Anime documentary on ITV1 tomorrow night

Paul

Paul

Ghost of Animes
Administrator
This is a reminder that tomorrow night (Sunday) at 11:05pm, ITV1 will be broadcasting an anime documentary in the form of The South Bank Show. For more information (including who is being interviewed), take a look a look the official website for this episode.
 
I thought that was a good documentry (although it revealed nothing new to me), but a bad showcase for anime and manga because of the overwhelming focus on how it has influenced the West. It was pleasant to see a lack of Clements in person, despite his presence in the credits.
 
I found it pretty balanced overall, with the obvious choices for interviews being a good intro for the Joe and Jane Public on the street.

In fairness to the film makers, it was advertised as examining the inluence on Tarantino, Gorillaz et al so I wasn't expecting too much history or obscure stuff. Worth watching anyway.
 
Chomolungma said:
I thought that was a good documentry (although it revealed nothing new to me), but a bad showcase for anime and manga because of the overwhelming focus on how it has influenced the West.
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That was how it was being billed so that wasn't a surprise at all to me. It had, as I suspected and hoped it might, a largely positive non-sensationalist approach to the subject, including the touchy subject of hentai and how that particular perception crept into the Western conscious.

It was also nice to see some focus on titles outside of the normal Ghost in the Shell and Akira (even though these, understandably, were greatly used) school with a look at the overall diversity of subjects tackled by manga and anime.
 
Hmmm it was ok, a good basic explanation of anime and manga and its influences into the west. Can't say I actually enjoyed it or it was anything new to me. But still, it was nice to see a documentry about anime and manga on a main terrestrial channel.
 
Gets a thumbs up from me too. It took a mature tone and successfully discussed the West's growing interest in Eastern pop culture without resorting to the usual points of critisism. I also respect them for showing their selected anime like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Nausicaa in Japanese with subs.

Speaking as a fanboy now, it was nice that they showed images from the Naruto manga as well as using it's 2nd theme (Asian Kung Fu Generation - Haruka Kanata) as background music :)
 
Paul said:
Gets a thumbs up from me too. It took a mature tone and successfully discussed the West's growing interest in Eastern pop culture without resorting to the usual points of critisism.
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I would expect nothing less from Melvyn Bragg (his Radio 4 series In Our Time is usually quite fascinating). It did address, or rather, explain Anime's bad reputation (which it still seems to have in Canada) when it first started to appear in the late 80s/early 90s.

Paul said:
I also respect them for showing their selected anime like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Nausicaa in Japanese with subs.
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I've been trying to put my finger on what it was that left me feeling slightly dissappointed at the end of the programme. I think it was that it didn't seem to give a proper view of the current scope and depth of anime and manga beyond the usual suspects of Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Miyasaki's films etc although it went further than other programmes, or articles, usually do on the subject. Perhaps that was beyond the programme's brief.
 
I don't think we could ask for a lot more from a documentary that serves as an introduction to manga and anime. Apart from setting out to show the influence on the West anyway, it's still relevant as manga and anime gain an increasing foothold in the West and it serves to show that it's a mainstream interest in Japan and that it's becoming increasingly widespread over here.
I suppose the only criticism I have is that they looked at the increase in shelf space for manga in a comic book shop rather than a mainstream book chain, but it's a minor niggle.

I didn't learn anything new but I was shown something I should have worked out already - the influence of the frequent risk of typhoons an earthquakes on the culture leading to the large amount of stories involving imminent disaster and apocalypse, not just influenced from WW2.

I think the show did it's job well.
 
i quite enjoyed it. it wasn't too in-depth, but it's definitely the best genuine coverage of anime and it's influence i've seen over here.
and i'm glad they focused on manga being influenced by Western comic books. some elitist fanboy/girls in my area seem to forget about that part.
 
Everything that could have been said about it has been said, and as Paul said, i loved the way they put a song from Naruto in there, and one from Kumi Koda (FF X-2), they showed people reading manga's like Naruto and Bleach as well. This was a lot more than i expected, and those Japanese manga shops, wow, so packed!
 
Way to go ITV, that was the best animation documentary I've seen since BBC4's Animation Nation.

Channel 4, meanwhile, is still languishing in the dust with its 100 Greatest Cartoons.
 
Speaking as a fanboy now, it was nice that they showed images from the Naruto manga as well as using it's 2nd theme (Asian Kung Fu Generation - Haruka Kanata) as background music
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Yeah same here :lol:, I was also excited to see a qucik flash of Kurono from Gantz's eyes :D
 
i liked it...and it was call cos the Gosh comic shop was on it! I haven't been in there for years..mainly because my friend told me it had closed down..(will have to have a word with her...>_<) but it still looked the same inside!
 
Paul said:
Speaking as a fanboy now, it was nice that they showed images from the Naruto manga as well as using it's 2nd theme (Asian Kung Fu Generation - Haruka Kanata) as background music :)
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Lol, my favourite bit of the program :lol: , and seeing the Bleach manga also.

I found it to be fairly good, not amazingly interesting because of course as others have said, it didn't tell me anything new. But that wasn't why i was watching it anyway.
I thought it gave a pretty good representation; i liked the mature tone of the program, and also how they emphasised that it is something that covers every genre and every age, i also liked how they gave an example of that by showing a middle aged businessman reading his golfing manga, as firstly alot of people might not expect someone like that to read manga, and secondly for there to even be a manga about golf.
Though maybe it would have been good if they had shown a few more varied clips of anime, as it didn't seem to give that quite such a good cover, at least not from the varied genre, every age point of view.

But still, nice unbiased coverage
 
I thought it was well done. It was a lot more positive in it's tone then the "Ban This Filth" tabloid headlines. Shame they didn't make it clearer that it was a media and not a genre, but all in all a good report. I liked the statment by the guy who was talking about hentai "in the 19th. century the Japanese, or at least the ruling establishment, had to learn to be embarassed about sexual matters. when dealing with the outside world."
 
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