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Sexual Robots & Plastic Humans in Anime

AV presentation presented at:

2008
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Australian Film Television & Radio School, Melbourne
2007
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Japan Information & Culture Centre, Wellington, New Zealand
Auckland Museum, Auckland, New Zealand
2006
Australian Film Televsion & Radio School, Sydney

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Lecture notes

It is in bodily representation that anime heavily subscribes to a thesis of ‘post-humanism’ – the re-imaging, reinventing and reconfiguring of all we assume humanity and humanism to signify. The body in anime is aggregatively sculpted to create a contra-photographic, mega-ornamental, hyper-extended figure. Clean of any collaging of classical and archaic parts, the anime body is a new species, holistic in form and genetically manipulated according to anime’s encompassing of the history of human form as perceived within Japan.

Anime’s reliance on mannequinned form and its animation of multifarious guises, masks and faces presents the human as skeletal architecture, plasticized flesh and neural matrixes. Sublime in its post-humanism, anime tells the story of a human who dreamt of being a robot – and whose dream one day came true.

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The Past

1854: American entry into Yokosuka
1923: Great Kanto Earthquake
1945: Atom Bomb blasts on Hiroshima & Nagasaki
1945: Japanese surrender to the US
1945: Humanization of Emperor Hirohito

The Post

1854: American entry into Yokosuka
1923: Great Kanto Earthquake
1945: Atom Bomb blasts on Hiroshima & Nagasaki
1945: Japanese surrender to the US
1945: Humanization of Emperor Hirohito
1945-1952: American Occupation under General MacArthur
1964: Tokyo Olympics
1970: Osaka World Fair

Anime image

Ukio-e (c. 1650 – 1850) statuesque portraiture
No shading; restricted palette; negative space

Yamato-e (c. 900 – 1500) psycho-geographic perspective
Multiple planes; spatial contemplation; cosmological overview

Yoga (c. 1850 – 1900) stylistic fusion
Mimetic allusion; visual hetereogenaeity; painterly re-coding

Nihon-ga (c. 1850 – 1900) cultural projection
 Gestural rendering; calligraphic instatement; material sublimation

Anime movement

Kabuki (c. 1600 – 1950) spatio-temporality
Frozen poses; flattened scenography; disruptive presence

Bunraku (c. 1650 – 1900) puppet effects
Visible mechanics; human distillation; limited animation

Noh (c. 1400 – 1900) dehumanization
Facial masks; human absence; fixed visage

Butoh (c. 1960 >) rehumanization
Bodily energy; muscular collapse; fluid stature

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Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence

Opening CGI sequence
Directed by Mamoru Oshii
Based on the manga by Masamune Shirow
Theme score by Kenji Kawaii

Merging cosmologies – macro as micro	Ariel bombardment – WWII point-of-view
Hiroshima – advent of Ground Zero	Rebirth – the eruption of being
Regrowth – genetic mutation	Re-design – the new human shell
Exponential transformation	The locked genetic code
New creation phase 1 – motion mechanics	New creation phase 2 – manual logistics
Godless armature	Positive/external dexterity – internal/negative neurology
Morphological mutation – the plastic human	Cloning the Self
Mirror phasing the Other	The genetic pool
The implosion of physics – new exponential effects	Simultaneous yet conflicting realities
Being born through the white light of death	The post-human – the sexual robot
The guise of geisha servitude	The eye of Japan

All GHOST IN THE SHELL 2 - INNOCENCE images © Production IG

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FLCL (Furi Kuri)

2000 (6 part OVA)
Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki
Original story by Studio GAINAX(Neon Genesis Evangelion - 1997)
Boy – Naota
Alien – Haruko
Girl – Mamimi
Robot

Naota Teenage trauma The ground zero of Self Hikikomori (‘stay-at-home’)
Naota Reversioning the Giant Mecha Cranial birth of the Imaginary Robot Externalizing the Self
Haruko Alien spectre of the yokai witch Avenging new-woman Rock bitch with Fender bass Mystical maiden
Mamimi The transcultural ingenue The feminine entwined with the elements The Japanese doll
War on Everything Transformed powers The re-invented Self Just another ‘end-of-the-world’

All FLCL images © Gainax

Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy