Anth230: Anthropology of East Asia

Aesthetics

My first association of the dress styles of the kids from Harajuku was to think of anime, and the styles of those cartoon figures in japanese animations. While I suppose this might just be because it is something else I associate with the Japanese, however considering that this is a culture in which animated games (using full motion video sequences, etc, or in this case movies based off games) are being used in marketing for things such as cell phones, this for example. If they view that as a good way to market those cell phones which by all means should be unrelated, it has to be some what important to the culture and most likely focused on a younger crowd, such as the teens that frequent Harajuku. Thus it doesn't seem to farfetched to detect a similarity between the characters depicted in types of japanese anime, and the modes in which the kids of Harajuku dress. I at least think it would be a fascinating thing to look into.

I was also very interested in the Japanese children's book illustrations. I was very suprised by the style in which they were drawn. While they did have Japanese elements to them such as dress or food or other cultural images, they also showed a western influence both with the characters drawn and some of their activities, or at least I would guess so. The thing that struck me most however was the similarities between this style of drawing and fairly modern children movies such as James and the Giant Peach and Nightmare Before Christmas. To me the images have the same sort of quality to them, it would be interesting to see if the filmmakers were somehow influenced by these Japanese artists, or if there was some artistic crosscultural trend that existed.