But I have not watched any new anime. In fact, I’m rather burned out on anime right now. There is simply nothing right now that interests me that much. About the only thing that I can think of that I might want to get is the Dirty Pair TV Series but I can wait on that (no money). I even ran into a very cheap copy of the complete series Last Exile at the used bookstore, and I didn’t pick it up even though I was somewhat interested in viewing it about a year ago. I don’t feel like committing myself to a whole series anymore – I just don’t *care* that much anymore. I just can’t bring myself to rabidly watch entertainment intended for Japanese teenagers anymore. Even if that entertainment is very good, which nearly everyone says that Last Exile is.
This isn’t to insult Japanese teenagers, or teenagers in general, or even adults who watch young adult or children’s entertainment (hey, I enjoy a good Looney Tunes cartoon every once in a while). It’s just that maybe, I want something a little more… adult from my animation. And while a lot of anime aimed at teenagers has some crossover appeal with adults (the original Mobile Suit Gundam was aimed at teenagers but found an audience with college students who liked it’s complex world-view, for example) most is just too limited for me to enjoy that much anymore. I even sold off a whole bunch of my anime recently – even shows I really enjoyed but realized I would never watch again, like Nadia the Secret of Blue Water and Twelve Kingdoms.
So how much anime for adults is out there anyway? The answer: not much. A lot of defenders of the art form will say, “Unlike in the West, where animation is something only for children, anime is made for adults too!” This is false. *Some* animation is made for adults in Japan (i.e. it is not completely nonexistent ) but the vast majority of anime is made for children (and there have been *some* attempts at adult animation in the West, but... well, read below). It’s just that most of it doesn’t make it over here to the US (or the UK, or Canada, or….) because we already have animated programming and movies for children. The next largest group of anime is anime made for teenagers, and this is the group with the largest exposure in the West because it fills a niche that Western Animation does not. Animation for teenagers and young adults has been traditionally nonexistent over here for a long time, the reasoning being (as far as I can tell) that when children hit a certain age they’re supposed to “grow up” and stop watching cartoons. Well, in Japan the attitude is that when teenagers become full adults that they stop watching cartoons and “grow up.” What most western anime fans don’t realize is that regular adult watchers of anime in Japan are in a small minority, and anime is not in the adult mainstream. The vast majority of anime that *is* made for adults is hentai – porn. So what most westerners say about anime is ALMOST true – all anime is either kiddie stuff or porn. I say ALMOST because unlike here in America there *is* a minute amount of animation that is made for older *adults* that is not porn. Now, most of this is crap – Sturgeon’s Law states that 90% of *anything* is crap. And most of it, in an attempt to be “adult” and “edgy” employs a lot of sex/nudity and massive violence (not unlike “adult” animation from the US and elsewhere in the west, where “adult” means puerile animated movies with loads of gratuitous nudity and/or gratuitous violence – Heavy Metal and the works of an execrable animator-that-shall-remain-nameless-but-whose-initials-are-RB come to mind). Not that I mind nudity or sex or violence, but one can have adult entertainment without great amounts of both. So, with that in mind, is there any anime for those like me, who want good, adult animation from Japan without the Boobs and Blood? Or, at least, anime made for older teenagers with enough crossover appeal and enough maturity to interest discerning adults?
Well, yeah, although it is few and far between. Note that this list cannot be complete as I have not watched every anime known to man (or woman).
I have already dealt with a few such anime on this blog – Memories, Labyrinth Tales and Planetes – so I won’t go into them again here except to say read my previous reviews for them and watch them.
Cowboy Bebop is a famous “gateway” anime TV show (i.e. it is an anime that gets people into watching other anime, although it does also feature warp-gates) and was really popular back in the late nineties when it first came out. It’s about a group of bounty hunters in THE FUTURE who travel around the solar system and, well, hunt criminals. What makes the show so refreshingly adult is the way the characters are treated and the way the situations resolve themselves – everything does not always work out for the best. And yeah, there is a cute kid along with a cute dog in here, but they are also treated (relatively) realistically and are there (usually) for comic support. And while this *can* be a violent show, it is not excessively or unnecessarily so.
Wings of Honneamise is a great anime movie from Studio Gainax (their first project, actually) about the first steps by human beings into space – in an alternate world. This is great because it not only depoliticizes the story and the human achievement of space travel but gives the animators the chance to invent a whole new world – which they do beautifully. Everything in this world is different from ours – down to the silverware – but it is never truly alien… it is recognizable as human, and the characters in this world gain our sympathy by being like us. The art and animation are spectacular (especially for 1987, which is when this came out) and the story is absolutely gripping. There is a controversial scene involving sexual assault, but it is not gratuitous (despite what some claim) and is not meant to be arousing in any way. Wings of Honneamise is what other anime films should strive to be.
Millennium Actress is a film from Satoshi Kon, a director I really need to see more of (hence the reason there are no more films of his on here). It details (in a very fluid, stream-of-consciousness manner) the life of a movie actress of the 50s and 60s and her lifelong search for a love from her youth. While it does get overly sentimental at a few points, the story is solid, and the imagery is superb. This is a well done, creative, dramatic film from a director that died way too soon.
Speaking of directors, my favorite anime director is Mamoru Oshii (who turned 60 this week by the way – happy birthday, Mr. Oshii). He’s the one anime director who has put out the greatest deal of quality animated material for adults. Some of it does have an excess of Boobs and Blood (*Cough* Ghost in the Shell, *cough*) that will not be dealt with here, but he’s been responsible for not only some of the best adult anime films but best anime films period.
Angel’s Egg is an awesome experimental film from Oshii, but it is unavailable in the US (had to watch it on Youtube – YUCK), so I will highlight the best of his body of work by talking briefly about his two Patlabor films.
Yes, they are movies with giant robots – but they are the two greatest giant robot movies ever made. The reason for this is… are you ready?... they’re not really about giant robots, especially the second one. Oh sure, the first Patlabor movie is nominally about giant robots going berserk because of their operating systems, but you could have replaced the Labors (as the mecha are called) with anything – any machine or tool. The film is all about progress, about whether it is a good or bad thing as well as the status of technology in modern society; you know, fluffy stuff like that. It’s also a good detective movie with a cool twist – we know who is responsible for the crime in this story, but not how he plans to carry it out… and the villain dies in the very beginning, so the whole movie details the protagonists efforts to stop the diabolical plans of a dead man. Brilliant!
Patlabor 2 is even more brilliant on a filmmaking level, although I personally like it a little bit less because it’s not as fun as the first. It also deals with heavy issues like the role of a military in a modern society (especially a society like Japan that has formally renounced war), terrorism and the complicity of citizens in modern democracies with violence in the third world. This is anime that makes you think, and it’s a damn shame that there isn’t more anime like this. The story, the acting, the visuals are all superb. If you were to stick a gun to my head and make me name the greatest anime film ever made I would probably name this one, although again it’s not my *favorite* (there is a difference).
Although he didn’t direct it, Oshii did write Jin-Roh, a fascinating drama set in an alternate 1960s where the Germans won World War II and occupied Japan. I won’t go too much into the plot – it gets pretty twisty – but I will say this this is a well done anime film made squarely for adults. There is quite a bit of blood but it never approaches stupid levels, and there is no cheap titillation or fanservice. If you watch this movie and still think all anime ever made is either for the kiddies or porn then check into a mental hospital because your sense of reality is seriously skewed.
Well, there you go. Some adult anime for your enjoyment – without the buckets of sex and violence. Because you shouldn’t need sex and violence to enjoy something made for adults, right?
Next Week: Sex and Violence.
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