Conclusion

Art cannot escape being a sociological product. It may escape reality, but it cannot escape its time. In the 21st Century reality continues to be both beautiful and brutal. As the brutal truth of mortality continues to haunt humans, the act of creating artistic works aids them in their relationship to reality.

The power of art lies in its ability to create connections. These connections go beyond what the artist intended and what the politically powerful in society sanction. These connections facilitate cultural exchange when language alone is ineffective. Art is an excellent medium for intercultural exchange because it allows the viewer to interpret beyond the artists intentions. Art is a medium through which things that are intangible and not connected by the concrete, have a chance to come into human awareness.

Ukiyo refers to an intangible state of being that by its very definition is outside the realm of the ‘real’, though at the same time it includes aspects of daily existence that give it some familiarity to life. Many works made in the Edo period echoed popular culture, similarly Japanese manga and anime is a phenomenon of popular culture. The works made during the Edo period were not considered as art until much later in history. Similarly, whether manga and anime are not viewed as art in contemporary society does not take away from their social transformative qualities, similar to the transformative qualities of works made during the Ukiyo, and their effect on changing Japanese culture. Similarly to the imagery of the Floating World in its embodiment of the irrational, the hyperreality of anime and manga taps into mythology, technology, and the use of human and nonhuman characters.

Works of manga and anime are far more reaching in their topics than Western cartoons have ever been. They not only deal with the fantastic, but are also used for education or business. Manga and anime works are created not merely to escape the ‘real’ but also as a means to reflect upon the meaning of the real. Anime and manga embody the problems of our contemporary world. Just as Ukiyo-e prints and books were transformative cultural phenomenon of the Edo period, anime and manga are transformative for our contemporary world.

The importance of manga and anime in the present global culture is that they are different from the dominant American culture, not only in visual style, but in philosophical content. America, which is governed by a Judeo-Christian mythology, has to learn to deal with the introduction of a possible amoral universe where the good do not always triumph. We still live in the Floating World, as present day manga and anime demonstrate in their embodiment.

The interweaving of cultures has always existed. Cultural cannibalism as a force negates the dominance of colonialism, slowly over time. Whether placed in political terms of power relations or in philosophical, sociological, or biological arenas, the ‘framing’ is not important. The end result, being the evolution of culture and societies, will be the same,

Manga and anime are examples of the cannibalistic nature of cultural miscegenation, and it is this quality that makes them truly "global and not merely native or international in nature" (Napier, Anime, 236). As in the Edo period, societies will find ways to break from static restrictions, through the making of objects of expression. Artists continue to be important catalysts of social change. Manga and anime embody the essence of Ukiyo, a fantastic world beyond the real, with their expressive, individualistic, utopian, dystopian, beautiful, sensual, horrific, ambiguous, chaotic, transformative, and apocalyptic qualities. As popular culture, manga and anime are the contemporary children of the Floating World. The major difference now, is that manga and anime are transforming culture globally.