Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Isn't There Political Anime?
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5347 |
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For the people posting, the question was about political Anime set in the real world, stuff like Gundam doesn't count. Anyone remember when Gintama got into trouble for openly mocking a politician. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPnkJJnla4k
Is Japanese politics maybe a lot more dull than other countries?, you hardly hear anything about it. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11406 |
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I have a copy on my shelves (unfortunately I no longer have a working VCR). Does this mean it's valuable?  I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, but it was over before the story barely got rolling. If there were more, I'd watch it for sure.
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Heishi
 Posts: 1325 |
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Maybe there should be an anime about cute girls doing political things in a cutesy manner.
That might sound off an audience. I can also recall Yatterman having an episode featuring Obama, McCain, and Hillary. Last edited by Heishi on Mon Nov 28, 2016 4:08 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1778 Location: South America |
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Well in Japan they got the same party in power for 60 years, the LDP and the country has not been involved in wars and suffered political unrest over the past 65 years, being an exceptionally prosperous and peaceful period. In a way we can think of Japan as being a post-political society in that they don't suffer from developing country's problems like poverty, violence, bad healthcare and education nor with the foreign policy difficulties the US has to deal with. So there is little ibterest of political matters in Japan. Although some people like to politicize things. For instance, I was reading a book about manga and Japanese society and according to the author manga was traditionally a left wing thing and became a right wing thing around 1990, while manga made with more moe like aesthetic was regarded as left wing. Well, I persobally think the author who was a Marxist might be seeing things though. |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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The LDP traditionally has a lot of quasi-party factions, as you can see here, sort of like how organizations like the House Liberty Caucus, House Freedom Caucus, Republican Study Committee, Tuesday Group, Republican Main Street Partnership on the Republican side, and the Blue Dog Coalition, New Democrat Coalition, and Congressional Progressive Caucus on the Democratic side work in the US House of Representatives. Since the LDP has traditionally been in power (though recently generally in coalition with Kōmeitō, a sort of Buddhist party, it's complicated, even though they haven't needed the numbers under Abe), generally even major shifts in policy (environmental, public works, foreign policy, privatization) have been accomplished by changes in factional power, such as who becomes Prime Minister, rather than changing the party in power. It can be exciting from a "who's up, who's down" House of Cards type perspective, and there are a lot of individually colorful people, such as Ozawa Ichirō. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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I think you could add both seasons of Gatchaman Crowds to the list. Most of the societal aspects of the show were also political (the (fictional) Prime Minister of Japan was a reoccurring character). There was also some political maneuvering going on in Log Horizon, too... how the Round Table was formed was pretty amusing as well as political.
Personally, as an older guy, I don't mind a certain level of political dealings, so long as they make sense within the story. Unfortunately, many of the anime I've seen that does deal with politics tends to be very... unrealistic, which makes it pretty off-putting, IMO. I suppose that since most anime involves kids, actual politics isn't going to be seen very often (aside from student council or other school-level "politics"). If there were more shows which portrayed adult settings, I'm sure politics would be seen more often and more realistically. |
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Aquamine-Amarine
Posts: 276 |
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That's why I like anime, because there ISN'T any political garbage in it. Every single American show is laced with liberal propaganda, some obvious, some subtle. I watch anime to get away from that nonsense.
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1566 |
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Aside from Eagle, the only political manga I can think of that made it to the US was The First President of Japan, which was brought over by the short-lived publisher Gutsoon. It was such a WEIRD choice, though. The manga is about a new Japanese prime minister who wields so much power (thanks to some new laws that give him far more authority than the PM has in real life) that people start calling him "president." The manga has him taking on aggression by the Chinese and later an attempted North Korean invasion (at one point they launch a nuke at Japan, but it's a dud that splashes harmlessly into the sea, which sure sounds like something NK would do.)
What's weird about the choice to bring this manga to America is that it's actually pretty ANTI-American. Not in a "destroy America, conquer their cities" sort of way. But the author's big statement is that modern Japan is a pitiful American puppet, and it needs a strong, authoritarian leader who is willing to sever all ties with the US, even if it means becoming their enemy. Make Japan Great Again, basically. The very last scene in the manga has the Prime Minister confronting the US president in the White House and telling him that he is declaring Japan's independence from the United States. Given that most American politicians in the manga are written as spineless wimps paralyzed by indecision, it's implied that Japan will come out on top of whatever conflict this causes. Also, the President of the United States in this manga is named Jefferson Spider. I'd vote for him based on that name alone. |
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Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
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I think it would be interesting if Japan had political anime more focused on their own instead of another like the US. Would like to see how they go about with like immigration or other things of concern to them.
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Jonny Mendes
 Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
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Keeping out of politics is one of the reasons i love anime so much.
Not having Political Anime is a blessing. |
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Afezeria
 Posts: 817 Location: Malaysia, Kuantan. |
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Ain't the later part of Shingeki no Kyojin manga deal with politics and stuff, althought it's not about Japanese politician? According to my sister anyway.
Like it was mentioned, politic material will definitely seemed uninteresting to younger audiences, because I like to think that most of the people around my age of 22 and below would probably just want to watch some relaxing or action heavy shows that doesn't deal with real life nonsense (entertainment is considered as a form of escapism after all). Of course, this is merely assumptions and there's ought to be a lot of older people that yearn to stray away from similar predicament. I personally dislike this kind of subject matter partly because it involved a ton of talking and discussing, which might put me off to sleep. Furthermore, people around me usually advised to stay away from politics because it would only breed more problems in the end. Thought, if I were to be honest, I will watch the hell out of that non existing show concerning cute girls dealing with politics right away.  (I doubt that it will sell, though.)
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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Its counterpart would be Hetalia, and, without trying to offend anyone, I particularly dislike Hetalia's approach to history and politics, though I do admit that some jokes were funny. Again, that could be an amazing anime or downright garbage for me as long as it's about Earth stuff, I could take it if it was fake world politics. |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 729 |
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What about that penguin show spotlighted through AnimeNow on the front page? I guess it feels a little weird to group it with Sanctuary, though.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Politicians speak formally, and Formal Japanese you can use to say absolutely nothing for the entire runtime of an episode!
Joking aside I would like more political anime, but it would have to survive on its own sales. Who is going to buy the BD? How many foreign anime fans claim to love the culture but looked none into the history? We can see the appeal of our wacky US politics since we have a background in it. Also there's no media mix. Remember the memorable OP/ED to Zipang? I liked that show and they put me to sleep. And that show was about the political circumstances of WW2 by sending modern Japanese back in time. They could at least sell model kit tie-ins! Which makes me think of something else. Those modern Japanese sailors who wind up going back in time - they're pretty aimless. They just spend as much time as possible trying to have as little impact on the world around them. I mean they don't want to mess with the timeline, of course, but is this also a critique of modern Japan sitting by as the world burns? They don't make for very compelling heroes, and they're the representatives of Modern japan to show the old War Time junior officers how to behave! Modern Japanese politics are aimless, showy, and everything they do is just trying to look nice to everyone. Politics in Japan are stagnant. If things were more topsy-turvy we might see more. |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2431 Location: Germany |
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It is correct that anime about actual politics basically don´t exist. Such (Seinen) manga are rare too and occasional controversial but Shin Godzilla turned to be be a political satire (the bigger surprise is that the film turned out great). Japanese media isn´t necessarily opposed to such ideas but you will really need to dig deep, or you just put nonsensical post 9/11 allegories into Code Geass, the 1st FMA show or even Resident Evil 4. You know what, staying away from politics may be a good idea if RE4´s main story is used as a possible end result.
The US comic scene though decided to go the opposition direction regarding politics very early, and this is from a comic before the US entered WW2! 
Hint hint, Superman was created by 2 Jews. 1 of Captain America´s creator was Jewish too and Cap also entered the war before the US. Both books were used as official US propaganda (i wonder why...) but Cap gave up on the US during the 70s. That "Nomad" period was really crazy, look it up. The list goes on and Lex Luthor was the US President for a bit. |
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