Japanimation: Big-Eyed Girls Kick Butt! Movie Review

Japanese animation, or “anime” as it's known in its home country, has become remarkably well represented in U.S. video stores these days. A lot of people who have never heard the word “anime” are surprised to find that they grew up on it; in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, Japanese-produced series like Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, Battle of the Planets, and Starblazers were very popular on American TV.

The distinctive style of these shows, with their emphasis on high-tech gadgets and characters with very large eyes, stayed with most of the people who watched them. But up until the early ‘90s, actual anime fandom was comparatively small; a network of fans produced ‘zines and met to trade videos of the new shows and movies being produced in Japan. By the late ‘80s, anime epics like Akira and Fist of the North Star began to attract widespread notice; sophisticated and violent, these were anything but children's films. As the ‘90s began, those big-eyed girls were back in a big way, as numerous video companies began acquiring rights to more recent series. Cognoscenti and casual video-shop browsers alike suddenly had access to a whole new world.

“Anime” is a Japanese adaptation of “animation,” and trying to define anime by one particular style is about as futile as defining all U.S. animation by The Smurfs. Still, there are a few basic themes that tend to recur. There are visually stunning, often very violent science-fiction epics like Appleseed and Wings of Honnemaise and the recent Ghost in the Shell. There are eerie horror-stories like Laughing Target and Vampire Princess Miyu, and sword-and-sorcery epics like the Records of the Lodoss Wars series. There are also a couple of subgenres that are peculiar to anime, romantic comedies set in contemporary Japan that focus on the problems involved in having a girlfriend who might be an alien, an android, or merely psychic. Kimagure Orange Road, Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, and the delightfully named All-Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku-Nuku would be good examples.

It should be pointed out that while anime girls are cute, they're hardly cream puffs; a lot of them have super strength and are quite capable of making short work of villains or oversexed menfolk. It should also be mentioned that a lot of anime contains a wealth of sexual scenes and innuendo that might seem a little much to some American viewers. But parents looking for family fare won't be disappointed by charming fantasies like My Neighbor Totoro and Miss China's Ring.