The Future of Animals presented in Anime

Humans are the leading cause for change with animals and technology. Depending on the relationship between the type of animal and humans, will justify the impact of how technology is used to change the animal. While there can only be so much change in real life about how people use animals, anime takes a hold of the creator’s imaginations and utilizes future technology for better or for worse.

Looking at Pokemon, a mild child friendly Anime there are a number of aspects that challenge the perception of every day animals and the impact of technology on them. Pokemon being abundant throughout the land, living free in their natural habitat but also being the goal to capture for future Pokemon Trainers brings to light the purpose of them. Comparable to real life animals we see in the wild or the ones we have as pets. The connection between making some Pokemon resemble real life animal’s aides in the purpose that we would also impose on them. Magikarp known by players as the weakest Pokemon of Generation One – it is in resemblance to the real life yellow rockfish. Utilizes the simple change of evolution to get it to evolve. The trainer impacts on the rate of evolution in a number of ways to get the perfect evolution – which in a Gyarados.

Items impact the change that occurs, when technology created by companies in the game give the player the capability to change the natural progression of evolution. Based on the intention or purpose of the Magikarp the tools used on it are varied. To give it experience boost to evolve quicker an item called ‘Exp. Share’ (Experience Share) is used that grows Magikarp without having to battle with it. Depending on what type of Gyarados you want, in the means of way of battling other players you would use selective breeding to get the Magikarp of your choice then use items to aide in the creating of a specific design of Gyarados. The items used are artificial but the final outcome after all the items a used is seen as a natural creation. The player just aided in having that natural creation. This selective breeding can be seen in dogs today, when compared to the dogs of decades ago. Shown here are a number of dog breeds that have changed over the last 100 years to aide in the most desirable traits from these dogs. While there are not Pokemon diseases affecting the selective breeding process. The consequences of doing it in real life with dogs have placed burdens on the animals.

The Change in breeding Bulldogs over the years. Source

Playing with the natural processes of animals is not just restricted to the deemed “ethical standard”, when the purpose of an animal is to aide in the advancement of technology, not so by being the solution but by being the tool of what human mind can think of then we get to a point where only so few will tread. In the Anime, Full Metal Alchemist the experimentation of creating a chimera is brought to light to the viewer. Chimera being the combination of both mythological understanding and the medical understanding. What was brought to the attention was the purpose of trying to create a chimera that could understand and talk human speech without the using or endangering a human in anyway. The life work of Shou Tucker was under threat and with little compassion for anything else around him he made a decision that would go against every ethical means in real life. Though this is an anime and with the freedom of creation, that creation can be used in any way to provoke the audience. So, with this to create a chimera Tucker would use his own daughter Nine and her dog Alexander to create a chimera capable of interacting with humans. While nothing today with the use of technology has been used to create the combination of human and animal is such a graphic display of unethical practices, The curiosity of human intervention with technology has still aided in the combination of added linked species to create something new.

Anime gives an insight into the use of animals greater than in real life as the only limitation is what you can create. Though as time has gone on and how technology has changed the purpose of animals will change. When animals lose their purpose what else is there to do with them. To simply leave them be would be an easy answer but to act it out, seems woeful.

Changing details – adding pixels

The picture isn’t blurry, it is just very pixelated. Duke Nukem 64, released in 1996, is the game, and it shows the technology of which a game use to be made from – very pixelated, bland colour scheme and graphically unrealistic.

Smooth colour scheme, lots more pixels, shade, smoke/fog/dust, a lot of detail. The game is Medieval II, released in 2006. This image shows the change in gaming quality in 10 years and the improvements that were made.

Words with Friends – a very popular game for smart phones and Facebook users. This game shows how simple a game can be and how popular it can be. With a simple design, easy playability and with the ability to play with friends from anywhere in the world.

Pokemon Black 2 is the 5th generation game of the Pokemon series. Pokemon started in February 1996 in Japan and has major success internationally. Pokemon is the second-most successful game franchise, first being the Mario franchise. Pokemon has maintained a strong backing of fans and the creator of Pokemon has said that “Pokemon will never end”.

Transmedia confusion with a lot of grey

Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. – Henry Jenkins

This blog post has taken me a while to write because there was a lot of grey area with what I thought about the topic, so I had to try and find a good understanding of what is and what is not in the grey area. A main point in my confusion with what Transmedia storytelling is, is the intention of creating a multichannel production to begin with and if the production is an on-going series over multiple channels/platforms then can you count it as Transmedia?

My example is the Pokémon franchise. Since it was first created in 1996 in Japan, the intention of Pokémon became to create a television show to sell the games. While the intent of story is told mainly through the television show, there are individual aspects that are separated for each channel Pokémon has been established on.

The games give a unique perspective of what is around the towns that the anime brings up, also the hands-on involvement of being a Pokémon Trainer and setting out for your own quest. The manga involves stories that occur in the Pokémon World that do not act as one consecutive story – just small parts. The Pokémon Trading Card Game uses the intent of creating physical objects (cards) that were meant to be played along with the video game series. Over the past 15 years Pokémon has been transformed over multiple channels, games, T.V series, manga and movies – each being relevant to another.

Considering the 10 different points outlined by Henry Jenkins (hyperlink above) on what makes something Transmedia, I would guess it would seem that a production would need to tick a point explained. Pokémon being around for 15 years, having an impact on a majority of channels/mediums – so to target a majority of people, has successfully utilized the idea of transmedia production.

Transmedia projects have become an impressive and interesting way to utilize multiple markets and therefore a larger audience. The intent to carefully play a movie off a game, off a book, off cards, to create one main story has become a powerful tool reflecting on what technology has become, and also reflecting on the intent for a wider consumer range over multiple channels, cashing in on the different interests of people.