Effect Of The Immmersion Of Manga

Japanese propaganda relied on old historical and mystical beliefs to characterize Americans as demon like creatures. Dower points out how “professor Yamaguchi Masao has gone so far as to argue that in the eyes of Japanese villagers until the midnineteenth century, there really existed ‘only two major categories of people: the insider and the outsider.’” Dower claims that “whether viewed as a bearer of blessings or misfortune, the outsider usually was ascribed mystical and supernatural powers.” With these beliefs already in place among villagers in Japan, the Japanese authorities had a much easier job of creating believable propaganda. All they had to do was build on these beliefs that outsiders, and in this case Americans specifically, are demons. Dower writes that “in popular illustrations, the marks of the beast were claws, fangs, animal hindquarters, sometimes a tail, sometimes small horns-all of which… marked a transition from the plain beast to the quasi-religious demon or devil.” The Japanese did not simply compare Americans to animals, but instead compared them to something more intelligent, yet completely evil. Dower says that “the Japanese fell back on some of the basic patterns of identifying strangers and outsiders.” The Japanese versus American struggle became a story of good versus evil. The Japanese also used this good versus evil narrative to appeal to children through the

I first came to Japan knowing nothing about the language and the culture. Much more the issues the nation was facing. Most of the things I knew were taught to me by my father and I wasn’t intellectual nor educated enough to form my own opinions, thus, all my thoughts aligned with his, a typical conservative/ nationalist Japanese. As an individual of multinational backgrounds, I felt this strong desire to prove my Japanese-ness to others and indeed I tried.

The Graphic Novel Club is a school club that I have unofficially led for the past two years. In this club we encourage the members to look deeper into any passion they have for comics, anime, superheroes, or cartoon design. We look at a broad range of art from comic strips to the full scale production of the latest Marvel movie and why components of the art have changed to accommodate the changing demographic.

Hisaye Yamamoto, a Japanese American author, composed a collection of short stories titled, Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories. These collection of short stories describes the experiences Japanese Americans undergo while residing in America. The Japanese American culture that Yamamoto introduces has three types of generations. The first one being, the Issei, the second one being, the Nisei and the third one being, the Sensei. All three Japanese generations are described in Yamamoto’s short story cycle, which shows the relationship between Japanese Americans as well as with other ethnic groups. The major themes Yamamoto highlights within her novel defines the idea of what it is like to be Japanese American through the difficulties that Japanese immigrants face in America, the cultural separation between these immigrants and their children as well as restrictions that Japanese women face within their traditional Japanese culture.

In 1869, the first Japanese Immigrants arrived in California in an attempt to escape the Meiji restoration, which forced them out of their houses. Many joined them in America after that, forming the first generation of Japanese-Americans, the Issei. Those immigrants then formed families and gave birth to the second generation, the Nisei. However, the cultural differences between the Issei and the Nisei, who were all born in America, created an important gap between the two generations. The short story “Seventeen Syllables”, through the relation between Rosie, a Nisei young girl, and Tome Hayashi, her mother, is a good depiction of this issue.

The exporting of American pop culture has been going on ever since America has become a big world power along with other countries. Sometimes we don’t know how westernized we are since it’s all around us. There are some positives to this export to other countries, but there is also negatives. Some negatives to the exportation of American pop culture are the misrepresentation of other societies, teachings of extreme beliefs, and the erasing of other cultures around us.

→ The author shows the racism in American from a lot of sources; such as cartoons, official documents, advertisements, movies, and songs. The mass media drew Japanese people as an immature children (p.142) and animals. Especially, cartoons depicted the Japanese as monkeys, apes, rats, bugs, beetles, lice, and other kinds of creatures that had to be wiped out. (pp. 181-189) An example is that one restaurant sign on the West Coast said "This Restaurant Poisons Both Rats and Japs". (p. 92)

One Piece’ is a Japanese manga series, created by Eiichiro Oda. It has been read, viewed, and loved by people of over 35 countries around the world since it was first published in 1997. In Japan, the numbers of manga sale, in general, seem to slowly decline; nevertheless, the sale of ‘One piece’ increases in every volume. It shows that the Oda’s masterpiece is the most popular manga in Japan nowadays. Many people love this comic because it is well-known from other comics in Japan. There are several reasons for One Piece’s popularity, namely unique characters, various themes and valuable life lessons.

With the rapid spread of television in the 1960’s, Japanese animators found a new way to sell their products. One of the first Japanese anime to see great success was Tetsuwan Atom also known as Astro Boy, seeing success in western countries such as the United States and Europe. Another popular series from this time period was Tetsujin 28-go or Gigantor. Unlike the cartoons being shown in the United States at this time period, such as Spiderman, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons, Astro Boy and Gigantor focused on bigger, more mature issues. Cartoons in the United States aimed more at entertaining children with superheros thwarting criminals, and both prehistoric and futuristic comedy. These types of cartoons were never meant for anything other than entertainment with a small side of morality lessons put in for good measure. While entertaining, very rarely did the cartoons that were from the United States create critical thinking or questions about morality amongst their young viewers.

Of course, when anime first came over to America, it had to be edited to go over well with the popular audience. Television stations would go through and remove excessively violent scenes, alter translations, and even change whole plots just to make the shows more suitable for American audiences, (Ladd & Deneroff, 2009). Of course, it didn’t help that Americans viewed anime in general as children’s cartoons when it wasn’t created to be that way.

The graphic novel is a book that tells the story about the childhood of an Iranian girl named Marji, while instantaneously attempting to display what the Iranian people are like in

Pocky, Anime, manga, kanji. Have you heard of any of these? If not… where have you been? All around us teenagers, children, and even adults are being drawn into Japanese culture through TV, books, and even food. Japanese comics, called manga, take up more and more space on American bookshelves, and they've infused new life into the publishing industry. Japanese animation, anime, is on more and more movies and TV screens and influencing popular toys and games.

Post-war Japanese society is a world where High and Low art is blurred together by otaku, such as anime, and social class. However, Takashi Murakami straddles the line. Murakami spills a mix of Nihanga and Otaku into the canvases, plastic toys, handbags, shoes, etc; endorsing his own theory/style named “Superflat”. Using strategical subject matter such as popular Japanese comic figures combined with ukiyo-e(traditional Japanese block prints), and addressing these contrasting qualities to outside cultures; Murakami intensifies what Pop Art accomplished, art versus material. On other feelings, one could argue that “Superflat” isn’t a unique, Japan-identified style, that “Superflat” is a humiliation to the Contemporary Art world because of its commercialism. Lastly, that is a continuation of the already well developed Pop Art. On the supporting side, Murakami’s “Superflat” is a high-energy, cross-culture style that serves as a new way to represent the high and low of art that is considerably unique to Japan. To support this, Murakami’s past and present artwork will have to be established chronologically to illustrate how the timeline affects his work.

The culture of a place is an integral part of its society whether that place is a remote Indian village in Brazil or a highly industrialized city in Western Europe. The culture of Japan fascinates people in the United States because, at first glance, it seems so different. Everything that characterizes the United States--newness, racial heterogeneity, vast territory, informality, and an ethic of individualism-- is absent in Japan. There, one finds an ancient and homogeneous society, an ethic that emphasizes the importance of groups, and a tradition of formal behavior governing every aspect of daily living, from drinking tea to saying hello. On the surface at least, U.S. and Japanese

Manga’s are Japanese comic books; however, the big difference between manga and comic books is that comic books are colored while manga tends not to be.