Coming into this project, I was very unsure of which topic of Asian influence I wanted to dive deeper into and explore for myself. I bounced through a few ideas, before I became settled into exploring Anime, which has alluded my uncultured grasp. So, I was excited to take on the task which I chose. This being, recreating a scene of Anime into live action.

The execution of this idea, I foresaw was going to be a challenge from the start. Being a film student meant that I have experience undertaking narrative video projects. However, the fundamental ideas included in recreating a shoujo anime was very challenging. I chose to recreate a few shots of ‘Orange’ and it’s shoujo ‘romantic-love story’ perceptions as I felt that even the genre itself, was a concept that I was quite unfamiliar with. 

Acting within the role of a male character in this animation tested my abilities as an actor and I discovered that Anime tends to invoke a lot of emotions from the viewers. The dialogue was very simple but the producers of the Anime were capable of radiating a lot of emotions through manipulating the characters, scenery and scenarios. Thus, recreating ‘Orange’ was ambitious as it really required my attention to detail to capture the right angles of each scene, making sure that we were stationed in the right place within the frame. When it came to editing, the chaos of the filming was finally put into a bit more perception.

Comparing Anime romances to the romances I was exposed to growing up, I found shoujo to be very ‘fruity’ and make love feel brighter. I found that, as a male, studying the culture of shoujo Anime – which is dedicated toward young female audiences as it depicts high school romances and ideals of ‘true love’ – gave me a bigger understanding of where girls may be getting their high expectations of love from, and I have a better understanding of what they expect from a male partner.

I further had an epiphany that love is showcased in different ways throughout cultures, where in Japan it is sweet and innocent, it can often be perceived as passionate and sensual in Western cultures. It fascinates me that all the different cultures respond to shoujo Anime differently. Some might swoon and wish for a romance similar to that and others may cringe and laugh.

Additionally, I now realise that shoujo anime is more realistic than most cartoons and perhaps other genres of anime are even more exaggerated. But above all, shoujo may be one of the most emotional categories of Anime. 

This post takes on a layered account autoethnography as I focus on my experience alongside the data of the live action version of Anime. (Charmaz, 1983, cited in Ellis et al. 2011) I argue this also has a narrative approach as it is difficult to see Anime through a purely factual standpoint. Additionally, Ellis et al. described autoethnography as selectively writing about epiphanies (Ellis et al. 2011, p. 4) and thus, I have documented the revelations that studying the Japanese culture has unveiled to me. My recognising my role as a man in the community, which contrasts to the shoujo category, made me self aware. (Dubrovsky and Wood)