The inferiority of Animation as a medium or live action.

[Julius Terrell]

I decided to bring this topic up, because it frustrates me to no end. I grew up in the 80's and at that time there were lots of animated shows on TV. I mean as a kid I lost sleep and woke up at 06:00 hrs most Saturdays just to catch most of the shows that came on.

I was even exposed to Japanese anime as a kid, before I knew what it was. During this time I started to really ask some deeper questions about the medium to myself. A lot of the shows were comical in nature, but some of them were actually quite engaging (ect..batman: the animated series and The Uncanny X-men). I started wondering why there weren't more animated shows on that were just as engaging and were more in line to entertain an adult audience, or more mature audience. This was all before I was really introduced to Japanese anime as a teen.

I mean Hollywood never produces such TV shows or movies for that matter. The status quo has always been that "live action will be all there ever will be, and animation is kids stuff." This is why the only animation that is produced for mass consumption is Disney shit.

Now, I've spent the better part of 20 years really exploring artistic merit of Japanese Animation. I've come away with the fact that this American attitude towards animation is bull shit!

Just because a movie as real people doesn't automatically make it better than an animated movie of the same caliber. I've also learned that it's about the actual ability of the director or writers to tell a story. People who support Hollywood always seem to claim their medium is better based on superficial pretense that only actors can bring a story to life.

Most of the time I tend to not have a direct connection with the actors and story, because the medium just doesn't have the ability draw me in like animation does.

With Japanese anime there are a lot of different tactics that are used to get the viewer's attention and the very medium itself is more about expressing the scenery and using it as a focus to tell the story.

Most of the focus here in the U.S. as far as animation has been about entertaining kids, so a lot of the time shows aimed at kids and teens tend to picked over more mature shows. Considering that Miyazaki tends to get a lot of press here through Disney distributing his works.

It's really frustrating to know that there have been a TON of master works that I've seen over the years that would get overlooked simply because of the medium.

While the world pays millions to actors and a lot of movies cost TONS of money to make. This IMHO stifles creativity and doesn't allow for a wide array of content. I'd like to see A LOT of different ideas expressed, but it would rarely happen because most unique films wouldn't sell. Maybe even make a TV series.

I guess I'm just tired of being considered the weird person, because of my choice of mediums.

I've seen SO MANY different ideas expressed and stuff that Hollywood would NEVER touch. I remember the first time I saw Now and Then,Here and There and thinking how powerful this show is. It touched me deeply and really moved me. I'm not saying that Hollywood isn't capable of such movies or TV series.

I remember when I saw A.I. for the first time and I was nearly taken aback by this labor of love. Steven Spielberg really outdid himself with that film. Or take my 2001: A space Odyssey. Few films will ever live up the shear brilliance that film exhibits. Just want to hear some thoughts on this topic. Sorry it's really lengthy, but I just wanted to share this with you guys.

Thanks!

 

[Dr. Cakey]

As far as I'm concerned - and this is just personal - animation is the medium. Its original advantage was that's incalculably cheaper to make an action-oriented or fantastical story animated rather than live action, but its potential as a medium has rarely been more than scratched in the Western sphere. The fact that the image on screen isn't "real" presents so many possibilities.

The constraints of anime - it has a history of being produced below cost - also have led to some brilliant cinematography. Akiyuki Shinbo's stuff, like Bakemonogatari and Madoka Magica, are pretty much the ultimate example of this.

 

[Pinkamena]

I agree. Animation is not just for kids, and anime has proved this many times. I would love for Hollywood to create som high budget animated movies, but I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon. Would probably flop at the box office.

 

[Julius Terrell]

I think Superman as a whole would be a lot better if they stuck with the animated series. That show moved the story forward far more than most if any of the live action movies.

I also saw the legend of Korra. I did nothing but eat that show up. Sure I wish the characters had been older, but I LOVE Naruto so who am I to talk. Speaking of which I've been watching Naruto for 10 years dammit. You don't stick with a show that long unless there's some quality there.

If Hollywood took advantage of the medium, think of how much money they could save. How could people not think of the implications of that in a weak economy. With budgets rising Hollywood is going the same path as the video gaming industry. I don't care how much they say they are getting back, there will be a straw that breaks the camel's back sooner or later.

 

[Terminate421]

If Hollywood took advantage of the medium, think of how much money they could save. How could people not think of the implications of that in a weak economy. With budgets rising Hollywood is going the same path as the video gaming industry. I don't care how much they say they are getting back, there will be a straw that breaks the camel's back sooner or later.

The problem is marketing.

Aside from Pixar, it is almost impossible to convince a fully grown adult to go see an animated flick. I fucking love Rio and How to Train Your Dragon. I am 19.

My father won't watch those, why? Because it's impossible to make him sit down and watch anything not pixar. It really has alot to do with appearance. Even if someone made a rated R really good animated movie put out in cinemas. It will bomb unfortunately due to people not really even paying attention to it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Anime (considering that's largely what we're talking about here) has just as many, maybe even more so, problems than Hollywood live-action and animation. For every pandering Dreamworks animated movie, big budget nostalgia grab, or Adam Sandler movie, there's an equally pandering anime show or Naruto/Bleach/One Piece movie.

Both animation and live-action have their pros and cons. The fact is that live-action will always be closest to our reality, and so will always be more engaging for the mainstream to view.

And just as there's things anime does that Hollywood would never touch, there's just as many things Hollywood does that anime would never touch. Like aids or illness ingeneral.

And speaking of Now and Then, Here and There... You must never have seen all those Holocaust movies, likeSophie's Choice or The Pianist. Also, anime has a slight obsession with super-tragedies anyway, with the aforementioned Now and Then, Here and There, Grave of the Fireflies, and Dog of Flanders (which is a Belgium story, but Japan is apparently crazy about it).

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The funny part of all this is due to the increasing amount of computer FX in use a growing percent of 'live action' movies are either partly animated or have animated backgrounds.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Stopped reading at "Disney shit".

To be as ignorant as you: Whatever you said, cannot have any merit, since you described the series Disney produces as shit, while trying to praise the stagnating anime culture.

Nope.

 

[an annoyed writer]

Hear hear. As a person who is trying to get into animation I wholeheartedly agree that we need more adult-oriented animation that isn't just comedies. As much as I love those, I want to see some drama and action in animation that isn't just for kids.

 

[Queen Michael]

I think that the reason that people won't take animation seriously is because we never see completely serious animated films. Well, okay, "never" is stretching it; they definitely do exist. But still, we very rarely see animation like "The Red Film" (or whatever its English title is), "Melancholia," and so on. There's almost always humor, or sf/fantasy elements, and while those things don't necessarily mean a work is artistically inferior, they are a bit too uiquitous. You so rarely see a completely realistic work where people don't act cartoonishly and that doesn't feature any fantasy or science-fiction.

For whatever reason, animation seems to have to be either action, fantasy, SF or comedy. You almost never see any serious realistic dramas. And yeah, they do exist, but for every single one you see, there seems to be at least fifty that don't.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is an excellent example. It has depth, it has serious drama, but the reason it got launched in the first place is the fact that it has giant robots. Even when anime is serious, it has to have giant robots, cartoonish behaviour, or stuff like that. (I'm not trying to say that giant robots are bad in and of themselves, but... Look, you see my point, right?)

tl;dr: While it's possible to make deep, serious, uncomedic and realistic dramas with animation, people so rarely do make them.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

As far as anime, the intentions of the medium depend upon whether we're talking about television anime and film anime. Miyazaki himself doesn't like having his works lumped in with the rest of anime as we know it. He considers himself a maker of animation, the fact that he and his studio are Japanese are secondary traits. His culture and perspective on the world greatly affect what he makes, but his goals are very different from television anime, especially anime from the 80s and early 90s.

Anime from the 80s and 90s was less about artistry and more about getting by with as little as possible. The backgrounds were elaborate, but only because having an elaborate background made up for the very little animation they actually did. The shows reused as much animation as they could, and the characters were specifically constructed so that they could be animated with the fewest number of drawings possible. Much like the Hanna Barbera cartoons of the 60s, they were constructed in separate parts and only the part that needed to be moved was redrawn (like the eyes and mouth). Only in the late 90s and early 2000s when the market began to explode did the artistry and quality get dialed up.

I'm not saying this as a criticism, western animation has had plenty of these "low quality" phases, in fact the reason Disney stayed out of the television animation business until the 80s was because they despised Hanna Barbera's style and refused to lower their quality that much. But by the 80s enough technologies had developed and their animation department was big enough that they could crank out high production value animated shows as quickly as television schedules demanded.

As for why anime is overlooked, admittedly there is a LOT of culture shock that comes with it. The fanservice, cultural references, and often polarizing art and animation style tend to make it less internationally compatible than western animation. While western animation does also come with its own cultural perspectives, the world is much more used to the western culture than it is the Japanese culture. And if you think about it, the biggest animation companies ARE western companies, like Disney, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, etc. A few new ones are cropping up in Europe and the like, but otherwise because all the big companies are western (and mostly American) it sort of makes sense that the west and particularly America still have the biggest slice of the animation pie. This also means this is what people use as their "measuring stick" for what they expect from animation, so the Japanese style deviating from what this measuring stick prescribes is also a disadvantage.

As for why animation is still considered a "kiddie" medium, while it is a totally separate issue from the condition of anime, the reasons for this problem are similar. Animation started out as a "kiddie" medium, and most adults today were raised in the days when animation was completely made for kids. There are one or two "adult" animations and experiments you can probably point to, but those were not the most marketed and certainly not the most successful animations of their time. And the reason Hollywood doesn't recognize this is because Hollywood goes after what the people want and how the people feel. The people feel that animation is for kids, and so does Hollywood. The people don't tend to give as much money to animated features if they aren't for kids or aren't going to be "funny," so Hollywood doesn't invest in those.

I think the most interesting thing going on with Hollywood and animation right now is motion capture, specifically the stuff along the lines of Avatar and Planet of the Apes. It's sort of hilarious to see the Academy Awards grapple with the idea that it's a live actor, but an animator and CG artists also bring them to life. The actor doesn't do it on their own, but the animators and CG artists can't do it without the actor, either. Then can you even call it "live action" when everything is filmed on a blue screen and none of the sets are live? It's really changing how we define "live action," and it'll be interesting to see how Hollywood and the academy eventually decide how they feel about it.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I think that the reason that people won't take animation seriously is because we never see completely serious animated films. Well, okay, "never" is stretching it; they definitely do exist. But still, we very rarely see animation like "The Red Film" (or whatever its English title is), "Melancholia," and so on. There's almost always humor, or sf/fantasy elements, and while those things don't necessarily mean a work is artistically inferior, they are a bit too uiquitous. You so rarely see a completely realistic work where people don't act cartoonishly and that doesn't feature any fantasy or science-fiction.

For whatever reason, animation seems to have to be either action, fantasy, SF or comedy. You almost never see any serious realistic dramas. And yeah, they do exist, but for every single one you see, there seems to be at least fifty that don't.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is an excellent example. It has depth, it has serious drama, but the reason it got launched in the first place is the fact that it has giant robots. Even when anime is serious, it has to have giant robots, cartoonish behaviour, or stuff like that. (I'm not trying to say that giant robots are bad in and of themselves, but... Look, you see my point, right?)

I think that's potentially a consequence of the western market. And also that the truly serious stuff is relatively unpopular regardless of medium.

Look at studio Ghibli films... Yes, there's the likes of Laputa: Castle in the sky, and Princess Monoke, but are you familiar for instance with 'only yesterday', or 'Ocean waves'? Neither of which have any fantasy elements whatsoever, nor much in the way of humour in them.
Meanwhile, although available in the west (probably simply due to Studio Ghibli's reputation), they have not been dubbed at all, like most of the other films like that.
Even Grave of the fireflies, a far more famous film, is pretty much a straight world war 2 drama...

(I could also mention films such as Perfect Blue, Millennium actress, Paprika, or Tokyo Godfathers - although admittedly, Paprika contains a lot of weird imagery, being mostly about dreams, and Tokyo Godfathers is arguably a comedy of sorts.)

There's plenty to go around, if you actually look for it. But people rarely look for that, because most anime fans don't seem to be interested in things like that, and people that aren't into animated works wouldn't even look at it, irrespective of what kind of story it is...

These are merely the easy to find examples. People don't want them much though. Especially not in the west. Kind of a circular problem though. - But essentially, you're talking about a type of story that is fairly rare in general anyway.
How many 'serious' films without any fantastical, sci-fi or comedic elements can you think of? They're probably likely to be just as outnumbered as the animated examples are.


Anyway, to the OP - Ironically, I get the sense that these days animated work is too expensive. The effects it allows are almost as easy to integrate into live action films using CGI, and for stories with very little effects work, it can likely cost a whole heap less to create a live action film than to animate a comparable story to a reasonable quality standard.
Youtube seems to illustrate this reasonably well... - Someone filming live-action often manages to release a video in a week, while a video with a comparable structure and length in animated form seems to take anything from a month to half a year or more to get done.
Animation is hard work. Yes, you can cut corners with it, but depending on what you're trying to do it may be a lot more time consuming and expensive than the alternatives...

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Since CGI is technically animation, and it's used in big budget Hollywood movies, it's becoming more mainstream if not in the sense you're talking about.

That being said I agree completely, I'd like to see more mature American animation if not because I generally hate Japanese anime.

Edit:

Disney shit.

No, no, no, no.

I don't care how creatively stagnant and bad modern day Disney is, Disney stuff was probably some of the most unironically good and mature stuff back in the day.

 

[Ishal]

People like this are the same close minded individuals who think movies are the end all be all for "serious" entertainment. I've grown tired of the attitude, it used to aggravate me, but now I respond to it with a combination of apathy and pity. A similar type of pity that adults have for teenagers who think their myopic view of the world is the most important thing evar!

Movies themselves (and scripted TV to a lesser extent) have only recently been accepted as a "medium" for "serious discussion". They are still every bit as silly as games or cartoons and they always have been. This idea that these two mediums, especially movies, are somewhat superior is nothing other than refuse.

Animation can be as serious or non-serious as the creator's intend, period. Same with games. Games put you into the story in a way nothing else can, that is their strength, and they are going places. Gaming is the best its ever been right now and is only getting better. Smart phone and tablet gaming, the ease of access to older titles through digital distribution, the sales, the already in progress revival of 2D games (Dragon's Crown), indie games, and kickstarter? It's all going in a positive direction with new things. What have movies done recently? Oh, bring back 3D... Wooo..

Scripted TV shows are making a comeback, but they still pale in comparison to reality TV in terms of ratings and in quantity. Hollywood's constant lack of new ideas and increasingly boring source of talent (actors, directors) is starting to take its toll. Oh... another Cameron movie, another Spielberg movie... Tom Cruise? How exciting...

Movies seem to be in decline, and scripted live TV will be back in decline soon if it doesn't 1) stop cancelling shows and 2)relying on the same tired forumulas and archetypes. (people are tired of cop/lawyer drama's) Looking at you TNT and USA

 

[Queen Michael]

Look at studio Ghibli films... Yes, there's the likes of Laputa: Castle in the sky, and Princess Monoke, but are you familiar for instance with 'only yesterday', or 'Ocean waves'? Neither of which have any fantasy elements whatsoever, nor much in the way of humour in them.
Meanwhile, although available in the west (probably simply due to Studio Ghibli's reputation), they have not been dubbed at all, like most of the other films like that.
Even Grave of the fireflies, a far more famous film, is pretty much a straight world war 2 drama...

(I could also mention films such as Perfect Blue, Millennium actress, Paprika, or Tokyo Godfathers - although admittedly, Paprika contains a lot of weird imagery, being mostly about dreams, and Tokyo Godfathers is arguably a comedy of sorts.)

This part that I've quoted is why I have trouble believeing that a reasonable amount realistic and serious dramas can be found in anime. Whenever I ask for some, people always recommend Studio Ghibli or Satoshi Kon and nothing else. It's like they're the only people in Japan who make that kind of stuff, or the only people who are good enough at it to make stuff that's actually worth recommending. Not syaing that they actually are, but I am starting to wonder why nobody can ever come up with anything else.

 

[Easton Dark]

Until live-action can live up to Gurren Lagann, animation is for the adults, and live-action is the kiddie shit that you take your little sister to see.

 

[Brian Tams]

Disney shit.

You mean that shit that inspired japanese anime? big friggin', shiny eyes was something Walt Disney started and Japan took and ran with. All that Japanese animation you love owe Walt Disney tons of praise for getting the ball rolling.

Come on, man. You cannot consider youself an anime buff unless you know the history of how it came around.

 

[Bocaj2000]

Here's your problem: animation is not a genre. Animation is just as diverse as films and books. What's holding the industry back is that many people, including producers and writers, limit the possibilities of animation into specific genres and tropes. I don't have a preference towards books, movies, nor interactive media. A story is a story.

 

[Ishigami]

Even Grave of the fireflies, a far more famous film, is pretty much a straight world war 2 drama...

It actually is not.
Grave of the Fireflies is meant as a guilt trip for the delinquents born after the reconstruction following WW2.
It is supposed to be a lesson of humble and respect for their parents that grew up during a time where they didn?t had ?everything?.
It was a reaction to a growing problem of counterproductive teens in the society.
It is not a WW2 movie and never was meant as such.


As for animation offering more than kids entertainment.
Yea it could be but I doubt it will.
The reason why mostly Ghibli, Satoshi Kon or Mamoru Oshi come up is that these are mostly the only known ones that even dwelled upon the subject.
The way the anime business works seems to forbid it to grow in that direction. You either do a shonen kids show, ecchi stuff for the adolescent or straight up hentai for adults.
Other stuff is far and in between because there is little money to be made. So I don?t have any hope for that.

 

[Julius Terrell]

Anime (considering that's largely what we're talking about here) has just as many, maybe even more so, problems than Hollywood live-action and animation. For every pandering Dreamworks animated movie, big budget nostalgia grab, or Adam Sandler movie, there's an equally pandering anime show or Naruto/Bleach/One Piece movie.

Both animation and live-action have their pros and cons. The fact is that live-action will always be closest to our reality, and so will always be more engaging for the mainstream to view.

And just as there's things anime does that Hollywood would never touch, there's just as many things Hollywood does that anime would never touch. Like aids or illness ingeneral.

And speaking of Now and Then, Here and There... You must never have seen all those Holocaust movies, likeSophie's Choice or The Pianist. Also, anime has a slight obsession with super-tragedies anyway, with the aforementioned Now and Then, Here and There, Grave of the Fireflies, and Dog of Flanders (which is a Belgium story, but Japan is apparently crazy about it).

I own the pianist and I've watched that movie so much that the DVD is ready to melt. I love war films! I don't want anyone to think that I'm totally against live action, because I'm not. All you Disney people here, I just can't do it as an adult. The kid I once was did, but as I matured I had to push Disney aside. Just isn't for me.