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.
Tezuka was a fan of Walt Disney and Carl Barks, of course his designs look "western". The problem is that Tezuka created an innovation that the west never did: cheap animated adaptations of pre-existing comic book stories. That's the stuff that acts as the backbone of anime.
Leo Williams
Yes if Hitler had won ww2 all anime would be made by the French
Hunter Moore
It would lewder than ever then!
Nathan Cook
>Could anime have formed in the west under the right circumstances? No. That's retarded.
Evan Green
I guess what I'm driving at is, how did Tezuka stumble on "kawaii"? Although Disney characters are typically cute, Tezuka's characters feel simplified in a different way...it's hard to explain but I think most people here, being big anime/manga fans know what I mean.
Thomas Gray
Tezuka would have let Disney shit in his mouth. The oldest manga and the oldest western cartoons are very closely related and only differ in style in a minor sense.
Jack Young
You're going to have to give more context. I'm not the guy you're responding to but my answer as far as I can gather from this is the differences in culture. The style of animation in the west was drifting in a completely different direction, as was the culture. There's a lot to be said about the 1960s, and by the 70s everything was so different, honestly this is a difficult question you're asking
Juan Perry
It's hard to ask this because I'm shit with words, but how did we get from Pinocchio to Astro Boy? I'll say it like this: If Disney did a live action Pinocchio (which I think they're planning to?), most people would have no trouble if Pinocchio was played by a white kid. But with Astro-Boy you would have plenty of people rallying for an asian kid to play him. I understand the cultural and historic reason for this (it's manga and the robot is based on a Japanese man's deceased son in the plot), but is there anything in Astro-Boy's actual design that makes him appear more eastern than Pinocchio?
Henry Collins
1. Stop calling Atom Astro Boy, his name is Atom you retard 2. Atom was built as a replacement for a dead kid who was Japanese, therefore he would naturally be Japanese as well
Robert Evans
I realize that retard, did you actually read through and comprehend my post? Try again.
Jose Wright
Why do you refuse to understand such a simple point? Doctor Tenma's (a Japanese man's) son died, and he built a robotic replacement. Why would the replacement be anything other than a Japanese boy robot? It's like you're not even reading my posts at this point and only hear what you want to hear.
Luke Richardson
So what? Tezuka is not the entirety of Japanese animation. He's important, but he's just one man, anime is much bigger than him.
Austin Garcia
>but is there anything in Astro-Boy's actual design that makes him appear more eastern than Pinocchio? Well the hair I guess, Astroboy's is somewhat spiky, and Pinocchio is distinctly a standard caucasian. Eye color too, Pinocchio's eyes are blue, Astroboy's are black.
Other differences include the eye size difference, amount of detail in the bodies, but those aren't really eastern traits.
Easton Adams
I mean, it already kind of is, because of Tezuka. His style is very similar to Disney with a long line of cartoons with the same type of style.
>Don Quixote >Sinbad the Sailor >Humpty Dumpty
Tezuka's artstyle could really blend well with western design and you couldn't really tell unless you were a Tezuka fan. I've walked to different neighborhoods and I've seen Daycare centers with Jungle Emperor all over the glass. Anime's artstyle didn't really get distinctive until maybe Miyazaki?
Noah Davis
Anime is Japanese by definition, so the question makes no sense. What are you actually asking? The west makes animation. What exactly are you saying could have been different about it?
Austin Cooper
Lack of religion is what created the monstrosity that is this industry.
Nicholas Bailey
>Lack of religion But Tezuka was a devout Buddhist and his beliefs about the sanctity of all life and his pacifism are present throughout his works.
Juan Jackson
I too look forward to the day when the West can finally create animation on their own.
Until then, I will enjoy such Japanimation classics as Za Rion Kingu and Adventuru Taimu.
Lincoln Flores
America has South Park.
William Parker
That's korean animation, commonly known as 애니.
Idiot.
Anthony Lewis
If you want to see what american anime would look like if it were made by the japanese then have a look at this. It's an OVA set in New York City where all the voices are done by Japanese people instead of Americans. youtu.be/5C5TquMe9jM
No, Matt and Trey do it all themselves in a garage with construction paper
Ayden Johnson
Without the comics code western cartoons would probably be only moderately distinguishable from anime
Dominic Edwards
But the code was a must have, otherwise kids could've read comics about DIVORCE
Ayden Bell
Yes, if the glorious Nipponese Empire dropped two nukes on Chicago and Washington DC.
Henry Campbell
It did, it's what you call western cartoons. Because western cultural aesthetics are different from eastern ones.
Andrew Thomas
Alrighty, lack of Abrahamic religions.
Cameron Lewis
So lack of Jews. That's great! The Jews fear the samurai.
Aaron Lopez
Fuck off.
Dominic Lopez
So is anyone going to actualy answer OP's question other than this pointless answer and the meme bomb answers?
OP is asking how exactly how does the difference in cultural aesthetics (whatever those differences are in the first place) play into how anime diverged on the path it took rather than travel the same route as western cartoons, despite being virtually the same originally. What is so eastern about anime that it is incomprehensible for it to have developed in the west?
Camden Gonzalez
I already answered this>heap animated adaptations of pre-existing comic book stories. That's the stuff that acts as the backbone of anime. You can choose to ignore the truth if you want but the answer is there.
Chase Scott
We're not talking about anime itself, we're talking about the style of anime, or just manga. I'm using the terms interchangeably because both use the same art style.
Henry Stewart
And the "art style" makes no sense, there's diverse art styles. The works of Osamu Tezuka look different from the works of Tetsuo Hara that look different from the works of Shigeru Mizuki that look different from the works of Naoki Urasawa that look different from the works of Rumiko Takahashi. There is no one style.
