Could anime have formed in the west under the right circumstances? I've been looking into Tezuka's life, works, and influences, and it outside of the typically straight hair of most early anime characters, they could just as easily be identified as "western" character designs.
I've also seen other western cartoons from the early-mid 20th century and some come in close proximity to anime but they just never quite got there. How was Tezuka able to hit the nail on the head? Do all templates for manga and anime really come from that one man? For example, the girl in Don Dracula or any of Tezuka's early cute designs I feel could have easily been created by a westerner, but I guess he got there first. That character doesn't look asian on her own, it seems only the cultural context makes people think of manga as Japanese.
Made this thread on Yea Forums but I think it warrants discussion here too.
I think not, the Japanese have pretty much fixed on a pretty narrow character design archetype for decades, that is not the way the west thinks.
Luis Watson
Can you elaborate please? I'm not sure I understand
Angel Bennett
It's an interesting idea, user. You have to understand that after the war, Japan was basically a third world nation that was given an aggressive rehabilitation in order to secure a foothold for Western interests in Asia. Tezuka was an incredibly prolific and influential creator that formed the backbone of the industry partly because he was the only one being successful at it.
I won't claim to know the Japanese soul, but I wonder if the fact that one man monopolizing animation as opposed to the differing studios and styles of the west had anything to do with it. Fleischer, Disney, and Warner Brothers all had very distinct styles, but Tezuka was manning the ship by himself for a very long time.
Ryan Mitchell
Think of character creators on an rpg/mmorpg, Anime characters are designed like that, they have a basis where you add and modify stuff from a template, basically, Big O made 2D characters in to animated actors, unlike cartoons who are outright deformed entities, Anime characters are more like actors made of ink.
Adrian Thompson
the japanese idealize, optimize, and sometimes twist western concepts they borrow far more from us than we do from them that alone prevents what you're talking about
Joshua Roberts
That's a really good point, it's probably why cartoons over here vary way more than most anime does in style.
But man, where did "kawaii" come from? It's simplified much like old Disney stuff but it's cute in a different way...it's hard to explain but I just want to know where it came from. I wish I could see the inside of Tezuka's mind.
Easton Bailey
So anime and manga are just an idealized portrayal of the west? I guess it makes sense when you think about how many games and anime are set in western high fantasy settings.
Eli Rogers
Oh, that's easy. The wide eyes and soft features are an evolution of Betty Boop with a splish splash of Snow White
Xavier Wright
So you're telling me that every waifu is derivative of Betty fucking Boop? Is she the ultimate?
Bentley Ramirez
Yes and yes
John Reyes
Honestly, I'm a bit frustrated trying to respond to you because I fundamentally disagree with your premise, but explaining why is troublesome because I'm not an artist.
>I've been looking into Tezuka's life, works, and influences, and it outside of the typically straight hair of most early anime characters, they could just as easily be identified as "western" character designs. This is wrong, and if you're seen just a metric shitton of anime and manga as well as comics and cartoons done in similar styles, you'd know this. I think it probably has to do with influential works in each respective country, but actual styles for anime and manga produces outside of Japan all differ with Japan and with each other.
American anime looks "flat" compared to Japanese. The characters don't look like they're at the proper depth for their scenes so they get a floating feel to them. Koreans draw their eyes differently than most Japanese artists and their styles tend to lean more shoujo regardless of genre (cept high fantasy for some reason). Chinese are split between overdesigned as all fuck Ayami Kojima tier bullshit or underdesigned cereal mascot tier bullshit that you can tell is its own special kind of knockoff (Taiwan is the same but in particular leans hard towards the latter). Europeans meanwhile get a Scooby-Doo feel to their shit. Everything's soft and nothing's emphasized in a scene particularly well. Kind of the opposite problem of American.
And it's not just the characters that end up looking distinctive. I once figured out someone was watching Ranma 1/2 from a paused image of a door. I have never fucking watched Ranma 1/2 to this day. I just knew the fucking look.
Anime is literally just japanese cartoons, based off of cartoons the Japanese watched in America. Hitler and the Nazis loved Snow White. America is the grandmother of global animation and cinema as we understand it.
The differences arise in the 1950s and the CCA cracking down on comics and the FEC cracking down on television. Cartoons, once used as openers for adult movies and enjoyed by all generations, came to be seen by Baby Boomers as "children stuff" as the creative content was stifled and boxed into superheroes for comics (for the most part).
Japan, while puritanical and suspicious of anything that could be considered deviations from their society to the point where kids who studied overseas in highschool or college were treated as semi-foreigners when they returned, somehow managed to let anime and manga slip through. Anime and manga, seen as being for kids, was allowed a lot of leniency that wouldn't be afforded to adults. Effectively Japanese expectations are somewhat flipped- kids are allowed to act like morons but adults are expected to work 14 hours a day and ask for more unpaid overtime on top of it, while in America childish behavior is cracked down on but adults are allowed to be drunk unemployed drug-addled idiots all they want as long as they don't bother anyone else.
It is America that has deviated from the original. It is America that began priding itself on making cartoons like John K- ugly and gross. Japan stayed closer to older American stuff and developed along those lines.
Camden Morgan
Mina and the count?
Joseph Sanders
You know the transforming robot toys from Japan that the US eventually turned into the "Transformers" franchise? Those Japanese transforming robots are a branch of a toy line that originally started as literally GI-Joes. GI-Joe bought from the US to sell in Japan, and then later turned into robots to boost sales.
If you mean a really vague, Astroboy/Speed Racer concept of anime, maybe. But not modern Anime. Modern anime is steeped in Jap culture and literary tradition. One example: Though facial expression is fairly universal, Asians have a different cultural view on facial expression and emotions, and this effects how they would produce artwork, subconsciously. Asian cultures tend to focus more around the eyes for expression than Americans. That's why gook emotes tend to look like this,: T_T, but Americans this, :) Both forms of cartoon have simplified and idealized details, but look at them in motion. An expressive anime girl will have her eyes doing most of the movement and expression. You could take a character's eyes alone and distinguish them, in fact. Some American cartoons might be like this, but American cartoons are more diverse in style. Another example: a lot of anime is adapted from "light novels," if not directly, then in spirit. Modern anime, in literary style, is strongly influenced by Japanese literature. Light novels might have manga illustrations, then are adapted into manga, then anime. Regardless of what the numbers of actual adaption from light novel are, the literary points of style, etc. are very influential in anime. The light novel, manga, and anime are all very connected. This might explain why anime is very serialized while American cartoons are usually not so. American cartoons tend to be more experimental, visually, even if the bulk of widely seen stuff on TV is just asinine computer animation (I'm talking more of the artsy, grass roots stuff). American cartoonists are guaranteed to have some visually experimental short in their personal demo reel. Other things include smaller details, like their gook honorifics (-san, -chan, etc.), their comparatively ritualized societal norms, and obviously the language itself.
Japan is a much smaller society than "The West", so its always far more likely to have a more limited/focused style.
William Ward
You mean Cipher the Video? Cause that's what you're describing. youtu.be/PIi19MI8QAA
Benjamin Scott
Huh. I guess that explains why westerners prefer the artstyle of stuff like Naruto and DBZ compared to moe.
Dominic Rogers
Fucking boomers
Nicholas Roberts
For not being an artist, these are some really astute observations, user. The part about European cartoons having a "Scooby Doo" feel especially rings true, in my experience.
Chase Ramirez
All very good points.
Jose Collins
The reason why anime gained a following in the west is because it's subversive and made for a Japanese audience rather than trying to have a world wide appeal. Even the biggest westaboo creations ever like Black Lagoon, Ghost in the Shell, Black Lagoon, etc are clearly done through a Japanese lens.
One of the longest running Japanese creations is Lupin III who's literally Arsene Lupin's grandson who hangs out with a samurai who's the descendant of Ishikawa Goemon, Rule63 James Bond and a Japanese modern cowboy based on James Coburn.
Japanese media would always be subversive to western audiences because they can only ever do their own take on western influences.
Jose Perry
This is the first and might be the last time I ever see Fujko Mine compared to James Bond.
Oliver Martin
James Bond is a slut
Jose Parker
But he's a likeable slut.
Justin Nelson
But he's not a world-class jewel thief.
Robert Gonzalez
If you stopped outsourcing and enabled low paid animators to work. Actually what young people actually want to make now is anime. Not shitty cartoons like Calarts trash or Sjw garbage.
Yea Forums and shitholes like reddit Tumblr is too autistic, ideological in a far left yet massively lazy capitalism way, defencive and nationalistic to accept anime productions in the US. They even furiously absolutely denied someone that wants to be an animator in the US and his desire to be a low paid hardworker. He just wanted to be an animator in the US but Yea Forums ideologues absolutely denied all of him and animator as a job just because it went against their ideological narratives. That thread was beyond embarrassing. Also they were fuckin fine with Korean sweatshops. Absolutely hypocritical. And the US is full of wealthy delusional people like that and they have taken over the industry and the media.
Also Anime isn't an invention of him. He just formed the basic studio system aka Mushi Pro.
Brandon Nelson
>Could anime have formed in the west under the right circumstances? How would those be the "right" circumstances? And yes, the answer is yes. If things were different things would be different, by definition.
Anthony Smith
Ren and Stimpy looked beautiful though, dunno what you're talking about.
Mason Reed
There is no universe where American culture didn't eventually lead to the shitty landscape for content we have right now, so no. Anime would not be possible here.
David Walker
I come from a timeline where America created anime, so you're wrong.
