Manga Mad - a documentary.

Just finished watching this very fine documentary on Japanese Manga & Anime culture.

What is fascinating to me are the similarities and differences between how Manga culture functions in Japan versus America. Japanese use Manga as a way to temporarily escape their very stressful work and school life. Americans use it that way sometimes, though in my case it was more to escape boredom rather than stress.

The documentary emphasizes how mainstream Manga culture has become...one statistic states that up to 40% of the Japanese reading public reads Manga in some form. Another stat is that 60% of the Animation sold in the world originates in Japan.

Manga and Anime function as the collective unconscious of the Japanese people, allowing them to express deep emotion and live vicariously through the lives of characters who can do outrageous things that they could never do in society in real life.

My feelings don't wax as extreme, but they have been deeply moved by many of the Anime and Manga stories I have been exposed to.

The concluding remarks were most interesting, reflecting on the pivotal importance of politeness and restraint in Japanese social discourse; it isn't nearly as blunt or direct as in English-speaking countries (USA, Great Britain). It made me remember, too, that Germany is the polar opposite of Japan, insofar as for German children, they are taught it is more important to be factually correct than to be polite. The Germans in particular pursue an unflinching Exaktheit in their social discourse that is jarring even to English speakers, and would be positively mortifying in Japan.