Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

UNLV class will probe popularity of Japan’s anime

A new UNLV class will pit Pikachu against Pocahontas.

The "Pokemon" lead character will be one of many Japanese anime and manga characters discussed in a new University of Nevada, Las Vegas class that looks at the history and development of Japanese pop culture and its influence on America.

The class, which will run over two semesters starting this fall, is in conjunction with the university's new Asian Studies Center.

One major element of the class will be comparisons between Japanese animation and American animation, particularly the Walt Disney franchise, Ronald Morse, Tokyo Foundation professor of Japan Studies at UNLV, said.

Japanese anime, or animation, has been sweeping the United States, particularly among the under-25 demographic, Morse said. Japanese manga, graphic novels that are similar to American comic books but often delve into deeper, more serious concepts such as spirituality, have also made a major impact on American culture, outselling their U.S. counterparts for the last few years.

Sales of Japanese video games and anime merchandise such as "Pokemon" and "Hello Kitty," are also soaring, Morse said.

"The impact of Japanese animation on society needs to be explored," said Morse, who taught a similar class last fall at the University of California, Los Angeles. "It's a significant portion of the global entertainment business and it's not getting the attention it deserves."

The UNLV class will feature five or six guest lecturers from the anime and manga industry, and will provide students with access to English translations of 30 anime films and 30 manga books.

Students will also be able to read English-translated interviews with such exclusive Japanese anime and manga leaders as voice actress Ikue Otani, who plays Pokemon's Pikachu, director Mamoru Oshii of "Innocence: Ghost in the Shell," and writer Leiji Matsumoto, whose work is said to have inspired "Star Wars."

"These people are the George Lucases and Steven Spielbergs of Japanese animation," said Glenn Kardy, president and chief executive officer of Japanime Publishing Co., which is making the interviews available for free. The lecturers and materials will also be available to other community groups and publications who are interested in Japanese culture, Kardy said.

Students will study the background and technical aspects of the industry during the first semester, Morse said, and then look at how Japanese culture and social values are expressed through anime and manga during the second semester.

The class should appeal to students of all disciplines, Morse said, as Japanese animation's use of digital technology represents the merging of all media. He sees it as especially interesting to anyone in media, engineering or Asian studies.

"Anyone on campus can take the course," Morse said. "It cuts across all disciplines."

University officials are still figuring out how to count the class and how it should be marked for registration purposes, said Janet Ward, director of the Interdisciplinary Studies at UNLV, which encompasses the Asian Studies program.

Students will likely be able to register within the next few weeks, and enrollment will be capped at 40 to 50 students, Ward said.

"We're really excited about it because it trains students for a very happening career path, it helps students who are interested in Asian studies or those interested in the phenomenon of Japanese anima and manga," Ward said.

The class and Morse's position at UNLV are fully funded through a private-public partnership with the Tokyo Foundation, a Japanese organization that promotes research and public policy proposals in order to find innovative solutions to major world issues.

Promoting Japanese cultural entertainment is just one cause of many for the Japanese organization, which involves itself in everything from education and the environment to national security and diplomatic relations with other countries.

The organization has donated about $170,000 in cash and another $30,000 in in-kind donations to UNLV for the class, Cynthia Baca, director of development for the College of Liberal Arts, said.

The Tokyo Foundation's main goal in promoting the UNLV Japanese anima and manga class is to promote cross-cultural understanding of Japanese society as a whole, spokesman Hiroshi (Hank) Nozaki said. Anime and manga have an educational element to them, Nozaki said, and are representative of the values, morals and beliefs most essential to the Japanese.

"Many people know where Japan is," Morse said. "They know it's an island, but they can't make sense of it.

"They (the Japanese) don't want to get lost in translation again," Morse said. "They want people to understand their culture and what they are about."

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