Japanese and American Animation Clean Debate!

[MikeWolfskin]

Japanese and American Animation Clean Debate!

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As the title says I’m taking a different approach to this subject. I have a lot of personal respect for animation styles in both countries in general.

With that a new set of rules for this debate if you don’t mind.

First of all do not quote anyone or attack his or her opinion of the subject, simple like post your opinion on the matter once a day at most and nothing more. No need to support or disapprove of anyone else’s opinion or post.

This thread is for the discussion of only your side of the story in a clean and fair debate.

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Don’t act as if your supporting someone else opinion, simply restate what they had to say in your clear words yourself.

Don’t call out peoples names when you disagree simply stat why in as small as at lest one paragraph why disagree in none attacking degrading manner.

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Post on the topic about Japanese and American Animation and culture only. If you go off topic about a different culture please support what you fill the ups and downs of Japanese and American Animation are.

Try to compare 2D animation to compare 2D animation, 3D animation to 3D animation, and half 3D and 2D animation to just that half 3D and 2D animation. Try to speak on more then just one style of animation. For example talking about only 3D animation is only on side of the coin.

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Try to take other opinion and research into conservation. This way it's a clean war room debit that lets us learn about both cultures in general.

If you nothing to add to the discussion don't post.

More then anything lets have a good debate supporting what’s so neat about Animation on cultures.

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Finlay this is not a contest there is no poll, no winner, just a clean War room debate at the topic and discussion. In the end it's an opinion.

There is an article I'd like you all to try and read, however I will not request you most read it like last time.

Japanese vs. American Animation by Jeff Gillespie, Jul 9th 1998 (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/1998-07-09)

[virion]

my views on japanese vs. american animation.

american animation always seems to follow the same guidelines. for american animation there seems to only be a small demographic. you have your 2D shows like simpons, family guy, king of the hill and so on that are supposed to be comical and appeal to teens to early 30's.. then it seems you have 2D saturday morning action cartoons, appealing towards kids 6 - 14. then you have your 3D pixar and dreamworks movies once again being humorous and appealing to kids and families. all animation styles in america seem to follow set traditions and don't really differ from that.

japanese animation on the other hand seems to have a broader view. with their animation they want to explore many ideas, beliefs, and themes. their animes have more style and take more chances, because there seems to be a wider following of people interested and wanting that in japan. if you're in america, if it isn't live action, it better be funny / saturday morning / or for the family.

[Smokey]

I enjoy both kinds of animation, Japanese for zany and insane antics and storyline, and American for simple, comedic value. Just my opinion in a nutshell.

[Darc Requiem]

I agree that the reason that Japanese animation is so appealing is because it runs the gamut of program types. Pretty much any live action show you can think of has an anime equivalent. While I do enjoy quite a few shows that would fall under the American animation umbrella, they are pretty much constrained to the comedy genre. Any other type of genre handled by American animation is usually aimed at children. In Japan, they seem to realize that an animated show can be geared for the adult as well.

[Tailzo]

Ok, my opinion; I started loving manga back when I was something between 1-6. I was amazed of what I then thought was "french cartoons". This because I am half french, and even in the 1980's they were showing a lot of anime in france, contrary to in Norway. At the age of 7, I started drawing a style strongly inspired from Dragonball. A few years later, I discovered this "cartoon" was an anime. I started to look at other anime, and suddenly I realised how diverse and cool anime was, compared to the very few western cartoons I had seen.

To this day, I still feel japanese anime / manga has more diversity than american animation, but I hold a lot of respect for Pixar, and for what Disney once did to inspire what would become anime. I can like anime for so many reasons. I loke some crazy zany series (excel saga, puni puni poemi, ping pong club, nori taka, ect), some really heartwarming and nice ones (fruit basket, Ghibli animation movies, Touch, ect.), some adventury and funny ones that just makes me happy (original dragon ball, one piece), some really cool involving andsword fighting ones (Sword of the Berserk manga, Kenshin, ect, Blade of the immortal. ), some over the top into zany activities (Yakitate Japan!, Major, ect.) some fantasy ones (twelve kingdoms, escaflowne, ect), futuristic ones (planet survice, library wars, ect), racing /sports series (capeta, hajime no ippo, ect) and even some romantic ones (kimi ga nozomu eien.) And I really tried to limit myself with this list...

[Tanooki]

I can't remember if I stayed out of the original one of these or not, but remember going over this with Mike before, maybe IM?

Anyways I don't think there are two styles of animation as he posted but three. There's pre-modern American animation, the era of Hanna Barbera, MGM, and WB going back to the early black and whites from some of those houses. You have the modern American which is computer driven and/or hand done, and then of course Japanese style which has while adding depth stayed much more the same level of quality.

If I were comparing modern to modern, Japan wins hands down. Their current stuff either hand done or computer driven (like the recreation of Appleseed for one) is done fantastically. They have the art of giving an intense level of detail, fluidity, and presense compounded usually by either contrived or deep stories, but at least they're engaging stuff and usually arc together. Put that against what today you have from America, we got smoked. Going from the late 80s to present we've had a strong decline in quality across the board in general where it's now about the basic style, least frames possible without looking like crap (which even Family Guy spoofed a few years ago - google it), and lame little shorts with little substance other than to drive some random event or a random player in the show.

Overall though I strongly believe in the grandest of pictures that the old American style was fantastic, the stuff that ran mostly in theatres around your feature/double feature, and some of the TV based stuff in the 60s and declining so in the 70s and lesser in the 80s. Things like the old Merrie Melodies cast from WB, Tom and Jerry, Flintstones, Jetsons, Top Cat, Yogi Bear, and others were just fantastic. The stories were cute, no political agendas, perhaps they were violent(GI Joe), it all varied...but in general it was good. The stories were classic style antagonist/protagonist stuff done over and over again but each time in a creative style, and thankfully no censorship as we didn't have a nanny state then. Each of those older pieces were done by a small crew of dedicated writers, paint people, animators, sound techs, and the rest...no corners were cut and things moved with a fluidity you'd only just beat with a well animated(no corners cut) computer thing of today.

TO me OLD American animation was and shall likely remain for a good long time the pinnacle of animation, but in the modern day due to retaining some of that eras standards and adopting their own Japan has it.

**I wrote this at work, covertly on break, if this doesn't make sense in pieces I don't have a chance to go back over it now. :)

[virion]

yes i forgot about the old school american shows. i also forgot to add the morning kid's shows that popped up in the early to mid 90's, such as, ren and stimpy, doug, ahhh! real monsters, animaniacs, hey! arnold.. newer shows appealing to the same demographic are just evolutions of these such as Spongebob Squarepants.

i personally love the old school shows and the characters they brought to life.. foghorn leghorn, yosemite sam, roadrunner, bugs and daffy, popeye, and the rest. great stuff.

[Lucas]

I already said everything I intended to say on this topic in the other thread. I'm not retyping those eight+ paragraphs again.

[Smokey]

foghorn leghorn, yosemite sam, roadrunner, bugs and daffy, popeye, and the rest. great stuff.

I LOVED Foghorn Leghorn. The man behind his creation was a genius. Yosemite Sam was pretty awesome, as well.

[MR EPIC]

So because of limitations, guidelines and lack of diversity, that automatically makes Japanese Animation better? Content and quality don't count for anything? Just LOL!

American cartoons all the way. Animation should be limited to comedy for the most part. If you want something deep and diverse then go watch a film at the movie theater.

Also, the Hobbit, Puff the Magic Dragon, and especially Watership Down are examples of American animation that happens to be serious.

[originalself]

Japanese animation even though in a bit of a slump is my preferred watching in the modern era. But American classics like thunder cats, transformers, gi joe, he-man, ect occupy as much of my dvd shelf space as any anime. And I still look forward to releases like exo-squad, centurions, ect.

[Smokey]

Yeah, can't get enough of Thundercats, Transformers, or He-Man, either. I like both the old one and the new one, personally. I don't feel that Transformers has aged all that well, though. I think the last good Transformers-esque show that was any good was Beast Wars.

[JValone]

My opinion can basically be summed up in the form of a question: which time period are we talking about? Up until about 1995 American animation, imo, completely destroyed what Japan was doing except in some rare cases (such as various Studio Ghibli films). Disney was making great stuff, weekday and weekend cartoon lineups were both popular and filled with classic programs.

But then the power seemed to shift significantly in the East's favor from that point forward. Cartoon programming is all but dead in America outside of Cartoon Network and adult comedy shows like Family Guy. On the flip side Japan has really stepped its game up and consistently pumped out great stuff. Pixar is really the only American studio that is pulling its weight at this time.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the popularity of anime skyrocketed just as the quality of American cartoons took a nose dive. People know what's good. Before the mid-90s no one had to look for better animation alternatives because the cream was right here in the States on TV and in the movie theaters. When that was no longer true the audience looked elsewhere and found that the Japanese had improved their output and quality dramatically at the very moment American studios no longer seemed to care.

All-time it's too close to call. I have too many favorites on both sides to determine who's superior. The best I can do is split the time periods and call it even.

[Kaizoku_Kouji]

I don't care either way. If an American cartoon appeals to me, I'll watch it. Same with Japanese, Canadian, French, etc. I really don't put thought into where it comes from.

That being said, I've been watching Dennō Coil. I caught about an episode and a half while working in Japan, and it grabbed my attention. The pure Japanese-ness of it is what makes it shine; it's one of those rare examples, like Spirited Away, Totoro, and Princess Mononoke, that I don't think could be pulled off by anyone but Japan.