Anime Thread

[Viking]

No this is not just to piss of siegy.

Now, living in a world full of anime hate I'm still a bit confused as to what anime is. Being a japanese speaker I realize that anime is just an english bastardization of the japanese bastardization of the english word "animation". However, anime is actually a thing, not just a social construct.

Two recent western-japanese cross overs have helped me come to some sort of realization of what anime is. Those are

Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher and Avatar: The Last Airbender. The former being a culturally insensitive anime version of a western story and the latter being a culturally sensitive western version of an eastern story.

The Anime Avengers film reminded me of a comment from some youtube video I watched a long time ago. That video claimed that the main difference between anime and western animation was in anime the focus was on action and in western animation the focus was on character interactions. By focus they meant animator time. This could most easily be seen by how many different facial expressions were used by characters and how many different mouth shapes were used for the characters while talking.

The reason these two properties explained this to me was because in Avengers Anime virtually no effort is spent on animating the conversations, while in ATLA great effort was spent on both the character interactions AND the action - giving the best of both worlds.

[Monoriu]

My understanding is that anime is simply animation produced in Japan.  Or in Japanese style. 

I think even within Japan, there are a great many different styles.  It is difficult to compare western and Japanese styles, because "Japanese style" isn't very clearly defined. 

I disagree with the generalisation that anime focuses on action while western animation focuses on character interactions.  There are tons of anime with lots of character interactions but little action.  Clannad, Air, Anohana, and I'd argue even Madoka Magica focus on characeter interaction at the expense of action.  I'd like to know the basis for making this claim. 

[Grey Fox]

Crazy Stories involving very young looking characters. It always a coming of age story.

Schoolgirls.

[Viking]

I disagree with the generalisation that anime focuses on action while western animation focuses on character interactions.  There are tons of anime with lots of character interactions but little action.  Clannad, Air, Anohana, and I'd argue even Madoka Magica focus on characeter interaction at the expense of action.  I'd like to know the basis for making this claim.

In terms of story telling Anime uses Japanese and east asian tropes and cultural assumptions to tell a story while western animation uses western tropes and assumptions. The different focus on interaction and action is where animation time and effort is spent. How many images per second are used to animate lips moving and that kind of stuff.

[The Brain]

Anime is horrible. That's an important point I think.

[Monoriu]

Crazy Stories involving very young looking characters. It always a coming of age story.

Schoolgirls.

"Crazy story" is the selling point

But yeah, the young protagonists thing bothers me a bit too.  Not every anime show features teenagers or children as the main characters, but a great many do.  I don't know why, but my guess is that the target audience of the shows are teenagers or young adults.  And the absurdly powerful student councils too.  Anime shows tend to describe the presidents of the student councils has having authority over teachers or school principals, and can fire teachers at will. 

[Josquius]

Yeah, main target audience is teenage boys with a splash over audience of people with mega rose tinted specs who misremember high school as a care free time.

I totally disagree that western animation focuses on characters and anime action. It's completely the opposite

The avengers anime is a pre high school  age kids anime. It of course goes for action as that's what they liked about the movie. And life in general

[Monoriu]

I disagree with the generalisation that anime focuses on action while western animation focuses on character interactions.  There are tons of anime with lots of character interactions but little action.  Clannad, Air, Anohana, and I'd argue even Madoka Magica focus on characeter interaction at the expense of action.  I'd like to know the basis for making this claim.

In terms of story telling Anime uses Japanese and east asian tropes and cultural assumptions to tell a story while western animation uses western tropes and assumptions. The different focus on interaction and action is where animation time and effort is spent. How many images per second are used to animate lips moving and that kind of stuff.

It actually takes a lot of "getting used to", even for an East Asian like me.  Japanese seem to make a big deal out of the sacred "first kiss", a lot more so than other cultures.  That bugged me for a while too, but now I am used to it. 

I am not sure about the budget aspects.  I mean, regardless of whether it is Japanese or western animation, the action scenes must be a lot more expensive to produce compared to others. 

I am watching the Ghost in the Shell anime series, and it strikes me that the style is almost like a cross-over of Japanese and western animation.  The characters are all adults.  The characters (most of them cyborgs to different degrees) are realistically drawn and they avoid the huge eyes, tiny noses and mouths design of most anime girls. 

[Monoriu]

One more thing that bugs me a bit - incest subtext.  For reasons unknown to me, quite a number of anime shows feature a little sister who is in love with her big brother.  Now, these shows never go beyond affection.  Mainstream, non-hentai anime won't show anything physical.  But I don't know why this theme is so popular.  Maybe it is the "forbidden love" aspect that they find so appealing.  Me, I am now somewhat used to it so I view most of these relationships as comedy more than anything.  My biggest concern is that it drives non-Japanese fans away.