Explosive Adolescence

Adolescence is a time of life that generates significant thought, writing, consternation, and celebration depending upon the topic being considered.  We have alternately considered it as a time of “storm and stress” and a time that fosters the creation and continuance of subculture groups meant to stretch, challenge, and redefine mainstream, majority culture.  This week, adolescence is presented to us as a time of explosive change, both in the physical appearance of the body and the power structures of society as experienced by the young people to whom this label is applied.  Without question, the anime that was featured this week – both in written critique and the original films – portrays this explosiveness in a vibrant and convincing manner.

While Otomo Katsuhiro’s Akira viscerally portrays the body confusion and grotesqueness that Susan Napier argues it does (especially in the closing scenes when Tetsuo’s changing body not only becomes lost to him through the rapidity of changes, but does so is horrifying and explicit ways), it is her other assertion that adolescence is a time of exponential changes in youth power that is more compelling.  Tetsuo enters manhood as the film progresses, and while the storyline includes scenes of medical experimentation and physical manipulation, there is also a strong current of symbolic, less obvious physiological change as well.  Tetsuo is envious of the manlier Kaneda and covets his overt masculinity (often symbolized by Tetsuo’s pursuit of Kandea’s flashy red motorcycle).  As Tetsuo begins to realize his ever-increasing power – as he grows and matures, he relishes in his ability to lord it over not only his manlier friend, but also all male authority figures to the point where wanton death and destruction are perceived as his very entitlement.  In the end though, we as audience members seem to receive a warning from Akira that while adolescents begin to experience the power of the physical changes that accompany the ascension to adulthood, their experience of it can become explosively unrestrained in the confusion and heady excitement of this time of life.

In Ranma ½ and FLCL we see a more subtle form of explosive adolescence, but a more vivid representation of body confusion and the challenges posed to adolescents by unexpected and misunderstood changes to their physical form.  Ranma functions as a direct challenge to the notion of a straightforward and unquestioned progression from boy to grown man as he flits between adolescent boy and adolescent girl and the gender identities associated with each.  These explosive changes mirror the suddenness of physiological changes that teens and tweens experience (including first menstruation and erections, etc) and serve as metaphor for the struggle of gender and sexual identity formation in a lighter, more comical tone than Akira’s overt grotesqueness.  Without question, Ranma ½ features explosive changes and challenges to accepted power structures, but meets those changes where boy meets girl, instead of where boy meets man.

Where Akira and Ranma ½ (and Napier) present convincing arguments about the explosiveness of adolescence, FLCL captures the challenges of unexpected physical change, but presents a less convincing argument surrounding the cyborg-ness of contemporary human culture, as argued by Brian Ruh.  The character of Naota experiences several of the same moments of confusion or embarrassment as Ranma – including the unexpected “erections” that grow from his head and seem to not so subtly suggest virility – as he struggles to maintain a sense of wholeness in the face of the identity loss associated with adolescent maturation.  In this vein, Tsurumaki Kazuya presents a convincing argument in favor of explosive adolescence; and while Ruh presents convincing arguments surrounding youth and media culture, he seems to leave the reader doubting his assertion that “we have become cyborgs through the media…”  Adolescence is a time of many things – and while cyborgs may not be one of them – Japanese anime has clearly shown it to be one of explosive change.