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Wow, I didn't realize how happy it would make me to have my answer posted. It's very true in my case that if there wasn't such overlap in games and anime, I probably wouldn't have gotten into anime. Thanks Metal Gear!

There is nothing wrong with making Anime-style 2D animation. it's all about motivation and time allocation.

Anime design, pardon my French, is a bastard child born out of western animation aesthetics and Japanese graphical sensibilities. Battle hardened with ruthless efficiency of cutting corners and innovative camera works, thus the current Anime style is established. Unfortunately some people have hard time accepting the fact and try to differentiate Anime from other forms of 2D animation.

Getting back to the subject of US-made Anime, it's all about team work and knowing the limitations. You, the potential creator, has to do some serious work and promote your short story idea tirelessly to recruit right people. Whether you're artist type or writer type, you have to take initiative regardless what other people say.
After all, every artist has humble beginning, even Hideaki Anno of Evangelion fame.

Here's his student film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2spixaiHCw
Kinda shabby, right?

Once you find right people to help you, then you make a storyboard and animatics.
Here's something worth inspiring: Suikoden 3 Opening animation storyboard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DteWt8pAt2Y

And don't be afraid to steal shots from movies for your storyboard. Hayao Miyazaki stole scene ideas from Italian movies. Shinichiro Watanabe stole scene ideas American movies.

If you want to be next Makoto Shinkai of US, just look at his early works. Anyone who watched Makoto Shinkai's early works like "She and her cat", he barely uses actual animation. It's mostly zooms and pans. His strength is still good camera angle based from modified photographs.

Afraid that it may not have cute girls and cool mecha? Who cares about them? Studio 4C makes cool shorts without them. Why can't you?

No more excuses. JUST DO IT.

BTW Brian, can you direct the guy who posted the first question to Anipage Daily? www.pelleas.net
I really appreciate it.

loka wrote:

And what if you want to make the next great horror animation? It's already been explained why America rejects the notion of [a good many] certain genres in animation. You'll have a hard enough time finding investors for the production of it, much less companies willing to give it exposure.

Sure, if you want to create the next superpower (Airbender / Teen Titans) show, there's less of a reason to go to Japan for it. Good luck creating the next non-superhero, non-comedy series here in America.

The cool thing about the time we are in now, however, is that media is vastly changing. Sure, if you want to be a household name, featured on the tele, or have a line of toys dedicated to you, you're going to have to conform to industry standards.

However

The internet is an awesome avenue for creative artists. As a writer, I have a million different means of getting published if I don't like what the big companies are trying to do to my book. Musical artists are discovering this as well. The internet is making it so that specialized groups can come together and talk about what they love without geographic location being an issue. It also takes out of the cost of physical items like CDs, paper, ink, pens, etc.

Of course, what this usually means is that you're not going to become rich...but unless you're the creator of a series and not one of the tens (or hundreds in big productions) of animators on staff, you're not making big bucks anyway. And yes, this also means you'll have to work a lot harder because you'll need to promote your own work to a crowd that's shy of something different.

But

You do get to publish what you want. So, pick your trade off. Do you want more artistic freedom or a better chance of getting your name out there. You'll need to make that decision before deciding what route to take.

jjwitdaheydiddydiddy wrote:

First of all, I did watch all of those shows in their original forms--when I was a kid, and most of them were relatively new. And I won't get into an argument with you over the merits of Western animation.

Sorry, I don't mean to bash western animation overall. What I mean to say is that regardless of their various merits, almost nothing on that list was at all suited to being a Hollywood movie regardless of whether it was live action. That to me is the problem with the adaptations you mentioned but by no means the case with some of the upcoming stuff.

Quote:

Granted, the live-action versions of comic books are mostly great. But all of those comics are North American-made, and the companies who published them (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, et. al.) are deeply involved in the making of these films. I really don't think that Kubo or Shueisha are going to hop on a plane and spend months making sure that Segal and his team don't screw it up.

Okay, that's a valid point. However, I don't think that those movies were only good because of pressure by the publishers. Hollywood can make good movies all on it's own and wants to do so. If there's a decent creative team attached and particularly some big names, I don't see why they couldn't create something good whether the publishers are breathing down their necks or not.

Quote:

Yeah, I know I should give it a shot, but... I'm not keeping my hopes up.

Fair enough. I'm all for bracing for the worst. Personally though I'm willing to approach at least some of these projects with a very cautious optimism.

Penguin_Factory wrote:

I was so glad to read Brian's opinions on hollywood adaptations. I'm so sick and tired of the "man it's going to suck even though I haven't seen a single production still yet" attitude that alays seems to come up when remakes or live action versions of something get announced. Even worse is the people who get angry over this stuff, as if the producers are going back in time and retroactively altering the source material. Jesus, calm down people.

Well lets look at the score so far in the "Live Action Cup"

Sucks ] 3 / 0 [ Blockbuster

Hmm, doesn't look good for the home team.

First off, which 3 would those be? DB:E I'm sure will be one, and the feedback doesn't lie there. So what else? "Speed Racer" and "Astro Boy"? The problem there is that those two films weren't big successes, but were actually generally well received by audiences overall, so they hardly qualify for "sucks", and I thought they were quite good. Just saying "sucks" on a forum doesn't amount to much, particularly when you aren't adding to the discussion in the process, and are then going to use a small number like 3 to justify a vast generalization and prejudice towards something that doesn't even exist yet.

Keonyn wrote:

First off, which 3 would those be? DB:E I'm sure will be one, and the feedback doesn't lie there. So what else? "Speed Racer" and "Astro Boy"? The problem there is that those two films weren't big successes, but were actually generally well received by audiences overall, so they hardly qualify for "sucks", and I thought they were quite good. Just saying "sucks" on a forum doesn't amount to much, particularly when you aren't adding to the discussion in the process, and are then going to use a small number like 3 to justify a vast generalization and prejudice towards something that doesn't even exist yet.

Agreed, but I'm talking profit return more than actual quality, and much has been said already that I would only repeat. Granted the few who saw any of those films would say they liked, or loathed them, but few they were. I'm just highlighting that the record so far leaves the next one to climb a higher mountain in order to score one for the home team, like Avatar did. Hope springs eternal. Boxoffice is another matter altogether. Wink

BunnyCupCakes wrote:

Comics books/cartoons, anime/manga, it's the same thing.
I thought we went over this already Anime cry

What needs to be understood is that the irrational but widespread hate a lot of people have for non-Japanese hand drawn art and moving images being called manga and/or anime is that these people, like myself, do not consider anime and manga to be an "art style," but a cultural and issue-oriented sensibility ingrained into the minds of those creating the works.
Yes, comics and manga are the same thing, hand drawn images. Yes, animation and anime are the same thing, sequences of hand drawn images with sound set to them. But western animation, no matter how hard it tries, cannot be anime. It can look exactly like anime, it can have the exact type of story an anime would have, and even use "manga moments", putting characters into super-deformed modes and having punctuation and sound effect popups all over the place, but that does not make it anime. It makes it animation striving to be similar to anime. Teen Titans and Avatar: The Last Airbender did all these things without gloating about it, and were successful. They mimicked the style but made it their own. Other shows that are equally or more so hated upon for stealing anime's style are usually more blatant about directly ripping them off (Chaotic being your classic Pokemon clone) and doing a horrible job of it. And the same goes for the masses of webcomics which are horrible imitations of the classic and mainstream shounen or shoujo artstyle with god awful classic US or other western plotlines (which oddly enough, match a great deal of their Japanese counterparts, just with inferior storytelling ability). Just call them what they are, comics. Inspired by manga. They're not manga. In my opinion, the main reason Tokyopop's OEL line failed is because they tried too hard to sell people a lie. And their Rising Stars of Manga contests? Same thing. Just drawing artwork similar to what is commonly perceived as Japanese does not make it manga. It is a product of you, your culture, your country. If you're in the US, that makes it a comic. Simple. And when I paged through a volume of RSoM, and all I saw was mediocre webcomics on printed page, I'm glad I knew these people weren't actually drawing manga, or I'd have been worried about the Japanese industry. Now that's not to say all those stories, or all webcomics, were horrible. But they shouldn't claim to be something they're not.
Okay, I'm done now.

Mohawk52 wrote:

Well lets look at the score so far in the "Live Action Cup"

Sucks ] 3 / 0 [ Blockbuster

Hmm, doesn't look good for the home team.

I'm talking profit return more than actual quality, and much has been said already that I would only repeat.

Except that if you're counting profit not quality, it should be "fail" not "sucks". And speaking of which, it's also been said many times, DB:E made money, as ludicrous as that sounds. Which is why it's getting a sequel. So it fits just fine in the "sucks" category, whereas Astro Boy, horrible showing that it had, I thought was very enjoyable, albeit far removed from the original franchise, and would fit more accurately in a "fail" category. Speed Racer I still haven't seen, and I've heard nothing but completely mixed reviews from all kinds of people, so that's still up in the air for me, though box office wise, it would probably go in the "fail" category as well.

Calling an American comic book "manga" just seems like the stupidest thing in the world to me. For example,the Star Trek or Ghostbusters manga,both of which I enjoyed,but why weren't they just "comic books"? Since "manga" is the Japanese word for comics,I thought we called Japanese comics manga. If the Ghostbusters manga is based on an American movie,with American writers writing it in English and drawn by Americans,why is it called "manga?"

And no,I don't dislike American comics or cartoons. I read way more American comics than manga,and I buy every DC Comics animated DVD and some of the Marvel ones too. I just don't say,"I'm going to the store to buy the latest Supahmanu OVA animus eiga," I just call it a cartoon or animated movie.

Kidnicky wrote:

Calling an American comic book "manga" just seems like the stupidest thing in the world to me. For example,the Star Trek or Ghostbusters manga,both of which I enjoyed,but why weren't they just "comic books"? Since "manga" is the Japanese word for comics,I thought we called Japanese comics manga. If the Ghostbusters manga is based on an American movie,with American writers writing it in English and drawn by Americans,why is it called "manga?"

So in Japan, do the call Spiderman, Batman, etc "comics" or "manga"?
Or is this the usual Western bs about labeling stuff?
Honestly, manga IS comics. OEL is just labeling to try to sell it to fans who care about labels

Kidnicky wrote:

And no,I don't dislike American comics or cartoons. I read way more American comics than manga,and I buy every DC Comics animated DVD and some of the Marvel ones too. I just don't say,"I'm going to the store to buy the latest Supahmanu OVA animus eiga," I just call it a cartoon or animated movie.

And I just call it anime & manga because the adults I work with in the real world are of the "comics & animation are for children" bent so my calling it that moves it over into being something "strange" or "different".
Because in the REAL WORLD, most people don't understand the god armor in the new Clash of the Titans movie is made in a style to reflect a Japanese manga called Saint Seiya. They wouldn't understand a "kamehameha" ref thrown in as a joke if it bit them on the butt.
Bottom line-if it's good, who gives a rat's rear? If you had never seen DBZ, would DB:E really be all that bad? Sure, it could have been better, but really, I was amazed at how much they managed to get in there from the original story. Speed Racer IS a good movie. I still like it.
And Bleach could work live action if you'd open up your minds a bit.
Realistically it IS a big change to go from drawn to live action because things can be drawn that can't happen in reality, but that's what special effects are for. Hell's Bells, the look changes artist to artist, doesn't it? All the long-time superheroes have had more than one makeover, haven't they?
I'm sure they'd want to keep Ichigo & the whole lot, but honestly, I've wondered why the hell Hollows only hit Japan? Is it Godzilla all over again? Want to avoid Hollows, just move to another country? At least Saint Seiya had stuff happening all around the world so it seemed as though the treat was to the whole world & not just one little country. DB moved around quite a bit so as to make it seem more a global view. I mean, damn, doesn't 90% of the action seem concentrated on that one little town? Just evacuate the place. "This town is cursed, people! Move along!"

CCSYueh wrote:

Kidnicky wrote:

Calling an American comic book "manga" just seems like the stupidest thing in the world to me. For example,the Star Trek or Ghostbusters manga,both of which I enjoyed,but why weren't they just "comic books"? Since "manga" is the Japanese word for comics,I thought we called Japanese comics manga. If the Ghostbusters manga is based on an American movie,with American writers writing it in English and drawn by Americans,why is it called "manga?"

So in Japan, do the call Spiderman, Batman, etc "comics" or "manga"?

"Ame-comi" (American comics)

ikillchicken wrote:

jjwitdaheydiddydiddy wrote:

Granted, the live-action versions of comic books are mostly great. But all of those comics are North American-made, and the companies who published them (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, et. al.) are deeply involved in the making of these films. I really don't think that Kubo or Shueisha are going to hop on a plane and spend months making sure that Segal and his team don't screw it up.

Okay, that's a valid point. However, I don't think that those movies were only good because of pressure by the publishers. Hollywood can make good movies all on it's own and wants to do so. If there's a decent creative team attached and particularly some big names, I don't see why they couldn't create something good whether the publishers are breathing down their necks or not.

I totally agree--they can make decent movies, and I'm not of the mindset that 'Hollywood' is this big monster out to destroy all nerd things (to clumsily paraphrase what Brian said). Disney, however, is, but let's not open that can of worms. I'm just worried because Peter Segal has only done comedy. It all comes down to which director he'll pick to do this, and I just pray that the serious moments in Bleach will not be ruined with inappropriate slapstick interjections like a certain BONES remake of an alchemy-themed anime.

I don't think that it necessarily has to have big-name actors to be successful. Robert Pattinson is a big name right now, and I don't want him as my Kurt Cobain or my Ichigo Kurosaki.

Quote:

Fair enough. I'm all for bracing for the worst. Personally though I'm willing to approach at least some of these projects with a very cautious optimism.

I think "cautious optimism" is called "realism." Very Happy

Dark Elf Warrior wrote:

And about the Yogi Bear, Smurfs, Marvin the Martian and Thundercats, are those really in development for movies? If they are, what are they thinking? Anime dazed

I saw those when I was a kid, and I condemn Hanna Barbara for not taking kids so seriously. Of all things, why would they make these into movies? That's just digging a grave right there.

Sadly, yes. I got that info from a good source that told me (right before they came out) that we would be seeing The A-Team, a Nightmare on Elm Street remake, and a Clash of the Titans remake. Along this same tangent, there will also be a Risk movie, Marmaduke, Stretch Armstrong, and remakes of the Karate Kid and Poltergeist (they have absolutely no shame--nothing is sacred, is it?).

Ah, the great otaku pilgrimage to Japan. Wonder if I'll go on it someday...
What about a live-action Code Geass?

jjwitdaheydiddydiddy wrote:

I don't think that it necessarily has to have big-name actors to be successful. Robert Pattinson is a big name right now, and I don't want him as my Kurt Cobain or my Ichigo Kurosaki.

True. Although there are some non-awful big names attached to other projects and even the questionable ones can be beneficial. For instance, I'm not exactly crazy about Keanu playing Spike but at least this way the movie will probably get a half decent budget.

Last edited by nobahn on Tue Apr 13, 2010 12:38 am; edited 1 time in total

BTA_man wrote:

Many anime fans watch anime because they have deeper storylines than US cartoons....

That, my friends, is god's OWN TRUTH!!!

I remember when Robotech first aired (Yeah, I'm that old; so what?). Forget the graphics (which were extraordinary -- at least, for that TIME they were extraordinary); what blew me away were the plots (and just like Patrick, I didn't know about Carl Macek blending these three different series together) and character development. After that, I simply could NOT look at cartoons like G.I. Joe the same way again. Consider, if you please:

Character Development:

Robotech

real

G.I. Joe

Robotech

arguing about the morality of war

A Real Plot:

Robotech

Ernest Hemmingway's trifecta of love, war, and death

and speaking of death.....

Real & Meaningful Deaths:

G.I. Joe

any

Graphics:

G.I. Joe

could NOT

Robotech

no

So that's my reasoning when I say that G.I. Joe didn't hold a candle to Robotech; and of course, the same thing applied to the rest of the U.S. cartoons as well.....

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