Summary: Manga, Animé, and the Edo Period

• The use of Women as transforming cultural icons (beautiful, powerful, destructive, gender/identity issues). In the present world of manga and anime, women play a very important role. They are portrayed in every way conceivable: strong, wicked, weak, nurturing, Machiavellian, highly sexual, tomboys, nuns, etc. They are not merely decorative sexual objects, but used as a means to convey social messages. Similarly, the Ukiyo art world used women as a means to convey social messages. Anime and manga address gender roles and identity, women’s increasingly changing roles in society, the meaning of history in contemporary society (historical memory), and many other issues.

• Horror: monsters, aliens, and ghosts (the self: the ‘other’). These characters were present in the Edo period. They play a similar role in manga and anime.
• The use of the fantastic. The fantastic is a way to deal with the rigidity that is artificially constructed into reality via social parameters that many times are arbitrary. It allows for humans to redefine the self. It impinges on the quality of transformation which is so prevalent in manga and anime. Anime and manga are pushing against arbitrary aesthetic boundaries and reaching into a deeper human level of psychological/sociological change, via their ‘imaginary’ quality. To be able to see oneself as fantasy, thus being able to be changed at will is a powerful catalyst for release against many social conventions (and thus promotes cultural change). This was present in the Ukiyo world.

• Connections to past cultural mythology.
• Escapism/wish fulfillment.

• Transformation of the mundane into the extraordinary. A strong characteristic of the Ukiyo.

• Expression of the erotic nature of humans. (Napier, Anime, 63-83) Shunga in Ukiyo-e is now very prevalent in contemporary hentai manga and anime.

• Parody, satire, disguise, inverting the social order, instrument of change, and rebellion of status quo. These characteristics were strong during the Edo period and similarly exist in present day manga and anime.

• Power of all the senses vs. barrenness of mere intellect.

• Cheaply mass produced (kybioshi books and manga).

• Low artistic and social status.

• Considered negative and socially dangerous by establishment.

• Embodiment of popular culture.

• Visual stylist elements: A simplified visual reality, capturing a mood or impression, exaggeration, movement.

• Popular humor.