Through Anime, Japan Influences Our Perceptions and Inspirations Posted Feb 21, 2023
Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, people in the western world enjoyed a golden era of anime as it both finally made its way around the globe more regularly and was the start of the much more adult-targeted material. While it’s always better with the original voice actors, dubbed versions of anime certainly helped to make it more accessible, with those who enjoyed the distinctly Japanese medium later embracing original audio versions.
Now, we look to be in another grand age for Japanese anime, particularly thanks to online-based streaming platforms like Crunchyroll. Whether they’re dedicated to animation or are just trying to get in on the game now, western audiences can now enjoy both classics and the latest creations of Japan’s anime industry, with the uniqueness of the content compared to much of what’s put out by particularly the US making it very appealing.
Importantly, as anime continues to grow in prominence in western markets, industry onlookers will continue to point to how it’s influencing its audiences. However, anime has been doing this for decades, with iconic, popular, and instantly-recognizable creations long driving our perceptions, inspirations, and forms of escapism.
Our perception of the princess
For a very, very long time, fairytales and similar stories would mostly direct our perception of the role of the princess in historical and fantastical concepts. Of course, much of this was historically-based, and there were exceptions – particularly in 90s western animations like Pocahontas and Mulan – but for the most part, the princess was the person to be rescued by the male hero. This also spilled into mainstream cinema, driven by action heroes.
In anime, there’s a great roster of strong, brave, and even godly anime princesses. Historical fiction anime Yona of the Dawn’s titular princess had to overcome all manner of difficulties to earn her reputation as a skilled and brave warrior. Still, it’s likely Princess Mononoke that has spawned the most memorable and defining anime princess. The character San (Princess Mononoke) was raised by wolves, hates humans, and is the driving force for regrowing the forest and lifting the curse that plagued the spirit of the land.
While there are also the more archetypal princesses, as western audiences would know them, those that conform to this also tend to be very powerful and still act with agency. Usagi Tsukino is the prime example from Sailor Moon, being both naïve at times but always seeking the good in people. It’s this wide-eyed but often magical anime princess that’s best known and often drawn from as inspiration to appeal to older anime audiences.
This can be seen in the entertainment medium of online casino gaming, with Betway incorporating a distinctly anime slot game to its library by the name of Starlight Princes. The titular character of the slot is so clearly inspired by Usagi, as well as possibly Lillianne von Phoenix from Princess Resurrection. Like these characters, Starlight Princess is also far more powerful than you would assume without the anime lens, being key to its many features. So, they may look like innocent damsels in distress, but these princesses invariably prove to be much more.
Inspiring figure in sports
The world certainly isn’t hard-pressed for inspiring sports stories, but for decades, especially in the US, boxing proved to be the way out of a repressed community to reach the top, be it Muhammad Ali fighting against discrimination or Roberto Durán emerging from occupied Panama to take to world titles. Boxing is also huge in Japan, and for many, the lats-80s manga and 00s anime star Ippo Makunouchi proved to be their sporting inspiration to work hard and defy the odds.
Starting as a quiet student helping his widowed mother at home and getting bullied at school, the story of Hajime no Ippo then sees its protagonist encounter boxing. Here, he trains hard, dedicates himself to the sport, earns friends, and even the respect of his former bullies. In the anime, the fights themselves are dramatic, tense, and very well put to screen, especially because the story will also follow the opponents of the main characters to give them a real stake in each bout.
As could have been predicted, Ippo’s journey to trying to win the Japanese title inspired others to lace up the gloves, specifically, Takeshi Inoue. In an interview in November 2021, the now 19-2-1 Japanese boxer said that he was inspired by the manga. Naoya “The Monster” Inoue – not a relation of Takeshi – has also drawn comparisons to the sheer power of Ippo, and for their September 2019 edition, Ring Magazine commissioned a special anime cover for the boxer drawn by Hajime no Ippo author George Morikawa.
Through anime, our perception of what a princess is and how they can work in a story was completely uprooted, expertly keeping the kind of “classic aesthetic” but melding it with real power and purpose. In inspirational stories like Hajime no Ippo that are more grounded in the real world, we can find relatable and likable heroes to power us onwards in life.
