Egregoros

@flux_the_cat there's a theory that anime came to be when post-war Japan imported American culture. How? In a time when Japan was separated from its traditions due to a new post-war reality (liberal-progressive), American culture (comics, animation, cinema, values, etc.) made a huge impression, and the theory claims that anime was the Japanese reaction to it. One paradox about it is how anime cannibalizes the entire cultural landscape of past, present, and future Japan---including folklore, myths, history, archetypes, humor, national trauma, etc.---while being freed from traditional and even modern perspectives. Anime also symbolizes a rift between modern Japanese media (literature, movies, etc. before the 60s) and a re-connection with Japan's pre-modern Edo-culture, in which theater, stylizing over realism, episodic content, and forbidden topics played a huge role. So is Matt Walsh right? Yes and no. Anime as we know it would not exist without America as a catalyst, but it is also a genuine and native Japanese reaction to our postmodern world. As it stands, anime offers entertainment that connects the current pluralistic chaos, our reality, with aesthetic sensibilities of a pre-industrial past. A type of archeo-futurism that sharply contrasts with the current Western tendency to deconstruct identity and nullify meaning.