Genuine discussion topic.
There are some topics lately, about how much of Western media is "ugly", and glorifying disgusting acts, etc. And it's shows/books/movies/etc. like these that are seen as "art" in the western sphere.
One reason I believe that "traditional", let's say, (for lack of a better word) beauty is still so prominent in Japanese fiction (especially visual and drawn mediums like anime and manga) is the definition of "art" in Japanese.
Words have the power to condition people. If you use a word a thousand times, you're likely to gain some unconscious influence of its connotations.
美術 means art in Japanese. 美 meaning beauty and 術 meaning (technique/way/means). It's literally the aspiration to beauty.
So whereas the all-too-malleable term "art" has already grossly mutated in the Western sphere (in certain areas, at least), in anime and manga, we still have, both visually, and in a storytelling sense, the current stalwart ingrained definition for 美術: Whenever a Japanese reader reads those words, they are reminded what it is SUPPOSED to mean. Possibly, languages with glyphs distort their meanings slower - or are less easy to subvert as well.
Still, unfortunately, there are series that I subjectively see as starting to jump on this subversion train. Seeing stuff like Takopii (Punpun Jr.) getting such great sales probably is not a good sign but I have only read chapter 1 so I don't want to make any huge assumptions.
Overall, the future seems dark for people who dislike post-modernist portrayals, but I hope the above has been an interesting theory on part of why Japan seems to be holding out a bit.
I think Japanese media (manga, anime) has managed to retain its "beauty" for one simple reason
Franime managed to retain the beauty that western animation as a whole used to have, it's really just Americans pushing their stupid representation shit because the big studios still think it's trendy.
No it;s because japs like cute girls okay op damn. Fuggin dummy.
>Franime
Such as?
Western media is still beautiful faggot, if anything it's anime which is on decline. Newer anime look way worse than older ones, it all feels veey plasticy.
>everything I don't like is subversion
Westernshit shit is completely ugly now and Japan makes things cute and sexy because they want to, including the women. This is not going to change.
Arcane
Miraculous
Naw, you're a stupid weeb, who's too busy jerking it to Japanese drawings. The Japanese aren't interested in preserving beauty, with anime and manga, as it's a business designed to make you buy merch or it gets cancelled.
It hasn’t been an interesting theory, unfortunately. What you’re trying to get at totally escaped me actually.
> The Japanese aren't interested in preserving beauty, with anime and manga, as it's a business designed to make you buy merch or it gets cancelled.
That's not true for individual manga creators as a whole.
When you read something you don't understand, you should read it again until you learn something.
Once you do that, here is the answer sheet.
1. Glyphs exist in Japanese
2. These provide unchanging meaning to some extent to the words they form
3. The glyphs for art in Japanese inherently contain the meaning for beauty
4. Hence the inherent meaning is harder to change than the English word, "art"
Kino
You just said a bunch of crap, western art is infinitely more beautiful than jap shit art and western people don't fetishize bad acts as much as japanese people, you'll never see a pedophile being portrayed in good light in popular western media while this shit happens all the time in anime
For anime and manga, I think the main reason is the context manga is produced under. In the US you have corporations hiring designers to produce the next piece of media. In Japan you have a lot of self-made creators writing and presenting their own work; the most popular of these get produced into anime.
For ideas that make-up media, the US is a farm while Japan is a wilderness. Media in the US is imagined in a formal office setting. Media in Japan starts as some guy's passion project that resonated with other people. The US media is merely sold as art, Japanese art is the works that stand above the rest.
>Japanese media preserves its beauty because "art" has a clear definition in their language
Did I understand your argument well?
If yes, I don't think that's particularly the case. I don't have proof or data because I'm not an expert, but I don't think native speakers actively or passively pay attention to the roots of the words they use commonly. At least empirically, you could ask yourself if you actually do when you are not thinking of it. The exception are whenever the words are purposefully deconstructed, but that's not the point.
what are these? films? I guess they look okay? the colors are nice. the medium i was talking about was drawn visual storytelling specifically, not really film but sure i guess those look nice
>Western media is full of original ideas and uniqueness
>Japanese media: THIS TIME I WAS REINCARNATED AS THE DEMON KING IN THE LAND OF THE SLIMES WITH MY HAREM (sold a quintillion copies)
>western art is infinitely more beautiful than jap shit art
okay, now back up your opinion
>western people don't fetishize bad acts as much as japanese people
morality is subjective
>you'll never see a pedophile being portrayed in good light in popular western media while this shit happens all the time in anime
must be bait
I have to disagree, I think that it subconsciously permeates your brain. Same thing with advertising, that's just how it werks
Desperation to get attention vs what people actually flock to.
There is plenty of niche content from Japan though, isn't there?
>Media in Japan starts as some guy's passion project that resonated with other people.
>Posting the only good movie to come out in the last 15 years