Forum - View topicYour thoughts on "American" anime?
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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By western do you mean the animation produced in the 100 countries of the western world or just US animation? Because I might agree that the 100 countries in the whole western world produce animation with greater variety of design than the animation produced in Japan (though Japan actually produces more animation in terms of quantity than the 100 countries of the western world combined  ), though not artistically accomplished.
US animation, however, is very lacking in diversity of style as well. Also, Western animation almost never tries to be beautiful (such as the short I posted above). It nearly always looks likes cartoon strips with some notable exceptions. The backgrounds are always very simplistic: 
Some of the best US stuff, though, looks a bit better: 
The best anime in visual terms looks like a translation of painting into moving pictures, in the same way that live action film is a translation of photography to moving pictures. Stuff like Spirited Away, for instance, are pretty much impressionistic paintings inhabited by manga characters. The dramatic expressiveness of each individual frame of Spirited Away is also awe inspiring, one won't find such expressiveness in any western animation: 
While, Madoka, also looks stunning, even though it's completely different in style -it's much more modern looking (and also, done on a much lower budget): 
Overall, it clearly appears to me that besides the typical "big pupils" character designs, Japanese animation offers much greater visual diversity than US animation, also, the individual works being much richer, visually, than US animation. Also, US animation appears to have very standardized tropes of character design as well (big eyes with small pupils). South Park and Family Guy all share many elements of design, yes each one looks a bit different from the other but the difference is not greater than between Clannad and RahXephon. You must be just very used to US character designs to think of them as "normal" and to see significant variation when there isn't any. A Japanese person more used to anime than US cartoons also will notice great variation between similarly looking anime while viewing all US animation as looking the same. |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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You have, ONCE AGAIN, failed to explain why this is a bad thing. Also, nice biased cherry-picking there. Seriously, if you guys are going to be deceitful I'm gonna call you out on it. Stop doing it. You cannot get away with it. STOP
Okay, at this point, you are literally lying, KNOWING THAT YOU ARE LYING, and expecting us to take it as truth. Oy vey. I don't even like Family Guy but you are making my head hurt with your fallacious reasoning. Though calling it "reasoning" is a stretch. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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I have, sorry, but it doesn't look good.
What to you mean by "expressive"? You mean the physically unrealistic fast movement typical of Disney movies, where the characters behave like plastic bags filled with water? I don't like that style of animation. A typical frame of Spirited Away, for instance, expresses more emotion than entire scenes of a US animated movie. Since each frame of Spirited Away is essentially a work of art. Just compare the frames I posted above.
That depends on taste, but according to mine, US animation does almost nothing better. Well, if you include CGI, James Cameron's - mostly animated - film Avatar certainly has better CGI effects than anything ever made in Japan. Though, I still don't think that CGI animation looks as good as the best handdrawn animation, which has an organic quality lacking in the artificial wireframes of CGI models. But in terms of hand drawn animation, I don't see anything impressive about US animation, at all. I god goosebumps watching the animation in several scenes of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. Truly marvels to behold. I first watched these movies as an adult, after watching tons of US animation as a child and nothing compares, remotely. I am not impressed by the visuals of Disney movies, I find them quite poor artistically. Though it is obvious that a lot of manpower went into the animation, it just doesn't look good to me. It looks artificial and fake, like plastic bags filled with water, but moving at 24 frames per second. I am not very interested in watching that. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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You mean that I must explain why something that is conceived as art by it's creator should be considered better than something that is not?
I picked what came into my mind. I didn't try to cherry pick anything. Two low budget US tv series and one high budget movie, The Iron Giant, made with a budget 3 times larger than Spirited Away, by the way. Pretty much nothing ever made in US animation has the detail and expressiveness of the background paintings in Spirited Away. That's because US animation doesn't try to do look beautiful. There is also the network economies of having a huge animation industry: In the same way that Hollywood movies have better special effects than European movies, because Hollywood is larger and hence concentrates more expertise in all technical areas involving special effects, Japanese animation have better animation than non-Japanese animation, because there are hundreds of animation studios in Japan that concentrate a huge amount of talent and expertise.
Besides disagreeing you also believe that others don't have the right to disagree with you?
To me US animation looks pretty much all the same general style. From Disney, to Cartoon Network shows to Family Guy. They all share a set of characteristics that make them look like "American cartoons". And I citing Family Guy because I actually watch this show and I like it. I must also say that I personally find Family Guy to be more pleasing visually than other adult comedies like Simpsons and South Park. |
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rheiders
 Posts: 1137 Location: Colorful Colorado :) |
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@JoseCruz
Can you explain what you mean by "artificial"? I find that to be a very interesting statement because most of the animation in Disney films is based on the movements of actual live models, while most anime directors (most notably Miyazaki) prefer not to draw from life. |
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Jen Bigby
 Posts: 112 |
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Nooo I don't think that's why Flowers of Evil gets dumped on I think. Madoka also had a unique art-style but it was praised quite a lot. One looks good, the other doesn't. "Diversity in design" is not inherently good or bad. Anime is plenty of diverse whether you want to admit it or not.. I dunno how you can tell me Madoka, Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece all look alike. I can pick out character designs in each of those styles from a mile away. The only difference is that anime diversity has some semblance of artistic general standards, like relatively normalized anatomy, detail, and design. So you won't see stuff like Sanjay and Craig or Teen Titans Go out of Japan, just to name some recent shows that have come out here. Even some of the cheapest and aimed-at-young-kids shows like Beast Saga retain some level of artistic standards when it comes to their art style. See, I would say that is a positive trait, that even the most throwaway kids shows have tons of effort put into their art and design. While most shows here domestically tend to use a cheap and ugly looking art style no matter what. Like that famous picture of a bent fork tells us, just because you're unique doesn't mean you're good..  You say it's diversity, but I can say it's a lack of standards in the industry.
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Chagen46
Posts: 4377 |
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ONCE AGAIN, you people have failed to explain why something has to "look good". Something does not have to "look good" to actually be good, even aesthetically. Flowers of Evil is rough around the edges--but it fits the show's style and can be captivating. Not everything has to be soulless and polished-to-death.
At this point you have proven that you have no goddamn clue what the point of animation is. |
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Jen Bigby
Posts: 112 |
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Isn't it a given we as the viewer want something we find good? If you're just going to poop something out and not put any effort into it why should we as viewers stand for that? Kids may have no standards and accept it, but anime fans have purchasing power and if fans don't support a show, it sends a message they want better products.
Well I liked the manga designs more and felt the manga did it better
Are you calling Madoka soulless?  That's pretty harsh. Just because it has effort and looks pretty doesn't make it bad... it should make it good that they put that effort into it. Is this some kind of indie thing where it's too mainstream for you to enjoy it and you only like shows people find ugly?
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Chagen46
Posts: 4377 |
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You think that effort only exists in the visual sense? God, why are most other anime fans so shallow? Everything is just PRETTY GRAFIXS and everything else gets shafted. Are you the kind of person who picks up a book only to abandon it because there's no pretty pictures?
No, I love Madoka's aesthetic, but it is actually a good of example of a non-soulless show in its visuals. The witches' labyrinths are raw and bizarre-looking--but it works for the show. |
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Jen Bigby
Posts: 112 |
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I thought we were talking about art not anything else like the writing. That's why everyone was hung up on animation and stuff. In that case I'd say I prefer anime hands down as well. American cartoons aren't really built around story. But I can't think of a show with great story and terrible art. Usually they're all or nothing. Anime generally has good art and an actual story. Cartoons are mostly episodic comedies and have ugly art. I don't think many creators would pour their heart and soul into one aspect and ignore the others of a show. No one who could make a show like Madoka would settle for Adventure Time visuals or anything I don't think.
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LUNI_TUNZ
 Posts: 809 |
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Yep. There's definitely not standardized character designs in anime. Nope not at all. And using Family Guy- a show that no one in the world would claim as an example of quality animation - as an example is just low. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c5/Up_Poster.JPG/220px-Up_Poster.JPG http://thisisthecommonroom.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/archer-gun.jpeg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uUDfQ8-TJDo/UTAzSMlwDNI/AAAAAAAADDc/bFLdc57sMrI/s400/Main_characters_of_Gravity_Falls.png http://www.loonwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/south-park1.gif http://www.dvdizzy.com/images/g-i/gargoyles14.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-grYGwvZH-Pk/UO9PUFWC5QI/AAAAAAAAI3g/w-xUXyARIyE/s320/adventure_time_comic.jpg http://pixartimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/WALL-E.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zFQWRicfM0c/UEzLRFCBhVI/AAAAAAAAA9U/eMfdl38BBjg/s400/Batman.jpeg http://whyiadore.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/iron-giant1.jpg http://bradford-city-of-film.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Aladdin-Movie-Poster.jpg http://www.cartoonscrapbook.com/03pics/undergrads09.jpg http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/16300000/Avatar-The-Last-Airbender-avatar-the-last-airbender-16352501-1024-768.jpg http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080116205458/reboot/images/a/a9/Example.jpg http://files.animatedsuperheroes.com/images/blackpanther/blackpanther_ep01d.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-98rfaXNW0zw/Tjl7yRCWDyI/AAAAAAAAB9k/ucQ53ARmVSU/s1600/harvey+birdman.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/04/TeenTitansTogether.png/280px-TeenTitansTogether.png http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/venture-bros-image-2.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/Clone_High_Cast_Promo.jpg http://dailyinspires.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Spongebob-Shy-Wallpaper.jpg http://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/thumb/e/ea/Beastwarsmaxgroup.jpg/300px-Beastwarsmaxgroup.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yV9XL-nyqF4/UNdkrK-b-iI/AAAAAAAABn4/OWhgEJdywBI/s1600/X-Men.jpg http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/9000000/Batman-The-Brave-and-the-Bold-batman-9026038-1024-768.gif http://0.tqn.com/d/animatedtv/1/0/g/1/SamJackVert.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/75/Titan_AE_One_Sheet.jpg/220px-Titan_AE_One_Sheet.jpg http://www.mycomicsandstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/aeon_flux_03.jpg http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/graphics/news3/TickSeason1-New.jpg http://tv-facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/batman-beyond-cartoon-wallpapers-1024x768.jpg http://www.sundancechannel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/waltz_with_bashir1.jpg http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/regular-show.jpg Let me ask you, do you ever wonder why you're so pathologically incapable of giving western animation the credit for anything? It's one thing to be biased in flavor of anime but the blatant absurdity of some of the things you say just astound me.
If you mean one has pretty, attractive looking characters then yeah. But that's not the same as looking good. If you think the only "good" art styles are the ones featuring attractive characters...well this is precisely the closed mindedness I was referring to.
It's funny how quickly you play the "diversity isn't inherently good" card when it helps anime's case. Yet it seems like the people who criticize western animation are constantly going on about how it lacks diversity in genre.
There are certainly some nice elements of variation. Madoka is a great example. It has those great looking witches lairs. But let's keep in mind, the characters in that show do still stick relatively close to the typical anime style. And that's fine. I don't think that's a criticism of Madoka. But seeing more varied and unique styles are definitely a plus. And you just don't see that super often in anime. |
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SwerveCity
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I honestly don't think either anime or cartoons have a more diverse art style. Both sides generally underestimate the other, the cool thing is with this argument is both sides agree anime has a diverse style but only the anime fanboys think cartoons don't.
Not to mention art/=/animation. And as much as I love Spirited Away, I don't think you can say the art it has can be compared to the best stuff Disney has produced. Disney's budget is just too large to even compare to Ghibli, they are pretty much the best at anything to do with art and animation. Ghibli wins on story though and thats why I prefer Ghibli to Disney. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post or link to videos, but just check out Fantasia 2000 and it will show you just how great Disney is at this stuff. Fully realised 3d backgrounds, you just don't see anime try that. I'm not sure what the point of arguing this is but for the lurkers out there, give cartoons a shot, they can be fantastic, just like you should give some of the less popular anime like Eve no Jikan a shot(and join the Kickstarter campaign for it). |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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So is this about art or animation? Animation is one thing, but art is another. They use a relatively simple style. For example, they very rarely ever use shading on their designs, and most of the skin and clothes are one solid color as if you used a photo bucket fill tool in paint. Thing is budget doesn't really have much to do with art so much as it does animation, so Disney money isn't going to make Mulan look any more detailed if they don't choose to design her as such. In that regard you can say even TV anime tends to have more detailed designs than Disney movies do.
No way, Madoka's designs are totally different. It's easy to tell because I don't find them as attractive compared to other anime designs. Their heads are kind of wide and flat compared to other shows, and their eyes are much farther apart and larger. Not really my cup of tea. Now, Gargantia on the other hand.. |
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SwerveCity
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Ah yet again failure to read my posts. Why its almost like I already answered everything in here, oh wait I did. Its almost like your close minded and don't want to even acknowledge you might be wrong. Oh and even those examples you posted are still more detailed than your average anime characters, so even with you trying to move goalposts and your still wrong. |
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