Ask John: Could Japanese Book Vandalism Have a Backlash on Anime?

Question:
Some anonymous group of thugs recently desecrated hundreds of copies of Diary of Anne Frank books in Japan. Could those Anne Frank book vandals in Japan hurt The Wind Rises’ Oscar prospects, and possibly threaten anime and manga’s viability in general? While the Japanese public’s reaction appears to be that of shock and disappointment, the incident still has perpetuated an ugly image of the country not seen since the days of serial-rapist Tsutomu Miyazaki. While Hayao Miyazaki has condemned Japan’s role in the war, The Wind Rises has already taken flack for its so-called “positive” portrayal of the lead character during that time. So do you feel there’s a threat of the film also being “Norbit’ed” by this crime? Furthermore, could this vandalism hurt sales in general the way that manji card almost did for Pokemon? Considering the anti-Semitic content in Angel Cop, could it, and therefore anime in general, be used as a scapegoat for the behavior of those douchebags?

Answer:
Forgive any personal offense because I intend none when I say that this question strikes me as a strained effort to imagine a conspiracy where there isn’t one. According to yesterday’s Time Magazine article on the subject, the Japanese vandalism of copies of The Diary of Anne Frank is presumed to be rooted in Japanese right-wing political terrorism. Furthermore, the first known instance of a desecrated public copy of The Diary of Anne Frank dates back a year. Over the past year this incident of vandalism has never been associated with the anime industry or fan community. Any direct connection between this act of political extremism and Studio Ghibli’s latest film, Kaze Tachinu, seems unfathomable. Even thematically, The Diary of Anne Frank refers to German activity during WWII while Kaze Tachinu has nothing at all to do with Nazi era Germany. An effort to parallel the current political terrorism of book vanalization to the serial murders committed by Tsutomo Miyazaki likewise feels like a tenuous grasp at straws. The current book vandalization is an act of ideological terrorism that has caused public outrage but no human casuality. Tsutomo Miyazaki killed four children in 1988 & 1989 and was legally executed for his crimes in 2001. Now, 23 years after the last killing, recollection of Tsutomo Miyazaki has almost entirely faded. The average American citizen today has no idea whatsoever who “Tsutomo Miyazaki” was. Likewise, the Angel Cop OVA series concluded 20 years ago. The series caused some controversy in Japan in the early 1990s due to its graphic violence, but the series has never been associated with any real-life incident of anti-Semitism, nor has the OVA series ever inspired any subsequent anti-Semitism in any other medium. Even here in America the anime only generated minor controversy years after its domestic release when American fans realized that Manga Entertainment had censored its translation. The American controversy was over Manga Entertainment’s censoring, not the fact that the original OVA series included a brief monologue that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic. The Angel Cop anime is a hyperbolic cyberpunk anime about cyborgs fighting ESPers. Nothing in the anime can or should be taken seriously. So the idea of suddenly dredging up a single 25-year-old anime series and citing it as an example of how and why anime deserves to be boycotted today seems like a absurdly irrelevant lunatic effort. Certainly, every time a school shooting occurs in America, video games get trotted out as a scapegoat explanation. However, an attempt to blame Japanese vandalism of copies of The Diary of Anne Frank on anime is like trying to blame American school shootings on Coca-Cola. The two things have no empirical connection whatsoever. I believe that the overwhelming majority of the world’s people are rational enough to realize that not every headline event that occurs in Japan is related to anime.

The current vandalism of public Japanese copies of The Diary of Anne Frank seems to have no connection whatsoever to Kaze Tachinu and should have no impact whatsoever on the film’s chances of securing an Oscar. The vast majority of Oscar voters are Hollywood insiders well-known for their liberal political leanings. Such people are remotely likely to punish a Japanese film due to an entirely unrelated Japanese civil controversy that’s gotten minimal American media exposure. Regrettably, The Wind Rises is rather unlikely to win the 2013 Oscar for best animated film for an entirely other reason. Despite being widely considered a front-runner competitor for the Oscar, Kaze Tachinu is facing direct competition from Disney’s juggernaut hit Frozen, a film likely to crush any an all competition.

Kaze Tachinu has been widely criticized for ignoring the damage inflicted by the Japanese Zero fighter and largely excluding incisive examination of Imperialistic Japan’s aggression, but I believe that the larger audience for the film, people who are familiar with director Hayao Miyazaki’s ouvre and his pronounced fascination with flying machines, has quietly recognized that the film is not a historical treatise but rather Miyazaki’s swansong admiration for the artistic spirit. Rather than depict a film about an engineer who created devastating weapons of war, Miyazaki has created a film that combines his two affections: flight, and the compulsion of the creator, inventor, and artist to deliver beauty into the world, regardless of how the world may subsequently pervert or exploit that beautiful creation.