Why Anime?

‘Why anime?’ is the main concern of this paper.
But before answering this question we should think about What is anime? First, anime is a phenomenon from the pop culture in Japan and has a very close link with the economy, just like the one in the USA at the time where Warhol reflected the movement of industrialization in his work of art. Anime is believed to follow the flow of popular taste and the demand of the market and attract a more diverse audience by its accessibility of cultural exchange. In Japan, anime is seen as an intellectually challenging form of art. Further more, anime invite viewers to think about contemporary issues in a way that other art form cannot.

However, we can ask ourselves if anime can be considered as art or at least if it can be taken seriously after the cultural patrimony that Japan has provided throughout the time.

When the art critic, Ueno Toshiya visited Sarajevo in 1933 he encountered three panels on a crumbling wall in the middle of the city. The first was a picture of Mao with Mickey Mouse ears; on the second one he found a slogan for the Chiapas emblazoned on it. And on the last one he found a large panel of Otomo Katsuhiro’s Akira, a manga with the main Protagonist, Kaneda (a member of a Resistant group that planes terrorists attacks against the government). Kaneda was saying ‘So it’s begun!’ It was choking and really unexpected to find this Japanese manga as a symbol of political resistance in Sarajevo.

So what is art? It is often say that “art is the expression, the application of a human creative skill and imagination, producing works to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.” 1. In the examples found in Sarajevo we can see that here anime was used to express a feeling, the one of Resistance. In other words this part of manga was used a creative expression to send a message and was use