Postby Bobtheduck » Sat Jul 23, 2005 2:18 pm
Man... I agree with not bashing the entirety of american animation, but it ticks (wanted to use a slightly harsher term, because "ticks" doesn't fit) me off to see this thread turning into an ANIME BASHING thread of all things... Volt, I hear your sophestry by so many anti anime people, but the plain fact is American animation uses JUST AS MANY SHORTCUTS as ANIME! Rewinds, reusing sequences, limited animation (EVERYTHING Hannah Barberra put out, short of GI JOE which uses limited frame rate instead) Then there is the fact that anime tends to be more detailed, wheras American animation is much less detailed, making it easier to animate. I have no problem with this if the stories and such are good, but don't start in with crap about American animation being BETTER than Japanese animation...
As for animation quality, I have never EVER seen another work of animation-- Japanese, American, Brittish, Canadian, French, or othewise-- that matched Akira. There just aren't any. I am not talking story or tastes in art style... I'm talking purely technical skill in animation. It was hand drawn (except, I think, a scene in a helicopter) with cells, and the animation was pretty much flawless. Very detailed, and an almost theater quality frame rate (was it like 20 FPS instead of the live action 24 FPS?) That was a lot of work. It is possible, objectively, to look at that compared with all the big budget Disney movies, Don Bleuth movies, and Dreamworks movies like Prince of Egypt and say that it still stands as the best technical work of traditional animation. (since most newer disney movies are done on computer, and Akira still looks better than most of the new big budget movies)
There are MORE ANIME because animation is on a higher societal tier in Japan than in the US. Plain and simple. It's worth more to the animation studios to do such. Plus, there are more serials, so instead of focusing efforts on 1 show lasting 10 seasons, they can make 10 shows lasting 1 season. And, also rather simply, Japanese movie/television indsustry just doesn't have the sort of money that the american industry does. Even so, we still get some subpar animation and artwork (most of the CN productions) and a lot of cheap tricks on par with the TV anime tricks...
I wanted to come in here hailing the praises of my favorite works of American animation, because I love a lot of American animation, but hearing people bash Anime on the Christian Anime Alliance of all places really burns me...
And this complaining (though I'd rather usea harsher term) about frame rate is so old... Get some new material... This has been rehashed so many times...
Should I even bother mentioning the biggest new form of cheating, "Flash"? Flash is good for stuff like Homestar, but when big animation studios start relying on that (like Hannah Barberra with Sea Lab and Harvey Birdman) people have no right to be complaining about cheating in anime... Flash is the biggest cheat of them all. (hahaha... Cheat...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evcNPfZlrZs Watch this movie なう。 It's legal, free... And it's more than its premise. It's not saying Fast Food is good food. Just watch it.
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