Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - When East Meets West: Can We Call This 'Anime'?
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MesousaGaby
 Posts: 71 |
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Don't forget the Lilo and Stitch anime! Made by Madhouse, of all studios.
Or in this case, just Stitch since he sells more merch than Lilo ever did, so they ruin her character by saying she doesn't need him anymore. Yeah, it never should have been that big of a franchise. |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2419 |
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It absolutely blew my mind as a teenager to learn that Deltora Quest got an anime.
Good to see BATMAN NINJA acknowledged. Koyasu Grodd is an incredible choice. If you pause and read his letter, it actually has solid English. |
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varmintx
 Posts: 1240 Location: Covington, KY |
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Completely unnecessary, mostly arbitrary line drawing for the sake of low-stakes tribalism.
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Ojamajo LimePie
 Posts: 772 |
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It's a case-by-case thing, but I generally go by whether the main writing staff are Japanese.
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4633 Location: New York |
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This debate seems to have been going on since forever, with arguments back in the day whether or not Transformers G1 counted as anime (it was animated by Toei and based on a Japanese toyline, but had US writers and producers so the tendency was to lean towards “no, not until Headmasters”). Co-production is anime. An adult cartoon you slap the label on because you think your audience is trained to view all animation without the label as either a Family Guy style sitcom or a kids show isn’t and shouldn’t be given said label.
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Slips Python
Posts: 40 |
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I think it's just because 'cartoon' has become such a dirty word in America that even fully western cartoons are calling themselves 'anime' now like Castlevania. No Japanese staff required anymore to try to justify it. Not that I agree with their label and using it just as a cheap marketing tool. |
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Sakurafire_
Posts: 67 |
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Why does this even matter in the grander scheme of things? The only people who even care about this are Westerners, anyway. I feel like arguing over the classification of anime vs. cartoon is such a pedantic argument, with both sides acting like children.
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2317 Location: Online Terminal |
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Not only is it important to be able to describe things, it's also an interesting discussion about how we're 25+ years removed from both the initial anime and superhero booms, and the people who "grew up" with them now have power and influence in the creative arts. A ton of digital ink has been spilled over the things that influenced "Creed III" for example. My add to the pile is that the very excellent "My Adventures With Superman" is an anime if for no other reason because the show itself won't stop telling you it's made by weebs to the point that I want to stuff all of the creative team into lockers. |
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DamianSalazar
Posts: 776 |
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Reminds me of the time when Porter Robinson commissioned an anime music video from A-1 Pictures called "Shelter" in 2016, which was well received at the time, but it led to discussions over whether it could be considered anime. MyAnimeList refused to even consider it being anime at the time.
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JennLegacy
Posts: 109 |
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Can't believe you guys namedropped that weird Gossip Girl manga without also mentioning the even weirder officially licensed otome game produced by one of the biggest companies in the genre.
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4669 |
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That is probably the main thing I look at, as well. Despite animation produced in Japan, with some amusing miscommunications to go with it, I wouldn't call Bruce Timm's 90's cartoons anime, for example. But, I don't draw a distinction that DC's superheroes would prevent something from being anime. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 6497 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Oh man, this brings back memories of my early days as a anime fan (17 years long time fan here). I remember getting involved in debates about OEL manga if they count as manga (I was heavily involved in that debate back in 2008). Also the OEL manga as a manga debate led to other controversial topic (of that time) within anime fandom, and western anime is one of them (that include co-productions). The OEL Manga as manga and does Japan-Country X co-productions count as anime is just as fierce as the dub vs sub one, and it was just sometime goes out of control.
For example, after Batman: Gotham Knight, and Halo Legends came out, the debate became so fierce back in the late 2000's/early 2010's as in several anime fans bringing up past anime like Little Nemo (which has now been re-classified as anime because it came out first in Japan before it came out in the US), The Last Unicorn (because of the Japanese animators who worked on this would later worked for Studio Ghibli), and others should be classified as anime because of the work done in Japan and using Batman: Gotham Knight, and Halo Legends as justification to re-classified as anime, and the flame war about what's anime and what's not became really fierce and sometime out of control. I even got involved in it several times in the past: 2014 ANN article: 7 Japan-International Co-Productions 2011 ANN's Mike Toole article: Anime... Or Not?! I guess as anime has started to gain more mainstream popularity, I guess that debate has started to die down, does anybody know what cause the flame war about OEL manga, and what counts as anime debates to die in the same manner as the dub vs sub debates/flame war? But anyway, I'm glad that the popularity of adult animation kind of help blurred the line between anime and animation in general. Well that, and I assume the discovery of the American Sailor Moon cartoon, Saint Seiya, and the Gundam/Doozy Bots pitch must've caused some people to find this debate about what's anime and what's not anime pointless. |
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Takkun4343
 Posts: 1591 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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Heh, tell that to my two-DVD set of Blade I bought from Half-Price Books over five years ago. Basically, if it's a Japanese studio but Western writers, a la Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Pacific Rim: The Black, it's both anime and cartoons. No laws saying they can't be both! Side tangent: I consider Tokyo Vice an honorary J-drama because it has a couple Japanese production studios and a predominantly Japanese cast, despite being heavily American on the creative and production side. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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I've never seen Scott Pilgrim (or any of its source material - I keep getting it confused with Napoleon Dynamite, which I've also missed), so the battle trailer was a revelation to me. But the anime gives me a distinct FLCL vibe. I guess it's the eyebrows on everyone.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4830 |
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What about...eyebrows? 
For me, I'm not so concerned about the label anymore. I got into this whole thing as a fan of animation first and foremost. A good show is a good show, no matter whether someone has decreed it's "anime" enough or not. Japanese animators were inspired by Western works for decades, and now a generation of Western animators has grown up inspired by anime, and that cross-pollination will only continue to grow. We saw Japanese animation studios contracted on some of the best American animated series of the 90s. The Animatrix was a fantastic collection of anime shorts based on an American film series that was itself highly inspired by Japanese cyberpunk content (that was in and of itself inspired by Western sci-fi literature...getting dizzy yet?). We have Western animators working on and even directing anime projects in Japan, and likewise renowned Japanese animators doing guest work on popular American cartoons. I'll watch any of it that's good, so the more the better I say. |
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