Gaming Generation Gap

[ProfessorCirno]

As others have said, the same stylizations you claim to be anime-only have appeared in a LOT of western stuff. The problem with saying "Anime is this, western animation is that" is that the lines are blurred. You can say Avatar was "anime," but it wasn't. And you can say Monster is a western animated show, but it's not.

But the big, big problem, and the reason why so many people :| at "I hate anime" or, the much, much worse phrase, "that's too anime," is this.

Anime isn't a genre.

That's why if I ever hear someone say "That's too anime" regarding game mechanics, I can safetly ignore them as being ignorant and full of it. It's the equivilant of opening the 4e PHB, looking at the elf, and going "Oh god that's just too literature for me." Imagine how bizarro that would sound. "That's just too literature for me." You'd say...well, possibly some rather impolite things. But you'd be THINKING "How can something be too literature? Literature isn't a genre! It's a medium! ANYTHING can be in literature!" How many people here sigh and palm -> face when they hear someone say "I hate books?"

 

[Primal]

You know what, I think I really need to disagree with a couple of the points you make here.

I think you are flat out mistaken in saying that western animation faces have facial features in proportion while anime faces have small noses and mouths. In this case, I think it is a lot more fair to say that anime has fairly realistically proportioned noses and mouths (outside of exaggerated expressions, where mouth tend to get much larger than what is realistic). Actually, there are more than a few famous anime characters with ludicrously huge noses, too, especially in older anime classics like Astro Boy or Cyborg 009, or newer anime that is referencing those old classics.

On the other hand, I would say that many staples of western animation, like Warner Bros. animation, tend to draw characters with disproportionately huge mouths (in addition to very large eyes!). If you look at them, many Warner Bros. characters have cheekbones that look horribly swollen (much wider than the rest of their head) simply so they can fit their huge mouths on their faces.

To a certain extent, I think people tend to recognize anime not because it is stylized, but because it lacks certain stylized elements that you see in western animation. Western animation is defined by characters who are ridiculously misproportioned and highly stylized, whether it is the gigantic head and feet of Mickey Mouse, the tall bodies, big muscles, small heads, and beady eyes of classic superhero animation, or the characters with huge heads and noodle-like limbs from Tim Burton's clay animation like The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I'd say what sets manga and anime apart from their Western counterparts (and note that I'm including manga-influenced comics such as manhwa and "pseudo manga" in this) are the distinct visual characteristics; not just big eyes and small mouths, for example, but also the visual language they use (such as twinkling eyes, or strong emotion often portrayed in a humourous and stylized fashion -- or the clothes of the protagonist may convey a certain visual message about him/her that an "unenlightened" reader/watcher completely misses).

 

[jmucchiello]

Anime isn't a genre.

No one in this thread said that. So don't pull that into this thread. In this thread I said Anime is a style. There's nothing wrong with that. People also enjoy French Cinema and American Summer Blockbusters. They aren't genres either but they are definitely styles of filmmaking. So is Anime and it is definitely distinct from so-called Western Animation. The fact that we can say some western animators have adopted Anime style in their cartoons is nonsense unless you accept Anime as a style.

 

[Primal]

As others have said, the same stylizations you claim to be anime-only have appeared in a LOT of western stuff. The problem with saying "Anime is this, western animation is that" is that the lines are blurred. You can say Avatar was "anime," but it wasn't. And you can say Monster is a western animated show, but it's not.

But the big, big problem, and the reason why so many people :| at "I hate anime" or, the much, much worse phrase, "that's too anime," is this.

Anime isn't a genre.

That's why if I ever hear someone say "That's too anime" regarding game mechanics, I can safetly ignore them as being ignorant and full of it. It's the equivilant of opening the 4e PHB, looking at the elf, and going "Oh god that's just too literature for me." Imagine how bizarro that would sound. "That's just too literature for me." You'd say...well, possibly some rather impolite things. But you'd be THINKING "How can something be too literature? Literature isn't a genre! It's a medium! ANYTHING can be in literature!" How many people here sigh and palm -> face when they hear someone say "I hate books?"

Well, for a librarian's perspective anime and manga *are* genres (and used as subject headings to identify genres), at least in many countries here in Europe. Manga is a genre within comics such as fantasy, science fiction, wuxia and new weird are genres (and a subgenre). And, as we know, manga has its own subgenres, too.

Anime and manga have distinct visual characteristics that can be identified -- in the wake of the pseudo manga, it may not be possible to identify the country of origin solely on the basis of the art alone, but a comic book can be identified as a manga based on the style.

 

[Oni]

There is a cultural difference in art style. But that difference is getting smaller. As far as D&D goes, none of those things are very applicable: art style isn't very relevant to what happens at the table.

I actually disagree with this. The aesthetic presentation of a game or setting goes a long way toward setting the mood at the table. I believe you could take the exact same set of information (setting and rules) and dress them up with different art (say old school D&D vs. anime) and it would make a noticeable difference how it was played. The primary reasons are twofold. First the presentation guides the selection process, People whose taste and stylistic preferences run a certain way will either be attracted or repelled by the product, so you could say that the art has a hand in selecting the mindset of the group that will be using the product. Secondly the art will inform the tone of the game, it's a visual cue of what the players are meant to put back into it by way of setting expectations and reinforcing the innate preferences that guided the process of selecting the product in the first place.

 

[Aeolius]

I believe you could take the exact same set of information (setting and rules) and dress them up with different art (say old school D&D vs. anime) and it would make a noticeable difference how it was played.

Tolkien elves versus Elfquest elves? (Personally, I prefer Elfquest elves)

 

[Doug McCrae]

That's why if I ever hear someone say "That's too anime" regarding game mechanics, I can safetly ignore them as being ignorant and full of it.

People don't really do that any more. Same with videogame-y, I've not seen either for quite a while. I feel a change in the air, I think anime is going back to meaning 'anime' instead of 'non-naturalistic' or 'oversized weapons and spiky hair' or 'bad'.

Anyway, these days we only talk about old school games. 'Nostalgia' is the new 'anime'.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

People don't really do that any more. Same with videogame-y, I've not seen either for quite a while. I feel a change in the air, I think anime is going back to meaning 'anime' instead of 'non-naturalistic' or 'oversized weapons and spiky hair' or 'bad'.

Anyway, these days we only talk about old school games. 'Nostalgia' is the new 'anime'.

Man I hear it all the time when I'm down in SoCal

 

[Bumbles]

Tolkien elves versus Elfquest elves? (Personally, I prefer Elfquest elves)

I recommend Keebler Elves.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I actually disagree with this. The aesthetic presentation of a game or setting goes a long way toward setting the mood at the table. I believe you could take the exact same set of information (setting and rules) and dress them up with different art (say old school D&D vs. anime) and it would make a noticeable difference how it was played. The primary reasons are twofold. First the presentation guides the selection process, People whose taste and stylistic preferences run a certain way will either be attracted or repelled by the product, so you could say that the art has a hand in selecting the mindset of the group that will be using the product. Secondly the art will inform the tone of the game, it's a visual cue of what the players are meant to put back into it by way of setting expectations and reinforcing the innate preferences that guided the process of selecting the product in the first place

I was hoping someone would bite at that, 'cuz it gets us a little closer to something usefully on-topic.

Your first reason I can broadly agree with. Marketing agrees with you there, too. People will self-select based on their own aesthetic tastes, and most American males 18-24 probably won't pick up a bright pink PHB done with illos in the style of a gay-boy romance manga with lillies splayed all over the tables and charts. Likewise, kids these days probably won't pick up anything with big hair, throbbing muscles, chainmail bikinis, and multi-eyed piles of slime. It's not modern, current, or interesting.

That's about art direction and, well, marketing, though, not so much about game design. Put fast cars, bikini models, and explosions on the cover of a Parcheesi set, and you'll sell at least a few.

Your second reason is a little shakier, because "tone of the game" is highly imprecise. Parcheesi is parcheesi no matter how you dress it up; Star Wars Monopoly is still Monopoly, and still about currency management, not about killing Darth Vader. Replacing the top hat with a little metal Chewbacca doesn't change the fundamental rules or feel of the game, though it might change the banter at the table around the game ("My hotel on Hoth is an igloo!"). Drawing every character as if it were from a boy-love manga wouldn't change the fact that dwarves are tough and that eladrin can teleport. Though the audience might be surprised to find no mechanics for keeping your love a tightly-held secret and no GM advice for innuendo and symbolic lilly placement, even drawn in this style, 4e D&D would still be a game about beating up monsters on a minis field. It might attract a different audience (and thus evolve in another direction as fans demand different things), but the "tone," as it were, wouldn't change.