Animetism and the Technological Condition by Chelsea Fetch Critical analysis oftentimes focuses on themes and genres to connect

and analyze subject matter. Even when discussing films and television shows, a large emphasis is placed on theme, storyline, and character. Thomas Lamarre attempts a different sort of analysis in The Anime Machine, on that takes a step back from theme-driven arguments and suggests we look at what anime is visually, and what those visual elements might mean. Lamarres approach allows for new ways to think about anime, such as the way technology is portrayed visually in the anime series Chobits and the anime film Summer Wars. Early on in The Anime Machine, Lamarre argues that anime might enable an animetic critique of the modern technological condition (11). The animetic critique he mentions deals with the visual elements of animethe unique multi-layering and movement between planes and ultimately encouraging a technical understanding of anime. On the other hand, the technological condition encompasses humanity and our relationship to technology and nature. Lamarre believes that an understanding of the moving image and the way themes operate from it can be a statement of our relationship with technology. In contrast to this viewpoint, authors like Susan J. Napier and Tze-Yue G. Hu focus more on theme-driven arguments when they discuss anime in their novels, Anime from Akira to Howls Moving Castle and Frames of Anime: Culture and Image Building, respectively. Both authors seem to explain the visual style of anime with Japanese history and culture. Hu especially emphasizes anime as a visually cultural aspect of Japan: In short, photography as a new form of visual language was a forerunner of anime. If photography was able to testify to a changing era, animation and anime

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were able to excite the populace of Japan especially when the pictures were seen to be moving and the contents looked alive, vivid, graphically scenic, and invigoratingly inspiring. Photography offered realism and technology but the animation embodied more from the realms of art and fantasy. (23) Lamarres animetic style, then, is just a cultural preference according to Hu. Napier seems to favor the culture view as well. However, while her arguments are theme-driven, she calls anime a fusion of technology and art, both suggesting in its content and embodying in its form new interfaces between the two, which is reminiscent of a critique of the technological condition through anime (Napier 11). Nonetheless, Lamarres approach to the animetic style creates an interesting basis for analyzing anime. Summer Wars is a full-length science fiction romance anime in which a young boy, Kenji Koiso, becomes involved with an attack on the fictional social network OZ and ultimately ends up defeating the evil program and restoring balance to both cyberspace and reality. OZ, in this film, is a social network that appears to be the central hub of the internet. Socializing, shopping, banking, and business transactions are all done on OZ, and there is no real mention of any other websites or internet capabilities. OZ is cyberspace. Visually, Summer Wars is both very appealing and interesting. There is a stark difference to how reality is portrayed and how cyberspace is portrayed. The real world is very normal-looking, and though the art has its own unique style, the aim is that it looks realistic to the viewer. In contrast, OZ is a bright, bubbly world that seems to hover weightlessly in an endless white void. All the avatars in OZ are rather cute; with the possible exception of Love Machine the artificial intelligence program that plagues OZnothing in OZ is visually unappealing. It is, essentially, a paradise online. These visual elements seem to portray a harmonious relationship

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with technologyafter all, OZ is clean, bright, and happy. However, viewers might get the idea that this virtual world is too perfect, which helps put the plot in motion. The manner in which director Mamoru Hosoda introduces OZ to the viewer supplies interesting subject matter for animetic critique. When welcomed to OZ, the viewer is in an invisible vehicle, moving towards the middle of OZ with gathering speed. It is a cinematic approach. As a matter of fact, much of the movement in OZ is cinematic; rather than watching the scenes go by, the viewer is forced to be part of the action of cyberspace, only occasionally witnessing OZ as a landscape. Hosada seems to favor cinematism in OZ to make the viewer part of the social network. By moving through ballistic vision, viewers get the sense that he or she is an avatar in OZ. This is a classic use of cinematism, as Lamarre states, the viewer has the

impression of being able to move around inside the image, as if the image had become a world (34). As another example, Chobits is an anime series that offers interesting visuals and animetism. The anime is about Hideki, a young adult struggling for college admittance, and Chi, his persocom or computer in the body of a young woman, falling in love. As the main characters, it is interesting how Chi and Hideki contrast in their movements. Hidekis movements are very masculinequick, jarring, elaborate. He is loud, often expressing outbursts of emotion and action that draws a great deal of attention to him, whether he wants it or not. He spends a great deal of time running when he is worrying about Chi, and this seems to be one of the few times in the anime that cinematism and ballistic vision is used. On the other hand, Chi is very delicate. Originally Hideki struggles to carry her to his apartment when he first finds her, but once Chi is turned on everything about her seems weightless and light. The way her hair fans about her when the on switch is pressed underlines

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her femininity and delicacy. Chi permeates this weightless feeling throughout the anime, especially during the episodes in which she glows and hovers mysteriously. The way she effortlessly flits from building to building, even standing gracefully on a lamppost, definitely contradicts the heavy weight Hideki struggles with when Chi is off. Chi does not seem to walk; rather, she slides animetically through the air. Comparing the two anime, Lamarres approach allows for differing viewpoints of the way technology is portrayed. As stated, Summer Wars adopts a more cinematic approach when its technology, OZ, is onscreen. Though the world gives us the impression of weightlessness and exalted freedom, Lamarre might say that the ballistic vision used when touring OZ contradicts any harmonious impressions. After all, OZ is the source of all the negative outcomes in the film; even Sakae Jinnouchi, the head of the family whose 90th birthday Kenji has come along to celebrate, dies because her heart monitor was connected to OZ. Technology, in Summer Wars, has surpassed humanity, who have become victims to the technological condition. Chobits gives a different view of technology. As stated, most of the compositing in the series is animetic. Also, Chi is constantly bathed in a positive light, with her delicacy and innocence. Lamarre even discusses Chobits in great deal. He mentions that what lies between her legs is a sex/reset button that threatens the very technological fabric of urban existence (Lamarre 232). The technological condition takes on a tangible form in the on/off switch between Chis legs. Ultimately, though, Hideki reaches a harmonious relationship with the technological condition. In contrast with Summer Wars, which throws OZ and technology in a negative light, almost seeming to warn people against technology, Chobits is able to find the comforting relationship with technology that Lamarre stresses throughout The Anime Machine.

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After all, the goal is not to accept or reject technology but to change your relation to it (Lamarre 60). Overall, Summer Wars and Chobits are both anime that use animetism and cinematism in different ways to reach a conclusion about the technological condition. This way of examining an anime is very different from what some animation critics and scholars might do, but to step back from theme-driven arguments and analyzing the moving image results in new ways of thinking about anime. Thomas Lamarres approach may differ from Napier or Hu, but his approach is effective nonetheless.

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Works Cited Chobits. Morio Asaka. TBS and Animax, 2002. Series. LaMarre, Thomas. The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P, 2009. Napier, Susan J. Anime from Akira to Howls Moving Castle. New York: Palgrave Macmillion, 2005. SoltyRei. Yoshimasa Hiraike. FUNimation Entertainment, Gonzo, and AIC, 2006. Series. Summer Wars. Mamoru Hosoda. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2009. Film. Hu, Tze-Yue G. Frames of Anime: Culture and Image Building. Hong Kong: U of Hong Kong, P, 2010.