Culture of Anime in United Arab Emirates

In the last decade a new phenomenon was born in the youth society of Unite Arab Emirates, which was mostly because of the internet. That phenomenon is anime phenomenon. So what is anime, and Is it consider as a subculture in UAE? I did some research and a survey about anime to see if it was an actual subculture or not. And how it dose effect teens and adults here?

First what is anime?

 Anime (pronounced ani-may) is a term that is used to refer to Japanese animations in both Japan, and the US. Another definition for anime is the modern form of manga (Nabeshima, 2006, p.158). Manga is comics that are made by Japanese manga artists, mangaka, and has its unique style. Telling stories and myths by sequential images has been always part of the Japanese culture. Then it developed to a basic kind of comics that were introduced to children. During war world II it developed to the manga that we know today and was starting to be targeted to older children. When they realized that even adults started to read manga more genres and styles were produced.

At that time a great mangaka Osamu Tezuka worked with Walt Denise and got experience from them. Tezuka was inspired from Walt Denise to produced one of his manga to the first anime. Tezuka’s anime got huge fame both in Japan and the US like Astro boy and princess mononoke. Because of his great anime he was called later by the father of the manga. In the last three decades anime has become a big part of the Japanese film industry. Also it was considered as a type of art that need to be focused at and criticize, while other animation been looked at as a minor art (Napier, 2001, p3).

Anime in UAE:

Though there were always an anime in TV 25 years ago, anime didn’t become popular till internet become a common thing in houses. Now many teens and young adult in UAE are watching anime more than any other shows. That why I have made a survey in the art collage and designs of university of Sharjah to discover reasons of anime popularity and differences between anime and American animations why do or don’t like anime? First of all, 95% the people I have questioned knew what anime is even if they weren’t interested in it. That fact proves the popularity of anime among teens and young adults. Another thing is that 85% of them thought that anime is better than American animations though their reasons were different.

According to whom I’ve questioned, anime books, and magazines there are many differences between anime and American animations which are the reasons for anime to stand out. The main difference is that unlike the American animations, which are mainly targeted to children, anime covers various age ranges from children to adults for both males and females. Mangaka and animators always try to make their products more complex, realistic plot that require amount of seriousness from the viewers to suite teens and adults (Manga, 2010, p261). Another thing is compared to other animations anime has more genres that suite their tastes.

The story lines differ from anime to another to create many different genres, but lately there are many anime that belong to more than one genre at once. The anime fans who were 60% of the quested ones and most of the anime fans preferred two specific genres. The genre 55% of the anime fans usually watched is Shounen. Shounen is typically refers to boys’ anime between 10 and 18, but boys, girls, men, and women all watch this genre. It’s a companion between fantasy, social history, and action with universal themes (Manga. 2010, p35). The fantasy in this genre is mostly inspired from Japanese and Chinese myths and legends; therefore they became original unique stories for people outside Japan. Though it is unique 5% didn’t like it because it is far from our culture, other 10% thought it is too imaginary for them and have very violence scenes. Examples of a popular Shounen anime are Dragon ball and Naruto.

The other one which had 35% of appealing between anime fans is Shoujo or the beautiful boy. Shoujo is aimed to the same age range but for girls. It is mostly love and real live stories like Sailor Moon. What was even more shocking is 10% of those anime fans like Yaoi anime. Yaoi is male homosexual; male/ male love stories for girls. It started to be more and more common among Arab girls who think that homosexuality between males is “cute”. All of those genres become popular because they have great psychological sides and characters that develop with the stories and force viewers to interact with them.

When I questioned them about the animes’ characters and who they liked, I got so many different characters and no one like a character like the other. Also when I’ve asked them if they liked how they dressed and looked 80% said they did. Even some of them thought that Shoujo characters’ style can be wearable. 50% of the anime fans have actually bought things they saw anime characters wear them. These are some of the things they had bought.

There are other things like mini dolls and other souvenirs.  Another prove that anime has become subculture is that all the anime fans have tried or at least know a few Japanese words. 15% are learning Japanese as their third language. Another fact is that all of those anime fans have gone or want to go to Japan and have big expectations for it. Also many anime fans 30% tend to watch other thing that is related to Japan like Japanese drama and Japanese songs. Even those people would prefer one or many Japanese bands that they would get their songs’ translations and think it is better than Arabic and English songs.

Other difference that affected all anime fans is the drawing style of anime. The anime style was taken from the manga style which is also was developed from Japanese tradition arts as kabuki and the woodblock print (Napier, 2001, p3). How that did affect them? Most anime fans who like drawing have developed a style that is more or less similar to the anime style all according to what genre they watch, since each genre has its unique drawing style.

So is anime a subculture in UAE? Yes it is. But is it good or bad interference that is the real question. Yes maybe anime came from completely different culture and sometimes suggests things that are not close to our customs. But anime is not for children the ones who watch it are already have learned most of our values. Anime open teens and young adults’ minds to new world and energetic their imaginations. Anime is known to relief their stress and separate them from everyday’s problems. Because of all that anime subculture is a good edition to the United Arab Emirates society.

References:

Nabeshima, K. Yusuf, S. (2006). Postindustrial East Asian cities: innovation for growth. Washington DC, USA: The International Bank for Reconstructions and Development.

Napier, S. (2001). Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animations. New York, USA: Palgrave Macmillan.

Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspective. (2010). Toni Johnson-Woods. New York, USA: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.  

Postmodernism in Graphics

Postmodernism is a movement that started as rejection to the international or the modernist style. Though post means after in this case it means opposed of modern. If modernism meant realty, rationality and perfection, postmodernism was fiction, denial of presence, and mistakes (Hoffmann, 2005,36). They believed that everything we know and even us are results of an error (from modernism to postmodernism an anthology, 2003, 10). That why they deliberately made mistakes in their designs.

Who started postmodernism was the generation that was raised by TV, because it opened their mind to the world and to a different way of thinking (Albright, 1985, 169). They adopted historical styles that was rejected by modernist and presented them in a new sprit (Albright, 1985, 169, Eskilson, 2007, 338). They also sometimes used many styles in one design that may not be consistent, combined them together, then presented them in unusual way. 

From its beginning until now postmodernism had passed through stages until it reached its maturity. During the 60s until the mid of 70s a style had presented postmodern among youth and pop fans in the US and the UK. It is called the psychedelic art after a drug that was used by youth at that time. It was clear in their posters that they were influenced by art nouveau and the dada more than any other style (Eskilson, 2007, 338). They loved fiction and dreamy-like illustrations that gives the feeling of being on drugs (Albright, 1985, 169).

(fig.1) by Victor Moscoso

This poster is a good example for the psychedelic style. Like any other psychedelic posters it is characterized with its vivid, bright colors and contrast between those colors, and unrealistic illustrations.

Another type of postmodernism is the postmodernism of resistance or postmodernism of reaction (Sinfield, 1989, 294). This type of design was mainly targeting social and political issues. Designers wanted to draw attention to crimes that were made by society (Sinfield, 1989, 294).

During the 1980s postmodern had reached its maturity mostly because of the appearance of computers (Albright, 1985, 169). Designers could easily experiment with their designs and develop new typefaces that competed with Helvetica, the international style favorite typeface. Designers like Weingart and Brody were the ones who made postmodernism well known (Eskilson, 2007, 352). Those designers had put rolls and academic experiments to postmodernism that transformed it to a new stage. It became, unlike the Dada, a controlled disorder, and the mistakes they made were deliberated ones (Eskilson, 2007, 353). Even with those rolls postmodernist were open to each personal style (Eskilson, 2007, 353).

(fig.1) by April Greiman

This poster shows how much postmodernism has developed since the 60s. Greiman has fallowed the movement’s character by using different typefaces and paste them to overlap randomly with the background.

References

Albright, T. (1985). Art in San Francisco Bay Area 1945-1980: An Illustrated History. USA: University of California Press.

Eskilson, S. (2007). Graphic Design: A New History. USA: Yale University Press.

From Modernism to Postmodernism: an Anthology. (2003). Lawrence Cahoone. Blackwell Publishing.

Hoffmann, G. (2005). From Modernism to Postmodernism, Concepts and strategies of Postmodernism American Fiction. Theo D’hean, Hans Bertens. USA, New York: Editions Rodopi.

Sinfield, A. (1989). Literature, politics, and culture in postwar Britain. USA: University of California Press.

Sachplakat

Sachplakat or object posters are type of advertising posters that is known by its simplified illustrations of a single object and bold headline (Heller,2010,p.123). It was created by a designer named Lucian Bernhard in 1903 in Germany. Bernhard got the idea when he entered a poster competition for the Priester match company, and he made a typical art nouveau poster. The poster showed a cigar in an ashtray beside them two wooden matches all on a tablecloth and from the cigar smoke comes out in dramatic way that formed a beautiful dancing woman. When he showed his posters to people they mistook it for cigar company’s advertising. So he removed all the elements that were distractions, and kept only the two matches on completely flat background then he wrote the company name on the top with bold letters.

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The poster was too revolutionary that it was rejected at once. People at that time were used to visual complexity, so the simple two matches weren’t expiable (Swanson, 2000). Especially that they were painted only in bright yellow and red. But Ernst Growls, who was overseeing the completion, loved the poster and saw in it what others couldn’t (Raimes, 2007, p.34). He saw the uniqueness of the relationship between the bold type, the object, and the background (Raimes, 2007, p.34). The poster was printed and released on streets where it made an impact. 

  

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Bernhard established himself as a professional graphic designer after his successes, and other clients started to come to him.

Many historians think that Bernhard got the influenced from the English Beggarstuff Brothers. But why his object posters get huge successes?

During the 19^th and the 20^th century life started to change and big cities appeared. Life at that time has begun to be faster and people had no time for complexity (Swanson,2000). So Bernhard direct massage was what was needed in advertising. Another thing is that Bernhard had displayed unique colors collections of bright strong colors (Aynsley,2000,p.78). And what helped him more that new strong inks were developed at that time that he used (Aynsley, 2000, p.78). Also Bernhard had always developed his own type designs according to what his works’ needs (Aynsley, 2000, p.79). More importantly the simplicity of his subjects had made the posters clearer and stronger (Aynsley, 2000, p.79). Though at that time people weren’t aware of marketing methods and what attract consumers, Bernhard had put his hands on advertising secrets.

Julius Klinger

After Bernhard successes many designer and advertising firms had started producing sachplakat too. Like Julius Klinger who designed poster for Mohring chandelier factory, 1909. 

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This poster though it has the same technique, Klinger had made it simpler than Bernhard’s posters. He kept only the basic shape of the chandelier and painted it in bright yellow color that made strong contrast with the black background. Even the colors were completely flat with no shading at all. To give the light effect he painted the lambs in white and surrounded it with small yellow dots that made it look as if it was shining.

Hans Rudi Erdt

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This poster was made by a great sachplakat designer Hans Rudi Erdt for Opel cars. What is unusual in this poster is that Erdt didn’t display the object it self as it was known in the sachplakat style, instead he presented the product by whose using it which was a man with driving goggles perched on his head (Eskilson, 2007, p.112). Then when he wrote the product name he made the O look like car’s wheal (Eskilson, 2007, p.112). Which was technique that was used by the Beggarstaff Brothers (Eskilson, 2007, p.112). 

Ludwig Hohlwein

Another famous sachplakat designer is Ludwig Hohlwein (1874-1949). Hohlwein was trained to be an architect but he changed it and become a designer. But unlike Bernhard and klinger, Hohlwein didn’t embrace modernism completely; instead he had strange yet unique mixer of modernism, abstraction, sachplakat style, and even cubism in his posters (Gerber,2010,p.14). His posters usually have strong figurative elements of high class women that are mostly made of combination between abstraction and 3D style (Eskilson, 2007, p.112) (Gerber, 2010, p.15).

After 1917 the first war world had started and governments controlled art and design to serve their purposes (Aynsley, 2000, p.80). And because of that controlling artists and designers didn’t have the freedom to produce what they wanted and many of them have become tools for the war, and sachplakat was changed to serve it (Aynsley, 2000, p.80). Bernhard was one of the designers who had made posters about the war until he traveled to the US to become one of the famous European designers there (Aynsley, 2000, p.80).

Otto Baumberger

After war world two sachplakat became popular in Swiss where other famous sachplakat designers had appeared. Otto Baumberger (1889-1961) was one of the first designers who can be described as poster designers and was ahead of his time. He could clearly see what consumers wants and that why he used sachplakat style in his posters. But he also made his new Swiss version of sachplakat. 

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He also combined photography in his posters to make it more special.

References

Aynsley, J. (2000). Graphic Design in Germany: 1890-1945. USA: University of California.


Bhaskaran,L. Raimes,J. Renow-Clarke,B. (2007). Retro Graphics: A Visual Sourcebook To 100 Years Of Graphic Design. Chronicle Books

Eskilson, S. (2007). Graphic Design: A New History. USA: Yale University Press.

Gerber, A. (2010). Graphic Design The 50 most influential graphic designers in the world. Britain: A & C Black Publishers Ltd

Heller,S. (2010). Pop: How Graphic Design Shapes Popular Culture. Allworth Communications, Inc.

Pamela,E. (et. al). (2007). Selling Modernity: Advertising In Twentieth-Century Germany. Duke University Press.