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What makes an anime...an anime?


Guest Manato
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What makes anime anime? I don't really know. What makes comedy comedy? SOmething thats funny. BUt what's funny. I don't know. What makes anime anime. TO me anime has a certain feel to it, you pick it up on the screen. IT looks different, it doesn't always look the same. (ONePiece, doesn't look like Ghost in the Shell, which doesn't look like FMA)> What I've always equated to as anime has never been based on what country it came from. But more for how the show presents it's story. A cartoon though a drawing that is animated always brings up a sort of farsical fantasy that is in no way presented in any sort of inteliigable way. It's funny and fun to watch, but is meant for kids. ANime to me has elements of fantasy, and science fiction. But beyond that it filters it through a world that is almost real. FMA presents some unreal themes, but the characters and what the two brothers are trying to accomplish are based on something that is very real. THe story of their search for a philosophers stone and their ability to do ALchemy is the icing on a very truthful look at 2 kids dealing with the loss of their parents. ANd Ed's struggle to fix what happened to his brother. It's rather hard to explain and I'm not really doing a great job of explaining it but, no matter how far out some of the particulars are in an anime show, they all seem to be grounded in some sort of real life situation.

The only other thing I can point out that makes an anime an anime and a cartoon a cartoon is character development. The animes I have watched have had 3 dimensional, fully fleshed out character. Say what you will but Bugs Bunny wasn't much more beyond taking out Elmer Fudd.
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To me, what makes an anime an anime is the unique style, characterization and the care that goes into the music and animation style that sets it apart as a different genre from North American cartoons (although some anime have sucky animation, characterization and/or music) Anime should also [I]feel[/I] Japanese.

Amerimanga is NOT manga. I don't care if it's done in the same style, if it's not from Japan, it isn't manga (hence why we use the word "manga" instead of "comics") It's the same as Chinese and Korean comics. Tokyopop sells Korean and Chinese comics and tries to pass them off as manga, but they are not manga.

Same with Teen Titans, and other shows from America that use the same style. It's the same with some anime that was heavily edited for North American television. I don't really consider the edit as anime anymore. I just consider as badly americanized garbage.
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Guest yumenokoyume
here in the phillippines, we usually difine anime to be from japanese hands. anything not belong to is blasphemy.
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Anime is different from any other catoon. The story, the drawings, etc... In Ameican cartoons, I notice that the kids are always the main character, and that they make the parents look stupid or dumb. Anime is not just for kids, it's for teen, and adults, even though most people think it is for kids just because it is 'animated'. That bothers me.
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Yeah, I know! Not to mention the fact that licensors like 4kids and (MOST especially) Nelvana take [I]great[/I]anime with [I]wonderful[/I] characters and edit and chop up the anime so much and make the dubs so kiddish that parents and others will definitely think that anime can only be for kids.
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  • 2 weeks later...
Call me a purist, but I believe anime is only that which is done by the Japanese for the Japanese. If I'm feeling genreous, I might allow for some Korean animation, as it's similar in some ways. American cartoons that are animated in Japan or wherever shouldn't be called anime and American cartoons drawn in anime-style aren't anime, they're just knockoffs.

Teen Titans is a good show in and of itself, but it most certainly is [b]not[/b] an anime, nor are Code Lyoko, Totally Spies or Boon Docks. They attempt to follow anime and are probably better than the crap shown on Cartoon Network or Nick, but still fall far short of the glory that is anime.
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