Japanese Culture and Popular Consciousness: Disney's <i>The Lion King</i> vs. Tezuka's <i>Jungle Emperor</i>

Kuwahara, Yasue

doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1997.3101_37.x

Cited by 16 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Snow White, Lion King, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tarzan and most other Disney animations are not original stories, but simplistically revised appropriations of fairy tales, legends and others' fictions. The Lion King was adapted from an African story about Sundiata, a Mall King (Paterno, 1994) retold by Japanese filmmaker Osamu Tezuka (Kuwahara, 1997); Mulan was based on a 6th century Chinese poem (Yi,! 999); Tarzan is the creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs.…”

Section: Disney Animationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…After Uncle Walt declined to run for mayor of Los Angeles because, as he said, "I'm already king", Joseph Morgenstern (1971) charged that Disney was "a royalist plot ... to take over the United States and turn it into a continental Magic Kingdom" (Rosenbaum, 1975, p. 64). More recent critical appraisals have followed one of two tracks: exposes of the Disney corporation and its practices (Wilson, 1993;Smoodin, 1994;Bell & Sells, 1995;The Disney Project, 1995;Hiaasen; or critiques of patriarchy, racism and historical inaccuracies in Disney films (Benton, 1995;Buescher & Ono, 1996;Hoerner, 1996;Pewewardy, 1996;Strong, 1996;Kuwahara, 1997;Gravett, 2000). These analyses are collectively thoughtful, insightful and valid, but nonetheless limited in scope.…”

Section: Narrating Animationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The righteousness of self-centred royals: The world according to Disney animation

Artz¹

2004

Critical Arts

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The startling success of Disney animation prompts the perspective for this essay, which explores both a political-economic and cultural studies approach. Understanding Disney animation helps clarify the intimate relationship between ideology and socio-economic practice, (Rickel, 1996;Wasko, 2001). Investigating the construction, content, and persuasive efficacy of animated Disney fihnsreveals that Disney consistently and intentionally selects themes in its commodities-asanimated features that promote an ideology useful to Disney and capitalist society, but at odds with democratic, creative communities. Of course, valid arguments may be made that audiences construct their own varied meanings, often in contradiction to those intended by the producer, but this essay is concerned primarily with the content of the messages constructed and distributed from the entertainment producer, because of Disney's standing in popular culture. Moreover, because social groups use "mass-mediated 'words and images" to create and sustain social relations" (Ricker, 1996, p. 42), in a society ostensibly committed to democracy, it is particularly unsettling to find that Disney's animated features simultaneously soften and distribute messages of class hierarchy and anti-social hyper-individualism.

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Section: Disney Animationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Narrating Animationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The righteousness of self-centred royals: The world according to Disney animation

Artz¹

2004

Critical Arts

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“…Similarly, in Achebe’s (1978) famous criticism of Heart of Darkness , Africa is a “backdrop” for a story in which a non-African takes a leading role. Writing about Jungle Emperor , a manga by Osamu Tezuka, Natsume (as cited in Kuwahara, 1997) sees it as less a story about Africa and more a story about post–War Japan. In Jungle Emperor , the characters are all African, but Natsume’s point is that the story is primarily a means through which Japanese identity is worked through rather than a story about Africa or even about Japan’s relationship to Africa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Race, Colonial History and National Identity:Resident Evil 5as a Japanese Game

Martín

2016

Games and Culture

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Resident Evil 5 is a zombie game made by Capcom, featuring a White American protagonist and set in Africa. This article argues that approaching this as a Japanese game reveals aspects of a Japanese racial and colonial social imaginary that are missed if this context of production is ignored. In terms of race, the game presents hybrid racial subjectivities that can be related to Japanese perspectives of Blackness and Whiteness, where these terms are two poles of difference and identity through which an essentialized Japanese identity is constructed in what Iwabuchi calls "strategic hybridism." In terms of colonialism, the game echoes structures of Japanese colonialism through which Japanese colonialism is obliquely memorialized and a "normal" Japanese global subjectivity can be performed.

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“…Scholars have noted Walt Disney's influence upon Tezuka's comic and animated works (particularly upon the "big-eyed" aesthetic of character), who in turn, influenced a variety of Western cartoon animators in the 1990s, indicating the early "cross-pollination" of ideas within the globalized animation industry (Bakonyi, 2010;Consalvo, 2006;Kuwuhara, 1997;Napier, 2005;Naylor & Helford, 2014;Ruh, 2012;Wahab, Anuar, & Farhani, 2012;Wong, 2006). This cross-pollination of idea within media industries was also noted by Ito (2008) who suggests that during the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese artists borrowed ideas from American newspaper comics.…”

Section: History Of Animementioning

confidence: 99%

A Pokébalancing Act: The Management Of Japanese Cultural “odor” In Pokémon

Raes¹

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Techno-orientalism" refers to the shift from the Western "fetishization" of traditionally Japanese art forms to the commodities that are commonly thought to "represent" Japan in the twenty-first century. These commodities include anime, video games, pachinko gambling parlors, and other technological, globalized products (Paulk, 2011). Sato (2004) refers to technoorientalism it as the tendency to imagine Japan through both the "traditional" stereotype and the "technologically oriented" stereotype (p. 355). In any case, advances in technology have contributed to orientalism through the ideological shift of non-Japanese audiences becoming familiarized with the cultural properties that "represent" Japan or Japanese-ness. As an Asian product rooted in Japan but distributed throughout the world, Pokémon has been promoted as such to these global audiences. Whether the appeal of the series rests within the Japanese qualities of its origins or the sanitized version that was distributed to other countries remains in question. I suggest that, although anime such as Pokémon have been edited to remove certain Japanese qualities, an inherent "Japanese-ness" remains that appeals to Western audiences' sense of novelty-seeking through the presentation of exotic difference, thereby essentializing the Japanese culture to that of "anime." This implies that part of Pokémon's popularity is caused by the appeal of the exotic "Other" that is suggested by the anime's Japanese origin. Anime Japanese animation, as well as the comic industry (manga) have long held a long place at the forefront of Japanese media culture. Scholars have recognized these the ubiquity of these industries, stating that they are interrelated (Condry, 2013; Ito & Crutcher, 2014) and interdependent (Pusztai, 2015). Pusztai (2015) states that the creative production qualities of these industries allow them to borrow heavily from each other in that storylines, characters, and 16 aesthetic stylistics are often interchangeably "recycled" between productions (p. 141). The creative collaboration between the two industries indicates their relevancy and saliency within Japanese culture. Furthermore, since anime incorporates the cultural personae of manga, taking on and reflecting the stories and themes that resonate with Japanese people, animation should be regarded as cultural artifacts that represent the given culture in which they are produced (Hubka, 2002; Price, 2001; Wells, 2002). Much has been researched concerning the stories and themes surrounding the most popular anime production company in Japan, Studio Ghibli, as well as its creator, Miyazaki Hayao, which was credited with much of anime's international popularity (Boyd & Nishimura,

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Japanese Culture and Popular Consciousness: Disney's The Lion King vs. Tezuka's Jungle Emperor

Cited by 16 publications

References 2 publications

The righteousness of self-centred royals: The world according to Disney animation

The righteousness of self-centred royals: The world according to Disney animation

Race, Colonial History and National Identity:Resident Evil 5as a Japanese Game

A Pokébalancing Act: The Management Of Japanese Cultural “odor” In Pokémon

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