??? If you have time/don't mind, can you explain what this is in reference to? While it's not the same at all, certainly no one expects American culture to be accurately represented by sitcoms or cartoons.
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· 48 weeks ago
Weebs with brainrot wanting to travel to japan to live in an anime
Essentially. A lot of anime fans assume that anime is a realistic representation of Japan. Anime as an art form has certain stylistic elements- the words that are used or the way things are said often tend to differ greatly from more common Japanese language. Certain expressions and gestures and such common to anime are not common in real life. Some were created solely for anime as a way to emote or express certain concepts simply in the medium. Anime often references various traditions or customs and such that aren’t accurate to the majority of Japanese culture or are perhaps exaggerated or simplified etc.
As ignorance points out- American cartoons and even I’ve action shows etc. are full of things that Americans don’t find realistic.
Many teen shows have things like school events, school trips, class structures or rules that don’t reflect what most American school kids experience. Many genre tropes are just that- tropes and not realistic. Often times things like parties are shown in ways that are generally unrealistic. From American teen shows you might think that there is always a rich kid or every American school is full of sex and complicated webs of constant casual dating. To some degree some schools have these things but the “high schoolers dating a different person each week” or “every guy/girl fighting over the one “hunk” or one person juggling 10 romantic interests constantly and alot of the drama tends to be uncommon for most high schoolers experiences. “Bring your pet to school day” or science fairs with projects that would be impressive at a college and such are examples of common tropes in American shows and…
Just like many of the examples I gave above- what is maybe truthful or true is often outdated. Often the people creating the stories have been out of those grades or age ranges for decades. They may be going off memories or feelings about those times so even if maybe something was common at one time- it might not be realistic in the present day when someone is writing a high school story when they have been out of highschool for almost ten years. Trends and rules and even how classes run or such change.
There are elements of anime often lost on foreign viewers- an anime set in the present day, a character might be the daughter of a sword school master and she dressed in traditional garb and maybe had a sword even. Often these characters might speak an exaggerated antiquated Japanese- words used to express relationships and the way they end/start sentences being totally different than is common- a bit like a kid speaking like the English from Oliver Twist or such.
Accents and dialects are often exaggerated so viewers can easily tell where someone is from- a bit like how we might perceive someone with a southern accent to have certain traits or backgrounds vs if someone is talking about “back on the farm” but had a thick Queens NY accent. It might seem odd- or how in cartoons they often give a thick “surfer accent” to people from by the ocean etc. in America.
Now there are some anime that do contain a lot of useful and relevant details that are true of Japanese life and culture or language or are fairly accurate overall. That said for the most part even “slice of life” anime that are not overly ridiculous or fantastic in their premise are often not advisable for those who want to study Japanese language or culture etc. so many anime viewers often believe that the way people behave and interact- the way relationships and courtships progress- is realistic for Japan in general. Many people who watch anime and go to Japan get unrealistic ideas about Japan.
And it’s… how do I say it…? It can be as much about what isn’t shown as what is..?
You don’t really see alot of the minutia in most media. Japan isn’t exactly a wall to wall technological paradise with tech savvy people doing technical things everywhere. In some ways Japan can be low tech to a foreign perspective in everyday life. This was especially true 10-20 years ago.
But there are all these small details that often get left out because
1. You want to advance the plot not show every detail of how to balance finances or request a permit etc.
2. A domestic audience is often assumed or the POV is from that place where people who live there don’t need to be told every detail of minutia.
Example- American healthcare is confusing to many Americans. The majority of us that go to the doctor at least have a broad strokes idea. In another country though the processes and details of paying for healthcare might be totally foreign. So say that a sitcom has the less go to the hospital- unless it is a major plot point they won’t likely mention the bill or insurance etc. to an American viewer that would be odd. Things like that- “how do 20 year olds afford that apartment in NYC with those jobs?” Most American shows depict even “poor” people living in situations that aren’t realistic for their supposed income and such. But say an American drama has a character trying to avoid the doctor. The plot goes with it. They may never mention the motivation is that person doesn’t want to pay to go to the doctor. Another character might say: “you need a hospital!” And they exchange knowing looks and the other tries to help them without a doctor.
An American viewer is likely to understand that intuitively. The bill. Of course. A foreign viewer might be confused. Why doesn’t this person just go to the doctor? Why go through all this? Even if they know america has a paid healthcare system it might not register and if it does they may not understand exactly how bad that bill could be and just think “just pay it. Why all this to avoid a bill?” It hits differently.
Then there are those tropes. It’s an odd thing. Short sideline. There is a meta language to films and games and such. You don’t even know you are fluent usually.
An example many can relate to is watching someone play a game who never plays games. They usually such. It can be frustrating to watch. The simplest things and mechanics are some big obstacle. Or maybe you’re that person and you play and suck and watch others breeze through etc. it’s fluency in game design. Games tend to use certain cues and share certain mechanics or commonalities to them.
Modern games often try to need more hud or prompts for things on screen.
Gamers can often tell what objects can be Interacted with, who gives a quest, how to tell an important NPC from one with flavor text, enemies or areas likely to be dangerous, etc. a simple example that still applies often but isn’t as common- long ago water was pretty much almost always an obstacle. Even today when a gamer encounters water for the first time in a game without any external knowledge of the game they tend to be cautious. Long ago water was almost always instant death or was impassible. On more modern games water is often traversable and isn’t instant death but usually- and gamers tend to expect- you’ll move differently and controls may change- often to a fairly standard “water control scheme” with up and down on sticks or buttons. The top button on a 4 button controller is seldom ever “action” or “interact” by default nor is “start” or “shoulder buttons.” Things like this.
Tv and movies and cartoons and stories in general have things like this too. Things that directors and writers and animators and such tend to carry use across the industry. Just looking at the design for a character can often tell us alot about them. Unkempt facial hair is common for roguish types and characters that are a bit unpolished. You know that most of the time- if you’d never heard of Star Wars and you saw earth Vader you’d probably guess he was a bad guy if you saw his picture. No need to best s dead horse- there are details that tell us things about characters and set up what to expect next and help us keep up and pace the story and such. Anime has its own of these and some just assume those same things apply to actual Japanese culture.
Of course that’s part of that problem right? Japan is homogeneous compared to America or some other places but it’s still a land of different people and places. Tokyo and Osaka are not the same. The way people speak and various local customs and all sorts of things can differ between places and even people and then add to that the fact that those in different socioeconomic classes and positions and backgrounds often have their own differences in general to customs and speech and behavior etc. so generalizations like “Japanese are all clean/polite/shy/rich/indirect” etc. are inherently flawed and one might be surprised if they lived or stayed awhile in a Japan how much might differ from the conceptions.
Coming to a close- even the premise and word as I’ve used it is flawed… “Anime” is just a shortened form of “animation.” In the west we often use the term to refer exclusively to Japanese cartoons or Japanese cartoons of a certain style or sometimes all “Asian” cartoons or all cartoons that seem to fit the style regardless of origin. In Japan. Anime is animation. Disney’s Cinderella is anime, looney rooms is anime, if it’s animated it is anime. So in that sense yeah. Of course you probably can’t learn a lot about Japanese culture from watching “Happy tree friends” or “Heman.” Those “anime” aren’t even from Japan or set there.
But that sort of shows the point. Wether a fan of Japanese animation or not- many people don’t even catch that little nuance. So I would say there ARE things to be learned from Japanese anime about Japan and it’s culture directly…
But generally speaking to know what they are you either need to already know a fair deal or have access to commentary of some sort from someone with knowledge so as to be able to figure out what is or isn’t realistic and in what ways or how much.
As ignorance points out- American cartoons and even I’ve action shows etc. are full of things that Americans don’t find realistic.
Accents and dialects are often exaggerated so viewers can easily tell where someone is from- a bit like how we might perceive someone with a southern accent to have certain traits or backgrounds vs if someone is talking about “back on the farm” but had a thick Queens NY accent. It might seem odd- or how in cartoons they often give a thick “surfer accent” to people from by the ocean etc. in America.
You don’t really see alot of the minutia in most media. Japan isn’t exactly a wall to wall technological paradise with tech savvy people doing technical things everywhere. In some ways Japan can be low tech to a foreign perspective in everyday life. This was especially true 10-20 years ago.
But there are all these small details that often get left out because
1. You want to advance the plot not show every detail of how to balance finances or request a permit etc.
2. A domestic audience is often assumed or the POV is from that place where people who live there don’t need to be told every detail of minutia.
An example many can relate to is watching someone play a game who never plays games. They usually such. It can be frustrating to watch. The simplest things and mechanics are some big obstacle. Or maybe you’re that person and you play and suck and watch others breeze through etc. it’s fluency in game design. Games tend to use certain cues and share certain mechanics or commonalities to them.
Modern games often try to need more hud or prompts for things on screen.
But that sort of shows the point. Wether a fan of Japanese animation or not- many people don’t even catch that little nuance. So I would say there ARE things to be learned from Japanese anime about Japan and it’s culture directly…