In 2010 a major box office hit was Toy Story 3. With its Pixar tile and multiple awards for animation, Toy Story 3 became an American classic. A key factor that makes Pixar films so endearing to movie patrons are its stunning and punctilious animations. Pixar tends to leave conspicuous “Easter Eggs,” or references to past and future movies, to be discovered by audiences. For example, Pizza Planet truck from the original Toy Story is referenced in every Pixar film at least once. With this, many meticulously watched Toy Story 3 browsing every scene for the “Easter Eggs,” and were shocked to discover a plush Totoro doll: Totoro, a character from the 1988 Hayao Miyazaki movie, My Neighbor Totoro (Fujiki 152–157). This astonished viewers because
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Anime possess soft power because Americans are attracted to the content of Japanese consumer products. For example, many Americans use a PlayStation or Nintendo which many of their games are based off of popular amines like Pokémon, Final Fantasy, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja, and many more. This allows Japanese culture and anime to influence Americans. Some can argue that soft power is diminished by the American censorship of Japanese products, but most Japanese ideals are still been preserved. The American Otaku culture is a prime example of how soft power can have tremendous impact over a group of people in a different country. Otakus generally use mannerisms and culture that they acquired from anime and share those same social ideals within other anime fans (Cavallaro 50). They are large communities that have conventions all over the nation in which hundreds of thousands of whom people tend yearly. They also tend to spend gross amounts of money on anime merchandise (Cavallaro 54). With common Americans and intense anime fans divulging and consuming Japanese products it indicates how anime maintains soft power in the form of social and economic presence within …show more content…
Terms, such as ‘colorful’ and ‘artistic’ used by movie critics, such as IMBD, indicates a shift that Americans are now seeing anime as art form rather than a childish show with no redeeming qualities. The effect in which anime has had on America is extensive. With the help of dedicated fan-subbings and anime’s soft power, American culture has diversified and become more accepting of different cultures. The shift in perceptions and stereotypes of anime in America is turning the peripheral culture into a more mainstream popular culture.
Works Cited
Cavallaro, Dani. Anime and Memory: Aesthetic, Cultural and Thematic Perspectives. McFarland & Co., 2009.
Clements, Johnathan. Anime A History. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Denison, Rayna. “Transcultural Creativity in Anime: Hybrid Identities in the Production, Distribution, Texts and Fandom of Japanese Anime.” Taylor & Francis, 3 Jan. 2014, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/cij.3.3.221_1. Web. November 19, 2017
Fujiki, Kosuke. “My Neighbor Totoro: The Healing of Nature, the Nature of Healing.” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanitie, vol. 2, no. 3, Fall 2015, pp. 152–157. Spirited Away (2001). IMDb, IMDb.com, 1990-2017, www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/?ref_. Web. November 19, 2017
Wurm, Alicia. “Anime and the Internet: the Impact of Fansubbing.” Reflexive Horizons, 18 Feb. 2014, www.reflexivehorizons.com/2014/02/18/anime-and-the-internet-the-impact-of-fansubbing/.
Anime possess soft power because Americans are attracted to the content of Japanese consumer products. For example, many Americans use a PlayStation or Nintendo which many of their games are based off of popular amines like Pokémon, Final Fantasy, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja, and many more. This allows Japanese culture and anime to influence Americans. Some can argue that soft power is diminished by the American censorship of Japanese products, but most Japanese ideals are still been preserved. The American Otaku culture is a prime example of how soft power can have tremendous impact over a group of people in a different country. Otakus generally use mannerisms and culture that they acquired from anime and share those same social ideals within other anime fans (Cavallaro 50). They are large communities that have conventions all over the nation in which hundreds of thousands of whom people tend yearly. They also tend to spend gross amounts of money on anime merchandise (Cavallaro 54). With common Americans and intense anime fans divulging and consuming Japanese products it indicates how anime maintains soft power in the form of social and economic presence within …show more content…
Terms, such as ‘colorful’ and ‘artistic’ used by movie critics, such as IMBD, indicates a shift that Americans are now seeing anime as art form rather than a childish show with no redeeming qualities. The effect in which anime has had on America is extensive. With the help of dedicated fan-subbings and anime’s soft power, American culture has diversified and become more accepting of different cultures. The shift in perceptions and stereotypes of anime in America is turning the peripheral culture into a more mainstream popular culture.
Works Cited
Cavallaro, Dani. Anime and Memory: Aesthetic, Cultural and Thematic Perspectives. McFarland & Co., 2009.
Clements, Johnathan. Anime A History. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Denison, Rayna. “Transcultural Creativity in Anime: Hybrid Identities in the Production, Distribution, Texts and Fandom of Japanese Anime.” Taylor & Francis, 3 Jan. 2014, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/cij.3.3.221_1. Web. November 19, 2017
Fujiki, Kosuke. “My Neighbor Totoro: The Healing of Nature, the Nature of Healing.” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanitie, vol. 2, no. 3, Fall 2015, pp. 152–157. Spirited Away (2001). IMDb, IMDb.com, 1990-2017, www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/?ref_. Web. November 19, 2017
Wurm, Alicia. “Anime and the Internet: the Impact of Fansubbing.” Reflexive Horizons, 18 Feb. 2014, www.reflexivehorizons.com/2014/02/18/anime-and-the-internet-the-impact-of-fansubbing/.