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The definition of "anime" has become more blurred, and confusing.

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. "

That said, I have my own definition for my purposes. For me in addition to being made in Japan it has to be by authors and artists raised in Japanese culture, made for a Japanese audience and initially issued in Japan. I'm willing to be flexible on some of these requirements. The fact that some of the animation was outsourced is not a problem as long as the story and artistic direction remain in Japan.

I don't see outsourcing of animation as a problem at all. It does not change the definition of anime.

As long as the creative and artistic control is held in Japan it remains a Japanese product, that is to say, anime. All the outsource studio is doing is copying the art work provided by the Japanese studio. This does not change the Japanese cultural background which is what I'm looking for.

By the same token, work for hire done by a Japanese company for an American company is not for my purposes anime. In the case of a so-called co-production, it depends on who provided the basic source material and who has artistic control.

The fact that some of the animation was outsourced is not a problem as long as the story and artistic direction remain in Japan.

Just for the record: Acura is a sub brand of Honda.

Honda Motor Company
Automotive manufacturer
Honda Motor Co., Ltd, commonly known as just Honda, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

Technically since it is a Japanese company any animation produced at their direction probably qualifies as anime. You would have to be familiar with the in house process that produced the commercials to say any different.

I don't see the problem. As I stated above, there is no legally established meaning to the word anime. More to the point, anime is a loan word from Japanese of relatively recent origin which means it does not have a settled meaning in English. Basically, within some limits anyone or any company can establish its own meaning. There is no one out there in a position to force ANN and MAL to use precisely the same definition.

Technically, in Japan, anime simply means animated so Netflix is not wrong. Should they be using a loan word when a native word is available is another question.

Look at it this way, in anime fandom, almost everyone understands the core meaning of the word. All the the examples you give are at the fringes of the meaning. They are shows for which a good argument can be made either way. Whether they are Japanese with foreign involvement or foreign with Japanese involvement they warrant discussion.

The bottom line is that you have to come up with criteria that works for you. Just respect that others may have slightly different criteria especially at the fringes of the definition. Use that as a basis for discussion, not warfare.

Artistic direction and is my line in the sand as well though I am flexible on story depending on the scenario. Scott Pilgrim, an American IP and comic with an original adaptation directed by Japanese people is certainly anime. Rankin-Bass depends because I don't know the process, did Americans produces storyboards and direction then hand the animation off to Japanese producers to complete or did they do some concept work and Topcraft produced the animation completely from those ideas?

Which is why I agree that worrying about outsourcing labor is very besides the point, the art direction and stories are what make anime so memorable, not the fact that a person from a specific place drew every individual frame.

Since we are on a niche forum we can chat and intellectualize about the exact percentage of work that needs to be officially made in Japan for it to count as "anime" all we want, but something like Castlevania being labeled anime by Netflix and other is really not an issue in my opinion.

All that said, I do think we could use a new term to refer to animation that isn't Japanese, for children, or like South Park, but until we have that I would rather Castlevania be with the anime then hidden among Big Mouth or Peppa Pig.

FishLion, as I said in the OP, 2 of Rankin-Bass titles has been classified as anime by ANN's Encyclopedia, MAL, Anilist, and AniDB. So if they're classified as anime by the whole consensus, then they're anime in my eyes. I agreed that if you classified The Stingiest Man in Town as anime, then maybe that should extend to other Rankin-Bass titles/works that had animation done by that same studio (which would be Topcraft).

I worried about it not only because we're changing the definition and meaning of anime. I'm worried this would cause more scrutiny and backlash from the anime fandom. Particularly the rabid elitist fans that can't stand the idea of anime having their animation outsource to a foreign animation studio. That's the thing I worried about since I've encountered those type of elitist fans online.

I'm not sure if this forum is technically niche given that the medium is already mainstream, and that a lot of people that don't have ANN profile/account can technically be reading this thread as of this post. So yeah, people are going to be sharing this thread I created on other forum, and even on Reddit. So not niche if this thread get share on other forum and sites like Reddit.

We already have a term for that, it's called Adult Animation and the US has a long history of it. Netflix could've just used that term instead of labeling it as anime because there are children's anime out there and I don't want something like Pokemon being associated with Netflix's Castlevania when it comes to using the label "anime" to label all their adult animation.

Hell, even WB/DC Comics help separate their adult animation titles from their child-demographic titles and stuff.

I would certainly agree with that. I don't really restrict the definition of anime much in my eyes. To me even a co-production with a Japanese team and somewhere else such as Ghost Cat Anzu counts as anime because plenty of Japanese animators worked on it even if plenty of French animators did as well.

My point about Rankin-Bass is that without that consensus, art direction would be the dividing line for me, although it would definitely qualify regardless with all the work Topcraft did.

I'm not worried about rabid elitist fans, their entire existence revolves around finding something to complain about with the way things are. There is no amount of pandering we could do that will prevent them having backlash about benign topics.

I say we are niche because we are a relatively small forum compared to places like reddit, it is hard to say how much reach the threads have exactly because it can be shared many places and it's hard to measure those metrics.

I think the context is very relevant here. Adult animation has a connotation of being shows in the vein of the Simpsons, things like Family Guy and South Park and Big Mouth, shows that almost universally play into adult humor as the main point of attraction even if other elements like action are prevalent in some of these shows, like Inside Job. There are adult shows that are not anime like such as DC animated shows, but these are still not the majority of the content that comes up when you look at the genre.

For that reason, I can understand both why WB separates their content that way and why netflix labels things like Castlevania anime. If you come to WB animation, you already know you are coming for the famous DC characters or to see a new creation from those creators. If you already know DC is what you want, then forking into adult and child offerings makes sense. Netflix on the other hand, is recommending shows to watch based on genre. The genres I see on most services are animation, adult animation, and anime. Animation caters to the kind of shows you would see on CN during the day, adult animation caters to the adult humor crowd, and anime is Japanese animation and derivative types of animation.

If we could have a new term that covered anime and anime derivatives then I would like that, maybe even roll stuff like Harley Quinn, Castlevania, and anime into a new category that represents where those parts of the Venn diagram intersect. That way anime fans could have their anime only genre searches and we could have a genre to indicate adult animation that isn't centered mainly on adult humor whether it's styled after Japanese or other styles of animation.

That is all nitty gritty though, my main point is that Netflix isn't trying to use a technical definition, they are trying to advertise content based on genre, and Castlevania objectively fits with anime better than adult animation in my opinion. I would rather Netflix say something that's technically wrong and effectively advertise stuff like Castlevania so more fans of that type of content can discover it and more gets made than be technically correct but make me dig through a million US adult humor animated shows to find shows like Castlevania.

I'm not worried about rabid elitist fans, their entire existence revolves around finding something to complain about with the way things are. There is no amount of pandering we could do that will prevent them having backlash about benign topics.

I understand that and they're a minority (a very vocal minority and doesn't represent the reasonable fanbase in the anime). But I'm also concern this vocal minority could make our fandom look more toxic and probably racist/xenophobic because it could turn off some new fans or may make some anime fans to quit the fandom because they don't want to be associated with a fandom that has a vocal but xenophobic rabid elitist fans.