Maturity in children’s animation

Towards better understanding

As promsied, here’s a spoiler-free look at why you should, if you haven’t yet, watch Avatar: The Last Airbender! But before I go on, I want to briefly identify the type of maturity found in children’s animations like Avatar, Dennou Coil and Tweeny Witches that make these stories so endearing for all ages. Arguably, children’s story is at its most mature when its honest expression of moral standpoint succeeds in moving even the most pessimistic viewers (and I wholeheartly agree). What I want to look at is the different tye of “maturity” found in children’s animation, which may differ from how others may define maturity in storytelling. The below is what I observed from Avatar.

1. We are at first confronted by a moral conflict, which is more grounded in reality than what is usually depicted from a story intended for children. In Avatar for example, you would normally expect clear division between good and evil (Fire Nation vs the world), where your heroes eventually eliminate all destructive threats in the name of justice. Instead, Avatar shows that everyone, including people from “good team” and “bad team”, are capable of both good and evil, and we as people are separated only by our ways of discriminating people without any attempt at understanding each other (Gonzalez Inarritu’s Babel anyone?).

Introducing an obscure Korean animation, My Beautiful Girl Mari (마리 이야기)

To get over my denial of Kim Yu-na’s demise at the hands (or feets) of her arch nemesis friendly rival yesterday, I thought I’d introduce an esoteric Korean animation directed by Lee Sung-Gang, My Beautiful Girl Mari. Here is my short summary of the film before we go on:

It has been years since Nam-woo and his childhood friend Jun-ho met together. During their conversation of good old times, Jun-ho gives Nam-woo a small marble, their childhood memento. Looking at it, Nam-woo is transported to the memories of his childhood, of his school, of his days with his mother and Nam-woo. And of that wonderful girl Mari and wonderful land of fantasy.

Typical dinner scene; drinking Soju, sizzling Korean BBQ with rice and free side dishes