The State of American Animation

[reanjr]

Where do "Stylish, urbane --not-to-mention handsome-- thirty-something year old gamers who hang out in bars drinking vodka martini's (up w/olives) while discussing Paranoia Agent, the new Battlestar, and their great new campaign comncepts with their buddies" fit in?

Just out of idle curiosity, mind you...

By the description, probably at the top. But remember the chart only covers who those particular groups feel are geekier than they.

 

[reanjr]

Please note that I'm not saying no anime could ever entertain me (as you'll note by the use of "enjoy" in that paragraph). I'm saying that the stuff I've seen seemed to have some things that didn't do it for me personally as part of the basic cultural assumption.

And by cultural assumption, you are referring to 70 P.S.I. circulatory systems, correct? (that's the only thing my mind can think of when Ninja Scroll is mentioned)

 

[reanjr]

Yeah, you're right. Its too bad that the execs sometimes think this way.

Unfortunately, American companies can't find any animators willing to move into communes and get paid $3/hr. I'm sure if they could, they'd be fine with producing animation that doesn't sell that well.

Anime is like Indie animation. Shoestring budgets and people willing to work almost for room and board.

You know that in America, its hard to pitch an action/adventure show where the main lead is a female? Next to impossible.

You mean like Alias? As long as you work the hot chick angle, you're gold.

 

[Chain Lightning]

Unfortunately, American companies can't find any animators willing to move into communes and get paid $3/hr. I'm sure if they could, they'd be fine with producing animation that doesn't sell that well.

Anime is like Indie animation. Shoestring budgets and people willing to work almost for room and board.

And that's why we do almost all our animation over seas. Its cheaper. A quality animated series can be done. And done in a cost effective manner. Its done all the time year in year out. Problem, like the original topic stated, is that the American animation industry hasn't grown beyond only providing for child audiences and adult sitcom comedies.

We've talked back and forth about which is better...Anime, American animtion, ...why don't you like it? You should check this out....this can't be done....this looks better....

....but the core of it is this: doesn't matter who's better, Japan or America, doesn't matter if it can be done or not, because it can.....the thing is, that serious mature animated action adventure (the stuff people like us love to watch) are not being done in America enough. Don't you all agree?

Let's face it, animation is an inferior medium in comparison to live-action for those who want realism. Thing is, its expensive to produce a tv series in live action when it comes to sci-fi and fantasy. You gotta scrape up a lot of money to do one decently. Like "Star Trek" and "Battlestar Galactica"....but even those guys have to skimp on a lot of stuff. Battlestar recently had to use the same p-90 submachine gun seen in Stargate during that prison hostage episode. If it was animation, it would've been cheaper to have the artist draw a new gun for that show. But to have your prop department make like 6 new guns just for that one show is expensive. Stargate is about going to different worlds, and yet...they seem to always go to pine wood evergreen forest worlds. If it was animation, you can draw an exotic locale each time.

That's why its nice if someone could do a seriouc sci-fi/fantasy animated show. I know some of you say that animation is for whimsical funny stuff only....but, with the medium, we can bring to life stories that live-action couldn't do. We can get more of the stories we like if another output of expression became available. Animation could be it. But in America, it isn't because of the industry. And that's what I think you have to agree with me on. That Japan has at least that over us. You may think they have bad stories or bad animation, but you gotta admit that at least they do it over there.

You mean like Alias? As long as you work the hot chick angle, you're gold.

That's a live action show for adults. I'm talking about animation. Action/adventure animation. Our live action tv industry for adults has plenty of good shows and lots of strong well written female characters in lead roles.

And yes, the "hot chick" angle is brought up, but most don't really think that's a viable element to draw a male audience even though it clearly is. The problem is, (and I'm gonna use a live-action example for this one) when one exec says "okay, I'll do your hot chick thing " and does it...then it bombs ....they say, "See, it didn't work".

Problem wasn't that the hot chick thing didn't work, it was because they forgot to take care of the other part that makes people wanna watch. That part being....a good story. In an article in Entertainment Weekly, a few studios were quoted saying that the reason why they think "Catwoman" and "Elektra" didn't do big numbers was because the audience isn't ready for strong action female leads. Rubbish....guys like this make me puke.

Thankfully, the EW guy who wrote the article and said that wasn't the case with "Aliens" and "Terminator" now was it? Or like you said, "Alias".

 

[KaintheSeeker]

I saw about 10 minutes of the Cowboy Bebop movie, then turned it off to watch something else. The whole "save the convenience store from being robbed by my crack team of urban commandos" routine, and then when the old lady asked him who he was, and he just turned around trying to look all cool and said, "I'm just a bounty hunter," my "this is really stupid" meter went off and I took the DVD out and never ended up putting it back in.

Should have seen the series.. much better than the movie in my opinion. Of course I think it ended on a weird note and some points were never really resolved. Like.. just how intelligent was Ein? (the corgi braindog)

 

[Rackhir]

Problem wasn't that the hot chick thing didn't work, it was because they forgot to take care of the other part that makes people wanna watch. That part being....a good story. In an article in Entertainment Weekly, a few studios were quoted saying that the reason why they think "Catwoman" and "Elektra" didn't do big numbers was because the audience isn't ready for strong action female leads. Rubbish....guys like this make me puke.

Thankfully, the EW guy who wrote the article and said that wasn't the case with "Aliens" and "Terminator" now was it? Or like you said, "Alias".

No need for you to puke, it is a firmly established fact that most hollywood execs are idiots. La Femme Nikita lasted for like 6-7 seasons on TV (still waiting for season 2 to be released). Relic Hunter lasted a similar period of time. Their statement is especially ironic, given that the star of Elektra is also the star of Alias.

Hollywood is driven by fear, anything that is successful is wonderful and destined to have been that way. Anything that fails is the fault of someone else and something that exec wasn't involved with or responsible for.

Perhaps they've been able to make a financial success out of so many bad movies, that they really do think that seriously though?

 

[Chun-tzu]

All that said, I still, generally speaking, don't dig on anime, primarily because I don't dig on the cultural differences. This doesn't mean I hate Japan. This doesn't mean that I think Japan is more sexist than the U.S. -- it means that I have learned to accept the American cultural stuff that I don't like in a movie that I otherwise do like, because I've grown up with it, and I can tune out some stuff. I can't tune out the Japanese stuff, because it's all new to me, and I have to sit watching the whole movie going, "Really? This is what they think about women? This is their idea of a tenderhearted romance? This is...? Feh."

As I'd say to most who say they don't like anime, I believe you haven't seen the right anime shows. Anime grew out of and is an extension of manga, and so the fairest comparison to an American medium is American comic books... which suffer the same problems of sexism and even subtle misogyny. As a huge comic and anime fan, I do not find American attitudes to be significantly better, and although I love both media, you have to call a spade a spade.

The American TV and comic industry has failed for years to attract the young female audience. But large numbers of young females have gotten into anime and manga, like Ranma 1/2, Fruits Basket, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou ("His and Her Circumstances"), Sailor Moon, and many others. Noir is one of the best action anime shows in recent years, starring two female assassins.

But yes, there are definitely cultural differences in the romantic elements, and if you don't care for stories along those lines, that's perfectly fine. What's "good" and what's not depends heavily on our expectations (which is why the Matrix sequels, for example, are seen by so many as so bad). Also, often people just say that shows are "good", when what they really mean is, "it's good for me." I'd recommend different anime to different people, the same way I would for books, movies, TV shows, and so on. And most of the time when I talk about things that I personally like on these boards, I talk about what is good rather than simply raving, so that people at least have a better idea of what to expect and don't go into it with the wrong expectations.

 

[WizarDru]

Again, we return to the 'anime covers a wide base' theory.

One doesn't pick up a copy of FHM and expect insightful commentary about empowered women...you expect pictures of hot chicks posed provocatively, with articles about how to land babes, a review of the Decemberists and mix the ultimate martini.

Yes, there are shows that have women shown as sex objects or cheesecake, and many shows that are purely about the 'fan service', showing masturbatory fantasy women for young teenage boys. Newsflash: Much of anime is targeted at that audience. These shows are like watching the O.C. or One Tree Hill is in America. Read any comic books in the last several decades? Noticed the female characters outfits? Same motivations.

If you want a series that doesn't pander, get something like "Kaze no Yojimbo", "Witch Hunter Robin" or any number of other shows either aimed at an older demographic, or that simply don't focus on that aspect. Further, it's not really fair to drag shows like "Kim Possible" into the mix: it's a Disney production solidly aimed at tween girls, but with enough crossover appeal to reach some boys. It's not fair to accuse it of not being Alias...it wasn't meant to bear that weight.

Compare and contrast "Kim Possible" with, say "W.i.t.c.h.", and you'll see that female leads win out when there is a female audience to watch it. The problem is finding that audience and reaching them. But that's another discussion entirely.

The fact remains that many shows written as well as an Exo-Squad or at Starship Troopers:Leathernecks series are marketed poorly or at the wrong audience, and thus don't reach the popularity they might. QUICK: Name the number of primetime, non-comedy animated series that have debuted on a major network in the last ten years. If you include the WB, I can think of....ONE. Now, consider how much most of Fox or the WB's flops have cost to produce, and consider how economical such a show might be. I'm not saying they'd be an automatic hit....if professional producers, directors and program directors can't consistently do that, how could I? It's quite possible they might not succeed at all...but we've never actually had a chance to see, either way, have we? And with TV markets getting more desperate, I think it's only a matter of time. Notice how well Cartoon Network is doing with their offerings in the choice 18-35 demographic. Samurai Jack and Clone Wars, among others, show that it CAN be done. It's more a question of whether targeted channels like SciFi or CN do it sooner or later, IMHO.

 

[Desdichado]

Wow, this thread has really gotten into some good, in-depth analysis. I'm not sure that I have anything really substantial to add to this other than to highlight points that I especially agree with.

I think takyris makes an excellent point (stated much better than my own fumbling attempts to say sorta the same thing) that it's the Japanese cultural lens process that makes much of the anime "weird" to me. Add to that, the fact that studios do a very poor job of determining what exactly leads to the success or failure of a show, and quite often botch it entirely, canning good concepts because of flawed execution.

However, rather than bitch and moan, I think animation fans have a lot to be excited about moving forward. Although they may wish for a faster transformation of TV, direct-to-video or even movie studios paradigms, look at what we do have -- a recent proliferation of shows that are moving in the right direction. The aforementioned Clone Wars, or the Batman, or some of the other shows that are starting to show up have questionable target audiences. In other words, the studios are hedging their bets; making shows that could appeal to adults, but still cloaking them in a "kids show" veneer.

I mean, my kids like the Justice League or Teen Titans well enough. But comparing that to the old Superfriends I used to watch as a kid shows an extremely marked increase in sophistication of plot, dialogue and even just the situations the characters find themselves in. They haven't come all the way out of the closet yet and stated, "yes our target audience is 18-35 year old guys who like to read comic books" instead of necessarily kids, but they're pretty darn close.

 

[takyris]

You're saying that when you watch one of these shows, (from either country) you're seeing something made from the industry's "assumption" of what they think you like to watch?

Sort of. One part subject matter and one part execution. If I said, "There's this interesting movie -- it's about a bounty hunter who gets assigned one last assignment but feels conflicted as to whether he should carry it out," and then I added either "It's anime", "It's a French movie playing at the local independent theater," or "It was a big American summer blockbuster a few years back", most folks will come up with three slightly different pictures. Whether their assumptions are true for that particular movie is a matter of chance, but most of us here could come up with a stereotypical view of what kind of movie each of those would be, and how they'd be different. That's what I mean. The industry assumptions are in there, but so are the directorial choices -- a Japanese director of an anime feature thinks, "How can I convey the needed emotion here? What's a good way to show the power dynamic of their relationship?" and comes up with a different answer, generally speaking, from the answer that a French director comes up with, or the answer that a big U.S. director comes up with.

This is all general -- the directors of the Matrix are on record as saying that they were trying to make a movie that felt like live-action anime, which is sort of a conscious attempt to break the stereotypes I'm talking about -- but generally speaking, it holds, I think.

As I'd say to most who say they don't like anime, I believe you haven't seen the right anime shows. Anime grew out of and is an extension of manga, and so the fairest comparison to an American medium is American comic books... which suffer the same problems of sexism and even subtle misogyny. As a huge comic and anime fan, I do not find American attitudes to be significantly better, and although I love both media, you have to call a spade a spade.

As to the latter, no argument. The average comic book is more than a little sexist. Even if the superheroine isn't weaker or dumber than the superhero, she's wearing a bikini. The notion that the guys are just as idealized and unrealistic as the gals is possibly true, but there's still a double standard going on there.

But as I said in my first post, I've grown up with that stuff, and learned to ignore it. It's harder for me to ignore the sexism in anime because the sexist tropes are different and new -- essentially, I haven't set up my ignore filter on anime cultural sexism yet, but I set it on American comics awhile ago.

As to the former (I haven't seen the right stuff), that's possibly true, but the only real exposure I've had has been people who like anime trying to get me to watch stuff and saying, "Dude, this is awesome, you have to watch it." If the anime-lovers are telling me to watch this stuff as the prime examples of the genre, and then it turns out to be drivel (or not drivel but not to my taste), that's going to give me certain baseline assumptions for the genre. I'd suggest that there needs to be a group of anime advocates advocating the good stuff.

Random side note: What's wrong with "Kim Possible"? KP is awesome. It's a show where the male and female lead are friends, it addresses at least the G-rated issues in a humorous way, the girls fight effectively while the guys are comic relief much of the time (KP and Shego as opposed to Drakken and Ron), and it has wonderful writing. I'd put Kim Possible up against, say, "Sailor Moon" as shows aimed at the same audience, and KP comes out worlds ahead as far as I can tell.

I don't love every episode, but then, I'm not a teenager, so it ain't really aimed at me.