Anime in Septentrion

Anime (/ˈænɪˌmeɪ/), from the Menghean 아니메 (anime), short for animeisyŏn (animation), is a genre of animated media in Septentrion. Though it originated in Hallia and Themiclesia, it has increasingly become associated with Menghe, which helped popularize it internationally in the 1990s and 2000s.

The first Menghean animated entertainment films date to the early 1920s, but they drew little international attention. During the 1950s and 60s, postwar devastation and political instability drove many of the artists associated with these works to emigrate to wealthier countries, particularly Hallia and Themiclesia. There, they produced many of the first internationally popular movies and TV series in the anime genre. After 1988, many of these animators returned to Menghe, where they spawned a much larger anime production industry. This development, along with its origins among Menghean expat animators, gave anime its association with Menghe and its distinct name, though many large anime-producing studios are still headquartered in Hallia, Themiclesia, Reberiya, and Sieuxerr.

In part because of its international origins, the exact definition of anime has been hard to pin down. It is often associated with an art style using large, emotive eyes and vibrantly colored settings, but many variations on this style exist, some of them closer to Western animation. Subject matter also varies, from lighthearted slice of life stories and children's shows to more serious or emotionally complex storylines marketed toward adults.

History

Prewar animation in Menghe

The first Menghean animated films were created in the 1920s, with the earliest known example dating to 1922. Most of these were short films rather than feature-length productions. Virtually unknown abroad, they saw limited commercial success at home. Kwon Chong-hoon discouraged the production of animated media, arguing that they would instill the population with westernized, effeminate values, and promoted military- or history-themed live-action films. During the Pan-Septentrion War, some artists were enlisted to create animated propaganda to support the war effort, though these works too had little international or long-lasting appeal.

Diasporic origins

Following the Pan-Septentrion War, Menghe was economically devastated. Strategic bombing and total mobilization had seriously impoverished the populace, and poor harvests led to famine in 1946 through 1948. Faced with limited prospects at home, a large number of Menghean intellectuals and skilled workers sought to emigrate to wealthier countries, where their skills were in greater demand. The onslaught of Communist forces in the Menghean War of Liberation drove a second wave of out-migration by educated people and entrepreneurs, especially those with ties to the ousted Occupation government.

Many of these exiles settled in Themiclesia, and to a lesser extent Hallia. There, under a more free and open cultural setting, a number of them studied animation and film production. During the 1960s, the first widely known films and television series in the anime genre were produced, and some of them gained international audiences. Anime production grew further in the 1970s and 1980s as Hallian and Themiclesian studios jumped into the industry, though the style still retained some associations with the Menghean exile community. This period also saw anime producers move beyond children's productions, producing more works that pushed the boundaries of animation by aiming to match the seriousness of quality films.

During the same period, anime made few inroads in the newly-founded Democratic People's Republic of Menghe. The Menghean People's Communist Party imposed strict controls on foreign media, and viewed the exile community with distrust. Television ownership was also very low, and most theaters were run by local government or Party committees. During a brief, partial opening under Sim Jin-hwan, selected anime movies were approved for domestic screening and distribution, but only after thorough review by Communist censors. A few domestic animated films appeared alongside them in the 1970s and early 1980s, though most examples were written as children's propaganda or educational videos.

Return to Menghe

After the Decembrist Revolution of 1987, the Interim Council for National Restoration ushered in a period of broader social liberalization. To attract foreign talent, the new government promised amnesty to all political exiles who had fled during the War of Liberation and under the DPRM's rule, and even offered tax breaks to Menghean ex-nationals with prior business experience. Among the many people to take part in this program was Jun Hyŏn-suk, a rising animator who had left Menghe in 1962 at the age of 21. With a mixed staff of returning expats and locally hired animators, he founded Studio Jibri, which was headquartered in Haeju to take advantage of special private-enterprise laws.

Studio Jibri's first feature film, My Neighbor Totoro, made its debut in 1990 as a double-feature with Grave of the Fireflies, a domestic animated film which told the story of two orphans in the Pan-Septentrion War. While Menghean state critics heaped praise upon the latter film for its serious tone, Totoro was more popular with general audiences, who had already been introduced to late screenings of Jun's earlier works. Kiki's Delivery Service became Menghe's highest-grossing movie when it was released in 1992, cementing Jun's popularity, and Porco Rosso followed in 1994. Inspired by Studio Jibri's success, other Menghean animators began launching their own studios, placing Menghe's on track to surpass Hallia and Themiclesia as Septentrion's leading anime producer.

The Disciplined Society Campaign, launched in 1996, severely curtailed media freedom. Anime containing "subversive or morally degenerate themes" were censored or pulled from distribution. In some cases, harsher penalties followed. Neon Genesis Evangelion's final episodes were stitched together mainly from storyboard images, as half of the animation staff had been arrested, and its DVD distribution was conducted mainly through the black market. Yet in the midst of the turbulent campaign, Jun Hyŏn-suk resisted political pressure, insisting that artistic freedom was necessary for creative work to flourish. As Studio Jibri was Menghe's largest animation company, and its international sales and glowing reviews a source of national prestige, the Ministry of Culture agreed to soften censorship of animated work: sexual content was still strictly forbidden, but as long as media did not directly call for the downfall of the Socialist regime, political and social commentary would be tolerated. Given Culture Minister Wang Jŏng-hyi's otherwise harsh promotion of censorship, this compromise almost certainly had the protection of the Supreme Council; one anonymous source with top-level connections claimed that Choe Sŭng-min himself was an avid fan of Jun Hyŏn-suk's works.

In 1997, near the height of the Disciplined Society Campaign, censors approved the release of Studio Jibri's Princess Mononoke, which dealt thematically with the clash between modernization and environmentalism. Spirited Away, released in 2001, again topped the charts for ticket sales in Menghe, with what many reviewers saw as a critique of consumerism. These two films, coming at a time of rapid economic growth and financial instability, drew praise from the Party newspaper Dangjung Sinmun for their complex, emotional stories and "healthy morality," even as they allegorically probed social issues that the Party had failed to confront. Combined with the official suspension of the Disciplined Society Campaign in March 2003, this cemented a policy of relative creative freedom in animated media, allowing the Menghean anime industry to rapidly expand in the 2000s and 2010s.

Altagracia

Though favored as a destination or through-point for Menghean exiles during the Menghean War of Liberation, Altagracia saw little noteworthy animation in the 1960s and 1970s, as the largest studios were located abroad. From the late 1990s onward, however, its animation industry rapidly blossomed, as Menghean animators fleeing the newly imposed moral censorship laws took advantage of Altagracia's permissive social laws. This critical mass of displaced animators developed into a loose business association specializing in byŏntae, ecchi, and eroge anime forbidden on Menghean-controlled territory. Though small in absolute terms, this industry makes up a comparatively large share of the city-state's GDP, especially after Menghean sanctions began to chip away at cross-border trans-shipment. Along with the underlying dispute over the peninsula's sovereignty, Altagracia's association with "degenerate animation" has become a source of contention with Menghe, as in 2012, when a suspected Menghean cyberattack shut down Altagracia's power grid after media hacktivists depicted Menghe's official gwiyŏ anthropomorphism engaging in sexual acts.

Menghe

Since the mid-2000s, Menghe has been the largest producer of anime in Septentrion, as well as its largest market. Due to its international popularity and its original association with the Menghean diaspora, anime is a major source of national pride. Some geopolitical analysts have even called it a source of soft power, projecting a harmless, friendly, and familiar image that contributes to favorable views of Menghe in Tír Glas and Hallia. Jun Hyŏn-suk in particular has stated in interviews that he sought to challenge the stereotype of Menghe as a "land of uniforms and bayonets" by focusing on heart-warming stories about childhood innocence.

Jun is still regarded as the "Father of Menghean Anime" for his role in promoting Menghe's domestic animation industry, and he has repeatedly postponed his retirement to continue working on more recent productions. Some more recent films, like Big Fish & Begonia (2016), have drawn on Studio Jibri's animation style and storytelling themes.

Since 1996, the Ministry of Culture has forbidden the airing and distribution of anime depicting nudity, sexual acts, or "lewd content." This law remained in place even after the end of the Disciplined Society Campaign, though penalties were reduced and the definition of "lewd content" clarified. Some studios have responded by producing a "global version" of each episode with fan service and ecchi content included, and a "Menghean version" with sensitive content removed or replaced. Other studios focused on gwiyŏ-style art and misoja or misonyŏn character design to appeal to romantic attraction without running afoul of censors.

By contrast, Menghe's single-party state has been relatively lenient in its political censorship of anime. Under Ministry of Culture regulations maintained since 1997, anime can explore general political themes such as rebellion and authoritarianism, but can only make direct references to the Menghean Socialist Party with censors' express approval. This rule contributed to a focus on fantasy worlds and alternate-history settings, even in otherwise innocuous productions. Jun Hyŏn-suk, an outspoken advocate of pacifism and internationalism, tested the boundary in 2013 with The Wind Rises, which was approved by the Ministry of Culture but criticized by the Dangjung Sinmun.