Anime does not equal Japanese cartoons

[Defectron]

I know many of you will scoff at me for saying this .

scoff! Scoff! Scoff! Sorry, I had something stuck in my throat.


But yes if Japan made the simpsons it would be considered anime.

Now a more grey area is if an american studio exports all its work to another country like Japan.

[Xavierla]

But yes if Japan made the simpsons it would be considered anime.

I don't think that is necessarily true, While Akira is fondly looked upon as an anime technically it is not considered one. We need to start thinking about anime as an art style, it is not right for individual countries to have reserved cartooning styles.

Because that's the only thing that genuinely separates anime from animation in general.

That is definitely not true! I do not recall any other STYLE of cartooning other than the Disney style of cartooning that involves large eyes exaggerated motions and relatively hot blooded characters. Anime is very different from the general style of animation and cartooning.

[Oz]

Anime is very different from the general style of animation and cartooning.

It's impossible to summarize anime in just one single style of animation/art direction/character design/art design/etc. What about Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt? What about western animation that borders on looking just like the stereotypical image we have of anime? The only thing that we can define anime by is where it originates from and its target demographic.

[Xavierla]

What about Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt?

that is exactly what I'm talking about why do we call Panty & Stocking anime when something like Avatar The Last Airbender represents more of what anime should be like?

[Xard]

that is exactly what I'm talking about why do we call Panty & Stocking anime when something like Avatar The Last Airbender represents more of what anime should be like?

So wait, anime now has a normative character? Oh my.

[Xavierla]

So wait, anime now has a normative character? Oh my.

No what I'm saying is that generally anime is done with large eyes and exaggerated motions like in avatar the last airbender which is the reason why I see anime as a style. Akira is animation from Japan but it is not considered an official anime because it's not styled like one. Would you agree that avatar the last airbender looks more like most anime than panty & stocking?

[Fireball]

Akira is animation from Japan but it is not considered an official anime because it's not styled like one.

WTF hahaha

[InstrumentalityOne]

Akira is animation from Japan but it is not considered an official anime because it's not styled like one.

Wait what

[Oz]

Akira is animation from Japan but it is not considered an official anime because it's not styled like one.

I've never heard of anything like this before. As far as I know, Akira is generally considered a landmark of anime in particular.

If you are wondering why Panty & Stocking is called anime and Avatar Last Airbender is not, you can just refer back to the definition that many (including me) have used in this thread. There really isn't anything more to this issue. Style is principally subjective (both in the eyes of its maker and the audience) so we can't really make generalizations (or even worse, definitions) based on a style that is not even united or coherent to begin with.

[A.T. Fish]

Related. TL;DR There are different definitions for the word, however, the one proposed by OP makes it harder to separate what is and what isn't anime whereas defining it by origin alone (anime=animation from Japan) is a much more precise approach.

[Xavierla]

I'm serious Akira is technically counted as simply Japanese animation but not anime. God I'm tired of hearing this from people, no one has given me good reason to why I couldn't pickup a pen or pencil and make an anime when someone who is Japanese could do it. I think that just calling it a Japanese cartoon is BULLSHIT, there I said it. You can't sit here and seriously tell me that the only reason why anime is different from other cartoons is because it is from Japan. I do not understand that logic at all! As an artist who is very into anime and manga I think that this idea that anime is simply a Japanese cartoon needs to stop because it is an insult to the creativity of people of other races. The fact that we are really going to sit here at look at me weird when I say it's stupid to call a Japanese cartoon styled like the Simpsons an anime shows that people are being way too rigid. This is just like when people say rap is not music, everybody is being way to rigid and it's pissing me off!

[Fireball]

God I'm tired of hearing this from people, no one has given me good reason to why I couldn't pickup a pen or pencil and make an anime when someone who is Japanese could do it.

You can try but it will always be anime ja nai.


Fish's link says it pretty much IMO,

According to Anime News Network publisher, Christopher Macdonald, "On Anime News Network, we define anime based on the origin of the animation. If it is primarily produced in Japan, it is anime. It should be clear, that by adhering to a definition that defines non-Japanese animation that mimic common anime styles as 'not anime,' Anime News Network does not endorse the notion that these 'anime-style' works are in any way inferior to animation produced in Japan. "

[A.T. Fish]

I'm serious Akira is technically counted as simply Japanese animation but not anime.

Source?

God I'm tired of hearing this from people, no one has given me good reason to why I couldn't pickup a pen or pencil and make an anime when someone who is Japanese could do it. I think that just calling it a Japanese cartoon is BULLSHIT, there I said it. You can't sit here and seriously tell me that the only reason why anime is different from other cartoons is because it is from Japan. I do not understand that logic at all!

Dude, it's just a term, you sound like you think anime is a superior form of art that overshadows animation in general.

As an artist who is very into anime and manga I think that this idea that anime is simply a Japanese cartoon needs to stop because it is an insult to the creativity of people of other races.

How is it an insult to anyone's creativity? What does ethnicity have to do with it? Going by the geographical definition you could make an anime yourself, provided you were working for a Japanese animation studio, on the other hand, a Japanese working for an american studio would not be making anime, still, you'd both be making animation, regardless of what label is attributed to it.

[Xavierla]

Why should I have to work for a Japanese studio when I could just write an awesome anime story line at disney. That is what I am failing to understand, I want to know why anime must be done in Japan and how it being made in Japan is the ONLY thing that makes it differ from other forms of animation.

[A.T. Fish]

You could make an awesome story, animate it in whatever style you'd like and it would be called animation, in any circumstance, and I don't see why that would be a problem. The link I provided earlier had two definitions of anime, the geographical one and another that is more like the definition you propose, some people go by one and some people go by the other, so even if your animation was made in the style that you label as anime there would be people disagreeing with you. Would that really be a problem?

[TehDonutKing]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anime#English

[chee]

I tried to make a French New Wave movie in English back in 2010. My film professors told me that was impossible, because the French New Wave was a specific moment in a particular culture's history, that my crew, actors and I weren't even French to begin with, and that simply adopting its techniques and tropes merely meant that I was influenced by it, not that I was part of it.

I told them that they were WRONG and CLOSED MINDED, and that they were BULLSHIT. I don't need "film professors" and grammar nazis and "dictionaries" telling me the meaning of a word that I KNOW THE REAL MEANING OF. I wrote an AMAZING French New Wave story, it was about an Althusser-quoting Marxist super-cool hitman who travels through time and space with jump cuts and lives in a world made entirely out of primary colors and chases after a blonde American girl who sells newspapers, only to be stopped by a seven minute long traffic jam caused by a kid who stopped time and space by becoming a freeze-frame that got zoomed in on. Then he starts capping bitches in a big villa where there's a creepy Frankenstein-y dude who's good at card tricks and space-time doesn't really work right and there's a bunch of creepy Messiaen organ music and our hero keeps trying to bang this one chick but jump cuts and non-linear narrative keep getting in his way. It was genius.

I USED ENOUGH JUMP CUTS AND GENRES DAMMIT.

[MugwumpHasNoLiver]

I get off on watching Chee go at his own wrists with a straight razor, so I'll indulge the topic.

While Akira is fondly looked upon as an anime technically it is not considered one.

I'm curious, who doesn't consider Akira an anime and what is their reasoning? I've never met such a person myself. I must know what possible technical abberation aside from differing aesthetics could exempt one of anime's landmark films from being considered anime. Please tell me. It's not as if we're talking about something so bland and homogenous you can strip it down to a simple checklist and mark off characteristics to determine the worth of the net anime value (though I am going to stop now, less I give the more rigid thinkers out there any ideas.)

[Xavierla]

I saw the link and I move towards the second definition but would like to make somewhat of an edit to it. I see anime as a style of art but a very diverse one that when you get down to it, includes detailed body parts and features, excessive use of camera angles and detailed background and both coloring. If you apply this definition both panty & stocking and akira can be considered anime because of their use of camera angles detailed backgrounds and detailed features (detailed as in the drawings themselves are being focused on more than the movement like in Disney animation). I re-checked my sources and it was incorrect. I apologize for my reaction as well as claiming Akira as being not anime when myself and everyone else here knows full well that it is.

[Dream]

Out of curiosity, what do you mean with "excessive use of camera angles"?