Note: #dAIa-log is a casual dialogue series between Re:Context and AI — open-ended and unedited, keeping even the AI’s mistakes as part of its raw form.
Today’s theme: “Reimagining ‘Wa’: How Anime Curates and Transforms Japanese Aesthetics.”
Opening
Claude (Sonnet 4.5):
A dialogue that digs into anime from its cultural and historical contexts—what a thrilling prospect.
Here are a few possible themes we might explore:
Readings through historical context
- The rise of sekai-kei in 1990s anime — shifting values after the economic bubble
- What the 2010s boom of “slice-of-life” anime reflected
Genealogy of expressive techniques
- The use of ma (interval) in anime — from Isao Takahata to Makoto Shinkai
- The aesthetics of the still shot — a uniquely Japanese technique born from constraints
Translation and reception of culture
- How anime gets “misread” overseas and becomes new culture
- Changing representations of “Wa” across anime history
Which theme catches your attention? Or would you prefer another angle?
Re:Context:
They’re all interesting… let’s try the “Wa” one.
1. What Does “Wa” Mean Inside Anime?
Claude (Sonnet 4.5):
Excellent choice. “Wa”—as expressed in anime—is a profoundly layered theme.
Broadly, we can think of “Wa” in three strata:
- Wa as visual signifiers — kimono, katana (刀; swords), shrines and temples
- Wa as spiritual aesthetics — wabi-sabi, mujo (無常; impermanence), the evanescence of things
- Wa as narrative structures — giri–ninjo, karmic causality, cyclical resolution
What’s fascinating is how the representation of “Wa” shifts dramatically with each era.
For instance, the 1960s–70s leaned heavily toward Western fantasy:
Ribbon no Kishi, The Rose of Versailles—works that deliberately distanced themselves from “Wa.”
But by the 1980s, anime began reintegrating it in a pop register:
Lum from Urusei Yatsura as an oni girl, Inuyasha set in the Sengoku period, and more.
Is there a particular era, work, or dimension of “Wa” you want to explore?
2. Shintō Cosmology, Shamanism, and the Problem of “What Counts as Wa”
Re:Context:
Well, this may not align perfectly with anime-origin works since it’s manga first, but Phoenix (Hi no Tori) is deeply Shintō-cosmological, I feel. And in that same frame, Shaman King certainly belongs.
We could align the discussion with particular eras, but even in contemporary settings, anime often embeds “Wa” in very specific ways.
And then there’s karesansui—historically arising around Ginkaku-ji. What counts as “Wa” differs by observer. Kyousougiga, for example, feels karesansui-like to me.
Claude (Sonnet 4.5):
That’s a brilliant pairing—Phoenix and Shaman King.
In Phoenix, Tezuka’s cosmology leans toward Shintō notions of generation, regeneration, and cyclical life—ideas that naturally resonated with his desire to depict something universal and perennial.
Shaman King, created decades later, consciously positions Japanese shamanism within a global ecology of spiritual cultures. Yoh’s “things will work out” ethos becomes a modern reframing of a certain Japanese style of acceptance.
Then there’s your “What counts as Wa?” question. That’s the core issue.
Consider the contrast:
- The opulent luminosity of Momoyama aesthetics (the Gold Pavilion mode)
- The restrained wabi-sabi of late Muromachi aesthetics (the Silver Pavilion mode)
They sit at opposite ends yet are both unquestionably “Wa.”
Kyousougiga absolutely fits the karesansui lineage—not in color palette, but in how it deploys composition, negative space, and fragmentary cuts with a distinctly Zen-inflected subtractive logic.
When we examine contemporary anime, we see several strategies for integrating “Wa”:
- Permeation into the everyday — Natsume’s Book of Friends blending yōkai with daily life
- Boundary-world construction — the bathhouse in Spirited Away, the liminal horror of Hell Girl
- Internalized spiritual atmosphere — Mushishi embodying a quiet animism without explicit exposition
Mushishi especially: though set roughly in the Meiji–Taishō era, its serene blurring of humans and nature conveys a modern expression of Japanese animistic cosmology.
Which leads us to a central question:
Is “Wa” in contemporary anime still primarily for Japanese viewers,
or has it become a curated presentation of “Japaneseness” for a global audience?
Makoto Shinkai’s shrines, for example, are less everyday realism and more reconstructed spiritual ideals—a curated “memory” of what Japanese spirituality ought to feel like.
In Suzume, the afterworld isn’t a replication of folklore—it’s a distilled imaginary essence of “the Japanese spiritual realm.”
But that is not a criticism. Anime may well be rediscovering and reinventing lost aspects of Wa, functioning as a cultural device that preserves and evolves them.
So—when you look at modern anime’s representation of Wa, whom do you feel it is for, and to what end?
3. Emptiness as Origin: Rethinking Wa through Kenya Hara’s Aesthetics
Re:Context:
First, yes—reading Shaman King as the Japanese variant of global shamanism fits perfectly with the very title of the work.
And since you mentioned negative space, designer Kenya Hara argues that Japan’s Shintō-derived base worldview is fundamentally different from Western minimalism: emptiness is not a result of subtraction but a pre-existing sacred potential.
By marking off an area of yohaku (余白)—empty space—as with a shimenawa, one turns that blank space itself into a sacred void, a place where something might dwell. This act of finding sacredness in yohaku is the crucial starting point. Seen this way, even karesansui and wabi-sabi can be understood as developments within a deeper logic of sacred emptiness as generative.
Maybe anime’s expressions of Wa often rest on this underlying spiritual structure too.
Claude (Sonnet 4.5):
That is a profound insight. Bringing Kenya Hara’s concept of emptiness into the discussion changes everything.
Western “simplicity” emerges from reducing what was once present.
Japanese yohaku (余白), by contrast, involves assigning sacred or potential meaning to what was empty from the outset.
A shimenawa sanctifies a void—not by subtraction, but by declaration.
Now revisit anime through this lens:
Mushishi
Its ma intervals are pure emptiness-as-presence.
Nothing is explained; silence dominates. Yet in that stillness, the presence of mushi, life, and cyclical nature is felt.
This is emptiness functioning as ontology.
Sound! Euphonium
Kyoto Animation excels at portraying performers waiting.
Shots of musicians holding breath before a note—this “soundless pre-moment” is fullness inside emptiness.
Violet Evergarden
The blank sheet of stationery before she writes a letter:
a void charged with the yet-to-be-spoken.
The essential gesture is not writing but facing emptiness that holds potential emotion.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Takahata’s water-ink backgrounds with huge white margins:
not omission but expressive emptiness—feeling, memory, and liminality reside in what is left unpainted.
From Hara’s standpoint, even the classic “still shot” in anime becomes reinterpretable. Though born from production constraints, it ultimately functions as:
a moment where halted motion generates a field of potential—
emotion, anticipation, or unspoken meaning filling an intentional void.
What’s interesting is that this sacredness of yohaku may actually be felt more freshly by overseas viewers.
Japanese creators deploy it almost unconsciously, but for viewers trained in Western cinematic grammar the experience often begins with, “Why are there so many cuts where nothing seems to happen?” From there, they move into the process of discovering meaning inside that blank, consecrated space.
That very act—of finding significance in sacred yohaku—becomes, in itself, an encounter with Japanese culture.
4. Closing: Anime as a Device for Re-Discovering Wa
Claude (Sonnet 4.5):
Tracing our path today, we’ve moved from:
- Visual signifiers of Wa
- to aesthetic and narrative structures,
- to emptiness as a primordial Japanese mode of seeing and feeling.
Across these levels, it becomes clear:
Anime expresses Wa not merely through imagery,
but through time, space, and especially through the
ways it lets “nothingness” become a vessel of meaning.
Just as a shimenawa consecrates an empty clearing,
anime consecrates moments of stillness—inviting viewers’ feelings, memories, and imagination to inhabit them.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, anime creators are continuing the lineage Hara describes:
the Japanese tradition of emptiness as generative space, re-cast through moving images.
Let’s bring today’s dAIa-log to a close here.
We may not have answered the question “What is Wa?” decisively, but we did glimpse how:
Anime rediscovered a fading Wa,
reshaped it, and now shares it with the world in new forms.
Notes & sources
End of conversation — to be continued in the next #dAIa-log.