A Bit More Detail

Gerry Canavan links to an examination of kamishibai, a graphics style founded in 12th century Japan directly ancestral to modern manga and anime, says the original poster.

Storytellers would travel from town to town with their butai (miniature stage) on the back of a bike. The setup was reminiscent of a Punch and Judy show, but instead of puppets the narrator would slide a series of poster boards with watercolor illustrations in and out of the box. He would act out the script, which was written on cards placed on the back of a board.

Each show consisted of three stories of about 10 minutes each: an adventure for boys, a domestic drama for girls and then a simple comic story. The majority of performances ended in a cliffhanger, forcing eager audiences to return the next day.

[. . .]

“A lot of attributes seen in anime are present,” [writer Eric P.] Nash said, “such as giant robots and monsters from outer space.” He also mentions the “manga-sized eyes,” wide and oversized, meant to convey emotion found in popular characters such as Jungle Boy. Golden Bat, created in 1931, was considered to be the world’s first true comic superhero. Although visually resembling Captain America’s nemesis Red Skull, Golden Bat and Superman share more commonalities: the red cape, skill of flight, superhuman strength and a fortress of solitude, albeit in the Japanese Alps.

Kamishibai artists departed from traditional Japanese line art drawing by creating a cartoon-like style and applying “chiaroscuro,” the Western style of contrasting light and dark, providing depth and mass.

Thanks to the auspices of finfin, I and some others have been watching episodes from the Japanese anime Fullmetal Alchemist on a weekly basis. My one-word reaction to the plot? Ow.

One thing that struck me about the anime was what I might call its Occidentalism, its construction of a Europe-like environment that got the details right but mixed them up rather incongruously, with Hanseatic-looking cities in the shadows of Alpine mountains which border on burning hot deserts but are populated by people with English last names. I like it, don't get me wrong, but it made me wonder just how much of the Japan-related elements of popular culture that I've heard of has been similarly falsely constructed.

As part of his ongoing effort to familiarize me with anime and manga and after showing me the film version of Akira, finfin is lending me the six volumes of the manga Akira. I'm on volume 3 right now, and finding myself having mixed emotions. On the one hand, it is interesting to see some of the underdeveloped themes of Otomo's film version unpacked, like Lady Miyako and the origins of the political maneuvering in post-apocalyptic Japan. On the other hand, there are a lot of things that shouldn't have been unpacked because of their superfluity.

One thing that strikes me as interesting about Akira--both versions--is that I don't see the future here. If anything, without the information revolution--personal computers, the Internet, text messaging, the works--Akira's future feels decidedly retro, like the Japan of the 1980s. Whether or not Otomo intended this effect, I leave to people better versed in his works.