For now, this week I’ve tentatively titled my topic: Exploring the influence of mythological history and historical culture on Chinese animation.
I was surprised to discover that there are surprisingly few animated films that have been adapted through the history and culture of various countries, as well as animated films that use history and culture to adapt science and technology, after watching a number of mythological and historical animated films and Chinese animated films from the past 20 years, as well as looking at the ual library and Google Scholar.There aren’t many, not even in Japan, a big anime producing country, though I did find Hyouge Mono, one of the more well-known.
I looked for solutions online. The opinions were various, so I categorised them widely and adopted the positions supported by the following two groups of people.
One camp believes that as art is derived from and transcends life, it should be appropriately modified to improve the story’s interest in order to draw in more viewers. History and culture will be learned or understood willingly by those who are interested in them.
The opposing group believes that since history and culture are employed as gimmicks for the work and the popularity effect of history is appropriated in order to increase the popularity of the work, the objectivity of the content of the work should be protected and self-adaptation should not be done for some historical materials that are not yet accepted by the historical community. Respect for history is due.
Despite my extensive research and reading of several perspectives, I am unable to concur with either one.
From the perspective of a creator, taking a historical event and turning it into a compelling fiction is the extent of their abilities; after all, nobody is flawless.
But because I love history, I find it difficult to justify changing a historical event without maintaining historical impartiality.
And as a result, I made the decision to create a report on this kind of topic in the hopes that more people will attend to debate it.