Thursday, July 28, 2016

Regarding My Final Presentation

            Hello. This is the last blog post for our group!

            As for my final presentation, I told about the imaginary NGO that I made.
            First of all, I summarized the Survey Monkey results that I posted bellow. 21 people replied to our survey. About 70% was from female Japanese students. Many of them said that anime violence doesn't usually lead people to become aggressive and we should respect freedom of expression. They also mentioned that separating fiction from reality and education regarding violence are important to deal with the worst problems. In addition, most of the respondents agreed with me that such anime programs help to raise people's awareness regarding universal themes. I think these results tend to be positive and it leads to my imaginary NGO.

            As for my imaginary NGO, the name is "Animated Uniality". The word "uniality" is made of "unity" and "reality" which I made it for myself. The general outlines are as follows.

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            The main theme is to make use of anime programs with violent scenes. That is, our mission is to provide proper understanding regarding violent anime without prejudice since it include important themes like "What is justice?" or "What is human?". Therefore, we would like you to think about realizing the real important messages of such programs and thinking such issues as your own problem in the real world.
            As for our concrete project, we will hold many events to discuss how we can make anime programs suitable for people as a good educational material. To be specific, we will discuss how we can learn from some universal themes in mainly midnight anime, which is for teens and adults since it includes some violent scenes. These events are kinds of promoting philosophical and psychological thinking. I think there are few NGOs regarding anime, so I think it would be very challenging but very exciting if this kind of NGO really exists.

           As for our discussions, members choose some specific themes to discuss with other participants. After that, we appoint some members to become so-called "theme leaders". Other people including none-members who join our events) can get general information from leaders regarding their assigned themes. It is the theme leaders' responsibility to manage both tasks and people and to promote their own themes using blogs and SNS posts. I think it is effective for many members to practice encouraging their leadership. Leaders and themes are changed each month so that many members can enjoy our projects as theme leaders.
 
          As for unique promotions regarding media, we hold a contest each month which each groups compete in showing academic results based on discussing and researching for each universal themes. Then, such groups contest in the weeklong vote. Voters can be everybody who are interested in their activities. Finally, we will choose the highest award and recipients of awards can make a special promotion video for their activities by cooperating with amateur illustrators.
 
         Not only we do fund-raising but also we collect membership fees. Furthermore, we collect special ones called ''Willing to vote! fees'' when we hold a contest each month, so participants can vote for several theme groups as investors.

※This imaginary NGO is only for class. It doesn't exist in the real world.
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Most of the audiences rated my work highly since my plan was very concrete. I was also glad to hear that there were few misunderstandings regarding this topic. I think many of them wondered how I would combine "universal themes" with violence problems for my NGO, but I think I made a successful presentation. One of the audiences even commented that my ideas were coherent and clear, so I thought my efforts were rewarded.

Thank you for reading! :)

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Survey Summary

     As I mentioned earlier, I made  survey regarding this topic, so I'd like to summarize what I found out from the results.
     So far my respondents are mainly female Japanese students, so it seems that many of them attach great importance on Japanese voice actors (including me!). It's very interesting that about a half claims that anime violence doesn't  leads people to become aggressive, and we should respect freedom of expression (including violent scenes).

Answers Regarding the Remaining Inportant Questions

     From now on, I'd like to pick up some of the important questions since my project is coming to an end.

9. How can we deal with the worst points of anime violence from the psychological point of view? (grotesque depictions, brutal deaths etc.)

    In my opinion, as I mentioned earlier, we should choose our appropriate time slots so that we can escape from risks regarding encountering violent scenes. Since such images are spreading through the Internet, there is no choice but to learn self-guarding. In addition, we should think not only about ourselves but also about our friends and acquaintances. That means, we should be careful not to "spread" the bad influences of such scenes. This is especially important for parents who are used to watch anime including violence which is immoral.

14.    Do anime programs contribute to raise people’s awareness concerning universal issues?

   In my opinion, some of them are good educational materials because we can feel the reality of our world through our favorite characters' actions. It's kind of a mixed reality, so it is pretty interesting to think about our own problems too. On the other hand, such programs stress crual incidents like crimes and it is sometimes stressful to watch them. Therefore, we should be aware of that there are both positive and negative points as I wrote above.

15. How can we think such controversial issues as our own problem in the real world?

  I think many psychologial, philosophical and environmental problems are familiar to our ordinary lives. Self-analyzing such fundamental issues lead us to realize the real meanings of life. I think it is a very good opportunity for especially youths to go through these proper steps by watching anime as a hobby. In addition, many great Japanese voice actors help us to empathize with their characters. In this way, Japanese anime inspire us to think about the world and ourselves from verious points of view.

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Regarding Questions 5 and 6

5.   What kind of violent scenes which lead people to be extremely shocked?

       There are some brutal deaths regarding recent anime programs. "Attack on Titan" is a good example. Many characters are either eaten, smashed into trees or  stamped by titans. In addition, one author says that last episodes often include shocking endings. These scenes may surely cause negative feelings, and the key word is "reality".
        To be specific, since drawing techniques are improving, many viewers tend to watch programs with detailed pictures. These techniques give highly realistic and smoother motions, and this is why Japanese anime is so famous around the world. Ironically, however, when it comes to violent and grotesque scenes, "highly realistic" bloody scenes dominates our TV screens. Furthermore, I think there is a trend to emphasize many cold fish and blank-faced characters who attacks someone. In this way, people usually feel very scared to watch anime including such scenes, which are mainly broadcasted during midnight.

6. What are the differences between anime violence and such scenes in live-action movies/dramas?

     The first key point is regulations. Movies including both anime and live-action ones are regulated at theaters, for example, by R-rating. As a matter of fact, however, the scrutiny of posting some anime programs on the Internet is much looser than those of live-action movies and dramas. Therefore, there are many opportunities to encounter anime with violent scenes.

<APA Bibliography>
・LAMARRE, T. (2010). The Rebuild of Anime [Abstract]. The Rebuild of Anime, 5. Retrieved July 7, 2016, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41510978?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
 
・Luis, P. G. (2009). FANSUBBING ANIME: INSIGHTS INTO THE ‘BUTTERFLY EFFECT’ OF GLOBALISATION ON AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION [Abstract]. FANSUBBING ANIME: INSIGHTS INTO THE ‘BUTTERFLY EFFECT’ OF GLOBALISATION ON AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION, 14. Retrieved July 7, 2016, from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403983084_4
 
・Philip, B. (January 2006). 100 Anime [Abstract]. Retrieved July 7, 2016, from http://www.citeulike.org/group/7712/article/3658431

・Susan, J. N. (Desember 2005). Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. Retrieved July 7, 2016, from
hl=ja&lr=&id=UnuLCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=anime+live-action&ots=by0_Kb-Fba&sig=qFhjJqvlQ6tBRgoV5xp6BV_mQ6U#v=onepage&q=anime%20live-action&f=false