Back from WisCon!
Jun. 6th, 2010 21:35![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ahorbinskiI went to WisCon 34 this year, my first WisCon, and had an amazing time. Never one to start small, I moderated two panels on anime and manga: "Teamwork: How Anime & Manga Create a Feminist Space in SF" and "The Works of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli."
Both went well, but I liked what I personally said on the teamwork panel a little bit better. Essentially, I kept harping on the money, because there's this naive idea that anime and manga exist in this pure space of cultural expression or whatever and it's just not true. Anime and manga are multi-billion-dollar, multi-trillion-yen global entertainment forms, pure and simple, and ultimately I think the evolution in gender norms and how female characters are presented across genre is attributable in most instances to marketing, even if creators are only aware of such pressures subliminally. /cynicism
The Miyazaki panel was good, too, though I'm still digesting all the points brought up in it. Of course money is an important aspect of Ghibli too; Ghibli is a brand as much as it is a creative vision, and as I said at the end the studio has been trying to find a younger generation of directors who can extend and be faithful to both for years. We'll see, with The Borrower Arrietty, whether they've finally found a winner.
Both went well, but I liked what I personally said on the teamwork panel a little bit better. Essentially, I kept harping on the money, because there's this naive idea that anime and manga exist in this pure space of cultural expression or whatever and it's just not true. Anime and manga are multi-billion-dollar, multi-trillion-yen global entertainment forms, pure and simple, and ultimately I think the evolution in gender norms and how female characters are presented across genre is attributable in most instances to marketing, even if creators are only aware of such pressures subliminally. /cynicism
The Miyazaki panel was good, too, though I'm still digesting all the points brought up in it. Of course money is an important aspect of Ghibli too; Ghibli is a brand as much as it is a creative vision, and as I said at the end the studio has been trying to find a younger generation of directors who can extend and be faithful to both for years. We'll see, with The Borrower Arrietty, whether they've finally found a winner.