ZippyDSMlee said:
So my question is,is Anime racist?
(just a random thought for today I thought was worth discussing with my betters, and no I do not understand grammar)
In my opinion it?s not inherently racist as to be racist there really has to be negative concepts at paly, though while not inherent it can and has been done. Since Anime is Japanese who tend to be polite xenophobists it makes the content at times woefully stereotypical. But even so do stereotypes that are not inherently negative equal racism? Even if in these days if it bleeds its racist/sexist/negative/unfair?
On a lot of levels it is because the Japanese are still culturally racist and pretty militant about it when you get down to it. They however remain polite about it nowadays, in part because they are an independent country in name only, being largely a puppet regime of the US and effectively one of our territories. The US pretty much conquered Japan but allowed it a degree of independence to get away from the whole "conquest" thing. While they seem to operate independently at times and clash with the US at times, especially in terms of trade, it's pretty much a show on a lot of levels. The bottom line is they have a very limited military because they are allowed to have one, and the US otherwise bases a truly massive amount of our Navy there, pretty much meaning we have a gun to Japan's head 24/7. Of course because of their racism and war crimes, and their lack of any real sincere apology or reform, odds are without the US being there they would be wiped out in an act of genocide, and they know it, which is why they don't protest the occupation to the extent one might expect and the way we've seen in cases like Ireland, though at the same time the US is fairly gentle about it, as I said, allowing them a great degree of autonomy. This is also the lens through which you need to look at certain regional politics, one of the reasons why the US didn't just let The Japanese die out at the hands of their victims is because Japan represents a powerful strategic position in the Pacific. China recently conflicting with Japan over control of certain islands is actually them conflicting with the US over those Islands as that kind of Japanese territory is why we keep the nation under the gun, our Navy being there means we have that location as a jumping off point against nations like China, it allows us to wield a lot of power in the region despite it being on the other side of the world. It's also why with China's military ambitions they want us out of there. This is also the logic behind some of the incursions into Filipino territory, while not an official US Territory anymore it's VERY friendly to the US and another one of our huge staging areas. Between that and Japan we've got nations like China and Russia in a rough spot, and especially with current interception technologies (which Russia was upset about due to previous disagreements) arguably ICBMs carrying WMD warheads of various types represent a minimal threat with us in the region like this due to our ships and bases, while at the same time we could in theory keep them very well contained and ensure in the case of a big war most of the initial fighting happened in their back yard, instead of ours, giving the US plenty of time to get on better footing. On a lot of levels nations like Japan and The Phillipines hosting so much US military (and let's be frank, we doubtlessly have missiles, and not just defensive ones, located there despite what we say, including in all likelihood nukes) represent a similar position to what you saw going on with "The Cuban Missile Crisis" albeit not quite that close. Preventing Russia from getting into a similar position with the EU is also one of the big reasons people are concerned about Russia trying to take over Crimea/Ukraine. Look at a map and consider what happens if Russia gets control of The Black Sea, not the location of Poland, and then consider Poland is a huge US ally (one of our biggest ones in fact) and also tends to get a lot of crap from the rest of Europe that like to use it as a tripwire as opposed to defending it and it's interests even when allied, despite what they say. As a result Poland has been a central battleground in some of the most brutal east vs. west fighting throughout history. That as much as promises we made is a big part of why we don't want Russia to take over Ukraine, if it wasn't for the position it occupied people wouldn't care as much as coldly pragmatic as that is.
At any rate, I was rambling, and back to the subject of Japan. Japan has a weird love/hate relationship with the US because we are the ones that defeated them while representing everything they hate. A lot of their current culture, including a lot of Anime, all comes from American tropes and ideas which is why it translates so well to our marketplace. That said they tend to look down on pretty much everyone else, and also see themselves as biding their time until the "proper" state of affairs re-asserts itself. China has similar attitudes on a lot of levels. Culturally speaking Japan has a sort of racial pecking order where of course Japanese are on the top. One of the big things they now accept is that exceptions can exist within other races and a few individuals can be as good as Japanese, but they tend to portray the rank and file of other races as being inferior to one degree or another. They also tend to look at conditions in the US and while giving exceptions, tend to match a lot of attitudes, taking the approach that basically if White Americans and Japanese both agree on black people (to their perspective and limited understanding of social conflicts in the US) then it must be true, while at the same time still allowing for possible exceptions.
Anime represents a specific cultural view combined with a broad way of stylizing art. Despite some protests, it can be said that yes, Anime is generally racist, within the cultural guidelines. Meaning you'll see horrible stereotypes, and 3D characters existing side by side to the point where it can seem chaotic, sometimes being quite glaring when it just suddenly appears in a story you wouldn't expect it to. It can be argued that if Anime ever ceased to be racist on some level, it would cease to be Anime anymore as the culture that created it would have effectively ceased to exist. Much like how collectors of Native American artwork draw specific lines on what they collect and how "genuine" it is based on how westernized and assimilated the tribe in question was. Something 50-60 years old can be worth a LOT more money than say something you buy from say Navajo or Cherokee nowadays (both of whom sell a lot of stuff) even if crafted in "traditional style" by a real Native American and costing several hundred dollars or more due to it being a unique piece, the basic idea is that things have changed subtly (or not so subtly) based on perspectives, experts in this kind of thing can point it out, and refer to the newer stuff as "Neo-Indian" and similar terms to differentiate it, the point being that the culture that made the other stuff no longer exists due to the passage of time. Anime can be used similarly, on a lot of levels the somewhat naïve, ignorant, and uninformed attitudes are part of what makes Anime stand out. It could be argued REAL anime is dying, or no longer being produced, already. Part of the entire "appeal" of Anime early on was how "wrong" a lot of it was with the pedophilia, racism, and crazy misguided politics and world view behind some of it. Today you see Japan wanting to get away from those things, the businessmen at least care about the money and possible international appeal, not wanting to offend anyone, as well as realizing (and not reacting well) that people were literally laughing at them. It's not something that can be faked either, sort of like a "faux bad movie" the sincerity leaks through. Back when I was a borderline weeaboo, I read translated Japanese periodicals related to games and Anime, and noticed a lot of things being said about developers "selling out" and demands for things remaining "Japan Only" with people insisting they would boycott titles, and even entire companies if something was going to see a US release. Certain things like "Final Fantasy X: Final Mission" and the so called "International" edition took a long time to make it to the US for this reason apparently. Snubbing the US in particular is popular. Of course at the same time we can also blame our own censors when Anime stopped flying under the radar. Right now it seems like there are very few hold outs, like the company that made "Rapelay" apparently insisting that it wasn't going to change and simply cut off the US market if "we can't handle it", and similar things... and honestly that "infamous" title sort of represents the point and the change of attitudes in a way, because it became an issue, where a couple of decades ago half the point of Anime when it was smaller was how warped the Japanese were in thinking something like that was okay. As old school fans would have pointed out half the appeal of things like old school Hentai was to find things that could still somewhat shock the jaded (before we became jaded to it) seeing little girls being raped by giant tentacle monsters was less "OMG this gets me off" for the most part than the whole "WTF" factor and realizing that Japan found this appealing and okay and produced it by the truckload. Every year you see less stuff of that sort being produced on a wide level due to increasing international consideration by the producers and so on. The thing to also understand is that a clear line was also not drawn, sometimes you could watch stuff that was almost normal for it's genera and only got released as "Hentai" in the US because of a single, really over the top sex scene.
That's my thoughts at any rate, as much as many might disagree. I'm not going to go around insisting people start coming up with other terms, though I imagine it will happen eventually, and honestly it only tends to matter to fanatics (sort of like how people who aren't fanatics about "Indian Art" don't feel any need to designate, most people who say drop $500 for a Navajo blanket do it because they think it's pretty, and like the way it was hand crafted, they don't care about the techniques, specific meaning of the symbology, etc...). I'd guess it was around 2005 or so that Anime really started to clean up it's act, or make an effort in that direction. With that effort instead of "just letting it flow" I think one could argue it became something else, even if it kept using the basic art style. They also started becoming a bit less... extreme, with some of the politics. I'm not sure if something like "Gasaraki", or "Angel Cop" would be made today. "Angel Cop" involves a plot where the US is dumping radioactive waste into Tokyo bay at the behest of the "Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy" which controls it (it's been a long time, I don't remember the specific reveal, but it sounded like something an Iranian leader would rant about). This done to make things seem "hip" and "contemporary" at the time it was released you know "ripped from the headlines, could happen" type stuff spliced with science fiction as opposed to tin-foil hat conspiracy theory stuff. A guy in Gasaraki your supposed to sympathize with literally cut his eyes out over seeing Japan surrender to the west and change, and was plotting what amounted to economic terrorism against the US to pretty much starve us all to death by getting control of the wheat market (which is sort of funny when you consider how much food the US can produce on it's own). "Blue Seed" had an entire climax about the selling out of the culture, where apparently the bad girl was wiping out Japan because of how it sold out to the rest of the world, and they couldn't bear to see it. It's been a while but basically they had plant demons wiping things out and at the end the "Evil Americans" were on their way to nuke Japan again to you know... try and contain the skyscraper sized plants that had the potential to wipe out humanity to create a kind of time crisis to stop things before the US decided to launch. It's been a while, but a lot of it came down to indirect characterization, and really I was trying to figure out how this wasn't a reasonable solution to the problem, especially in Anime where it seems like Japan gets flattened as a matter of course. I guess it's only wrong if an American does it to stop the monsters, as opposed to a properly Japanese hero or military organization.
Also don't forget that Japanese politicians have gotten flak over the years for doing things like visiting war memorials, and there is a lot of attention paid to how much Japan likes to gloss over history. At least Germany takes some responsibility, and makes a show out of how it treats symbols of it's socialist militant past, Japan seems to view things very differently and does not seem even remotely remorseful, treating it's former soldiers like heroes, compared to how Germany treats the Nazis and those who fought for them.
Such are my thoughts and observations for those who navigated the text wall.
