| This season I've been watching Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu, and one thing that caught my attention here is that it seems to be the first anime to use a trend people usually associate with SEA or LatAm, that being supernatural phenomena happening in poorer communities You can argue that a lot of media is about "going to a place in the boonies that is haunted", but in such cases the place usually only exists as a plot device, and less as an actual place you can imagine "existing by itself". The part that probably exemplifies how HikaNatsu goes against this the most would be the character of Kurebayashi Rie: A middle-aged, widowed housewife (Also a bit fat) that you could easily imagine being your neighbor, and yet she's one of the most involved with the supernatural in her series. Is there a reason as to why this trend is rare here? |
thewiru said: Is there a reason as to why this trend is rare here? I guess because Japan is a pretty wealthy country, so there's less representation of poor people in anime. |
| Settings that have isolated ruralness and ritualistic religious practices are quite commonly used in Japanese horror films, dating back to the likes of Onibaba. I guess you could focus on whether the characters are rich/poor or not, but it isn't really the first thing that comes to mind when I think of stories similar to TSHD. I think what you were saying your second paragraph is more the case. A lot of viewers are city-dwellers and "creepy places in the countryside" have always been successful horror settings unfamiliar to a lot of the audience. |
Reply to KapralEmsy
i mean in Gachiakuta most of them are poor just holding on to their sacred stuff, or did i understand question wrong
| @KapralEmsy There's a difference between superpowers and the supernatural. |
| I guess the it's a cultural legacy thing coming from japanese folklore. Two things going on here: 1. In this type of stories the supernatural forces usually don't work well in modern/crowded places. For example Ayako from Ghost Hunt. She is a Shinto priest, thus her powers are based on natural forces and in result her exorcisms work well only in the country side. Also she is the the but of every joke when her rituals inevitably fail in Tokyo. You can see similar thing even in non-conventional takes on the supernatural like Mushishi and Natsume Yuujinchou. 2. Supernatural forces are fed by negative emotions. You bet poor people have those in abundance. You can even say it's a sort of social cometary aspect in japanese folklore. Anime example of that: Dekin no Mogura from this season. But also there's another more practical and more obvious aspect. Some types of monster like vampire or werewolf would like their devious acts to be less public and attract as little attention as possible, thus they stick to "the boonies". |
alshuYesterday, 12:49 AM
| Yeah, they do, though rarer than with people who are perhaps not wealthy, but not pool either. Take Denji from CSM, in example. His life was miserable for years, and supernatural stuff didn't automatically come with improving his life's situation and quality of it. |
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