Animation: The Subconsciousness of Our Imagination

After a hundred years of it discovery, animation has opened a new doorway for writers, directors, and producers in the art of story-telling. Before, most stories were told in the form of verbal or written words and pictures. However, the creation of live film also opened the door way for story telling as well, but even live film has its limits.

In the early stages of live film, it proved to be somewhat difficult to film something out of the ordinary. Such as a man lifting a 2 ton truck, a man flying, or even a talking animal. However, the art of animation allowed story tellers to explain and express the unimaginable, and yet still captivate their audience into believing that what they’re seeing may actually be, real.

Many of us watch cartoons and/or anime to escape from the limits of reality. Sure in the real world we have our limits, we as human may never evolve to fly or understand what our pets are saying to us but, in another world, a world where everything seem so visually expressive and real, we are able to experience the limitations of our world. Even though we subconsciously know that the world we’re watching isn’t real, we manage to somehow connect and establish ourselves in it.

As it stands, no other form of art except animation allows us to build through that connection of connotative thinking. Sure, what we may experience from cartoons or Japanese anime is all in our heads but even then if we convince our brains that the subject we’re seeing is real, then it must be real right? Besides most of the things we believe in is a subject matter, which means you either believe it, or not.

Today, the popularity of cartoon and Japanese anime is increasing and not only in kids or in limited demographics. Parents and foreign cultures are sitting back and watching animation at home or in theaters. No longer are the days of where animated shows were for kids only or for certain demographic region of the world.

Why? Simple. The expansion of televised animation has led to a variety of genres that are now available for just about every type of person, whether you’re the science fiction fan, the drama fan, the action fan, or the comedy fan, there is animation for that.

But it doesn’t stop there, animation is now a part of all cultures. Now days there are many animated films that are based of various folklore, history, or societies from all around the world, by which again opens up a wider audience to view.

But of course animation is a general form of art. Many like to break it down and refer to either one or two other common types of animations, cartoons or anime. These two forms are most specific and common, with each providing different styles of art and origins. Of course by origins, I mean one is from the west as cartoons and the other from the east specifically Japan as anime.

However, getting into great length about these two animation forms requires a post of their own.

But one thing is certain, even though animation is probably the youngest form of art, it’s certainly the becoming the most popular and mainstream form of story-telling.

With its vast growing popularity, reaching over hundreds of millions of fans and viewers, animation has changed the art of story telling itself and along with it, allowed us to escape from pressures and limitations of the real world, even if it’s for only thirty minutes.