on human society, even without actual recognition of this fact by the society being
influenced in this way at any specific time; the axiological effects of nihilistic
prevalence can be witnessed readily by the examination of cultural artifacts, such as
painting or, more accessible in the contemporary era, the media. Of course knowing how
to identify nihilism, and for this purpose understanding nihilism and its various forms,
are needed in this kind of examination and critique of artifacts. In this article a genre of
Japanese popular film art (while all film can be viewed as art it is not necessarily ‘high’
or ‘good’ art), namely anime, will be investigated more closely for evidence of nihilism.
analysis of anime, in its capacity as a popular
‘art’, as a means of interpreting cultural undercurrents in Japanese society, as any popular
medium could be said to serve as a vessel containing expressions of the axiological tensions
inherent to its ‘parent’ culture. I say this to support my argument concerning (signs of) nihilism
in Japanese culture. Some would argue that Japanese society is full of wholesome family
values, which on the surface it is indeed (much like American culture), but when one engages
with its art, including instances of popular art, one can bypass the saccharine façade presented
by the society in which it originates, and perceive the qualities hidden behind the façade of
conventional life, but evident in artifacts such as films, television programmes and literature.
I would like to point out that in its applicability as an interpretive concept, nihilism is not
particular to European society just because it was first explored by European thinkers, and that
it can be applied to any human society in which questions of meaning or value are important
– which, to my mind, would be any human society. The present article is predicated on this
assumption, which is arguably a reasonable one.
EXAMPLE
Akira (1988), directed by Katsuhiro Otomo,
because comparing it to Ghost in the Shell and Metropolis as far as its stance on nihilism goes,
one gets the distinct impression that it embodies a deep doubt in the face of technological
developments that may already have tampered too much with the primal forces of nature.
It is set in Neo-Tokyo, in the year 2019, after World War III, and reveals a chaotic, volatile
situation involving a corrupt government, insurgent terrorists, street gangs and the military.
When monitored at a government laboratory, one of the motorcycle gang’s members, Tetsuo, is
discovered to have genetic properties similar to those of Akira – an experimental subject who
was placed in cryonic suspension because of his colossal, virtually uncontrollable ‘natural’
potential. As Tetsuo becomes more and more powerful (and volatile), the narrative moves
towards a final reassertion of nature’s awesome, uncontrollable powers, in the face of which
puny humans can do nothing. The nihilistic element here is difficult to identify, because there
is hardly any promotion of new values (that is, active nihilism) for a future society. Nor does
it seem to advocate passive nihilism as the falling back on old value systems – these appear to
be corrupt and self-destructive. In fact, it seems to assert radical nihilism in a pessimistic way
as far as human society is concerned, but with a hint that nature will have the last word – in the
end the creative process will start all over again.
The broad picture painted by the anime familiar to me is therefore one of a society filled
with tensions concerning intrinsic human values, a culture that is torn between the more ‘liberal’
and personal value systems that constitute active nihilism in a world critically aware of the
falsity of passively nihilistic ideological structures, and the safe, simple security of retreating
into those very passive-nihilistic, preconstructed moral systems. As I have tried to show, anime
serves as a medium for expression of these tensions.
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