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The Significance of Anime
angkor writes "'More Animated than Life' - Fascinating article discussing the significance of animation to the Japanese and why it is not what Westerners expect."
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On a related note, here is a link for the Dutch Animation Festival that will be held the upcoming weekend.
www.haff.nl
Japan being short on space can't really throw togeather resources like big studios. And if your market doesn't care why should you. Hong Kong had the Martial Arts traditions, lots of Jackie Chan and Jet Li types. It's cheap. Europe, has classy people like James Bond.
Here in the US we got more money then sense so we get Attack of the Colons. (not a typo, my colon twists up everytime that #2 is mentioned).
The only feature I like about you humans is that you do adapt very well. (a feature as in a bug for which documentation exists).
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
You mean hentai. I relly like it... you watch such movies to see what you can't in real life. Why would you want an ordinary fuck porn, if you can fuck your wife in real?! We watch hentai to statisfy our fetishes which we can't exercise in real life.
Tentacle porn may go back a ways before anime. In the 70s, Heavy Metal ran a few strips by some artists that were messing around with some fairly creepy stories involving a disease that caused some bizarre shapechanging mutations. Symptoms of the disease included the formation of large fleshy tentacle-like protruberances of immense power, and an overwhelming desire to rape people and tear them limb from limb. Once someone caught the disease, they became fugitives, since it was only a matter of time before they would succumb to their perverse desires.
The story that I remember (cut me some slack on errors - it was a long time ago) followed one character who had the disease, but thus far seemed to have the ability to maintain mental control and not go berzerk. Of course, they could still have some pretty outrageous and twisted nookie. The storyline, with sex, power, violence, and intrigue, was of course a winner, and may have inspired boatloads of imitators in a number of countries. Many of the artists during Heavy Metal's heyday were from all over as I recall.
And speaking from a Japanese viewpoint, let me clarify one thing.
Miyazaki's works are not the norm.
Its uniqueness, yet similarities to real life is what makes Studio Ghibli's works such blockbuster hits. However, other animations also do rake in cash for studios.
Every spring, when kids get out of school for spring break, the movie studios release several animated features, much like Disney.
Doraemon, an anime about a futuristic cat-like robot helping out a puny kid, is seen every week on television. In its extended movie version, the group goes on a journey to unique lands.
Each flick (which has been released every spring for the past two decades) brings in about $20 mil (2bil yen). Not too shabby, considering it's a domestic release.
Another is Detective Conan - a high school sleuth is turned into a boy and solves crimes.
Noticing a trend here? Childrens' films - those that are despised by anime freaks in the US - are those that gain the most popularity. Keep in mind that it's not only the kids who like them, as opposed to the popularity of Pokemon in the states.
"Classics" such as Cowboy Bebop and other mature-themed anime exist in large numbers, but they do not gain the widespread acknowledgement that kid-oriented shows do.
On the other hand, comic books (mangas) are split in half between the kids and the adults. The mature-themed manga is a booming industry, mostly focusing on modern themes such as corporations and sports. The unique few get turned into anime, and end up in the hands of American viewers who think that what they're watching reflects the Japanese phyche.
Bottom line: The Japanese animation industry is hardly different from the Disney of America - child-oriented shows sell. Mature anime are not the norm, and do not reflect the culture of Japan. For that, you need to watch television programs, domestic films (not Godzilla), fiction books.. and so on.
well i guess Godzilla or Gojira was originally thought up as a result of food so you may be right. a little background info
More than half of the anime contains at least one of the following components: cat ear, uniform, lolita, maid, nurse, baby sister, female teacher... And I don't mean anime pr0n. These are the anime that turned lonely boys into otakus.
Of course many of these anime are excellent in terms of intriguing plot and excellent story, but they wouldn't be nearly as popular if the moe element were removed.
Here are some names of the anime that falls in to the moe category: Love Hina Ah My Godess Sister Princess DiGi Charat Onegai Teacher Handy Maid May Chobits Hanaukyo Maids ...
Oh and I got hooked on Hanaukyo Maids (Shame on me!)
Can anyone recommend a good site or list of Anime titles for a person thats wants to get more into it? I've started watching Cowboy Bebop on the Cartoon Network and really like it. Any more titles like this one? Thanks
Of course, everything else in the culture is pretty severe too, but at the same time very people-oriented. In times gone past, massive rounds of layoffs due to poor stock performance was unheard of. I don't know if this is still the case; Western values might be creeping in and causing the companies to treat their people more like the robotic drones as most western companies do.
I think that of all the cultures and people on the planet, the one least likely to ever be understood by any American (including myself) are the Japanese. Even if you spend your whole life among them, I think that from time to time something will happen that will surprise and befuddle you. But that depth of culture is also what makes them so cool, so it's OK.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Whats next..."Bugs Bunny, He's Significant! More Significant than YOU anyhow!"... Anime: In the 80's I was really into it, trouncing upong any mecha-space-scifi I could find (yeah, Robotech peaked my interest just as GForce and StarBlazers did a decade earlier). Sadly, today all the anime I see makes me generally cringe. Much in the same way American movies feature the same stereotypical characters, so does much of the Anime I'm seeing now. They all have the same cast of characters and I've grown weary. The brooding anti-hero, the gender-ambiguous guy/girl/silent character, the screechy young female character....the fat "comic relief" character...and must every anime film on earth have at least one pantyshot per episode? I mean, I'm starting to thinkt hat all anime is good for is Tentacle Pr0n. :P
I've tried watching the incredible Gundam series (all of them), and find the animation on the newer ones to be jaw dropping, and the stories to be convoluted and ridiculous. I guess I dont buy "kids in giant mecha suits".
Oh, and voiceovers....dubbing basically destorys anime, period. Then again, you might get tired of hearing every single character in non-dubbed anime sounding like a gravel-throated Japanese warlord. :P
I love the Japanese culture, or rather...Japanese Pop Culture.....but at the same time, I'm finding all that made Anime so great to me back in the day to be tired and rehashed today. Oh well, I'm jaded ;)
The US music industry is even worse. Almost everything new these days is crap, and the '70s and '80s stuff (even though I like it) is just plain old. So I listen to anime theme song music with a bit of regular J-pop mixed in. Remember folks, '80s music happened because of Brit groups (and the occasional non-english song like 99 Luftbaloons and Der Komissar) getting so much airtime on MTV (back when MTV actually played music). Unfortunately J-pop has a bit of a language barrier to deal with, plus the same US producers' urge to "sanitize" anything Japanese language from anime because it's not in their "formula".
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"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
The State of Anime Fandom in Japan
Regarding some of the general comments people are making, they seem a bit extreme on both ends, which I guess is to be expected.....both the people saying "anime sucks, it's all porn" and the people who say that "anime rules, it's the only thing that has real plot and characterization and isn't tainted by commercialization like American stuff is" are both equally ridiculous statements. Anime in fact isn't all porn, and like any other medium it has had its share of good stuff as well as a lot of bad shows. And of course, the notion some extreme anime fans have that anime is good because it isn't commercialized is ridiculous, as anime is heavily commercialized, and many shows are made solely based on how well they will sell, which is why you often see a lot of recycled plots, character designs and story concepts.
Just in general, anime is way too broad for I think many of the comments being made here to be very relevant....it has its share of crap and its share of brilliant work. I could say the same thing about movies, television, books, comic books, etc.......take almost any of the comments being made in this thread and replace "anime" with "movies", "television", "books", "comic books" etc. and perhaps this will give you a better indication of how ridiculous some of the statements are.
Anime is not all stale and recycled plots, and it is not all the same big eye style of animation......a few shows that wouldn't fit this mold would include Boogiepop Phantom, Niea_7, Now And Then Here And There, etc. If I had to guess I would say that a lot of the negative comments are being made by people with a very limited exposure to only certain kinds of anime, which would be about on par with making a value judgement on "movies" after watching some pornography tapes.
Tom
High Quality Animation??
I gotta call you on that one. I haven't seen any anime that even comes close, in terms of quality, to the animation coming out of Disney and Pixar these days. Mouths that are actually lip-synced with the words, rather than alternating between large and small ovals. Body parts move and bounce realistically. Hair that moves. Human heads and eyes are actually in porportion to the rest of the body. Not to mention that some female characters are drawn that don't conform to the doe-eyed-Japanese-schoolgirl look.
The best that can be said of anime is that the storylines are very different than that of North American cartoons. NA cartoons are aimed at kids, where anime is aimed squarely at the prepubescent crowd, or adults that haven't progressed beyond that stage. The quality, however, is absolute crap.
Anime porn has more emotional content, better plots, etc. Plus you can really dive into darker things like domination, shame, without creating a snuff film. That can make things more exciting and makes topics available for self-examination without actually watching a real person get beat up or whatever.
You have done a very good job of explaining why people like hentai films. Allow me to elaborate...
I watch American porn because the women are really sexy. But you're right that there is no plot to speak of and the acting is rediculous. There is no way around it: porn is full of stupid white trash. And there's a limit as to how exciting that can be, especially when it's all the same. The most important organ in sexual arousal is the brain. When I see some sexy female ninja or spaceship captain in a hentai flick, I feel attracted to her in a much different way than I do to the bimbos in American porn. This hentai woman actually has skills and capabilites. She's compatent! And her face and body is at least as sexy as those of real women. For me, that's a great combination. I'd rather fuck hentai girls than the sluts in American porn.
The other advantage hentai has over real-life porn is the ability to display some real hardcore stuff. It's just not very much fun watching a real woman being raped. Even if you know it's just a movie, it's hard to get around the fact that it looks an awful lot like what happens in real life. However, the non-consentual scenes in hentai are so over-the-top and rediculous that it's very clear this is not realistic at all. When you watch some sexy 19 year old girl with green hair and 38DDs being attacked by a monster with tentacles, it's very, very clearly an absurd bondage fantasy. It's something that could never, ever happen. And it's something that you're certainly never going to experience. So it's exciting. There are some live-action japanese porn films where they try to do the tentacle thing and it just doesn't work.
American Hardcore porn lacks any real emotion or acting or plot. American softcore porn lacks any hardcore action.
Exactly right. The hardcore stuff is actually kind of boring. You're just watching some stupid guy screw some stupid chick. You know that these people are pathetic. There's a limit how much fun you can have watching these losers fuck each other. The softcore stuff you find on Cinemax and such can be much more exciting because there is actually a story and motivation for the characters to screw. But you don't get to see the goods. Hentai provides the best of both worlds, plus it also shows some stuff that is too hardcore for American hardcore films. The Onion had an interview with (porn producer) Ron Jeremy once where he admitted that American porn is so tame that they can't sell their stuff overseas. Everyone else thinks it's boring. Of course, they can't make it any more hardcore than it is now or the feminists will scream bloody murder. So if you want to see something really kinky and naughty, hentai anime is for you!
GMD
watch this
Many of your complaints seem to be about differences of style, rather than differences of skill.
As far as animation techniques go, don't you think it's a little naive to compare CG studios like Pixar to manual and mixed-media studios?
I'll admit that there's a lot of ass "anime" out there--just like there's a lot of ass "cartoons" out there (seen the new He-Man recently?). Compare the majority of the two animation genres (American and Japanese), and it feels like you're juding a competition for the worst animation ever.
On the other hand, if you look at the high end of manual and mixed-media Japanese animation, you get things like Akira, Ghost, Lain, Metropolis, and Princess Mononoke. All of these compare favorably with the best American and European works, not just in story, but also in animation techniques and and artistic merit. I can't do anything about your style complaints, but if the biggest problem you have with anime is that "everybody's drawn funny", then anime at least has The Simpsons for company.
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