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Which anime do you consider "art"?


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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:23 pm Reply with quote
I have a question for the anime forum here, in the interest of doing a little research for an upcoming Protoculture Addicts article.

What anime do you consider "art"? Do you consider all anime to be "art"? What are your personal criteria for making this decision, or do you consider it at all?

Do you draw a distinction between anime that is "art" and anime that isn't? If you do, what are the distinguishing characteristics that help you draw that line?

Obviously, your personal definition of what "art" is plays heavily into this, so please go into that if you could.

I'm not going to give my personal opinion on this subject, so as not to taint the discussion with my own views. I'd rather hear what y'all have to say.
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jgreen



Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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Location: St. Louis, MO
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:39 pm Reply with quote
To me, technically, all anime is art, but I don't go around bandying that term in regards to everything. I tend to hold onto that term "art" for works that...

- Attempt to explore, in-depth, aspects of the human condition
- Have the direction as an integral to the enjoyment of the work, where the way it looks and the way it moves are just as important as the characters and what they say
- Have top-notch animation that makes it clear that the medium of animation was the only way to tell the story
- Have a script has at least somewhat of a philosophical bent
- Where I completely lose myself while watching it

This, to me, counts out many of the more cookie cutter shows that use a formula to extend the series indefinitely. Honestly, it in large part eliminates TV shows from the list entirely, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I would, for example, not call a formula show like Armored Trooper Votoms a work of art (as much as I like it) but I would refer to Macross as such.

Oddly, most of the things I'd say are "art" are the complete oeuvre of certain directors or creators. People who get a free pass from me (at least so far) include...

Katsuhiro Otomo
Hayao Miyazaki
Satoshi Kon
Mamoru Oshii

I was a huge fan of the early-to-mid-90s OAV scene, and there are a number of great series there I'd say qualify (Giant Robo, Macross Plus, Gunbuster...). TV series, because of their sheer volume and time constraints imposed on their creation, have a much harder time making my list, but I'd include Neon Genesis Evangelion and Fullmetal Alchemist as "art."

And as heavy handed and silly as it is in parts, I think the Fist of the North Star movie is a work of art. As hopelessly violent as it is, the staff took some truly unique looks at ways to accomplish something that could be done pretty basically: making people explode. The scene where we actually see a victim's brain expanding from inside his skull is a real stunner....Jagi remembering his own encounter with Ken (shown through his own eyes) is another. Maybe its the fact that Fist kickstarted my whole anime addiction in the first place, but it'll always hold an elevated position in my hierarchy of anime...even if I could do without the last 5 minutes or so. Wink
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Murasakisuishou



Joined: 22 Jun 2006
Posts: 1469
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:45 pm Reply with quote
That's actually a very interesting question. There's some anime that I watch because I like the story and characters, and how it looks doesn't really matter to me, but I have actually watched entire series just because of the art. Air in particular stands out for me; the story wasn't bad, but if the animation hadn't been as spectacular as it was, I doubt I would have finished it.

I think of anime itself as an art form, in the same way that film and writing are art forms. Some anime are just more visually pleasing than others. Within anime, the smoothness and complexity of the animation in conjunction with the story determine its status as art, for me at least. For example, Earth Girl Arjuna, although beautifully animated, has some CG sequences that seem really tacked on and unnecessary to the plotline. Ghost in the Shell, on the other hand, thoroughly qualifies as art, with its intriguing story and breathtaking visuals. Because the pictures move and have voices and music set behind them, I can't look at an anime apart from its content and decide whether or not it's art.
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omar235



Joined: 02 Apr 2006
Posts: 1572
Location: Florida, Jacksonvile
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 4:53 pm Reply with quote
I personally consider art to be the expression of someone's feelings through drawings, paintings, ect. I do consider any work in which someone created something with there own two hands and with there mind art no matter what form it takes. Which means I consider all anime to be art because it required the creators to put feeling and effort into what they drew. I mean I wouldn't think that someone would get into the anime buisness and not feel some sort of connection or feeling of accomplishment when they finish a character design or background. My dad is always proud of the backgrounds he creates for his computer he puts alot of time and effort into to it. Now as far as the art being bad like what it depicts or if it is a style that I don't like I would consider it art none the less though it is art that I don't like. I also don't think that art is limited to only one person working on it, construction workers building buildings is a art to some just like the drawings the architechs drew as the blueprints. Same with anime, even if it isn't just one person doing each drawing it is still a work of art in the basis that a group of people made it with effort and with feeling.

Edit: I should also add that anime that fall under jgreen's 5 bulletines are aspects I would expect from a masterpeice or a really great anime. Works of art that do something above other works would fall under masterpiece IMO.


Last edited by omar235 on Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:41 pm; edited 2 times in total
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WesW



Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Posts: 144
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 5:19 pm Reply with quote
I think that a good criterion for what qualifies as art would be, to coin a term, the "Frame Test". I mean, are there frames from the film that you could put on your wall as art pieces by and of themselves?
Disney created enormous panoramas which they would pan over during scenes in their movies as intros and such. I think most anyone would consider them to be works of art. There are scenes from Princess Mononoke which strike me the same way, as well as stills from Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

I think jgreen did an excellent job of articulating a more substantiative definition with his five bullets.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:02 pm Reply with quote
WesW wrote:
I think that a good criterion for what qualifies as art would be, to coin a term, the "Frame Test". I mean, are there frames from the film that you could put on your wall as art pieces by and of themselves?
Disney created enormous panoramas which they would pan over during scenes in their movies as intros and such. I think most anyone would consider them to be works of art. There are scenes from Princess Mononoke which strike me the same way, as well as stills from Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.

I think jgreen did an excellent job of articulating a more substantiative definition with his five bullets.


This is veering into territory where you're misinterpreting the question.

The question does not ask you if you view anime as "art" in the same way as you view the Mona Lisa as "art". Anime is a filmed visual media; "art" in this context means "Citizen Kane", not the Mona Lisa. The beauty of the visuals is part of it, but not the whole.
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pieisexactlythree



Joined: 11 May 2006
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Location: Portland, OR
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:05 pm Reply with quote
Great topic, thanks for posting!

This is something I've thought about a lot myself, since in my experience most anime seems to segregate itself into two nearly mutually exclusive camps, of serious art or escapist fun. First, the target demographic has a lot to do with this distinction. Obviously the younger the audience, the more entertainment based the shows will be, and the same is true of the relationship to the size of the expected viewing public. The short-run niche market animes almost always are the ones that wander into art territory.

My list of "Art" anime would include:
- Haibane Renme
- Texhnolyze
- Lain (basically anything Yoshitishi Abe has ever touched)
- Only Yesterday
- Voices of a Distant Star


Murasakisuishou draws a distinction between the "art" in the show and the overall work, privileging the visual over the narrative. I think this is somewhat incorrect in this context, as the question really covers the entire package.

It's fairly self-evident what kind of narrative qualifies for "art" status, and jgreen's criteria are pretty much on the mark.

Ideally, the graphic style of the anime will be able to reflect and interact with the story that's being told or the ideas that are being expressed. Nowere is this more evident than in Lain, where the visuals really drive home the sense of techno-alienation. All the scenes with the bleached-out landscapes, where the mysterious redish shapes ooze through the shadows communicate the idea that the world visible to the naked eye is a superficial one, and something more sinister, or at least, enigmatic, lies behind it. I actually took a stab at recreating this imagery myself.

In my view, the most "artistic" animes are the ones which focus mainly on communicating an idea or concept and only use plot/characters to package and communicate that message.

Kino's journey is a great example of this also, in as much as it struck me as an animated telling of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.

Edit/follow-up: The "frame test" works as a good proxy for quality in live action cinema, since you will rarely, if ever, see first rate photography in a crap film. This doesn't hold true for anime though.
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Samurai-with-glasses



Joined: 17 Aug 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:48 pm Reply with quote
While technically I take the position that anime is all art, that is certainly not the answer that will benefit everyone. Instead, I consider "art" for anime to mean something that does not adhere to workshop formula. What do I mean by workshop formula? I just ripped that term off from one Ebert review I read (though I rather suspect it's a pretty widely-used term) to describe a generic, formulaic movie with everything done at the right moment in the same way as hundreds of movies out there that are basically the same -- he was talking about yet another horror movie in this case.

For anime, that would be like the harem formula (the character stock, the slapstick moments, etc.) or the shounen formula (super-strong kid gets stronger, somebody on the background keeps commenting in awe); though I'm not familiar with shoujo enough to claim something about that. Other things that touches new grounds or experiment, I consider art. They don't have to be completely original or anything like that, simply that they express something beyond formulaic entertainment purely for the sake of pandering to one's wallet.

To summarize, once a creator injects into his creation creativity and true effort in it, or at least an attempt at experimentation, I believe that's when an anime is considered art -- for me. That is, the creator put an effort beyond the absolute minimum to create a piece of popular entertainment that sells. May be he or she has a point to tell, a purpose that anime is to express; may be he or she is having fun creating the anime, and expresses it in his or her work; may be he or she tries to touch intriguing concepts as best he could; may be he or she puts little things on the edges and breathtaking scenes crafted to the last detail with love... Doesn't matter. It's all art to me.

There are obviously some things that I simply go in awe, mumble "how...artistic!" and believe most would do the same even without a discussion: Gankutsuou would be the most obvious, or my favorite, Kino's Journey.
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Callik



Joined: 08 Jan 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:48 pm Reply with quote
A fantastic example of an "art" anime would be The Place Promised in Our Early Days, fantastic artistry, poetic lines, and a engaging plot are all determinants of an artistic anime.
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Key
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:53 pm Reply with quote
While all anime is technically "art," I generally only apply that term to anime titles which aspire to something beyond just being base entertainment and/or which achieve a certain degree of beauty, whether it's visual or in its storytelling.

Good examples of the former qualifier are Gankutsuou and Princess Tutu. While both were created with stories meant to entertain, both also clearly were intended to achieve beyond that - Gankutsuou's stunning use of CG and visual gimmicks is nothing if not art, while Tutu's blending of music and dance animation/visuals effectively create a series that is a ballet. By comparison, NGE and the Patlabor movies are art more because of their psychological and/or sociopolitical themes, which clearly go beyond just being entertainment. All of that group are definitely trying to send a message.

For the latter qualifier, I would point to a movie like Place Promised In Our Earlier Days. Some of the scenes in it are such works of pure beauty (especially in the way that lighting is used) that its status as "art" cannot be denied.

And then there are titles like Princess Mononoke which qualify all three ways.
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drakonslair



Joined: 23 Aug 2006
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Location: Ireland
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:58 pm Reply with quote
Just in relation to things being formulaic. It would be reasonable to include the originals of those types of series as "art" as when they were initially created they were not formulaic even though more modern spinoffs have become so.


Quality of animation is different as well. Art has history, Mona Lisa doesnt lose value as an art piece because its old but animation quality was much different years ago. Its difficult to be objective I find when viewing an old anime series the old style animation doesnt always appeal to me as newer anime does. In those cases more emphasis is placed on the story at least for me.


I think you will have to be very careful to judge it by the time in which is was created and against other anime from that time but you prob already know that Smile
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pieisexactlythree



Joined: 11 May 2006
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:08 pm Reply with quote
drakonslair wrote:
Quality of animation is different as well. Art has history, Mona Lisa doesnt lose value as an art piece because its old but animation quality was much different years ago. Its difficult to be objective I find when viewing an old anime series the old style animation doesnt always appeal to me as newer anime does.

This is an interesting note, because animation's been around about as long as live action cinema, and yet, the live action medium seems to suffer less from the aging process. I think most film geeks would agree that there's nothing unreasonable about making direct comparisons between the visual styles of Jean Luc Goddard, Andrei Tarkovski and Pedro Almodovar. Sure, they're all radically different, but the differences are more a representation of the choices each director made in how to tell their stories.
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MorwenLaicoriel



Joined: 26 Feb 2006
Posts: 1617
Location: Colorado
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:38 pm Reply with quote
I'm making an attempt to respond to this without parroting what everyone's saying, so I'll give my own opinion instead of everyone else's. ^^; So, I'm going to post this first and then read through the thread. I'll edit this if something doesn't work right after reading the thread. Hopefully this doesn't break the new rule. ^^;

(EDIT: read through the thread now, but the only thing I have to add is that jgreen's post explains it well, as well does Key's.)

Anyway, I'd consider all anime to be "art", just because of the nature of it. They're stories told with drawings, so...since I consider both drawing and storytelling an art, anime is a art to me.

That being said, there's a difference to me between art and "artistic merit". Even though I consider all anime art, I don't think that all anime has "artistic merit". Artistic merit means to me that either the art in question has something valid to say, does something that has an impact on other art, or that truely excells in what it does. It's something that endures for years.

For example, Gankutsuou has artistic merit because of it's quality animation and the unique way it uses textures. Miyzaki's movies have artistic merit both because of the excellent, detailed animation, and because of how his work speaks about feminisim, war, protecting the enviroment, and other issues (even though I think he can be a bit heavy-handed with his messages at times). I'd even go far enough to say that Fullmetal Alchemist has artistic merit--at times, the animation really is pretty to look at, and it's an anime that DEFINATELY has something to say about things like family, war, and purpose.

That being said, one of my favorite anime is Azumanga Daioh, but I wouldn't say it has artistic merit. It's very entertaining, and funny, and the animation certainly isn't bad, but I can't say it's something that has *really* had an impact, and I wouldn't say it has something that will be remembered for generations.


Last edited by MorwenLaicoriel on Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:06 pm; edited 1 time in total
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silver_omicron



Joined: 04 Mar 2005
Posts: 132
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:46 pm Reply with quote
Zac, I am afraid the better question is "What is art?".

By asking "What anime is art" it's basically asking "What is your idea of art?".

I see all anime as art, so long as it is based off human conjecture and made with some form of creative medium. But of course, some of this "art" is utter trash, which makes me less want to call it art and more what it really should be called, but a truth is a truth.
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fusion duelist



Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 58
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:03 pm Reply with quote
All anime is art. (That is a required first sentence for this thread Wink ) When I think of art in motion pictures I look at the difference in something like pirates of the Caribbean and The Godfather, both are good but one just entertains.

My List
Ghost in the shell-the first movie, It had some of the first 3d, 2d mix in animation, it tried to address the consequences of computerization increasingly standing in for humanity.

Metropolis-This has a very Asimov feel to it. What will life be like when robots roam freely among us? It also deals with economic class issues, bacically how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the rich do nothing to help the poor.

Kiki's delivery service and spirited away-These comming of age stories are done extremly well

Cowboy bebop-The score is great, and the characters are compelling, it's one of the greatest anime series ever.

Neon genisis evangelian(sp?) It goes from a standard mech series to something so deep that you have to watch it a couple of times to really get it. The christian subtext was a nice touch.

Blue (something) It's by Satoshi(sp?) Kon, the main character's dub va is Wendee Lee. It's about a pop star that quits the group to do movies. If anyone knows the name of this please tell me. Just when you think you know whats going on your whole preception of the story changes. I think it's his best ever.
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