Why Isn’t There Serious Critical Analysis of Anime?

Question:
How far are we from the day where anime can be critically analyzed the way we analyze books, plays, or poetry? I believe there’s as much plot movement, symbolism, and character development in anime as there is in any ordinary novel; it’s more than possible to analyze an anime using, say, a Marxist or an archetypal approach. Nowadays, there’s so much more to anime than the simple “Saturday morning cartoon.” It’s as if they’ve evolved into living, breathing alternate worlds oozing creative style. So why hasn’t it been attempted in an effective way yet?

Answer:
Two primary hurdles have largely obstructed the application of analytical and literary criticism to discussion of Japanese animation. The first obstacle is the language of anime. When literary criticism – including analysis of theme, dialogue, characterization, social relevance, literary technique, and narrative structure – relies heavily upon precise interpretation and evaluation of language, Japanese animation poses difficulties for English speaking critics because its native language is Japanese. Foreign literary works can and are evaluated in translation, but doing so requires faith in a literal, academic translation, and most commercial anime is not translated with a primary emphasis on exacting accuracy. Domestic commercial anime is typically translated to convey general meaning quickly, not translated to express nuance and the subtly inherent in the original Japanese.

Anime is also frequently not given serious consideration for academic study because it falls into the same species of popular culture commodity as comic books, music videos, and computer games. These products are typically thought of as manufactured commodities rather than artistic creations. To a degree, the exclusion of anime from serious academic examination may be justified. Certainly some productions have less thoughtful, artistic merit than others. But that disclaimer may be applied to all forms of art. James Joyce is revered in literary circles, yet disposable grocery store romance novels are also legitimate novels, albeit ones with significantly less literary strength.

Modern perceptions and the increasing sophistication of productions within realms previously excluded from academic legitimacy, for example, the acclaimed Watchmen comic book series and the increasing insistence that console video games be acknowledged as a legitimate form of creative art attest to America’s gradually developing expansion of the application of critical analysis to non-traditional objects of study.

Japanese scholars and experts have been approaching manga and anime with an academic eye for some time now, but awareness of works such as Udagawa Takeo’s “Manga Zombie” have been very limited among English speakers because so few of these scholarly analysis of manga and anime have been translated into English. Similarly, there have been limited English language approaches toward treating manga and anime as a valid subject for literary and linguistic criticism. The University of Minnesota Press began publishing its “Mechademia” academic journal in 2006. Lois H. Gresh & Robert Weinberg’s 2006 book “The Science of Anime” evaluates the social relevance and prescience of anime. The Anime and Manga Research Circle, founded in 2002 by Lawrence Eng, PhD. has been the English speaking internet community’s foremost gathering point for critics and scholars interested in academic discussion and analysis of anime.

While anime and manga have yet to be firmly established as a widely accepted legitimate source for literary and critical analysis among English speaking researchers, scholars, and critics, a movement toward that end has already started. Given the existence of such rich, thematic, artistic, visionary, and intelligent anime productions as Angel’s Egg, Utena, Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiments Lain, Earth Girl Arjuna, many of the works of director Hayao Miyazaki, and countless other examples, there’s no absence of anime deserving of critical analysis and interpretation. English speaking critics simply need to expand their scope of reference and recognize the validity of anime for academic study.