WP1: Animation: The New Performance?

Jennifer Tran

Academic Writing

February 7, 2021
 Animation is a form of media that has evolved and adapted beyond the scope of one’s

initial perception. When someone thinks about animation they may generalize it into something

more simple such as a children’s cartoon and not think of it as a medium that can be truly

culturally impactful. Because of my interest in the cultural impact of animation as an avid fan of

many animated shows and movies I decided to analyze the peer-reviewed article “Animation:

The New Performance” by Teri Silvio, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology,

Academia Sinica, Taipei. Silvio’s purpose in writing the journal article is to “argue that

animation has the same potential as a structuring trope in the age of digital media and the rise of

the creative industries that performance had in the age of broadcast media and the rise of the

service industry.”1 Her intended audience is mostly for people interested in the field of

anthropology. The journal article itself makes a lot of references to niche cultural topics

particularly those of things like “otakus” or “yaoi'' that many average people may not fully relate

to or understand and that may alienate an average reader. With my translation I wanted to take

out the barrier and instead interpret the intent of the author through a simple anime movie review

which I believe through it’s more simple and direct form of presentation would be more

inclusive to the average reader.

My goal with an anime review was to provide a more concise way to present the purpose

of Silvio when she wrote her original article, to explain the way in which animation has impacted

modern culture. The most notable conventions of reviews that I looked over were mostly that

they were very direct and they were able to state the opinion of the person writing the review. I

based my review off of many of the reviews of anime that I had seen on the website myanimelist.

There was a vast variety of reviews that were all written by different kinds of people. While

1 Silvio, Teri. "Animation: The New Performance?" Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20, no. 2 (2010):
422-38. Accessed February 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43104272.
some were more well-written others seemed to be quite short and simple. However, whatever the

differences these reviews may have, a trait that they all seemed to share with each other was that

of their directness with openly stating their opinions about the anime that they were reviewing. In

contrast to more in-depth reviews written by professional reviewers, reviews on myanimelist are

less formal and accessible to a wider demographic. Anyone has the ability to write a review on

this website if they have an account, there are no restrictions. Even if you do not have a

professional background, you can still openly share your views about anime and this provides a

sense of freedom in your opinions. This freedom of ideas is a higher plus to getting people to

understand the draws of animation, if they were to see it more directly coming from a source

much closer to them. A simple online review is accessible to many other people.

Another feature of Silvio’s article that differs from my own translation is that Silvio’s

article makes multiple references to different animated movies or cultural examples, such as the

Ghost in the Shell series, whereas mine does not. Though she is able to provide multiple

examples to prove her point, she is unable to go more in depth about why these examples are

very impactful in the way that they are. My review focuses only on the movie Paprika and its

merits and demerits. I am able to be more descriptive with my wording about the movie without

drawing away from my original intent, another convention of reviews that I have noticed. Being

able to provide one’s opinion directly is also a major convention of reviews and you can see that

I do so when I describe the plot of the movie as “not exactly to my taste in and of itself but the

animation truly was a joy to watch.”2

The way in which Silvio in a way alienates her audience in her use of foreign terms is

also something that I wished to improve upon. She is writing from the perspective of someone

more well-versed in asian culture. As I mentioned in my introduction they talk a lot about

2 Tran, Jennifer “Paprika Review”

“otaku” culture which many people may not be familiar with and that may take away from their

experience when reading the article. Laura Bolin Carroll states that “The audience should be able

to respond to the exigence.”3 Thus for the purpose of my audience I made my review fit what I

thought they could read and understand.

One of the core differences in the genres that Silvio and I have presented is our tone and

diction, mine if more casual whereas her’s is more professional. Silvio’s article is most likely

meant to be read by anthropology students who desire to learn about the way modern culture is

changing whereas my review is meant to be read by generally everyone. I wanted the scope of a

much narrower and more specific audience. I do not use any overly complicated words in my

writing in order to make it easier to understand for an average reader. This exemplifies the shift

in exigence that goes with writing a review versus an article even though core interests may be

the same. The constraint of my less-professional tone in the review is for the purpose of

expressing my opinion more openly versus providing my analysis academically and alienating

others.

According to Lisa Bickmore, a writer “takes up the genre and uses it to frame a written

response to the situation”4 The goal of my translation was to translate the purpose of proving the

social impact of animation through the scope of a more widely inclusive audience. A review is

not just exclusive to professional movie or food reviewers, it is a genre that can be accessed and

understood by everyone. The freedom of being able to express my thoughts on the movie

Paprika and animation itself through a review allowed me to take Silvio’s original purpose of

explaining the impact of animation and translate it into something unique in it’s own way.

3 Carroll, Laura Bolin. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” in Writing Spaces:
Readings on Writing, Volume 1 (2010). https://doi.org/https://writingspaces.org/sites/default/files/carroll--
backpacks-vs-briefcases.pdf.
4 Bickmore, Lisa. “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”PressBooks.
Open English @ SLCC, August 1, 2016. Gauchospace.
 Works Cited

Silvio, Teri. "Animation: The New Performance?" Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20, no. 2

(2010): 422-38. Accessed February 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43104272.

Carroll, Laura Bolin. “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis” in Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1 (2010).

Bickmore, Lisa. “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical

(Eco)Systems.”PressBooks. Open English @ SLCC, August 1, 2016. Gauchospace.

Washi, Review of Paprika. myanimelist (2007). https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=664