Week 5: Is it a high or low cultural genre/media, according to Napier (2005)?

Despite the different in perception of anime between being a subculture in America and mass culture in Japan, Napier (2005) suggests that it will gain more and more popularity. As Treat (as cited in Napier, 2005) says the cultural value is changeable, she argues that anime is originally built on cinematography which is a high cultural tradition worldwide. Moreover, Napier (2005) picks up anime aim to portrait contemporary issues as well as diversity in targets of the popular audience. Anime also influent the world’s popular culture regarding American perspective. For example, Napier (2005) mentions a scholar would go so far as labelling anime as “chief cultural export” (p.5). There are also fan clubs and commercial promotion integrate with anime on television programs (ibid). In the end, despite being regard as low culture in America, Napier (2005) believes that anime will become a high cultural media with the never ending development.

References:

Napier, S. (2005). Why anime? In Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp.3-14). Hampshire: Palgrave/ Macmillan.