Everyone likes to watch cartoons or Japanese animations (anime) and yet not all of us know the latent meaning of the shows. We only watch them for entertainment purpose or have a discussion about the plot, characters and other aspects of the shows.
Anime began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques also pioneered in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia. By the 1930s animation became an alternative format of storytelling to the live-action industry in Japan. The success of The Walt Disney Company’s 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs influenced Japanese animators. In the 1960s, manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation-techniques to reduce costs and to limit the number of frames in productions. He intended this as a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with inexperienced animation-staff.
Like the films and TV series, animes are also classified in groups know as genres. Amongst the well known genres are: Sports, action& adventure, comedies, and horror. Some of the Japanese anime not clear cut in their genre as the series may have overlapping elements from the various genres. For example: Sports (Eye shield 21-American football, Slam dunk and Dear boys- Basketball), Horror (Hell Girl) and Action &Adventure (Naruto, Pokemon and Digimon).
Digimon the series 1&2 is about a group of chosen children to go to the digital world and to protect the fate of our world and the digital world. The kids themselves are from different background and they have different personalities. With a digivice, they can evolve their digimon into the highest level to battle the evil ones, this occurs when the kids believe in themselves and realise that each of them have their own strength and weakness. The hidden meaning of the series is that we must believe in ourselves and that realise that each of us have our own strength and weakness. Besides that, throughout the series the sense of friendship can be felt throughout the series as there is a sense of friendship between the digimon and their owners and between themselves.
Hell girl the series is about a website that grants the wisher’s desire to get revenge on their tormenters and send them to hell but with a price which is that when they die they are also send to hell. The main character Ai is the one who grant the wisher the wish of revenge on their tormenter by giving them a straw doll with around the neck. The wisher then is instructed to pull the string and then their wish is granted instantaneously. The hidden meaning of this anime is that what goes around comes around and that it is useless to seek revenge on the tormenters because it will have a reprisal effect on the one who seeks revenge.
The Sports series like Slam Dunk, Dear Boys and Eye shield 21 shows that the protagonist of the series is a transfer student and enrolling in a sport club that is dying due to poor coaching or the team’s inability to reach the championship. Besides that during the series, the protagonist helps the club to improve and change the fate of the club as well as learning that team work, effort and will is needed to revive the club and lead the club to the championship. Furthermore the protagonist is often seen clashing opinions with the team mates as well the captain of the team, this is due to the difference of opinions and views that the protagonist have about the team performance and tactic to win the game. The hidden meaning of the series is that although one is new to the company or work or even a sports team, one can contribute to the improvement of the whole team as well as to lead the team in a new direction.
The last series is the Pokemon adventure series; everyone is familiar with Ash and Pikacu on their quest to become the best team in the pokemon league. Ash and his determination to become the best pokemon trainer serve as a strong goal for him, together with his friends they strive for the best to follow their dreams while maintain their friendship throughout the entire series. The hidden meaning of the series is that we must always strive to be our best to follow our dreams and having a strong determination to do so.
In conclusion, although we see take the anime on face value but there is a deeper meaning to the animes that we are watching as each of the series will show us what life is like from the view of the protagonist of the series. There are other anime series ranging from the classic ones like Doremon and Hello Kitty to the most popular ones like Naruto and One Piece that offer us some interesting lessons to learn from it.
