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University Course Focuses on AnimationMonkey D. Luffy, Akira and Pikachu are coming to academia.
These butt-kicking, world-saving, freakishly agile animation heroes will become windows into the heart of Japanese culture and the subject of a new course at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
"Most people stop reading comic books when they're 6 years old," said professor Ron Morse, who will teach the anime class this fall as part of the Asian studies program. "It's more than childish stuff. It's a serious sociological critique."
There is growing international interest in the Japanese art form that uses more jagged edges, dark colors and dusky themes than the American genre of animation that created Daffy Duck and Mickey Mouse.
Anime has come stateside recently in popular films, including a gruesome cameo scene in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." It is also exhibited more docilely in the film "Spirited Away," which won best animated picture in the 75th annual Academy Awards.
The blood spurting and sex in the "Kill Bill" scene echo some of the plots that take place in anime films, which stem from Japanese comic books called manga.
But aside from big-breasted heroines and intergalactic travel, serious issues such as drug addiction, prostitution and murder make anime worth studying at a university level, Morse said.
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June 16, 2004 | Viewed 25,365 time(s)
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