The good news was hearing how Isao Takahata's The Tale of Princess Kaguya (shown here), one of Studio Ghibli's most recent (and possibly last) creations, had been nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar. The bad news, or at least the cynical news, was the thought that followed immediately afterwards: Is one person in a hundred, or even a thousand, going to be able to see that film as anything but alien exotica, because they don't know about the mythology, the history, the culture that's being tapped into for it?
The question surfaces each time I see yet another example of Western audiences approach anime and manga, not always knowing what they're getting themselves into. And as easy as it is to make the argument that the culturally savvy anime/manga consumer is the best such consumer, it's an argument that's easily abused by those who would see manga and anime best served by keeping it in a glass cage.
The question at the heart of this whole issue is simple enough: is our enjoyment of anime and manga increased by being culturally savvy about Japan? And, likewise, the obvious answer seems like the right one: why wouldn't it be? This goes beyond being able to laugh at in-jokes or play Spot The Reference, but to also be able to understand how a given cultural attitude — e.g., the way post-WWII Japan has long felt conflicted about how much military power it ought to wield.
On top of and around that question, though, sits another and much less easily resolved question: Is such savvy as important for lay audiences as it is for critics? In other words, is it the job of those "in the know" (whatever the know might be) to insist on a more educated audience for the sake of a better fandom? And again, it sounds like the easy answer should be yes. A smarter, more literate fandom is by definition a better one — one more capable of understanding why the older titles we throw Kickstarter money at and hoard out-of-print copies of are so important, one more capable of (and motivated to) participate in such preservation efforts, one more likely to be ... you get the idea. All upside, right?
Smarter than the average fanboy
This was the attitude I myself held until not all that long ago: that the mission of criticism was to bring the audience up to our level, where our understanding of all things Japanese would allow them to see all that they loved in a new light. A big part of why I held that attitude came from how I got into anime in the first place, by way of being curious about Japanese culture generally. Only after Lady Murasaki and Kurosawa and Mishima and Dazai did someone hand me tapes labeled AKIRA and Legend of the Overfiend, and books named Maison Ikkoku and Blade of the Immortal. And yes, knowing that much more about the culture that had produced those titles helped.
What didn't help was the malign assumptions that attitude allowed me to draw. If I know more about this stuff than "the average fan", thought I, then I must be that much better off than "the average fan" — and I owe "the average fan" a responsibility to rise to my level. Never mind that this was as much a way to evince contempt for "the average fan" as it was allegedly an expression of affection for him by offering him a hand up out of the lower depths. Never mind that there might be some who have no particular interest in Japan as a culture (as opposed to Japan as a source of cultural artifacts) — and are arguably none the worse off for it, because yes, there is more than one way to enjoy something other than making it into analytical fodder.
Few people consciously set out to embody snobbism of one kind or another. In my mind, I was just arguing in favor of a better class of fan. But I hadn't been prepared to ask myself what that might cost, or whether my motives were really that lofty. Maybe it really was about nothing more than looking better in the eyes of others, via whatever means were handy — and if I couldn't enumerate all of Goku's fighting moves from memory, then at least I could use my knowledge of Japan-as-a-whole as a method of one-upsmanship. The problem is, it didn't work when the fact that a given thing came from Japan wasn't the reason some people got interested in it in the first place. I was the exception, not the rule, and trying to make my case into the rule was doomed to fail.
The intoxication of wisdom
There is a kind of intoxication that comes with being the one in the know. By this I mean more than just knowing something, but being in the company of others for whom your knowing can be a kind of social capital. Sounding smart is easier than actually being smart, and so it becomes easy to believe the job of any critic in such a circumstance begins and end with pointing at something and saying, "See? This is what this means," or "This is where that came from."
People not in the habit of being critically attuned to things generally ignore such comments. This is not a failing or a shortcoming, but a mismatch between the message and the audience. The same thing goes for music buffs who think the best way to sell a band from bygone years is to describe them as "influential", when in truth the vast majority of music listeners don't care where a particular sound came from. Likewise, the Japanese-ness of a given anime or manga isn't automatically the most interesting thing about it for a good part of the audience drawn to it — and that is likely to become all the more the case as anime increasingly becomes just one of many options for the casual viewing of modern audiences.
No question exists in my mind that some things need a context, an explanation. Not long from now I will be reviewing not only Kaguya, but a slew of other titles with roots deep enough in Japanese history and culture that a proper appreciation arguably is hard without knowing those things: Pom Poko, for instance, or Grave of the Fireflies, or even Kamisama Kiss. But the whole point of bringing most of this stuff to the West is to prove that a good story, an inventive and enthralling and enlightening story, doesn't need footnotes to work. Maybe even for the most critical-minded, that is the best default stance to take, even on tricky material that demands close analysis.
So what would be the best way to talk to such an audience about anime, without being redundant or insulting? Part of why I founded this site was to explore ways to do just that — to be aware of how the driving force behind Japan's cultural products is overwhelmingly Japan itself, but also to find a way to talk about that without jargon, condescension, or humbug. The point of having cultural savvy about something isn't just to say "this is what this means" or, worse, "let me tell you what to like", but rather, "this is how this means this" — or, more simply put, "let me tell you what this made me think about and why". When used that way, one's understanding of Japan becomes inviting, rather than restrictive — a way to say "Look what else is out there!" rather than "Look what I know and you don't!"
A two-lane path
I'm growing less enamored of what I suppose could be called the sacerdotal school of criticism, where the wisdom and insight is handed down from the mount as if it were revelation or holy writ. In place of that I'm leaning towards the collaborative school, where the critic and the audience each contribute something to the experience that only they can provide. In some ways the first kind of criticism is even easier to indulge in when it's pop culture of some kind that's the subject, as opposed to highbrow (or middlebrow) culture. The second variety is harder, and requires more shelving of one's ego, but more rewarding. There, the critic contributes his experience, his insight, and (as needed) his skepticism and misgivings; the audience, its enthusiasm and invention. Each stimulates and challenges the other; each needs the other. Neither one has a monopoly on Japan.
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As I write this, a friend of mine is entirely at sea about the Hatsune Miku/Vocaloids phenomenon. As in, he doesn't get it at all: what is it about this thing that has so many people enthralled and fascinated? A lot of that, I'd picked up from simply listening to fans of the material and paying attention to the artifacts they created, and not trying to let my presumptions about the importance or significance of any of it — or my second-guessed ideas about Japan — get in the way instead. It takes a degree of personal discipline to close one's mouth and open one's mind. (I'm still somewhat baffled by the Touhou Project, though, but hey, one oddity at a time.)
Older fans ought to remember the anime label AnimEigo (and newer ones ought to look them up). It has as of late concentrated on live-action Japanese cinema, but has come back in the news thanks to its lovingly produced, Kickstarter-funded Blu-ray Disc edition of Bubblegum Crisis. AnimEigo's releases, past and present, sported liner notes meaty enough to be their own mini-course in Japanese pop culture. But the notes weren't the releases themselves, just a supplement to them, and I don't think the company ever picked up a single title it figured wasn't also entertaining on its own terms — no, not even the reference- and in-joke-riddled Urusei Yatsura, a show so dense with references that even the footnotes needed their own footnotes.
Both of these things — the liner notes of AnimEigo, the notes-of-the-heart enthusiasm for Hatsune Miku — are ends of a spectrum. At one end you have analysis and research, thought and reflection. At the other, you have enthusiasm and engagement, recombination and irrepressible spirit. Somewhere in the middle, they meet, and the atmosphere for that meeting space is as much the responsibility of those doing the thinking as it is those doing the celebrating.
To be sure, the function of any critic is to be the one who takes the time to learn the context, the background, the necessary skills, the ability to express. But it should also be his job not to stop there — to sometimes be willing to step down off the mountain, as it were, and see what the landscape looks like from another angle. The critic needs to hold himself up to a higher standard of open-mindedness and curiosity, to be open-minded about all of what fandom brings — and not just open-minded in a prescriptive, let-me-tell-you-what-to-like way. The point is not merely to have the critic on higher ground leading those below him to enlightenment, pointing the way to understanding, whether the subject is Japan or anything else.
I fell in love with Japan, warts and all, at an early age, and the love affair has only grown all the deeper and more heady as time has gone on. The last thing such a love affair should inspire me to do is lord it over everyone else who's allegedly not up to my level.
