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The Mike Toole Show - Anime... Or Not?!


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jared_thorin



Joined: 06 Mar 2006
Posts: 30
Location: Omaha Ne.
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:22 pm Reply with quote
The last Unicorn is actually one of my favorite movies of all time. I tell people all the time it was my childhood intro to anime. People in general don't have much of a clue though. I personally think if it was done in Japan it should count as anime. Who really cares what the source material was or who funded it!
I knew someone once who had the audacity to say and I quote "Voltron's too old to be anime." I almost died.
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TitanXL



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 4036
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 4:42 pm Reply with quote
Just because it's animated in Japan doesn't make it anime, no matter what companies may want to say. It's kind of tiring hearing about shows like Boondocks or Thundercats who have fanboy writers/creators who insist if their show must be animated in Japan to be as close to anime as possible. Sorry, but it's still not anime, just like Tokyopop's OEL wasn't manga. Your writing is still American and it still follows all the trope of American animation. Going off that logic, every show from the 80s and 90s from Animaniacs to Batman the Animated Series was anime because all of our stuff was animated in Japan back then.

It's all about the writer and story. Oban Star Racers and Time Jam were made by French guys, Boondocks by American guys, Marvel's recent bombs were done by Americans, and so forth. Adaptions are another thing entirely. Gankutsuou is obviously Japanese, despite being based on a Western book. It's an adaption in that case, while Boondocks is just an American cartoon with a writer who wanted it animated in Japan.
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Myaow



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 1068
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:01 pm Reply with quote
I'm kind of fond of the co-productions that Sanrio did with USA studios, and with some of those it's hard to tell which "parent" the film takes after more. The Mouse and his Child was produced almost entirely in the USA, while Metamorphoses has a bit more Japanese influence, including animation by Masami Hata! BUT it was released in the US a few months before the Japanese release--BUT it was apparently originally recorded in Japanese-- BUT... and so on and so forth. Co-productions can be really interesting, and I'm never sure when to declare something "American animation" or "Japanese animation".

Also, yay Ulysses 31!!
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EnigmaticSky



Joined: 06 Aug 2011
Posts: 750
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:06 pm Reply with quote
^^I agree.

Really you can't totally put a strict definition of what anime is. What if something like Family Guy happened to be made in Japan? I wouldn't consider it anime; I don't consider the Marvel stuff anime either. It is complicated when you involve older japanese animation since the medium has really evolved and diverged since that time. Really I am not sure I would consider some of it anime now that anime has really separated itself and matured.

This got me thinking, I should get around to watching Panty and Stocking some time. Seems like it would be a great show to watch with a friend.


Last edited by EnigmaticSky on Sun Oct 23, 2011 8:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
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trunkschan90



Joined: 08 Aug 2002
Posts: 594
Location: California
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:16 pm Reply with quote
Anything that used to air on Nickelodeon or any other channel was my intro to anime as a young child:
Maya the Bee
Belle and Sebastian
Noozles
The Adventures of the Little Prince
Mysterious Cities of Gold
Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea
Maple Town
The Littl' Bits
Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics
Adventures of the Little Koala
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
Thundercats
Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama
The Last Unicorn
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:29 pm Reply with quote
Some people are "lumpers" and tend to group similar things together, other people are "splitters" and tend to focus on distinctions to make multiple subgroups.

AMO is a foin category for stuff that lumpers would lump in with other anime but that splitters would insist "isn't quite the same".
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Annf



Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 578
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:29 pm Reply with quote
For some reason people make this topic way more complicated than it needs to be. Terms like "Japanese cartoons" (a.k.a "anime"), "French movies," or "German TV" are useful for describing a large number of things that fall neatly into those categories, but things that don't fall neatly into those categories can be described individually; they don't have to all be pigeon-holed by country labels.
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1525
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:30 pm Reply with quote
TitanXL wrote:
Just because it's animated in Japan doesn't make it anime, no matter what companies may want to say. It's kind of tiring hearing about shows like Boondocks or Thundercats who have fanboy writers/creators who insist if their show must be animated in Japan to be as close to anime as possible. Sorry, but it's still not anime, just like Tokyopop's OEL wasn't manga. Your writing is still American and it still follows all the trope of American animation. Going off that logic, every show from the 80s and 90s from Animaniacs to Batman the Animated Series was anime because all of our stuff was animated in Japan back then.

It's all about the writer and story. Oban Star Racers and Time Jam were made by French guys, Boondocks by American guys, Marvel's recent bombs were done by Americans, and so forth. Adaptions are another thing entirely. Gankutsuou is obviously Japanese, despite being based on a Western book. It's an adaption in that case, while Boondocks is just an American cartoon with a writer who wanted it animated in Japan.


You make all that sound like a bad thing.

Heck, you tend to make ANYTHING Western related sound like a bad thing when it's put next to something Japanese Confused
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OneTimePoster



Joined: 23 Oct 2011
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:41 pm Reply with quote
You know I'm amazed by the amount of discrimination on this website. People claim something's not anime or manga because of race and nationality. Mike Toole calls a show being funded with other nations currency 'dubious'!

Anime is a term that means 'Animation'! It doesn't mean 'Japanese Animation' it simply means 'Animation'! This particular style of art was started by Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astroboy). This guy's art was inspired by American made cartoon characters like 'Mickey Mouse'!


Time to grow up kids. No one cares if you consider something anime or not. Companies will keep producing it and fans will still consider it anime regardless of race and nationality. Race and Nationality shouldn't matter in 2011!
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metallian



Joined: 02 Apr 2008
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:42 pm Reply with quote
My personal definition puts the most emphasis on the character designs. If they look like what I consider to be anime style then that's close enough for me.
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Surrender Artist



Joined: 01 May 2011
Posts: 3264
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:42 pm Reply with quote
OneTimePoster wrote:
Anime is a term that means 'Animation'! It doesn't mean 'Japanese Animation' it simply means 'Animation'! This particular style of art was started by Osamu Tezuka (creator of Astroboy). This guy's art was inspired by American made cartoon characters like 'Mickey Mouse'!


No, in English anime means, albeit in a fuzzy way, 'animation from Japan'. It meant 'animation' in French and does in Japanese, but as borrowed into English, its meaning is very clearly more specific. The authority on languages are not dictionaries, but the unruly masses that use them.

OneTimePoster wrote:
Time to grow up kids. No one cares if you consider something anime or not. Companies will keep producing it and fans will still consider it anime regardless of race and nationality. Race and Nationality shouldn't matter in 2011!


No argument opened with, "time to grow up kids," was ever made to be treated seriously.

Shenl742 wrote:
You make all that sound like a bad thing.

Heck, you tend to make ANYTHING Western related sound like a bad thing when it's put next to something Japanese Confused


Yes, this is what he does, over and over again.
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Great Rumbler



Joined: 03 Oct 2006
Posts: 335
Location: Oklahoma
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:06 pm Reply with quote
There's also Basquash! and Oban Star Racers. The former was created by Thomas Romain, but directed by Shoji Kawamori and Shin Itagaki [before he got the boot], it's very clearly anime.

Oban is a bit murkier, since it was created by Savin Yeatman-Eiffel and directed by Thomas Romain, but it has a theme song by Yoko Kanno, music by Taku Iwasaki, and storyboards by Soichi Masui [director of Scrapped Princess].
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TitanXL



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 4036
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:06 pm Reply with quote
Shenl742 wrote:
You make all that sound like a bad thing.


I'm of the belief if you're main selling point is "it's like anime" then that tells me it has nothing else going for it. I just don't get why some creators insist on it being animated there when it'll look the same regardless; like it gives them 'street cred' or something.

OneTimePoster wrote:
Companies will keep producing it and fans will still consider it anime regardless of race and nationality
Uh, who, exactly? The people I see who think Boondocks is anime are definitely in the minority.


Last edited by TitanXL on Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:07 pm Reply with quote
Productions headed by Western committees for a western audience, despite being animated by Japanese staff are not really anime. They are just using people for the raw labor. Depending upon how much say they have, you can call them Japanese influenced or Japanese animated though. There's actually a very clear cut criteria for me: what's the language of the original script? That may sound over-simplistic but it has a lot more implications and many subtle influences that affects its categorization.

It's somewhat analogous with cars. A Honda Accord built completely in the US with 80% US sourced parts still isn't an "American car" (i.e. a car by an American company), likewise we still label the Dodge Charger and Challenger as American despite being built in Canada.
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zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7358
PostPosted: Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:13 pm Reply with quote
I usually consider co-productions to be animated series of the country that co-produced them. So in the case of both Oban and Valerian, I consider them to be French cartoons. Though I mostly go by the director and creator.

But at the end of the day, I usually don't care what country it came from, the question is "is it good?" and in the case of both Oban and Valerian, the answer is yes. Thus, I watch them. I've been paying attention to French animation lately in general though, due to the undeniably not anime series Wakfu, simply one of the best animated shows I've seen in years plain and simple. I enjoyed Code Lyoko as well.
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