I love a good story. But in this day and age of multimedia consumption, of here today, gone tomorrow, a good story can be hard to come by. And I’m not talking about books, I’m talking about audio-visual: movies, tv shows, anime, cartoons etc… It’s nothing new, you only have to look around yourself, at the latest movies or shows, to realise that the emphasis shifted a long time ago - from telling a story to selling you an idea, neatly packaged in special effects, famous people and whatever else is popular at the time. Which also isn’t to say there aren’t any good stories around anymore, they’re just harder to find.

My gripe though isn’t just with the celebrity cult western societies have been afflicted with for a while or the rise and predominance of the blockbuster movies and tv series. Rather it’s with the fact that a good story, especially in serial format, is just not something you can find easily anymore. Back in the days, things were simpler and while we had our fair share of crap we also had our fair share of good. Taking TV series as the main focus here, things have only got worse as the years have gone on.

While for the last ten years or so TV series have definitely moved towards a template that resembles more the Hollywood blockbuster prototype than anything else, one thing that has always been a constant is that if the series isn’t pulling in the viewing numbers it won’t last long, regardless of its artistic merit, especially the story. Examples of this are ripe, and it’s a given of the game, which is I guess fair enough. But today things have got more extreme - ratings are still a factor, but it seems that the story, the magic of telling a story over a long period of time is definitely getting lost. Series not only resemble movies, or try to, they also a lot of the time seem like they’re not really going anywhere. There isn’t a definite beginning, middle and end to a story anymore. Only the factors of ratings and popularity. And so the few series that do at times appear with a strong story, often end up never being told in full, due to low ratings or popularity.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: anime, movies, storytelling, Television, TV series

When people ask me why I came to Japan, I always feel like my answer may strike them as a little odd. Aside from the fact that I came to Tokyo because I needed a change of scenery after ten years in London and 27 spent living around Europe, the real reason why I came to Japan is simple: I came to live in Japan because I was raised on Japanese animation as a kid. I’ve always felt like I’ve known Japan and its people, through years spent watching, absorbing and devouring countless anime series and mangas.

You see between 1975 and 1995, France (alongside most of mainlaind Western Europe) imported a huge portion of its children’s television programmes from Japan. A pretty odd, and little known, fact. After all it’s not like France had no children entertainment of its own - ‘bandes dessines’ (you’ll have to excuse the lack of accents, English keyboard and all that) or the French equivalent to comics has always been incredibly popular both in and out of the country (Tintin or Asterix anyone?). But when it came to cartoons, someone, somewhere decided that the best thing to do was to import them from the other side of the world. And I’m thankful to them for making such a decision, though I know realise that this was a decision more likely influenced by money and other less interesting factors.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: anime, Japan, memories