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[Flying Dice]

Eeh. I'm holding out hopes for RWBY; it still feels too much like a really long tech demo. I suppose the 'suddenly androids/gynoids and mecha' route was inevitable when RT decided to drive the plot with human villains, in order to give the protagonists something to look really cool fighting against without holding back/brutally killing a bunch of people.

Honestly, it feels like they're piling on a few too many cliches -- the most outrageous is the Faunus racism. Which is a thing, apparently, because people are assholes (yes, yes, I know, that's actually plausible  ). Unless they're hiding some secret revelation or something, it's literally just 'those people are subhuman scum because... they have cute, fuzzy ears and tails!', which is even more absurd in a world that apparently has no other significant discrimination and a plainly Other enemy for people to unite against. It's shaping up to be one of the most heavyhanded anvils I've seen in a long while.

That said, it also feels like fertile ground for excellent fanfiction if it hangs on. Possibly even growing the beard, if RT puts as much effort into plotting and character development beyond "This is this character's one/two defining trait(s), play it/them to the hilt," as they do into supah-awsum choreographed action scenes.

[Reelya]

-Rideback* NOTE: Funimation, the company that made it

Importnant note: Funimation don't actually make any shows, they just bid for the US broadcast rights and dub the shows. Madhouse is the studio that made Rideback.

It *could* be argued that by dubbing a show that Funimation are partly "making" a show, but I don't think we'd accept that e.g. a studio that dubbed Star Wars into Chinese "made" Star Wars, even partially, so I think we have to say that localizing a show for a particular country isn't quite enough to list a company as one of the producers of that show.

I do believe neither Avatar The Last Airbender nor the Legend of Korra are actual anime.

  That is debated, but for the sake of clarity I put them up.

Fine, though anime specifically means cartoons from Japan, and only that. The reason is thus: any other definition opens up a HUGE can of worms.

For a definition to "work" it needs to be simple, clear and objective. Avatar TLA has: art style and narrative, similar to A FEW anime. A few popular long-running ones like DragonBall or Naruto. But those are the minority of actual Japanese anime. They're mainly notable for being popular in America.

We could say that a particular art style, fantasy settings, martial arts battles, and a flowing narrative "define" anime. But that definition excludes many, many shows from Japan we already call anime. Hell, the bulk of Japanese anime are shows set in the modern world which deal with everyday life. Slice of Life, school and romantic comedy anime vastly outnumber the martial arts fantasy shows.

We could then say "cartoons like Avatar OR from Japan are anime" but then we're making this huge judgement - really unwarranted - of what are the "true" anime from Japan, and the rest "just happen" to be anime because they are from Japan. Who are we to say which type of Japanese anime are the "true" anime style and which Just happen to fall into that category by virtue of being Japanese? The Japanese certainly make no such distinction.

If we come up with a "style" based definition for the term "anime" we need to be comfortable with the idea that this definition could theoretically exclude some shows from Japan as "not anime enough". Since we're not comfortable with doing that, anime should be used only to refer to shows from Japan, and not shows with a plot that have fantasy adventures and battles, even if they got the idea from Japan.

[Flying Dice]

Not to mention that that sort of thinking is serving to reinforce the animation age ghetto -- albeit from a different direction -- by associating western cartoons that aren't children's shows or Simpsons/South Park-style comedies with anime because of the reluctance which some people apparently have to acknowledge that western animation can deviate from those two genres. Honestly, I think what it's really about (maybe subconsciously) is that people don't want to have to say, "Oh, I watched a couple episodes of this cartoon..." because of the stigma that carried (and to some extent still does carry) in the west -- 'anime' serves as a label that can be appropriated to give something a more mature veneer (which is mildly ironic, considering the genres of most of the broadly known anime series in the west), while the art style and perhaps some of the dramatic/character tropes are the excuse used for giving it that label.

It's not even particularly accurate, when you come down to it, to call something "anime-/manga-like" in terms of art style, considering that things like Avatar and RWBY are as much a part of branching development from both the traditions of eastern animation/manga and western comics/cartoons as anime and manga were from early western cartoons; you don't hear anyone describing, say, Astroboy as "Betty Boop-esque" despite the obvious similarities. Like all media, it's a continuous evolution of styles. Sure, similarities exist, but being similar doesn't equate to being identical -- just ask any pair of metalheads with slightly different tastes in subgenre.

[tuypo1]

I do believe neither Avatar The Last Airbender nor the Legend of Korra are actual anime.

why wouldent they be there made in japan arent they

[Flying Dice]

I do believe neither Avatar The Last Airbender nor the Legend of Korra are actual anime.

why wouldent they be there made in japan arent they

Not sure if trolling or... &c.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is an American television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008.

[tuypo1]

I do believe neither Avatar The Last Airbender nor the Legend of Korra are actual anime.

why wouldent they be there made in japan arent they

Not sure if trolling or... &c.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is an American television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008.

well its not trolling so it must be whatever andc means but yeah in that case not anime

[Reelya]

There are definite grey areas, you can bet the same studios in South Korea who do the grunt work on The Simpsons (and Avatar TLA), also outsource work from Japanese studios. Everyone outsources to the Koreans.

So, this can't be clarified by where the animators live or work, so nationality of the producers / writers is used.

One exception is the original Transformers, which is a really grey, grey area. Based on Japanese transforming robot toys, with episode storyboards by Americans, totally animated in Japan by Toei Animation, then dubbed by Americans. It's usually counted on sites as an anime, because it also aired in Japanese at the same time as the US, and had it's own manga in Japan at the time of airing.

Jetfire/Skyfire for example, is just a VF1S Valkyrie model from the first Macross anime rebranded as a "Transformer", some others were also from lesser-known mecha anime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Generation_1

Interestingly, the Diaclone toys actually had little 1-inch tall pilots in them, that were omitted from the American version of the toy lines. So they were actual combat mecha, not robots.

[Flying Dice]

Mm, in the case of animation I'd say it's more reliable to judge by the location of the storyboard artist(s), or by the artists that do the basic concept-art, at least as far as stuff that isn't pure CG goes. S'like saying that a publishing company for a comic is the origin point of the art, rather than the person/people that drew it. Or, say, a film with a script written by a French writer, directed by an Italian director, filmed with a majority of various European actors, which happened to be shot in California and made use of some American companies for effects -- is that a European film or an American film?

[tuypo1]

all i know is that winx is probably the only thing keeping the Greek economy afloat

[Reelya]

Greek? I checked and it's Italian. I doubt Greece has the tech infrastructure to even produce a Flash cartoon, let alone a TV series. If they did, it'd probably be of the quality of Turkish Star Wars.

[tuypo1]

Greek? I checked and it's Italian. I doubt Greece has the tech infrastructure to even produce a Flash cartoon.

oh yes italian i always get those 2 confused

you know when there not shoving aesops down your throat there darn good storytellers

[Furtuka]

Gundam Build Fighters Try PV

[JoshuaFH]

I checked out the demo for the 3DS title "Conception II" and while I don't have time to get into details, I'm just... so utterly appalled and disgusted. I was not expecting to be alienated so thoroughly.

Atlus... What happened?! This is not what I expect from you! Just... Jesus...

[Mindmaker]

The Pet Girl of Sakurasou seems neat.

Rom-com, perfectly-normal-main-character-dude in a art-dedicated high school gets put in the "weird-kids" hall after adopting a stray cat he found in the streets and getting kicked out of his dorm for having it. Dude quickly levels up to "crazy cat lady" and adopts every stray cat he finds. The teacher managing the weird-kids hall sends MC-dude to go pick up her niece, who's transferring from England, and show her back to weird-kids hall. Girl is an artistic prodigy with great skills at drawing manga but is generally quiet, apathetic, and completely scatterbrained. MC-dude winds up playing the role of her "keeper". Presumably romance and comedy ensue.

It looks about like most rom-coms. Some fanservice, high school setting, MC sits in the back left corner of the class by the window, the usual. Only seen one episode so far. The character interaction seems interesting. Every character in the hall is utterly different with different quirks of personality.

Hory shet tho, these colors. The anime has a gorgeous color palette. I'd compare it to No Game No Life in terms of color. It's colorful. Delicious eye candy for my eye mouths.

I liked it, although a lot of people seemed to be quite dissapointed.
The anime gave the childhood friend a much bigger role than the manga did.

[Leafsnail]

I checked out the demo for the 3DS title "Conception II" and while I don't have time to get into details, I'm just... so utterly appalled and disgusted. I was not expecting to be alienated so thoroughly.

Atlus... What happened?! This is not what I expect from you! Just... Jesus...

Spike-Chunsoft rejected Zero Escape 3 and made this. They are dead to me.