Forum - View topicNaruto / Bleach inquiry for Japanese Pop Culture Studies.
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Final Versus
Posts: 1 |
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Hey everyone! For a research paper that I'm writing regarding general shounen anime/manga and their wide popularity, I need some responses from the American audiences. I'm focusing on Bleach and Naruto specifically.
I am focusing on these anime is because I am very familiar with them, and they have had general widespread popularity in the United States. The paper is a discussion and an argument with other specific scholarly articles that bring up the idea of "mukokuseki", which is the cultural "odorlessness" that characters seems to emanate, that is, how characters do not look Japanese in anime/manga. Being "culturally odorless" also refers to Japanese references and environments, and how they do not have a Japanese feel to them. These articles seem to make a point that being "culturally odorless" allows Japanese pop culture merchandise and media to cross borders without much effort, as they do not seem innately foreign. What is interesting about Bleach and Naruto, is that they have numerous elements of Japanese culture and history, so they seem to defy this idea of mukokuseki and being culturally odorless. For example, the setting of Bleach is in Japan (and also the Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, etc. but that is beside the point) and Naruto has many specific references to Japanese mythology and spirituality. In addition, there seems to be this stigma against analyzing shounen anime/manga in the scholarly world, as they are deemed too simple and general. However, being some of the most popular anime/manga to have circulated in the United States, I think it deserves some research. As such, I am analyzing what fans like about the series, if they recognize the Japanese elements, how these series compare to other shounen and other anime/manga in general, and how these series are consumed by these fans. There's my intro. I hope it provides enough information for you. So if any of you could take the time to answer some questions, that'd be fantastic and a great help to my research! Answer the following: 1. What exactly do you like about Bleach and/or Naruto? 2. Do you recognize that there are specific Japanese elements and references in the series? Do you enjoy them? What are they? 3. Do the characters seem Japanese? 4. When you first watched these series, did you know they were from Japan? If you were much younger, would you have known? Did you care? 5. Have you heard of the term "Cool Japan"? Did you know this term while you watched the series? 6. What is your overall opinion of Japan? 7. How do you/have you primarily consume Bleach and/or Naruto? (i.e. physical copies of manga, online manga, through Toonami, anime streaming websites, etc.) Do/did you watch dubbed or subbed? 8. How do these series compare to other shonen anime/manga such as One Piece? 9. How do they compare to other Japanese series and other series in general? 10. Why do you think they were so popular in the United States? Thank you very much for answering these! It's incredibly helpful. 
Please keep in mind that if you do not like the series, I would still appreciate the response. Any information will be useful. Here's are my own responses: 1. I enjoy Bleach and Naruto for each's accessibility. Back in the day I could just turn on my TV and watch each series, as they were aired on Toonami and Adult Swim. They were also on many different websites. I also enjoy how there are lots of characters in each series, creating great diversity and interesting character developments while not boring me with repetitive conversations and actions if there were significantly fewer characters. 2. Yes. For instance, the 9 Tailed Fox is a specific figure in Japanese mythology. Also, the setting of Naruto is very reminiscent of the Japanese countryside. Ramen is a food in Japan as well. In Bleach, the robes the soul reapers wear are equivalent to that of Kimono. Zanpakuto are also similar to Japanese medieval weaponry. 3. Not really, to be honest. 4. I watched Naruto first, and did not realize that it was originally Japanese until I heard the term anime. No, I didn't exactly care that it was. I guess I was a bit enamored by the idea of Ninja and super powers though. 5. Yes. No I did not. 6. I think it has some interesting things that are quite unique, such as food and media products. However, the Japanese people aren't particularly fond of foreigners, it seems, which kind of irks me. 7. I used to watch it on Toonami until I got sick of waiting for episodes and watching it dubbed. 8. I think that they are up there in length, but of course not as long and as popular as one piece. They were great starting out, but kind of died as they progressed. 9. They involve a lot more action and blood. Most anime to me seems to revolve around "kawaii" or more slice of life. Yes there are countless anime with fantasy themes, but most are, it seems, shounen. 10. They had lots of hype and were played on major television networks. They also had video games and such that were released, further enhancing that hype. In addition, the ideas and story were so unique at the time that they were most popular, there wasn't really any American TV shows that involved such adult themes while still playing upon the general want that boys and girls had for super powers and such. It definitely struck people who like that sort of thing as really unique and cool. Last edited by Final Versus on Thu Oct 30, 2014 12:00 am; edited 4 times in total |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7986 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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1. The action, the characters, and the storyline(s) to a lesser extent.
2. Yes, but I'm in it for other things, like entertainment, not cultural exploration. 3. Yes 4. Yes. 5. No. 6. An overcrowded country prone to natural disasters that makes great electronics and a diverse variety of animated programs. Anything else is speculation as I haven't been there and don't know any Japanese citizens personally. 7. Legal streaming on Crunchyroll. 8. These two shows are mediocre and flawed. They are not bad but they are not exactly great either. There are even shows in the same battle shounen category like these that are better put together and aren't so inconsistent in quality. Concurrently, there are ones that are even worse at it. 9. Again if we're comparing it to the rest of the anime medium they are mediocre. I've found much better anime out there to watch, but at the same time I have seen garbage that was way worse. 10. Blood, death, and 'splosions, always entertain the masses. |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11311 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Thank you for editing your opener and making it much more in-depth. You bring up a good point about that "culturally odorless" concept. Although, personally, I think your choices of Bleach and Naruto are a bit constricting, since you're trying to use those as your "main" staples when there are so many other franchises you can compare/contrast with the questions you made.
I will try to keep my answers as Bleach/Naruto-centric as possible, but also try to offer up my opinions/experiences with other titles as well. ---------------------------------- 1. What exactly do you like about Bleach and/or Naruto? Conceptually, I like the themes behind them. They're both spiritual/supernatural in nature, both involve martial artsy fighting, have a lot of characters with unique designs or personalities, and I like a lot of the people on the production side (particularly the voice actors and composers). 2. Do you recognize that there are specific Japanese elements and references in the series? Do you enjoy them? What are they? Yes, because these were not the first anime I saw. And in addition, all of what I watched of these shows were via fansubs. So, pretty much everything about them was Japanese: the names of the characters/groups, the obvious fact that they spoke the language, and a lot of the cultural aspects within the shows (subtleties in the language such as honorifics, social behaviors, the food they ate, etc.). I didn't really “like” them, per se, as I was already accustomed to their presence, and they seemed pretty normal to me. 3. Do the characters seem Japanese? Yes, mostly because of what I mentioned above (the names of the characters/groups and their context, the language they speak/write, and so on). Physically, they clearly don't look Japanese and are stylized by their respective creators, in which you'd probably have to track down interviews or excerpts from their side-notes in the manga to get an explanation as to why they chose those designs. But yeah, with names like Kurosaki Ichigo and Uzumaki Naruto, they seemed obviously Japanese to me. 4. When you first watched these series, did you know they were from Japan? If you were much younger, would you have known? Did you care? Yes. But like I said, this wasn't my first exposure to anime. My very first experience was around 1993-94 when I rented Akira and Guyver on VHS, then saw a trio of movies that included Robot Carnival, Twilight of the Cockroaches, and Vampire Hunter D on a really late night block of Cartoon Network some time in the mid-'90s. My first shounen anime were Dragon Ball Z whenever they were still airing the Ocean dubs on the late afternoon block of Toonami, Tekkaman Blade when Saban renamed it Teknoman in that Sunday morning programming block on whatever that Paramount station was called, and Samurai Pizza Cats on the really early weekday morning Fox blocks. Even at 10 years old, when I saw Akira et. al, I knew they were Japanese, even if they were all dubbed in English. Back then, anime had a very distinct art style that I felt was very easy to tell apart from American animated shows, which, for me at the time, mainly consisted of Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men, Spider-Man, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Bobby's World, The Simpsons, and all those other shows from that decade. I didn't necessarily "care" one way or the other whether it was Japanese or American, but I do admit with anime being so new to me, I did find it more interesting to watch from an art/animation perspective. Plus, the stories did seem lot darker and more mature. Now, had I been a kid and watched something "not-so-Japanese" in context like Cowboy Bebop, Hellsing, Hunter X Hunter or Fullmetal Alchemist, I'd probably have thought about it a little differently, since those titles' backdrops are a lot less Japanese and more Western in terms of world-building and such. Ironically enough, though, today, you even have Western shows being produced/influenced by anime studios like Teen Titans, The Boondocks, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, and probably a few others I'm not even aware of. 5. Have you heard of the term "Cool Japan"? Did you know this term while you watched the series? I have never heard this term in all my 20+ years of anime fandom, unless they were used separately in a sentence like, "Japan is cool." 6. What is your overall opinion of Japan? Japan is cool  .
But seriously, as a consumer of their various products (anime, manga, video games, music, and on rare occasions, porn), I think they make a lot of enjoyable/entertaining stuff. I'm not much into politics and don't factor their supposed xenophobia into my opinion of them at all (just like I wouldn't assume all Germans to be Nazis, Colombians to be drug-dealers, black people to be gangstas, etc.). That's more an issue of cultural relativism and/or racial stereotyping, which is a completely different topic, altogether, so I'll just leave it at that. 7. How do you/have you primarily consume Bleach and/or Naruto? (i.e. physical copies of manga, online manga, through Toonami, anime streaming websites, etc.) Do/did you watch dubbed or subbed? I used to download fansubs of the shows, but got tired of the filler. Then I tried reading the scanlations of the manga, but lost interest after catching up and having to wait for new chapters every week. For Bleach I stopped reading/watching right when the Hueco Mundo stuff started. For Naruto I couldn't get past Shippuden's crappy animation and stopped at episode 9, and for the manga stopped around the time spoiler[Jiraiya fought Pain]. I think it's a bit of a bugger when manga-ka try to really draw their franchises out too long, so I just said "to hell with it, there are probably better things to invest my time in," and I dropped both of them, altogether. Once they actually finish, though, I might be inclined to at least finish the manga just for completionist's sake, but I'm in no hurry to do so. 8. How do these series compare to other shonen anime/manga such as One Piece? Never watched/read One Piece since it's even *more* drawn out than the other two. Again, I'm not really a fan of drawn out shounen titles, except for maybe Hajime no Ippo, which even has OP beat in terms of manga volumes, right now. And I guess since I never finished either Bleach or Naruto, I'd be hard-pressed to offer any kind of full opinion since I got so tired of both that I felt the need to drop 'em. Ultimately, I suppose I could say that because of their exorbitant length, I don't like them as much as shorter and more complete series like Death Note, Code Geass, Rurouni Kenshin, Fullmetal Alchemist, or any of the Gundam series, just to name a few. 9. How do they compare to other Japanese series and other series in general? Long, drawn-out, mediocre to sub-par in terms of production value, but still profitable because of their legions of dedicated fans. 10. Why do you think they were so popular in the United States? I think "shounen" is more so a demographic marker than an actual genre descriptor. And because of that, these two franchises (along with all the other shounen titles) tend to draw more of a “generational crowd.” But because Bleach and Naruto are also very lengthy, they not only draw fans during their inception, but also sort of fills a gap between that first, as well as the next, generation, which then kinda' snowballs and dabbles into both groups creating larger and more dedicated fanbases that are curious to see each franchise through to the end. That, and I think because American kids like stylized violence and superpowers, ninjas, spirit warriors/animals, etc. (I admit, they both can be pretty stylish). ---------------------------------- Hope that's enough "general info" and that other people decide to chime in, since I made the guy put more effort into it, and that I decided to so, as well. |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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1. What exactly do you like about Bleach and/or Naruto?
I hate Naruto. The main character was so much of an annoying whiny brat in the beginning that I couldn't bear to keep reading past the 6th volume. He reminded me too much of my brother when he was younger and I hated my brother when he was young. I enjoyed the first arc of Bleach, then I got bored of it. I do like Kubo's art though and he does some pretty amazing colour work. 2. Do you recognize that there are specific Japanese elements and references in the series? Do you enjoy them? What are they? They are both very Japanese in style. Ninjas are a Japanese thing, and Bleach is basically about Japanese death gods, despite them changing death god to Soul Reaper. I did enjoy Bleach's take on shinigami. One of my main problems with Naruto aside from the main character being an annoying little turd was that if you're trying to blend in to your surroundings, why on earth are you wearing bright orange?! 3. Do the characters seem Japanese? In Bleach, yes. Not so much in Naruto. 4. When you first watched these series, did you know they were from Japan? If you were much younger, would you have known? Did you care? Yes, I did. I was actively looking for anime and manga to enjoy when I started reading them. I don't think I would've cared that much when I was younger. 5. Have you heard of the term "Cool Japan"? Did you know this term while you watched the series? I have heard of it now. I didn't know it then. 6. What is your overall opinion of Japan? I'd love to visit but they need to stop killing whales and dolphins. 7. How do you/have you primarily consume Bleach and/or Naruto? (i.e. physical copies of manga, online manga, through Toonami, anime streaming websites, etc.) Do/did you watch dubbed or subbed? I used to own the first 24 volumes of the Bleach manga but I sold them. I borrowed the Naruto volumes I did read from a friend at school. I have no desire to watch Naruto, and I've watched a few episodes of subbed Bleach on Crunchyroll. 8. How do these series compare to other shonen anime/manga such as One Piece? They drag on too much compared to a lot of the shonen series I enjoy like FMA. I cannot compare to One Piece as I've not watched or read it. 9. How do they compare to other Japanese series and other series in general? They're utterly cookie cutter shonen battle shows, but they obviously do it well enough or they wouldn't be so popular. 10. Why do you think they were so popular in the United States? Good marketing and lots of exposure. NB I am not from the US. Here in the UK, they didn't air on TV nearly as much as in the US, but they're still very popular. |
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A Mystery
 Posts: 1887 Location: Netherlands |
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@Final Versus: Do you only want responses from Americans? If you do, you cannot use st_owly's response. This forum is visited by different nationalities, so you should put that text 'American audiences' in bold if you only want a specific group (or even better, put it in your title). Otherwise your results may not be representative of the American audience.
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GeminiDS85
Posts: 391 |
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Just in case you only want answers from Americans living in America: I was born in America, but I now live in Japan.
1. What exactly do you like about Bleach and/or Naruto? I don’t really have much of an opinion about either because I have never watched Naruto and I’ve only seen about a half an episode of Bleach. The little amount of Bleach that I did watch did not leave a good impression on me, and I never watched it after that. 2. Do you recognize that there are specific Japanese elements and references in the series? Do you enjoy them? What are they? I knew that Bleach was animation from Japan even before I saw it for the first time. It kind of reminded me a little of Edo era pulp fiction in that it was easy to understand pastiche of a warrior culture that was highly romanticized by people who had never actively participated in said culture. 3. Do the characters seem Japanese? The characters are definitely a cultural derivative of Japan. 4. When you first watched these series, did you know they were from Japan? If you were much younger, would you have known? Did you care? Yes, the first time I watched Bleach I knew it was from Japan. If I was much younger, say 5-10 years old, I probably wouldn’t have known it was from Japan. When I first watched Bleach I did care it was from Japan because at the time I was actively looking for new Japanese animation to watch. 5. Have you heard of the term "Cool Japan"? Did you know this term while you watched the series? Yes, I have heard of the term before. Yes, I did know the term when I watched the series. 6. What is your overall opinion of Japan? I have things I like about Japan and things I don’t like about Japan. 7. How do you/have you primarily consume Bleach and/or Naruto? (i.e. physical copies of manga, online manga, through Toonami, anime streaming websites, etc.) Do/did you watch dubbed or subbed? The only time I watched Bleach was when it was on Adult Swim; it was dubbed. 8. How do these series compare to other shonen anime/manga such as One Piece? I have never seen One Piece, but Bleach seemed very similar to other shonen series in that it featured copious amounts of common auditory and visual codes to convey information in an easily accessible manner. 9. How do they compare to other Japanese series and other series in general? They feature a lot of common auditory and visual codes to convey information in an easily accessible manner. 10. Why do you think they were so popular in the United States? They feature a lot of common auditory and visual codes to convey information in an easily accessible manner. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6280 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I can give my input:
1. What exactly do you like about Bleach and/or Naruto? Not a fan of Naruto, but I did love Bleach. I love Bleach because the concept and plot is unique. I like the action, and how mature the show is? 2. Do you recognize that there are specific Japanese elements and references in the series? Do you enjoy them? What are they? Yes, I think the shinigami concept is interesting. What I like also is the use of Spanish name like Arrancars, etc... 3. Do the characters seem Japanese? No, unless you found out their name, you wouldn't know if they were Japanese or not. 4. When you first watched these series, did you know they were from Japan? If you were much younger, would you have known? Did you care? Yes, I do know they were from Japan. Actually when I was a young kid (I was born in 1987), I didn't know most of the cartoon I watched (Voltron, G-force, Akira) were anime until when I got older and found their Japanese origins. 5. Have you heard of the term "Cool Japan"? Did you know this term while you watched the series? I know of Cool Japan a few years back. 6. What is your overall opinion of Japan? I think Japan has a unique culture, but I'm also mixed when it comes to Japan but I'll leave the bad/serious issues aside (the Japanese looking down and frowning on foreigners, I'll agree with you on that). 7. How do you/have you primarily consume Bleach and/or Naruto? (i.e. physical copies of manga, online manga, through Toonami, anime streaming websites, etc.) Do/did you watch dubbed or subbed? I watch Bleach on Adult Swim, and I read the manga (physical copies) too. I watched it dub, never got chance to watch it subbed. 8. How do these series compare to other shonen anime/manga such as One Piece? For the record, I don't watch or read One Piece. But I think it's cool on par with Dragonball series. 9. How do they compare to other Japanese series and other series in general? I watched Shakugan no Shana and Yu Yu Hakusho, and Bleach kinda reminds me of those 2 anime series. For Shakugan No Shana, the show did reminded me of Bleach when I first watch it. 10. Why do you think they were so popular in the United States? In my opinion, Bleach was made for a mainstream audiences and it has something you can't find in American animation. I guess that's why it got popular in the US. |
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