Anime Impact!

On 6^th and 9^th August 1945, the U.S. Armed Forces dropped atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In less than a week, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito broadcast the “Imperial Rescript of the Termination of the War” on radio and announced the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan, thus bringing World War II to a close. Having subsequently experienced seven years of Allied occupation, Japan embarked on a remarkable revival in the post-war period from utter devastation. Within a dozen years, Japan’s economic, social and cultural power leapt to the forefront of the world stage. In the 1960s, it became the world’s third largest economy, right after the US and USSR. The Olympic Games and the World Expo were held in Japan, while Yasunari Kawabata, Akira Kurosawa, among others gained unprecedented artistic fame in the West.

All this was nonetheless unable to wrest Japan completely free from the trauma and shadow of war.

The art critic Noi Sawaragi has pointed out that post-war art in Japan on the whole avoided alluding to past war crimes. On the other hand, the memory and imagery of war were creatively and eccentrically evoked within such subcultural fields as animation and comics, giving rise to numerous admirable popular works. Sawaragi believed that due to Japan’s unique post-war development and geo-political relations, the fundamental contradictions within Japan—such as long-term American tutelage of Japan, Japan’s constitutional constraints in fielding military forces, as well as its Cold-War anxiety over another catastrophic nuclear war—often could not be directly articulated in public. In the anime world, such repressed fears are transformed into apocalyptic catastrophes, destructive monsters, alien invasions, and youngsters chosen to rescue humanity. In Takashi Murakami’s essay Earth in My Window, otaku culture—which includes that of anime—resembles a “mirrored box” that provides true reflections of Japan, displaying its losses and fractures.

Jointly organised by Tai Kwun Contemporary and the Performing Arts Team, “Anime Impact!” offers a selection of seven representative Japanese animated films produced between the 1970s and the 2000s which are presented during the major high-profile exhibition MURAKAMI vs MURAKAMI. The selected movies include Galaxy Express 999 (an important milestone work by Leiji Matsumoto, about adventures throughout the universe), Patlabor The Movie and Neon Genesis Evangelion (both revamping typical elements of Japanese animation, by the unconventional directors Mamoru Oshii and Hideaki Anno), Memories, Mind Game, and Paprika (extraordinary masterpieces by the creative geniuses Katsuhiro Otomo, Masaaki Yuasa, and Satoshi Kon). Japanese anime is, for most viewers, distinctly familiar. This screening series, we hope, will have viewers gain a fresh understanding of Japanese anime from the lens of history and development of subcultures, and establish connections with Japanese fine art and contemporary art.

Screening Schedule

*Please register for seats of Neon Genesis Evangelion screening in JC Cube (capacity limited). 15 minutes after each screening session starts, any seats not taken will be assigned to visitors in the waiting queue on a first-come, first-served basis.
Registration will open from 19 Jul onwards

**Concession tickets are applicable to students (aged under 18 or with full-time student ID), seniors aged over 60 and persons with disability

A handling charge (which is non-refundable) is levied at HK$8 per ticket. The service fee is subjected to adjustment by Cityline (HK) Limited.