I recently read some X-Men
comics and rewatched X-Men: First Class.
What I was able to notice in the second watching (that I realized after
watching it before, but not really again when discussing it with my friends)
was the way in which an inherent difference manifested itself between the two
main parties: humans and mutants. This inherent difference produces itself
much, much differently in the world of anime. Going back to my examples of
shonen, in both One Piece and Fairy Tail, the inherent difference is
in how you treat your friends, crewmates, and, as the Japanese say, “nakama.”
The word nakama in Japanese is translated to “friends” in the English dub of One Piece and probably to friends in the
dub of Fairy Tail as well. I haven’t
seen the dub of Fairy Tail, so I
can’t say for sure. Anyway, the translation itself is good enough, but it
doesn’t quite capture the meaning of the word. It’s like translating the blue
of the sky as just being “blue” to a blind person. It takes more than one word
to convey just the color blue, let alone the blue of the sky. My personal
translation would probably be “comrade,” but it’s much too formal for both One Piece and Fairy Tail, the Funimation script writers probably thinking the
same thing.
My point in all this ranting is how this is reflective on
our own cultures. X-Men draws us
humans as xenophobic crazy people when faced with something new and unknown. We
would act with aggression first and science next to wipe out the mutant threat.
After that, we study what the hell is going on with their bodies. This is
reflective and criticizing the United States’ general perception and stereotypes
against those who the US perceive as threats. In One Piece and Fairy Tail,
the philosophical difference is the treatment of your nakama, your crewmates
and guildmates. In One Piece and Fairy Tail, Luffy and Natsu on multiple
occasions act rashly in defense of people they barely know because they don’t
think the person they barely know is being treated correctly or justly. The
reflection on the Japanese culture is that of honor above almost all else.
They’ll sacrifice anything for their honor, the honor of their friends, and to guarantee
the safety of the people they know. Compare that to the US, which often seems
to me that it would be willing to sacrifice few for the sake of the many—at
least according to fiction.
Of course, multiple times through X-Men and multiple times through One Piece does this happen. Otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about
it. In X-Men, they talk about
“curing” the mutant gene. Relieving them of their “curse.” In Japanese works,
any type of curse like that of mutants is infrequently referred to as such. The
one I can think of off the top of my head is Watanuki in xxxHolic, who hates that demons are attracted to him. The Japanese,
rather, think of curses as a physical manifestation of what they have to
overcome as people. Often, they don’t even get rid of their curses, they learn
that it is a part of them. And this is from a third person perspective. Someone
aside from Watanuki would view his curse as something he has to overcome in
order to grow as a human while the populace of the X-Men world views the mutant gene as something to be cured. I’m not
saying that X-Men doesn’t view their
mutations as something to overcome like the Japanese do, they do. But it’s in a
much larger light in X-Men because of
the gravity of some of the mutations of the people, which isn’t very often
something that’ll come up in anime (for example, Beast in X-Men has the blue fur but most anime curses or mutations don’t
manifest in a physical form).
Compare that to what One
Piece and Fairy Tail’s themes
are—which is to protect your friends, crewmates, and guildmates. Luffy and
Natsu would literally sacrifice everything and anything for the safety of their
nakama. Luffy breaks into the One Piece
equivalent of Alcatraz to save his brother, they break into a marine
headquarters by themselves to save Robin, who they had just met at that point,
and Natsu is always going above and beyond to defeat the enemy and save his
friends from danger. This is highly contrasting with basically every action
movie ever where the needs of the many very, very often outweigh the needs of
the few. But this is especially true with X-Men.
They work to protect the whole world, both mutants and non-mutants, and
sometimes at the sacrifice of the few (for example, Colossus’s own
self-sacrifice, which I believe would never be allowed to happen in an anime,
especially a shonen anime). Again, this goes back to the Japanese’s sense of
honor over all else. They will protect the honor of the few, possibly at the
sacrifice of the many. Of course, the Japanese are not willing to just
sacrifice thousands of lives to save one on a whole, but they will often hold
the life of one person above what we Americans would in our fiction. Think to
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight:
He created a situation where one person could kill thousands of others to save
an equivalent amount. But one of the boats was filled with prisoners and another
with innocent citizens. In an anime, I believe it would never be a question as
to which boat you would sacrifice, it would move to how will you be able to
save both, as Batman thinks. But anime would have the inhabitants of at least
one of the boats try to figure out how to save both and persist.
The overall theme, of course, is reflective in the cultures
in which they manifested. I believe that we in the US have placed huge value on
the safety of the many while the Japanese have placed huge value on the safety
of the few as long as we can protect the many. This will, of course, reflect in
their fiction.
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