The Acceptance and Consumption of Manga : The Case of Animated Cyborg Comics

Animated manga films are a form of manga consumption reflecting strong popular demand for this art form. This essay focuses on cyborg comics whose unique defining feature is the heroes’ self-negation arising from their selfawareness as monsters. Here, taking representative examples, the original comic and its animated version are compared in an effort to highlight the salient differences between manga and anime genres. In the TV animation series Cyborg 009, produced in 1968 at the end of the first anime boom, the heroes were depicted as pure warriors for peace with no reference to their monster nature, which the original manga had stressed. The antiwar message in the animated series was persuasive because peace was considered a universal value. The animated feature Cyborg 009: Super Galaxy Legend, released in 1980 during the second anime boom, however, emphasized the close bonds of fellows as cyborg rather than universal values. In the manga GUNSLINGER GIRL, which coincided with the third anime boom of the 2000s, it is no longer possible for the heroines to embody universal values; they fight simply for bonds between themselves and the man they love. The original manga contained a perspective exterior to human bonding that was capable of objectifying human ties, but in the animated film version, that vantage point cedes its importance; only actors involved in these close relationships are capable of understanding the protagonists’ behavior and true motives. In the animation process, we find a disappearance of universal values in response to societal changes, and a corresponding desire for strong, compelling personal bonds. Through the softening of the heroes’ and heroines’ monster nature, their self-negation loses its critical power, imparting to the human bonds they form an absolute character. The desire for close personal ties has contributed to the success of animated film versions by providing the motivation for psychologically more complex characters. The extreme nature of these bonds, however, has also produced a more narrow-minded, stereotypical view of human nature, bringing manga animation to a developmental impasse