Why Fantasy is the perfect genre for Anime
Every medium has a perfect genre that exemplifies what it does well
The famous screenwriter Robert McKenna claimed Thrillers are the perfect genre for film. I must agree with him. Movies are consumed in a single session without any breaks, in a relatively short period of time compared to books or series. The suspense of a thriller is effective at keeping viewers engaged. A shocking twist is bound to leave audiences satisfied and eager to talk about the film with their friends and families.
This got me thinking, every medium has its own perfect genre. Every genre has its unique conventions and its primary purpose is to drive specific emotions in the viewer. Romances should give you the warm fuzzies. So what if we took this idea and applied it to a medium I know and love, Anime.
The answer, at least to me, seems obvious. Fantasy is the ideal genre for Anime. To understand why, let’s look at three recent Fantasy Animes that were massively successful and beautifully executed. These are Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, Delicious in Dungeon, and releasing this season Witch Hat Atelier. Each series manages to perfectly capture the emotion which make Fantasy my favorite genre.
While Fantasy is unique for a plethora of reasons, the emotion that stands out is the sense of wonder. It’s the wonder that keeps me coming back. This is of course done through a sense of wonder. I think fundamentally, we all crave wonder. As kids, we can access it easily as everything is new. But when we get older it becomes more difficult to experience, especially in our busy and distracted digital world. That’s why when we do feel it, it’s all the more powerful. Research even suggests wonder has psychological benefits for our mental wellbeing.
A quick aside, wonder is perhaps the antidote to our busy and distracted world. While algorithms try to narrow our apertures, isolate us into silos and siphon our attention for the profit of advertiser. Wonder has the opposite effect of making our viewpoints feel larger, making us feel more interconnected, revealing the thusness of reality. In a time of hate and loneliness, wonder has become even more important than ever.
When fantasy works to achieve wonder in print, it’s done in a mostly visual way, creating a sense image. It also tends to be done in a cinematic way. Let’s take the sequence from Book 2 of the Harry Potter Series when Harry and Ron drive the flying car to school. Even before it was made into a movie this was an image you could easily conjure up into your mind.
The world of animation is not limited by what’s real or realistic portrayals of light and movement. This gives animators an incredible amount of freedom to convey with lovingly produced sequences where magic is used in surprising and new ways. Below is a mind blowing sequence from Season 1 of Witch Hat Atelier. It conveys the massive scale of a magical city inside of a portal.
While I love reading Fantasy in print, and surely will continue to do so, the sense of wonder has to be motivated by meaning. For example, we discover a new application of an existing rule. Or the ability to use magic reveals the back story or origin story for a character. In a visual medium, wonder can be a pure visual spectacle.
The Japanese word Sakuga, literally drawing / animation, is used in fandom to describe a sequence of exceptionally high quality and effort intensive. Sequences like the video above. It’s the signature trademark of Anime fantasy to have such a sequence at the climax of every arc where the characters use magic to the best of their abilities. It makes for an exciting finale which perfectly complements the deeply emotional character driven story that surrounds it.
So what do you think? Is Fantasy is the perfect genre for Anime? Is there a genre you think that is even better for Anime? Let me know!