On 13 Aug 2001 23:49:32 +0200 Calle Dybedahl calle@lysator.liu.se writes:
"Ellynne" == Ellynne G rilliara@juno.com writes:
An interesting thing about anime is, compared to a lot of other SF/F, the way it represents robots and machines.
Pet peeve: Anime is just animated movies from Japan, it varies wildly in style, content and genre.
I bow to the master. I've only recently been getting into anime. However, I've always had this side interest in folklore and how story forms we unconsciously absorb can effect the stories we make. Giants, for example, are not part of American folklore [Paul Bunyan came out of 19th century add campaign] and I've yet to see an American write a story with a convincing giant.
With B7, there are things I can look at and see the effect of the time period and culture (rebellion=good guys, government=bad guys, cynicism pays, female villains combine open sexuality with power, cyborgs and robots are bad, good guys wear big sleeves and earth tones) but it doesn't mean B7 didn't give them its own, very unique spin (maybe rebellion _doesn't_ equal good guys, maybe the government is the lesser of two or more evils, get too cynical and you may shoot your best friend the next time you see him, maybe Servalan stands above caricature, maybe there's a reason the cyborg has an attitude problem [but only good guys wear big sleeves and earth tones, this point is not open to debate])
Anyhow, I the few anime I was coming contact with seemed to have a totally different outlook on robots. I started thinking about it and realized the western take on robots in fiction is probably highly colored by the semi-negative view of machines that grew out of the darker aspects of the industrial revolution - machine as threat or machine as replacer/enslaver of humanity. Japan, with its rapid push to catch up technologically after Perry forced his way in, probably had a rather different industrial revolution (as near as I can tell from what I've read so far, that seems to be right [but what I've read was not in-depth and may have been colored by my reading it with this theory in mind]).
Actually, though, just about every anime I've seen so far has had an evil, older brother. This is kind of interesting when you compare it to the trend in a lot of American films to have the _father_ be the enemy. Perhaps, if I were looking at it as an outsider, I'd say 'every American film has this,' simply because it's a theme I hadn't seen before. In Japan, disrespect to a parent is still a big no-no, so I understand, but an older brother, while carrying a lot of natural prestige in the family, can be opposed.
Besides, I'm afraid I love the idea of Avon being irristably drawn to a robot armor suit.
Ellynne
________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
-
Ellynne G.