The Ideal Anime Course

            Anime is broad.  It cannot be pinned down as one thing or another.  Thus during an introduction class, one should cover a multiple topics in one sitting.  The ideal anime course should focus on some but not all genres.  To get an understanding of the history and identity of anime, one must focus attention at one kind of art at a time.  Before we begin, one should examine the structure of the class.  Next, one must focus half the class on both Shonnen and Shojo.  Then from their one must start examining genres related to either Shonnen or Shojo.  Anime is a fun diversified subject with each story spreading and defining the art.

            I believe the best time to study anime is during the summer.  There are more hours in the summer dedicated toward a single class.  There should be 3 essays and a museum visit.  Each essay should cover a different genre with no overlapping.  There should also be a presentation of anime, but it should be one of the anime in the course syllabus.  The presentation should be a group one using power point where the students present different parts of the anime series in question.  I believe that there should be no extra animes presented because it will fall out of the range of the class.  The student should pick an anime that is in the course syllabus to present.  Each class should cover a different movie or sequence of episodes.  The discussion board should be a review of the anime seen that day.  There should be a few animes that are seen outside of class, especially if it is a 26 episode series.  I believe instead of having written text, the homework should be seeing anime on our own and writing about it.  With the advent of high bandwidth downloading, one should not find it difficult to download, rent, or purchase anime for class.  Now let us take a look at shonnen and shojo anime.

            Shonnen titles that should be considered are the following, Gun X Sword (mecha), Gun Grave(drama), Trigun (Action), Full Metal Panic (mecha), GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka)(School life), and Cowboy Bebop (Action).  Gun X Sword is a story about a man, Van, who is trying to avenge his fiancé’s death by the hands of the Claw Man.  Gun Grave is a mafia story about Brandon Heat who must kill his closest friend who betrayed him long ago.  Trigun is a sci fi series of the last of the human race on a desert planet and the world is afraid and trying to capture Vash the Stampede.  Vash is searching for his twin brother, Knives, who killed Rem, the closest person he had to being his mother.  Full Metal Panic is a contemporary title about a man named Sauske who must protect Kaname from a secret evil organization that wants to control the world.  She is a whispered and contains secret advanced technology knowledge that can change the tides of war.  GTO is about Onizuka who is a substitute teacher at a prep school.  There are many problems he must face in order to gain his student’s trust.  Cowboy Bebop is a mercenary group lead by Spike who hunts down bounties and other jobs for money.  Now let’s look at the second half of the course, shojo anime.

            Shojo titles should include School Rumble (romantic comedy), Key the Metal Idol (action), Soul Eater(action), Sailor Moon (magic), and Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien (drama).  The plot of School Rumble covers the daily lives of students of the fictional Yagami High School and their surroundings. The series is of the romance comedy genre, with scenes in the story being exaggerated for comedic purposes.  Key the Metal Idol is a Pinocchio story about a robotic girl who wants to become human.  The only way for that to come to pass is if she gets 30,000 friends thus becoming an idol.  Soul Eater takes place at the Shinigami Weaponry Vocational School, a school for creating shinigami weapons. The human and demon students seek the seeds of the souls of 99 Kishin souls and the soul of one witch, all of which are needed to turn just one of the demon students into a official weapons.  Sailor Moon is about Usagi who is a Sailor Moon who must protect her friends and world against evil forces.  During her adventure she meets other Sailor Scouts and together they form a close friendship and a strong enough force to defeat the evil forces at work.  Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien is a drama where close friends are torn apart after Haruka gets injured in a car accident.  Now let’s look at the presentations.

            I feel that each anime should be presented before seen and that the group picks specific episodes to show that reveals the main plot and theme of the anime presented.  At least 2 people should present an anime at one time and they should coordinate together to get the anime and make the presentation.  The professor should also have all the episodes of the series in the class to lend just in case the group cannot attain the series to be presented.  The episodes of the series should be split up and each student should present something different.  There should also be a question and answer session and a discussion concerning the anime that is presented.  The first week should be Miyazaki movies, Batman Gothlum Knight, and Animatrix since it would not be enough time for students to present.  These titles should not be presented and should give the presenters at least one week to see the series before presenting.  Following the first week, each anime series watched should have a presentation that should be set up in the first week of school.  The presentation should be considered extra credit and a way to inform the class of the major themes before watching the series or parts of it.  The papers are also diversified.

            The papers should not cover the same topic.  The papers should be at least 3 to 4 pages long and should be given at least a week to complete.  One paper should be a review which is presented.  Another should be a broad scope paper covering several titles either shown in class or not.  The third paper should be a compare and contrast paper where students compare and contrast two similar anime titles either covered in class or not.  The final paper should be a museum review paper where the student critiques a few pieces of art and how they compare with anime at large.  There should also be discussion board questions online which should be short reviews or thoughts on the animes watched each day.

            Anime is a growing popular phenomenon across the globe.  The course should be split in half as shonnen and shojo sections.  Each anime seen should have a presenter of two students for extra credit.  The presentation should be a way for students to understand the story and theme better than just seeing the first few episodes.  There should be 3 paper assignments and 1 museum visit during the course.  There also should be a discussion board where the students post their thoughts and opinions about the anime seen each day.  In order to get most exposure to anime, one needs to watch as much anime as possible.