Anime Symbolism

Anime has many hidden messages within their drawings, whether it’s the birds singing or the way the character acts. For example, the traditional Japanese Zen garden is the perfect setting for a plot twist, as the Japanese regard the Zen Gardens as a place of tranquility and national unity. Sakura trees (Cherry blossoms) are also important, because when they bloom, they die three days afterward. When you see a character talking to another person in a grove of Sakura trees, it means that someone of great beauty (inside or out) will die soon. One of the more common symbols in Anime is the nosebleed. A nosebleed, in Japanese Society, means that a boy has become smitten with a girl. It’s similar to when we sneeze. If a person sneeze without a reason, it means someone’s thinking or talking about you (Marcovitz 88-89).

In the feature “Howl’s Moving Castle”, Hayao Miyazaki’s main character Sophie finds herself in a parallel universe in which she has aged to an old woman. Through this Miyazaki explores the “Beauty Myth”, actually having the character of the wizard state “if we are not beautiful, there is no point in our being alive” (Dani Cavallaro 166). But the symbolism doesn’t always focus around the mannerisms or the plot all the time. Sometimes the artists use characters as symbols of real world crisis. Take the anime series, Full Metal Alchemist. “The series has a sub-plot about the suppression of the Ishbalans- a religious people living the desert who are clear stand-ins for Islamic Arabs.” (Richmond 50)

The symbols used in Anime are similar to everything we learn today, in history, in art, and in literature. They are important for working the mind, to discover the meaning behind the image it creates. I find symbolism a fascinating subject, and helped me broaden my perspective, to look underneath what appeared to be nothing.