Visions of Gundanium

Mecha, Toonami, & "Pulp Fascism"

*Spoilers*

It’s a common enough trope these days to assert that anime is degenerate nonsense. But it was not always so. In fact, for the Millennial generation, anime as an experience was quite the opposite. Jonathan Bowden described many artforms which were semi-outside of the mainstream as “pulp fascism.” The heroic form is not one which is commonly found in the mainstream of cultural production. Television cartoons made in Japan and redubbed into English were indeed highly popular and remain so. But I would not classify them as necessarily fully inside of the mainstream. Bowden himself described how many themes which are not liberal in any sense have a tendency to bubble up in the dark, brutally honest, and sometimes gruesome subject material of pulp fiction.

The highpoint of this artform probably is demonstrated by the Cartoon Network series block “Toonami.” Toonami is a fascinating case study, because it used the “sampling” of anime shows on its program for promotional purposes. It was a rather clever artform to display the emotional content for the typically sensitive young male audience in a way that was viscerally engaging but not revealing enough to give away excess plot. The sense of tension, of anticipation, instilled in the audience was perfect for the Shonen subgenre of anime intended for young boys. Themes of growing into adulthood, of belief in oneself, and of self-overcoming abound in the messaging of the promos. In addition, the anthropomorphic robot called TOM who gave short motivational speeches on courage, anger, individuality, the different types of heroes, experience, etc. was just part of the program. Indeed, these promotional clips were excellent at emotionally conveying the sense of either technological hope via space travel, or abject dread for the robotic ascent over humanity. It’s an entertaining possibility, in hindsight, that the actual promos are in some cases more striking than the shows themselves. Techno-vitalism abounds; the destructive movements of man-shaped machine echo earlier 20th-century artforms. Man synthesizes himself into anthropomorphic laser beam-armed stompy robots and duels for supremacy among the stars. In other words, Mecha is metal.