Summary
People can get quite precious about their media, especially when it starts broadening its horizons. If it’s not about society’s majorities, it’s suddenly pandering worthy of a TV special to decry, or it’s politics interrupting their fun. The latter is an especially fun excuse to see in work that’s otherwise nothing but politics, likeBioshockorMetal Gear.
The same goes for anime, where fans were led to believe that Japan still isolates itself from foreign cultures. While the country can be quite insular, it has produced artists, writers, and other creators who have wanted to explore other perspectives. Whether it’s different countries, different societies, or indigenous people, these anime have all dabbled in cultural diversity.
9Golden Kamuy
Ainu
One common myth spread around is thatJapan is ethnically and culturally homogenous.That everyone in the country is of the same blood and background. However, even if people put aside its Chinese, Korean, Filipino, African, etc., immigrants, the Japanese islands have cultural differences beyond slang, food, and mascots. For example,Golden Kamuyset its story in Hokkaido, home of its native Ainu people.
During the anime’s early 20th-century setting, the mainland Japanese were pushing the Ainu further inland towards the mountains before forcibly assimilating them into their culture. It did a lot of damage to them and their traditions, but the Ainu have since received official recognition as a distinct race from mainland Japan.Golden Kamuymakes for a good primer to Ainu culture, as Saichi learns about their language and their beliefs in kamuy/kamui (spirits).
8Flavors of Youth
China
The political relationship between Japan and China, let alone mainland Asia as a whole, is complicated at best, with the past century alone stretching its limits. But that doesn’t mean the nations have been unable to ever work together.For example,Flavors of Youthis a co-production between Japan’s CoMix Wave Films and China’s Haoliners Animation League.
It consists of three storylines that cover yī shí zhù xíng (衣食住行), an idiom referring to China’s four necessities for life: clothing, food, housing, and transportation. These necessities can complicate things, like Xiao Yu’s looming transfer to the US, but also bring people together, like how Xiao Ming bonded with his grandmother over San Xian noodles. Set in different parts of China, it makes for a sweet anthology.
7Emma: A Victorian Romance
19th-Century Britain
Okay, this isn’t a particularly radical change of pace for anyone from the West. There are a wide variety of sources to delve into for Victorian stories and cultures, from earlySherlock Holmesstories to TV shows likePeaky Blinders, butEmma: A Victorian Romancestands out. Its creator, Kaoru Mori, really wentin-depth to recreate 1895 London,from the social drama over a middle-class gentleman falling for a mere maid, to the city’s iconic architecture.
It also helps that it’s one of, if not the only, grounded approach to a London setting in anime/manga. Compared to the fantasy tech inSteamboy,or the magic and monsters inThe Ancient Magus’ Bride,Emmacan be a breath of fresh air. Mori also gave Central Asia’s different tribal cultures the same due diligence in her follow-up,A Bride’s Story, but it sadlyhasn’t been animated. Not yet, anyway.
6Samurai Champloo
LGBTQ, Dutch
Shinichirō Watanabe likes to blend different cultures in his works, from Edward being ambiguous in race and gender inCowboy Bebop, to the interracial class drama inCarole and Tuesday.Samurai Champloois no different. For a series set in the late Edo Period, it turns the past upside down by introducing more modern elements, likelumberjacks who like to rap.
The episode “Stranger Searching” threw in a more direct East/West clash with Izsaac ‘Joji’ Titsingh. He’s a Dutchman who, feeling excluded in his home nation for being gay, prefers to stay disguised in Japan because he thinks the country accepts his sexuality better. But its exclusionist policy means any Westerner caught on the mainland will be killed, so Mugen, Jin, and Fuu have to help him tour the area while avoiding the Shogunate’s agents.
5Yugo: The Negotiator
Pakistan, Siberia
Black Lagoonloves its weapons, especially Revy with her handguns, butYugo: The Negotiatorapproaches the criminal underworld differently, as the titular Yugo uses his keen insight and way with words to defuse tricky situations. He learns about his subjects’ backgrounds and quirks to help arrive at peaceful conclusions. No violence, no threats. Just a steely determination, and a steely body to handle any punishment.
The original manga received a 13-episode anime in 2004 covering two of Yugo’s biggest jobs. In Pakistan, he helps a woman free her father from captivity by negotiating with a rebel group, building up his knowledge of the area to give him an edge. Later, his journey to Siberia sees him caught in a conspiracy between the KGB, a young girl called Nadenka, and a mysterious set of rings.
4The Mysterious Cities of Gold
Central and South America
Made by France’s DiC Audiovisuel and Japan’s Studio Pierrot,The Mysterious Cities of Goldis bothan anime and an animé(French cartoon) as it were. If that wasn’t enough, it’s about a 15th-century Spanish boy named Esteban who goes abroad to the New World in search of his long-lost father and the Seven Cities of Gold, including the fabled El Dorado. It’s a broad range of backgrounds, though not the most grounded take on them.
The original series would throw in historical facts about the different, real cultures Esteban and his crew would come across, like the Incas, Olmecs, and Mayans, but the series is more dedicated to being a fun, Ghibli-esque ride where history, mythology, fantasy, and sci-fi collide together in a wild adventure. That said, the series is a little hard to find outside Europe and is usually only available via DVD or digital purchases.
3Afro Samurai
Afro-American
It’s interesting how different cultures influence each other. Old Western movies inspired samurai movies, which in turn inspired spaghetti westerns, American martial arts movies, and blaxploitation flicks. Takashi Okazaki brought it full circle when he took those latter two elements and combined them with his love of hip-hop music and the real-life black samurai Yasuke to produceAfro Samurai.
His original, self-funded dōjinshi from 1998 became a cult hit but would take off further when it was adapted into a5-episode anime seriesin 2007. Afro’s hunt for Justice, the gunslinger who killed his father and took his #1 headband, was a simple tale with a lot of charm. It blended chanbara movies with Grindhouse cinema into a slick style all its own.
2Michiko & Hatchin
Brazil and South America
Between cutting her teeth onSamurai Champlooand reimagining one of anime’s classic femme fatales inLupin The Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, Sayo Yamamoto also directed aThelma And Louise-esque series withMichiko & Hatchin. It saw Michiko, an impulsive South American criminal, break free from prison and take the cooler-headed Hannah ‘Hatchin’ in tow in search of her biological father Hiroshi.
The series' setting of Diamandra is technically fictional, but it’s based heavily on Brazil, from its Rio de Janeiro-looking major city to the dialogue’s Brazilian Portuguese slang. The characters are a mix of different South American ethnicities (e.g. Michiko is a’Pardo'- mixed-race Brazilian), and the episode titles are translated into Portuguese as well as English. It’s perhaps anime’s deepest dive into the Brazil and South America as a whole.
1Black Lagoon
South-East Asia, America, Russia, Chinese, etc
Much likeMichiko & Hatchin, Rei Hiroe’sBlack Lagoonis a bouillabaisse of different cultures all clashing together across the coasts of Thailand, Cambodia, and South-East Asia. The Japanese salaryman Rokuro ‘Rock’ Okajima ends up press-ganged by the Lagoon Company mercs, consisting of the Chinese-American Revy, their Afro-American leader Dutch, and Jewish mechanic Benny.
It’s perhaps one of the most multicultural series out there. Rokuro’s multilingualism gets tested as he has to use it to handle Russians, Chinese, Colombians, Italians, Vietnamese, and more. However, the series is more of a deep dive into piracy than individual cultures, with Hiroe using its multicultural cast to get international audiences thinking more about piracy, poverty, conflict, and other subjects.
More:Open-World Games That Showcase Diverse Cultures and Traditions
