Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

atlasobscura.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 158 posts

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#61

Post by toyg »

jonknee wrote: post #45
toyg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any place in Japan has basically power lines all over the place, even in cities For the record, there is an ongoing debate in Japanese urban centres on whether these lines should be placed underground for good. They are a function of the astonishingly rapid development Japan underwent in previous decades, when nobody really cared about details like the urban landscape because they had "more important things to worr…

> The counter-argument is that anything underground in Japan will suffer from continuous earthquake activity; Water and sewage is underground right? If they can figure out pipes underground they can figure out power lines underground.

It's kinda different though. Worst that can happen if a pipe bursts is a lot of water here and there, maybe some subsuming after a long time. Power lines could start fires, or create electrical hazards.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#62

Post by tintar »

peterwwillis wrote: post #43

Anime background/setting tropes: - cicadas - airplanes - power lines - traffic signals - artificial riverbanks - lush sprawling forests - the roof of a building

excellent, but left out a small but very important one:

  - ice cubes shifting/clinking on their own in a glass

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#65

Post by sexydefinesher »

exelius wrote: post #28
vorotato wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Lain it was a motif which represented the interconnectedness of modern society. Notice how they called the internet "The Wired". Idk enough about evangelion to comment.

In Evangelion, power represented civilization in various stages of decline. It's post-apocalyptic, so the state of the infrastructure shows you if an area has been abandoned, reclaimed, etc. The Evas (basically giant mecha) have to be tethered to power to work, etc. The whole theme of the anime centers around the type of arrogance Man (in this case, a single man) would show in the face of annihilation by God, and how…

Ive heard that they put in christian imagery just because it was cool and with no real purpose.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#66

Post by sevensor »

exelius wrote: post #33
sevensor wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serial Experiments Lain remains a point of reference for me. Whenever the modern world seems especially surreal, I hear it in my head: "present day, present time!" followed by the mad cackle of laughter. It also deepened my appreciation for the electrical infrastructure when I first visited East Asia.

Yeah, I feel Lain is one of those underrated classics that people really only watched if they were super into anime around 2000-2004. Any later than that and the reaction was kind of "well, duh, of course that's what happens". I feel the same way about much of the societal commentary in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex -- they totally nailed the way groups like ISIS and the alt-right would spread like wildfire…

> people really only watched if they were super into anime around 2000-2004

That's me! My friend who got me into anime had watched Lain in fansub, but he took "not for sale or rent" very seriously and taped over it as soon as it got picked up for US distribution. As a result, it's one of the first things I ever watched on DVD instead of VHS.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#67

Post by lostlogin »

toyg wrote: post #61
jonknee wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The counter-argument is that anything underground in Japan will suffer from continuous earthquake activity; Water and sewage is underground right? If they can figure out pipes underground they can figure out power lines underground.

It's kinda different though. Worst that can happen if a pipe bursts is a lot of water here and there, maybe some subsuming after a long time. Power lines could start fires, or create electrical hazards.

Sewer lines underground can be a complete nightmare and post earthquake Christchurch had an hell of a time with liquefaction. Having sewage come out the ground with every aftershock is nasty, and the aftershocks lasted well over a year with 10,000+ and hundreds of thousands of tons of silt produced.

Japan has a lot of reclaimed land too and this ground is vastly more prone to the problem.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#68

Post by k__ »

da02 wrote: post #55
coolandsmartrr wrote: post #50

Short Answer: Anno Until their depiction in Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1995, power lines were virtually non-existent in anime. After all, why draw them when they take up more time and effort during a time-packed production schedule? However, Hideaki Anno, the director of the aforementioned anime, began to implement them in backgrounds, bringing in a new kind of mechanical urban aesthetics. Anno has a certain kind of…

Which article(s) do you recommend for going into more detail on "Evangelion revolutionized anime"? I remember reading on how one of the people involved was surprised at its popularity despite all the "characters being messed up".

I don't know where to read, but it seems to me that end of the 90s, TV shows (real and anime) became less episode based but got a whole story arc, like we know from current TV shows like "Game of Thrones", "Breaking Bad" or "The Wire".

I always hear people talking about how "The Sopranos" was the first TV show that did this, but anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Cowboy Bebop" came out years before it.

Re: Why Is Anime Obsessed With Power Lines?

#70

Post by komali2 »

vanpeebles wrote: post #40
GuB-42 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that it is what Japan looks like but it is still interesting to see how detailed the depiction is. Compare to the Simpsons for instance. It is set in present day American suburbs, but it doesn't look at all like a photograph. All the small details are missing unless they are relevant to the story. In the west, even if real life photographs, power lines are commonly seen as a nuisance and avoided, or even e…

Precisely ... because the Simpsons is the epitome of all western animation. /s

What's that supposed to mean? I'd think of it as America's "one piece."
Post reply on HN