Japanese Animation and New Media
Lecture Four: Chapter Eight: Giving Up the Gun
In Miyazaki’s animations, I have called attention to how a tension arises in character animation at the level of gender. His animations frequently include two gestures. On the one hand, they often include strong women characters, not only powerful older women but also young women who carry guns, command troops, and stride resolutely toward their goals — as with Lady Eboshi in Princess Mononoke. Adult male characters tend to be subordinated to these women or rendered somewhat comic. Otherwise, they tend to be villains. On the other hand, Miyazaki’s animations frequently linger on a boy-girl pair, and the girl and boy move very differently in the world. Generally, the girl’s movement is the focal concern of the animation. And even when these girls appear rather tough, resolute, and boyish, their overall movement and actions imply a very different direction from those associated with boys in boys’ adventure stories. Girls’ movements thus are crucial in focusing our attention differently on action in the world and on action on the world. They help to stabilize and legitimate a tendency toward animetism.
Let’s return to the scene in Princess Mononoke in which San enters the fortress town, outrunning bullets and leaping magically into the air. It is San’s movement that extends the logic of animetism (especially lateral movement) into the flash of the blade and the cut of the knife, gradually drawing Lady Eboshi out of her ballistic logic and into the realm of knife fights.
