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[itisnotlogical]

Biohazard as in Resident Evil? That's anime? Huh.

[Reelya]

There are a bunch of Biohazard movies from Japan already. They're CGI, and they follow the games stories a bit closer I think, but I never played much more than the original Resident Evil, as I'm not a console person.

BTW ... In Japan they call all animation "anime", even if it's CGI, they don't have a separate term for it, so western anime classifications almost all use the Japanese definition, because what could be more idiotic than arguing with Japanese people that Japanese films they are calling anime are "not really anime".

[itisnotlogical]

1. didn't know they were made in Japan, I only ever saw one in English on Netflix
2. of course being a person in the western world who only has a slightly-above-casual interest in anime, i would sometimes forget the difference between western and japanese usage of words like anime, otaku, etc.

[Reelya]

to skim the issue really slightly, "anime" in Japan means literally "all animation" from everywhere. So they include My Little Pony, Flinstones, South Park, Toy Story everything as anime over there. In the west "anime" was originally adopted to replace a term "Japanimation" which refered to Japanese animation back in the 1980s, basically to be less lame. So that's the "country of origin" definition. Animated + made for Japan = anime.

However, some people want to adopt a "style" definition - only things sufficiently cool and edgy are to be considered  "true animes". And they have to have the eyes drawn a certain way, and they have to be 2D, etc etc. Basically they're prescriptivists, that only exist in the western scene, that effectively hold that if it doesn't look like the animes that were aired on American TV in the 1990s it's not "real" anime. The entire reason for doing so is so that they can take similar-looking American shows and tell people off for calling them cartoons. It's extremely similar to someone who sticks their nose up in the air and sniffs "comic book? I'll have you know this is a grrrraphic novel, thankyouverymuch".

The whole "true anime style" scheme concocted by American fans falls down because any possible set of rules you draw for "true anime^tm style" necessitates telling the Japanese that a fair chunk of their stuff is fake anime. Clearly, the only completely logical solution is to just call everything anime, and put the term in line with the Japanese usage 100%. Avatar would then be an anime, which is what the Avatar fans want. But ... we'd also start calling My Little Pony an anime. And that would piss the Avatar fans off.

[Max™]

Really confused about what you're saying Cruxador, it sounds kinda like you're saying anime fanservice exists because people who speak english have weird views about sexual urges but that's batshit insane and you didn't mention a single conspiracy so that doesn't check out.

[Reelya]

1. didn't know they were made in Japan, I only ever saw one in English on Netflix

I should point out that the Japanese Biohazard movies are completely unrelated to the American Resident Evil movies. Capcom in Japan actually has a big hand in making the Biohazard animated movies themselves.

The Resident Evil movies are effectively in their own universe which is only loosely related to the games.

The Biohazard movies start with a fairly faithful animated version of Biohazard / Resident Evil 4 the game (or so they say since I never played it), and they have a continuity that follows on from that point. The new movie for example is an original story, but brings in characters from several of the games. So the Biohazard movies are canonically set in the same continuity as the games.

[Flying Dice]

Consider a world in which every female wears a short skirt

This is already problematic. Why, exactly, does every female wear a short skirt?

If they go to school in Tokyo? I mean, a lot of anime is based on schools and Tokyo is the nation's most prominent city. So it makes sense that even the anime set in fictional cities take a big part of their inspiration from the capitol.

Except that real school uniforms have knee length or full skirts rather than swooshy miniskirts that reach to mid-thigh at best. The prevalence of the latter in anime is a direct result of the endless thirst for fanservice.

[Reelya]

Also one funny thing is that because of the schoolgirl anime/manga thing and cosplay, there is a subculture of  gyaru called kogyaru who have a dress code of school uniforms with short skirts. Note that they may be students, but not necessarily so, and some of them deliberately go to schools that don't have a dress code, specifically so that they can create their own "sexy schoolgirl" cosplay uniforms.

This specific subculture use to be the biggest "gal" subculture in Japan, and it peaked in popularity at the end of the 1990s so it had a big effect on current anime styles. But it doesn't reflect much to do with official school uniforms. When you see a photo of a bunch of Japanese schoolgirls with really short skirts, you need to be aware of the kogyaru / cosplay subculture, and how they're more likely than not part of that, and not wearing an official school uniform which somehow lets you get away with a miniskirt. Or they might have deliberately hiked their skirts up for the photos.

So those anime schools would only make sense if there were schools that forced the girls to wear anime-style schoolgirl cosplay or forced them to dress as the kogyaru subculture. It would make about as much sense as having a series set in 1977 England where the school uniforms are punk-style.

EDIT: Man you have to love 2000s Gyaru culture and how it evolved. Gangaro, Yamanba (literally the "mountain hag" look), where they tanned their skin dark and put white make-up around the eyes.

Well dark tanned skin is out now. So gyaru will lighten their skin back to normal now, right? right?



Here's a whole pintrest full of them to show that this is in fact a scene and not a one-off:
https://au.pinterest.com/shaivism/shironuri/?lp=true

Modern gyaru fashion is basically a huge "fuck you" to the whole world and everything normal.

[Cruxador]

Really confused about what you're saying Cruxador, it sounds kinda like you're saying anime fanservice exists because people who speak english have weird views about sexual urges but that's batshit insane and you didn't mention a single conspiracy so that doesn't check out.

Nah, of course fanservice is a real thing. I'm just talking about this idea of fan service that doesn't own up to being fanservice. I think that people, particularly in English-speaking communities, tend to overdiagnose this kind of thing because of cultural mismatch. And that the mismatch is more attributable to atypical views in the Anglosphere than in the Orient, but I suppose that bit is ancillary.

Consider a world in which every female wears a short skirt

This is already problematic. Why, exactly, does every female wear a short skirt?

If they go to school in Tokyo? I mean, a lot of anime is based on schools and Tokyo is the nation's most prominent city. So it makes sense that even the anime set in fictional cities take a big part of their inspiration from the capitol.

Except that real school uniforms have knee length or full skirts rather than swooshy miniskirts that reach to mid-thigh at best. The prevalence of the latter in anime is a direct result of the endless thirst for fanservice.

In general they're knee-length, which is why I specified Tokyo, where they have shorter skirts. Not short enough that they'd look indecent in the west or anything, but short enough to satisfy the only real criteria relevant to this discussion: they're short enough to realistically reveal the girl's underwear when engaging in significant physical activity. Of course, skirts do go shorter than that in anime, which could potentially be the case in order to emulate another fashion or it could just be fan service. Motives there vary on a case by case basis and aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

It would make about as much sense as having a series set in 1977 England where the school uniforms are punk-style.

I don't recall seeing a show about British teenagers (aside from Jojo, which is a much earlier time period) but I would be absolutely unsurprised to see something like that in an anime.

[IronyOwl]

The entire reason for doing so is so that they can take similar-looking American shows and tell people off for calling them cartoons. It's extremely similar to someone who sticks their nose up in the air and sniffs "comic book? I'll have you know this is a grrrraphic novel, thankyouverymuch".

Or they want to use a not very useful term to reference a more useful category, in much the same way that people reference "Hollywood" doing things as though it's a coherent entity.

[Cruxador]

In the continuing saga of stuff I've just picked up, Sakura Quest is super heartwarming.

The entire reason for doing so is so that they can take similar-looking American shows and tell people off for calling them cartoons. It's extremely similar to someone who sticks their nose up in the air and sniffs "comic book? I'll have you know this is a grrrraphic novel, thankyouverymuch".

Or they want to use a not very useful term to reference a more useful category, in much the same way that people reference "Hollywood" doing things as though it's a coherent entity.

In this case there's no actual difference in meaning, though. It's not like people think you mean something by Bill Watterson if you say Comic Book.

[scriver]

As for the "they always were short skirts so it is inevitably sexy" doesn't really hold up that well, because there is no "well that's how it is" that isn't in the creator's direct control.

Now I want a a medieval setting where all men is wearing tunics and since underpants hasn't been invented yet they're constantly showing their flails during fights due to all the running and jumping around and stuff.

[Jopax]

Boukun is pretty damn awesome, hadn't expected that. Rarely do I rewatch scenes because the gag is so damn funny. Plus I have a feeling they'll just keep pushing the absurdity of the situation to new highs with each episode, simply because they can

[Max™]

Really confused about what you're saying Cruxador, it sounds kinda like you're saying anime fanservice exists because people who speak english have weird views about sexual urges but that's batshit insane and you didn't mention a single conspiracy so that doesn't check out.

Nah, of course fanservice is a real thing. I'm just talking about this idea of fan service that doesn't own up to being fanservice. I think that people, particularly in English-speaking communities, tend to overdiagnose this kind of thing because of cultural mismatch. And that the mismatch is more attributable to atypical views in the Anglosphere than in the Orient, but I suppose that bit is ancillary.

I... what? So you're diagnosing something which only exists because of people overdiagnosing something because of stuff?

This went orthogonal from the post where I was talking about shows where you're watching it for the service and shows where the service is ancillary to the appeal.

Make Keijo!!!! a show about guys slamming their chests and butts together in speedos and the audience appeal is going to be targeted completely differently, though you would probably overlap the closeted pro-wrestling fans, as it's basically just pro-wrestling over water now.

[Cruxador]

As for the "they always were short skirts so it is inevitably sexy" doesn't really hold up that well, because there is no "well that's how it is" that isn't in the creator's direct control.

Now I want a a medieval setting where all men is wearing tunics and since underpants hasn't been invented yet they're constantly showing their flails during fights due to all the running and jumping around and stuff.

Well now I want that too.

Really confused about what you're saying Cruxador, it sounds kinda like you're saying anime fanservice exists because people who speak english have weird views about sexual urges but that's batshit insane and you didn't mention a single conspiracy so that doesn't check out.

Nah, of course fanservice is a real thing. I'm just talking about this idea of fan service that doesn't own up to being fanservice. I think that people, particularly in English-speaking communities, tend to overdiagnose this kind of thing because of cultural mismatch. And that the mismatch is more attributable to atypical views in the Anglosphere than in the Orient, but I suppose that bit is ancillary.

I... what? So you're diagnosing something which only exists because of people overdiagnosing something because of stuff?

No, dude. We're just getting into details of the taxonomy here. Fanservice (big category) absolutely exists. Fanservice that doesn't own up to being fanservice (proposed subcategory brought up upthread) is a designation which I'm contesting. I feel this designation is rooted in the culture of the observer rather than of the producer, in ways that make it incompatible with the higher designation.

This went orthogonal from the post where I was talking about shows where you're watching it for the service and shows where the service is ancillary to the appeal.

I think this sentence is missing a clause at the end. One that starts with "to", and which hopefully relates to some kind of point.

Make Keijo!!!! a show about guys slamming their chests and butts together in speedos and the audience appeal is going to be targeted completely differently, though you would probably overlap the closeted pro-wrestling fans, as it's basically just pro-wrestling over water now.

That would be absolutely amazing for exactly the reasons that Keijo was.