Не знаю можно ли на Дзене публиковать на английском, но я попробую. Переводить на русский я тоже буду но позже. А пока держите оригинал моих работ. Я публикую без редакции грамматики, поэтому приму любые исправленя в комментариях.
Spirited Away and Japanization
Introduction
Spirited away[1] is anime by Hayao Miyazaki that depicts several aspects of the modern world: globalization affect, and environmental problems. I will discuss the globalization effect. Firstly, I will describe the previous analysis of anime. For example, James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura, Phillips, and Stringer addressed globalization in their papers. Their arguments are very similar: Spirited Away depicts Japanese identity loss. James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura stated that Hayao Miyazaki wanted to show to children in Japan that forgot traditions and remind them of the Japanese; some scholars studied global releases and production, where they noticed the disappearance of Japanese in advertisements and versions coming further from Japan toward the USA. However, Spirited away also depicts another side of globalization that I will call Japanization. Through comparing the first and last sequences, I will argue that the Western world also adopts and takes something from Japan, thus becoming more and more japanized.
Literature review
The scholars have look at Spirited Away from ecological[2], feminist[3], and cultural[4]perspective. All authors focus on changes happened in Japan after WWII: the environmentalist points out pollution problem, culturalists It is claimed that in this film Miyazaki wanted to show the disappearance (erasure) of Japanese. The culturalists come to this from two points of view: 1) Japan forgets its traditions, 2) remote releases increasingly less reflect Japanese. All this happened after Japan opened its borders and became, in 1970, the fastest-growing economy, giving globalization the will.
I am going to focus on the first idea of culturalists, because I do not see global releases, а accumulate the globalization process in societies. As I said, culturalists are worried that Japan will lose its face: its species, traditions, culture, and name. For example, Stingler say who mostly focus on “there is evidence of identity crises in many of Sen to Chihiro’s traditional Japanese characters.” For example, the Haku, the character who wears only Japanese closes and whose speech has traditional sound, remembering[5]his name; and Kaonashi (No Face), Japanese folklore creature, does not have a place to belong.[6]In other words, the Japanese characters do not have any roots. Thus, they say that Miyazaki’s film depicts the Japanese identity loss.
Boyd and Nishimura state that Hayao Miyazaki in Spirited away wanted to remind Japanese new generation Japanese cultural values.[7]They discovered that the anime depicts the values from Shinto (Japanese religion). They state that the characters of Spirited away (Ubaba and her twin sister, Zeniba, also Chihiro and Haku) reflect the ability to reduce pollution or purify their spirits. Trough purifying one’s spirit the characters synchronize with their heart, and come to their identity. They sum up that Miyazaki in this film alleges the “basic Japanese cultural values that need to be re-cognized as valuable insights in life's journey.”
Japanization
However, in this paper, I want to look at this film from another perspective of globalization. This is not Japan that has to revive (remember) its traditions and history, because they have been disappearing and blurred by westernization. This is the Western world that accepts and takes parts of Japanese culture in their own. Thus, the world is becoming more and more Japanese and more Japanese.
Cool Japan
I want to extend Philips and Stigler's argument by looking from another angle to the film. Thus, I want to argue that this film does not show the identity loss, but rather the identity change. This process happens not only with Japan but with the whole world. I want to focus on the protagonist, Chihiro (Sen), whose identity change is the change of the global market due to the policy of cool japan and soft power. At the beginning of the new millennium, Japan’s pop-culture diplomacy was institutionalized with the ‘Cool Japan’ policy discourse. The main goal of Cool Japan is to capitalize on the popularity of Japanese media culture in global markets. The development of pop-culture diplomacy, and more broadly ‘Cool Japan’, was propelled by the increasingly ubiquitous discourses of soft power and nation branding in the exercise of cultural policy. Iwabuchi notes that cultural “diplomacy maneuvered in conjunction with nation branding is not only directed externally but also internally, as a tool for inculcating a narrative of the nation and a sense of national belonging”.[8] Thus, Japanese people must identify themselves with their own culture, which works on the global market and spreads Japanese cultural features.
The need for internalization of the national brand has well been described by culturalist scholars. In this section, I want to reply to their conclusions, in order to prepare my own argument. I will start with a reply to James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura, who stated that Miyazaki wanted to remind Shinto values that help to find the life way. And then continue by developing my answer to Phillips and Stringer.
James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura said that “Miyazaki conveys his perspective that there is "a kind of life to everything" and that certain customs such as cleansing both the external environment and one's internal Kokoro [heart] from pollution are practices to be reaffirmed.” This cleaning of the soul and body might mean cleaning for preparing for something new, or in Shinto's perspective, this is an inescapable step to find one’s life way.[9] However, it might also mean purification of thoughts and preparation of mind and body to perceive new information and physical forms. In this film, it can mean tolerance and acceptance of any kind of representation and identity. Thus, purification is the step not only for a new lifestyle but for acceptance of other cultures.
Moreover, James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura are sure that everyone must learn something from Japan in terms of their values because they are valuable insights into life's journey. This guidance means that several Japanese representations should be recognized and remembered by the Japanese themselves. However, it is even more important from a global perspective. If the world recognizes Japan and Japanese and accepts it, with all its forms, the world will become more tolerant of everything else. Moreover, this would mean to Japan that the strategy of soft power by targeting the external public and has achieved success.
Phillips and Stringer argue that Spirited Away presents traditional identity loss or even Japanese identity crises. Nevertheless, Japan is not in the decline of its own identity. Culture, as well as, identity are flexible concepts. This means that what the authors are giving as examples represents the new identity of Japan. However, it’s not just Japan, it’s the rest of the world. So other cultures are also affected by the process of globalization and are also suffering from the loss of identity. But since the concept of culture and identity is not permanent but fluid, other countries also become a different identity. They adopt a new culture and adopt culturally appropriate features. So, too, is the soft power of the culture promotion policy of Cool Japan. This is how the world takes over the Japanese parts of culture and changes its identity.
A close look at Spirited Away
Opening sequences
To begin with, I will analyze the main character’s coherence as a reflection of the main identity in the film. The author introduces the viewers to the protagonist by starting the film with the bouquet of flowers, and in the next shot, a girl holding the same flowers, thereby making it clear that the narrative perspective will be on behalf of the girl. However, I will start by describing the parts of mise-en-scene that define the character. The heroine is surrounded by clear signs of the Western world: clothes, a car. Also, when a car passes small houses, the girl is surprised and asks: «what is it»?» her attention is now focused on them. From the mother’s speeches and the appearance of the houses, the spectator learns that these are abandoned houses of deities. Thus, the girl is the main character whose identity is western.
If you consider Chihiro to be a representation of the Western world, then in her family you can see a lot of non-atypical features, which the author probably presents to the West: haste, unconscious consumption (eating), the feeling that for everything you can pay «yes and the pockets are there», Hayao Miyazaki concentrates all the negative forms in the body of the metamorphosed parents into a pig. The pig is completely the opposite creature in accordance with Shinto tradition because it is not pure, and not able to live fully. The protagonist’s parents become pigs because they pollute themselves with unhealthy food and muddy deeds (having started eating without asking). But with the arrival of the Japanese or as other authors have spoken with the redesign of the world within the framework of Japanese traditions and values, these qualities will disappear and become a new identity.
I will not focus much on how the girl changed in the Spirit world and why this world act as a reminder of the Japanese, as much has already been saying. I will just recall a few points. First of all, assess the change of place. In the first scenes, you can see what’s happening in Japan: 'The road they’re going to see Japanese writing, 'and the city they’re going to go from far away too, 'the standard urban extension', 'what you can see from the low two-tier buildings. Although the latter may play as a reminder that the family is Western, or more specifically American, as two-story houses often show families in American films. But the closer we get to the embryonic park, the bigger the purely Japanese images. Only the first symbol was seen, and the second was the appearance of an unusual statue in the forest. In the end, before entering the tunnel, the viewer meets the stone figure of the working bathhouse. The passage through the tunnel is a passage between two cultures since the building contains a station with a Western-style flatbed, which is a reminder of where the heroes are coming from and make them wonder which train they have to wait for. The theme park itself reflects the culture of buildings that emerged after decades after the opening of borders in Japan: a mixture of architectural styles. So, the girl’s path approaches the Japanese concentration point in her face uya (bathhouse), which interior is definitely Japanese.
Ending sequences
The girl exits the tunnel, but there is a Spirit world in form of the hair cutter, to which Miyazaki draws attention. First of all, this prop is underlined by the fact that it is highlighted several times in the last shots. Miyazaki also gives special attention to Gg, in the last scene, the only one where the closest approach to the heroine is through the close-up shot. This shot repeats the hairband illumination that states that something from the Spirit world has stayed with the protagonist. Since this world was created by Hayao Miyazaki to remind Japan of its traditions, spirited worlds contain reflected Japanese
However, Chihiro and her family retain their identity. In the ghost world, she begins her life and first changes into her original clothes, thereby emphasizing that she perceives herself as in the first scenes in the west. And at the end, after Chihiro returns his name, Chihiro completes Yubaba’s task by taking his own path, Chihiro is forced to comply with the terms of the Japanese peace and fulfill and exceed his duties. Chihiro’s last assignment was to find his parents among the many pigs, but she is confident that they are not among the animals is proven right. The fact that parents have returned to their original state shows that starting with their children, the main consumers of cultured foods in Japan, parents are learning some Japanese traits.
In addition to preserving the characters' original appearance (apart from Chihiro), the author also shows the distance from the tunnel entrance by zoom out, and in the last shot shows a car passing through the forest road and disappearing from its appearance. Thus, Miyazaki shows the following words to Haku: Haku at the end tells her that they will have their way and says goodbye to the Chihiro “You must follow the same path as you came, go and do not look back”. Following the phrase guidance characters remain themselves, but their coherence changes from completely Western to Shinto traditions cleansed and with the traits of Japanese
Conclusion
To sum up, I extended the globalization argument by not only concentrating on Japan and it's identity loss as he and he, he did but also the rest of the world and the affect of Japanese media, from the example of highly accepted film, which releases spread all over the world. The economic success of the film is described by the notion of Cool Japan, which has the main goal to spread the culture from the products. The Japanese cultural influence is reflected through the main character coherence, which changes during the film. The protagonist that represents the Western world develops in the Japanese narrative and mise-en-scene, and in the end перенимает часть его черт. Thus, the film depicts the flexibility of culture and the success of Cool Japan.
Bibliography
“Dubbing of Silences in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away: A Comparison of Japanese and English Language Versions: Perspectives: Vol 24, No 1.” Accessed October 23, 2020. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0907676X.2015.1024694.
Hartman, Emma. “Tradition vs. Innovation and the Creatures in Spirited Away.” Digital Literature Review 4 (January 13, 2017): 104–17. https://doi.org/10.33043/DLR.4.0.104-117.
Iwabuchi, Koichi. “Pop-Culture Diplomacy in Japan: Soft Power, Nation Branding and the Question of ‘International Cultural Exchange.’” International Journal of Cultural Policy 21, no. 4 (August 8, 2015): 419–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2015.1042469.
James W Boyd, and Tetsuya Nishimura. “Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film ‘Spirited Away,’” 2004, 16.
Lim, Tai Wei. “Spirited Away: Conceptualizing a Film-Based Case Study through Comparative Narratives of Japanese Ecological and Environmental Discourses:” Animation, June 11, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847713486972.
Miyazaki, Hayao. Sen to Chihiro No Kamikakushi. Animation, Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery. Tokuma Shoten, Studio Ghibli, Nippon Television Network (NTV), 2001.
Napier, Susan J. “Matter out of Place: Carnival, Containment, and Cultural Recovery in Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away.’” Journal of Japanese Studies 32, no. 2 (2006): 287–310.
Phillips, Alastair, and Julian Stringer. Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts, 2007. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=211953.
Westcott, Arielle. “Girls in Wonderland: The Male Gaze, Disordered Eating, and Bad Women in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Spirited Away,” n.d., 65.
[1] Hayao Miyazaki, Sen to Chihiro No Kamikakushi, Animation, Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery (Tokuma Shoten, Studio Ghibli, Nippon Television Network (NTV), 2001).
[2] Tai Wei Lim, “Spirited Away: Conceptualizing a Film-Based Case Study through Comparative Narratives of Japanese Ecological and Environmental Discourses:,” Animation, June 11, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847713486972.
[3] Arielle Westcott, “Girls in Wonderland: The Male Gaze, Disordered Eating, and Bad Women in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Spirited Away,” n.d., 65.
[4] James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura, “Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film ‘Spirited Away,’” 2004, 16; Emma Hartman, “Tradition vs. Innovation and the Creatures in Spirited Away,” Digital Literature Review 4 (January 13, 2017): 104–17, https://doi.org/10.33043/DLR.4.0.104-117; Alastair Phillips and Julian Stringer, Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts, 2007, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=211953; Susan J. Napier, “Matter out of Place: Carnival, Containment, and Cultural Recovery in Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away,’” Journal of Japanese Studies 32, no. 2 (2006): 287–310; “Dubbing of Silences in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away: A Comparison of Japanese and English Language Versions: Perspectives: Vol 24, No 1,” accessed October 23, 2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0907676X.2015.1024694.
[5]After he remembers his name his body form changes, and it seems as he lost himself, but at the same time freed.
[6] Phillips and Stringer, Japanese Cinema.
[7] James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura, “Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film ‘Spirited Away.’”
[8] Koichi Iwabuchi, “Pop-Culture Diplomacy in Japan: Soft Power, Nation Branding and the Question of ‘International Cultural Exchange,’” International Journal of Cultural Policy 21, no. 4 (August 8, 2015): 419–32, https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2015.1042469.
[9] James W Boyd and Tetsuya Nishimura, “Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film ‘Spirited Away.’”