This is a prototype post for the next topic of the Mixed Gender Round Robin, but on its own it’s going to be a pretty good taster for the Yukan Blog post I’ll do, since only my most devoted fans (Baka-Raptor, blissmo and IKnight) have so far regularly given me comments here. Hopefully this trend changes.
But what doesn’t change is literary theorists and their compulsion to put things into Canons (what a segue!). I’ve been reading up on this Literary Theory stuff for school, and it’s complicated. Although I used to call myself “newgeekphilosopher”, I hardly used to do anything to do with philosophy at all, mostly literary theory instead.
It has occured to me that the concept of putting Anime into Canons is a subjective matter, and in a postmodern age it cannot be done. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t done. For example, IGN.com’s list of Anime franchises could be considered a Canon of Anime, but it is severely out of date and only covers Anime that has been licensed in the USA. These days it’s hard to know what is a classic Anime series, as one man’s (or woman’s, in the case of fangirls) classic is another’s prole-feed. One only has to remember how Bleach and Naruto fans are treated by others in the Anime community to find out how your choice of Anime fandom can affect how other Anime fans perceive you.
A list of Anime that I like could be seen as a personal Canon, but equally a list of Anime seen as representative of a certain genre of Anime is more likely to be a better example of a Canon of shonen/shojo/harem whatever Anime which have been accepted not only critically but by fans.
What makes an Anime series better as a representative of the artform than another? Can it be defined in this postmodern world of ours? Or are we doomed to generations of bickering before we agree on one thing that is archetypal and iconic of what represents a type of genre of Anime?
6 comments ↓
I’m not sure I’d be so pessimistic as to say we can’t or shouldn’t create canons. Certainly we can’t produce the perfect canon, but then that’s like being a perfectly good person – impossible, but worth aspiring to. And the discussion about canon is itself interesting (even more so when shows themselves start to selfconsciously make claims to be part of a canon).
One issue is whether simple quality is enough to get a show into any canon being constructed, or whether influence and originality is important too. If you haven’t come across it yet, an interesting (if reactionary, grumpy and probably wrong) approach to the topic is Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon.
Both IKnight and I hate the word ‘postmodern.’ I don’t even think the word should be applied in anime, and I also think, like him, that we can create canons.
I think that quality is enough, especially in anime, to get an anime series into a canon. These days, quality is a rarity, so if there’s an anime series one can find a lot of it in (and this opinion is shared by many people), it can be put into a canon.
Harold Bloom is a prick. RAEG IKNIGHT.
Anyway, a good literary canon is the Modern Library list for the best books of the 20th century. I think it’s a wonderful list; The Sound and the Fury should be ranked higher, but that would probably be just my opinion.
yokusou, newgeekliterarytheoretician.
I don’t get how listing certain anime by their politico-economic standards in “canons” is “postmodern.” Postmodernism in anime, I think, would deal with the content, not the nuances of it defined by the entertainment polity of the day.
I don’t see anime as a genre. It’s closer to a media of expression like art, tv radio, film etc. Thus it can have just as many genres as tv or film.
[...] child (I wouldn’t exactly equate blissmo to Aunt Jemima[1]) Likewise, most, if not all Yukan authors have their own personal blogs which are referenced quite often, all contributing to the sense of [...]
[...] child (I wouldn’t exactly equate blissmo to Aunt Jemima[1]) Likewise, most, if not all Yukan authors have their own personal blogs which are referenced quite often, all contributing to the sense of [...]
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