Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em – This Week in Anime

Steve


Why not? Or rather, what have I got to lose? It’s a topic I’m already on the record defending in a Call of the Night review. And my Twitter/Bluesky avatar for the past 2.5 years has been a screenshot of Anko smoking from that same episode, so I suppose it’s about time I put my cartoon cigarette where my mouth is.

As you already alluded, there’s an important division to observe between fiction and reality here, and that’s a division that both cartoonists and the tobacco industry haven’t always observed. To get the history lesson out of the way first, in the US, you could legally use animation to advertise tobacco until the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement was reached in 1998. That’s not that long ago!

There are layers of nuance here in what constitutes depiction versus endorsement, but I think we can all agree to draw the line at, say, a Flintstones commercial for Winston Cigarettes.

I just want to preface with a bit of context because I know there are plenty of readers out there younger than you or me who might not even remember that restaurants used to have separate smoking and non-smoking sections. A lot has changed in the past 25 years! And of course, this doesn’t track one-to-one with the tobacco situation in Japan, the land of anime. But it does, for instance, impact many people’s earliest anime memories.

And beyond censorship, as far as modern media is concerned, I tend to associate the relative lack of smoking with the broader trend of sanding down the rougher edges of art for the masses. Like, fewer people smoking in the real world is an objective good. But fiction shouldn’t have to play by the same rules, especially when it can achieve results like your Royal Tenenbaums example.

Conveniently, there’s a perfect example of the power of a well-placed cigarette airing right now in the form of Kowloon Generic Romance.

Kowloon is a slam dunk in terms of justifying the amount of tobacco used per episode—assuming that it needs to be justified in the first place. Smoking is a shared activity between the two leads. It’s a connection between Reiko’s current and past selves. It’s a fundamentally intimate and erotic act that enhances the romantic angle. And it looks cool and classic in a way that jives with the theme of nostalgia.

It’s also an appropriate aesthetic homage to the films of Wong Kar-wai, whose Hong Kong romances influenced Kowloon‘s mood and setting.

You can see why it had so much staying power in society! I thankfully never developed a habit myself, but in college, I’d occasionally smoke while out drinking with friends. It was nice to have a little routine that got you outside in the not-so-fresh air away from the hubbub of a party.

I brought this up in my Call of the Night review, but in the right hands, you can’t deny the cinematic potential of smoking. Visually, it just makes a scene more interesting. The character is doing something with their hands. The wisps of smoke can frame a scene or draw attention to something else. There’s symbolic potential. The glow of the embers can become a focal point or even a light source. Anko’s introduction was a great example of all of that.

Everything in Redline is drawn like it’s the coolest shit ever put to film—and it is.

We can’t talk about Takeshi Koike and tobacco without bringing up his take on Lupin the Third‘s characters.

Can you imagine watching The Woman Called Fujiko Mine if nobody smoked? It just wouldn’t feel right. This is the criminal underworld. Bad guys. Good guys. In between guys. Everyone is lighting up.

Sadly, not a whole lot of bong ripping competition in the animesphere, but maybe that’ll pick up as weed becomes more normalized globally.

I’d also be remiss not to mention Sayo Yamamoto, who has never shied away from depicting adults and their vices. In addition to Fujiko Mine, here’s a scene from Michiko & Hatchin that features someone rolling their cig—another relative rarity in this department.

This is also a completely wordless exchange, but just by sharing a smoke, Michiko and this gentleman kick off their relationship in this episode. That’s efficient, nicotine-enhanced storytelling.

Smoking is a twisted rite of passage into adulthood for many, and FLCL capitalizes on the fundamental irony of a destructive habit being perceived as “mature.”

Along those lines, I like how Chainsaw Man uses Himeno’s cigarette as a symbol for Aki grieving and taking up her mantle against her wishes, for better or worse.

We’ve proven we can wax poetic for days on the artistic merits of tobacco use in fiction, so I think we’ve earned the right to run through some characters and situations that appeal to our lizard brain. And personally, when I think of an anime character who smokes, my brain immediately jumps to Revy and Black Lagoon‘s overall impeccable action movie fetishism.

This moment in particular is one of the hottest things ever. Arguably more intimate than a kiss.

Solid choices! On my end, her being a huge substance-abusing mess is also a big part of why I love Saint-Juste from Dear Brother.

Especially when she becomes a bad influence on Nanako, resulting in one of the show’s most iconic scenes (if you ask me, anyway).

Also, on a purely aesthetic level, the sight of a talking revolver with a cigarette dangling out of its metal chompers was a big part of No Guns Life‘s appeal throughout its run.

Since I’m in the middle of playing it, I want to shout out Beatrice from Umineko, too. I love that she has one of those long, old-fashioned pipes, befitting of the Golden Witch.

And I guess we shouldn’t just limit ourselves to anime, either. One of the more recent manga to catch my eye has been Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You, a romcom that’s pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. But it makes the simple premise work surprisingly well.

Premise being: imagine a girl in a leather jacket sharing her cigarette with you. And trust me, I am.

Things are a tad thornier when smoking is central to the premise of a work! I believe there have to be allowances for fiction, but it also can feel dishonest when something focuses solely on the social and aesthetic benefits of smoking without really touching upon the severe health risks.

To that end, it’s only fair for me to bring up a vehemently anti-smoking example that also happens to be one of my favorite anime episodes of all time. And that’s the third episode of World Conquest Zvezda Plot.

I think it’s been getting better there as well. When I visited Japan in 2019, I pretty easily found my way into bars that still allowed smoking indoors. While everything Zvezda does is over-the-top (it is a fun and underrated series), you can tell this is coming from a very real place.

The episode even ends on a little nod to the classic vehicle for smoking censorship.

Exactly. I encourage everyone to share their favorite anime tobacco-likers in the comments, and to take care of your lungs in the real world. While I may idolize Anko and her girl Columbo swag, I’m more than okay swapping out the cigarettes for regular cardio.