Cultural Integration and the Anime Boom in America

Every now and then a cultural phenomenon arrives that completely redefines how a generation is remembered in the annals of pop culture. The entire mood and affections of a nation can change this phenomenon, usually coupled with a decade’s musical tastes, film choices and technology. Going back to any single decade in the last century, you can find a definite image to represent the developments and choices of that generation.

Today, it seems as though the pop culture phenomena change every year or two, making it harder to actually pinpoint what has changed us and what hasn’t. The internet is surely the defining factor of the current generation. However, with such an integral part of the world’s very future, it’s hard to imagine that the internet will be the 1990’s and 2000’s bellbottoms and free love movement. Those went away, the internet will not.

Instead of a broad cultural shift – such as the automobile or the television – I think the last decade or two will be remembered culturally for a combination of things and the best way to think of these things is on a global scale. Instead of assuming everything we’ll be remembered for emanates from the center of the American pop culture reactors in Hollywood and New York, I think it might be time that people in the future look back and see the growth of overseas culture into our own.

A Subtle yet Steady Integration

The reason it might not seem quite as obvious as something like the explosion of gangster rap in the early 90s, is that cultural integration usually grows from the ground up. It’s happened before, especially in the music industry. A certain musical style, such as the Blues, Jazz or Gospel will bubble up from a sect of society that – at the time – was not properly appreciated. Then a southern crooner who would become the King of Rock and Roll along with a few other prominent artists with the right contacts started borrowing liberally from the underground sensations in the South and in less than a decade Rock and Roll music was born.

In our case, the integration has been across the board and has taken the better part of two decades. The best example is Japanese culture. At first recognized only by the most avid and ravenous of fans – those that had the proper resources – things like anime, Japanese pop and samurai culture were definite underground sensations.

The Japanese Infusion

However, slowly but surely film companies began to pick up on the intrinsic story telling of Japanese masters such as Miyazaki and Otomo and release a few films in the States. Video game consoles picked up steam and began to infiltrate millions of American households. These consoles, all Japanese made until Microsoft entered the fray in 2001, carried numerous Japanese franchises and storytelling methods that would enthrall children and teenagers across America.

When cable television began airing anime in small chunks here and there, vast amounts of those children who had grown up on Japanese video games immediately attached themselves. By the end of the 1990s, anime was a fringe pop culture niche. Thanks in part to the growth of DVD formatting and internet downloads, it was a full blown mega-industry only 3 or 4 years later. Today, major anime releases find their way into the American marketplace on one of a dozen different television channels, hundreds of weekly DVD releases and major theatrical releases. Miyazaki won an Oscar in 2002 and Jon Lasseter – the head of Pixar and America’s current iteration of Walt Disney – has cited the Japanese master as a major influence on Pixar’s work and named him one of the greatest animators in the world.

Even now, American animation emulates Japanese style when it isn’t blatently stealing plot and form. Shows like Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Jake Long and Shaolin Monks are very much akin to the Japanese story telling method of linear plotlines, deeply detailed characters and established storylines. Today, a visit to the anime aisle of your local Best Buy or Manga aisle of a nearby Barnes and Noble yields thousands of titles, many of them constant bestsellers.

Other Cultures As Well

Japanese Pop Culture is probably the best example of integration into the American pop culture arena. However, it is not nearly the only example. Chinese and Hong Kong culture has long been an important factor in how American films are made. For thousands of years before Hollywood was founded, China was probably the most prolific exporter of cultural influence. Today, that influence seems overshadowed by their political stance but is just as important as ever.

A look at any single fight scene in an American action film will reveal a convergence of Eastern and Western styles, largely derived from obscene popularity of the Hong Kong action film. Aesthetically, Eastern styles have long been popular and permeate many of the nooks and crannies public buildings and homes alike. Novels, films and actors have streamed to American soil and appeared in various forms including award winning films such as The Departed (adapted from the Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs).

In fact, with a country as young as America, there are very few aspects of our popular culture which could be called purely American. There are dozens of aspects that borrow liberally from the European and African ancestry of many of our citizens. The effect of Mexican and Latin American culture in recent decades has become more than just a fringe attachment as well.

For that reason, it is likely that the 1990s and 2000s will be remembered for the cultural integration of the entire world. With tools such as the internet and growing technology, the world has become infinitely smaller and with that shrinking space comes the ability of worldwide cultures to integrate and overlap in ways they never have before.