its tough to decide which is better. anime vs cartoons. heh frankly posting this on an anime fan site i think the response might be a lil bias but hey its always interesting to see why people back up their responses.
although its difficult to set aside personal tastes and focus on technique alone i will try. (for what its worth i enjoy both anime and cartoons equally. im a fan of animation in general) i also thinks its tough to ask which as better animation because i think that a lot more should go into tha question. are you talking feature film or tv series? also what era do you want to compare animation? 80s? 90s? 00s... huh what is the term for the 21st centuary? sorry i digress.
in your thesis you said that historaclly speaking the japanese stole loads from the us, as they were a united states wanna be, although i do not argue with this statement the tables have changed and now the us is a wannabe japan. americans have found a niche that sells, anime and manga. and where ever a quick dollor can be found it must be exploited. thats one reason why i think that there is this sudden anime influenced style explosion that were seeing flooding american cartoons. the ironic thing in all this i suppose is the fact that we are exploiting something that WE influenced to begin with.
im not sure how to explain all of my thoughts on this next rant so stick with me here as i go on a tangent of many thoughts that cross lines with one another. america as im sure you know is a nation of fads. the new fad now is cg and 3d animation. i think because we get so caught up in these fads that we lose site of what we really enjoy. the best example i can think of is disney. the royalty of animation. disney studios was(is) the king of 2d animation. then came along a beautiful lil movie call toy story. a computer animated movie that just blew peoples minds. it was something new and amazing that people just ate it up. it became such a thing to have everything in cg because that was found to be where the money is. so when micheal eisner closed disneys 2d feature film department for good (or so he thought) it was a devistating blow to the american 2d animation industry. when the royalty of american animation said that the future ONLY in cg everyone quickly followed suit. granted there were still plenty of 2d animators out there but with no one setting the standards a lot of quality was lost. at the same time with so many people flooding the cg market the quality has also gone down there as well. with so many people out there thinking that they can be animators because they know to work a computer. seriously, ive met many people who feed that knowing about squash and stretch is obsolete because the computer does that for them. even now a wide number of "2d" shows are done in cg and the rendered out with specific toon shaders to make it look like cel animation. its only been recently that americans are starting to catch on that people really do like the old chuck jones, disney, 90s saturday morning cartoon style of animation. and were slopping some things together again to play "ratings and dollor catch up" again this doesnt speak for everything. its just an overall observation.
so when you say it boggles your mind that americans prefer a cheap imitation over something real and genuine, that anime is of better quality than americans... at the present i sometimes wonder. the japanese still take the time to do things by hand for the most part. granted they use a LOT of quick tricks and shortcuts and looooooong pans simple eye sparkles and mouth movements... its those 3 or 4 scenes with true animation that sticks with people. its then easy to overlook and forget the simple things because of that one thing that stands out so much. where as a lot of american cartoons are ... static. where is the animation climax that makes you go holy shit that was awesome!!! (right now i am strictly speaking in terms of television series)
you talk about how american cartoons are organic and japanese cartoons are angular? what are some of your examples? because as of lately i think these roles are being reversed american cartoons are becoming more and more angular and anime more organic. for example: american cartoon, teenage mutant ninja turtles fastforward is very angular. where as a show like lovley complex has a very natural curvy flow to it. (on a personal note the original 1980s ninja turtles are by far superior to any of the others that have been produced. ;)
thank you for mentioning silhouette tests! noone ever gives this technique any credit!
theres a lot tricks that japanese animators use with action lines, sparkles and held frames but a lot of that falls into the style category. style can influence technique. yes there are some some techniques that the japanese are most definantly lacking in but, at the same time they are completely owning us with some of our own techniques like secondary action. the have mastered the use of it with things such as hair and clothing.
although your thesis is very well done it seems....dated to me. you make so many references to the greats like disney and jones and the ever so painful anime where the characters are frozen except for the camera pan. but things have changed drasticly recently. anime is really upping there game and rectifying this fatal flaw, well ceratin studios at least. and i hate to say this but i have met one to many kids and teenagers that have no clue who chuck jones, tex avery, shultz and even WALT disney himself (not the studio) are. there is so much that americans wont show anymore because of A: its not "pc" B: the whole there has to be a certain amount of educational value law. although this is more directed at tv. C: the CG mindset.
"but in no way is Japanese animation capable of having more facial
expressions than American animation. Another problem with Japanese animation
is that changes of facial expressions tend to look a lot more choppy than
they do in American animation"
Psychologists have known this for a long time, and the American
animators usually do a pretty good job of incorporating this idea in their
animations. Too bad the Japanese are still pretty much clueless on this one.
Go ahead and try to prove otherwise, but as far as I know, the only way you
can tell the emotion of an anime character is by reading his face.
those are pretty bold statements. can you back them up? i think that the anime soul eater and samuari champloo do really good jobs conveying facial expression and physical expression.
i think alot of american cartoons now are lacking in story quality. we have become so focused on pc and quick thrills and one liners that. we are getting lazy and dollor obsessed. examples: squidbillies. aqua teen, metalacoplse. johnny test.
where as the japanese, although so many of their plots are predicatable and annoying filled with with mindless filler as they get way ahead of their inteaded stories and need to reign it in a bit, i think that yet again they are using our own golden era against us. they originally did it with disney and now i believe that they are doing so with the 90s golden era of american saturday morning cartoons.
i think that american cartoons USED to be amazing all around. but now its missing something. i really do think you have a vaild thesis here and yeah ive been playing devils advocate through out this but let me tell you now that i am NOT some anime crazed fan. i fancy myself a cartoon connoisseur. ever since i saw snow white i have wanted to be an animator. being 27 i have experienced a whole variety of different generations definitions of what makes a good cartoon. i love cartoons. i am obsessed with concept of animation. so i studied it at the rocky mountain college of art and design where i recieved my BFA in 2d animation focusing on tradtional 2d animation and stopmotion animation. and right now i have been watching and studying tons of classic american cartoons from the 70s to now. i am developing a cartoon inspired by a number of things from old school saturday morning cartoons to disney to chuck jones to fleisher.
heres something to think about in regards to the quality of american cartoons. when you ask someone about older cartoons like teenage mutant ninja turtles, animaniacs, xmen, tiny toons, or attack of the killer tomatoes (everyone has to sing the theme to this i htink its some sort of law) what kind of response do you get? ask them if they remember the bill and ted cartoon, back to the future and the mc hammer show when (and if) they remember on those ones specifically you get a bug eyed oh my god i remember that kind of responce. (this is the kind of responce i want people to have about my cartoon. i want to be like "holy crap thats awesome" and then sing the theme song.)
to be fair ask someone about johnny test, camp lazlo, spongebob, dora the explorer, back gardians. what kind of response do you get from these cartoons?
or even ask comparison questions like what do you think of hte 80s ninja turtles VS. turtles fast forward.? the 90s animated batman VS batman the brave and the bold. the 80s garfield and friends VS the new cg garfield?
sorry your these just really got me thinking and i guess i got a bit carried away. but it made me think. so thats a good thing. right?
All Comments (8) Comments
although its difficult to set aside personal tastes and focus on technique alone i will try. (for what its worth i enjoy both anime and cartoons equally. im a fan of animation in general) i also thinks its tough to ask which as better animation because i think that a lot more should go into tha question. are you talking feature film or tv series? also what era do you want to compare animation? 80s? 90s? 00s... huh what is the term for the 21st centuary? sorry i digress.
in your thesis you said that historaclly speaking the japanese stole loads from the us, as they were a united states wanna be, although i do not argue with this statement the tables have changed and now the us is a wannabe japan. americans have found a niche that sells, anime and manga. and where ever a quick dollor can be found it must be exploited. thats one reason why i think that there is this sudden anime influenced style explosion that were seeing flooding american cartoons. the ironic thing in all this i suppose is the fact that we are exploiting something that WE influenced to begin with.
im not sure how to explain all of my thoughts on this next rant so stick with me here as i go on a tangent of many thoughts that cross lines with one another. america as im sure you know is a nation of fads. the new fad now is cg and 3d animation. i think because we get so caught up in these fads that we lose site of what we really enjoy. the best example i can think of is disney. the royalty of animation. disney studios was(is) the king of 2d animation. then came along a beautiful lil movie call toy story. a computer animated movie that just blew peoples minds. it was something new and amazing that people just ate it up. it became such a thing to have everything in cg because that was found to be where the money is. so when micheal eisner closed disneys 2d feature film department for good (or so he thought) it was a devistating blow to the american 2d animation industry. when the royalty of american animation said that the future ONLY in cg everyone quickly followed suit. granted there were still plenty of 2d animators out there but with no one setting the standards a lot of quality was lost. at the same time with so many people flooding the cg market the quality has also gone down there as well. with so many people out there thinking that they can be animators because they know to work a computer. seriously, ive met many people who feed that knowing about squash and stretch is obsolete because the computer does that for them. even now a wide number of "2d" shows are done in cg and the rendered out with specific toon shaders to make it look like cel animation. its only been recently that americans are starting to catch on that people really do like the old chuck jones, disney, 90s saturday morning cartoon style of animation. and were slopping some things together again to play "ratings and dollor catch up" again this doesnt speak for everything. its just an overall observation.
so when you say it boggles your mind that americans prefer a cheap imitation over something real and genuine, that anime is of better quality than americans... at the present i sometimes wonder. the japanese still take the time to do things by hand for the most part. granted they use a LOT of quick tricks and shortcuts and looooooong pans simple eye sparkles and mouth movements... its those 3 or 4 scenes with true animation that sticks with people. its then easy to overlook and forget the simple things because of that one thing that stands out so much. where as a lot of american cartoons are ... static. where is the animation climax that makes you go holy shit that was awesome!!! (right now i am strictly speaking in terms of television series)
you talk about how american cartoons are organic and japanese cartoons are angular? what are some of your examples? because as of lately i think these roles are being reversed american cartoons are becoming more and more angular and anime more organic. for example: american cartoon, teenage mutant ninja turtles fastforward is very angular. where as a show like lovley complex has a very natural curvy flow to it. (on a personal note the original 1980s ninja turtles are by far superior to any of the others that have been produced. ;)
thank you for mentioning silhouette tests! noone ever gives this technique any credit!
theres a lot tricks that japanese animators use with action lines, sparkles and held frames but a lot of that falls into the style category. style can influence technique. yes there are some some techniques that the japanese are most definantly lacking in but, at the same time they are completely owning us with some of our own techniques like secondary action. the have mastered the use of it with things such as hair and clothing.
although your thesis is very well done it seems....dated to me. you make so many references to the greats like disney and jones and the ever so painful anime where the characters are frozen except for the camera pan. but things have changed drasticly recently. anime is really upping there game and rectifying this fatal flaw, well ceratin studios at least. and i hate to say this but i have met one to many kids and teenagers that have no clue who chuck jones, tex avery, shultz and even WALT disney himself (not the studio) are. there is so much that americans wont show anymore because of A: its not "pc" B: the whole there has to be a certain amount of educational value law. although this is more directed at tv. C: the CG mindset.
"but in no way is Japanese animation capable of having more facial
expressions than American animation. Another problem with Japanese animation
is that changes of facial expressions tend to look a lot more choppy than
they do in American animation"
Psychologists have known this for a long time, and the American
animators usually do a pretty good job of incorporating this idea in their
animations. Too bad the Japanese are still pretty much clueless on this one.
Go ahead and try to prove otherwise, but as far as I know, the only way you
can tell the emotion of an anime character is by reading his face.
those are pretty bold statements. can you back them up? i think that the anime soul eater and samuari champloo do really good jobs conveying facial expression and physical expression.
i think alot of american cartoons now are lacking in story quality. we have become so focused on pc and quick thrills and one liners that. we are getting lazy and dollor obsessed. examples: squidbillies. aqua teen, metalacoplse. johnny test.
where as the japanese, although so many of their plots are predicatable and annoying filled with with mindless filler as they get way ahead of their inteaded stories and need to reign it in a bit, i think that yet again they are using our own golden era against us. they originally did it with disney and now i believe that they are doing so with the 90s golden era of american saturday morning cartoons.
i think that american cartoons USED to be amazing all around. but now its missing something. i really do think you have a vaild thesis here and yeah ive been playing devils advocate through out this but let me tell you now that i am NOT some anime crazed fan. i fancy myself a cartoon connoisseur. ever since i saw snow white i have wanted to be an animator. being 27 i have experienced a whole variety of different generations definitions of what makes a good cartoon. i love cartoons. i am obsessed with concept of animation. so i studied it at the rocky mountain college of art and design where i recieved my BFA in 2d animation focusing on tradtional 2d animation and stopmotion animation. and right now i have been watching and studying tons of classic american cartoons from the 70s to now. i am developing a cartoon inspired by a number of things from old school saturday morning cartoons to disney to chuck jones to fleisher.
heres something to think about in regards to the quality of american cartoons. when you ask someone about older cartoons like teenage mutant ninja turtles, animaniacs, xmen, tiny toons, or attack of the killer tomatoes (everyone has to sing the theme to this i htink its some sort of law) what kind of response do you get? ask them if they remember the bill and ted cartoon, back to the future and the mc hammer show when (and if) they remember on those ones specifically you get a bug eyed oh my god i remember that kind of responce. (this is the kind of responce i want people to have about my cartoon. i want to be like "holy crap thats awesome" and then sing the theme song.)
to be fair ask someone about johnny test, camp lazlo, spongebob, dora the explorer, back gardians. what kind of response do you get from these cartoons?
or even ask comparison questions like what do you think of hte 80s ninja turtles VS. turtles fast forward.? the 90s animated batman VS batman the brave and the bold. the 80s garfield and friends VS the new cg garfield?
sorry your these just really got me thinking and i guess i got a bit carried away. but it made me think. so thats a good thing. right?
Thanks anyway ^^