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Credit: Profile picture was nabbed from a video by MelonTeee (and, of course, I will replace it if she ever asks me to). Original video here: https://youtu.be/2ZIohfgDH78?si=jMx3MgGrSAl9ybYy

The accompanying quote was "I bet Aristotle would have loved One Piece". Despite the image depicting Plato with the straw hat, I appreciate the sentiment that Aristotle would have loved the series.

To-do list item: Give an account of anime as an art form that takes Aristotle's Poetics as a point of departure.

What are distinctive features of anime? The one that stands out to me it is the lack of a determinate size. The works analyzed by Aristotle had a determinate length, whether they were the lengthy epics of Homer and Hesiod or the feature-length productions of Sophocles or Aristophanes. Is it really true to say that works like Promare (a film), Neon Genesis Evangelion (26 episodes and a film), and One Piece (1100+ episodes) are all the same sort of thing?

A more obvious feature: It is animated. This adds more than I think is generally admitted. Surely, there are some novelizations (e.g. Gundam), but anime is generally an adaptation of manga, another image-word medium. For many anime, the story is striking enough that it is the central piece, and could be adapted to a novel or dramatization. But in most cases, the animation/illustration is essential. Take Dragon Ball Z. Remember that scene where Frieza is sliced in half by Trunks? Or the moment before Vegeta makes his ultimate sacrifice? There is dialogue in each case, but they do not strike so much as the image. Or take One Piece: There are phrases like "I want to live!" and "Luffy, help me!" that are enough to remind one of the scenes they are from, but the impact is created by the image of tears, as well as the depiction of the actions which precede and follow. Here, it is not just the visual, but the vocal element adds to the whole experience as well.

One more feature: It is Japanese. For whatever reason, everyone generally agrees that anime falls in a different category than SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons, or Samurai Jack. Is this an accidental difference, or is there really something essentially different? Why are Nichijou and Family Guy never included in the same conversation about animated comedy? There may be a reason to uncover.

Anyway, it seems I will have to reread Aristotle's work and then see what helps us understand this art form.

I do not know of any classical Japanese (or even Chinese) work on poetics. Certainly, China has its classics and there are commentaries that go with them. Surely there is something to be found, and this may help uncover exactly what is distinctive about anime, though I suspect Aristotle has something to add.

Unrelated note: Every show I watch is people making faces like this: