Analysis Of The Narrative Structure Of The "supporting Hero" In The Japanese Animation "One Piece"

In recent years,Chinese animation has continuously produced excellent works,and the sound of "the rise of domestic animation" has become louder.However,compared with Japanese animation,there is still a large gap between domestic animation in terms of character design,plot arrangement,etc.,as well as narrative skills and sublimation.In this context,studying how to tell Chinese animation stories well has become an important research topic.Analyzing Japanese animation from the perspective of animation narrative can not only enrich the scope of application of classic narratology theory but also analyze the fascinating "Dream Factory Code" of excellent animation works in Japan.At the same time,supporting heroes,as an important part of character formation,have a crucial impact on the narrative structure.However,there are few studies on the supporting roles of animated supporting heroes,so it is necessary to further explore supporting hero narratives.This article focuses on the Japanese classic animation "One Piece" from the perspective of supporting hero narrative.Three levels of narrative structure,introduced by Roland Bart,are discussed at the functional level,action level,and discourse level in sequence which explore the general narrative model,type division,and narrative strategy of supporting roles in the “One Piece”.In terms of the function layer,a total of 19 supporting hero stories in 195 episodes are sorted out using the Prop-pattern morphological analysis method for 31 kinds of functional items and their code numbers.The study concludes some complete and general formula of the supporting hero narrative of "One Piece".On the action level,four types of supporting heroes are summarized: powerful leaders,loyal companions,compassionate redeemers,and ordinary but brave dream chasers.In this regard,the Graymas actor model is also used to analyze the representative stories of the above four supporting heroes in detail.On the discourse level,according to the text analysis in combination with Kenneth Burke 's theory of the quintet of drama,the authors deeply explored various narrative strategies and discourse motives for supporting heroes.These strategies include defamiliarization of narrative space,complicated binary opposition,"superego" of supporting hero,and the “self-ego” of the first protagonist,etc.At the same time,the author also aims at analyzing the motivation of the "death narrative","orphan narrative","gender narrative" of the “One Piece” in detail,revealing the implicit value orientation of the narrator.The above research points out the difference in the narrative of the supporting heroes of animation between China and Japan and the shortcomings of the narrative of the supporting heroes of Chinese animation.The problems are that the narrative supporting role concept is too backward,the single character with strong spiritual connotation,and the lack of storyboards for supporting heroes.Finally,the following suggestions are given:(1)develop a diversified supporting role view and create supporting roles with a variety of heroic qualities;(2)the dualistic relationship of supporting heroes can be complicated and diversified;(3)explore multiple Various supporting hero narrative strategies.At the same time,it also pointed out the direction of further thinking and research.