The methods critique was quite helpful in helping me see some large, glaring holes in my methods that I hadn’t foreseen. Although there are quite a few important improvements to be made in my methods, the largest hole was my explanation for choosing my samples. I chose One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, and Spirited Away as the anime shows I would watch.
My lack of a clear justification for choosing either was partly due to the fact that there are not any clear, academic sources that show which anime was the most popular or influential in America. Therefore, in class, during the discussion, we came up with the using number of manga sold worldwide as the metric. In terms of the most number of manga sold, One Piece topped the list and Dragon Ball Z came third in. However, manga are the “comic book” versions of anime shows and I realized that a manga series’s popularity does not translate to the anime show’s popularity. After looking more into One Piece, I found that One Piece is the most popular show in Japan but has not reached the same level of popularity in America.
Rather than looking at manga sales, I decided to shift to another measure and look at one channel: Cartoon Network. According to Danielle Rich of the University of Iowa, “Cartoon Network pioneered regular blocks of programming comprised of both Japanese and U.S. animated shows” and Cartoon Network was responsible for making anime popular to the general viewing audience in America (25). There are two separate anime blocks, one aimed at children and teens (Toonami), and one aimed at adults (Adult Swim). Therefore, I thought it would be more interesting if I chose the most popular anime series from each of these blocks. Dragon Ball Z had the highest view ratings among the anime on Toonami. In the Adult Swim block, an anime show named Cowboy Bebop takes the top prize (Rich). When Dragon Ball Z and Cowboy Bebop aired in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s their popularity made Cartoon Network’s anime blocks successful. As a result, other television stations also began to air anime on their channels. Dragon Ball Z and Cowboy Bebop are important because these two shows introduced anime to mainstream American popular culture. Accordingly, I have decided to replace One Piece with Cowboy Bebop, while still keeping Spirited Away and Dragon Ball Z.
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| Cowboy Bebop originally aired on Adult Swim of Cartoon Network. |
There is a lot I need to still fix in my methods. Some of the problems are there because my question is exploratory, so right now it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how I will carry out a few steps of my method. But, hopefully (fingers crossed), this blogpost has at least addressed my sample problem.
Words: 544
Citation:
Price, Danielle. "Global Fandom: The Circulation of Japanese Popular Culture in the U.S."Iowa Research Online. The University of Iowa, 2011. Web. 16 Jan. 2017.
Gursajan -- my main question for you is how are you going to justify looking at Spirited Away? It seems contrived to use one justification for part of your sample, and then another justification for another part of your sample. If you're going to do that, how are you going to explain that it's still valid and all right? I think you need to consider how to united your sample selection into one cohesive thought-process.
ReplyDeleteI would start by looking at the heart of what your samples to have, and I think that you want them to have wide-reaching influence. Therefore, figure out what way all of your samples could be analyzed as having wide-reaching influence.
Honestly, I am really impressed with the work you are putting into your sample right now. I think you are doing a good job doing the research and working to a solid justification. I do agree with Mrs. Haag though that there is a jump between child and adult and then theater. What do you think the connection between the series and the movie is? maybe you can just do the series or just do the movie. You could always establish in your limitations that there are different outlets of anime and further research could establish if the trends you find are seen throughout. I just think you need to consider that if it is forced too much you might need to adjust, or really think about why you want to keep both parts.
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