No Right Answer: Is Avatar an Anime?
- Thread starter Firefilm
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More interestingly, we can't even decide WHY it is so important.NoX 9 said:
Apparently, snobbish anime fans want to distance themselves from dirty gaijin cartoons, while snobbish Avatar fans want to distance themselves from dirty Japanese cartoons, also, pretentious Avatar fans try to steal the prestige of the Anime label for themselves, and pretentious anime fans try to claim the glory that is Avatar, as their own.
Who cares?
Is it a great show? Hell yeah!
Does it being an anime or not make it better or worse? No.
Does it matter? Nope.
Just watch Avatar. It's a great show. Yes, it has some definite anime influences. Yes, it is influenced heavily by Eastern culture. But classifying it as anime or not doesn't really matter.
That being said, I can respect the idea that someone looking at it without knowing anything about it would call it anime.
Is it a great show? Hell yeah!
Does it being an anime or not make it better or worse? No.
Does it matter? Nope.
Just watch Avatar. It's a great show. Yes, it has some definite anime influences. Yes, it is influenced heavily by Eastern culture. But classifying it as anime or not doesn't really matter.
That being said, I can respect the idea that someone looking at it without knowing anything about it would call it anime.
Hell, I'll solve this:
Are the Avatar series produced in Japan? NO!
DO they only look like it as an homage to the artistic style of many anime? YES!
End of debate!
Are the Avatar series produced in Japan? NO!
DO they only look like it as an homage to the artistic style of many anime? YES!
End of debate!
Seeing as how anime is merely the Japanese word for cartoon and does not in any way, shape, or form dictate categorization beyond that...Yes, it is.
Avatar is an anime. Dexter's Laboratory is an anime. Hell, arguably Pixar movies are anime.
Anime doesn't mean Japanese cartoon, it's just their word for cartoon. That'd be like asking "Is Attack on Titan animated?" Yes, of course it is. It's a cartoon, isn't it?
Avatar is an anime. Dexter's Laboratory is an anime. Hell, arguably Pixar movies are anime.
Anime doesn't mean Japanese cartoon, it's just their word for cartoon. That'd be like asking "Is Attack on Titan animated?" Yes, of course it is. It's a cartoon, isn't it?
Be cautious, internationalism isn't always welcome here. It is really difficult for "Elites" to accept that a thing had already a definition before it build up said "Elites" outside that things origin country/culture. Especially if it was a looked down niche, which likes to produce die-hard fans. And now with that niche coming into that foreign countries mainstream, this "Elites" claim the right of definition.Strain42 said:
Good and right, if they know what they talk about. But, for example, mistranslations and misunderstandings can happen. And if they are too stubborn to correct themself, you know they're the wrong people.
Me, I'm just being practical. Every definition of anime I've heard that would allow the inclusion of Avatar would also either include practically every animated work ever created anywhere or exclude entire swaths of animated works actually made in Japan. Thus I dismiss those definitions as being used by people with little exposure to Japanese animation outside of popular shounen action series.Entitled said:
EDIT: or by Japanese people speaking their native language, as was pointed out below.
Anime = animation
Manga = comic
In Japan, Spongebob is called an anime.
These are all facts.
So why do we attribute Avatar as being one? Because it displays SHONEN elements, not anime elements. Semantics mean everything. If we must label this franchise, I'd call it a western shonen, which is a subgenre of shonen anime.
Did that answer anything?
Manga = comic
In Japan, Spongebob is called an anime.
These are all facts.
So why do we attribute Avatar as being one? Because it displays SHONEN elements, not anime elements. Semantics mean everything. If we must label this franchise, I'd call it a western shonen, which is a subgenre of shonen anime.
Did that answer anything?
Aren't there significant differences between an Italian pizza, and say a Chicago Deep Dish?coheedswicked said:
To answer the question: No, and Avatar is too childish. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I personally disdain the thought of having Western animation lumped with anime. I wish it stopped, but lack of familiarity with a medium will create these ideas. Anything anime must originate from Japan, and that is final. It's like asking if Panty and Stocking is an anime for how it looks and plays out, which is really silly.
The problem with this take on the word(valid though it is), is that it simultaneously removes any reason to use the word "anime" if you aren't speaking Japanese at the time(any more than I would say "Do you know nan-ji it is?" if I was asking them the time) and adds a need for a term to describe animated works from Japan since they are a popular entertainment import in the west. This is in keeping with other popular entertainment imports that we give names deriving from the location of their creation, such as Bollywood(though I'm not sure that's quite as comparable) or Hong Kong cinema.Strain42 said:
Speaking of which, we don't call The Matrix Hong Kong action despite how much it resembles it.
Small nitpick: you can't have a sub-genre of shounen because shounen isn't a genre; it's a demographic, like seinen or shoujo.Bocaj2000 said:
It seems like this thread diverges and anyone who speaks any Japanese is saying that it doesn't matter if the animated show is Japanese or not and people who only speak English are sure that it only means Japanese animated shows.
It's fascinating that people care so much about this.
It's fascinating that people care so much about this.
To me, "anime" means "Cartoons from Japan". The term came about because Japan has a prosperous animation industry; large enough it got it's own term. Bourbon is whiskey from Kentucky. If it's made elsewhere, it's not bourbon. Panty and Stocking is still an anime despite looking like a Nickleodeon show.
The divide isn't so clear. I'd say that if we were speaking Japanese, then there would be little debate possible, as this would merely be a matter of word definition. But since we are speaking of the word's usage by people not conversing in Japanese, the Japanese usage of the word isn't relevant, because if we go by that definition, everything animated is a cartoon(or "animated feature") if you're speaking English, and using the word anime to define anything at all(including cartoons from Japan) is stupid because we aren't speaking Japanese.Flunk said:
And it's not that we care so much about it. It just so happens to be the topic of the thread. If the topic were "Who is a better character: Hulk or She-Hulk," we probably would be talking about something else.
The big eyes in anime largely came from astroboy and astroboy got it from disney. That doesn't mean that astroboy and animes should be categorized as disney cartoons.
I think the reason people may get outraged by the idea of calling avatar an anime is the implication that good cartoons(or western animation based on tvtropes) must be from Japan.
Because then you're saying that if it's good, it's only cause of japan. Not because of the westerners that worked on it.
"Is is good? Then it's an anime."
Avatar is a western animation whose visual design was inspired by eastern animation. That's all there is too it.
I think the reason people may get outraged by the idea of calling avatar an anime is the implication that good cartoons(or western animation based on tvtropes) must be from Japan.
Because then you're saying that if it's good, it's only cause of japan. Not because of the westerners that worked on it.
"Is is good? Then it's an anime."
Avatar is a western animation whose visual design was inspired by eastern animation. That's all there is too it.
And if there was an Anime Pope, you'd have an argument.Entitled said:
And if there was a scientific branch dealing with anime, you'd have a point. Unfortunately, all you have is a couple really weak appeals to authority.
Duh.
If you think I care in any sense relevant to that, you're already reading too much into this. But also, you might want to consider use of the term "wine snob," and how that might have impacted the use of "anime snob. Pedantry doesn't help you here, it "simply further demonstrates you have issues with the language.
It'd be more like if we excluded "games girls like" or "casual games," but I can see why the more even explanation wouldn't help your argument much. This is a retroactive exclusion that doesn't work in two countries. It'd be the equivalent of deciding that films had to be made in America to count as movies. To make your comparison honest, it would be the equivalent of paintball video games being excluded.
Just the fact that you're making comments about "outsiders" is bad enough, but...there's really no grounds upon which to accept your definition. You can complain about outsiders not getting it all you want but it changes nothing.
Well, unless we actually did get an anime Pope, in which case I'd like to know the criteria of such an appointment. Does his holiness speak directly to Anime? Is there scriptural justification in the book of Otaku? Does he run his own city-state? Is there an anime pope mobile? This is far more interesting than arbitrary distinctions even Japan doesn't make over anime. Because I think it's silly in wine, silly in video games, and silly in cartoons. But at least one of those three has a real, historic practice behind it.