Machina, pathos and conflict

[branchandroot]

So, upon considering the question of disability in anime, two things pop immediately to mind. One: portrayals are very limited. Two: they’re almost all symbolic.

For one thing, cognitive disabilities are pretty much non-existent unless it’s a case of dramatically going crazy or being Emotionally Wounded and, erm, deciding to destroy the world because of it. These are clearly not intended to be realistic; instead they are a highly dramatized acting out of common emotional patterns.

For another, physical injuries or illnesses are rarely as severe or lasting in effect as they should be. Anime and manga in general are not written for physical realism either–quite the reverse in most cases. They regularly disregard all laws of physics and biology, and injuries are no exception to this. When a character is injured, the results are either hop-scotched via magic or technology (eg Bleach, Getbackers), or else the healing period is skipped with, perhaps, a few scenes of the character dealing with a cast used as humor. The day-to-day issues of “I can’t use that arm” or “I can’t stand up” are rarely dealt with, certainly not by main characters.

Sometimes an illness or injury is used as a source of plot tension, something the protagonists must overcome during a critical situation (eg Card Captor Sakura), but that seems to be a one-episode sort of thing, done to emphasize the hero/ine’s sense of responsibility. The rest of the time it’s used for humor and then cured so the action which is the focus of the story can be got on with. When there is a lasting effect that must be dealt with or overcome it’s a secondary character who deals with it (eg Eyeshield 21’s Torakichi), and therefore the process is not foregrounded.

The more adult-oriented the show, the more likely injuries are to be shown realistically (eg Cowboy Bebop), but even then the process of recovery is generally invisible. If the lasting nature of an injury is dealt with at all it is more likely to be in symbolic terms (eg CLAMP’s eye thing) than in terms of what a missing or inoperable body part actually does to a person’s life and experience.

This seems to be even more true of how chronic conditions are deployed, especially the most common one I’ve observed: tuberculosis. Japanese literature in general has a love affair with beautiful pathos, and TB offers writers an illness that is a) not unsightly, b) still allows the sufferer to be active in a pinch, c) is deadly, and d) has a great historical weight behind it. (For those interested, I highly recommend The Modern Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in Japan by William Johnston). So TB gets used as a lever to produce tropes like ‘impending fate’, ‘fragile beauty’, ‘vain struggle against the inevitable’ and so on. Okita Soujirou’s various animated incarnations make good examples.

The bit that really interests me, though, is that, while disability is almost never shown, the experience of social isolation that goes along with it is shown. Stories like Fruits Basket, X/1999 and Meine Liebe show characters who, despite any stated disability being either completely invisible or having no effect, are sequestered. The mental and emotional injury done to them by that sequestration is dealt with in these stories. So, even as the isolation and erasure of disability and difference continues on the screen, that isolation is critiqued. To be sure, social isolation is generally presented as a very bad thing in anime and manga, something to be overcome; consider Shoujo Kakumei Utena or Rurouni Kenshin. So, in those shows that state the presence of a disability but do not actually show it, it seems that two cultural imperatives are pitted against each other: that difference be erased and that social connection be paramount.

The subtext of those stories, that one must become somehow normative to be connected, is not exactly a hopeful one, but at least a few of these characters are making it out of the attic/basement.

(And have a couple interesting links that show a bit of the shape of how Japanese culture deals with disability.)