The Legend of Space Battleship Yamato
by Jiro Kojimachi
● Anime Imagination and Documentaries
One of the characteristics of animation is that it is anti-documentary. Live action is a documentary, and the images are an extension of ourselves. In this world, humans don’t fly, and it’s a big deal when someone dies. Common sense, physical dynamics, and chemical reactions do not go beyond our experience, and emotions are merely ups and downs within that framework.
Therefore, the main character is subject to the same rules of common sense as we are, and his self-sacrificing spirit and heroic actions are simply individual differences between him and ourselves. This is why our empathy is concentrated and our interest is directed toward his inner world. Ultimately, this is an interest in ourselves.
As a method of writing detective fiction, there is always an explanation of who the character is. The more you are interested in the novel, the more you want to know who he is and what drove him to do what he did, and you want to know the rational, experiential explanation of these things. Most novels are also documentaries. That is why you have to place yourself in the shoes of the protagonist.
Animation is completely unrelated to this kind of documentary, and its images try to pull the audience into a non-experiential world. Manga (dramatic comics), animation, and Pink Lady (TV footage) are all anti-documentaries. From the very beginning, they are separate from the image of reality. We don’t see ourselves as the main character, nor do we take an interest in their upbringing or their view of life. That’s why they always come out of the blue.
Because they have no background, the author doesn’t bother to give us lengthy explanations that link with our empathy. In short, it’s “watch and you’ll understand.” If you watch Tomorrow’s Joe, Future Boy Conan, or Susumu Kodai, you’ll understand.
The characters in a documentary are well understood. If they get cut, they’ll bleed, and their actions and objectives don’t go far beyond our imagination. On the other hand, anti-documentary characters are fearless. They show perfect concentration on their goals, purity, and self-sacrifice. They transcend our experience, and yet are still very understandable.
Space Battleship Yamato, Rose of Versailles and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, all works that deal with the eternity of life, drew large audiences. In the minds of young girls, no other work was more anime-like than Rose of Versailles, and Close Encounters was also an animation.
However, Close Encounters was half documentary. What was documentary about it was the scene where the aliens appeared. If not for that scene, it would have been a masterpiece of animation. The reason many audience members were turned off by that scene is that the anime-like imagination was brought down to “reality” at that point. The imagination of anime and a documentary are like oil and water, and they will never be compatible.
A good example of this is Phoenix. I haven’t seen it yet because you can tell how terrible the combination of live action and anime is without having to watch it. I don’t think it’s a problem with the images, but rather that the viewer becomes detached by being separated from reality and then returning to it.
We should keep in mind that the real Tomorrow’s Joe is not interesting at all. The anime version wasn’t interesting, either. I didn’t even want it to be an anime.
● The path to popularizing anime
There is realism in animation as well. Just as there is realism in novels, movies, and manga.
We have a keen sensitivity to realism inside and outside the framework of experience. Apart from the art of anime, animation must deal with this realism. Whether we laugh, get angry or cry, this realism is the only way to affect the cerebral cortex.
It was Calpis Theater and Space Battleship Yamato that elevated animation from children’s cartoons to something that adults can enjoy. Calpis Theater used a huge TV network, and Space Battleship Yamato used the mechanism of mobilizing the mass media. Both of these were blessed with favorable conditions, and yet animation began to have an effect on the adult brain.
We cannot help but hope that this opportunity will not be missed and animation will become established as a form of popular entertainment. We must not hinder the popularization of anime sensitivity, which has finally begun to sprout, by imitating movies or becoming overly devoted to experimental anime. The people who will support anime in the future are be today’s junior and senior high school students.
When Charles Schulz’s Peanuts came to Japan, adults claimed that children could not possibly understand its deep nuances. However, Snoopy and Charlie Brown quickly became children’s idols. On the other hand, many letters were sent to the monthly Snoopy magazine saying things like, “There is absolutely no way that adults could understand Peanuts!”
If the commercial structure of animation and its quality can be improved, they will certainly turn anime into a major media.