The approach to anime series, according to our interviewees, is more a reflection of our values than the opus itself. Numerous analyses have shown that anime has the effect of alleviating psychological pressure on young people, fostering a strong will, reducing the fear of failure and developing teamwork.
If you grew up in the ‘90s and ‘00s in Montenegro, you couldn’t avoid on TV screens Dragon Ball, Digimon Adventures, Naruto, Meow Meow Friends, Pokémons, Yu-Gi-Oh, Medabots, Transformers, Beyblade, Shaman King, Bakugan… Parents, running out of strength, would browse cartoons by quickly pressing the buttons on the remote control for their mesmerised children. Kanal D. Nostalgija.
We knew that we should be in front of the TV, ntv Montena at 7.30 PM. After “when the sun goes down and the night comes, hey Moomins” a cry would follow, at least in my case. The closing theme meant we should get ready for bed.
We tried to get from mothers and fathers whatever we could – stickers, pencil cases, balls, clothes, and various toys with characters and motifs of these popular Japanese animated films (abbreviated: anime). Probably that begging gradually became the reason why they were browsing the channels. My brother’s original Beyblades cost up to 20 euros, and the arena for their fight about 15 more (later we discovered cheap copies at so called “large street market” in Podgorica). A deck of Yu-Gi-Oh shadow game cards was bought multiple times a day. There was no one in the neighbourhood at that time who did not have at least one Bakugan set and at least a few Transformers figures. We were aware that whenever we go out, we would find the crew playing half-full with paper figures of Digimon heroes.
One parent (54), a typical representative of the generations that grew up with classic gag cartoons, with an excess of slapstick style of humour and a lack of lessons, believes that the cartoons his peers grew up with are incomparably better than the present. ”Why? Because they always had a positive and noble educational message. Violence was not present as much as in the current ones. At that time, for example, the worst form of violence was when Popeye slapped Bluto for annoying Olive Oyl. Today’s cartoons are full of violence, the characters have an arsenal of weapons, and there is blood everywhere, as if another world war is being announced”.
Scenes in which Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Bugs Bunny and Duffy Duck, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are repeatedly chasing each other – for the parents of today’s 20-year-olds represent a safe zone. According to the father of an elementary school student thus they kept their children away from the unknown. “We have to be realistic that they did not have time to explore endless new worlds due to various tasks. When I saw, thanks to my children, what today’s cartoons, and among them, of course, a large number of anime, carry, it was clear to me why today’s children are superior in intelligence comparing to us when we were their age. Of course, there are other factors as well. Watching Tom and Jerry, we learned good tricks and a lot about friendship or determination, but anime teaches us about the forces of nature, becoming mature, and even philosophy.” This parent grew up in a time when American and some European cartoons and comics produced by France-Belgium and especially Italy shaped generations. Today, he says, kids have much more choices.
How Japanese culture, of which anime is an indispensable part, influenced the young generation in Montenegro, will be best explained by the interviewees who are only a small part of the pop culture milieu inspired by Japan.
“Princess Mononoke, First of the North Star, Zenki, etc. were shown on TV MBC, ntv Montena, TV Elmag and other TV stations. They remained in our memory because of their different visual identity compared to the Disney and Pixar films to which we were used to,” say Danilo Burzanović and Matija Miljanić, editors of radio show Pipci Hobotnice (Octopus Tentacles) at Students’ Radio Krš. They started it in order to offer the public and fans of Japanese culture and cinematography something to enjoy.
Anime, as they point out, deal with the themes of friendship, love, family, relationship with nature in a completely different and unique way… “Unlike popular cartoons in which girls are taught to wait for a prince on a white horse who will “save” them ” most of anime teach us to be independent and to believe in ourselves and our abilities”, say Burzanović and Miljanić.
Although Japan already knew the charms of the magic lamp, a type of projector that arrived to “the land of the rising sun” from the Netherlands, the history of anime starts at the beginning of the 20th century. Oten Shimokawa, Seitaro Kitayama and Junichi Kouchi were among the first who contributed to the creation of short films, later known as anime.
Recognizing their influence, the Japanese authorities misused them during the Second World War to place propaganda through anime (examples are Momotaro no Umivashi from 1943 or Momotaro: Umi no Shinpei from 1945). During the ‘70s, anime developed and many genres were born – shoujo, shounen, harem, isekai, magical girl… Each of them has its own logic and targets a specific audience. Some, for example iyashikei, are designed in a such way that the characters in them live in soothing environments and have a healing effect on the viewers. Typical anime from this period are Astro Boy, Lupin III and Mazinger Z. These are also the years when the masters of the Japanese animation industry, Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii, create. In the ‘80s, anime became mainstream in Japan and experienced a boom with series such as Gundam, Macross and many others. New genres, such as cyberpunk or space opera, attract attention. Akira achieved international success in 1988. Japan has been slowly opened the doors to the world.
I remember the first time I watched Ghibli’s Spirited Away, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2003. Its author, Miyazaki, at that time made this prestigious award meaningless, since, as a true pacifist, he did not want to come to the USA to receive it, because that country bombed Iraq. I was about ten years old, but I remember that anime made me think I knew what it was like to be an adult.
Later, my brother and I got hooked on Miyazaki and watched all his films, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, Howl’s Moving Castle… They were shown on various local and regional channels and were real film treats and lessons about the importance of nature protection, the horrors of war, the effects of technology, philanthropy… And all of them somehow simply and easily reached our children’s brains.
“In Montenegro, anime series have never entered the mainstream.” My earliest memories vaguely lead me to the popular Studio Deen shounen anime Zenki which was broadcasted here on the former Elmag TV. The story of a guardian demon and a Shinto Priestess who fights against evil forces fascinated me for many years. It represented a prelude to the world of horror movies and supernatural events and greatly shaped my media taste”, recalls Nikola Saveljić, editor of Youth Portal Makanje.
He also watched other anime series, such as The Book of Death or Bleach. “They are engraved in my memory because thinking about them awakes beautiful emotions which I connect a with happy childhood period. My biggest concern was whether I would be on time to watch the episode of my favourite anime on TV IN. 7.30 PM sharp, after the news”.
According to Burzanović and Miljanić, the messages viewers receive from anime depend on themselves. “Often our approach to anime is more a reflection of our values than the opus itself”.
Danica Kovačević is the author of the YouTube channel Oushi Hime (Japanese: princess bull). She made it to introduce the modern culture of Japan to those who don’t know much about it. As she points out, anime influenced her imagination and creativity. “They inspired me to research Japanese history, mythology, language, art and culture in general. If we carefully choose the content, we can learn a lot, develop an understanding of diversity, and start creating on our own,” Kovačević explains. She also notes that, if we do this without healthy criticism, negative consequences on behaviour are also possible. “It is, after all the same as with any other content, such as the media”.
For some time now, there has been a debate in Japan about the flaws of the anime industry, which many critics believe has spawned, in addition to otaku, also, hikikomori, which some consider as a social phenomenon, and others mental illness. It refers to persons who suffer from extreme social phobia which force them to lock themselves in their rooms and completely isolate from others.
“I think that my generation (born in 1999) remembers well the famous channel Ultra, which introduced us with the world of Japanese animation. I watched Naruto, Mermaid Princesses, Yu-Gi-Oh, Kirari,… Although it’s great that we had access to cartoons like this, I’m sorry that I didn’t have the opportunity to watch some others, which at that time were world-famous, especially among girls, such as, for example, Sailor Moon“, says Kovačević.
Being 50 years old and being an anime lover, who, for example, watches them during exhausting commuting knowing that a long and tiring day waits at work is usual in Japan.
“Such a person would probably not be accepted by society in Montenegro. That’s why many people hide the fact that they like anime, pretend to be disinterested and even make fun of others who watch those ‘Chinese cartoons’, so that no one would suspect them”, consider the authors of the radio show Pipci Hobotnice (Octopus Tentacles).
Saveljić also looks at it from a more positive side. “Anime change the way young people think, and new generations are more open”.
Very often, explains Makanje editor, anime series raise awareness of topics that are neglected or presented wrongly. Among them are work overload, social alienation or apocalyptic predictions of the future due to rapid digitization and technological development. “Anime always find an interesting way to present it to the audience. How effective that is and whether that always works (whether it’s satire, parody or sharp social commentary) should be explored. Paranoia Agent is a great example of social criticism. There are also Gatchaman Crowds, Perfect Blue, Mawaru Penguindrum, and to some extent Evangelion, which is more a philosophical parody, but interestingly criticizes the weaboo culture”. Weeaboo (or weeb) is a derogatory slang for a person from the West who is obsessed with Japanese culture, especially anime series, often viewing it as superior to other cultures.
According to Miljanić and Burzanović, one of the best television series is Future Boy Conan directed by the genius Miyazaki, which consists of 26 episodes. “It is one of his best anime creations with a fantastic story for both young and older generations. As children, we watched Crayon Shin-chan, which was shown on a French-language satellite channel. The comedy of this anime is based mainly on physical humour. We enjoyed it, but we probably would have enjoyed it even more if the series had been translated”, they say.
Numerous analyses around the world have been done in order to determine the potential effects anime can have on young people.
Researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world, Lawrence Eng studied the effects of anime on information technology (IT) students. He found that anime increased their social interaction. IT students, Eng writes, have generally been victims of stereotypes that portray them as antisocial and unapproachable. Once they become anime fans, they are instantly accepted by all the other students, anime lovers, as well as the community of anime fans on the internet.
Professors from two different universities in Malaysia, Faradillah Iqmar Omar and Iza Sharina Sallehuddin in 2011 conducted a study on the effects of anime on aggressive behaviour in school-aged children. It turns out that students feel bad when they hurt others and therefore refuse to behave aggressively towards their surroundings.
Similar analyses were conducted in China, where Japanese animation is almost twice as popular as European or American. Anime has been shown to have the effect of relieving psychological pressure on young people, fostering a strong will, reducing the fear of failure and developing teamwork.
Similar studies, as expected, have not yet been conducted in Montenegro, nor in other countries of the former Yugoslavia. It would be interesting to analyse those results.
The importance of anime is also reflected in the numbers. Back in the ‘90s, this market in Japan was worth around six billion dollars. Today, it is worth more. In his famous article entitled Japan’s Gross National Cool for the American magazine Foreign Policy, Douglas McGray notes: ” Japan is reinventing superpower – again. Instead of collapsing beneath its widely reported political and economic misfortunes, Japan’s global cultural influence has quietly grown”.
“Ghibli films convey messages that promote the values I would teach my child, if I had one,” concludes Kovačević.
Critical discourse against ideas hyper-recycling
YouTube channel Oushi Hime is currently in the hibernation phase says its author Danica Kovačević.
The reason for this is the fact that Kovačević was fed up with the hyperproduction of the series, so she stopped watching them as much as she did before. “There is hyper-recycling of ideas, motives or even worse some stereotypes and clichés. The last video I published talks about sexism in anime and its target groups are mostly teenage girls (women in general). In the video, among other things, I pointed out the romanticizing and approval of some toxic behaviours”.
Perhaps it comes with age and maturation, Kovačević is not sure, however, she notices more and more stereotyping and superficial relationships between anime characters. “It makes me very angry and discourages me from looking for quality content. Of course, there are quality contents, but my motivation and patience are weakening”.
She plans to redirect her energy, from these thoughts, to the production of content on YouTube that will contribute to meaningful criticism of the anime world.
And in this case, anime series teach us social activism.
Andrea JELIĆ
The article is part of the project “Gaining Freedom – Cultural corrective from an individual to a collective action” supported through small-grants program. The program is part of the national project “Diagnosis and therapy on freedom of expression, hate speech and ethnic tensions” which is a joint initiative of Montenegro Media Institute, Center for Democracy and Human Rights and Portal UL Info aimed at strengthening and advocating for freedom of expression, combating hate speech and reducing ethnic tensions in Montenegro. The project is financed by the European Union through the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) and co-financed by the Ministry of Public Administration of Montenegro. The content of this article is sole responsibility of the author and in no way reflects the views of the donors.