Western Influences on the Japanese Animation Industry

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Table of Contents

Introduction
History of the Japanese animation Industry
Techniques used in animation manufacture
Technological achievements
Cultural facets
Political circumstances
Western influences on the Japanese animation industry
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

The Japanese animation industry has significantly evolved to overcome most of the other animation industries in the world. Today, its products are sold in different parts of the world. One of the main reasons that have led to the industry dominating the global market is its ability to come up with animations that target people of different age brackets. This is not the case with western animation industries as most of them come up with animation films that target children. The success of this industry is not credited to Japanese artists alone. There has been a great contribution by western artists in improving the animation industry in Japan.

Western countries have significantly influenced the Japanese animation industry. Despite all production processes being done in Japan, the industry borrows a lot of expertise from western countries. Based on some of the movies manufactured in western countries, Japanese animation industries can use characters in these movies to come up with their animation films. This paper aims at identifying some of how the Japanese animation industry has been influenced by western artists and animation industries.

History of the Japanese animation Industry

The establishment of newspaper humorous strips and motion pictures in the west spurred the development of the animation industry in Japan. This was in the 20 century. The year 1914 saw some of the Japanese artists make their first experimentation of motion pictures by coming up with some animations (Lorimer & McNulty 1996, p. 43). The first film to use animation in the country was Momotaro. This was followed by Chikara To Onna No Yononaka which was developed after the First World War.

The person behind the success of the Japanese animation industry is Osamu Tezuka. Osamu worked initially as an animator but later became a cartoonist. This was after the Second World War. At the age of twenty, Tezuka had already produced an animation film known as Shintakarajima. His work became popular in the country leading to the masses considering him as their god in the animation industry. Borrowing ideas from German and French cinemas, Osamu was able to come up with a long animated film. Most of his stories unfolded in form of films making it easy to educate other artists on how to dynamically develop a narrative.

To most of those who prefer his work, they credit him for the ability to devise his characters. The need by Tezuka to use the poignant outline in passing across information in his intricate stories led to him referring to the work of Disney. Most of his characters were found to have features reflected in cartoons developed by Disney. These include circular heads and big and animated eyes as those found in Mickey Mouse’s characters. These features helped his characters express varied sentiments.

Today, most of the artists in the animation industry have understood the wide range of capabilities that Tezuka’s form of characters can have thus using the characters in their works. It has resulted in the establishment of characters with simplified facial characteristics and wide eyeballs (Smoodin 1993, p. 324).

Techniques used in animation manufacture

The success of the animation industry in the west led to artists looking for advanced techniques to improve their work. This led to the establishment of techniques such as morphing, hierarchical and skeletal. These techniques have gradually found their way to the Japanese industry. Morphing is the process of transforming an object from one form to another. The technique is now used by Japanese artists in animating the faces of their characters. In morphing objects in three dimensions, the artists use three characteristics of the objects. These are texture coordinates, normals, and the range of triangles. The normals facilitate animators in ascertaining light refraction (Levi 1996. p. 146).

The texture coordinates are kept constant during morphing. To come up with the desired animation, the artist plays around with the normals and the triangles changing their vertices to the desired sizes. The animator comes up with three-dimension objects that are used as references in developing the required animation.

Skeletal animation is another technique used in developing animations. The technique is also referred to as skinning as it resembles how the skin and muscles respond to their attached skeletons. The technique is applied when coming up with animations representing animals and human beings. It generally entails two things: an object and several bones referred to as skeletons. Each of the bones in the skeleton is attached to some part of the animation’s physical representation.

Generally, for multilateral animation characters, the skeleton is related to a group of vertices. For instance, when developing animations for a human being, the thigh bone would be represented by peaks in the polygon that represent the thigh (Anime Vice 2010, para. 2-6). The object’s skin can be linked with numerous bones each having surmounting factors referred to as vertex weights. To determine the position of the vertex, alteration of each bone is made on each vertex.

Hierarchical animation is another technique used in the animation industry. In this technique, the artists move through a group of pivots systematically. OpenGL operations are conducted on every pivot. These operations include scaling, translating, and rotating. To use the operations in three-dimension objects, they are first applied on Model View medium. When every operation is conducted, the model is transformed.

Based on the order in which the operations were conducted different results are obtained. To come up with a good-looking animation using this technique, artists come up with a systematic array of pivots. The three-dimension object is divided into numerous three-dimension objects. When coming up with a car animation, the entire car is translated while the wheels remain at the same position (Kime 2009, para. 4). To move the wheels, one develops different 3D objects for the wheels, establishes their pivots, and systematically performs the various operations on them.

Technological achievements

With animation industries in the West looking for means to enhance the quality of their products, they have gone to an extent of developing software to facilitate the development of objects. The Japanese industry has started using the software in developing computer-aided animations. The introduction of satellite and internet in Japan from America has led to the use of computers in coming up with entertainment animations in the country. The animation industry in Japan has increasingly used animation software in film and video development. The software is also currently used in coming up with animations used in video games.

The Japanese animation industry has taken advantage of the development of 3D animation software to enrich them. There has been the establishment of 3D video games. For many years, Japan has been using televisions as the media through which its animation films and other sorts of entertainment are run. However, the establishment of the World Wide Web has strongly boosted the Japanese animation industry. This is because it has eased the process of developing 3D animations as well as testing their capabilities (Eri 2000, para. 4-7). The availability of techniques for developing the animations together with animation templates has eased the process of animation development in the industry.

In the past, the industry was dominated by few artists who had the capacity of purchasing equipment required in animation development. A technological breakthrough in the industry has led to artists pooling together their experiences leading to the democratization of the process. Availability of information regarding the animation process on the internet has led to many people studying the process. As a result, the number of artists in the animation industry has significantly increased.

Japanese animation has been used to reflect the role of a Japanese woman in society. Through analysis of various animations and the role of women in these animations, a foreigner can understand the role of women in Japanese society without having to enquire from Japanese residents. Different animations reflect the role of women in society even without the intention of the animator. Roles assigned to women in these animations do not significantly differ from the real-life situation in the country. Images presented in the animation and other mass media sources facilitate in coming up with a good picture of a Japanese woman and her duties in society.

There have been campaigns to liberate women in Japanese society (O’Connell 1999, para. 2). This is reflected in anime by dynamic changes and subjects. The industry helps in passing across information concerning Japanese culture and its evolution.

Today, there are no specific practices that are used to uniquely identify the Japanese. However, there are restrained features in the animations that make one associate character and subject to Japanese. One of the animations that greatly reflect the Japanese culture concerning the position of women is Kodomo no Omocha. The series contains a young girl by the name of Sana who struggles to liberate herself from male intimidation.

Despite the comedy portraying some qualities in her that conforms to behaviors of traditional Japanese woman, Sana is not one of the standard Japanese women. The anime on the other hand portrays Sana’s mother as an influential woman who can easily lure men into doing as per her will. Sana’s female teacher is portrayed as an example of a submissive woman who always seeks assistance from men in case of problems (Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. 2010, para. 1-5). The teacher seeks assistance from male teachers whenever the class seems not to submit to her directives.

Political circumstances

For decades, there has been disagreement between parties in the Japanese animation industry on whether to come up with an anime hall of fame for the industry. Those opposed to the issue claim that doing this would cost the industry dearly bearing in mind that its revenues have been going down. This has been attributed to decrement in income obtained from episodes aired on television. The fact that Anime Company receives heavy government support and influence, it has been very hard for staff to express themselves freely. Decisions in the company have been heavily influenced by the government.

The issue of establishing a hall of fame for the company stirred a lot of tension in the company (Murakami 2005, p. 453). Proponents of this undertaking claimed that the move would facilitate in developing new talents thus being able to attract global market as well as tourists.

Western influences on the Japanese animation industry

Long before the Second World War, the westerners had started using strips in developing their animations. It is after the war that this practice was introduced to the Japanese. The animation industry in Japan started using strips in developing their animations that delved on people in their expedition. This consisted of numerous stripes with each stripe documenting a specific scene of a specific event. It required one to go through all strips to understand the intended information.

This has greatly facilitated increasing revenues in the industry. This is because one is expected to purchase the next episode to be able to track information in stripes. The Discovery of stripes by western animation industries offered Japanese narrators’ structures that helped them easily transmit their stories to the public (Lamarre 2006, pp. 67-89). The current Japanese comic books came as a result of these stripes borrowed from the West.

Numerous American comic books are currently being used in the Japanese animation industry. These include books like X-men and Spawn. Different American authors have also been compiling series for Japanese animation industries. For instance, magazines printed by Kodansha contain columns obtained from western writers. Another western influence in the Japanese animation industry has been money and faculty shift.

Currently, a lot of money from western countries is being channeled to Japanese anime. Manga and Anime have currently ceased focusing on the Japanese market only. Animators have been compelled to shift their focus on the Japanese market to attract an international audience (Jennifer 1998, p. 421). Projects such as BURN UP are products of money channeled to the Japanese animation industry from western countries.

After the emergence of televisions, anime started imitating western live actions in its animations. During this period, Adventure of Superman was rated as the most preferred television show in Japan. This led to anime embarking on developing its animations based on this TV show. Astro Boy, compiled by Tezuka was one of the animations that resulted from the show. Tezuka took some of the powers of Superman and integrated them into his character in Astro Boy.

Most of the initial animations in Anime bear feature Felix the Cat; a western cartoon. This is concerning animation methods used as well as the animals. Pictures used in Fight of the Fox and Possum are borrowed from Felix the Cat. It is from this move that the art of cartoons was introduced to the Japanese animation industry. The Gang and Dancing Girl are two other series that have borrowed their animations from western series.

After Fleischer’s brother’s show ceased being aired, Betty Boop was redesigned to a bid-eyed heroine that had dark hair, a girl’s voice, and was compliant. Despite most of the animations in Anime being developed in Japan, they do not reflect the Japanese settings. Anime and manga use characters that show western qualities. For instance, characters used in the Ghost in the Shell movie, have qualities that are significantly different from those found in Japan.

Afro Samurai is another animation movie that has great influence from western films. The desire to have the film gain a global market led to its directors deciding to integrate some western features in its animation techniques (Henshall 1999, p. 376). Despite the film being developed in Japan, it had many experts from western countries to facilitate in ensuring that the film contained features that would make it attractive to the western market.

Conclusion

Unlike animation industries from the west that focus on children, animation industries in Japan produce their films and cartoons for all age groups. By analyzing Japanese animation films, it is possible to understand Japanese cultural practices. Most of the characters in the films are assigned roles based on cultural practices within the country. The animation industry in Japan has greatly been influenced by western industries. Despite the process of fill and series production being done in Japan, the industry seeks advice from numerous western experts. Most of the characters used in films are seen to possess features of characters found in films produced by western countries.

The main reason for this is the desire by the industry to attract a global market. There has been significant talent migration from western countries to Japan. As a result, those assimilated to animation industries have brought in the knowledge they acquired in their countries to facilitate in production of animation films. A lot of money has also been channeled from western countries to fund projects in the Japanese animation industry.

Reference List

Anime Vice, 2010. Foreign Influences. Web.

Eri, I., 2000. Japanese Manga and Animation: Gender Relations in Manga and Anime. Web.

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., 2010. 3D animation techniques on the i.MX31 PDK. Web.

Henshall, K. G., 1999. Dimensions of Japanese Society: Gender, Margins and Mainstream. Great Britain: Macmillan Press Ltd.

Jennifer, R., 1998. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. USA: University of California Press.

Kime, C., 2009. American Anime: Blend or bastardization? Web.

Lamarre, T., 2006. The first time as farce: Digital animation and repetition of cinema. In S. T. Brown (Ed.), Cinema anime: Critical engagements with Japanese animation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Levi, A., 1996. Samurai from Outer Space: Understanding Japanese Animation. Chicago: Open Court Publishing.

Lorimer, R. & McNulty, J., 1996. Mass Communication in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Murakami, T., 2005. Little Boy: The art of Japan’s exploding subculture. New York: Japan Society.

O’Connell, M., 1999. A brief history of Anime. Web.

Smoodin, E., 1993. Animating Culture: Hollywood Cartoons from the Sound Era. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

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