Bianca Bosker, an undergraduate at Princeton University and a 2007 Robert L. Bartley Fellow who was given a paid internship at the Far Eastern Economic Review, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where she criticizes the Japanese government's usage of anime and manga as a tool for overseas cultural diplomacy.
Bosker makes a number of sweeping generalizations about anime (that it is all highly sexualized) and mistakes anime for a genre instead of the medium of expression that it is. She claims that portrayals of Japanese life (strict, conformist) are negative. She claims that the Japanese government's larger role in the promotion of anime overseas will create a negative reaction from the Chinese government. In fact, the article states that Japanese government's budget for the promotion of anime overseas is merely $175,000, whereas the market for anime and manga in the US alone in 2007 is $4.35 billion. Clearly market forces are much more powerful than anything the Japanese government hopes to do.
la_contessa at the forums of animenewsnetwork.com does a better job of breaking down Bosker's op-ed than I could.
Once again, we see Ms. Bosker's inability to acknowledge that not all anime and/or manga is the same. Anime is a fictional medium--there are not REALLY giant robots in Tokyo, nor are there space colonies or gateways to other worlds. However, those things appear in anime or manga just as often as a view of Japanese society as strict and conformist. Her analysis of the "negative images of daily life" concentrates on a view slice of life series without considering how fantasy plays in. Also, she ignores the fact that perhaps these are real images from Japanese life--would she prefer that manga artists lie? Than why not exalt mecha and fantasy anime as lies?
This brings me to the propaganda argument, where Ms. Bosker credits the absurd Chinese suggestion that manga and anime are made with the purpose of indoctrination. She does have a point that even if manga is NOT intended this way, people may still take this view--once the art leaves the artist's hands, misinterpretation is always possible. However, she ignores the obvious counter to this argument: the Japanese government neither writes the manga nor pays the artists to do so.
Ms. Bosker is incredibly mistaken by discounting advertising directed at teens and youth. In twenty years, who will be responsible for international trade and politics? That's right, today's youth. I think it's actually quite smart to direct promotional materials at people early, in the hopes that one day they will be in a position to travel to Japan or forge economic ties, or something equally useful.
I'm frankly surprised that the WSJ ran such a poorly written op-ed from a student who clearly knows little more than basic information about anime. It only perpetuates stereotypes when people ignorant about a subject write about it.
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