Anime culture and D&D

[Desdichado]

I'm a fan of Anime style art, but I don't like many of the TV series. A lot of it, in my opinion, is that the Eastern cultural and plot conventions tend not to translate well to a Western audience. I'm a big fan of Avatar: the Last Airbender because it combines Anime style art and storyline with American writing.

Yes, yes. Although some of the stylistic conventions of anime I could take or leave--and some of them I do actively dislike--this has been my biggest stumbling block. There are simply too many of the anime that I've seen that I just don't get from a plot development standpoint. It's not that I don't understand them--it's just that it seems like bad storytelling to my clearly Western-centric point of view.

 

[WayneLigon]

There are simply too many of the anime that I've seen that I just don't get from a plot development standpoint. It's not that I don't understand them--it's just that it seems like bad storytelling to my clearly Western-centric point of view.

Part of that is that a lot of anime is drawn from manga or novels. Some early anime - though you still get this sometimes - was especially notorious in that they'd take a chunk wholesale directly from the middle of a series in the comics. Now if you were part of the Japanese audience it was just expected that you'd been following the story in the comics or the novels or whatever and would know exactly what was going on. Anime series will also pick and choose what parts to use, so sometimes it jumps around a lot. It doesn't help that sometimes they'll make a movie based on the regularly running anime series, but only use the characters names or designs; everything else might or might not be different.

 

[WayneLigon]

Seriously, I've never actually heard the term "face fault" before this thread. What exactly does that refer to? The giant lines in anime character heads? The way mouths are drawn? Something else?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_fault

The various exaggerated expressions that even some normally serious anime series will use to indicate various emotions, thoughts, etc. Basically the same as in American animation where you'd see rain over someone's head if they were sad, or storm clouds if they were angry, or a lightbulb when they got an idea.

 

[Tewligan]

I wonder how people in japan learn to animate?

They study for years with an ancient master in a hidden monastery - he's usually either dark and mysterious, or old and wacky. When they finish their training, they're easily recognizable - giant sweat beads and exclamation points burst from their skulls when they're drawing, the world around them becomes a blur of horizontal lines, and they shout the name of whatever they're doing. "Cross hatch shading GOOOOO!"

 

[Kesh]

Seriously, I've never actually heard the term "face fault" before this thread. What exactly does that refer to? The giant lines in anime character heads? The way mouths are drawn? Something else?

A good example is this. The character on the right is doing a face fault, for obvious reasons.

Anime is Azumanga Daioh.