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Is anime politically and socially liberal?


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Dark Paladin X



Joined: 20 Aug 2009
Posts: 268
PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:08 pm Reply with quote
After watching couple of anime and reading synopsis of several anime in Wikipedia, I beginning to think that anime is usually politically and socially left-leaning (as well being less politically correct) than U.S. cartoons and other forms of enterntainment.

Take Kodomo No Jikan for example, a story about a 10-year-old schoolgirl developing a love interest with her 23-year-old male teacher. Well, something like this would be tolerated for distribution and broadcast in Japan. But when you try to distribute this anime in United States, you get angry protest from conservative and highly religious right-wing watchdogs, claiming that the anime promotes child pedophilia and is pornography (even though the series is meant to be taken as a COMEDY. Not to mention, there are real life instances where a student and teacher fall in love with each other and even marry). Because of Kodomo No Jikan will never be English-dubbed forever. And don't get me started with yaoi and yuri, these are rarely distributed in the U.S. since some people consider it to be porn even though there are non-pornographic ones.

Then, there are scenarios where distributors flips the bird on the watchdog groups and decide to distribute and dub Elfen Lied and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni without massive censorship (both series are very violent and bloody, something that the right-wing watchdogs would protest on). But most of the time, the distributors would kowtow to the watchdogs.

Well it does makes sense, Japan happens to be more politically and socially liberal than the United States. Anime is quite liberal on portraying sex and violence. Not to mention, Japan is more tolerant to alternate forms of sexuality like gayness, lesbianism, etc. Also, many Americans kinda still have the "cartoons are for children" mindset, but the Japanese have a VERY different view when it comes to cartoons.

I made this thread because I made a post in one of Steven Crowder's Youtube videos who was looking into political and social the Berkeley students in California (going under the name Dpaladinx), then I replied stating he should look into the political and social views of the otaku community, who are just as liberal as the Berkeley students from my knowledge.

On the side note, I should make online petitions of getting Kodomo No Jikan and To Aru Majutsu no Index english dubbed and distributed in the United States by A.D. Vision and Disney respectfully (I chose Disney for To Aru Majutsu no Index because Disney beautifully did a nice job distributing and dubbing Miyazaki's anime films and not screwing them over). UPDATE: Nevermind one the petitions, I did create one, but I think most of you would find it as a joke.


Last edited by Dark Paladin X on Tue Sep 22, 2009 1:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:42 pm Reply with quote
Dark Paladin X wrote:
After watching couple of anime and reading synopsis of several anime in Wikipedia, I beginning to think that anime is usually politically and socially left-leaning (as well being less politically correct) than U.S. cartoons and other forms of enterntainment.

That is because you haven't watched enough of manga and adapted anime from him, him, him, and him.

Dark Paladin X wrote:
Well it does makes sense, Japan happens to be more politically and socially liberal than the United States.

This is the most laughable comment I've seen on the forum this month. Japan is sexually more liberal because its society was not bound by biblical monogamy relationship until the introduction of such idea into their laws in 20th century. Other aspects of the Japanese society -- foreign relationships, racism, and social hierarchies in particular -- are notoriously conservative.
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Dark Paladin X



Joined: 20 Aug 2009
Posts: 268
PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:59 pm Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
Dark Paladin X wrote:
After watching couple of anime and reading synopsis of several anime in Wikipedia, I beginning to think that anime is usually politically and socially left-leaning (as well being less politically correct) than U.S. cartoons and other forms of enterntainment.

That is because you haven't watched enough of manga and adapted anime from him, him, him, and him.



Jeez what point are you trying to make here? I've watched Elfen Lied and it gives a clear message that torture is bad in all forms. Ok, you just showed me four guys here, are you trying to say the anime they make have a right-wing POV?
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Dorcas_Aurelia



Joined: 23 Jul 2006
Posts: 5344
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:14 pm Reply with quote
Dark Paladin X wrote:
Jeez what point are you trying to make here? I've watched Elfen Lied and it gives a clear message that torture is bad in all forms. Ok, you just showed me four guys here, are you trying to say the anime they make have a right-wing POV?

Yeah, being against torture is only a far-left political/social stance. [/sarcasm] Also, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what dormcat's point was.

Remember, while too much political correctness may lead to bowdlerization, too little risks being painfully offensive.

Also, it's not so much that internet petitions fail, but electronic signatures are so easy to fake that no one gives much weight to them. Not that traditional mail-in campaigns have huge success rates either.
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Dark Paladin X



Joined: 20 Aug 2009
Posts: 268
PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:30 pm Reply with quote
DomFortress wrote:


At least learn some world histories and get informed on current events, before you embarrass yourself once again because you just wanted to voice your opinion. When there are at least four Japanese manga artists did a much better jobs than you did, and this guy alone did so with an all-male private high school full of manly men. So show some respect if you got any.


Sorry, the claims that Japan is politically and socially more liberal than the U.S. is based on what I read in Rationalwiki about Japan (a wiki that is highly critical to Conservapedia and examine extremism of all sides). I'm not a crazy level liberal like Michael Moore, but I do consider myself to be socially liberal and economically moderate.

Ok, so the Japanese may consider themselves to be "conservative" in their POV, but they are politically and socially liberal in western standards.

As for the petition, I just put that there to voice my opinion. That's all.
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Wu Ming



Joined: 04 Aug 2009
Posts: 113
PostPosted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:41 pm Reply with quote
Dark Paladin X wrote:

Ok, so the Japanese may consider themselves to be "conservative" in their POV, but they are politically and socially liberal in western standards.



Maybe its better said that the category of "liberal" and "conservative" actually breaks down when you take it cross-culturally.

The words themselves have in a sense loss the meaning from their original historic contexts. What an American would call "liberal" or "conservative" would get redrawn instantly in a European arena.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@



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PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 1:16 am Reply with quote
DomFortress wrote:
Therefore unlike yourself with your limited understandings and your bias opinions about the Japanese society and international political view points. Those Japanese manga artists each has more understandings and insights about their Japanese society and different world's view points, than your narrow mindedness can even hope to achieve.

At least learn some world histories and get informed on current events, before you embarrass yourself once again because you just wanted to voice your opinion. When there are at least four Japanese manga artists did a much better jobs than you did, and this guy alone did so with an all-male private high school full of manly men. So show some respect if you got any.
I saw your response as more of a personal attack to promote your agenda, which itself is filled with just as much bias if not more, with the way you worded it. The intent was not as an examination of the political standings of the Japanese people, but of the general political outlook and acceptance of certain cultural norms as seen in anime. Even listing several manga authors on specifically political oriented titles, and even if there are many poignantly supportive of traditionalism still does not indicate anime as a whole expresses those kind of opinions.

I do agree that in a medium that is viewed by children, because it is, so many topics such as relationships between same-sex individuals, and individuals with large gaps in age and social standings are explored much more openly than in Western culture. But perhaps comparing Western and Japanese animation is not a good indicator of how accepted those subjects actually are in real life.

I think a different way to look at it is if in America, animation is intended more for children, lots of touchy subjects regarding various taboos might not be the best place to introduce them. We Americans tend to think the best approach is to shield our children from complex concepts and let them figure it out later or their parents figure it out for them. Japan seems to feel it is more healthy to explore these subjects early on so they will usually establish a firm experience with them later on. I think that is something that is thoroughly evident in many anime, and the reason why creative expression by the Japanese exists in ANY medium regardless of its target audience.
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dormcat
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Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 5:28 am Reply with quote
Past wrote:
But perhaps comparing Western and Japanese animation is not a good indicator of how accepted those subjects actually are in real life.

I agree with you on the statement above but not the ones below:

Past wrote:
Japan seems to feel it is more healthy to explore these subjects early on so they will usually establish a firm experience with them later on.

This is very case by case. Some Japanese helicopter parents don't let their children to watch TV or ever read newspapers in order to "protect" them from the corrupted society.

Past wrote:
I think that is something that is thoroughly evident in many anime, and the reason why creative expression by the Japanese exists in ANY medium regardless of its target audience.

You have to realize that anime with sensitive topics "such as relationships between same-sex individuals, and individuals with large gaps in age and social standings" are not intended for children; those are post-midnight anime with specific target audience in mind, not your after-school-before-dinner titles. American cartoons don't have post-midnight schedule (maybe except reruns of some old classics).

Another reason is that, due to the notoriety of tokko and kempeitai in WWII, any attempt to censor publications in the first decade after WWII would be heavily criticized as "back to the police state years," which gave manga artists like Osamu Tezuka a good deal of freedom to draw whatever they liked.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:01 am Reply with quote
You can't really apply the same standards of Liberalism versus Conservatism to Japan. It's an entirely different country and as such is different from North America in numerous ways. Something may appear 'liberal' but in reality it is not due to a prevailing political or social view, but simply different cultural factors. Furthermore, just like in America, I don't think you can really categorize and entire industry or medium into one group or the other.
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HyugaHinata



Joined: 25 Jun 2005
Posts: 3505
PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:09 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
This is the most laughable comment I've seen on the forum this month. Japan is sexually more liberal because its society was not bound by biblical monogamy relationship until the introduction of such idea into their laws in 20th century. Other aspects of the Japanese society -- foreign relationships, racism, and social hierarchies in particular -- are notoriously conservative.


That's a very fair observation. On a positive note, almost every Tales of game by Namco-Banda has anti-racism themes. Smile
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doctordoom85



Joined: 12 Jun 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:17 am Reply with quote
HyugaHinata wrote:
dormcat wrote:
This is the most laughable comment I've seen on the forum this month. Japan is sexually more liberal because its society was not bound by biblical monogamy relationship until the introduction of such idea into their laws in 20th century. Other aspects of the Japanese society -- foreign relationships, racism, and social hierarchies in particular -- are notoriously conservative.


That's a very fair observation. On a positive note, almost every Tales of game by Namco-Banda has anti-racism themes. Smile


Fire Emblem: POR (not sure about the others) and a good number of BONES series (FMA, Eureka Seven, Darker than Black, etc.) are anti-racist as well.
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Veers



Joined: 31 Oct 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:31 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Is anime politically and socially liberal?
Some is, some isn't.

Quote:
then I replied stating he should look into the political and social views of the otaku community, who are just as liberal as the Berkeley students from my knowledge.
Some are, some aren't.

Quote:
Jeez what point are you trying to make here?
Took the words right out of my mouth.
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PetrifiedJello



Joined: 11 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:17 am Reply with quote
Dark Paladin X wrote:
... and reading synopsis of several anime in Wikipedia...

Uh oh.

Quote:
...claiming that the anime promotes child pedophilia and is pornography...

Trust me, anime has nothing to do with this. These same groups target anything they find offensive. Don't bundle these groups to make a point regarding a specific industry.

Quote:
...decide to distribute and dub Elfen Lied and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni without massive censorship...

This has nothing to do with censorship issues, but more of profits. Both these series were picked up for their potential to sell DVDs.
Not sure if they were successful, but here's to hoping they were.

Quote:
Japan happens to be more politically and socially liberal than the United States.

I'll assume this ignorant statement was picked up from Wikipedia.
Once again, this classification is too broad to make a point about a specific industry. Thus, this is irrelevant to your discussion as I know better.

Quote:
Anime is quite liberal on portraying sex and violence.

No, it's not. It must follow the same restrictions as other forms of media. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many tentacle monsters in this "sex and violence" aspect.
Anime is just another outlet, and from what I've gathered by most viewers, not the best form of entertainment at that.

Quote:
Not to mention, Japan is more tolerant to alternate forms of sexuality like gayness, lesbianism, etc.

Another ignorant statement. While some areas in Japan are more open, there are areas that aren't. Just like in this country.

Quote:
Also, many Americans kinda still have the "cartoons are for children" mindset

This fault is due to the industry itself. One of the greatest American animators (my opinion) ever was Tex Avery, whose cartoons weren't targeted at any age but were enjoyed by any age.

However, the introduction of television made his works "useless" to this new form of entertainment. Even back in the day, it was much cheaper to produce a live action series than an animated one.

It wasn't until William Hanna and Joseph Barbara created ways to produce animation at very low cost by using repeated cel animation which made them a success.

So much so, The Flintstones was picked up by ABC for prime time airing, the only animation to do so in the "Big 3" history.

Even by today's standards, animation is poorly done as it is now nothing more than a shill for a much more lucrative merchandise catalog.

We have no one to blame but ourselves for this.

Quote:
but the Japanese have a VERY different view when it comes to cartoons.

Again, inaccurate. This implies every person in Japan loves animation and I don't believe this to be the case. Most shows aired are targeted to teenagers, not adults.
That's not a different view.
That's just Japan airing animation in prime time slots.

Quote:
I replied stating he should look into the political and social views of the otaku community, who are just as liberal as the Berkeley students from my knowledge.

Quite a few posts on this website prove otherwise. Just because a person likes animation doesn't make them liberal by definition.
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SalarymanJoe



Joined: 03 Feb 2005
Posts: 468
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:30 am Reply with quote
Dark Paladin X wrote:


Take Kodomo No Jikan for example, a story about a 10-year-old schoolgirl developing a love interest with her 23-year-old male teacher. Well, something like this would be tolerated for distribution and broadcast in Japan. But when you try to distribute this anime in United States, you get angry protest from conservative and highly religious right-wing watchdogs, claiming that the anime promotes child pedophilia and is pornography (even though the series is meant to be taken as a COMEDY. Not to mention, there are [url=Vili Fualaau]real life instances where[/url] a student and teacher fall in love with each other and even marry). Because of Kodomo No Jikan will never be English-dubbed forever.


Perhaps you should remember that a lot of the anti-Kodomo no Jikan backlash came from the likes of Zac Bertschy and Daryl Surat. I don't think that either of them would really identify as conservative.

Also - I want to get this out there - "LOL" at using places like Conservapedia and Rationalwiki as anywhere near a legitimate source.

Dark Paladin X wrote:
And don't get me started with yaoi and yuri, these are rarely distributed in the U.S. since some people consider it to be porn even though there are non-pornographic ones.


Calling bullshit here, big time. Atlanta is unique in the Bible Belt but even as you get into the suburbs and leave rational thinking behind, you can still get your cartoon gay porn in mainstream booksellers. If "rarely distributed in the US were the case", I highly doubt that we'd even be able to purchase them in the State of Georgia. The fact that we can find them even as we get out to rural communities should be enough that "rarely distributed" is hardly the case.

Dark Paladin X wrote:
Then, there are scenarios where distributors flips the bird on the watchdog groups and decide to distribute and dub Elfen Lied and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni without massive censorship (both series are very violent and bloody, something that the right-wing watchdogs would protest on). But most of the time, the distributors would kowtow to the watchdogs.


I think the only time distributors have and would kow-tow to watchdogs would be instances when things are broadcast. It's happened in the past but rarely (I don't think it has) has it happened on the direct to video market.

Dark Paladin X wrote:
Well it does makes sense, Japan happens to be more politically and socially liberal than the United States. Anime is quite liberal on portraying sex and violence. Not to mention, Japan is more tolerant to alternate forms of sexuality like gayness, lesbianism, etc. Also, many Americans kinda still have the "cartoons are for children" mindset, but the Japanese have a VERY different view when it comes to cartoons.


The amount of material that Japanese animation would broadcast in children's timeslots that isn't broadcast here in the States is actually fairly minute. Shows which show a little more blood are typically teenage shows which are broadcast in prime time. The vast majority of anime is broadcast late at night. If we had a more similar set up here, I am sure we'd find everything that you find in Japan.

Also, shame on you for mentioning Japanese tolerance for homosexuality - I almost spit coffee all over my monitors and keyboard from laughing so hard.

Dark Paladin X wrote:
I made this thread because I made a post in one of Steven Crowder's Youtube videos who was looking into political and social the Berkeley students in California (going under the name Dpaladinx), then I replied stating he should look into the political and social views of the otaku community, who are just as liberal as the Berkeley students from my knowledge.


The modern otaku community in Japan? I doubt it. All they care about is being leeches.

A generation of otaku twenty or thirty years ago? I would think that they are about as liberal as Berkley kids because A - they were kids at that time, too and B - they were dreamers who wanted to make their hobby and passion their careers. But even then, I still find it a stretch.

Dark Paladin X wrote:
On the side note, I should make online petitions of getting Kodomo No Jikan and To Aru Majutsu no Index english dubbed and distributed in the United States by A.D. Vision and Disney respectfully (I chose Disney for To Aru Majutsu no Index because Disney beautifully did a nice job distributing and dubbing Miyazaki's anime films and not screwing them over). UPDATE: Nevermind one the petitions, I did create one, but I think most of you would find it as a joke.


As well as any sensible businessman.

So, now that I've ridiculed the presentation - let's get to the the heart of the question? Is anime politically and socially liberal? One has to remember that we cannot paint with a broad brush whether anime and manga are liberal or conservative (dormcat has some excellent examples of more "conservative" creators) because the individuals who create these works are as varied as the audiences that they write for. We can point out cultural differences between Japanese works and American works but those do not necessarily point to an overall political difference because they are cultural in nature.
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TheTheory



Joined: 23 Mar 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:32 am Reply with quote
Dark Paladin X wrote:
After watching couple of anime and reading synopsis of several anime in Wikipedia, I beginning to think that anime is usually politically and socially left-leaning (as well being less politically correct) than U.S. cartoons and other forms of enterntainment.

I think that it is important to point out that one cannot take a few examples of a foreign country's artistic output and make broad assumptions about that country from it. Countries and societies are very complex and thinking you can understand Japan from a few (or even a lot of) anime shows is laughable. All that you can assume about Japan from Kodomo No Jikan is that someone had the idea of of a relationship between a young child and a young teacher. Well, what kind of assumptions can be drawn about America from Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Lolita? It is about a middle aged man becoming sexually involved with a 12 year old girl. Also considered a classic. Can we assume that America is sexually liberal because of Lolita, and other works of fiction portraying sexual events?

In America there are all sorts of "Adult Bookstores" that deal in all sorts of sexual books and movies and things. So even though we're not producing a lot of adult-oriented animation, there is a big market for sexual things. What is the market like in Japan? Is the hardcore anime more mainstream than the US hardcore market? The US market is shady, blocky buildings along highways and in the dirty section of town or through unmarked packages ordered online. It is all very hush-hush. Is the sexual material in Japan easier to acquire? As you can see, the issue is much more complex than "they have sexually liberal animation in Japan, thus they are more liberal." How does the majority of the public think about porn/sexually explicit stuff in America? How is it responded to by the public in Japan? What are the laws for each country? What is the religious contexts? Does Japan have a religious or moral history of sexual openess or sexual repression?

And that's just the SEXUAL side of being "politically and socially liberal". While an important part of life, there is so much more that factors into it... each factor (a lot of which are mentioned above in the thread... gender equality, racial views, etc and so forth) deserving its own string of questions and comparision/contrast.

You can't compare the animation of one country, and then the animation of another country, and then compare the two country's ideologies and beliefs. You can say "within the context of animation, here is the difference between America and Japan" because animation is your focal point for judgement. That nicely frames your core idea (if this were a high school paper, it would be your "thesis"). Although even then to make your arguements you'd need to watch a lot more anime than a few titles and you'd also have to watch a lot of American animation.

Now, art can reflect society so it isn't impossible to study the artistic output of a culture and make some statements about them. However, you'd have to look at their output as a whole (literature, art, music, movies/tv, etc) and (if you're going to compare to America) the US output as a whole (literature, art, music, movies/tv, etc) to look for places of frequent divergence.

**edited to clean up tags and a wording mistake**
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