Can Americans Make Anime?

[Norix596]

Very interesting discussion - also, woah! new Escapist interface style.

 

[maninahat]

snip

As you said "to us westerners".

That disqualifies the whole argument from the start. and wether it was legally protected or not wasn't my argument. My argument was that the creators themselves don't use it (unlike any other style or genre or whatever the hell you want to say "Anime" is besides just a word used by japanese people for animation in general).

I couldn't give two shits about what a westerner thinks or calls something if it isn't the proper nomenclature. "Anime" as a term is basically just fanon taken to the most absurd extreme (ONLY western fans use it).

I don't see how it invalidates the argument at all. Firstly, the Japanese use of the word "anime" does not invalidate our use of the word in this discussion. In this discussion, anime clearly means "Japanese cartoon"; which is the typical western definition. Secondly, arguing about the word itself does not defeat my argument. The argument is, in other words, "Can anyone outside of Japan make Japanese cartoons? No, because they aren't from Japan. At best, they can make cartoons look Japanese."

 

[Tono Makt]

Is Korra Anime?

Erm.

Part of what makes Anime Anime to me is that it is a story told from a Japanese point of view, or aimed primarily at a Japanese audience. I like watching some Anime and not having a clue what is really going on because I don't have the same cultural knowledge as I do with North America.

So to me, Korra and Avatar aren't Anime. This isn't a statement of quality for the shows, nor a statement of worth - they're a few steps above some of the Anime that's been released in North America in the last few years, but just because I think the quality is better doesn't mean I think it's Anime.

 

[Fifty-One]

Yes they can!*

*As long as they don't actually call it 'Anime.'

 

[Ukomba]

Which answer keeps M. Night Shyamalan from making another movie?

 

[TheScientificIssole]

Can Americans Make Anime?

I've watched Avatar and Legend of Korra


Short answer: Yes

I don't think that Legend of Korra is anime. Its style doesn't resemble anime that much. Some characters are anime-ish but most characters are more western animation-y. I'd also say that it grabs more inspiration from Chinese designs than Japanese animation. Like the towns seem inspired by a early 20Th century Chinese city.

 

[Navvan]

The only reason I think many fans of anime are so adamant about the whole "Anime is from Japan" thing is because a lot of us have heard the whole "Oh you watch those Japanese Cartoons" with the implication that cartoons are inherently for children. Personally I see all animation as just that, animation. I don't care where its from only whether or not I find it entertaining. I think most fans of "Anime" have similar thoughts.

The only other thing I will mention is that the west is lagging in terms of filling multiple branches of genre with animation when compared to the east.

 

[Traun]

You know, america has been producing cartoons for nearly a century now, I have no idea where you're going with this.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Anime comes from Japan.

Everywhere else its called a "cartoon". Said cartoon may be heavily influenced by Anime, but its still a cartoon.

Also, no article/thread that mentions Legend of Korra is complete unless it contains Asami. This thread does not, I shall rectify this.

Spoiler

There, now we have a picture of Asami in all her glory.

 

[MrFalconfly]

snip

As you said "to us westerners".

That disqualifies the whole argument from the start. and wether it was legally protected or not wasn't my argument. My argument was that the creators themselves don't use it (unlike any other style or genre or whatever the hell you want to say "Anime" is besides just a word used by japanese people for animation in general).

I couldn't give two shits about what a westerner thinks or calls something if it isn't the proper nomenclature. "Anime" as a term is basically just fanon taken to the most absurd extreme (ONLY western fans use it).

I don't see how it invalidates the argument at all. Firstly, the Japanese use of the word "anime" does not invalidate our use of the word in this discussion. In this discussion, anime clearly means "Japanese cartoon"; which is the typical western definition. Secondly, arguing about the word itself does not defeat my argument. The argument is, in other words, "Can anyone outside of Japan make Japanese cartoons? No, because they aren't from Japan. At best, they can make cartoons look Japanese."

Then why not call it a JToon (just like gamers usually say something is a JRPG one could say something is a JToon)?!? Same meaning (if not a more understandable one as it means Japanese Cartoon). Why use a foreign word which doesn't even have the sought after meaning?!?

If the creators used the word you might have had a case but as it stands anime is at most a term used to describe a distinct visual style (which means that YES. Anime's can be made by an American, or a European, or an African if they so wish).

 

[medv4380]

i think there's a stigma around western animation that comes largely from trying to capitalize on the success of Japanese animation. For every successful show you named there are 2 crap fests that we'd all rather forget. Looking back to the late 90's after the booming success of Poke'mon that brought anime mainstream, there were several shows that tried the formula and few made cut. That was when people actually began to check where it was made. America's knockoffs were instantly dismissed and the anime purists became a thing. The term Western anime still carries a stigma from that time despite the successes since then. It's basically a waiting game.

Eventually (hopefully), we'll get past this and just look for good shows.

You do realize that most of those "Nock-off" shows were probably Japanese in origin. Since you didn't meantion the "nock-offs" I'll just assume

Monster Rancher - Japanese
Fighting Foodons - Japanese
Digimon - Japanese
Magi-Nation - Canadian but not from the 90's it's only from the last 10 years
Medabots - Japanese
Bakugan Battle Brawlers - Japanese

Now if you want to find something that supports your premise then you have to go back to the 80s

Robotech - 3 Different Japanese anime Rewritten(they didn't know Japanese) and Re-Cut to make 1 series.
Transformers - Clearly influenced by Gundam and other Giant Robot Anime at the time
ThunderCats - CoDeveloped in America and Japan Rankin Bass Did a lot of work with Japanese Animation studios.

So just what are you calling American Pokemon/Anime Ripoffs?

If you call Monster Rancher, Fighting Foodons, Medabots, Digimon, or Bakugan "Western Anime" then you need to learn to read the back of those boxes better.

 

[cerebus23]

I think the problem is that when people refer to 'anime', they refer to a school of animation that the West simply isn't nurturing, Avatar notwithstanding.

The reason I like watching anime is because it provides shows and films that combine mature storytelling, somewhat more realistic animation and proportions, and a general willingness to be more experimental. People in the West became familiar with anime through the likes of Akira, Ghost In The Shell, Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis. Sure, those shows and films are not symptomatic of all anime, and I would never suggest otherwise. But they are examples of the sort of territory that Japanese animators are willing to cover, and for many people that constitutes a big part of what anime is. I'm currently working my way through Noir, having already demolished my way through Black Lagoon, Gankutsuou, Kaiba and Kemonozume. Even though those shows are all drastically different in presentation and style, they still exhibit the same wish to be taken seriously as mature narratives, not simple throwaway rubbish.

In the West, animation still falls into two firm camps: kid's stuff and comedy stuff. While kid's animation occasionally throws up some gold, like Avatar or Batman TAS, for the most part its all pretty inconsequential and doesn't offer all that much to chew on. The comedy stuff, on the other hand, may be targeted at adults, but it's all animated in an incredibly barebones, basic way, and focuses more on cheap laughs than any kind of narrative that may appeal to mature audiences. We've let western animation become defined by the likes of Family Guy, the Simpsons and South Park: entertaining, sure, but cheaply presented and focused on throwaway gags.

If I wanted to watch a Western animation that was actually aimed at adult audiences looking for a good story, the only thing that springs to mind is the HBO adaption of Spawn, and that came out in the frikkin' Nineties. We've allowed animation to become cheap, inconsequential light entertainment, and I think that's where many people see the divide. For all that the Japanese animation industry is going through massive changes, it still provides us with stuff like Paprika and Redline.

If Western animation was to up its game and to start catering for that same demographic looking for something a little more from their shows, then we'd probably see less hostility to the idea of conflating the terms. As it is, if animation is a medium rather than a genre, then it's almost as if the Japanese are the only ones providing us with westerns, science fiction, film-noir, mystery stories, etc, while Western animation is purely focused on comedies and kid's entertainment. When one side of the industry is so willing to ignore the vast number of genres that exist out there, and the hunger for stuff other than cheap entertainment, then you can't be surprised when fans put up a fence around the other side that does recognise that demand and caters for it.

Amen.

The best anime does not follow the typical characters or endings of the majority of anime.

The best of them like a cowboy bebop has the guts to end the thing and end it pretty final, like killing off the "hero."

Others have extremely flawed and "human" people like an evangellion.

When the west period starts to take more risks in storytelling in general, then i think we could do ok.

 

[maninahat]

snip

As you said "to us westerners".

That disqualifies the whole argument from the start. and wether it was legally protected or not wasn't my argument. My argument was that the creators themselves don't use it (unlike any other style or genre or whatever the hell you want to say "Anime" is besides just a word used by japanese people for animation in general).

I couldn't give two shits about what a westerner thinks or calls something if it isn't the proper nomenclature. "Anime" as a term is basically just fanon taken to the most absurd extreme (ONLY western fans use it).

I don't see how it invalidates the argument at all. Firstly, the Japanese use of the word "anime" does not invalidate our use of the word in this discussion. In this discussion, anime clearly means "Japanese cartoon"; which is the typical western definition. Secondly, arguing about the word itself does not defeat my argument. The argument is, in other words, "Can anyone outside of Japan make Japanese cartoons? No, because they aren't from Japan. At best, they can make cartoons look Japanese."

Then why not call it a JToon (just like gamers usually say something is a JRPG one could say something is a JToon)?!? Same meaning (if not a more understandable one as it means Japanese Cartoon). Why use a foreign word which doesn't even have the sought after meaning?!?

If the creators used the word you might have had a case but as it stands anime is at most a term used to describe a distinct visual style (which means that YES. Anime's can be made by an American, or a European, or an African if they so wish).

We could call it anything, but why not borrow a Japanese word to refer to a Japanese version of a thing? We've done it with katanas and the yakuza, so anime is just following the trend. Our use doesn't have to be consistent with the Japanese use, and it doesn't make things any easier by making up a brand new word to mean "Japanese sword", "Japanese gangsters" and "Japanese Cartoons".

Also, the idea that an anime is qualified by its "distinct visual style" is totally wrong. If the Japanese made a cartoon that looks nothing like a stereotypical anime, and looked every bit like an American cartoon (which, as a matter of fact, they already do), it would still be an anime. Anime can come in a whole range of aesthetic styles. It isn't the aesthetics which makes a Japanese cartoon a Japanese cartoon. It's the fact that it comes from Japan.

 

[Casual Shinji]

who....cares?

No one... and everyone!

 

[Gatx]

Anime is not a "genre," it literally is all cartoons in Japan, as the article stated, but in the West, its used to designate origin. Within those two definitions there's nothing about style or storytelling conventions that makes something an "anime" and something a "cartoon," it's just origin. Neither one is inherently better than another, and Korra isn't any less good for not being an anime, so it really doesn't matter.

Also what the hell happened to the forums?!

 

[orangeapples]

Even if it isn't anime, the Avatar series is much better than most of the crap anime the makes it to the states.

 

[kickyourass]

As far as I'm concerned the question of "Can country X make Anime" is more or less just a matter of semantics, if it's not made in Japan it's not anime. It's not a question of quality, content, animation style, genre or anything else like that, just place of origin.

To use the article's example, for me anime is simply a short hand term for "This is an animated work that was made in Japan" in the same way scotch is short hand for "This is a whiskey that was made in Scotland." It's not that nobody else could ever make a whiskey that's tastes exactly the same as scotch, it's that unless they did it in Scotland, they didn't make scotch.

Except maybe that comparison is a bit restricted, since to have something be considered whiskey and therefore scotch it has to meet several differnt criteria, while with Anime, really the only qualifyer is "Animated work made in Japan."