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Answerman - Why Is Anime's Animation Style So Hard To Imitate?

yuna49 wrote:

I'm curious about these American animators who seem to have a grudge against anime. Why? Is it the frame rate? I certainly can recall lots of anime sequences that "flow" just as smoothly as American ones (though I don't watch much American animation these days). Do they dislike the character designs? The lack of attention to mouth flaps? All these seem rather nit-picky to me as an outsider interested only in the aesthetics of the finished works.

American fascism + xenophobia.

"It's Japanese? Those sandal-wearing goldfish tenders?! Get em outta here!! AMERICAN ALL THE WAY!!"

A-holes.

Peter Chung, who has experience in working with American, Japanese and Korean studios has written quite extensively about Japanese animation in another forum:
http://www.pelleas.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=238&start=15

I think using Space Dandy as an example of the Japanese copying American animation really bizarre. "We're All Fools, So Let's All Dance, Baby" especially felt like an homage to Yoshinori Kanada style of animation.

@NearEastern, Its bigoted because one is generalizing over what is by far the world's largest and most complex animation industry. The best hand drawn animation in the world can be found in movies like Akira, Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. Saying bad animation is an aspect of anime is like saying that being ignorant is one aspect of being American (since many are ignorant): its a bigoted belief. And a recent election just showed now even in 2016 bigotry is still a big thing in some countries. Topgunguy hit the nail in the head.

Both American animation and anime have their poorly animated works, but objectively, on the basis of drawings and movement, American animation is better on average. More drawings in a sequence=more fluidity. It's mathematics. You can nitpick about Disney, like I've seen you do, but there is NO anime film that has animation on the level of the Fox and the Hound with its 360,000 drawings. It's also only 83 minutes, so you can do the math.

I'm somewhat willing to concede on the 3D point. Yeah, 3D TV anime doesn't look as good as American movies. That point is objective. However, I wouldn't really say that Japanese 3D animation is worse. The thing is they have different priorities (mainly, trying to get it to look like 2D). Besides, Japanese games have fantastic 3D, so they clearly know how to do it. Just look at Final Fantasy. (Heck, there is a FF anime, and there were people who thought it was live-action. That's how good it looks.)

Space Dandy is a good example of Japanese interpretation of American culture.

Jose Cruz wrote:

Space Dandy is a good example of Japanese interpretation of American culture.

I'm not seeing that, especially animation wise. Yanki subculture has existed in Japan since the 70s and the show's intro has both Gundam and Ideon knock-offs, of which the former was never officially released in the west.

Sure, there's the Chuck Norris reference and Boobies (Hooters/Tilted kilt parody) but there's also an Agnes Lum reference, episode dedicated to ramen, Dandy himself wears traditional Japanese loincloth and Meow's hometown is based on rural Japan. I guess someone could make an argument that it's made/is pandering to Americans, who like 70s and 80s anime but that's about it.