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Prof. Shimamura Teru: Animation with
its Cultural Background
By Zhang Yuan
PKU NEWS 2005--11—17
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=132295079
Beijing Hotel, Beijing, Nov.17th, 2005: During the second round talk of popular
culture panel session of Beijing Forum 2005, morning of Nov. 17th, Professor
Shimamura Teru from Joshibi University of Art and Design made his keynote speech
on the topic ―Japan Animation: from Commercialism to Art‖. As a professor of art and
media, Prof. Teru presented an insightful survey of a group of creative and artistic
Japanese animations which are ―relatively independent of the main stream
commercial animations‖. Through a detailed analysis of three high quality animations
of the above category, Prof. Teru reached his conclusion that a promising branch of
Japanese animation is tending to keep its distance from both ―Americanization and
narrow-minded economical nationalism‖ and to become ―a kind of total visual art‖,
where fostered the ―possibility of collaboration between literature and animation‖.
Because of the tight schedule and time limitation, Prof. Teru had to compress his
inspiring paper in his speech. Interested in a more elaborated illustration of his idea,
the reporter managed a brief interview with him during the short break time.
-- Japanese Animation vs. American Animation—Cultural Difference --
Japan has a highly advanced and prosperous animation industry of a world
reputation; on the other hand, it is also a huge industry in the US, best represented
by Disney animations. When asked about the comparison of the two, Prof. Teru
commented:
―Animation is part of general culture, so it well represents the background of that
culture it belongs to. Therefore the animation produced in the US with American
background and that in Japan are of course different from each other. For example,
one major theme of the Disney animation, which is the best representative of
American animations, is the ―American dream‖—American ideology that is prevailing
in almost every Disney animation one saw. In Japan, some high quality animations
such as those produced by Studio GIBRI, the famous and popular animation
production company in Japan, keep a very clear ideology based on Japanese
tradition and depiction of peace and happiness of ordinary people. That is quite
different from the ideology of America.‖
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