Can Americans Make Anime?

[Frodowise]

Anime is effectively the same thing for Japanese animation as the term "Western Animation" is for Disney or Dreamworks animated productions. While the medium (anime itself) is Japanese by definition, the genres typically associated with anime (shonen fighting, slice-of-life, giant robot etc) are NOT exclusive to the medium, and nobody insists otherwise. Avatar is Korean animation with a western script done in a style reminiscent of Japanese animation, and thus can "merely" be called anime-esque. The issue is that we don't use the generic "Eastern Animation" to describe typical Anime productions because the major producer of the stuff Westerners see is Japan.

TLDR; Korra isn't anime, which is exclusive to Japan, but is instead "Eastern Animation", since it was animated using a Korean animation company.

 

[Tippy]

But hey, the French are getting it.

Whoa, that is French? What is it called?

 

[Tippy]

IMO this article is kind of all over the place in terms of where it's going in relation to the primary thesis. It's sort of confusing, because at the end it mentions that anime is not a genre (and it's not) but in itself contains sub-genres. Yet at the start we see the typical formula for a shonen action anime aimed at 14 year old boys:

Find the biggest bowl you own and inside of it, place one protagonist with powerful and unique abilities. Next, pour in an exceptionally talented team of supportive friends. Then, add a seemingly impervious villain who aims to remake the world according to his own warped ideals. Throw in a few dashes of strong themes like family, friendship, fear, and death, blend it all together with plenty of beautiful visuals and flawless voice acting.

These kind of shows are no doubt popular, but it's a great misconception I feel in the west that this encapsulates all of anime. What about K-ON!, Air, Kanon, Clannad? What about Monster? What about Haruhi which has no villain at all? Hyōka? Nichijou? There's too many, of course, to list.

Anime, to me, just means animation from Japan. It's all animation. Animation is a medium to me, Anime is animation from Japan. I consider, for example, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt to be an Anime despite the fact it looks like a Nickelodeon cartoon. Animation from America is "American Animation", from france is "French Animation"; it just so happens that Japanese Animation is the only one with a nerdcool, chic nickname.

The reason the term gained popularity is due to the proliferation of the medium in Japan. I would wager they have the largest animation industry in the world. We had the Simpsons, Family guy and Futurama all air on prime time. Those are, more or less, the three big cartoons in the west. In Japan you have a ton of new cartoons airing each year in prime time from a ton of talented studios. In the west we just don't have that.

Basically, what I'm getting at is it's just a cultural loanword that caught on and has taken on a meaning in western culture as "animation from Japan." This is not the first word to be borrowed in English and have it's meaning altered, and it won't be the last. Is this not okay? Why must Americans strive to fit in their animation to fit in common Japanese stylings? Even if it does, why does it need to be called "Anime"?

It's akin to asking "Can Americans make a Bollywood movie?" Well, was the movie made in Bollywood? If not, then no, you can't do it because that's what being a Bollywood movie is. Sure, you can have 3 acts and 6 songs in your movie. You can follow the Bollywood formula, hire Indian actors and even have the actors speak Hindu; but it still won't be a Bollywood movie even if it's indistinguishable from the real thing.

And really, isn't this okay?

Nope, it's not. I'll tell you why - desperately trying to categorize something that is indistinguishable is 100% pointless, because it defies the very purpose of having categories in the first place.

Animation is something anyone, anywhere is capable of doing. Regardless of what happened in history, we need to move on and recognize the fact that anime CAN be made anywhere, and CAN be made completely indistinguisable from the "original" stuff made in Japan. It renders the category pointless.

 

[Nurb]

But hey, the French are getting it.

Whoa, that is French? What is it called?

It's called "Wakfu" which started as "Dofus" as an MMO, then came Wakfu the MMO, and for two years Wakfu the TV series has been going.

You can get some infoo and peek at some episodes with subtitles here
http://brotherhoodoftofu.tumblr.com/

 

[Jkudo]

I'd just like to point out, that if you replace anime with jrpg you also just wrote an entire article about stupid jrp arguments. Just sayin...

 

[viranimus]

Yes, western animators are fully capable of creating endlessly regurgitated tropes centered around youth worship.

These ones that seem precluded from the party such as Avatar franchises... are actually much better off for not being anime. However, Korra, and its slightly colder reception than The last Airbender, is representative of the shift in view towards anime in the west. TLA started right in the middle of the last rise of Anime in the west. Since then anime is being rejected, and as such years later despite having all the same core elements of its predecessor, Korra does not generate nearly as much interest as TLA.

Simply put... Anime was a fad for western audiences. The fad has started to fade in popularity back to its Niche roots. Its not going to completely disappear. Its just going to crawl back into the dark hole from which it came from for a while.

 

[wings012]

My only experience with so called American anime is... Teen Titans pretty much. And they pretty much missed the point by inserting really annoying ass Puffy Ami Yumi songs, overly using whooshy backgrounds and using sweatdrops. All three which are fairly uncommon in modern anime, whooshy backgrounds falling out of use as animation progressed and sweatdrops being a really 90s thing. Insert songs still happen, but they tend to pick better songs.

Anyway to attempt to be 'anime' is completely missing the point since anime itself has no real definition. Genres? Anime is every genre, and arguably coined a few sub genres of its own - mecha, magical girls, deviant porn etc. In essence, it is simply a medium. You might as well try to be... a movie. There simply isn't an all encompassing definition for what anime is.

It does have some format conventions - shows tend to fall under 'seasons' of roughly 12-13 episodes, running for roughly this length or multiples of this length. There are still shows that fall outside this convention, and there are movies, OVAs and what have you.

I pretty much prefer to define anime as Japanese animation cause it just makes things simpler. It really shouldn't be some kind of all heralded title for people to reach for. Also anime fans are bloody retarded about things sometimes, I feel this just keeps shit cleaner.

Can American produce animated shows that reach/surpass the quality of the Japanese? I think the potential exists, but on a whole the Japanese has a huge headstart. Their animation industry is simply huge, farting out new shows quarterly with heaps of studios from the good, the bad to the ugly. We get original shows, but a huge bulk is manga adaptations - and well Japan has a stupidly competitive manga industry. Then we have their voice talents. None of their shows are limited so to speak - anything goes. Sure you usually think of big eyed schoolgirls, robots and tentacle porn but right now I'm watching a show about an engineer who lost his job and goes back to chasing his childhood dream of being an astronaut. And another about a guy wooing a woman older than him, except she's haunted by her dead husband that only he can see. Japanese animation pretty much targets just about every demographic on a whole.

Outside of Japan, well, the majority of it is aimed at children. There's this certain stigma that animated shows are for kids. And the few shows that aim outside of it as far as I know, are comedies - Simpsons, South Park etc. I haven't watched Korra, and have watched a bit of Avatar but while there are a few shows that do try to tell a big story - in terms of general output, Japan has the upper hand and will for a while yet.

When it comes to the silver screen though, I do believe Pixar blows them out of the water depending on what shows we are comparing together. But even then, Pixar is only one studio compared to... how many Japan has dumping how many shows to the silver screen yearly?


As for creating something indistinguishable from what Japan produces - well. It is because something is made somewhere that it gains a certain identity. I believe its possible, but at the current point - nobody fucking gets it. Slap some half arsed glittery eyes, sweatdrops, whooshy backgrounds and get a horrible band to play some horrible tunes. By 'trying to be anime', they become something that cannot be any more further away from it. It'll probably take more effort, figuring out their pipeline, manpower, budget, properly studying the countless styles they have etc. Following their format.

Bleh, losing track of my rant.

 

[JP Sheehan]

It isn't a medium.

Pretty much lost any point you might have had after saying that. It is a medium. Fact.

Animation is a medium.
Film is a medium.
Music is a medium.
Books are a medium.

Anime is not. It is simply animation from Japan. That's all it is.

 

[Weaver]

Animation is something anyone, anywhere is capable of doing. Regardless of what happened in history, we need to move on and recognize the fact that anime CAN be made anywhere, and CAN be made completely indistinguisable from the "original" stuff made in Japan. It renders the category pointless.

Animation is something anyone can do, yes. Anime, on the other hand, means it's from Japan, so it can't be made anywhere. That's what the word means. Also, I was creating a hypothetical situation. They aren't currently at the state when they're indistinguishable. Avatar, for example, is in English as one very obvious difference. Ignoring this, I simply don't agree with your premise that making things indistinguishable makes them authentic.

Rollex and Armani certainly care when duplicates of their watches and suits are made in China and are, quite frankly, just as good quality. For some reason, having "the real deal" to people matters. If Rolex doesn't make it it's not a Rolex, even if it says "Rolex" on it.

And, secondly, country of origin just seems to matter to people and, as it stands, Anime signifies country of origin. I guess people, like Rolex, see it as a sort of "authenticity" thing. When I ask my friends "hey do you want to watch dead snow?" and they ask "What is it?" I say "It's a Swedish movie about nazi snow zombies". We preface things with their country of origin, at the very least as a language indicator. People do this all the time; hell you saw it in this thread with people talking about Wakfu, they indicate it comes from France and is french.

If we had a word for french animation, like "gittington" (a nonsense word I made up just now), it would totally be a gittington; but we don't have a word.

 

[Something Amyss]

Meh I don't think Anime is a label that should be strived for. In my opinion there is very little good anime.

I'm an adherent of Stuergeon's Law. There's very little good in most genres and media.

 

[Redhawkmillenium]

Nope, it's not. I'll tell you why - desperately trying to categorize something that is indistinguishable is 100% pointless, because it defies the very purpose of having categories in the first place.

Animation is something anyone, anywhere is capable of doing. Regardless of what happened in history, we need to move on and recognize the fact that anime CAN be made anywhere, and CAN be made completely indistinguisable from the "original" stuff made in Japan. It renders the category pointless.

Anime is quite distinguishable from Western animation under the surface. Shown here. [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2012-04-20]

Here, I'll copy the relevant bits if you don't care to click the link:

"And those differences in the sheer discipline of animation are what really screams to the trained anime-watching eye that something like The Last Airbender is not anime. I doubt that kids or people less trained on anime were able to really discern the difference, but it doesn't take somebody like an Anipages Daily reader to tell that something like Avatar doesn't hold on key poses as long as anime tends to, or that the camera angles tend to be less dramatic and more static. American and (generally) Western animation is created through such a factory-like system of automation that it's always a miraculous thing, to me, when the animation takes even a small little risk. Western animated shows are "timed" extremely closely - meaning, every movement, action, and piece of dialog is coded onto the "layouts" which provide the blueprint that the animators have to follow. And if they don't, that basically screws up the entire scene - dialog doesn't go where it needs to be, characters overlap each other, that sort of thing. Once the episodes are timed and drawn as layouts, the animators' job is to basically plug in the necessary jigsaw pieces (or "drawings" I guess) into the puzzle, and the whole thing flows. (Of course, I'm speaking in generalizations here - not every cartoon show follows the same formula for production.)

Because the budgets are (typically) much smaller for anime, and the teams are much smaller, there *is* a certain amount of "freedom" on behalf of their animators. That's because, honestly, they're not beholden to strict timing - after all, they don't start recording the dialog until after the animation is in production. That gives the animation crew a ton more freedom to play with the timing and the action as the director deems fit. There's a certain "looseness" to the timing in Japanese animation, I think, that gives it its distinct flavor - moreso than the "jerky movements" and "flapping mouths" that people always point to. Western shows simply don't have that luxury, since they have to strictly adhere to the "click tracks" (temporary dialog/music tracks) in order to speed up production."

 

[Something Amyss]

Rollex and Armani certainly care when duplicates of their watches and suits are made in China and are, quite frankly, just as good quality. For some reason, having "the real deal" to people matters. If Rolex doesn't make it it's not a Rolex, even if it says "Rolex" on it.

Rolex and Armani are actual brands; anime is not.

 

[NiPah]

Anime should never be defined as where it originates from, since much of the animation is outsourced to Korea, hell Avatar was made in the same place as HotD, Asobi ni iku yo, Simpsons, Family guy, Futurama, ect ect. No I use the term anime to refer to an animation made for the Japanese market (primary market, not a Disney film later sold in Japan but a Disney film like Fireball made specifically for Japan audiences). This also rules out style because anime is extremely varied, just as South Park is a much different style then Finding Nemo, Jin Roh is a much different style then Binbou Shimai Monogatari.

So yes Avatar uses many of the same styles as certain anime, the large eyes, main female lead, issues that often crop up in anime stories are explored, but is Avatar an anime? I'd say it's not, it's a really good American cartoon made for an American audience, otherwise it would have been marketed and sold primarily for the Japanese audience.

 

[Alterego-X]

It isn't a medium.

Pretty much lost any point you might have had after saying that. It is a medium. Fact.

Animation is a medium.
Film is a medium.
Music is a medium.
Books are a medium.

Anime is not. It is simply animation from Japan. That's all it is.

With the same logic, animation and film are not separate media either. After all, it's all just motion picture, recorded on a film tape or on digital storages, regardless of whether it's frames are drawn individually or recorded photographically.

But "medium" refers to tools and techniques that a creator is using. Just like a stone sculptor and a bronze sculptor use different mediums even if the end result looks vaguely similar, or just like the work behind live action movies and animation is different.

But beyond that, there are many minor styles and techniques that can be considered mediums on their own, there is no objective line. Are 3D CGI and 2D animation the same medium? Live action and stop motion? Novels, and comic books? Singing and instrumental music?

Japanese anime also uses it's specific techniques, so we might as well call it a medium, even if the distinction is less than obvious.

It's certainly SOMETHING, given that it has it's own audience, fandom, separate industry and companies. But it's certainly not a genre, since it expands to any and every genre from crime mystery to porn, and from romantic melodrama to space opera.

Therefore, medium.

 

[JWAN]

No, you have to be Japanese or at least Asian to draw overblown cartoons about robots or evil, dark tentacle monsters.
NOTE: (^^^**SARCASM**^^^)
NOTE: (^*NOTE THIS NOTE*^)
Why not? Really. "Legend of Korra", while I didn't enjoy it, sure has garnered a massive following.

Now that will bring up the "What is true anime" debate, and inevitably, how the west "Just doesn't get it". As far as I know, "Not getting it" is the most basic theme of anime in general. Don't take this the wrong way, but its different from just about every other art style out there and its only limited to the creators imagination. In short, its weird stuff, and we have people who draw weird stuff too.

 

[Robert Ewing]

I'd say Avatar isn't anime for a few reasons.

A lot of people will say, not Japanese? Not anime. Which I guess is a valid argument I suppose. Not one I agree with but none the less, I see where they are coming from.

Other people will say that geography doesn't matter, and that it's in the style of anime, and THAT is my problem.

It's NOT in the style anime at all, it's just a very smartly animated series. In fact, if anything it resembles modern Manhwa, which is the South Korean equivalent of Manga.

So no, I don't think it is anime, but that in no way means that we should enjoy it any less.

 

[Sirron Kcuch]

I think Afro Samurai is the answer to this question. An obvious YES

 

[Dissentient]

I think Afro Samurai is the answer to this question. An obvious YES

And how does an anime title made completely by Japanese prove your point?

 

[SNCommand]

Just to add my 2 cents

I don't really care about what constitutes Anime or not, but there's a fundamental difference between Japanese animation and Western animation influenced by "anime", as I have never found the stuff made in Japan enjoyable to watch, but have had no such problems with several western productions

 

[Fwee]

Wow. Nine pages of comments already.
Has anyone pointed out "Anime" isn't actually a genre. There are genres within the media of Anime.
Also, I hope someone has pointed out that most Japanese animation changes it's images every three frames. Western animation mostly changes images every two frames. So right there you have a way to say whether or not it's actually legit "Anime".
Basically, I don't care if a cartoon is officially one way or another. Is it fun, entertaining, thoughtful, exciting, cathartic, engaging, suspenseful, funny, or inspiring? Then I'll watch!
Just like anything a person can experience in their life, a cartoon whether Western or Eastern, Southern or Northern can either be well crafted and a delight to behold, or it can be a slapdash pandering company shill trying to sell you snacks and useless merch.
It just comes down to whether you like it or not.