Tharkun said:
Can someone please explain the appeal to Anime? I have seen a few things like Those who hunt elves, Bubble Gum crisis. But that's it.
The problem with this question, and don't take this the wrong way, but it's like asking what's the appeal of science fiction or mysteries, in a way. Though it may not necessarily appear that way from a cursory glance, anime is fairly vast, based on japanese comics, called manga, which cover even more territory. Certain kinds of anime are much more popular in the U.S. than others. Anime features fewer genres than manga, and is targetted at a less broad audience, usually children on through to college students. Manga, on the other hand, covers all ages and topics, from business stories, politics (Eagle), romance stories, Golf tournaments, horse trainers, superheroes, samurai epics, giant robots, science fiction and everything under the sun.
There are anime stories that can and have been done as live actions shows, with virtually no change between them, such as the romantic comedy Maison Ikkokku, historical drama Sazae-san (the tale of a young buddhist acolyte in Edo era Japan) and Great Teacher Onizuka, a sitcom about a former bike gang member who decides to become a teacher (and a damn good one, at that).
Other shows are pure realms of fantasy, and cover a wide range. It is the more fantastic shows that prove popular in the U.S., by a considerable margin.
To me, anime has several basic appeals that first interested me:
1) More sophisticated plots than american cartoons: especially as a child of the 70s/80s, this was so. U.S. fare in the 80s of my late youth was primarily one of 'each toy sold separately'. Compared against the story of a single man waging war against an invading empire while his own planet ignored the danger...well, Thundercats was no 'Captain Harlock'. These days, american cartoons have improved in quality, especially a show like say, Jackie Chan adventures or any of the DC superhero shows.
2) Much better animation. The rise of computers has only changed the bar levels between U.S. animators and Japanese animators. Except for theatrical presentations, the Japanese (and now Koreans) find better ways to get more bang for their buck. They use different techniques to accomplish this, some of which are also artistic at the same time, such as long pan shots and characters lost-in-thought, for example.
The advent of computer technology and 'tweening' has only worsened this trend, as some US animators try to make everything on the cheap. You can see this in many lower budget US shows, and the general poor quality of the animation as a result.
3) Much bigger scope and advancing storylines. Things happen. In an american production, all of the characters have to be on deck and the story moving within fifteen minutes of the start of the pilot. In anime, some of the main characters might not even appear until episode four or five. Over time they change...not just their personalities, but their clothes, their looks...even their allegiences.
Further, animation allows things that would be amazingly expensive to be done with ease. In a live action production, a single fight scene from Hellsing might cost millions. In animation, it doesn't cost anymore to illustrate a character jumping fifty feet in the air and smashing a building with a laser than it doe to show him getting into his car or sitting down to read a book.
4) More mature themes. How many people died in Transformers, excepting the movie? None. In GI Joe, how many people were killed by the cartoonish violence? None. In Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato, how many men died during the battle of Jupiter in the Andromeda fleet? All of them. In Macross, when the Zentraedi decide to eliminate mankind as a threat, 98% of humanity is wiped out. When you're old enough to handle that kind of story-telling, you look at the alternatives and wonder why it seems lackluster, now.
And I'll be honest, when I was younger, seeing things like cursing, violence and nudity was pretty cool in a cartoon. There was a certain vicarous thrill to seeing Maetel get naked...even if it was just to take a bath.
Never mind that characters drink, smoke and have sex...oh, and carry firearms.
Beyond that, much of anime tackles more difficult issues than 'stop the ghost from scaring everyone away from the mine'. Societal pressures; the nature of man, fate and duty; love and honor; and a host of deep topics can suffuse what might otherwise just be simple superheroics can transform a story to deeper meaning. The aforementioned Captain Harlock befriends and safeguards a little girl, often imperiling himself to great risk from her guardians, who use her like a chess pawn to draw Harlock in. Why? Because she's the daughter of his best friend, now dead. Harlock's gunner joins the crew after aliens kill his father, and the government does nothing about it. These just aren't the kinds of things you see in american cartoons.
5. Better acting: This one is ironic in that when I first got into anime, I couldn't understand a jot of Japanese. But the quality of the voice-acting and the obvious intensity of the delivery is what truly makes anime's acting seem so much better. This has changed a lot in recent years, though.
The issue, though, is that in the US, animation is in what I call 'the comedy ghetto'. The Simpsons are succesful, but that's the only way US audiences historically have been offered animation for anyone but children. The assumption is that somehow, more serious content can't be passed on in through the animated format, and that's irritating, when anime fans have seen it done countless times.
Well, that's enough for now. Incidentally, anime has plenty of flaws, too, but you didn't ask for that, and that's an even more personal list than this one.
