The cultural bloom of Anime, manga & videogames from Japan is
remarkable.  Someone very poetically cited a possible cause as the
suffering from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki.  I
think it was recent, but not sure.

It would also be nice to hear some cultural experts comment on the
validity of this idea.

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Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 14 Apr 2005 12:24 PDT

Hello foxpajamas-ga,

Are you asking about Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa?

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Courtyard/1802/barefootgen.html
http://www.animeondvd.com/reviews2/disc_reviews/188.php
http://www.theblackmoon.com/BarefootGen/bomb.html
Barefoot Gen is a vivid autobiographical story. Artist Keiji Nakazawa
was only seven years old when the Atomic Bomb destroyed his beautiful
home city of Hiroshima. The artist's manga (visual novel), tells the
tale of one family's struggle to survive in the dreadful shadow of
atomic war.

http://nikkeiview.com/archives00/080200.htm
HIROSHIMA AND HISTORY

http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/~mickbrod/postmodm/m/text/hubakcon.html
Hibakusha Cinema -- Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in Japanese Film


This book review of Hibakusha Cinema presents a much broader
discussion addressing postnuclear Japan in not just in film but also
manga and anime.

Let me know if these links answer your question. If not, please
clarify what you're looking for.

~ czh ~

---

Clarification of Question by foxpajamas-ga on 14 Apr 2005 13:06 PDT

I haven't read the book, Hibakusha Cinema.  But I familiar with Barefoot Gen.  

Recently, I read/heard someone say that maybe Japan's big, beautiful,
complex, and prolific fantasy engine is somehow a result of the bomb. 
Maybe to reconcile, but maybe to transmute the suffering into beauty.

I read a lot of Wired & Boing Boing.  Maybe it was in there.  It's a
fascinating idea, even if it's not true.

Does that help?

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 14 Apr 2005 13:25 PDT

Hello foxpajamas-ga,

Thank you for your clarification. I?m still not sure what you?re
looking for. Are you searching for a specific article? If yes, please
expand on what you remember about it.

If you?re looking for a broad discussion about this topic, here are a
couple of long articles that delve into this topic.

http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/~mickbrod/postmodm/nukemovi.html
Nuclear Movies

http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/~mickbrod/postmodm/m/text/hibakeds.html
Hibakusha Cinema
Editor's Introduction

--------------------------------

http://www.asu.edu/english/writingprograms/printersdevil/pd2003-004/3rdb105.doc
Japan?s Evolution Through Near Extinction

Not a single person, young or old, male or female, is unaffected by
the events of 1945.  This cultural phenomenon will naturally manifest
itself through media as witnessed through countless anime movies such
as Akira, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Grave of the Fireflies, all of
which deal directly with surviving after a nuclear blast.


I look forward to your clarification.

~ czh ~

---

Clarification of Question by foxpajamas-ga on 14 Apr 2005 14:58 PDT

I just enjoyed reading the article, "Japan?s Evolution Through Near
Extinction" that you sent.  Very thoughtful. It's getting close.  But
the thought I ran across was subtley different.  Most of the material
you've shared talks about media that has been directly inspired by
Hiroshima & Nagasaki.  But the person I'm trying to find compared the
magnitude of the destruction to the magnitude of the creative output.

I was captivated because it brought up images of unnatural blooms -
beauty caused by pollution.  Or the brightness of collapsing gases
surrounding a black hole.

However this ends up, thank for this information.

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 14 Apr 2005 15:55 PDT

Hello foxpajamas-ga,

I'm stumped and don't know where else I could search. It sounds like
you're looking for a specific article instead of "cultural experts
(to) comment on the
validity of this idea" of Japan's nuclear history being instrumental
in the blossoming of anime and manga. I hope someone else can find
what you're looking for.

~ czh ~

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 14 Apr 2005 18:56 PDT

Hello again foxpajamas-ga,

It looks like celtic_rice-ga may have found what you're looking for.
The short Wired article does not have the exact reference you remember
about "images of unnatural blooms - beauty caused by pollution.  Or
the brightness of collapsing gases surrounding a black hole." To dig
further I looked up the exhibit referenced by the Wired article. Check
out the Japan Society site for "Cool Japan: Otaku Strikes!" It seems
you may have read something by one of these presenters.

http://info.japansociety.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5517&news_iv_ctrl=1244&abbr=about_&JServSessionIdr001=sbkim3ei62.app8b

What do you think? Is this the answer you're looking for?

~ czh ~

---

Request for Question Clarification by czh-ga on 15 Apr 2005 10:58 PDT

Hello again foxpajamas-ga,

It looks like you get a free answer on this one since the comment by
celtic_rice-ga gave you what you were looking for. You can distinguish
between researchers and commentors by noting that only researcher
names are clickable.

As a new user you might want to check out these links so that you can
make the best use of Google Answers.

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html
http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

Welcome to GA and I hope we'll be able to answer many more questions for you.

~ czh ~

I think this is what you read: "Cuddly yet creepy. That's the modern
Japanese art aesthetic - and the unifying force behind an exhibition
opening April 8 at the Japan Society in New York. Dubbed Little Boy, a
title which references both the baby-faced protagonists of anime and
the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, the show demonstrates
how the visual style of con­temporary Japanese artists emerged from
the psychological impact of warfare. "We can see dynamics of
impotence, defeat, humiliation, resentment, trauma, and rebirth," says
curator Takashi Murakami. "And while only Japan dealt with the
specific traumas that bore its kawaii [cute] culture, the pleasure to
be experienced from it is universal.""

This appeared in Wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/play.html

Ah yes. This is indeed what I read and maybe misunderstood. Takeshi
Murakami's quote, " and while only Japan dealt with the specific
traumas that were its kawaii [cute] culture, the pleasure to be
experienced from it is universal"

This is what brought up the idea of a beautiful anomaly or brought on
by a great injury.  It's a deeply fascinating thought to me.  That the
sheer quantity of media & art coming from Japanese culture could
itself be a result of the suffering caused by the atomic bombs.  This
really resonated with me as an idea.  So I wanted to remember where it
came from.

I had just traveled to Death Valley to see the huge desert flower
bloom.  It seems like it could have been caused by global climate
change.  This was on my mind as well.

Thank you for finding this.  I was actually hunting through that very
issue of Wired.  But I had skipped over that blurb.  Considering the
very sketchy info I gave you, its very impressive.