257: How Walt Disney Created Manga

[Crimson_Dragoon]

I never could get into Princess Tutu. Its not that I doubt that it has a good story (other people I know who have watched it say the same), its just too girly for me. I know that seems shallow, but I can't get over that.

I'm going to go flex my muscles now, or something else manly.

 

[LadyRhian]

It's not Japan that has an obsession with teenagers, merely that most of the manga released here in America have been Shoujo (young woman's) and Shonen (Young men's) comics. They have really just begun to release Seinen (College-age male) comics like "Children of the Sea" and "20th Century Boys". Take a look at them- both involve young kids you'd normally find in manga, but they are not treated like the protagonists of Sailor Moon or Naruto.

The lead female character in Children of the Sea is angry and violent- she's been playing soccer on the field when someone bumps her, and she ends up sending the girl who bumped her to the hospital- just as an example. America, thinking that manga and Anime are "Kids Stuff" have focussed on the younger titles, but it's not entirely Japan's obsession with teenagers. It's our own as well.

 

[GloatingSwine]

All the life scarring tentacle rape, Disneys fault?

You don't even want to know what Disney animators got up to in their spare time....

On the other hand, the oldest piece of Japanese tentacle porn is from 1820, so they've been at it a fair old while.

 

[Katherine Isham]

[quoteI never could get into Princess Tutu. Its not that I doubt that it has a good story (other people I know who have watched it say the same), its just too girly for me. I know that seems shallow, but I can't get over that.[/quote]

Perhaps, but it has quite the following among girls 18-25 (and you can find evidence of it's cult status in force on geek-girl hang out spots online like LiveJournal and DeviantArt.) I suppose if you're too manly for pink the complexity and interest of this work will never touch you, but for those of us who are more estrogen-inclined, Princess Tutu is a work of great depth in a demographic that's woefully ignored in the west (that is, girls.) Just look at how Escaflowne and "Cardcaptors" were "girly-downed" for male audiences, because it's believed that in the US girls will watch beefy manly cartoons but not vice-versa. Thanks to these double-standards, females now have very little media aimed toward them--instead, we just get the smurfette principle/a bit of half-hearted cross-marketing.

...hm, somehow this went from "maybe it's too girly for you but girls like it" to a rant about the lack of female-aimed media in the west. Um...yeah. ^^;;

 

[TheTygre]

All the life scarring tentacle rape, Disneys fault?

You don't even want to know what Disney animators got up to in their spare time....

On the other hand, the oldest piece of Japanese tentacle porn is from 1820, so they've been at it a fair old while.

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, right? I remember it popping up in Mad Men.

 

[GloatingSwine]

All the life scarring tentacle rape, Disneys fault?

You don't even want to know what Disney animators got up to in their spare time....

On the other hand, the oldest piece of Japanese tentacle porn is from 1820, so they've been at it a fair old while.

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, right? I remember it popping up in Mad Men.

Yeah. I can't find a source of all the wacky shit that the disney animators used to do back in the day when the bosses had gone home, but it was pretty filthy (Apparently loards of the animators were fired when Walt actually found out what they'd been doing). Was all back in the silent era as well, all black and white.

 

[Deofuta]

After my first year of college I suddenly hit this massive nostalgia burst. After watching and finishing Outlaw Star (Space ships with hands and melee combat? Madness!), I am now going through Super Dimensional Space Fortress Macross. It is just so good, and every time I see it there seems to be another web of thoughts and emotions that I feel. Deep is just not a descriptive enough word

 

[Blueruler182]

All the life scarring tentacle rape, Disneys fault?

You don't even want to know what Disney animators got up to in their spare time....

On the other hand, the oldest piece of Japanese tentacle porn is from 1820, so they've been at it a fair old while.

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, right? I remember it popping up in Mad Men.

Yeah. I can't find a source of all the wacky shit that the disney animators used to do back in the day when the bosses had gone home, but it was pretty filthy (Apparently loards of the animators were fired when Walt actually found out what they'd been doing). Was all back in the silent era as well, all black and white.

Well that was very racially accepting for their time... And Disney...

 

[nightwolf667]

Okay, so you mention that there's a litany of evidence that the Lion King is based on Kimba the White Lion which looks remarkably similar to Leo the Lion, King of the Jungle from the 1980s. Given that Kimba came out in 1966 I'm guessing that Leo was probably a renaming of newer seasons of the older show.

Still, when you mention "litany of evidence" I would like to at least see some evidence other than the obvious: both have young cartoon lions, take place in Africa, are coming of age stories, and have similar names e.g "Kimba" and "Simba". It also depends on whether we're still talking animation style or story structure. The Lion King's story most closely resembles Hamlet, which has been admitted to by its creators. Being an Anime, Kimba's plot is more likely to be episodic in nature and seems for the most part to focus on mending the relationships between humans and animals. A young cub born in captivity returns to the wild to find his place and fight for good, justice, and peace like his father.

I'm just saying that if you're going to make a blanket statement like that it would be nice to include more details other than "Simba" and "Kimba", and one coming before the other. After all no one is going to debate how Western and Eastern animation have influenced each other over the years, it's just a matter of when and how.

 

[carpathic]

I've gotta go with Ghost busters on this one...'DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!'

 

[RandV80]

[quoteI never could get into Princess Tutu. Its not that I doubt that it has a good story (other people I know who have watched it say the same), its just too girly for me. I know that seems shallow, but I can't get over that.

Perhaps, but it has quite the following among girls 18-25 (and you can find evidence of it's cult status in force on geek-girl hang out spots online like LiveJournal and DeviantArt.) I suppose if you're too manly for pink the complexity and interest of this work will never touch you, but for those of us who are more estrogen-inclined, Princess Tutu is a work of great depth in a demographic that's woefully ignored in the west (that is, girls.) Just look at how Escaflowne and "Cardcaptors" were "girly-downed" for male audiences, because it's believed that in the US girls will watch beefy manly cartoons but not vice-versa. Thanks to these double-standards, females now have very little media aimed toward them--instead, we just get the smurfette principle/a bit of half-hearted cross-marketing.

...hm, somehow this went from "maybe it's too girly for you but girls like it" to a rant about the lack of female-aimed media in the west. Um...yeah. ^^;;[/quote]

It's kind of ironic really. With the recent "Rape-Lay" incident that's opened peoples eyes over here, the media various groups have been demonizing Japan for this derogatory treatment of women. Yet beside this highly questionable male orientated material, is an entire section of fictional material devoted to girls young and old that is practically non-existant over here.

Over here the only real non-Japanese equivelent is the Twilight series, and perhaps Tyra Banks upcoming Modelland [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100637-Tyra-Banks-Fancies-Herself-the-Next-J-R-R-Tolkien]. So who exactly treats the girls better here?

 

[rpsms]

@#17:

I certainly see how you might like to redefine a term in order to support your misconceptions, but again there are myriad examples of manga which do not support the idea that Disney was somehow the driving force behind japanese comics.

It is not my intention to exhaust the scholarship nor even imply that a single wikipedia entry is exhaustive in and of itself, but there are plenty of counter examples to be found via google books.

 

[JusticarPhaeton]

Sorry to burst you bubble, but Manga goes a little further back than Disney.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai_Manga for instance

I dont know about the particulars, but 'manga' and 'anime' as we know it started with series such as Astro Boy and the like, which were *heavily* inspired from Western Animation, which itself was going through a huge slump at the time. In fact, that is why most anime characters have caucasian facial features; it's because the first anime series started by creating their own version of western animation, and after their breakaway successes, the rest of anime-to-be simply copied this formula.

I suppose animation is a classic case of the western world inventing something, abandoning it, the Japanese subsequently picking it up and turning it into a cultural phenomenmon, which is much later imported back to the west. Ironic.

 

[Bek359]

Wait a minute, I thought that The Lion King was based on Hamlet?

 

[Dragon-Byte]

Wait a minute, I thought that The Lion King was based on Hamlet?

it IS
don't expect them to know that though.
(and i thought this was an article about CULTURE?)

 

[CitySquirrel]

I would like to note that based on conversations with friends of mine, Japanese students studying in Canada, it would appear that people of all ages reading manga is not exactly the norm. Adults who read manga and watch anime, according to them, were usually considered geeky in the way that Adult gamers are considered geeky here. Most of my friends said they had grown out of the managa and anime that they watched in their teens. It is true that animation is held in higher regard there, and this could possibly be tainted by their frustrations with North American perceptions of "Japanese Culture"... particularly odious to them are North Americans who always bring up anime or manga when speaking to them, so it could be a little bit of backlash.

 

[Aliens from Mars]

P.S.: Do not forget that Disney took from Osamu Tezuka as well. Lion King and Kimba are practically the same movie.

they're both ripping off Hamlet, so it doesn't matter which is "more original" they're both copies.

 

[Aliens from Mars]

oh, and go back to Japan, freaks.

 

[Magnalian]

Great read! Very informative. I had a vague clue about most of this, but the article filled in a few blanks for me.

Carl Barks, of course, is a legend.

I still have one of his most recent works lying around here, about Scrooge looking for the Templar treasure. It's seriously one of the best comics I've ever read.

 

[Nesrie]

How Walt Disney Created Manga

It's a little known fact that American animators at Disney were great inspirations for Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and the "God of Manga." Tiffany Martin believes that Americans would be enriched by understanding and appreciating the cross-pollination between our two cultures.

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I thought this was common knowledge?

I don't think it is common knowlege for the general population, but people really into Manga/Anime I think tend to know this.