100 Days of Anime: Day Two – A Little Bit Softer Now

I haven’t forgotten about this 100 Days project yet, and that is an accomplishment. I had several ideas for today’s post. That is also an accomplishment, and it could be two accomplishments if I remember to write those ideas down for later.

I thought about writing about the ongoing case of Subs v. Dubs (I always think it’s over, but it’s not). Then I realized I don’t have anything new to add to that conversation just yet. A few other ideas came to mind, but they were all heavy duty topics, and it was a long day at the office. And you can thank that long day for the discussion that follows.

I want to talk about Quiet, and the power of anime to be quiet. I’m not talking about true silence or even soft sounds here. What I really mean is the ability of film and animation to allow an audience to passively engage in a gentle, contemplative moment.

This a specific effect that I find difficult to pinpoint, but I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced quite the same thing with music or literature. I know from experience that the effect I’m talking about is difficult to mimic in prose due to the reader’s active part in interpreting and visualizing the story.

I hope you’ll be able to supply some examples of your own. These are the moments in movies and television where the “action” is slow and the work is doing more showing than telling. Sometimes they’re landscape shots or a sequence where a character prepares a meal. These moments invite us to reflect on the action up to that point and think about the work without it directly telling us what it is about.

I enjoy this sort of quiet and how flexible it can be. It can be used for comedic effect or to give weight to a story’s downturns or as a means of transitioning between scenes. Used judiciously, it can change the tone of an entire piece. My love for this sort of quiet is probably why, as a teenager, I spent my Saturday night’s watching dated British sitcoms on PBS, and why today, I will watch Lost in Translation multiple times in one week.

But Britcoms and Sophia Coppola flicks definitely aren’t anime, and that’s what I’ve alleged I would discuss.

In a world where a quarter of every hour is given over to commercials and every other movie is part of a franchise of big, loud blockbusters, this kind of quiet is in short supply. In anime, though, quiet has a firm place. Not every show uses it. Most don’t. But the movement makes room for it.

It’s a prevalent feature of Cowboy Bebop* and the works of Studio Ghibli (another challenge: let’s see how long I can go without discussing Ghibli or Miyazaki at length). Anime uses every shade of it to. There’s the playful quiet of Non Non Biyori and the ominous quiet of Made in Abyss alongside the dramatic quiet of Samurai Champloo and the almost ambivalent moments of silence that Miyazaki favors.

I think what appeals to me most about these examples is the sense of artistic confidence that seems especially prevalent in anime. These quiet moments allow the story to breath. The artists behind them have sold you the story, and now they are showing it to you. They trust that they’ve earned a few moments of your time, and they stop jumping from story beat to story beat. They don’t fill dead air with puns and pop culture references because the air isn’t dead. It’s just quiet.

I spent a lot of time on premise today and not as much time on the premise as it’s expressed in anime. This might be worth revisiting down the road when I’ve got time to really dig into some examples. For now, I’ve got another recommendation.

If you’re looking to experience some quiet, give Non Non Biyori a shot. This is a link to the subtitled first episode on Crunchyroll where it is free to watch (with commercials). And this is a link to a Reddit thread where someone gives a convincing argument for why you should give it a try.

Non Non Biyori is a Slice of Life anime about cute girls doing cute things in a small Japanese farming village. I watched the first season about a year ago based on a recommendation from my friend Nik. It’s relaxing, and I still occasionally revisit it after a long day in the office.

Until tomorrow, nerds.