I’ve been dipping into Japanese manga and anime culture. Japanese science fiction animated movies like Akira (1988), Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Metropolis (2001) have a visual grammar that has influenced computer game design and cyberpunk movies like the Matrix. They also have a willingness to tackle interesting philosophical issues like the nature of the soul or “ghost” in a cybernetic world (Ghost in the Shell).
In effect, boys anime and manga, like the fumetti I read as a kid in Italy (see uBC – Enciclopedia), combine smart speculative fiction plots with soft porn and tech-heavy violence. This mix can be seen in the Fraco-Belgian adult Bande DessinÈe like Moebius.
Whether we approve of this mix, and, of course, we don’t, there is an energy to boy culture and it is the source for much of the style of online culture.
Anime combine curiously sophisticated visuals, especially backgrounds, with simplistic and infantile characters. Metropolis has a rich art-deco cityscape with characters that seem out of place and suitable for a kids show. Western animation goes out of its way to be consistent visually, but the Japanese seem to like the juxtaposition of little glowing robot girls with big eyes and dark mechanical complexes. Likewise the plots of these three anime seem disjointed by our standards. Ghost in the Shell has slow lyrical moments and a philosophical thread combined with action sequences. Akira gets downright bizarre as children with psychic powers battle.
Perhaps what makes them so fascinating is how different they are.