For children of my generation, anime was an escape from Japan's loser complex following World War II. Anime wasn't foreign. It was our own.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how anime served as a cultural refuge for a generation of Japanese children post-World War II, reclaiming their identity.
Takashi Murakami reflects on the impact of anime on his generation, emphasizing how it allowed them to escape the societal shame associated with Japan's post-war identity. Rather than seeing anime as an external influence, he views it as an integral part of their own cultural expression, showcasing the power of art in shaping and redefining national identity.
In practice
This quote is perfect for a panel discussion on the impact of pop culture in post-war societies.
We want to see the newest things. That is because we want to see the future, even if only momentarily. It is the moment in which, even if we don't completely understand what we have glimpsed, we are nonetheless touched by it. This is what we have come to call art.
What concerns me when I work, is not whether the picture is a landscape, or whether it's pastoral, or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is - did I make a beautiful picture?
There were three of us; Witkiewicz, Bruno Schulz, and myself--the three muskateers of the Polish avant-garde between the wars. Only Witkiewicz remains to be discovered.
No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. ... The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood.
A playwright lives in an occupied country. And if you can't live that way you don't stay.
The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb.
A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even... without any hope of doing it well.
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