How are hip-hop and anime similar?
Both hip-hop and anime are media forms that were initially denigrated by media elites as not being something that could gain a wide audience. They both show the power of globalization from below, and they provide hope that ideas and practices that are seen as unimportant, fringe or sub-cultural can nevertheless become global powerhouses in their own right. Q: How is anime more a global than a Japanese phenomenon? A: Global anime means that we cannot understand anime only in terms of its Japanese-ness. Anime may well have aesthetic links to Japanese woodblock prints of the 18th century and to picture scrolls of the 12th century, but the more proximate links are American comics and Disney films of the first half of the 20th century. Japanese comic books–manga–reinterpreted those Western forms. Moreover, anime is produced not only in studios in Japan, but also in South Korea, the Philippines and China. Finally, overseas fans are deeply involved in the circulation of anime through online
