Hayao Miyazaki: Anime Suffers Because the Industry is Full of "Otaku"
- Thread starter roseofbattle
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It's an interesting thought. For years, I've been put of by anime, not just because of the constant overflowed with Teenagers, Moe, or repetition of character tropes and story ideas. If feels like anime being made are by people who really don't know how people act. I looks at the portray of characters from K-On and compare it to teenage girls from something like Digrase or even something like Tangled or Spectacular Spider-Man, I feel like I'm watching real characters, not card-board cut-outs of what people think girls act like, being cute and silly and nice. They feel more like little kids than anything.
It also seem that since the various companies and creators are Otaku's themselves, they think they know what fans want and give that to them, rather than making something what they want to make. You look at Samurai Shamploo, FLCL, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, these where shows that were clearly made because the artists wanted to make something like nothing else. You even look at DBZ and how Akira Toriyama was inspired by Walt Disney's 101 Dalmatians, You can tell that he made it because he wanted to. Now, look at the anime today, the Fairy Tail, Sword Art Online, and the rise of Incest animes, these didn't have that same creative spirit, but feel more like a check list of what an anime should have, almost like if it was focus tested.
I'm not saying these shows should go away, but it be nice to see anime grow out of this trend and start growing up, look at how real people act, and tell stories with characters, rather than nonexistent guesses of why they are.
It also seem that since the various companies and creators are Otaku's themselves, they think they know what fans want and give that to them, rather than making something what they want to make. You look at Samurai Shamploo, FLCL, Trigun, Fullmetal Alchemist, these where shows that were clearly made because the artists wanted to make something like nothing else. You even look at DBZ and how Akira Toriyama was inspired by Walt Disney's 101 Dalmatians, You can tell that he made it because he wanted to. Now, look at the anime today, the Fairy Tail, Sword Art Online, and the rise of Incest animes, these didn't have that same creative spirit, but feel more like a check list of what an anime should have, almost like if it was focus tested.
I'm not saying these shows should go away, but it be nice to see anime grow out of this trend and start growing up, look at how real people act, and tell stories with characters, rather than nonexistent guesses of why they are.
Looks like Miyazaki is fishing for popularity points fromthe anime fandom. Complaints about a medium's unoriginality, and the loss of a Golden Age, and about too much pandering, are the staple of every audience, after all, every medium could be MORE original than it is right now, and the ones most familiar with it are also the most bored of it.
If anything, anime's otaku-based model makes it MORE diverse than pandering to the "wider appeal" of the lowest common denominator. Miyazaki himself has one particular style that seems to be popular, beyond that, the Shonen fighter genre still has mainstream appeal, plus maybe magical girl shows, and that's about it. So... should every whow be like these?
Because that's what happened when the games industry or Hollywood started getting obsessed with broadening their appeal.
At least when anime industry sets up a business model where can profit from a mere few thousand fans, we also get shows like Spice and Wolf, Stein's Gate, Welcome to the NHK, Bakemonogatari, Psycho Pass, or Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, BEYOND the mainstream ones.
Quirky, clever, diverse, targeting specific interests, and intentionally putting an emphasis on the variations of visual styles for the connoisseurs who can appreciate it.
If anything, anime's otaku-based model makes it MORE diverse than pandering to the "wider appeal" of the lowest common denominator. Miyazaki himself has one particular style that seems to be popular, beyond that, the Shonen fighter genre still has mainstream appeal, plus maybe magical girl shows, and that's about it. So... should every whow be like these?
Because that's what happened when the games industry or Hollywood started getting obsessed with broadening their appeal.
At least when anime industry sets up a business model where can profit from a mere few thousand fans, we also get shows like Spice and Wolf, Stein's Gate, Welcome to the NHK, Bakemonogatari, Psycho Pass, or Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, BEYOND the mainstream ones.
Quirky, clever, diverse, targeting specific interests, and intentionally putting an emphasis on the variations of visual styles for the connoisseurs who can appreciate it.
While Hayao Miyazaki brings up a decent point there are two larger factors.
1)As others have mentioned, anime has become too mainstream and has gone hollywood. Where high production values, entrenched monolithic producers and a large sheltered audience discourage any kind of innovation.
2)Soul Sucking Vampires. Have you seen the excrement that is being produced weekly? No one could produce either 90% of anime shows or Hollywood movies and seriously consider themselves an artist unless they lacked a soul. (Certain species vampires being the most common cause for people becoming mindless husks that perform basic tasks without ambition, creativity or shame)
1)As others have mentioned, anime has become too mainstream and has gone hollywood. Where high production values, entrenched monolithic producers and a large sheltered audience discourage any kind of innovation.
2)Soul Sucking Vampires. Have you seen the excrement that is being produced weekly? No one could produce either 90% of anime shows or Hollywood movies and seriously consider themselves an artist unless they lacked a soul. (Certain species vampires being the most common cause for people becoming mindless husks that perform basic tasks without ambition, creativity or shame)
You don't compare modern incest anime to Samurai Shamploo, you compare it to Onegai Twins, which was released one year before Samurai Shamploo.ShadowRatchet92 said:
Sword Art Online isn't the new FLCL, it's the new Tales of Eternia. THIS [http://chartfag.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/2001-export.jpg] is how anime in general looked like in the Good Old Days.
There are plenty of modern series with quirky narratives, or visuals, or both, if you are looking for them and not for selective examples to make your point.
Yeah, I mean, if there's anyone in the world who can make such a claim about a subject and have his word be sealed in gold then it'd be this man on this subject.
Anime should just be a method to tell a story. Not the ends itself. His style is a wonderful example of a medium that allows a fully immersive story with characters that are as realistic as the style allows. Perhaps going too fully into anime style does hinder it in that way.
Anime should just be a method to tell a story. Not the ends itself. His style is a wonderful example of a medium that allows a fully immersive story with characters that are as realistic as the style allows. Perhaps going too fully into anime style does hinder it in that way.
I don't know, the example he used was SAO. That's a fairly normal action anime that had an incest sublot out of the blue in the second arc, totally creepified what had been a great series up to that point. It used to be that the incest stuff in anime stayed in the darker corners of the hentai section, now its in mainstream shows.Alterego-X said:
Also anime /has/ gotten obsessed with stereotypes instead of characters, that's what moe is all about. People think it's just the klutzy shrinking violet types, but it's beyond that. They're a whole stable of "cute girl" archetypes that are used instead of characters now, and they're all varying flavors of moe. Not that all shows do this, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was the majority now.
Oh, I'm sure they are the majority. I just doubt that there was ever a time when they WEREN'T the majority.Owyn_Merrilin said:
Again, take a look at my previously linked yearly chart from the era of FLCL and Samurai Shamploo. Moe everywhere.
SAO is not a mainstream anime, it had a midnight airing on Tokyo MX, in-betwen To-Love-Ru and Little Busters, and made it's profits from otaku DVD sales.Owyn_Merrilin said:
Great insights from a great Creator. It's true, too. Just look at Osamu Tezuka. The man was well educated and had a deep understanding of art and people beyond the scope of anime. That's why some of the stories he created are still some of the best there are, despite so much time anime has had to grow as a medium.
(Okay sure, KS was made by 4chan and technically isn't "anime", but it was penned by some diehard weeaboos and the thing is effectively the Spec Ops: The Line of Anime minus the audience hatred)
EDIT: Oh dear God, I completely misunderstood the man and so did everybody else in the thread. Even the title of this thread is off. Wow, how do you get "People who create anime are antisocial recluses, and this it creates antisocial recluses that obsess over anime (whom we call "otaku")". roseofbattle, I award you a scrub point for linkbaiting.
He is right about something being off in anime; though he might have the wrong cause.
We don't get as varied anime for the same reason we don't get as many risky/different movies like Scott Pilgrim or Pacific Rim; they don't make enough money often enough to justify their risk to the people you have to go get money from.
We don't get as varied anime for the same reason we don't get as many risky/different movies like Scott Pilgrim or Pacific Rim; they don't make enough money often enough to justify their risk to the people you have to go get money from.
Well, yes, but this isn't particularly new or insightful. The Escapist's own Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw has made similar observations before, and he's no Miyazaki (no offense to Yahtzee).
and if i don't like looking at real people, then how would it benefit me to make my prefered visual medium more realistic? the current trend of otaku-fused anime benefits otaku, and only harms non-otaku. if otaku are the ones who love anime, then why should they change anime to suit those who don't love it?
you're not making any sense, Miyazaki.
you're not making any sense, Miyazaki.
This is directed at the thread in general more than Miyazaki:
We didn't use to have all these tropes and clichés, we had a completely *different* set of tropes and clichés. Most of the Anime I watched was 80s and 90s, and most of it was pretty bad. It's survivor-ship bias and the long-standing insistence that things used to be better (which has been said at every moment of history about every subject).
We didn't use to have all these tropes and clichés, we had a completely *different* set of tropes and clichés. Most of the Anime I watched was 80s and 90s, and most of it was pretty bad. It's survivor-ship bias and the long-standing insistence that things used to be better (which has been said at every moment of history about every subject).
From what I've read, weekly mangaka must be one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. 17-20 pages a week, 49 weeks a year. I'm surprised they don't break down, honestly. >.< Monthly manga artists have it a bit easier, since they have 4 weeks to turn out 29-40 pages, but either way it doesn't leave a lot of down time.Lieju said:
It gives me a new respect for those long-running series like "hajime no ippo" that has been published every week since the late 80s.
Regarding Miyazaki's words... he has a point, but ultimately the reason the industry is failing to observe real people is because their target market has no interest in real people. The hardcore anime fans who keep the industry afloat in japan aren't interested in real girls, or even animated girls who emulate them. They want tsundere classmates stutteringly saying "baka", or moe-moe childhood friends who will love and adore them no matter who they are.
When you pander to the lowest common denominator, it's no surprise when the quality of what you produce declines.
Eh, it's mainstream in the west[footnote]And I'm surprised to hear it's not in Japan, it's a fairly standard action show aside from that sub-plot in the second half of the show[/footnote], and /most/ anime makes its profits from otaku DVD sales. That's why Bandai pulled out of the US market, they were unwilling to charge rates for DVDs that are reasonable in the US, they expected American nerds to pay the exorbitant rates that Japanese otaku are willing to.Alterego-X said:
Edit: Also moe is a fairly new thing in the last 10 or 15 years. If you watch anime from anywhere before the mid 2000's, it's totally different, especially stuff from the 70's through the 90's.