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[Rose]

Steven Universe is finally returning Dec 17!

[Folly]

Steven Universe is finally returning Dec 17!

Cartoon/Western Animation Thread

[Rose]

Steven Universe is finally returning Dec 17!

Cartoon/Western Animation Thread

Lies.

[Egan_BW]

but what is anime really

[JoshuaFH]

You know, it's about time we had another 10-20+ page argument on that exact topic.

[Rose]

SU had a japanese guest artist once?

[scriver]

You know, it's about time we had another 10-20+ page argument on that exact topic.

Yes! It is what I like most about animes

But can a western anime argument truly be an anime argument

[Cruxador]

Anime is just the hip new slang for Japanimation.

[Gentlefish]

But then is Panty and Stockings With Garterbelt an anime even though it's made to parody cartoons? And is ATLA even though it was expressly made with anime in mind?

I've given up on a "true" definition personally. If the creator wants a cartoon they can have a cartoon. If they want an anime, they can have an anime. The line is blurring a little with the latest generation of creators, but it's a nonissue for me since I'm not a purist scrub.

[Reelya]

I'm not a purist in the stylistic sense. Japanese creators are free to rip off western styles and Western creators are free to rip off Japanese styles. I just want the term "anime" to have a definition that can be settled on factual information, and not subjective opinion. Because if we go for opinion, it becomes a matter of "majority rules" as to whether e.g. ATLA is considered an anime and Invader Zim is not. So, it goes from being one argument about the definition of anime, into separate arguments about every show that actually exists as to the extent of its "anime-ness".

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My main point is that if "anime" is to be a shared term, it needs a shared, objectively-agreeable definition. This is why I prefer the "country of origin" definition to the "if it looks like a duck, it is a duck" definition. Nobody can, in fact, agree what a duck even looks like in this case, so the "looks like a duck" perspective isn't tenable.

"stuff from Japan is anime, end of debate" is my position. Because then, I don't have to have an opinion on the "anime-esque-ness" of each any every show that exists. I could hate a show, and it's still anime, and I could love another show, and it's not an anime. Purely decided by the country of origin rules. Not by me. This means I don't have to waste braincells deciding.

For example, without the country-of-origin definition, I'd be free to say that this is my personal definition of a True Anime:


Which was by creator Takashi Yanase. It's part of a sub-genre of anime which includes Osamu Tezuka's kimba, Unico, etc. All anime, all similar-looking. This personal definition allows me to then say that all Disney films are also anime, on the basis of sharing a similar style. Someone else might disagree and say that "true anime" are Dragonball and Pokemon. Others might disagree and say proper anime are cyberpunk things like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Ergo Proxy, and that cheap western episodic rip-offs of DBZ and Pokemon style shouldn't even be considered "proper animes". Even though plenty of purely episodic Japanese animes do, in fact, exist. So that's why the "looks like a duck" argument doesn't actually work here. We've all got different ducks.

Under the country of origin definition, anime creators are free to create whatever they want, and it's still anime. Anime is the medium of animation, just shorthand for all animation from Japan. It encompasses many styles, but it's not a style, in the sense that "modernism" is a specific style. For Modernism, anything that deviates from that comes under various "post-modernist" labels, but what would "post-anime" even be? That would have to make sense if anime was a specific set of stylistic rules, rather than the actual medium itself, no matter how it evolves.

The "country of origin" definition works similar to other terms such as "french cinema". If you heard that, you'd have some idea for what you're getting most of the time, the same as you do for "anime". Other directors in other countries can copy "french cinema" perfectly, but that doesn't make their work "french cinema".

[Egan_BW]

Yeah, but "country of origin" is an unusual qualifier for art, which does not necessarily follow national lines. The better definition is that anime is just any animated thing. The world won't burn down if we call The Simpsons an anime.

And if the problem with that is that we end up confusing people, your definition probably will do so as well, because most people are going to use their own subjective "looks like a duck" definition, and you probably actually won't be able to convince them otherwise. Even though your definition might theoretically cut down on arguments if everyone just accepted it, it actually will do no such thing because you'll need to argue with them to use the more objective definition.


Now, to go back to lurking this thread because I don't actually watch japanese animes.

[Reelya]

Yeah, but "country of origin" is an unusual qualifier for art, which does not necessarily follow national lines. The better definition is that anime is just any animated thing. The world won't burn down if we call The Simpsons an anime.

I do actually agree with that, and i've in fact made that same argument, that if we let XYZ things be included in the definition, then we need to just let everything in to be consistent.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's actually no problem however with the "country of origin" label, because "anime" isn't saying any specific style or content: it's just saying "animation made in Japan". Check what large, authoritative database sites consider anime, and it covers every possible art style. It includes CGI with realistic-looking human characters, CGI with Pixar-type characters, cartoons that look like they were made by Disney, cartoons that look like Invader Zim, cartoons with any possible drawing style you can imagine. No matter what they look like, if they were made in Japan, they're called anime. If there's any ambiguity, it comes down to the language it was released in. So, something made in Japan purely for an American market isn't listed on anime sites whereas something released in both Japan and America at the same time would be.

This is the logical flaw with the "but defining art as coming from one place makes no sense" argument. anime as a term isn't in fact making any stylistic assumptions about which shows qualify. It merely means "cartoon from Japan". It's more in line with a term like "Americana" for artifacts related to America. Sure, you could fabricate your own Americana that looks exactly like it could be the real deal, but it would not in fact be Americana because being from America is in fact the entire definition of Americana.

The "anime is a style" thing is actually something I have a conceptual problem with much more than the "country of origin" thing. If anime is a style, then anything that breaks out of the mold must be "not anime". It's prescriptive. It's restrictive. It means we would need to start telling the Japanese that when (not if) they deviate too far from "anime norms" then they've betrayed this sanitized western notion of "true anime". Well, fuck that. if we get to that point where anime becomes one definable thing where if you don't have spiky-haired kids with superpowers battling monsters/demons/baddies in a serialized plot then it's not "proper anime" then fuck. that. shit. Those aren't even the anime I like. People trying to define a "proper" "anime style" almost always want to use something like Dragonball / Pokemon / Sailor Moon / Yu-Gi-Oh as the basic template. They're not talking Mushishi or Kino's Journey here. If Mushishi had been American-made then the "anime is a style" people would probably say it isn't an anime: It's completely episodic. It doesn't have colorful characters with crazy hair color and big eyes. There are no battles, or bad guys to fight. Or, the anime "Bartender": an episodic show where different customers come into the bar, the bartender makes a cocktail that symbolizes their life problem, and it explains the history of the drink as well as how to make it. If it wasn't from Japan, would we even think to call that an anime? It clearly wouldn't be a "true anime" according to the people who come up with any of these style-based rules for what count as anime, because I've never heard one of those sets of rules that could even remotely fit something like Bartender.

however, the real point is that the people calling to let some cartoons be labeled as anime specifically don't want to just let everything be called anime if people want to call it anime. The actual motive is to make a distinction between "cartoon" and "anime" made in the west. The goal is to "up market" some shows that those people like and divorce them from the "cartoon" label, because cartoon is seen as having lesser connotations, and "anime" is a trendy term.

So the goal is in fact to draw a line in the sand between shows like The Simpsons, MLP as "cartoons" and Avatar TLA, as "anime", usually going on with some high-brow statements such as that "anime has a True Plot that's so much more than a cartoon". It is in fact a bit of a hipster thing because some people feel more sophisticated saying they watch "anime" rather than a "cartoon", but they use a very selective set of "proper anime traits" that seems to divorce this "conceptually an anime" stuff from all the shitty tropes that actual Japanese anime are full of, as well as the vast number of episodic, slice of life and other styles of anime that aren't covered in a one-size-fits-all "style" set of rules.

BTW: If the goal is to up-market American cartoons then guess what, the best way is not in fact to start claiming the good ones are "anime", it's to highlight the good ones as good examples of American cartoons.

[scriver]

Ergo Proxy was mentioned again so I'm just gonna say again that it is probably the best looking anime ever made and if that became the absolute definition of anime I would totes be okay with that.

[Cruxador]

Yeah, but "country of origin" is an unusual qualifier for art, which does not necessarily follow national lines. The better definition is that anime is just any animated thing.

That's the Japanese use of the word, but as a loan word, it means Japanese animation. So it doesn't make sense to call something like AtLA or Wakfu "anime" just as we wouldn't call an officer's saber a "katana", and the Japanese wouldn't call a female dog "bichii".

As far as art goes, "anime" is all but meaningless anyway. However, saying "Japanese animation" is still more meaningful than saying "animation that looks like it could be Japanese". The former suggests an important foundational zeitgeist that may be absent in the latter. As for specific series that take some degree of inspiration, having a single word is pointless in the first place. Art is by its very nature nuanced; a description must also be nuanced. Therefore it's fine to say that AtLA takes inspiration from the artistic style of Japanese animation, Wakfu takes inspiration from its narrative structures, and Samurai Jack takes inspiration from Japanese myth while being comparatively less influenced by modern Japanese media.

Tl;dr: Cory in the House is the best anime.

[Culise]

Yeah, but "country of origin" is an unusual qualifier for art, which does not necessarily follow national lines. The better definition is that anime is just any animated thing.

That's the Japanese use of the word, but as a loan word, it means Japanese animation. So it doesn't make sense to call something like AtLA or Wakfu "anime" just as we wouldn't call an officer's saber a "katana", and the Japanese wouldn't call a female dog "bichii".

Let's play devil's advocate and extend that metaphor.  If I made a curved sword with a single edge from layered steel worked to remove impurities coated with one of myriad possible variations of clay slurry, heated and quenched multiple times, then progressively polished before being mounted in a long grip, do I get to call that a katana even if I made it in an American instead of a Japanese forge?  Why can I call an officer's saber a saber if it's not Hungarian, since that's where the word and the direct predecessor of that fashion of curved blade originates? 

The problem ultimately is that "anime" doesn't just mean Japanese animation to a lot of people: it's also taken to mean a style of animation that draws significant influence from Japanese styles.  Arguing that "it doesn't mean that because it doesn't mean that" just feels recursive to me, though I must admit that an "I know it when I see it" argument doesn't feel much better from this or a legal standpoint.  Anime as only being restricted to that which is made in Japan (or the ones that are animated in Korean studios, but we'll ignore that entirely) is a very convenient and fixed definition. 

EDIT:
Of course, for the purpose of full disclosure, it's probably worth noting that I'd be fine with "animesque" or "anime-like" works being discussed in an anime thread regardless of a strict definition of anime.  It's no stranger to discuss AtLA or Wakfu in here than it would be to discuss the French co-produced Mysterious Cities of Gold or...what's that strongly western-inspired one...Panty And Stocking, I think.