"made for Japan" is a shit standard. "Big O season 1 is anime, season 2 is not - " totally ridiculous
still, Scott is about as anime as Gargoyles. both are a particular, specific case where Japanese staff have input beyond simple "outsourced animation".
still, Scott is about as anime as Gargoyles. both are a particular, specific case where Japanese staff have input beyond simple "outsourced animation".
they have American producers, original character designers & writers but Japanese directors, storyboarders, background artists, animation character designers etc. they're a special middle-of-the-road case so you can reasonably argue they're a half-&-half collaboration, i.e. BOTH.
fans are afraid of the US coopting anime, which is valid, but being anal about how you categorize collaborative shows isn't gonna solve shit. be vocal in places where Japanese anime staff can see it & support people like Akamatsu who are against invasive western influence instead
mind you I still think "anime" should only mean "japanese cartoon" & anything else is really stupid. there are levels of "japaneseness" though & it's naturally gonna be subjective in some cases. you can have an opinion one way or the other but a lot of common reasoning is stupid.
I fundamentally disagree with anything treating anime as a "style", "genre" or "vibe", from either side. it encourages visual blandness (gaijins aiming to replicate their idea of "anime" vs developing a personal voice) and a limited view of aesthetics
let's look at Hiroki Azuma's Evangelion writeup from the 90s; a "credible, respectable" voice taking the stance that "Akira is too DIFFERENT, too WESTERN to be called anime!" - no, it's just a revolutionary anime that had an immediate, massive, defining influence on the industry.
written after Eva TV & before EoE, so around 1996-1997. a very wanky academic take; I don't think someone more visually-minded than "culture critic"-minded (esp towards drawings) would say this. Akira was staffed by existing industry artists & didn't just manifest in a vacuum.
there's lots of pre-Akira anime with visuals clearly building up to what later became "Akira-isms". Harmagedon was freaking 1983; a movie with Otomo designs & a lot of "proto-Akira" motion. Akira was not "produced independently from the situation of Japanese animation" at all!
What about Angel's Egg? Honneamise? Robot Carnival? Black Magic M-66? Arion? Ghibli? not trying to downplay Akira was but its drawings & motion didn't suddenly materialize. plus Otomo's style isn't "American comics" he's inspired by Moebius who was a huge influence on manga/anime
basically Azuma's take on Akira highlights a huge problem with viewing anime as a "style" that anyone can use: it results in categorizing stuff that looks "different" or "western" as "not anime". what people view as "anime style" itself developed partly from western influence.
there's subjectivity to whether a collaborative project like Pilgrim qualifies more as "eastern cartoon" or "western cartoon" (do US creators & writers override storyboarding, animation, etc? does it matter the director is a Spanish immigrant in Japan, now part of that industry?)
"primary" itself is subjective & depends on what you place more value in as the defining aspect of a cartoon's production
still, this definition beats "made for japan = anime". should we call the anime sequences in Kill Bill "western cartoon sequences"?
still, this definition beats "made for japan = anime". should we call the anime sequences in Kill Bill "western cartoon sequences"?
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