If the BBC feels it absolutely must tie depression in Japan to comic books somehow, as part of its standard Japan narrative, it at least should have gone with discussing the comic book memoir Tsure ga Utsu ni Narimashite ("My Husband Got Depression") which got a lot of attention from 2009-2011 and helped raise awareness about modern medical attitudes toward depression.
How Japan came to believe in depression
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Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#12Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#13Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#14Wasn't Neon Genesis Evangelion enough to convince anyone that depression was real, back in the 1990s? > Word was spread about depression as kokoro no kaze - a cold of the soul. Well, kokoro means mind and heart as much as it means soul. It's a bit harder to describe a phenomenon when you don't quite have the words. David Lynch referred to four types of illness (via the Log Lady): physical, mental, emotional, and spir…
without reading the article are they suggesting that the depressed brooding boy trope didn't come across as depressed to people?
Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Subtitles ;-)
The only TRUE way to watch anime. ;-) The anime club at my college was so adamant about this that they put a no-dubs rule in their constitution.
True story!
All types of content are better to be consumed in their original language when possible!
Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Subtitles ;-)
The only TRUE way to watch anime. ;-) The anime club at my college was so adamant about this that they put a no-dubs rule in their constitution.
I used to be an audio engineer at a studio that dubbed anime. It was amazing how many smart and talented folks were involved in pumping out a shitty dub.
I worked with some really, really good directors and actors, but there's a limit to what they can do. The biggest constraint is the need for perfect mouth flap syncing. The original Japanese versions aren't even very well synced, but English-speaking audiences apparently demand it. It really constrains what you can do with a performance.
Emotional explosions that are great in Japanese seem really cheesy when done in English. Since Japanese syllables almost always end in a vowel, you get these really big month flaps that are hard to work with. In really bad dubs, it's why you get lines like "Heyyy! What's the big ideaaaa!" so often.
Of course, dubs usually have a tiny budget as well. That means that there's only one actor in the studio at a time, so they never get to play off of each other.
Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#17Yet Japan has hikikomori.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Y7R5zP0wc
Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#18Yet Japan has hikikomori.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Y7R5zP0wc
I like this documentary better. It's a bit long, but I like real footage, and the interviews, and more in-depth discussion.
https://vimeo.com/28627261
Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only TRUE way to watch anime. ;-) The anime club at my college was so adamant about this that they put a no-dubs rule in their constitution.
True story! All types of content are better to be consumed in their original language when possible!
A lot of Square-Enix games are better in English than Japanese. There's just no traditional way to write western character stereotypes in Japanese (like the pirate city in FFXIV) and they end up sounding like nothing in particular. Or maybe S-E's Japanese writers are just boring?
Re: How Japan came to believe in depression
#20Wasn't Neon Genesis Evangelion enough to convince anyone that depression was real, back in the 1990s? > Word was spread about depression as kokoro no kaze - a cold of the soul. Well, kokoro means mind and heart as much as it means soul. It's a bit harder to describe a phenomenon when you don't quite have the words. David Lynch referred to four types of illness (via the Log Lady): physical, mental, emotional, and spir…
NGE was a social commentary and a deconstruction of the "mecha" genre moreso than it was about depression.