Topcraft to Ghibli pipeline is somewhat over-exaggerated, because Miyazaki and team brought in a lot of their own regulars who were more so the group that formed the key roles at Ghibli, maybe one or two key animator from topcraft stayed on for the first ghibli movie. The major reason the connection is made is because Toru Hara the creator of topcraft was original the head producer of Ghibli until 1991.
If it's a japanese production then it's anime. Defining "japanese production" would be who wrote & directed the work. It's why we don't call The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus movie an anime. Rankin bass did the physical stop motion, but it wasn't written & directed by Japan. Scooby Doo on Zombie island isn't anime, neither is all of Tiny Toon Adventures just because TMS worked on a handful of Episodes. You COULD argue that the first season of Inspector gadget being TMS AND (AND!), being born from the cancelled Lupin the 8th project is anime...but I'm not exactly sure who's ideas they scrapped & rolled into Gadget so that's an argument for a whole damn video.
I guess that depends on what you feel about things like Tekkonkinkreet or Animatrix (not written in Japan but animated and directed there). Because these things tend to be on all the anime databases without a second thought. TMS through Telecom may also get a little messy, because later on they start directing, animating and boarding their warner cartoons in full. Although it's still an American pipeline which where I'd say the difference is there, however there's also cybersix from TMS which is a co-production, that has a similar situation to scott & is on MAL all the same. The next issue is the South Korea situation where anime productions has a lot of outsourcing so the "Japanese Production" can also become blurry like Frieren where Madhouses long time collaborator DR Movie takes on a couple episodes with director and key animation credits. Even Megalo box where specific eps were animated/directed in France or just the existence of Toei Philipines. Or another closer example Edgerunners which is on MAL, but has writers credited from Poland & CDPR for basically every episode as addition and screen story positions which seem to then have been adapted by Triggers writers.
I like this video. I think if it's a co-production, kind of like what you guys were saying, and not just outsourced animation to a Japanese studio, then it counts as an anime.
Interesting to compare your discussion to the Mother's Basement episode that just came out - a lot of similar points, but you guys have a nice historical background that shines a brighter light on the more avant-garde examples of Japanese-produced animation. Good stuff!
I think the best (though not perfect) term to define anime by is a movement. It's a movement of animation started in Japan that includes a set of genre conventions, production principles and visual signifiers like the use of limited animation, animetism and manga elements that inform its visual storytelling. This definition works for me to define what I consider interesting about this type of animated work. I feel like the Mothers Basement video from years ago on the subject made a pretty decent argument. The other term I think that has good arguments for it is 'brand' as argued by Gigguk back then, but I personally would avoid that since it's more corporate and heavily depended on marketing that can be risky divorced from asian markets/industry, and I personally don't want to consider High Guardian Spice an anime.
Yeah. I think they had to amend their rules to make the fans happy because a few years back fans kept bringing up all the shows out of China and Korea they wanted to also log on their list. I remember some people left MAL because they were told no. Somewhere down the line MAL amended their rule guidelines to allow for these additions to the database. I guess there were just so many shows that came out and got popular they got tired of arguing with fans over it. A surrender more than anything from what I remember of the situation.
We can try to look for a perfect all-encompassing definition and as you've concluded, it's almost guaranteed you'll find an exception of something that "feels" like anime but doesn't fit the definition and vice versa. Especially as you get outside of the full-length and feature-length entries and enter the world of short form. But one thing I always miss from these discussions is the question - what's the reason that people care whether something is anime or not? I think ultimately the most useful thing about this term is that people can go and say "more like this". Whether they connect with the common elements of the aesthetic, the narrative tropes, the way these shows are marketed and distributed, or even the social aspect of conventions and listmaking and tons of communities to join - "anime" is a convenient keyword that provides an easy answer. But when a prominent edge case like scott appears, I think that's a good opportunity to try to recognize more specifically what it really is that you want more of, what is it that "anime" instinctively means to you. And then you can potentially calibrate - narrow down to more specific movements and markets, or broaden your horizons if you realize that whatever was drawing you in is something that other cultures and industries are also doing. I personally think it would be really cool if critics and tastemakers pushed their audiences towards this increased introspection around the subject. Especially at this point that the term anime is becoming increasingly nebulous, the industry more globalized, the style continuously influential, and the pipelines adopted abroad. But I suppose it's only otaku of us to employ the database mindset and discuss taxonomy 😅
Personally, I've been using the term "anime-inspired" to describe shows that have heavy anime influence. Like "Avatar: The Last Airbender", "Teen Titan", "Code Lyoko" and "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off". And it's not something to deem them less than Anime, but it has a different feel than typical mainstream anime that anime fan still enjoy.
I mean Scott Pilgrim isn't anime inspired it was made in the industry with people who had complete creative control on the visuals seems kinda iffy to describe it as such to the team like you really were inspired by what you do on your day job huh
ironically matierica could be the most "anime" anime in the video given that it is literally just a series of drawings being constantly layered over top one another
This is NOT a new conversation, obviously, but I do think that this conversation gets more and more interesting every year. This is probably healthy for the medium(s) 💀
I feel like anime is kind of a genre within animation honestly. And whether or not something falls within it is up to interpretation. Kind of similar to how some old sci-fi readers might not like calling star wars sci-fi. Considering it has nothing to do with science or asking questions about magic. And it's mostly just a fantasy show in space. While most people probably think star wars is a sci-fi show because it's set in space and there are space ships. You can argue about it all day I suppose. But it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Maybe for the marketing and authorial intent it does. But even then, I think a lot of anime marketed towards grown ups have messages for children. Like I watched madoka as a child and thought it was really insightful and deep. And that is technically made for like 30 year old men.
Anime aren't made for MyAnimeList?! WHAT?! As you say, how we define anime isn't clear. But if most of the people working on the series are working from Japan and it follows certain anime conventions, I'd say it's an anime. Whether it's primarily intended for a Japanese audience isn't really a factor either. For example, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was intended for American audiences as well and it's absolutely an anime.
A lot of independent art house anime aren't really intended for a Japanese audience either given that they often play at film festivals outside of Japan well before they're released in Japan, if at all.
I don't see any problem with the definition of anime being just animation made in japan by japanese people. It doesn't matter if it doesn't look like anime, it is just a different type of anime. You can not define anime as a style cause anime has multiple different styles, dragon ball has a very different style from Lucky☆Star, but both are considered anime. I also don't think Scott Pilgrim should be considerate anime just cause it takes influence from anime when it also takes influence from many mediums, like movies and games.
@@TheWeebCrewPodcast I'm not saying that Scott Pilgrim shouldn't be considered an anime, just that it shouldn't be considered one for that specific reason i brought up in my prior comment.
Setting aside the discussion about the definition of "anime", MAL already has Star Wars: Vision and all those boring Marvel anime on their list. If those count as anime, then so should Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
Thus continues the ever slippery definition of genre for an Aesthetic/Industrial Practice/Conception of categorization a work's "Japanese"ness in a nu-orientalist manner. After imbibing way too many Post-Modern/Symoblic theory vids, ultimately it's a marketing heuristic that a weeb consumer will "kinda" get but never fully explain, tho the USE of the definition it's more important for what people are gonna do with it: -trace a historical lineage of the medium? -gate-keep "anime-adjacent" works for "lacking Japaneseness" -give status to a trendy new media work and filter through social processes: "Oh it's one the few GOOD Netflix anime" > "Of course it's good, cuz it's not ACTUALLY anime" types, y'know the kind. Formalizing it is for the institutions....which MaL and Anilist kinda is, and excluding it is more annoying since it's kinda more interesting to note as part of Science Saru's staff portfolio than without, but eh, MaL's always been annoyingly stingy at pretending to be a database but being flippant about it's curation.
I've had some arguments about this with AniList database staff so I've thought about this a bit, lol. When trying to define anime these days I don't think you can set a rigid flowchart and always have it come to what most people feel is the "correct" answer any more. A better approach is to set a list of characteristics a production has then if a minimum quota is met it can go into the database. Obviously a hybrid approach of these two methods is the best. Anyway this is an age old problem as seen in other fields like with Godel's Incompleteness Theorem about how maths can never be perfectly defined and the classic "I'll know pornography when I see it". My own personal shorthand is if it was made for teens and/or adults it's anime, if it was made for kids it's a cartoon; 'cause I sure as hell ain't calling Crayon Shin-chan anime!
Well the issue with that is it's alleged the term anime came from Tezuka on the production of the Astroboy show as a short hand for the term animation since it was a new limited approach, kids shows are foundational to that and have always been until the 00s 80% plus all tv anime made was for kids.
Crayon Shin-chan was also published in what's considered the first senin magazine, and that's the demographic listed on MAL. So its target demographic is teens/young adults, how does that square?
My personal shorthand doesn't work for a database, it's just how I organise stuff on my computer. But in 50 years or so I doubt the "tradition" method will make more sense than the audience based method as so much of the Japanese style or American style will have bled into each other that they will be increasingly difficult to distinguish. Subject matter experts will likely still be able to tell, but when 90% of the audience doesn't know then labelling by origin becomes irrelevant.
Interesting video. I think Scott Pilgrim fails the "by Japan for Japan" test if the producers and writers who are largely in charge of the vision aren't Japanese and their intent wasn't for this to be "for Japan first and primarily" (it is for Japan in the sense that it's released globally, but that's not the same). So this is more like a Japanese animation team implementing a Canadian vision for a worldwide audience that includes Japan. Not anime. I think in the battle between rigidly defined and "idk it's like a style and a lineage maaaannnnnn....", I side with rigid because a definitionless definition is really no help at all. Just say "the world is messy" and you can call anything anime? Unless you want to fall down the rabbit hole of "anything animated is anime, it's all connected everything influences everythign else etc." then, nah no thank you. I'd rather it be the case that maybe some things ppl really want to be anime turn out not to be. That's still fine, it still is whatever it is.
I’m with MAL. Scott Pilgrim was made for the Western market so it’s not anime. Even if Netflix had a Japanese studio make the show. Even if it gets dubbed or subbed like everything else on Netflix (because Netflix creates for a worldwide audience) and is made available to Japanese Netflix. I say just put this one in the pile with Transformers and everything from then that was made in Japan, but for the cartoon market in America. I don’t care. It’s not anime. Just because it’s getting to a point where companies are slapping anime on everything. Now also getting Japanese studios to help sell it to the fans this thing being created for these companies is totally anime and not just whatever they would’ve made as a regular American cartoon if slapping anime on everything wasn’t profitable. I’m tired of all the anime branding from Netflix. Besides Scott Pilgrim the comic was more so inspired by anime just like Avatar, Teen Titans, Rwby, and so many other cartoons that came out in the 2000s era. Those aren’t anime, Transformers and all those ones from the time aren’t anime so neither is Scott Pilgrim. For me, the fact that English is labeled on Netflix as the original language and the show producers and writers not being Japanese is the nail in the coffin.
I think ultimately my anime list is a resource for the western anime community and if anime fans seem to be watching an animated show it's useful to put it into the database
I get that to an extent (I once wanted to call Avatar and Rwby anime), but I’d hate for MAL to be overrun by Western animation and other things anime fans aren’t interested in. That’s what this road leads to. These companies like Netflix are already calling everything animated they make “anime”. Nothing wrong with western animation or other non-anime things, but I still want MAL to remain an anime database first and foremost.
I think it being in the industry is probably the best definition we have currently. I honestly think that the problem is that we have to make a distinction so that people can ignore the greatness of BoJack Horseman because it’s western when it’s better than Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and people don’t want to have that conversation. I just don’t really understand why anime fans in particular won’t watch great shows because “it’s not like anime.”
in short its not, its just animated by jp studios but its a western work like anime is far more to japan than simply being of certain tropes or ideas, SP was inspired by so its always going to feel like it is no matter who animated it, really its as close as it can be without being
It’s anime thru and thru opening is in Japanese call backs to bubblegum crisis and Beck and other things certain expressions it’s totally a anime same applies wit afro samurai and many more lol.
there are so many anime that adapt foreign works going all the way back to Heidi or Count of Monte Cristo etc I don't see why the adaptation work would have to be Japanese, half of Miyazakis work are based on foreign works.
"Anime isn't a medium _Animation_ is the medium, 'anime' is an industry of making stuff in a certain way"
Nailed it
🙏
Topcraft to Ghibli pipeline is somewhat over-exaggerated, because Miyazaki and team brought in a lot of their own regulars who were more so the group that formed the key roles at Ghibli, maybe one or two key animator from topcraft stayed on for the first ghibli movie.
The major reason the connection is made is because Toru Hara the creator of topcraft was original the head producer of Ghibli until 1991.
If it's a japanese production then it's anime. Defining "japanese production" would be who wrote & directed the work. It's why we don't call The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus movie an anime. Rankin bass did the physical stop motion, but it wasn't written & directed by Japan. Scooby Doo on Zombie island isn't anime, neither is all of Tiny Toon Adventures just because TMS worked on a handful of Episodes. You COULD argue that the first season of Inspector gadget being TMS AND (AND!), being born from the cancelled Lupin the 8th project is anime...but I'm not exactly sure who's ideas they scrapped & rolled into Gadget so that's an argument for a whole damn video.
I guess that depends on what you feel about things like Tekkonkinkreet or Animatrix (not written in Japan but animated and directed there).
Because these things tend to be on all the anime databases without a second thought.
TMS through Telecom may also get a little messy, because later on they start directing, animating and boarding their warner cartoons in full. Although it's still an American pipeline which where I'd say the difference is there, however there's also cybersix from TMS which is a co-production, that has a similar situation to scott & is on MAL all the same.
The next issue is the South Korea situation where anime productions has a lot of outsourcing so the "Japanese Production" can also become blurry like Frieren where Madhouses long time collaborator DR Movie takes on a couple episodes with director and key animation credits. Even Megalo box where specific eps were animated/directed in France or just the existence of Toei Philipines.
Or another closer example Edgerunners which is on MAL, but has writers credited from Poland & CDPR for basically every episode as addition and screen story positions which seem to then have been adapted by Triggers writers.
Hey Kenny! I was thinking the same thing while watching this, now I'm wondering if you originally put the idea in my head lol
the thing is MAL also tracks Chinese's and Korean productions. im not arguing for things that were just clearly out sourced to japan but/......
I like this video. I think if it's a co-production, kind of like what you guys were saying, and not just outsourced animation to a Japanese studio, then it counts as an anime.
Interesting to compare your discussion to the Mother's Basement episode that just came out - a lot of similar points, but you guys have a nice historical background that shines a brighter light on the more avant-garde examples of Japanese-produced animation. Good stuff!
We do love us some hipster anime. 🤓
I think the best (though not perfect) term to define anime by is a movement. It's a movement of animation started in Japan that includes a set of genre conventions, production principles and visual signifiers like the use of limited animation, animetism and manga elements that inform its visual storytelling. This definition works for me to define what I consider interesting about this type of animated work. I feel like the Mothers Basement video from years ago on the subject made a pretty decent argument. The other term I think that has good arguments for it is 'brand' as argued by Gigguk back then, but I personally would avoid that since it's more corporate and heavily depended on marketing that can be risky divorced from asian markets/industry, and I personally don't want to consider High Guardian Spice an anime.
Something interesting I've noticed is that MAL has some Chinese animation like Scissor Seven on their site.
Yeah. I think they had to amend their rules to make the fans happy because a few years back fans kept bringing up all the shows out of China and Korea they wanted to also log on their list. I remember some people left MAL because they were told no. Somewhere down the line MAL amended their rule guidelines to allow for these additions to the database. I guess there were just so many shows that came out and got popular they got tired of arguing with fans over it. A surrender more than anything from what I remember of the situation.
Idk man.
After ZZ Gundam, it has really gotten hard to tell.
ANIME JA NAI!
@@Mumismusings *robotic "anime ja nai"
Engagement comment.
Engagement response.
this video is my favorite anime
We are pretty moe.
The real reason it's anime is it would be annoying to have one of Sciensarus shows not on a database if you were trying to tick them all off.
If you can't log something as watched and make your numbers go up, what's the point of even watching it in the first place?
We can try to look for a perfect all-encompassing definition and as you've concluded, it's almost guaranteed you'll find an exception of something that "feels" like anime but doesn't fit the definition and vice versa. Especially as you get outside of the full-length and feature-length entries and enter the world of short form. But one thing I always miss from these discussions is the question - what's the reason that people care whether something is anime or not?
I think ultimately the most useful thing about this term is that people can go and say "more like this". Whether they connect with the common elements of the aesthetic, the narrative tropes, the way these shows are marketed and distributed, or even the social aspect of conventions and listmaking and tons of communities to join - "anime" is a convenient keyword that provides an easy answer. But when a prominent edge case like scott appears, I think that's a good opportunity to try to recognize more specifically what it really is that you want more of, what is it that "anime" instinctively means to you. And then you can potentially calibrate - narrow down to more specific movements and markets, or broaden your horizons if you realize that whatever was drawing you in is something that other cultures and industries are also doing.
I personally think it would be really cool if critics and tastemakers pushed their audiences towards this increased introspection around the subject. Especially at this point that the term anime is becoming increasingly nebulous, the industry more globalized, the style continuously influential, and the pipelines adopted abroad. But I suppose it's only otaku of us to employ the database mindset and discuss taxonomy 😅
Thanks for the video. It was interesting. Love these edge case discussions. They’re always fun. ❤❤❤
Personally, I've been using the term "anime-inspired" to describe shows that have heavy anime influence. Like "Avatar: The Last Airbender", "Teen Titan", "Code Lyoko" and "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off". And it's not something to deem them less than Anime, but it has a different feel than typical mainstream anime that anime fan still enjoy.
Are we going to call early anime “Disney-inspired” anime?
@@thomasffrench3639 I mean yeah. Early anime were mimicking old Disney cartoons.
I mean Scott Pilgrim isn't anime inspired it was made in the industry with people who had complete creative control on the visuals seems kinda iffy to describe it as such to the team like you really were inspired by what you do on your day job huh
7:00 Is Deep Purple an anime? That’s the real question.
matierica mentioned
I RECOGNIZED IT AND I CLAPPED
the matierica fandom is recovering
ironically matierica could be the most "anime" anime in the video given that it is literally just a series of drawings being constantly layered over top one another
This is NOT a new conversation, obviously, but I do think that this conversation gets more and more interesting every year.
This is probably healthy for the medium(s) 💀
I feel like anime is kind of a genre within animation honestly.
And whether or not something falls within it is up to interpretation.
Kind of similar to how some old sci-fi readers might not like calling star wars sci-fi.
Considering it has nothing to do with science or asking questions about magic. And it's mostly just a fantasy show in space.
While most people probably think star wars is a sci-fi show because it's set in space and there are space ships.
You can argue about it all day I suppose. But it doesn't really matter at the end of the day.
Maybe for the marketing and authorial intent it does. But even then, I think a lot of anime marketed towards grown ups have messages for children.
Like I watched madoka as a child and thought it was really insightful and deep. And that is technically made for like 30 year old men.
Anime aren't made for MyAnimeList?! WHAT?!
As you say, how we define anime isn't clear. But if most of the people working on the series are working from Japan and it follows certain anime conventions, I'd say it's an anime. Whether it's primarily intended for a Japanese audience isn't really a factor either. For example, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was intended for American audiences as well and it's absolutely an anime.
A lot of independent art house anime aren't really intended for a Japanese audience either given that they often play at film festivals outside of Japan well before they're released in Japan, if at all.
@@TheWeebCrewPodcastexamples of that? Also are there no art house Japanese fans?
I don't see any problem with the definition of anime being just animation made in japan by japanese people. It doesn't matter if it doesn't look like anime, it is just a different type of anime. You can not define anime as a style cause anime has multiple different styles, dragon ball has a very different style from Lucky☆Star, but both are considered anime. I also don't think Scott Pilgrim should be considerate anime just cause it takes influence from anime when it also takes influence from many mediums, like movies and games.
But Scott Pilgrim, the anime, was made in Japan by Japanese people.
@@TheWeebCrewPodcast I'm not saying that Scott Pilgrim shouldn't be considered an anime, just that it shouldn't be considered one for that specific reason i brought up in my prior comment.
Great discussion ：）
Setting aside the discussion about the definition of "anime", MAL already has Star Wars: Vision and all those boring Marvel anime on their list. If those count as anime, then so should Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
Thus continues the ever slippery definition of genre for an Aesthetic/Industrial Practice/Conception of categorization a work's "Japanese"ness in a nu-orientalist manner.
After imbibing way too many Post-Modern/Symoblic theory vids, ultimately it's a marketing heuristic that a weeb consumer will "kinda" get but never fully explain, tho the USE of the definition it's more important for what people are gonna do with it:
-trace a historical lineage of the medium?
-gate-keep "anime-adjacent" works for "lacking Japaneseness"
-give status to a trendy new media work and filter through social processes: "Oh it's one the few GOOD Netflix anime" > "Of course it's good, cuz it's not ACTUALLY anime" types, y'know the kind.
Formalizing it is for the institutions....which MaL and Anilist kinda is, and excluding it is more annoying since it's kinda more interesting to note as part of Science Saru's staff portfolio than without, but eh, MaL's always been annoyingly stingy at pretending to be a database but being flippant about it's curation.
I've had some arguments about this with AniList database staff so I've thought about this a bit, lol. When trying to define anime these days I don't think you can set a rigid flowchart and always have it come to what most people feel is the "correct" answer any more. A better approach is to set a list of characteristics a production has then if a minimum quota is met it can go into the database. Obviously a hybrid approach of these two methods is the best.
Anyway this is an age old problem as seen in other fields like with Godel's Incompleteness Theorem about how maths can never be perfectly defined and the classic "I'll know pornography when I see it".
My own personal shorthand is if it was made for teens and/or adults it's anime, if it was made for kids it's a cartoon; 'cause I sure as hell ain't calling Crayon Shin-chan anime!
Well the issue with that is it's alleged the term anime came from Tezuka on the production of the Astroboy show as a short hand for the term animation since it was a new limited approach, kids shows are foundational to that and have always been until the 00s 80% plus all tv anime made was for kids.
Crayon Shin-chan was also published in what's considered the first senin magazine, and that's the demographic listed on MAL.
So its target demographic is teens/young adults, how does that square?
It being made for teens/adults just doesn’t work if you think about it for 5 seconds.
My personal shorthand doesn't work for a database, it's just how I organise stuff on my computer. But in 50 years or so I doubt the "tradition" method will make more sense than the audience based method as so much of the Japanese style or American style will have bled into each other that they will be increasingly difficult to distinguish. Subject matter experts will likely still be able to tell, but when 90% of the audience doesn't know then labelling by origin becomes irrelevant.
Interesting video. I think Scott Pilgrim fails the "by Japan for Japan" test if the producers and writers who are largely in charge of the vision aren't Japanese and their intent wasn't for this to be "for Japan first and primarily" (it is for Japan in the sense that it's released globally, but that's not the same). So this is more like a Japanese animation team implementing a Canadian vision for a worldwide audience that includes Japan. Not anime. I think in the battle between rigidly defined and "idk it's like a style and a lineage maaaannnnnn....", I side with rigid because a definitionless definition is really no help at all. Just say "the world is messy" and you can call anything anime? Unless you want to fall down the rabbit hole of "anything animated is anime, it's all connected everything influences everythign else etc." then, nah no thank you. I'd rather it be the case that maybe some things ppl really want to be anime turn out not to be. That's still fine, it still is whatever it is.
I’m with MAL. Scott Pilgrim was made for the Western market so it’s not anime. Even if Netflix had a Japanese studio make the show. Even if it gets dubbed or subbed like everything else on Netflix (because Netflix creates for a worldwide audience) and is made available to Japanese Netflix. I say just put this one in the pile with Transformers and everything from then that was made in Japan, but for the cartoon market in America.
I don’t care. It’s not anime.
Just because it’s getting to a point where companies are slapping anime on everything. Now also getting Japanese studios to help sell it to the fans this thing being created for these companies is totally anime and not just whatever they would’ve made as a regular American cartoon if slapping anime on everything wasn’t profitable.
I’m tired of all the anime branding from Netflix. Besides Scott Pilgrim the comic was more so inspired by anime just like Avatar, Teen Titans, Rwby, and so many other cartoons that came out in the 2000s era. Those aren’t anime, Transformers and all those ones from the time aren’t anime so neither is Scott Pilgrim.
For me, the fact that English is labeled on Netflix as the original language and the show producers and writers not being Japanese is the nail in the coffin.
Shott pollen is generous
Shot callin ain't easy
Japanimation.
Well panty and stocking is anime. How scott is not? Some weird separation for me
I think ultimately my anime list is a resource for the western anime community and if anime fans seem to be watching an animated show it's useful to put it into the database
I get that to an extent (I once wanted to call Avatar and Rwby anime), but I’d hate for MAL to be overrun by Western animation and other things anime fans aren’t interested in. That’s what this road leads to. These companies like Netflix are already calling everything animated they make “anime”.
Nothing wrong with western animation or other non-anime things, but I still want MAL to remain an anime database first and foremost.
I think it being in the industry is probably the best definition we have currently. I honestly think that the problem is that we have to make a distinction so that people can ignore the greatness of BoJack Horseman because it’s western when it’s better than Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, and people don’t want to have that conversation. I just don’t really understand why anime fans in particular won’t watch great shows because “it’s not like anime.”
in short its not, its just animated by jp studios but its a western work
like anime is far more to japan than simply being of certain tropes or ideas, SP was inspired by so its always going to feel like it is no matter who animated it, really its as close as it can be without being
It’s anime thru and thru opening is in Japanese call backs to bubblegum crisis and Beck and other things certain expressions it’s totally a anime same applies wit afro samurai and many more lol.
there are so many anime that adapt foreign works going all the way back to Heidi or Count of Monte Cristo etc I don't see why the adaptation work would have to be Japanese, half of Miyazakis work are based on foreign works.
Plenty of foundational anime works are based off western works