Anime as Art: Digital Cinema and the Anime Aesthetic

Abstract

In the introduction we considered the anime aesthetic more broadly in the context of current discussions of “digital cinema”. Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener’s Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Sense s was briefly discussed as having one of the most accessible overviews of the key symptomatic features of a post-photographic, or “post-cinematic” experience of the moving image. They highlight the inherent paradox within the very term “digital cinema” and explore the significance of another expression that has now become accepted within the language of contemporary film studies, but warrants greater contemplation for its ineffability nonetheless: “virtual reality”. Through a discussion of several film texts (both conventional cinema texts with extensive digital design elements and 3D cinematic animations from Pixar) they persuasively illustrate how the infusion of digital imaging has led to the transformation of the screen from “window” to “portal”. Furthermore, they highlight the transformation of narrative conventions, character physiology and persona, along with the increasingly innovative exploration of space and time that seem to have become increasingly de rigeur features of the new media form (Elsaesser and Hagener, 2010: 170–185).