LogFAQs > #882031883

Kana posted...

this is so incredibly wrong lol

Except for the part where it really isn't, sure.

It's pretty universally accepted that Osamu Tezuka is more or less the "father of anime" as a medium, and he's openly admitted that he was extremely influenced by Disney.

Did animation in general exist in Japan prior to Disney's influence? Yes. But what existed prior to that isn't really what anyone today thinks of when they think "anime".

The same applies when it comes to manga. Did woodcut panel art exist in Japan prior to 1940 or so? Sure. Did they have strip art similar to the West? Yes. But manga as we currently know it owes a massive debt to Western comic art, which mostly helped shape the medium in the post-war era.

This isn't me just saying this. This is the generally accepted view of most comic historians.



fettster777 posted...

I would agree with this statement. The US has very little history compared to countries in the old world.

The problem is how you define history.

The US technically has thousands of years worth of history if you count the history of the native tribes who lived here before Europeans showed up and moved in (even if a lot of it was lost when we killed them and eradicated their culture, and most people today outside of archeologists and anthropologists don't really care about it). Euro-centric American history only really started around 1600 or so (give or take), but in a very real sense, the history of those people prior to that point is just the history of the nations they came from (so "American History" actually incorporates English History/Spanish History/German History/etc to some degree).

The thing is, even places that define themselves by their rich past history are often just appropriating their history from someone else anyway. The "England" of 2017 is in many ways a qualitatively different place from the "England" of 1017, which in turn is extremely different from what existed on the islands in 17 (which was centuries before the term "England" could even be used), which in turn was different from what you would have found in 1000 or so BC.

Most European nations don't really have -A- history as much as they have a succession of different histories. Modern day France is very different from what it was when the Franks held the land, which was different from when the Romans held it, which was different from when it was Gaul, and so on. Often, you don't even have continuity of populace, as there are countless moments when one group of people drive off or eliminate the previous occupants to take the land for themselves (ie, Europe was doing to Europeans what it would eventually do to Native Americans a few centuries later).

Yet French identity would generally argue that "France" has existed for 1500 years (which is blatantly untrue), British national identity tends to trace back to at least 1000 years ago (which is relatively untrue) if not further (which is even more untrue), Italians often try to tie themselves back to Rome (which is extremely untrue), and so forth.

If Americans followed the same model, we'd just call dibs on the Clovis, Pueblo, Iroquois, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, Lenape, etc etc and we'd have thousands of years worth of history.


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