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Imitation Anime

Skiks

MUCH RESPECT
Disney may have started the anime style, but Japan perfected it.

And American cartoons trying to copy the Japanese perfection is what makes shows like Totally Spies so terrible.
Perfected it? Ha! Anime can't compare to drawn Disney Flicks sorry. They just further stylized it to make it easier to draw.
American cartoon look horrible doing what the japanese do? I guess Spectacular Spider-Man, Legion of Superheros, and the Teen Titans were all down right awful. Btw The majority of popular anime is kid friendly such as Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. It's always been marketed that way with these shows.
 
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7 tyranitars

Well-Known Member
I only like avatar the last air bender from those 'imitation' animes
 

Taichi

Well-Known Member
Perfected it? Ha! Anime can't compare to drawn Disney Flicks sorry. They just further stylized it to make it easier to draw.
American cartoon look horrible doing what the japanese do? I guess Spectacular Spider-Man, Legion of Superheros, and the Teen Titans were all down right awful. Btw The majority of popular anime is kid friendly such as Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. It's always been marketed that way with these shows.


I completely agree. Exactly!

Spectacular Spider-Man was awesome and I'm still mad it got canceled. Disney Classic Flicks>Anime drawing style.

American's make excellent animesque shows.
Epic: Avatar and The Boondocks Batman TAS.
Great: Swat Kats, Megas XLR. (Transformers Animated depending on taste.)
Good: Teen Titans, Xiaolin Showdown, and Invader Zim. (Also Three Delivery depending on taste.)
 

Musapion

Boulder Trainer
The Jackie Chan cartoons, if they even count (they're not VERY anime-esque, but they're certainly anime-inspired in some stylistic qualities), were very good.

But anything that has Jackie Chan in it is usually bound to be hilarious and awesome. /BIASED

Avatar: The Last Airbender is very good as well, probably because it doesn't copy the stereotypical exaggerated anime art style every "Amerime" copies, but instead goes for a mature, theatric art style (a bit Hayao Miyazaki-like) that actually suits the story.

Arguing whether Western animation styles is better than Japanese anime or vice-versa is pointless. They both have their pros and cons, but the line between them is so often blurred, that it's practically impossible to say one is better than the other.

They may diverge, but are not absolutely dichotomous.
 
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ParaChomp

be your own guru
Disney was the one that inspired the anime style in the first place. Honestly using a style shouldn't be centered on one region. People just figured out stylized animation is cheaper then say Spider-Man level of animiation from the 90s.
Man you guys must hate Teen Titans.

How true.

Teen Titans was great and I recall there was an actual J-Pop band singing the theme song I believe.
 

Musapion

Boulder Trainer
And the man inspired by Disney's Bambi's eyes who went on to create what is now the anime style is Osamu Tezuka.

He created Tetsuwan Atomu/Astro Boy, Jungle Emperor Leo/Kimba the White Lion, Black Jack, and many, many others. He created the shoujo genre with Ribon no Kishi/Princess Knight, and was a pioneer in many ways, just as Walt Disney was in the West.

Just wanted toss that out there, because nobody seemed to call him by name. xD;
 
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The_Boss_Giygas

I. F.E.E.L. G.O.O.D.
Style has nothing to do with being kid friendly, some Hentai look way cutesy and way toony, but guess what they're still hentai by story and actions. And personally I find those more "erotic" than the bloody serious ones cause those are pretty dumb. Some cartoons like from Marvel Comics look very realistic more so than big eyed anime, but they are very kid friendly since they don't cuss up a storm.
South Park is the worst cartoon by far, (worst as in they cause the most trouble for the public) but the animation is cheap and the design is simple more simple than Hamtaro kid friendly shows, and the graphic bloody killings look worse than most mature animes, but that alone doesn't make a cartoon "cool"
Some people think anime is better just cause of graphic violence & blood, guess where they got those ideas? From real life so that is by no means an Original exclusive thing to anime. Anime is cool, but trying to copy what's "cool" doesn't make you that bad unless the story sucks, many cartoons these days are pretty horrible in design and it's not the one's trying to copy anime.
 

Satoshi

リーリエの為に戦ってるトレーナー
You guys all know that animesue American shows look different than Japanese anime, you're just being difficult and argumentative.

If they didn't have differences, we all wouldn't be posting in this thread right now and bringing up shows such as Ben 10, Teen Titans, Martin Mystery, etc.
And the differences automatically makes a show look bad?

Avatar has proven to be an excellent show with a good story, drawing accurate influences from various East Asian and Inuit cultures, and has animation that widely received to be good, drawing influences from Hayao Miyazaki, yet still manages to look vastly different in order to separate it from that type of animation. Unless you're going to tell me that is a reason to say it has terrible drawings too. Many animesque shows such as amerime and franime just happen to be terrible shows in the first place.

Most of the shows previously mentioned in this thread aren't even made in America, anyway. Really doesn't show any animation savvy when the automatic assumption is that "these shows in America were either from Japan or made here."

My views simply put are:

American cartoons and Japanese anime look different.

American cartoons look awful when they try to apply popular Japanese anime concepts to them.
That statement is faulty because some of the very top-notched anime have vastly different art styles than your generic everyday anime. Does that mean the art style is bad because it's different? Some of these anime even take in western influences and show various signs of cultural mixing.

They do it better because it's Japan? It's okay for Japan to market "cool things from the west" in their shows, but it's not okay for America to market "cool things from Japan" in their shows?

My first impression would be that it's from a Japanese manga. And if it's not, then it's definitely stylized as one.

Oh!...in my opinion.
It's Korean manhwa. I have dozens of pictures from Chinese manhua as well. Same damn spelling in all three languages (漫画), but despite the similarities, Japanese manga, Korean manhwa, and Chinese manhua have different histories of their own and their own styles. It's funny, because of manga's better popularity worldwide, people usually mistake the last two mediums as mere imitations (hell, even the spell checker on Firefox didn't mark the word manga wrong). Admittedly, in recent years, both have taken some influence from Japanese manga, but they still have a consistent distinctive style that makes it easy to tell them apart from Japanese manga... much like amerime and franime.

Now are you going to say that only Asians can draw "anime" while other ethnic groups can't?

Also, saying "IT IS IN MY OPINION" in the middle of an argument is one of the cheapest getaway tricks on the internet, but let's not get into that.

American's make excellent animesque shows.
Epic: Avatar and The Boondocks Batman TAS.
Eh? You think Bruce Timm's animation looks like it was inspired by anime? The main reason much of the fan dumb don't really dig the Teen Titans animation and other DC cartoons is because it's not like Bruce Timm's animation...

Good: Teen Titans, Xiaolin Showdown, and Invader Zim. (Also Three Delivery depending on taste.)
Invader Zim? I consider that to have a completely different (yet awesome art style) compared to anime, but okay.

Perfected it? Ha! Anime can't compare to drawn Disney Flicks sorry. They just further stylized it to make it easier to draw.
While it's technically true that Disney inspired some of the earliest mangaka (Osamu Tezuka) and heavily influenced some of the very anime films by Toei... we have to remember that some other anime, mostly the recent ones, barely even look like any of Tezuka's works. While one defining characteristic in most anime are the eyes, which are drawn big and colorful to show emotion (obviously stemming from Disney), even the ones that draw from that influence look vastly different than anything produced by Disney.

Again, this does not mean that Disney films look bad compared to anime. Disney films generally look very good and have high quality animation.

However, I personally find myself enjoying stuff from certain Japanese animation directors (such as Kondou Yoshifumi) and Japanese animation studios (such as Studio Ghibli and Tatsunoko Pro.) much more than anything produced by Disney.

I also wouldn't say that anime is easier to draw. The creators of Teen Titans did say they chose for an anime-like style to make it easier for the artists, but the main reason I never really liked TT's animation quality is not because of the anime-like style, it's because they often opt for cheap shortcuts in the animation by using the "blurry motion" effect in place of actual character movement or overusing the chibi art during comical scenes... which is probably what they meant by making it "easier". :p

Their overuse of anime expressions got kind of annoying too. It might be because at that time, I was more used to JLU's snarky humor compared to TT's slapstick humor, I dunno. I have problems with the animation, but not because it's an "imitation anime". The show itself isn't terrible, however.

The majority of popular anime is kid friendly such as Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. It's always been marketed that way with these shows.
Exactly! Eiichiro Oda's artwork isn't exactly the most "non-kid friendly" and "mature" thing out there. I do not get how you can make a drawing "kid friendly" by making it more American, especially when there's plenty of light artwork out there in Japan.

Similarly to the above poster, I've come across some pretty kiddy-looking hentai.

But anything that has Jackie Chan in it is usually bound to be hilarious and awesome. /BIASED
Not his American movies. /BIASED :p
 

Yamato-san

I own the 5th gen
...You realize that Totally Spies! is produced by the French, right? FAIL.

Also, have you watched most Japanese anime?! What the hell do you mean by "watered down"? Not every anime is Elfen Lied, god dammit. And not every show has to be like that to be good.

You act like every good anime is made for a mature audience and that every Japanese animation studio comprises of a competent bunch of workmen.

I know there's some moe hate going around, but... chibi stylization automatically equals bad? Also, the water-color background in that pic still looks tremendously better than the backgrounds I tend to see in most western shows... not that I mean to argue against the rest of your point. However, while I can agree anime comes in all kinds of flavors, it's kind of annoying when some westerners look like they're rather blatantly trying (and failing) to imitate the popular standard styles of Japan (often-times, they make the horrible assumption that big eyes and speed lines are what makes anime anime... though, maybe it's the way a lot of Japanese artists seem to draw with a lot of angles, whereas westerners will lean towards a more rounded look regardless of anime influence or not, but I've spent years trying to figure out the key differences myself). Some of the "anime-inspired" American cartoons give off this kind of vibe (and yes, I will admit to Teen Titans and Avatar being guilty of this to some degree, though they're still good shows overall), as well as several people on Deviantart. I have seen some westerners draw very good Japanese-inspired art, but this is very rare, IMO.

Some might say you could even use The Thunder Cats, Swat Kats, Or Go Bots.

Swat Kats Rule, Fact.

You do know there are quite a few American cartoons that had Japanese animation studios behind them? The oldest example I can remember is ThunderCats, which was done by a collective of Japanese studios - one of which later became Studio Ghibli. Also, Sunrise worked on Batman: TAS, and that series would inspire both The Big O and an episode of Cowboy Bebop.

How about Transformers: Animated? Do you think that's an American cartoon that rips off anime style?

EDIT: Oh wait, I forgot: ever heard of Hulk Vs? It was a DTV animated movie where Hulk duked it out with Wolverine and Thor. The style is very different to Western animation, and was partly animated by Madhouse. Watch the trailer for it, and you tell me if it's a "watered-down, kid-friendly" version of anime.

indeed. Though I personally enjoy using the term as much as everyone else to describe Japanese-produced animations, the disambiguation of what is and isn't "anime" can become very vague when you consider that some American-produced shows had their animation outsourced to Japan, like the ones you listed, along with others like Darkwing Duck and Inspector Gadget (I'm especially curious about what people would regard Little Nemo, a cross-cultural project between America, Japan, and France which got released in Japanese theaters first). Not only that, but both western and Japanese companies will outsource animating work to countries like Korea or the Philippines.
 

Satoshi

リーリエの為に戦ってるトレーナー
I know there's some moe hate going around, but... chibi stylization automatically equals bad? Also, the water-color background in that pic still looks tremendously better than the backgrounds I tend to see in most western shows... not that I mean to argue against the rest of your point.
Nah, man. Don't get me wrong. I loved Potemayo and its art. 'twas just an example on how an anime can have a "kiddy" look without being American.

However, while I can agree anime comes in all kinds of flavors, it's kind of annoying when some westerners look like they're rather blatantly trying (and failing) to imitate the popular standard styles of Japan (often-times, they make the horrible assumption that big eyes and speed lines are what makes anime anime... though, maybe it's the way a lot of Japanese artists seem to draw with a lot of angles, whereas westerners will lean towards a more rounded look regardless of anime influence or not, but I've spent years trying to figure out the key differences myself).
I can see what you're saying. Teen Titans is probably the most guilty with this. The speed lines probably annoyed me the most about that show.

Now that I think about it, I can *kind of* relate to this line of thinking. The only animesque art I've been completely satisfied with were the ones shown in The Boondocks, Avatar, and Batman: Gotham Knight (which WAS animated by several anime studios, but yeah). Hell, main point I had in this whole thread was that "not all anime look mature-looking" or even "good" (it's all subjective).

The animesque art itself doesn't exactly look "bad" to me. Although, I can admit, as an anime watcher: the animation techniques does annoy me a tad.

I mean, people usually use anime being inspirated by Disney films as an argument for anime-inspired western shows, but I don't really remember any Disney films and early anime utilizing speed lines. I can understand how cultural mixing might be a good thing when it comes to animation, but I wasn't all that fond of speed lines to begin with.

Kind of related: it was amusing seeing realistic comic book characters such as the Teen Titans doing a complete 180 in the cartoons and doing the orz every chance they got. xD

Some of the "anime-inspired" American cartoons give off this kind of vibe (and yes, I will admit to Teen Titans and Avatar being guilty of this to some degree, though they're still good shows overall), as well as several people on Deviantart.
Eh, with Avatar they didn't use speed lines much, if at all. It did utilize big eyes with its protagonists, but that was more of a way to convey a more innocent-looking emotion from the especially child-like characters (who are are all pretty much Asian and might as well have utilized the style of eyes used in most Miyazaki films) rather than having a twisted preconception about what anime really is.

I have seen some westerners draw very good Japanese-inspired art, but this is very rare, IMO.
Not to took my own horn, but I'm known irl to emulate the moe moe art style of Noizi Ito and awesome art style of Hiromu Arakawa pretty darn well. :p All I need is a scanner and a pixiv artist account...
 
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Yamato-san

I own the 5th gen
I mean, people usually use anime being inspirated by Disney films as an argument for anime-inspired western shows, but I don't really remember any Disney films and early anime utilizing speed lines. I can understand how cultural mixing might be a good thing when it comes to animation, but I wasn't all that fond of speed lines to begin with.

honestly, I don't think it's just the fact that they use speed lines, so much as they use them poorly. If you pay attention, you might see that something like Teen Titans (and especially any anime parody ever made by a westerner), tend to feature just straight lines and a flashing background (or if it's a parody, expect that symbol of the rising sun half the time). When you look at anime, however, this usually isn't the case. The speeding backgrounds are actually a bit more livid and complex, with various color blendings and shadings and what-not. This is just one example of trying to imitate the common Japanese trends, but failing badly at it.

Eh, with Avatar they didn't use speed lines much, if at all. It did utilize big eyes with its protagonists, but that was more of a way to convey a more innocent-looking emotion from the especially child-like characters (who are are all pretty much Asian and might as well have utilized the style of eyes used in most Miyazaki films) rather than having a twisted preconception about what anime really is.

eh, something still seemed off about Avatar. Don't know what exactly, but it somehow gives this sense of a "Made in America" label being in plain sight. But that's just me, I'm probably being ridiculous about the whole thing. Moving away from the visual style, though, I must say that its soundtrack is certainly not the kind of thing you'd expect from a majority of anime. They have a tendency to use quite a fair bit of silence, for one thing (something I've really grown a lot of respect for over the years). Also notice how the music in Avatar will suddenly change into little jingles for the purpose of a joke most the time (as they do in most western cartoons), whereas in anime, they'll usually just play a sound effect jingle completely separate from the BGM (assuming one's playing at all). I'm guessing there's a difference in the two cultures between pre-composing BGM tracks that manage to get re-used and edited multiple times in a production, and having a composer try to fit whatever's happening on screen (kinda like what they did with silent films having an actual piano player in the theater, Mickey Mousing, you could call it), but I could be wrong on this (though such a difference does seem particularly glaring if you watch an edited-for-TV anime dub that changed the soundtrack when coming over to the western world). Not to say that the latter method is bad, exactly, but in my opinion, a lot less memorable tracks seem to result this way, as they never were composed as a stand-alone.

Not to took my own horn, but I'm known irl to emulate the moe moe art style of Noizi Ito and awesome art style of Hiromu Arakawa pretty darn well. :p All I need is a scanner and a pixiv artist account...

I am intrigued by this statement... however, I've seen a lot of western artists think their art is good and think it matches the Japanese styles perfectly, but it still seems off to me (if not outright crap in some cases). Hopefully, you get a scanner soon.
 
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rocketnyasu

Well-Known Member
I don't have anything against imitation anime (or manga) as a whole, but when it seems like a series as made by a bunch of executives who spent a couple of hours in a board meeting saying "You know what's popular with the young folks nowadays? Annimay. Let's make a annimay!" it just shows. With some shows, it just seems like they're made by people who don't even like cartoons.

Sometimes, it's not really about art style, it's more about details in the story-telling, character relationships, and tiny details that make up the environment or the world the story takes place. In reading manga and watching anime, I find that much of the appeal is taken away in western imitation anime, mainly because there is too much focus on art style, and not enough on story and the little details. It's not difficult to draw an anime character, but to tell a story in a way that makes anime/manga interesting is a different point entirely. This goes back to the fictional executives situation in being out of touch in what makes anime enjoyable.

I think it would be interesting to see more anime inspired western animation, though not only in visual style, but in storytelling.
 

Swampert_trainer

Laughs at thunder
A lot of "imitation anime" are pretty good. Code Lyoko, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the Boondocks are all great shows.
 

ParaChomp

be your own guru
On the topic, anyone see the Panty&Stocking with Garterbelt trailer? It looks like the opposite of what this thread is about.
 

Varnani

Infernus Rex
Kappa Mickey was probably the one i hated most, it surely tried, but had horrible graphics :/
Avatar: Last Airbender is the best of the lot in pretty much every aspect, respect to them!

razz
 

WynautQueen

Pokemon Caretaker
Anime means "animation."

Can there be imitation animation?

Funny how many who say anime is just from Japan often hate what they all "fake anime" or "American anime," but at the same time dream of creating their own manga or anime.
 

Jb

Tsun in the streets
Kappa Mikey wasn't that bad, it was more of a comedy then acctually trying to imitate the japanese style, it did a pretty good job of highlighting the art styles of japanese and the american cartoon as well as anime styreotypes(except teh big boobs lol).
 
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