What is anime?

[Guest Anime Otaku]

I'm watching the only acceptable anime series ever: The Boondocks.

 

Blinkered attitude aside, The Boondocks (which I love) isn't anime. It's written by an American, who also wrote the comic strip it's based on, and is animated by a Korean company (I think generally only Key Animation is done in the US, the rest is farmed off to Korean studios, pretty sure The Simpsons and probably Futurama do this) called Moi Animation (though they do subcontract for a Japanese studio called madhouse). At most is Animesque like Samurai Jack and Power Puff Girls.

 

DSR is spot on with Samurai Champloo too. excellent show. Battlecry is my second favourite anime theme tune after Tank! from Cowboy Bebop.

[Guest John Hancock]

So Anime can ONLY be Asian? Surely it's just the art style. That's pretty ridiculous if something is exactly like anime in ever possible understanding, but isn't Asian, then it's not anime. That's like saying that Eminem isn't a rapper because he isn't black, and rap originated with black people. I'm sorry, but that's just complete "NIPPON IS KAWAII!" nonsense.

[Guest Anime Otaku]

My personal view, though it's a fairly widely held one, is that in the west Anime can only refer to Japanese animation (in Japan all animation is called Anime, the word itself is borrowed from French), it's not even really a uniform artstyle (the Boondocks actually makes a kind of historical circle as the person that made Astro Boy was inspired by Disney cartoons of the time) and it's as much about cultural references as looks. If you compare something like Cowboy Bebop to K-On there's a big difference (admittedly there's also a decade between them and tastes change).

 

To me saying The Boondocks is Anime because of the art style is like saying a person is Scottish or Irish because they have a Kilt on even if it's a Black dude with a Jamaican accent.

 

Edit: This may also help us a bit http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anime

Edited March 26, 2011 by Anime Otaku

[Guest John Hancock]

That metaphor doesn't stand up though. It was nothing to do with anything. We're talking about art, not people. People's nationality isn't defined by how they look, but artistic genres are defined ONLY by how they look.

 

You're saying an art style is defined by the artist, that certain genres can only be made by certain people, but that's not how art works. If The Boondocks isn't anime, what is it? What art style is it? Anime doesn't mean "Made in Japan", it just means the Japanese style of art. Not all Japanese cartoons are automatically anime, and so it can't be that all anime is automatically Japanese.

[Guest Saz]

When I went to the manga museum in Kyoto, it basically said that Manga is not exclusively Japanese, there are certain similarities that make something manga, but if they are there, even if it is western, the Japanese consider it as manga.

 

In fact in the UK section of the Manga Museum, they had copies of Judge Dredd stories and 2000AD. In the US Section Spiderman, Captain America, in France... er Lucky Luke and Tin Tin!

[Paul 584]

As I said the last time this was brought up (last may).

 

Get your tounge out of Mount Fuji. :P

 

an·i·me  /ˈænəˌmeɪ/ Show Spelled[an-uh-mey] Show IPA

–noun

a Japanese style of motion-picture animation, characterized by highly stylized, colorful art, futuristic settings, violence, and sexuality.

 

Dictionary.com

 

 

Wiki says

 

English-language dictionaries define anime as "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation" or as "a style of animation developed in Japan

[Guest John Hancock]

Actually, now you mention it Saz, Tin Tin is pretty anime-y.

[Guest Saz]

Well, it all is bud, that's the point, Manga is comic art, anime is a particular style, but still, the Japanese consider all drawn animation Anime as well.

[Guest Anime Otaku]

Anime doesn't mean "Made in Japan".

 

In the west, particularly among Anime fans, it does specifically mean Japanese animation, things like The Boondocks are referred to as animesque.

[Guest John Hancock]

Then that's kinda ridiculous.

 

The Japanese definition that Saz and Darkstar are talking about makes much more sense as an actual genre.

[Guest Anime Otaku]

It's probably, at least in part, comes from the fact that originally there was a smaller audience for anime over here when people still either thought animation = kids stuff or Anime = THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!! So they used the term to differentiate it from Disney and the like, though it's not unique as people refer to (I think) Italian horror movies or a subset there of by their Italian name which is something like Giallo (i'm not sure of the exact spelling but it's along those lines) I think they might be similar to British Hammer horrors but nastier.

I think that you could say that over here Anime and Manga are Sub Genres (with a further series of sub-sub genres) of Animation and Comic Book/Graphic Novels rather than a full genre in themselves.

Edited March 26, 2011 by Anime Otaku

[Paul 584]

I'd say, and I dont mean to offend anyone here even though it probably will, Anime in the definition you mean it by Taj is used by people who are a bit pretentious about it.

 

'What, it wasnt made IN Japan but it was made by people who normally live there? Its not Anime then. ROAR!'

[Guest John Hancock]

I always think of anime as a specific look. Angular lines, simple shading, highly detailed static backgrounds, exaggerated facial features, that sort of thing. To me at least, it is a genre. It's a style of drawing that I think is pretty easy to identify, and it doesn't mean much to me what country the person who drew it happened to have been from.

 

That said, I've never been a fan of nationalist genres. I've never liked Americans who like "British punk", or people who only like "French cinema" or whatever. I think all national fetishisation is pretty weird. I've been the target of it myself, and I've always found it a little bit weird and, to be honest, creepy, and, if I'm in a bad mood, kinda offensive.

 

It's like, with a lot of western anime fans, I can imagine giving them an apple from my garden, and them thinking that it's just... an apple, but, if I told them the apple was from Japan, it would be the BEST APPLE EVER ^____^

 

And it's not just Japan, it's the same for the Italian horror schtick (which I can't spell either :P). I think there's certain groups of people who like certain things from certain countries, not because those things are actually better, but because they just "like" the country they're from. That's why I'm not comfortable with anime being exclusively Japanese, because that makes me think of the sort of (and you'll excuse the term) western otakus who over fetishise everything Japan does, but, at the same time dismiss the exact same thing as being somehow intrinsically different if it's from another country that they don't, for whatever reason, get so excited about.

Edited March 26, 2011 by John Hancock

[Paul 584]

That post says it exactly as it fits in my brain.

[Guest John Hancock]

Thread split to keep to keep the original one on topic.

[Guest Dante Spears]

You wouldn't find Italian Neorealism in France, and you wouldn't find German Expressionism in Mexico. Anime means it was produced in and reflects Japanese culture.

[Guest John Hancock]

Anime means it was produced in and reflects Japanese culture.

 

But that's the entire conversation; does it? And, so far, all dictionaries and website and museums have disagreed with you.

 

The examples you've used as loaded, because the name of the country is the name of the genre. Of course Italian neo-realism is Italian, but are saying that there wasn't any neo-realism in other countries, or saying that there's no expressionism outside of Germany?

 

If the question had been, "Does Japanese anime have to be from Japan?" then, obviously, the answer is yes, and that would fit in with your examples, but no one's asking that, people are asking, "Does all anime have to be from Japan?", which, to fit your examples, is like asking, "Does all neo-realism come from Italy?", in which case, if you were being honest, have to say it doesn't. Most does, perhaps even the vast, vast majority does, but you can't say it ALL does. Is all Japanese anime Japanese? Yes. Is all anime Japanese? No.

 

It's like saying that all klezmar music is played and written by Jews. It was invented by Jews, it was popularised by Jews, it's very, VERY niche to non-Jews, 99% of people who play it are Jewish, but you can't say that, if a Catholic kid picked up his clarinet and started playing klezmar music that, suddenly, it wouldn't be klezmar, just because he wasn't Jewish.

Edited March 27, 2011 by John Hancock

[Omega 354]

I think personally think that real anime is made in Japan, things made to look like anime but created in the west are copying the style. As a metaphor think about the "disneyland" they are building in China that is not in anyway associated with the actual Disney company. In broad terms it's all Disney but the Chinese knock off isn't actually "Disney" it's just Disney-styled.

 

So really both points of view are correct in their own ways.

[dsrchris 190]

What about something like Afro Samurai that's a collaboration between Japanese and American studios?

[Guest Reno]

When it comes to anime, if it's done in the form of limited animation then it's anime.