The multimedia item I chose is an anime clip that depicts Gilgamesh similarly and differently from the Gilgamesh from the centuries old epic. The anime was created in Japan and the epic was written in ancient Mesopotamia. The new depiction of Gilgamesh shows the influence the epic has on our current time. In the epic, Gilgamesh is described as almost godly and "when the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body. Shamash the glorious sun endowed him with beauty, Adad the god of the storm endowed him with courage ..." (Sanders, 3). In the anime, Gilgamesh is shown as an arrogant, all powerful hero resurrected to fight a holy war. Although, characters types like Gilgamesh are common in other epics they also show how much we love characters that are heroic, brave, and powerful. Across the world we constantly hear stories such as; The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad and the Odyssey, and Beowulf. But we are still not tired of retelling these stories. In the One Thousand and One Nights, similarities can be drawn between Gilgamesh and one of the stories in One Thousand and One Nights, the story of Buluqiya. This quote from Gilgamesh in the Arabian Nights, "the Akkadian and Arabic stories can be compared in outline for similarities as follows. A king leaves his country and travels far abroad with one faithful companion, searching for immortality. As a result of bravery in a heroic but sacrilegious feat, the faithful companion dies ..." draws the similarities in the plots between the two stories (Dalley). We are attracted to characters that can constantly defy all odds and this shows the cultural significance of the “epic” character. The anime Fate/Zero proves exactly that when they feature Gilgamesh in their plot. Gilgamesh being featured in this anime means a lot to me because the idea of Gilgamesh will somehow stay alive. My fellow students can learn a lot from this clip by seeing the characterization of Gilgamesh. He still holds true to the Gilgamesh of the epic by still being arrogant and powerful. Ultimately; the Epic of Gilgamesh withstands time by having a character archetype that people find culturally significant.


Citations
Dalley, Stephanie. “Gilgamesh in the Arabian Nights.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 1991, pp. 1–17. www.jstor.org/stable/25182268.