decided that more than 60 percent of animations broadcasted on TV must be products of China. Although foreign animation is obliged to be under 40 percent, most of the TV stations except CCTV would not keep the rule. This is the reason why the government decided to take this measure. There is a fact in the background that Disney animations from US and Japan animations are quite popular among Chinese children. Especially, most of the elementary school pupils in the urban area seem to watch such Japan animations as “Detective Konan”, “Ultraman”, “Chibimarukochan”, “Captain Tsubasa” and so on. In China, Japanese animation and Manga are estimated very high. “Doraemon” used to be selected as the “most humorous reading piece” in the research executed by China Social Science Institute.In Japan, the number of the animation pieces broadcasted on TV is about 2500. Including the sales of character goods, the gross sales are more than 1 trillion yens. It will be large enough to be called a “gigantic industry”. Export sales are 100 billion yens a year(half equal to the sales grade of all US movies a year, four times equal to the Japanese export steel sales to US). the share of Japanese animation in the world market is more than 60 percents, 80 percents of animation piece broadcasted on TV in Europe are Japanese product. Not only TV animation but also comics are popular. One can easily find bookshelves filled with “manga” in the bookstores in Asian or European countries. Japanese animation is highlighted as the world wide gigantic industry. Not only from the cultural point of view but also from economical phase connected with the movement of vast amount of money, the problems of globalization, regionalization and localization of animation are going to be focused on.These kinds of animations in Japan, which compose the main stream of commercial animation, produce the particular sub-cultural field that is called “Otaku” culture. Akihabara, where a lot of foreign sightseers went to buy electrical appliance made in Japan, has recently been getting to be the center of “Otaku” culture. With animations, this “Otaku” culture also has spilled on the world. In Europe, as same as Japan, animation events (and even “costume play show” also) are held in various cities. Young people gathering there are called “Otaku” with the respect to the persons who are well up in the sub-culture.In this paper, the presenter will not treat the actual conditions of Japanese animation as the gigantic industry with the worldwide market and vast investment, which even arouse the interference of politics in the various countries and areas. Relatively independent of the main stream commercial animation, there are some artistic and creative animations which have gradually been popular to the audiences. Their method and potentiality will be mainly introduced in the paper. In this boundary also we can find the conflict between the restriction of nationalism and the possibility of globalization, that never means “Amaricanization”.The main objects of this examination are the animation pieces based on the works of MIYAZAWA Kenji, a famous Japanese poet and children story writer of the former 20th century. In these years, he has been regarded as one of the national writer of Japan, and also he has been getting gradually well-known in world wide scale. This paper will show how different are the concepts and methods of these pieces of “animazation” of literature, from the ones of commercial animations, and also will show the endeavor of animators to lessen the restriction of nationalism, localism and so on.