May 20th, 2014
The Deconstruction of Anime
Now I have been a fan of anime for many many years and in those years I've seen some anime which are different they are basically based on the same genre but they are also so different despite the similarities and eventually I've found out that they are called Deconstructions, so to put simply it can be defined as:
noun: Deconstruction
a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.
Now to put this in my own words when we talk about A deconstruction of a specific anime genre its basically when you take aspects of that genre apart, and you apply a real world scenario to them, these are the parts of the anime that we take for granted and they turn and twist these aspects upside down, Now I know that you may not fully understand what I'm saying, (which may not be your fault) so let me give some examples.
Now before I continue I would like to say that
THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS SO YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Now the first example I would like to start with is school days, now I'm aware that lots of people think that School Days is one of the worst anime of all time and then they are others like my self who thinks that school days is a brilliant deconstruction of the harem genre, Now here's why in your typical harem genre your main protagonist doesn't really do anything sexually with the girls, hey there's always that one beach episode in most harem anime where the main protagonist sees all of the cute girls in their swimsuits but at the end of the episode he doesn't make any advances like a regular person and the simple answer is because its an anime, so of course nothing would happen, but now lets look at Makoto in school days, now since school days is a harem anime the main character Makoto gets to be around a lot of different girls and after Makoto got lucky with Sekai, he wanted to have sex with other girls and the more he got the more he wanted, Now since what happened in school days wouldn't happen in your typical harem I think its safe to say that given those aspects school days can be called a deconstruction of the harem genre.
Now for my last example I would like to talk about Madoka Magica which is an anime I recently at the time of writing this Now before I go into Madoka Magica lets look at some other magical girl anime in card captors Sakura finds a book and upon opening that book she releases all of the Clow cards and then this plush toy looking animal named Keroberos who gives her magical powers and in Sailor moon the Main girl from there meets a cat named luna and the cat gives her magical powers.Sorry I don't remember much of Sailor Moon, But anyway in Madoka Magica when Kyubey appears in front of a girl and tells her that he'll grant her greatest wish but in return she has to be a Puella magical girl, so the story of the three mentioned anime seems the same girl comes across magical creature and the magical creature turns her into a magical girl but the difference in Madoka Magica is that they ask the questions that the previous mentioned would not like: what are these girls giving up to be magical girls, what does Kyubey want from the girls, and so on, but Madoka Magica goes far beyond this and shows the dangers that a magical girl face and how real the danger can be which makes Madoka Magica a prime example of what a deconstruction of an anime can be.
Another example of a deconstruction can be Bokurano which is a deconstruction of the Mecha genre and, even Gurren Lagann has some aspect of being a deconstruction as well, but I won't go into them further since this is already a long blog so it would be better if you watch them since you'll be able to see for your self, as to what the deconstruction of an anime is.
Anyway this is my first blog entry and I hope that I explained this topic correctly, so anyway let me know what you guys think in the comments below
noun: Deconstruction
a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.
Now to put this in my own words when we talk about A deconstruction of a specific anime genre its basically when you take aspects of that genre apart, and you apply a real world scenario to them, these are the parts of the anime that we take for granted and they turn and twist these aspects upside down, Now I know that you may not fully understand what I'm saying, (which may not be your fault) so let me give some examples.
Now before I continue I would like to say that
THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS SO YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Now the first example I would like to start with is school days, now I'm aware that lots of people think that School Days is one of the worst anime of all time and then they are others like my self who thinks that school days is a brilliant deconstruction of the harem genre, Now here's why in your typical harem genre your main protagonist doesn't really do anything sexually with the girls, hey there's always that one beach episode in most harem anime where the main protagonist sees all of the cute girls in their swimsuits but at the end of the episode he doesn't make any advances like a regular person and the simple answer is because its an anime, so of course nothing would happen, but now lets look at Makoto in school days, now since school days is a harem anime the main character Makoto gets to be around a lot of different girls and after Makoto got lucky with Sekai, he wanted to have sex with other girls and the more he got the more he wanted, Now since what happened in school days wouldn't happen in your typical harem I think its safe to say that given those aspects school days can be called a deconstruction of the harem genre.
Now for my last example I would like to talk about Madoka Magica which is an anime I recently at the time of writing this Now before I go into Madoka Magica lets look at some other magical girl anime in card captors Sakura finds a book and upon opening that book she releases all of the Clow cards and then this plush toy looking animal named Keroberos who gives her magical powers and in Sailor moon the Main girl from there meets a cat named luna and the cat gives her magical powers.Sorry I don't remember much of Sailor Moon, But anyway in Madoka Magica when Kyubey appears in front of a girl and tells her that he'll grant her greatest wish but in return she has to be a Puella magical girl, so the story of the three mentioned anime seems the same girl comes across magical creature and the magical creature turns her into a magical girl but the difference in Madoka Magica is that they ask the questions that the previous mentioned would not like: what are these girls giving up to be magical girls, what does Kyubey want from the girls, and so on, but Madoka Magica goes far beyond this and shows the dangers that a magical girl face and how real the danger can be which makes Madoka Magica a prime example of what a deconstruction of an anime can be.
Another example of a deconstruction can be Bokurano which is a deconstruction of the Mecha genre and, even Gurren Lagann has some aspect of being a deconstruction as well, but I won't go into them further since this is already a long blog so it would be better if you watch them since you'll be able to see for your self, as to what the deconstruction of an anime is.
Anyway this is my first blog entry and I hope that I explained this topic correctly, so anyway let me know what you guys think in the comments below
Posted by zeng | May 20, 2014 7:30 PM | 1 comments