Toy Story 3 is in the running for the best picture award at the 2011 Oscars, and pundits and public alike have been singing its praises; The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “genuinely groundbreaking, pushing at the boundaries of cinema”, dealing as it did with such issues as “growing up, growing old, and making way for one’s children”.
Bradshaw also pointed out that, because Toy Story 3 is animation, it was subject to snobbery and condescension by those who feel that live action is the only way to tell a story.
He makes a good point: animation is often unfairly pushed aside to make way for “real” movies. It is a point that needs extending, for there is an entire industry, and a culture, that has been using animation as a mainstay of grand storytelling for decades: anime.
Just as western mainstream media and the film industry dismiss animation as kids’ stuff, Japanese cartoons are sometime thought of as little more than animated pornography filled with images of semi-naked, big-eyed girls.
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