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Back in the early '90s, I recall some people still believing that anime consisted only of movies and one-shots. GITS and Ninja Scroll were thought by them to be the best and only sorts of things anime had to offer. TV series, to them, didn't exist outside of DBZ and the like. These were the people who could probably be described as "casuals" or being ignorant of the full range and value of anime.

Anyone else ever run into people who fell into this group, or try to tell them there's more to anime than udders and gore, or have a good laugh at their limited perception of the genre?

I actually started out as one of these people. Just remember that most people have limited exposure to anime/manga and that most people need a decent knowledge of how to use the internet (torrenting is not idiot friendly, according to my idiot friend lol) to access most of what anime has to offer. That or wait for licensing and then somehow find somewhere to purchase it or purchase it (again) online. Believe it or not a lot of people are still paranoid about buying things on the internet. In terms of local dealers, yeah that's great if you can find one but you have to remember that it's not like anime is advertised on TV (maybe it is for you, but I live in Australia and it certainly isn't here apart from a couple that are aired on CN's adult swim, and I don't have cable tv anymore, along with millions of other people who don't have satellite/cable).

If I didn't have a friend who was into anime and showed me trigun, I would never have been introduced to it. I don't really see the point in scorning for people for being ignorant of something that is far from mainstream.

I think that this assumption came about because those anime movies and OVAs were the big things. Things like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, ext. were quite popular. While on the other hand it's was during this time that the anime series seem to take the back seat in anime fandom. More people wanted more OVAs, so as a result anime series became harder to come by. Because of the lack of internet in the erly 90's, most people couldn't learn about the anime series. But of course times changed and by the time the mid-late 90's rolled around we started to see shows like Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, Neon Genesis Evangelion, ext. started to become big. And now we have to fandom spread that we see today (more or less). At least that's my view on it.

It's funny, but as broken record-ish as it sounds to say it over and over, NGE and CB really DID help break the stereotype of anime being only movies in the US and I think they're two of the big reasons we started to get more full-fledged series. It's funny how that was yet another way Evangelion revolutionized the perception of anime on the other side of the world.

Never thought of it that way, because when I was living in Japan back some ten years ago I was watching anime on TV. So of course I would not have thought of it that way, and I started out watching it in it's coutry of origin anyway.

Last edited by dormcat on Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

fighterholic wrote:

Never thought of it that way, because when I was living in Japan back some ten years ago I was watching anime on TV.

Same here; we've got anime on TV for 35 years (ever since 1974). Back then the majority of TV sets in Taiwan were still black & white models, and my parents didn't even have a TV set in their respective families.

EDIT: fixed a typo.

dormcat wrote:

fighterholic wrote:

Never thought of it that way, because when I was living in Japan back some ten years ago I was watching anime on TV.

Same here; we've got anime on TV for 35 years (ever since 1974).

And the same here. I first came into contact with anime when my family moved to Hong Kong in the early 1970s (I was a "shipping brat"), and I was exposed to giant robots and not-yet-plagiarized-by-Disney leonine royalty. I think it's safe to say that, from the start, I never viewed animation as anything other than a general-purpose medium, equally adaptable for one-shot big-screen use and for serialized TV entertainment.

- abunai
ロケットパンチ！

abunai wrote:

And the same here. I first came into contact with anime when my family moved to Hong Kong in the early 1970s (I was a "shipping brat"), and I was exposed to giant robots and not-yet-plagiarized-by-Disney leonine royalty. I think it's safe to say that, from the start, I never viewed animation as anything other than a general-purpose medium, equally adaptable for one-shot big-screen use and for serialized TV entertainment.

By Disney plagarization, I imagine you're refering to the case where Disney was accused of ripping off Kimba the White Lion with The Lion King? I remember hearing of that one. Laughing

As for the subject of this thread, seeing Sailor Moon in the mid-1990s when aired in syndication broke any notions I had of anime being nothing but one-shot movies like what I saw on Sci-fi Channel when the channel had aired them. I didn't even know what OAVs were until the early 2000s when my interest in anime started to take a rise.

Ggultra2764 wrote:

By Disney plagarization, I imagine you're refering to the case where Disney was accused of ripping off Kimba the White Lion with The Lion King? I remember hearing of that one. Laughing

That's exactly right, though "accused of" is ridiculously inadequate to describe a situation where one would have to be deaf, blind, retarded, and on the Disney payroll to deny that plagiarism took place.

This wasn't a case of an honest artistic hommage. It was outright and blatant plagiarism, made so much worse by the ignorant arrogance of Disney -- to think that they expected to get away with it -- and further compounded by their persistent refusal to deliver a very, very humble nostra culpa.

- abunai

I know I'd (partially) seen several anime series before I stumbled across my first anime movie, so I never held that stereotype myself. Even for someone like me who didn't regularly watch Toonami, its exposure was broad enough that one couldn't help but notice the existence of animated Japanese TV programming.

abunai wrote:

Ggultra2764 wrote:

By Disney plagarization, I imagine you're refering to the case where Disney was accused of ripping off Kimba the White Lion with The Lion King? I remember hearing of that one. Laughing

That's exactly right, though "accused of" is ridiculously inadequate to describe a situation where one would have to be deaf, blind, retarded, and on the Disney payroll to deny that plagiarism took place.

This wasn't a case of an honest artistic hommage. It was outright and blatant plagiarism, made so much worse by the ignorant arrogance of Disney -- to think that they expected to get away with it -- and further compounded by their persistent refusal to deliver a very, very humble nostra culpa.

- abunai

Ah, but it is as they say in Hollywood: "Amateurs borrow. Experts steal."

I actually saw a lot more of Hamlet in Lion King than I did Kimba but I've no doubt they sapped inspiration from both. I think pretty highly of the directors behind that film (or did until they made that GOD-AWFUL Atlantis movie,) so I can't begrudge them recognizing a good mold and using it for the cake they ultimately created. Kimba and the Lion King are eerily similar, but they're not the same story, or at the very least, they aren't told with the same tone. (Face it, Disney's been in business for years and years and years, but the first truly original story they did was in 2001, with Lilo and Stitch. Thank god for Pixar. Pixar >>> Disney, heeee.)

JesuOtaku wrote:

Ah, but it is as they say in Hollywood: "Amateurs borrow. Experts steal."

As I prefer to put it: "Admirers borrow. Lowlives steal." It's the fundamental difference between inspiration and plagiarism.

JesuOtaku wrote:

I actually saw a lot more of Hamlet in Lion King than I did Kimba but I've no doubt they sapped inspiration from both.

It's not "inspiration" when:

A) The whole thing is pretty much a copy of all major details, down to similar names and characters.
B) You refuse to admit it.

In fact, the really criminal bit is part B. You can get away with the most amazing degree of copying, if you give credit where credit is due. But if you claim it's your original idea... you are scum.

OOh, waitaminute. I just had a great idea. I think I'll write a story about a kid with a lightning-shaped scar on his head, who discovers that he can do magic, and gets involved in a mysterious world of intrigue surrounding the evil magician who killed his parents. I'll call him "Larry Kotter", and if anyone claims I copied the idea, I'LL SUE THEIR PANTS OFF, because it is a completely original idea.

Yeah.

JesuOtaku wrote:

I think pretty highly of the directors behind that film (or did until they made that GOD-AWFUL Atlantis movie,) so I can't begrudge them recognizing a good mold and using it for the cake they ultimately created. Kimba and the Lion King are eerily similar, but they're not the same story, or at the very least, they aren't told with the same tone.

I disagree with your opinion, 100%. "Eerily similar"? What a fantastically dismissive way to put it, when the "eerie similarities" amount to a near-carbon-copy.

And it still doesn't address the real problem: Disney claims they didn't "recognize a good mould and use it", as you put it. They claim there is no similarity between Tezuka's anime and their film -- that their product is original and in no way derivative.

That is such a bald-faced lie, the mind boggles.

JesuOtaku wrote:

(Face it, Disney's been in business for years and years and years, but the first truly original story they did was in 2001, with Lilo and Stitch. Thank god for Pixar. Pixar >>> Disney, heeee.)

On this we agree.

- abunai

abunai wrote:

Ggultra2764 wrote:

By Disney plagarization, I imagine you're refering to the case where Disney was accused of ripping off Kimba the White Lion with The Lion King? I remember hearing of that one. Laughing

That's exactly right, though "accused of" is ridiculously inadequate to describe a situation where one would have to be deaf, blind, retarded, and on the Disney payroll to deny that plagiarism took place.

This wasn't a case of an honest artistic hommage. It was outright and blatant plagiarism, made so much worse by the ignorant arrogance of Disney -- to think that they expected to get away with it -- and further compounded by their persistent refusal to deliver a very, very humble nostra culpa.

- abunai

And while I have my memory in check, I also remember fans of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water protesting earlier in the decade that Disney stole ideas of the series for Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Ggultra2764 wrote:

And while I have my memory in check, I also remember fans of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water protesting earlier in the decade that Disney stole ideas of the series for Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

True enough, though the Lion King plagiarism came first.

- abunai

Is it ironic that despite all the legal insanity surrounding Kimba, Disney would be the company to release a lot of Miyazaki's films in the US? Though I've never seen Kimba, it's downright foolish to do what Disney did, and to not give an acknowledgment, not so much as a nod of approval, that they were inspired by a Japanese series that came quite some time before they saw fit to rape it for its concepts and characters?

But yeah, Pixar is the ONLY good thing about Disney anymore. The fact that Disney's own attempts at CG films pale in the shadow of the works of the world's top CGI animation studio speaks volumes.

Sorry for the rant, I used to have so much respect for Disney but they've clogged our TVs with such shameless crap as High School Barf Fest and Generic Tween Dramedy #3302 that it's gotten disgusting.

To get us back on course, I wonder if CPM helped contribute to this old perception -- they licensed a lot of (admittedly bad, but still) OVAs and movies, though that was Manga's modus operandi at one point as well.

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