Ask John: What are the Common Japanese Cultural Characteristics in Anime?

Question:
I’ve read the question recently about how Americans should look at the cultural aspect of anime. But I was wondering, what cultural aspects should we expect from anime? Is anime notorious for sad or bad endings or something? Is there anything particularly shocking that I should know about?

Answer:
Japanese animation does have a number of common characteristics that appear frequently in many anime. Sometimes obviously Japanese characteristics stand out in anime because they’re overtly foreign to Western viewers. In other cases many of the cultural characteristics of anime are so obvious that viewers frequently don’t even consciously notice them. One way to distinguish and recognize the cultural characteristics of anime is to just catalog the reasons and ways in which anime is different from our typical Western expectations for what animation should be.

The typical characteristics that Westerners expect to find in animation are talking animals, self contained stories, unbelievable violence, and child friendly stories. We expect these characteristics because they are the Western cultural standards for animation. On the other hand, Japan has different expectations for animation. Simply put, Japanese culture treats animation as a lower class form of live action cinema. That means that Japanese culture assumes that animation will adhere to the same basic elements and principles that live action film does. (Segments of Japanese society consider animation the equivalent of live action film, but there’s no country on Earth that doesn’t commonly perceive animation as, at least, a second tier sibling to live action.) The mere fact that anime deals with believable characters having believable emotions, problems, and motivations is reflective of a Japanese perspective on animation. Certainly there are American animated programs that deal with believable characters and situations, but such films are the exception to the rule in America. In simple terms, the fact that the majority of Japanese animation isn’t typically condescending is itself a reflection of Japanese cultural values present in anime.

The majority of anime series are continuing stories with a beginning, middle and end; they star human characters that think and act like believable human characters. Anime covers a near infinite range of subjects, styles, and content. Anime presumes that the viewer is intelligent and rational and able to comprehend situations, motivations and events drawn from real life. These characteristics are common to virtually all anime, and can be said to define and typify Japanese animation. On the other hand, characteristics like these are a rare exception in Western animation. Things like mature, realistic and intelligent storytelling in animated form aren’t exclusive to Japanese culture, but the fact that these elements are the standard rather than the exception is a reflection of Japanese culture’s attitude toward animation that differs with America’s. So when anime like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh is edited for content in America, distinguishing characteristics of its Japanese culture are being removed. Scenes of Kasumi slapping Satoshi across the face being removed from the American version of Pokemon is not just an example of violence being edited for American release; it’s an example of the Japanese recognition of violence as a natural human reaction being censored from the view of American children.

It seems like it should be obvious, but Westerners often forget, or don’t consider that Japanese animation is made by Japanese artists for Japanese viewers. It’s not uncommon for anime to be obscure or vague; not uncommon for anime to have cliffhanger or ambiguous endings; not uncommon for anime to deal with personality types and characters that Japanese viewers can easily relate to or identify with; and not uncommon for anime series to end abruptly either because they’re only introductions to the manga series or sales didn’t justify continued production. Western viewers are often upset to encounter one or more of these characteristics in anime because they expect anime to conform to their Western expectations instead of accepting what they see as characteristic of the Japanese culture from which it came.

I’ve pointed out some distinct aspects of Japanese culture that appear in anime, but it’s impossible to adequately or accurately identify all of the examples of Japanese culture that appear in all anime. Just watching unaltered Japanese language anime should allow you to notice examples of Japanese culture on your own. From the most subtle to most obvious things, virtually anything you see in anime that’s either unfamiliar or unexpected or isn’t like what you’d expect from an average American cartoon is probably some bit of Japanese culture. Just remember that evidence of Japanese culture in anime isn’t limited to just chopsticks and Tokyo Tower and school uniforms. Japanese culture in anime also includes Japanese thought and philosophy and tradition and social convention, both ancient and contemporary.