Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

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Mnutu said:
Is it animated? If yes, it’s by default anime. Disney cartoons are anime. Japanese anime is just a form of anime, and really it’s better to understand it as “Japanese Cartoons”.
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We speak English, not Japanese. In Japanese, “anime” is just the catch-all for “animation”. We already have a word for that - “animation”. In English, “anime” a recursive loan-word specifically referring to Japanese animation, and while the specific requirements are debated, what’s unarguable is that it has to be Japanese in at least SOME manner.

I’d argue that an anime by the common Western connotation is an animated show, usually but not necessarily animated by Japanese studios and produced by Japanese companies, made with Japan as the intended target audience. I think who it’s made for really is the only meaningful delineation to make, because I can confidently say that I have zero interest in watching anything made by the Japanese specifically to cater to Western sensibilities, and that any widespread attempt to do so will be seen by many to be the death of anime.
 
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Gar For Archer said:
We speak English, not Japanese. In Japanese, “anime” is just the catch-all for “animation”. We already have a word for that - “animation”. In English, “anime” a recursive loan-word specifically referring to Japanese animation, and while the specific requirements are debated, what’s unarguable is that it has to be Japanese in at least SOME manner.

I’d argue that an anime by the common Western connotation is an animated show, usually but not necessarily animated by Japanese studios and produced by Japanese companies, made with Japan as the intended target audience.
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I think it’s pretentiously avoiding association with “cartoon” and ascribing more value to the medium than it should. Same with “manga” and “comic”.
 
Gar For Archer said:
We speak English, not Japanese. In Japanese, “anime” is just the catch-all for “animation”. We already have a word for that - “animation”. In English, “anime” a recursive loan-word specifically referring to Japanese animation, and while the specific requirements are debated, what’s unarguable is that it has to be Japanese in at least SOME manner.

I’d argue that an anime by the common Western connotation is an animated show, usually but not necessarily animated by Japanese studios and produced by Japanese companies, made with Japan as the intended target audience.
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But you see anime has to be used interchangeably so I can justify calling Avatar the Last Airbender, Teen Titans, and Castlevania anime so they seem more mature instead of calling them cartoons.
 
Honestly I still love the Digimon movie and the soundtrack is a large part of it, lots of fond memories of watching it on vhs and listening to the soundtrack on a disc my dad was nice enough to burn it onto. I watched it fairly recently I still enjoyed it a lot, the dub has a surprising amount of funny jokes thrown into it that I didn't notice as a kid.

Only think that is legitimately bad about the film in my mind is that good awful Angela Anaconda short, that thing scorched into my mind.
 
Mnutu said:
I think it’s pretentiously avoiding association with “cartoon” and ascribing more value to the medium than it should. Same with “manga” and “comic”.
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I’m not the one assigning subjective perceptions of quality or maturity to the words “cartoon” or “anime”. In fact, the definition I gave is completely objective: “Is it made for the Japanese?” says literally nothing about quality or maturity, only the intended target audience. If you wanna re-word my definition as “cartoons made by the Japanese for the Japanese” I wouldn’t disagree.
 
Mnutu said:
Or I can pretend that Crayon Shin-Chan and Doraemon are more mature than the Book of Kells just because they’re anime.
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Bruh no one does that for those types of shows. Literally so many of the “what really is anime” debates come from many western animation enthusiasts who want to justify calling Avatar (and other shows) “anime” so it’s not associated with other western cartoons.
 
Can we not shit up the thread with this inane nitpicking. Anime is merely shorthand for "animation", we just use it to describe Japanese animation since it's so stylistic different to our own.
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I find that the fact so many western fans want to call their favorite cartoons anime speaks more to the sad state that the label "cartoon" finds itself in popular perception. It's so often linked with childish entertainment that people desperate to justify why the shows they like are "legitimately good" like to throw it into the anime label that gets associated with more thoughts of "not for kids" (which ignores how a lot of anime is made for kids). It just speaks to the poor state western cartoons find themselves in where they aren't taken seriously by most people even when they are perfectly capable of telling engaging/mature storylines because companies are more interested in just treating them as children's entertainment. Even when they decided to try an adult cartoon the bulk of them are just awful comedies with the most juvenile humor.

There's also the anime fans that seethe whenever someone calls anime a cartoon. Like they'll lash out and get angry that you dared call their high art form cartoons because it's a lot more "deep and mature than silly cartoons" without a hint of sarcasm. They put way too much importance of the perceived maturity that anime carries over the more childish cartoons. This group is equally as annoying because they see it as some kind of gold star on themselves that they watch such deep and mature shows.
 
Moguro Fukuzou said:
I find that the fact so many western fans want to call their favorite cartoons anime speaks more to the sad state that the label "cartoon" finds itself in popular perception. It's so often linked with childish entertainment that people desperate to justify why the shows they like are "legitimately good" like to throw it into the anime label that gets associated with more thoughts of "not for kids" (which ignores how a lot of anime is made for kids). It just speaks to the poor state western cartoons find themselves in where they aren't taken seriously by most people even when they are perfectly capable of telling engaging/mature storylines because companies are more interested in just treating them as children's entertainment. Even when they decided to try an adult cartoon the bulk of them are just awful comedies with the most juvenile humor.

There's also the anime fans that seethe whenever someone calls anime a cartoon. Like they'll lash out and get angry that you dared call their high art form cartoons because it's a lot more "deep and mature than silly cartoons" without a hint of sarcasm. They put way too much importance of the perceived maturity that anime carries over the more childish cartoons. This group is equally as annoying because they see it as some kind of gold star on themselves that they watch such deep and mature shows.
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Precisely my point, said better than I ever could.
 
King Dead said:
So yeah, I'd say it holds up. Just do yourself a favor and avoid the dub; dubs may have varying qualities, but Digimon's is just bad.
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I honestly can't bring myself to watch it subbed. Toei Animation has a horrible pacing issue present in all of their shows that somehow dubs fix, least for me, but also some of the voices are kinda grating in Japanese, but that could just be due to earlier episodes being rough in general. I did watch the Filipino dub, though, which I have to say was a funny watch, so at the very least I'm not ignorant to the original script. I just personally connect better to the dub (and it luckily keeps the spirit of the original, and I appreciate Saban being ballsy enough to have kept the dark tone intact in the second half of the first season).

Now Savers was just horrendous in Japanese. I haven't made myself rewatch it as a dub, though, to see if I prefer it that way just because of the bad impression I got from the original Japanese.
 
Speaking of Digimon, is Tri worth it at all? All I know is that it's just the main cast after the events of the original Digimon Adventure.
 
HexFag said:
Speaking of Digimon, is Tri worth it at all? All I know is that it's just the main cast after the events of the original Digimon Adventure.
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I will be the first to tell you to not even bother and watch Last Evolution instead. It ends on a wet fart after three years of build up, and it was clearly made by Toei to wring all the money they can out of its consoomerbase. There's neat ideas, but the execution was just awful, and the animation is not good either, to boot. It really and truly should've just been a TV series instead of being spread out through six films.

I had a fun time speculating things on Tumblr, though, and before Toei got on their ass, Project Mouthwash's abridged series of it is fucking hilarious (if you can find the episodes). That's the fondest I'm ever going to have of Tri at this point.
 
Watched a few episodes of Tri before dropping it out of boredom. I heard nothing but bad things about it after that.
 
To answer the question of what anime is, might I direct you all to Kenny Lauderdale's video?

Also, on the topic of Digimon, I found Tamer's as the best season, especially since I was let down by S2's ending.
Also, Guilmon > Agumon.
 
Moguro Fukuzou said:
I find that the fact so many western fans want to call their favorite cartoons anime speaks more to the sad state that the label "cartoon" finds itself in popular perception. It's so often linked with childish entertainment that people desperate to justify why the shows they like are "legitimately good" like to throw it into the anime label that gets associated with more thoughts of "not for kids" (which ignores how a lot of anime is made for kids). It just speaks to the poor state western cartoons find themselves in where they aren't taken seriously by most people even when they are perfectly capable of telling engaging/mature storylines because companies are more interested in just treating them as children's entertainment. Even when they decided to try an adult cartoon the bulk of them are just awful comedies with the most juvenile humor.

There's also the anime fans that seethe whenever someone calls anime a cartoon. Like they'll lash out and get angry that you dared call their high art form cartoons because it's a lot more "deep and mature than silly cartoons" without a hint of sarcasm. They put way too much importance of the perceived maturity that anime carries over the more childish cartoons. This group is equally as annoying because they see it as some kind of gold star on themselves that they watch such deep and mature shows.
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I honestly dunno where the notion that anime is generally speaking “more mature” even comes from, because the VAST majority of stuff that’s popular in the West isn’t all that different from American cartoons.

I’d say the main difference is that anime CAN be mature if it wants to, but Western animation just struggles with this HARD. Kid’s shows that try to be mature (e.g. Avatar) are always gonna be held back by the fact that their intended audience is 12 year olds and 12 year olds can’t deal with blood and death according to our media overlords, and adult animation substitutes maturity with juvenile “adult humor”. I think the popularity of anime IS changing this somewhat, with studios realizing that “serious” adult animation is something that customers actually want, but I don’t want Western animation to turn into shitty knockoff anime, I want it to be its own thing.
 
Gar For Archer said:
I honestly dunno where the notion that anime is generally speaking “more mature” even comes from, because the VAST majority of stuff that’s popular in the West isn’t all that different from American cartoons.
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I'm not entire sure myself if I'm being honest, I just recognize it as a common meme from /a/ with 3x3 shitposts where people will post grids featuring commonly thought of "pretentious series for intellectual individuals" that some people like to boast about liking as if it makes them better. Usually those grids are full of the "more mature" shows as their favorites to appear more cultured or something. Whole idea has a lot of crossover with the anime Elitist idea.
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I’d say the main difference is that anime CAN be mature if it wants to, but Western animation just struggles with this HARD. Kid’s shows that try to be mature (e.g. Avatar) are always gonna be held back by the fact that their intended audience is 12 year olds and 12 year olds can’t deal with blood and death according to our media overlords, and adult animation substitutes maturity with juvenile “adult humor”. I think the popularity of anime IS changing this somewhat, with studios realizing that “serious” adult animation is something that customers actually want, but I don’t want Western animation to turn into shitty knockoff anime, I want it to be its own thing.
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Western cartoons run into the limitations of their intended audience reducing how much they can actually show, but it does create a chance for the creators to have some amazingly dark implied happenings that can be snuck past if they're good enough. While they might not be able to show anything above PG you sure as hell can imply through background cues or vague statements by characters towards serious topics.

Like Prince of Egypt was a kids movie (with a PG rating) and yet it depicted some truly messed up events. Using this scene as an example it doesn't outright say that the Pharoh had his soldiers massacre who knows how many babies by throwing them to crocodiles, but it sure conveys that through visual cues and context based conversation.
 
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