The Platypus Likes PIxar

- October 25, 2009

Thought for the day:

With the exception of Pixar, why is anime so much better than American animation?

Ok, so that question needs a lot of clarifying, but it's something I've been tossing around this past week.

Comments

Gabe Moothart said…

I'll be interested to hear what you have to say. My impression of it from college was that it was a depressing and evil (if well-crafted) book.

3:38 PM

James said…

Yeah, I'm wondering about that too. I think a lot of it hangs on whether you see Bronte setting up Heathcliff and Catherine as A)tragice heroes or as B)moral degenerates. If A, then it is a well-crafted but wicked work. If B, then it is a well crafted and possibly quite moral work. Given that C. Bronte embraced and promoted it, we should be slow to embrace choice A. There is always choice C)that it is a deeply moral work, but that the author had insuficient power and experience to make that moral clear and attractive. After all, it is E. Bronte's first and only novel.

9:37 PM

luminarumbra said…

Because anime isn't afraid to paint people as they are, and the same goes for a lot of Pixar's characters (with the best example I can think of being the two protagonists of their most recent, "Up"). Most traditional American animation (particularly Disney) has the characters watered down, or made into caricatures of a particular archetype such that, after seeing them 50 billion times, they stop garnering much sympathy.

Although, if one watches a lot of unlicensed anime, one will find that it is also not immune to the aforementioned downfall of American animation. A large portion of that is filtered out before reaching the US distribution companies, and even more filtering is done if it is to ever end up on television.

Or, at least, that's my theory. It could simply be coincidence that any shows I stumble across in fansubs that are particularly amazing also get picked up by Adult Swim or SyFy or some such. ;)

7:08 PM

James said…

Sounds like a fair read of the situation to me. Why do you think American animation is afraid to portray people as they really are? Do you see this as a problem in American T.V. and film as well?

2:03 PM

luminarumbra said…

While I don't think any medium from storytelling is immune to it, I think the tendency is higher in American animation mostly because American animation is prettymuch solely aimed at kids. While every culture desires to protect its kids in some way or another, I think American culture is particularly prone to trying to protect our kids from the pains of everyday living. Ergo, no one ever dies, or at least no one likable, and never on camera. The main character hero always gets the girl, or if it is a heroine instead, she catches her man. In the end, things are happily ever after.

And since this is the standard, such movies like Disney's Treasure Planet and (to a lesser extent) Hunchback, as well as things like DreamWorks' Sinbad and even Madagascar (which was actually CGI, but fits my purposes) kind of get swept to the side, as they don't quite fall into that category. It's really a pity. Hopefully, between DreamWorks, Pixar, and the influx of anime, we'll see a change in the way Americans tell stories on screen, and perhaps even a turn toward realizing that simply because it's a "kid's" story does not make it necessarily good for children or not applicable to our adult lives, and simply because it's not a pretty story does not make it necessarily unsuitable for children.

Not... that I'm going to go out and show a 3-year-old Fullmetal Alchemist (though we are debating whether or not she's old enough for Fruits Basket... in Japanese to avoid the swearing).

I could go on, but this is your blog for postings. ;)

9:51 PM

James said…

Don't worry, in-depth comments are part of the fun! Thanks for going into detail. I think what you said earlier about "up" dovetails nicely with your analysis here. I hope Pixar continues to have the guts to make real art.

4:58 PM

luminarumbra said…

Agreed.

4:26 PM