Week 5 (Rachel)

Is it high or low culture genre/media, according to Napier (2005)? What are some of the subgenres?

Napier expresses a desire not to examine Anime within the constraints of high or low culture, but that it should be examined in terms of its cultural and commercial significance.  

Napier shows that more traditional Japanese forms of art such as Kabuki and woodblock print, were once considered pop culture themselves, indicating that art forms often take time to move from low culture to high culture.  He also argues that Anime reaches a wider audience, (not just in Japan but also in internationally), than some of the more traditional forms of Japanese art, therefore should be taken into serious consideration.

“Anime is simply accepted by virtually all the younger generation of Japanese as cultural staple.”

Napier also argues that anime brings aesthetics from more traditional Japanese art forms and mixes them into contemporary culture; Anime manages to keep its Japanese difference in the international market, which Napier argues contributes to its success

Napier argues that being such a contemporary form it also deals with issues in society most prevalent today. Such as gender identity which is currently shifting, and also, “the shifting nature of identity in a constantly changing society.’ P 12.

Some of the subgenres of Anime include:

Mecha genre (short for Mechanical). - science fiction, is popular and relevant to our contempory society as it deals with themes of coping with the advances in technology.

One subgenre of Anime is apocalyptic. ‘The apocalyptic is perhaps the most obvious mode, since a vision of worldwide destruction seems to be a staple across all cultures ,’ (Napier, 2005, 12)

Another subgenre is ‘festival’.  Napier suggests that comedies are the most obvious example of the festival genre, as they ‘norms are transgressed or actually inverted. (Napier, 2005)

Finally the elegiac subgenre, which Napier so eloquently describes ‘in terms of a lyrical sense of Mourning often connected with an acute consciousness of a waning traditional culture.’ ( Napier, 2005, 13)

References:

Napier, S. (2005). Why anime? In Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp.3-14). Hampshire: Palgrave/ Macmillan.