i can agree with the general premise of “anime” being a specific animation production approach and collection of norms but not a genre
genre is about narrative and scenario species imo
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I’m completely with you but I’m tugging it towards the other direction. I also believe that judging whether something is anime or not based on art direction is silly. But also the distinction between anime and cartoons is getting increasingly meaningless unless you’re a stickler for Made In Japan. Do we watch anime specifically because it’s from Japan, or do we watch it, and came up with the distinction because western cartoons and japanese ones developed in different ways and therefore had different goals and formats as media and different appeals? Avatar is anime-adjacent enough that it gets brought up in discussions of anime recommendations unless you’re with ardent japanophiles. If you come at me and say “hey I really enjoyed this shonen anime, what do you recommend that is like this” I would probably not omit the answer of Avatar on a technicality of it not being japanese-made, because it is structured and consumed like a shonen anime, and it is very well-built and made.
Also, on the subject of how silly the divide is, korean animation studios are the ones that actually put in the work of animating nearly every cartoon out there, and they sometimes either produce their own anime, or are outsourced for anime.
Genuine question: What is it about Avatar’s production–outside of obvious design and narrative influences–that marks it as being more like anime? Animation in Japan definitely has a set of production practices that are markedly different from the dominant American modes.
One thing both have in common: They increasingly draw on a global pool of animators, and outsource a ton of the work to Korea and Vietnam. Animation production has been thoroughly and increasingly global for more than a half century. And influence if not talent pools have been reciprocal from all cultures/countries producing animation from the outset–the last 20 years of American cartoons have really brought their influence by Japanese animation to the surface of their work (because they’re animation nerds who are late Gen X and millennials who grew up with the internet and a lot more anime).
Like, Avatar looks to me like a 2000s Nick cartoon that took its visual cues entirely from Japanese animation. I admit I’ve only seen two episodes.
I just started watching a video from CBR that was trying to assert that Avatar is undoubtedly “an anime” and it was really fucking obnoxious, for a lot of reasons! The big argument seemed to be “it takes a lot of cues from shonen anime.”
As I see it, “anime” is an eminently nebulous term that is more convenient than it is useful and “an anime” is straight hot nonsense. What the fuck is “an anime.” Yes, I am going to be pedantic and say that I prefer “anime series” and “anime film” to “an anime.”
In terms of stories, yeah, genre refers to narrative and scenario, but I believe that genre can be and is frequently used to refer to all kinds of groupings within, well, anything, but especially various kinds of artistic and cultural production. Like, genre, used to more dominantly mean less about whether a story had a zombie in it or people fell in love and more about whether something was a poem or not.
A book on anime whose arguments I largely didn’t agree with made the case for calling anime a “medium-genre,” which I think was one of its more successful arguments.
For the incendiary version of my take, calling Avatar: The Last Airbender is equivalent to critics including Twin Peaks: The Return on year-end “best films” lists–people who prefer one medium/genre/whatever over another and want to claim “the good one” for their side.
(Most people I’ve known who want to bring Avatar under the anime umbrella tend to write off most non-Japanese animation/TV/everything as shitty and lame)
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A good read is Kukhee Choo’s article on Japanese animation in the 70s and 80s being outsourced to South Korea, called “Hyperbolic Nationalism: South Korea’s Shadow Animation Industry”
Where work gets outsourced/actually done has very little to do with how we categorize this stuff, as weird as that may seem, unless we’re ready to pull in everything on American TV in the 80s as at least partly “anime.”
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I would say the opposite, actually! I see way more that those who dismiss it see anything that isn’t Japanese as shitty and lame lol
Depends on the kind of dweebs we hang out with, I guess
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anyway this take is the correct temperature - we are, as so often, living under the idiocies and then deep personal investment in idiocies generated by that capitalism
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y’all isn’t there a whole other thread for this
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That’s not what that thread is anymore tho
It’s just one of those topics I think we’re destined to repeat every two years or so
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I don’t watch many anime series cuz many of them are based on comics and comics are almost always better BUT
I do have lots of anime screencaps on my hard drive so let’s list Top Anime (If You Judge By Number of Screencaps I Took)
RANMA 1/2 has Nabiki Tendo, one of fiction’s greatest characters with history’s greatest hair style. She loves money! When I was a teenager this was everyone’s favorite anime cuz it was funny and had boobs and perverts.
Evangelion is good, it is probably the only anime series I’ve watched to completion more than once and it has lots of great shots of garbage bags and traffic lights and conbini food.
Armor Hunter Mellowlink has the Scopedog from VOTOMS but it’s much shorter than VOTOMS and is more violent so I’ve managed to watch at least 3/4 of the episodes. It’s cool when Mellowlink makes things blow up. Big fan.
Legend of Galactic Heroes was one of the first things I ever torrented, on-line. It was a real ordeal. They were rips of ancient VHS fansubs. I think only the first 40 or so episodes were available? Maybe I am misremembering there. But I spent years waiting for someone to release the rest of the series. And eventually that happened but I didn’t watch it cuz I tend to avoid things I enjoy.
Cutie Honey is what cartoons look like in my dreams. It’s ugly and gorgeous and every episode is kinda disgusting. I own the DVD box set. If you come over we can watch it together but once we start you’re not allowed to stop. All or nothing.
Urusei Yatsura is a contender for greatest sitcom of all time and is probably better than Ranma and I think it’s okay to say that I want to marry Lum’s mom. I think we should all celebrate this dream of mine.
That Cartoon About the Bad Little Girl Whose Name I Can’t Remember was a big hit in Anime Club and I made the greatest gif of all times thanks to it.
Oh yeah it’s Chibi Maruko-Chan. Glad I named that file way back when. Good job, me.
Gatchaman was a cartoon I watched before I knew what anime was and I thought everyone looked very cool. I liked the sorta-sideburns and their bellbottoms. I thought “I wanna dress like that when I grow up.” That didn’t happen. I was never the kinda guy you’d want to see in tight white trousers. This show was so much better than Voltron, everyone who piloted a Voltron was a fucking nerd.
Dragon Ball isn’t nearly as good as Dr. Slump but I’ve only seen one episode of that anime (and it was amazing) so I am putting Goku on the list. Dragon Ball Z is not to my taste but the first few volumes of Dragon Ball are very good, I think, and I woke up at 5AM every Saturday one summer so I could tape the English dub off syndicated TV so let’s put it on the list, why not, it’s important to me I suppose.
I like NORMAL THINGS in a normal way…and I like it!!
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Also let’s make an “is anime a slur”/“what’s a metroidvania”/lava ringed bedroom mashup megathread. Just cram the same repeating topics together in one space and see what happens. It may be fun.
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i mean i don’t really wanna talk about it anymore. can’t speak for anyone else but i think i basically processed it. sorry for the derail
edit: omg im even more sorry because i forgot haley explicitly said not to post about this subject here, sorry haley 
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anime is absolutely a slur and let’s keep it that way plz
Back to recs! I just have one top rec that hasn’t come up yet.
One of the best anime of the decade is Land of the Lustrous as far as I’m concerned. Finally a perfect use of CG to unlock things like transparent hair, villains based on the cloud people from Kaguya-hime, and it’s such a calm, affectionate story about being immortal in a dead world where you can still watch the evening sun over the sea, and what immortality does to friendship, community and identity
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I realized I like Land of the Lustrous so damn much I DMed Felix to change my title for the first time in 5+ years. Turn your phone to landscape mode to read the whole thing
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Suddenly we approach the great Transformers debate. Though that does have a bit more going on to it than just the issue of where the animation was produced.