Blog Post 1

Blog Post 1

And my struggle continues.

Today in class we had a discussion about our reading pertaining to the Mad Scientist trope in Doctor Who. It was a quality conversation, very interesting, but there was one comment that I just couldn't shake off. During the discussion, the subject of the anime/manga Fullmetal Alchemist came up and at one point it was referred to as a children's show, full of action and not much else. This got me a bit steamed, to say the least.

Now, let me explain. I am not trying to argue that this program does not have a prime demographic of children. In fact, I am fully aware that it falls under the shonen demographic, which is to say that it is specifically made to appeal to boys between the ages of 6 and 17. Where I take my issue is with the dismissive nature of the comment.

I have been a fan of Japanese animation and comic art for a large chunk of my life now, and it's through this fandom that I feel that I've gained a better understanding and appreciation of the power of animation and sequential art over the years. Most importantly, I have learned that animation and comics across the globe can be made for all audiences and can serve a wide variety of purposes, from early-childhood education, to young adult entertainment, to mature intrigue, and to provocation of deep thought.

That being the case, as I've grown more mature and my tastes have changed to accommodate, or at the very least understand and appreciate, the more mature strands of animation and comic storytelling, I've had a constant annoyance with people calling cartoons "childish".

On one particular occasion I remember being scolded by a teacher for reading a graphic novel, with her saying that I needed to "start reading at a higher level" and that "reading graphic novels is childish".

That said, she was correct about that particular book, but she had not so much as flipped through it's pages to confirm her allegation. At the time, I may have been reading Kingdom Hearts when my class reading was Children of the Fire, but what if I had  been reading something else? What if I had been reading Death Note, a psychological thriller revolving around the twisted justice of a boy with a notebook that gives him the power to kill of anyone by simply writing in their names. What if it was Seraph of the End, a post-apocalyptic which starts with the protagonist's entire family being killed off? Or D. Gray Man, which is riddled with religious symbolism and is literally based in a world where one of the fundamental stories of the Bible's Old Testament is changed to an extreme? All of these comics classify as shonen. Would all of these be childish as well, simply because they were action comics, or simply because they could appeal to smaller children?

Simply put, I do hope that we can learn to see the importance of comics and animation, because there are some stories that just can't be told effectively through a live action production, and many which would suffer a severe detriment by the application of one. If we can understand more about how to use these tools, hopefully we can expand it past this "childish" look. As one who was so inspired by this craft that I began making comics at an early age and still work to produce one today, I hope to see this wish come true someday.

And my struggle continues.