Forum - View topicFilm critics, animation, and anime.
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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Motivated by some discussion on Princess Mononoke, I decided to articulate my views on the perspective of film critics (specially regarding Roger Ebert) on animation and anime. And my point is that film critics are essentially ignorant in animation in general and anime in particular hence that their opinions on animation and anime are absolutely irrelevant to anybody who has substantial experience in the field.
I am a person who has watched a substantial amount of live action film. Among the directors that I have watched include Tarkovsky, Tarr, Bergman, Bresson, Goddard, Fellini, Renoir, Kurosawa, Ozu, Naruse, Mizoguchi, Kobayashi, Wong Kar Wai, Herzog,etc. As a result I came into the medium of anime as an adult due to a review of Spirited Away by Roger Ebert (and when I was a kid I watched huge amount of anime as well, from Saint Seya to EVA, though I "grew up" from it when I was 14). I am also a bit of a "bean counter", to borrow the phrase used to describe some military historians obsessed with the use of statistics to describe the outcome of WW2 battles like Zetterling. Technically animation is a part of cinema. There is also no fundamental distinction between films, OVA's and TV series besides the way they are released although they "tend" to have some differences (series tends to have more focus on writing, character development and complex plots compared to films which are comparable in complexity to a set of 3-4 episodes of a TV series, anime series directed by the likes of Juchini Sato, Hideaki Anno, Ikuhara, Yuasa and Shimbo shown attention to direction, use of symbolism and attention to composition that one doesn't find in most Hollywood films). Anime consists of the vast majority of minutes of animation in existence in the world today (around 60%*). If you exclude animation made for people under the age of 12, anime consists of about 90% of the animation minutes in the world**. I do not consider myself an "anime" fan, but an animation fan, since, well, I have watched about 50 seasons of american animated shows over the past 6 years, plus hundreds of animated short films made in the west, as well as 200 seasons of anime shows and 200 movies/OVA's. I also dislike the use of the word "anime" in general because it leads to misconception and false generalizations: if I tell a random person that I watch anime with 99.9% of probability such person will have a quite wrong idea of what I am watching. How much anime a film critic has watched? Well, the average western film critic has watched less than 10 anime films which is less anime than what the average Brazilian 8 year old has watched (at least compared to the kids in the school I went to, but I grew up in the 1990's and early 2000's when Japan's cultural influence over Latin America was at it's peak, it's influence on the stuff kids from ages 6 to 13 watched was about as great as the US's, nowadays it's influence is smaller). Roger Ebert has reviewed about 7,500 movies from the late 1960's up to this death in 2013, all these reviews are on his website, I read his reviews of anime films after I watched Spirited Away, which number around 10-15 (7 Ghibli films, GitS, a Kon film and Rintaro metropolis are the ones I remember). Ebert says he watched about 350 movies per year, so over his 45 years of career he watched 16,000 movies, so he reviewed about half of these, hence the number of anime films he watched is around 20-30. Though Ebert knows a bit about the medium: he said that anime has a higher level of complexity than western animated films (given his sample: Ghibli versus Disney/Pixar, this is a trivial observation) and that anime is like live action, which he meant in the sense of encompassing the same genres as live action film does (in the west and in Japan). Though in his review of Spirited Away he said that after watching it 3 times he noticed that there was a high level of detail which is "uncommon" in animation where it is "always" simplified. Well, American animation is usually extremely simple looking while anime has usually high levels of detail and that is obviously not restricted to Miyazaki's films. The difference is patently obvious from the first time one watches any anime film or adult anime series. For Roger Ebert to notice it in 2012, after 20 years of watching anime, and only for Miyazaki... His review of Miyazaki's works are also pretty simple, focusing on the animation/fantasy aspects instead of it's inner meanings though I only understood Princess Mononoke on a conscious level after reading Miyazaki's words on it. I also was a fan of Noel Vera's reviews, who is a Philippine film critic and the only film critic to include Nausicaa on his top 10 films list he sent to the Sign and Sound poll in 2012. So, how much anime does Noel Vera knows? Not much. He holds Miyazaki, Takahata and Mamoru Oshii in high regard but when he watched EVA (a miracle for a film critic!) his review was pretty bad and showed that he knew nothing about Anno's other work as well as EVA's historical importance in the medium (EVA's importance in anime is at least comparable to Citizen Kane's importance in Hollywood: like Citizen Kane incorporated an enormous amount of the elements of the language of Hollywood film and influenced many films afterward, EVA incorporated many elements of previous titles and it's tropes, direction and character archetypes influenced an enormous number of later titles). Though I respect him a bit more because he understands the historical importance of Takahata's Horus. Another guy I read is Jonathan Rosenbaum. He is a film academic and what he said about anime? Well, he spoke a little bit about Miyazaki's films, usually comparing it to Disney and Pixar's films, saying how different they were. Just superficial stuff and not useful for anybody who is into anime. Though he appears to be quite smarter than Ebert or Vera so he could recognize that Nausicaa was "extraordinary", but he compared it to Brave! Why? Well, they are animated so they are in the same "genre" and feature a female main character. Ohhh.... Nausicaa is a sci fi epic featuring a female main character, closest western similar would be Lynch's Dune with the main character from Aliens. I also note that in the Sign and Sound poll the only anime films cited where Ghibli's. Is that because other anime is cr*p? Well, Miyazaki said that he would recommend very few OVA's, but he also said in 2002 that he considered Anno the only relevant director of recent years. He also said that Hollywood movies are garbage as well as all Japanese live action films made after 1970, but he later concluded that he only liked the films he directed. His standards for "good" are extremely high. After watching several hundred anime titles I might say that there are many great titles in the medium, in terms of genres that are particularly popular in anime like fantasy and science fiction there are more great anime made in the past 30 years than Hollywood films and US TV series combined. It appears to me that most great genre fiction screen media in the world is anime. Legend of Galactic Heroes is a particularly impressive title, it's probably the most complex science fiction work of screen media ever made and impressive in how rigorous it is in not using cheap tricks like sex/fanservice (for a western example, compare to Game of Thrones) to attract attention. It's of course very different from most other anime as well, it's a singular miracle masterpiece. Kinda like Kubrick's 2001 (in terms of Hollywood blockbuster's it is an artistic miracle: it is by far the best film to be the highest grossing of the year since 1960 at least) in that regard though. Though it's true that since most anime masterpieces are not movies a film critic will probably not watch'em. Overall, I don't think one can understand anime without understanding manga as well. Most anime uses the visual language of manga and Miyazaki later said that he tries to make films using only live action film direction techniques to make them accessible to people who don't read manga. In that respect his films are accessible to western film critics in a way that stuff like Madoka, Lain and Utena are not. While LoGH's greatness derive from it's writing (mostly world building and character development) not it's rather conventional direction, so film critics, obsessed with direction, will probably not like it. Problem is that given anime is most of the animation in the world, one doesn't understand animation without understanding anime and watching all it's important OVA's, films and shows, besides having some knowledge of manga. Western animators don't know much anime either, in a top 100 animated film lists published on a magazine voted by animators the only anime to show up were: GitS, Akira, Ghibli, one EVA movie and a couple of Kon's films. References to anime in western animated shows are stereotypical and offensive (Rick and Morty, a quite decent shounen light comedy show that I watched said about anime fans: "people in the internet that are only turned on by cartoons about Japanese teenagers"). Well, that helps to explain why commercial western animation hasn't progressed much beyond being poorly animated 3 panel newspaper comic strips. As western animators don't learn from it's peers: simplistic writing, second rate character designs, bad/simplistic set designs, second rate background art, poor depiction of physics, bad direction which I find lacking in terms of paying attention to basic stuff like pacing (Miyazaki influenced by the likes of Ozu, pays attention for his films having some "breathing space", same applies to most anime series: Ozu's pillow shoots are almost omnipresent in manga and anime, I noticed that in Madoka but after paying some attention it shows up everywhere, they are basically shoots of random stuff for no reason between shoots meaningful in the plot of the anime, show up all the time), besides being overall completely uninteresting visually. There exists serious non-commercial western animation, like Norstein, Petrov and Freredick Back's artistic shorts, but these are not made to be entertaining and don't have plots/character development, they are pure works of art animation so they are also not comparable to anime films, OVA's and series which are essentially a mix between animation and literature: animated narratives. In terms of western animation among the closest to anime I know would be Persepolis (2007), which is a French autobiographical film based on a graphic novel, hence it's from the same roots as anime and is a serious mature drama film that just happens to be animated. People who work in Pixar and Dreamworks are not knowledgeable about anime, in Pixar they are obsessed with Miyazaki but ignorant of everything else, in Dreamworks they are obsessed with competing with other US animation studios for the kiddie box office using pop culture references and cheap comedy, although they are improving (How to Train Your Dragon is a pretty good conventional film). The general ignorance of westerners regarding animation, specially strong among Americans but also present in Europe and Latin America. It's even present among film critics and animators which is appalling. It is the result of the general feeling of western superiority over the rest of the world caused by centuries of colonialism and western technological superiority which translated into military superiority. In the US this is specially strong given the American position as the world's leading military/economic/cultural power. This feeling of superiority leads westerners to disregard non-western culture in general. In animation it's specially appalling because it's an area where the west is seriously deficient if compared to East Asia (now in general, given Korea and China are also setting up their animation studios). * Let's do some estimation? Japan produces around 160 anime series per year and around 120-140 movies and OVA's, plus there are around a dozen anime series like Sazae San. On average these 160 anime series are 20 episodes long of 24 minutes, so that's about 80,000 minutes of animation, plus 15,000 minutes of animation in the long running series plus 15,000 minutes of animation of films and OVA's for a total of 110,000 minutes of animation. By comparison, the US produces around 25 animated series per year (running on average for 2 seasons (some last over 20 seasons like the Simpsons, most only last one), around 40 episodes of 20 minutes each) and about 12 movies (around 1,000 minutes in total, considering US animated films are shorter on average), which amounts to about 20,000 minutes of animation. In the rest of the western hemisphere animation represents a smaller industry than the US's in proportion to GDP, aggregate production of animation in the rest of the world is probably around 50,000 minutes (the GDP of the world outside US/Japan was 3 times the US's GDP), so Japanese animation is about 110,000/180,000 = 63% of the world's animation. ** US animation consists of 80% children's animation, for people under the age of 12, same applies to the rest of the world's animation outside of Japan. While in Japan most animation is made for teenagers and young adults, hence above the age of 12: ca. 90,000 minutes of adult Japanese animation compared to ca. 10,000 minutes of adult non-Japanese animation. Though I also admit that "super mature" stuff like Koi Kaze is quite rare even in anime (and nonexistent in western animation). These flow statistics apply to the world since the mid 1970's, anime was smaller back then but so was US animation and the animation of the rest of the world: adult animation was almost nonexistent in the 1970's, US animated series made for teenagers began to appear in the late 1980's, seinen anime began to appear in the 1980's though there are some adult stuff from the 1970's. The first adult animated film ever made is Takahata's Horus from 1968 (in terms of psychological complexity). [EDIT: Added some extra paragraph breaks. -TK] |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Interesting read. Take away Ghibli films (and therefore Disney's promotion of them) and most Western film critics wouldn't have watched any anime films at all.
Not a bad estimate. One figure I've seen is that Japan produces seventy percent of the world's animation on television. Of course, Japan doesn't have quite the same stranglehold when it comes to animated movies, but it's still pretty big. One thing to note is that many anime films are actually quite short, often less than an hour long. I would go so far to say that - based on my experience - the average American animated film is longer than the average Japanese animated film. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23787 |
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Personally, as a reader of reviews I am less interested in a critic's take on the technical aspects of animation and artwork and more on the story-telling, characterization and other narrative elements. So, from this perspective, I don't particularly care if a given critic has had a wide exposure to animation or not.
What always niggles at me with respect to Western critics evaluating anime is that they are reviewing a cultural artifact that wasn't designed with their (my) culture in mind. So something that might be perfectly understandable and appropriate for its intended Japanese audience can be derided as being as an example of poor writing by non-Japanese critics. I want to hasten to add that I'm not talking about different cultural mores, here - I'm talking about differing story-telling traditions, for instance. To give a specific example, I remember Justin Sevakis saying during a podcast (I think) that Asian audiences tend to be a little bit more tolerant of stories that start in the middle where things are confusing and mysterious. They may not understand what's going on, but they tend to be more willing to be patient and assume things will become clearer later on. Western audiences, on the other hand, have been trained to expect a relatively clear beginning - things can get wonky after that, but God help the story-teller who starts in confusion. That's just one example. I'm sure there are lots of others where a Western critic thinks that something is bad when really what's going on is an unfamiliarity with a different kind of narrative tradition. Again, I want to stress I am NOT talking about differences in cultural attitudes: i.e. a greater tolerance for situations that sexualize underage characters in Japan versus the West. I have no idea if what I'm trying to convey is clear, but there you are. Last edited by Blood- on Thu Dec 04, 2014 3:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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A Mystery
 Posts: 1886 Location: Netherlands |
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I think it's clear, Blood-.
I remember watching Howl's Moving Castle with my mom. She did watch it until the end (I was rather surprised she did), but she didn't really like it. I asked her just now what her issues were. She didn't like the war fantasy elements, 'those flying creatures'. They were too aggressive for animation or something. She also felt the story tended to go off on a tangent at times. It's been a while since we watched it together so I cannot ask her in more detail. Hm. I do wish I asked her earlier  for more details. I do think it's safe to say it was her first animation movie that wasn't like Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks.
But yeah, your topic was about critics specifically. Interesting read, but I cannot expand on that issue, because I don't know anything about it. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9847 Location: Virginia |
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The critics you mention are primarily movie critics and those based in the US are mostly critics of movies with theatrical releases in the US. As such the specific anime films you mention are the most likely ones for them to review. Essentially they are the few that made a big enough splash here to attract their attention.
Also they are writing for a specific audience. They are not likely to review shows that their audience will not care for. There is a lot of foreign cinema in addition to animation and I think you will find that most of it is only lightly represented by most movie reviewers here in the US. That is not really chauvinism, there is only so much time for a reviewer to watch shows and so many forums to write for. They have to concentrate on what pays the bills. Even here in the US the movie reviewers seldom review TV series. That is left to a whole different group of reviewers. It is simply a question of bulk. No one person can review all significant movies and all other forms of cinema. There isn't enough time and the are speaking to different audiences. I think you will find that all fans of niche programing have the same complaint. Doesn't matter if you are talking US horror movies, Hong Kong action films, Indian dramatic films or Korean live action TV. Every one thinks they are under represented and misunderstood by main stream critics. Frankly, I'm not sure why you would care what Roger Ebert thought of anime. |
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walw6pK4Alo
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I don't pussyfoot around with this: they are severe plebs. Even old mainstream successes like Project A-ko, Galaxy Express, and Crusher Joe are alien to most professionals who say they're anime fans. You could stretch that to films that are considered cinematic masterpieces like Honneamise, Angel's Egg, and both Patlabors. It's not like they're even fledgling anime fans just starting out and looking for more, all they've ever known is AKIRA, GitS, and those other mainstreamest of the mainstream. I suppose this doesn't hinder their ability to break down and analyze thematic elements and the writing, but that's only going to fly for super sanitized material that doesn't confuse or disgust them. Even the presence of robots in something like Patlabor would probably throw them for a loop, they just can't digest certain aspects as "anime-isms" because its beyond their wheelhouse of expectations. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9847 Location: Virginia |
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@walw6pK4Alo
Given that you are probably correct in your assumption that mainstream critics don't understand some aspects of anime, why would it matter what they think of it? Granted mainstream appreciation and recognition of anime would be nice, along with mainstream sales. However, it is just not going to happen. Also the flip side of mainstream recognition would likely be serious attempts at censorship by the types who cannot understand cultural differences and freak out at non regulation religious aspects. I really doubt that any mainstream film critic has had any significant financial impact on anime. Anime fans don't listen to them and it is unlikely they deterred anyone from becoming a fan. |
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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Well, you do touch upon it. Condemnation of material because of inability to grasp certain elements. Critics might be good at what they do with live action, but they turn into feeble children when it comes to anime and that can have impacts well beyond a harmless review. Just like with other aspects in life, purposeful ignorance doesn't make things go away or not happen.
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danilo07
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*Reads the article*
*Goes to see the writer's previous posts* *Reads his Pong Pong review*
It seems even with all of your anime experience that you don't know much about animation, either. In that sense, maybe you shouldn't be as critical of Western film critics? [EDIT: Made your reply a little more tactful. -TK] |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9847 Location: Virginia |
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@walw6pK4Alo
As far as I know, there has not been any verifiable impact on any anime program based on a review by a mainstream critic. Film critics probably do not have either the time or the interest to become anime fans. As a consequence it is best that they limit themselves to the sort of show they do review. That is anime movies that attempted some sort of wide release here. Mostly those titles already mentioned. They are fair game as they invite such review. I don't think the reviewers are any better at reviewing US animation either. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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Indeed. Though film critics job is to review the movies that the average film goer might watch so they Also, in Japan film critics also don't pay much attention to animation as well. In the Kinema Jumpo top 10 of the year lists anime films rarely show up, in 1988 Akira didn't, in 1995, GitS didn't, none of Oshii's or Kon's films did, excluding some famous ones. Though there are animation critics in Japan who specialize in animation, so I guess film critics tend to specialize in live action.
I think in terms of movies the numbers are similar to TV series: in 2006 I read on an article about the economic sector of anime that there were 133 animated movies screened in Japanese cinemas (certainly, almost all of these were anime). For comparison, in the US it is around 15-20 considering the movies that can be nominated for the best animated film Oscar. And according to wikipedia France produces around 10 animated movies per year. Overall I would guess the world produces around 150-200 animated movies per year and anime films represent about 60% of all these. In terms of length there are anime films with 150-160 minutes, while western animated films are always around 80-90 minutes. Though it's true that there are very short anime ones, like Garden of Words, so I shouldn't try to guess whether the average length is longer and shorter.
That's true. The world of cinema/TV is extremely large so it's impossible for anyone to have a good unbiased knowledge of the entire world's programming in general. I just discovered that fact now by noticing how film critics are ignorant of this specific niche that interests me.
That's because I stumbled upon anime reading Ebert's reviews of it and that I actually respected him quite a lot for movies in general. But after watching more I noticed how little he knew and that people care about his opinion for some anime films so I am just saying they shouldn't care. Though it's like Ebert's opinions on videogames: he never played any and people paid attention to his claim that videogames are not art.
Indeed, your words also describe precisely how I feel about it. Also film critics have an impact on anime fans, well, I became an anime fan as an adult because of Ebert's positive review of Spirited Away, if he were less open minded and would have rejected the whole thing because it is "weird" and I might have been discouraged from watching it. If film critics studied the history of anime in film school (which I think they should since are supposed to know something about animation) it would be better for them as well. Even when I was reading some academic articles on Miyazaki's films I noticed how ignorant they were on anime as they were thinking that characteristics of Miyazaki's films are unique to his film (because they are not found in western animation) even though they are standard in anime. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18200 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Finally had time to read through the OP. A few thoughts:
*Frankly, JC, I think you're leveling a criticism in a one-sided manner that should be applied universally. Assuming that I accept your critique of Western critics towards anime as true, virtually the same could be applied to non-American critics' evaluations of many American movies - and yes, I am specifically including Miyazaki in that since you brought him up. To imply that he understands animation not made for his culture so well, while leveling that criticism against American animators towards Japanese animation, is ludicrous. Yes, he does have some very insightful things to say about anime in Japan and its consumption (I read the first Turning Point book), but I am not so sure that he fully appreciates the better aspects of what current series anime offers. (Things have change a lot since the era when he was making series animation.) Let's face it, the guy is brilliant, but he's also more than a bit of a curmudgeon. Essentially, my point is that anyone who's not in the cultural or interest target for a particular production is more likely to have a lower opinion of the production than someone who is. *Anime movies vary much more dramatically in length than American animated films typically do, although the average length is probably about the same. The American standard, which owes heavily to early Disney films, is 75-95 minutes, with films deviating much outside of that being rare. (Dumbo, at 64 minutes, is one of the very few theatrical releases that's much shorter.) By comparison, anime productions classified as movies can vary from as little as 50 minutes to as much as 150; in fact, I know for certain that the two longest animated movies ever made are both anime titles, and I wouldn't be surprised if they compose all or nearly all of the Top 10 on length. They mostly seem to group around either 60 minutes or 100-120 minutes, hence my belief that the average probably comes out about the same.
*Here's where you start to lose credibility with me, as this statement seems awfully animecentric. If you restricted your comments purely to fantasy then I might have at least not argued the point, but Hollywood and US TV series have had no shortage of science fiction productions over the past 30 years worthy of the "great" label, while even as a hard-core anime fan myself I think you're overestimating how many truly great and memorable sci fi anime titles there are out there. Name all of the sci fi anime from the last 30 years that you would consider "great" and I'd bet money that I could name a number of American productions at least equal to the anime ones that I would agree deserve the moniker. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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Miyazaki is the single greatest animator of all time. When he criticizes some animation he is the single most authoritative figure to talk about it overall. Miyazaki did not criticize western animation in general. He criticized Disney a little bit though (specially in Turning Point, the first volume is called Starting Point), where he said that Disney films were important technical advances but lacked in psychological depth, which I find extremely precise characterization. Also he said Disney films show contempt for their audience which is true: they are extremely simplistic and heavy handed to the extreme. Thing is that Americans (also Westerners in general) is when they make children's stuff they make it in a way that regards children as very simple beings incapable of having sophisticated psychology and ability to reason. It's true though that he doesn't give modern series due appreciation but he was over 60 when modern late night series became a mature niche and so he tends to view past works with bias compared to modern stuff. Also, Miyazaki knows Hollywood films really well. That's because Hollywood films are known to pretty much everybody in the world who is into films. So while western film critics don't understand anything about anime, Japanese anime directors know Hollywood really well: even Gunbuster's Japanese title was based on a Hollywood movie name. Miyazaki particularly understands very well a film like Apocalypse Now: American war films depict war like a videogame and the film usually ends when the airforce bombs the enemy to oblivion, in Apocalypse Now, reflecting the American defeat in vietnam, was a film about "not understanding things" since it shows soldiers shooting all over the place and aircraft bombing the sh*t out of small asian villages for no reason. The film reflects American incapacity to understand/admit that defeat. American film critics haven't understood that angle of it, myself, a big fan of the film, didn't understand that angle of it after reading Miyazaki's review. Of course, anime targeted at young adult males such as myself will tend to be highly evaluated compared to american stuff targeted at 5 year olds like Disney's. But even if we restrict yourselves to american stuff targeted at young adult males (US "seinen" stuff: South Park, Family Guy) it is pretty crude compared to anime made for the same demographic (seinen titles like Madoka, RahXephon, Saikano, Haibane Renmei, Ping Pong, etc).
Pinnochio and Bambi are also much shorter than 75 minutes and I can give several other examples.
Some of the longest I know: that Haruhi movie - ca. 170 minutes some Space Battleship Yamato movie - ca. 170 minutes Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's - 150 minutes
Yes media released from 1984 onwards? Well, there exists more science fiction anime made since 1984 than US science fiction movies and series combined (in 2013 Japan made about 300 new anime titles, a large fraction of which are science fiction, like 20-25%, or about 60-70 titles, compared to like 15 sci fi hollywood movies and 2 new TV series) so it's natural that there are more great ones. Also, anime are made on a much lower budget which allows the production of a great number of titles. As an American according to your own argument you are biased toward american stuff. In fact, I myself a Brazilian (hence "neutral" in the sense of not being culturaly biased to either US or Japanese stuff, as Brazil is not as European influenced as other western countries, in fact, the degree of European influence in Brazilian culture appears to be similar to the Japanese one so Brazil is in a sense less culturally western biased than other western countries such as UK, Germany, etc). But myself being a huge fan of American science fiction would say that there are about 7 great works of science fiction in US media made since 1984: 1 - Babylon 5 (1995-1998) 2 - Terminator (1984) 3 - Aliens (1986) 4 - The Matrix (1999) 5 - Battlestar Galactica (2003-2010) 6 - A.I. (2001). 7 - Back to the Future (1985) The rest is pretty much on a lower level (including all Star Trek series and movies released since 1984, all Star Wars stuff, all those mediocre movies including the sequels of Terminator, Matrix, Mad Max 3, Robocop, X-Files, Firefly, those superhero films (which might be classified as sci fi like Iron Man) etc, all second rate stuff not comparable to the greats I mentioned above). A TV series like Psycho Pass, which I regard as third rate anime, is better than anything else I have seem from the US made since 1984 except those 7 titles. Notice that only four are from 1987 onwards. The golden age of American science fiction was from 1968 to 1984, where they dominated the field. After 1984, though, most great stuff is anime. Among great stuff since 1984 I could count as great: 1 - (1984) Nausicaa 2- (1986) Castle in the Sky (it's "steampunk fantasy" but good enough for me) 3- (1987) Honneamise 4- (1988) Akira 5- (1988) Gunbuster 6- (1993) Patlabor 2 7- (1995) Ghost in the Shell 8- (1995) NGE 9- (1988-1998) Legend of the Galactic Heroes (which I find easily superior to any US science fiction TV series ever made by a quite wide margin) 10 -(1998) Serial Experimenters Lain (1998) (also easily superior to any US science fiction series given it's a sophisticated work of visual art never seem in US TV series) 11- (1998) Cowboy Bebop 12- (1999) Crest of the Stars 13 - (2002) RahXephon (like Castle in the Sky, it's pretty borderline stuff but the distinction of sci fi to fantasy is not strict) 14- (2002) Saikano (US sky fi was never this dramatic) 15- (2003) Texhnolyze (almost as good as Lain) 16- (2003) Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society 17- (2006) Ergo Proxy (a bit weaker than the rest but still impressive work of visual art with great world building) 18- (2007) Dennou Coil 19- (2012) From the New World 20- (1998) Trigun 21- (2003) Planetes 22- (2013)Yamato 2199 23- (2008) Kaiba [edit] added a new title: 24- (2008) Aria: The Origination Ok, so it's 24 anime versus 7 US science fiction that come into my head right now (edit: and next day). Notice that in proportion to number of titles released: US produces like 15-18 science fiction titles per year, Japan makes 60-70. Hence, most great stuff is anime by the law of large numbers. I am not including stuff like Gurren Lagann because it's just too crazy to be sci fi. Overall my personal picks for best science fiction since 1984 ranked are roughly: 1 - Nausicaa (my favorite sci fi media ever) 2 - RahXephon 3 - NGE 3 - Serial Experiments Lain 4 - Legend of Galactic Heroes 5 - Castle in the Sky 6 - Yamato 2199 7 - Texhnolyze 8 - Babylon 5 9 - Saikano 10 - Kaiba (edit, hard forgotten about it) 9 anime versus 1 US stuff Anime overall is vastly superior in terms of visual richness and aesthetic creativity compared to US science fiction which is way more conservative and limited to the expression possibilities of live action film. I like the way animation can be used as a visual art so I am biased toward animated works over live action ones though. People who like live action stuff more (like most Americans) would be biased toward US stuff. Thing is that there is just so much more science fiction anime and so much more aesthetically creative anime as well. Or anime which has a narrative rigor such as Legend of Galactic Heroes that US sci fi lacks greatly (series like Battlestar Galactica are written on episode to episode basis without great regard for overall plot development and almost always end with cr*ppy resolutions, Babylon 5 is a major exception being a US science fiction on the same level of narrative rigor as the best anime sci fi series). Though the reason is that there are like 20 sci fi anime series for each US sci fi series ever made so that you can find dozens of masterpieces of serial anime versus a single US one. Well, instead of talking about personal opinion and hence personal tastes (like, you could think something I would regard as radical like that Robocop is better than RahXephon and Lain, but everyone to his own taste). There is the Seiun award for science fiction, since 1984 these are the titles who won it, voted by Japanese science fiction fans: 1985 Film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1) 1986 Film Back to the Future (1) 1987 Film Brazil 1988 Film Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (2) 1989 Film My Neighbor Totoro (3) 1990 Anime Gunbuster (4) 1991 TV Ginga Uchū Odyssey 1992 Film Terminator 2: Judgment Day (2) 1993 Anime Mama wa Shōgaku 4 Nensei (5) 1994 Film Jurassic Park (3) 1995 Film Zeiram 2 1996 Film Gamera: Guardian of the Universe 1997 Film Gamera 2: Attack of Legion 1998 Tokusatsu Ultraman Tiga 1999 Film Martian Successor Nadesico: The Motion Picture (6) Prince of Darkness 2000 Anime Cowboy Bebop (7) 2001 Video game Gunparade March 2002 Tokusatsu Kamen Rider Kuuga 2003 Anime Voices of a Distant Star (8) 2004 Film The Two Towers (4) 2005 Anime Planetes (9) 2006 Tokusatsu Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger 2007 Film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (10) 2008 Anime Dennō Coil (11) 2009 Anime Macross Frontier (12) 2010 Film Summer Wars (13) 2011 Film District 9 2012 Anime Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magika (14) 2013 Anime Bodacious Space Pirates (15) 2014 Film Pacific Rim (5) So it's 5 American (there are a couple of non-American english language stuff as well) versus 15 anime. Clearly, Japanese science fiction fans who have access to both anime and US stuff liked a larger number of anime which is natural given there is more of it. I personally wouldn't consider many of those great, such as Bodacious Space Pirates or Jurassic Park, though it's my tastes. I don't understand the obsession people have with US stuff: considering it almost always superior without proper argumentation. I have watched hundreds of US science fiction films and series and I have been watching those for over 20 years since my father is a big fan of US science fiction. However, after watching substantial amounts of sci fi anime I already found more stuff that I would regard as great. I wouldn't consider myself a hardcore anime fan just because I think that way, I would regard someone who has watched a huge volume of sci fi anime to think that US sci fi screen media is better to be a hardcore fanboy of US sci fi media. [edit: made some changes] Last edited by Jose Cruz on Thu Dec 11, 2014 7:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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nobahn
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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Well, I am Brazilian but I have no obsession with Brazilian culture itself. In fact I like US culture more than Brazilian culture (I like more US books, music albums, films, TV shows, than Brazilian ones): I read novels written three thousand years ago by a civilization that doesn't exist anymore and I loved them, I don't understand the concept of being restricted to stuff made in your own country and thinking it's superior to stuff from the outside because it's made for your own "cultural sensibilities", since each person is a distinct individual with distinct tastes and hence different cultural sensibilities for the social average.
I am a very passionate person I guess. I get passionate with many things and my passions vary substantially across the years. I was banned three years ago from a history forum from being excessively pro-western and anti-asian.
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