Forum - View topicWhy can't westerners ,who draw manga,draw,ink and color like authentic japanese style?
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TheAnimeRevolutionizer
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Manga and Anime; noun. A style of sequential art originated from the nation of Japan that is distinguished by anatomical features that exaggerate and accentuate the human body, or other beings wise to varied degrees to exemplify various themes, moods, and settings as according to the literary and/or expressive content. Eyes and hair are two of its most defining attributes. That brings me to my questions. When it came to Image actually pushing out those comics, why haven't I heard about them? Why is it that whenever I go to any information outlet these days on comics that's not on the surface? I'm glad that they're out and about, and you can chastise me for not being proactive about this, but I think it's pretty bad that with what Image is doing isn't getting the front page in the comics industry. Now I'd like to know more about them. As for the matter of being influenced by anime and manga, that's where I draw the line. What I meant up there was to artists who legit want to create within the style itself, and not merely just drawing influence from anime and manga. Those who have drawn inspiration than pursuing the medium itself I don't mind at all. They're actually doing something. Those who do want to make manga and even the rarely traversed path of anime I encourage and press on, because I honestly feel we're going to need to agree to disagree. I'm not going to lie, I have my perspectives, and so do you too. I can tell that you're trying to get me to broaden my horizons and not unfairly place manga as superior, and that I can get behind. But again, I honestly think that while both manga and comics have hurdles, comics has them regarding again, literary stigmas and aforementioned creative hurdles. If anything however, Image and other smaller creators and publishers may rise up bigger in the future. I'm liking that possibility. Manga on the other hand has issues of inspirational complacency, and even better yet
I'm just going to end here and leave this topic open for discussion. Walk a good path! |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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So, basically what all comics do? That's not a definition, that's a word stew you can apply to all forms of sequential art.
They really hard to miss if you do any of the below: -Occassionaly walk into a comic book store (most of the ones I frequent have separate shelves for Image, just like they do for DC and Marvel) -Speak to other fans -Occassionally read a blog about comics And perhaps you have heard of some of their series without being aware they come for the same publishers. Some of the titles are really, really hard to miss afterall. If you know The Walking Dead television series is based on a comic, you know an Image comic. If you've seen a series called Saga snag 3-4 Eisner Awards every year, you know another one 
If you're really interested in expanding your horizons, I recommend: -visiting Image's website and browse for a bit -ask someone who's into American comics for some recommendations that might suit your tastes -look up some 'top non-superhero comics' lists like this one, they're a great place to start when you want to try something new but don't know what.
There's no definable 'manga style' though. Whatever you try to come up with, it will exclude artists who don't draw in a style that's currently popular in Japan. And if you ask me, those people are often some of the most noteworthy creators. As a creator, you shouldn't feel the need to force yourself into some imaginary box. Of course, the industry is all about putting artists in boxes for publication and marketing reasons, but there's huge variety of boxes available, so why not try and find a nice big one that can house as much of your identity as a creator as possible?
Hey, the future is now! Some of the things you mentioned were certainly true decades ago, but American comics have come a long way in the new millennium. Time to toss that prejudice aside and give non-Japanese creators a chance. It's not fair to judge them before you do
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Can you give an example? To me American comic book heroes look realistic men but with steroids. The level of stylization never reaches this level: 
Well, Japanese civilization and Western civilization are two distinct civilizations with different aesthetic ideals. This difference in culture explains why Japan developed comics and animation as fully fledged mass mediums while comics and animation are more restricted in the West (although they have been improving a little bit).
I never claimed all anime and manga are unrealistic looking. In fact among my favorite manga I list Lone Wolf and Cub and Vagabond both which are more realistic than most Western comics.
American animation is stylized but it is not dignified stylization. Western cartoon: 
Anime: 
In the first case it is obvious the makers are not trying to make something beautiful. In the second case we see the concept of beaty applied to highly stylized images. This is the meaning of "anime": it is a cartoon that takes itself seriously. The second case is dignified stylization while the first case is not.
My point is that such type of expression: to appear cute and "childish" on the surface but to be extremely brutal underneath, is unique to Japanese aesthetic culture and doesn't exist in the Western world. It's a subversive popular art that has more in common with hardcore punk rock and heavy metal than with Western visual arts.
No. I don't know why you think that's insulting. It is pretty obvious to me that Western cartoons when they are highly stylized are never dignified. Or at least I haven't seem one that is simultaneously dignified and stylized.
I think there are important differences between the two cases. First, there doesn't exist the Western equivalent of "pretty girl art" aimed at general or even adult audiences. Second, they never used a substantial degree of complexity in making these images. Let's compare: Western cute: 
Japanese cute: 
Note the enormous difference in the degree of complexity between the two images. It is obvious the second image took an enormously greater degree of effort to be made. Why is that? Because western culture doesn't put value in this kind of image while Japan puts value and so artists devote themselves to a far greater degree. That's dignification.
They are realistically rendered superhuman. They don't look like typical people hence "unrealistic" but they look like men on steroids. While Clannad's characters are completely divorced from reality: they look almost like insects instead of people.
Precisely, restricted to me is the most accurate word. That's the difference between Western and Japanese sequential art and animation. Western stuff adheres to a very narrow and very rigid set of rules while Japanese comics and animation are relatively unrestricted. I don't know if they are completely unrestricted but they are far less restricted than western stuff. That explains the enormous difference in popularity of comics and animation in Japan. Per capita the sales of comics in Japan were about 500 times the sales in North America measured in number of pages. This difference in popularity emerged from the fact the much higher diversity of Japanese stuff thanks to its less restrictive norms allowed broader demographic penetration. To achieve the same degree of popularity in the US as they have in Japan comic book sales would need to increase from its present level of about 900 million dollars to ca. 20 billion dollars.
I think its is a horrible thing. It explains why Western comics never evolved from "cartoons" into a truly diverse artistic medium.
Japan's manga sales declined because people read manga in their cellphones, tablets and computers. Sales of tankoboun manga are constant over the past 20 years at about 500-550 million books per year. It's the physical magazines that are dying not sequential art. While there hasn't been any big change in the US comic book industry. It gotten slightly bigger but it still is a tiny fraction of publishing market. Current fraction of publishing market occupied by comics in selected countries: US - 2% France - 8% Japan - 40% In US comics grew from 1% about 15 years ago to 2% today. While in Japan comics are a larger fraction of the publishing market than novels. The collapse of physical magazine sales didn't change that fact because cellphone comics are generating about 150 billion yen in revenues which compensate for the loss of revenue from physical magazines. Actually, since physical magazines had a high production cost their sales didn't generate profits but served only to promote the sales of tankobouns and merchandise while digital manga sales are pure profit for the companies.
I am not saying that anime and manga are superior to their western equivalents. I am saying that there does not exist western equivalents for anime and manga. Western comics are mainly superhero stuff or 3 panel jokes and western animation is simplistic children's stuff or 3 panel animated jokes. Where is the Western equivalent to Evangelion, Made in Abyss, Lone Wolf and Cub or Ashita no Joe? There isn't any. Western comics have not developed the same dynamic reading style characterized by cinematic techniques. It was Ozamu Tezuka who developed that "manga sense of time". In other words, there does not exist the same type of art in the Western world. Western comics feel more like novels with pictures rather than Japanese comics. Japanese comic artists and animators make little money because they are doing what they love and are willing to do it for subsistence pay. Western comic and animation artists have to be paid more because they lack the same passion for what they do so you have to compensate that with more money. In well developed artistic mediums in the West like music, lots of amateur bands exist and they make zero money. In fact the most influential extreme metal band of all time Bathory from Sweden, only managed to maintain itself because Quorton was rich and so could support his artistic project. Western music is very much like anime and manga: the top artists make a lot of money (Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones) while the bulk of the professional artists earn subsistence pay and there are more amateur artists than professionals. Why there are music artists working in the West making little money while animators and comic book artists make more money? Because music is a dignified artform in the West while comics and animation are not. So animators and comic book artists need to be paid more to compensate.
I think that's a bit ethnocentric to say. Amateur manga artists tend to produce work of lower quality than professional artists in the same way garage metal bands tend to produce lower quality music than well stablished metal veterans like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Or fanfiction versus literature. Of course they tend to be less original because being original is very, very hard. This applies to all artistic. mediums. We don't have doujinshi in the West because we lack a sophisticated comic book culture in the West. Our equivalent to doujinshi are the garage rock bands or maybe the webcomic artists. |
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TheAnimeRevolutionizer
Posts: 329 |
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HACKED IN: Anime Revolutionizer's friend here. As Mick (his real name, hahaha) is out for errands, I have the controls now.
Jose Cruz's got it right. That's all Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Don't tell Mick I was here. muhuhahahahahhahaah k thanks bai |
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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1. There's a lot more to American comics than bulky men drawn by Rob Liefeld. Don't you think it's stupid to judge an entire country's comics industry by your own (very dated) prejudices? You're no better than the people who claim manga is nothing but big eyes and big tits. Some of the comics I read look like this: 
or this 
(From 'Sentinels', a story in Flight volume 7.) What did you say again about stylisation? 2. It's funny that you bring up Naoki Urasawa. He lists Osamu Tezuka as one of his biggest influences, and Tezuka's style (especially pre-gekiga) was immensely influenced by American animation. Urusawa actually does some things that are highly uncommon in the moe style you seem to consider the definition of manga: he draws a huge variety of faces and bodies.
Last time I checked, Japan opened up some 150 years ago. Japan and its art are not as isolated as you think. Their comcis and animation industry involved not only alongside but entwined with the western ones. Take Disney for instance, the Japanese were able to see movies like Bambi in movie theatres just like our (great)grandparents. Tezuka saw it over 80 times and even draw manga based on it. He loved movies in general, but Disney was one of the main reasons he wanted to get into animation himself. The reason Japan was able to establish itself as an animation country was partly because of western series being produced in Japan. Jobs where cheaper there than in, say, North America. Some studios even specialised in jobs from overseas. Ever heard of Topcraft? They did a lot of wrok for Rankin/Bass, with one of their most wellknown made-for-the-west movies being the Last Unicorn. Their actual most wellknown animated movie is Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The studio later went bankrupt and was bought by Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki and Isao Takahata, who turned it into Studio Ghibli. Japanese comics were also not created in a vacuum. It's hard to pinpoint when manga as we know it today took shape, but some of its roots go back to pre-war western-style satire magazines such as Japan Punch. Another important era is post-war Japan, when American entertainment, including comics, became more easily available in Japan. Not that the Japanese weren't familair with the superhero genre already back then. Batman appeared in kamishibai stories and it can easily be debated that they were ahead of the Americans: Ogon Bat, their first superhero, first appeared back in 1931.
You're attacking your own argument. What happened to manga being stylised per definition? Isn't your definition actually: Manga - The type of comics I like drawn in styles I like, often created in Japan. Because really, that's what most who try to argue 'manga is a style' end up doing. They don't really know what else is out there, but they have this notion that comics that are not from Japan can't be good, because they believe - need to believe - they are a fan of the 'right' thing. They don't want to see that there are connections between industries and individual creators everywhere, they need to believe that the thing they like is special. Special and better than everything else.
What's not dignified about it? Or what, exactly, is dignified about drawing young women as childlike as possible to appeal to some questionable but common fetishes? Or what is dignified about the silly yet awesome and often impossible poses in JoJo? What's dignified about the lowbrow visual humour in Mr. Osomatsu? Do I need to go on? Western cartoon: In the first case it is obvious the makers are not trying to make something beautiful. In the second case we see the concept of beaty applied to highly stylized images. This is the meaning of "anime": it is a cartoon that takes itself seriously. The second case is dignified stylization while the first case is not.[/quote] Well, knowing little girls and having been one for a decent amount of time right around the time My Little Ponies came into excistance, I can guarantee you that the current show is something many little girls find pretty. And, as an adult, the show is also pretty appealing to look at. It's a lovingly designed and colourful world filled with easy to recognise characters. From a design point of few, I would call it beautiful.
Uh... you weren't around for Happy Tree Friends, where you? Contrasting content with style is not an uniquely Japanese thing. Lots of people all over the world have figured out how that works. Like... ever heard of When the Wind Blows? It's British graphic novel from 1982 that turned into an animated movie in 1986. On the surface it looks like a sweet tale of elderly couple during the Cold War. Let's just say it turns quite bleak. 
Not to mention that there are plenty of anime that are cute for the sake of being cute.
No. I don't know why you think that's insulting. It is pretty obvious to me that Western cartoons when they are highly stylized are never dignified. Or at least I haven't seem one that is simultaneously dignified and stylized.[/quote] Again, what is it that, according to you, makes Japanese stylisation 'dignified'?
Actually, the west does have a history of drawing cute and sexy girls, it's just not as prevalent as in Japan, which never seems to have taken as strongly to photos and film as the west. Pin-up girl art is very much a thing though. Or, if you want something innocent: girls' comics. Not just a Japanese thing. I grew up reading old issues of Tina(like a Dutch version of Bunty, mostly from the 70s, and covers often looked like this: [img]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c9/c8/58/c9c858a98a907245c6e70f6780037152--lag-sentiment.jpg[img] Nowadays some Dutch girls' (comic) magazines and other products look more like this: [img]http://t.jwwb.nl/6THrW7iwF2QJYoZAJUMwn-iSHf0=/317x0/f.jwwb.nl%2Fpublic%2Fy%2Fn%2Fa%2Ftemp-djdhgxqdlgtinsyudpzo%2Ftopmodel.jpg[/img] Second, they never used a substantial degree of complexity in making these images. Let's compare:
Greater effort? Are you shitting me? Just because something looks simple does not mean it was simple to make. First of all, we're looking at animated shows here. If you want to talk about differences, you have to look at differences in practices in the modern American and Japanese animation industries first. Anime tends to be animated very efficiently, to the point where there might not be animation at all, just the same still image for an entire cut. Japanese animation often times means shortcuts. Even K-ON, which was better off budgetwise than many other series, had to cut corners here and there, saving large chunks of its animation budget for moneyshots like the girls actually making music. Common tricks include only animating minimal amounts of the image, such as just the mouth, panning over stills, reusing footage and so on. Other anime use tricks like only using a few frames of animation per second, often resulting in something that looks rather stiff and unnatural. There's a reason why anime with better animation often feature simple designs: they're easier to animate well. If you look at the top sakuga shows of the past year or so, you won't see many pretty girls (though many of the bigger shows do have a few scenes were the animators get to show off a little). The real stars there are shows like Mob Psycho 100. And then we come to western animation practices. They also look for ways to save time and money here too, of course, but many creators do want to try to stick to an even 12 frames per second. Another differences is that western animation tends to have more complex mouth movements. In Japan recording voices is done after the animation is (mostly) done. Keeping the mouth movements simple makes it easier to match voice to video. In America, recording the voices first and animating the characters to match is the norm. Different practices translate to different animation, but you're really doing a disserve to Japanese animation by saying K-ON is the one true shining example of anime. Cute girl shows are just one aspect of the industry.
Haha. No. Many American comic artists are not too great with anatomy. If you want to see some of the worst of the worst again, you can go back to that Rob Liefeld gallery. Not to mention that there are so many artists that simply draw in a very stylised way. If you've ever seen a woman, you know that this is in no way realistic: 
(Doesn't make Nextwave any less hilarious and awesome though.)
Say, what are these 'rules'? There's a huge variety of artists and styles to be found in western comics, what are these rules they all adhere to according to you? Also, if we're regarding trends or tropes as rules... If 'consistency of style' is a rule, 'distortion of style' is a rule as well, since many artists just use the same variations others before them used (blazing angry face, chibi style, Kazuo Umezo reference and so on).
Nope, you're skipping over (or simply have never heard of) a very important difference. America used to have a thriving comic industry up until the 50s. A backlash from the religious side gave birth to the Comic Code Authority, which made it nearly impossible for publishers to sell books that weren't approved. This killed entire genres, such as romance, crime and horor, within just a few years. For decades, there wasn't much available aside from the funnies from Archie Comics and the superhero comics from DC and Marvel, which were all nice clean tales about good versus evil. By the time the industry was starting to shake off the CCA influence, comics had already gained the reputation of being dumb entertainment for little kinds and men who didn't want to grow up. The industry is well on its way to recovery now, but compared to the manga industry, it missed out on decades of nearly unrestricted growth. In the case of European comics, the reason for decline varies per country, but just like in Japan, other media grabbing consumers' attention played a big role.
Should you really be saying this when it's so clear you have no idea what's going on in comic industries outside of Japan? Western comics are diverse in content, style and audience. Just because you have no clue what's out there does not mean those comics don't exist.
Not exactly. While readership of digital manga is one the rise, it's far from the only thing people are using their cellphones for. Plus, as it is, the industry still revolves around weekly/monthly anthologies. While some artists are picked up by a publisher thanks to a succesful webcomic, the normal way to go at it still debuting in a magazine and work up to having a series in there.
Look, I'm not saying Japan isn't publishing an impressive amount of comics, but that percentage is one of the industries weak spots. The market is oversaturated and few artists can make a decent living. Besides, wouldn't you say that quality is more important than quantity? It's easy to forget because most US publishers focus on the better stuff (and even then we see turds float by), but a large percentage of Japanese comics is just trite shite.
Oh, you are? You have a funny way of saying it then. "Undignified", "restricted" - those are just some of your words.
Here's an idea: instead of staying inside your little world, step out and see what's actually out there. It's pretty obvious you don't have a clue what kind of comics the rest of the world has to offer. I can easily turn your question around: Where's the Japanese Persepolis? Where's the Japanese Waltz with Bashir? Where's the Japanese Watership Down? You're not going to find that either, because just like Neon Genesis Evangelion can only be Neon Genesis Evangelion (and like, uh, a few dozen spin-offs/alternate takes one/WTFs), Persepolis can only be Persepolis. You're not going to find any 'this exact thing but made elsewhere' anywhere.
Actually, western comic artists have been inspired by his paneling as far back as the eighties (and perhaps even further back). Frank Miller was a fan of decompressed and dynamic storytelling. Not to mention that Tezuka's style is not the only layout style used in manga. His style is his own, and if you look at the styles and techniques used in Japanese comics as a whole, you'll find influences from the gekiga movement (stark and simple paneling), the shojo artists of the 70s (collages and the abscenes of panels) and so on. And again, Tezuka had his own influences.
And there you go again with the insults. Have you ever been in a position where you have to let yourself be taken advantage of to be able to do the thing you love? It's not a good thing. It's not something you should want to happen to people. The fact that some mangaka have literally worked themselves to death is not something to be celebrated. The fact that beginning animators are paid so little they can't even support themselves financially is not something the Japanese animation industry should be proud of.
Which still means someone was paying for it. I don't know if you've noticed, but people need money to eat and keep a roof above their heads. You can't just expect people to work on a professional level without some form of income that covers their basic needs.
Except that it's not. In Japan, when you get to the point you have your own serial, you can consider yourself a professional, because maintaining a serial is pretty much a fulltime job. However, that doesn't mean you get paid a fulltime's worth. Page rates can be very low and artists have to pay their assistants out of their own pockets (that's the reason why it's not uncommon for shojo mangaka to list family members as assistants). Things get better if the tankobon sales are good, but many don't quite reach that point.
And now you're implying western animators and comic artists are in it for the money... You have no idea how difficult it is to enter the industry, do you? Job opportunities are limited, not to mention that American artists accumulate huge debts as student they have to pay off even if they don't land a job in the industry. And again, exploiting people is not a cool thing to do. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to not tolerate.
Dude. The west has underground and self-published comics. It's one of the reasons the American comic industry started to get back on its feed in the 80s. Webcomics are the reason more and more western comic artists are able to support themselves with their work and even get other jobs in the industry. Some of my acquantences and friends are among them. Aimee de Jongh is now an internationally published graphic novel artist, but I remember the days she was glad to have sold enough copies of self-published work to be able to afford pizza and the train ride home. Again, don't judge entire industries when you know nothing about them! |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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There is no such thing as "moe style". And I never said it was the definition of manga. Clearly you are not willing to understand my perspective and you feel insulted by it so you shut your eyes close and pretend I do not know what I am talking about.
Yet they are distinct civilizations. The distinct aesthetic ideals of Western and Japanese civilization produced very different visual cultures. The fact these civilizations have been interacting doesn't change these facts. You appear to believe that there doesn't exist any cultural differences between Japan and the West and hence you deny the impact of these (enormous) cultural differences on their visual cultures. Western visual culture is dominated by photographic images. Even western videogames are becoming closer and closer to live action film while more stylized western visual cultures (such as webcomics) are extremely underground and not dignified. Take Michelangelo's David: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/%27David%27_by_Michelangelo_Fir_JBU002.jpg/1200px-%27David%27_by_Michelangelo_Fir_JBU002.jpg, one of the best examples of Western art. David achieves beauty by reproducing with maximum realism the human figure. Western culture values physical realism and so it's most stemmed creations tend to be realistic. Stylized images are not taken seriously in Western culture and so they haven't been able to achieve beauty with that type of visual art. Hence why comics and animation have not really developed as artistic mediums in the West: the Western mindset is blocked in many ways regarding these mediums. Japanese culture doesn't work under the same aesthetic principles. At least not deep down although they pay lip service to Western aesthetic principles in their "official mainstream visual culture" of doramas and samurai movies and the like. But the fact is that the Japanese mindset allows for the dignification of stylized images which allowed for manga to explode into this vast and diverse medium that we have today. Since Western culture lacks the same mindset their comics and animation have been severely restricted and castrated. Hence why when Rikiishi from Ashita no Joe died Japan hosted a funeral for the character. Such a mindset is alien to Western sensibilities. By the way, the existence of Western postmodern art doesn't negate the Western perception of beauty being equated with physical realism. Contemporary art is not trying to be beautiful but to redefine the concept of Western art away from beauty into a more intellectual symbolic perspective that is also very elitist. Manga art is not like contemporary art because it is accessible and popular like classical western art and is also trying to be beautiful but using different methods to achieve that aim.
Of course not. You should try reading what I wrote and not what your mind conjures in it's place. Manga is comics made by the Japanese civilization. They are characterized first and foremost by their dynamic sense of time, cinematic nature and their generally more abstract/stylized styles (such as showing the characters' emotions through explicit visual representations and representing characters using a small number of lines). In essence it consists of the distortion of space and time to convey emotions. While it's possible to find some Western comics that do those things there is an enormous difference in the average degree in which those characteristics are present in Japanese comics if compared to comics from other parts of the world.
The perception of Western fans that manga is special derives from the reality that manga is in fact special, it is very special indeed. This perception is not restricted to Western fans but it is also to Japanese intellectuals. In fact, some Japanese intellectuals argued that comics are a Japanese art form while (live action) film and literature are western mediums. See: Kinsella, Adult Manga (2000). To me this difference is tremendously obvious. Just from watching a single Miyazaki movie like My Neighbor Totoro or Wind Rises one can notice an ocean of difference between Japanese animation and comics and Western animation and comics. In My Neighbor Totoro we have images of great beauty and complexity, animation is done like a moving impressionistic painting and still highly stylized, while the film feels like a highly realistic psychological slice of life film which has no plot and focuses on situation and has more in common with Ozu, Naruse and Italian neorealist cinema than with any Western animation and comic book. It is a highly elegant work of visual art done in animation. My Neighbor Totoro is something very unlike any Western comics and animation I ever ever experienced, it is a true timeless artistic masterpiece like Michelangelo's David or Beethoven's 9th, operating at a far higher level than any western cartoon ever hoped to be in. While Wind Rises is a very serious historical biographical film characterized also by the same aesthetic elements that Totoro is and that do not exist in Western animation and comics. Hence just from watching a single movie like those one can easily notice an enormous difference between Japanese and Western aesthetic sensibilities regarding "cartoons".
First it appears you cannot understand and/or deny the difference in perception between Japanese people and Western people regarding stylized images. Yourself is failing for it when you cannot see the enormous difference in attitude that is manifested relative to cartoons between Made in Abyss and Bojack Horsemen. Why don't you not try to read my previous post again? Also, calling some Japanese styles "questionable fetishes" is really ethnocentric and insulting. You are shutting off your eyes and refusing to dialogue with Japanese visual culture when you think like that. I have a different approach: instead of judging things using my preconceived prejudices I try to understand things.
I also appreciated the small and faint elements of beauty of Family Guy actually. But you are acting blind to the enormous difference between finding some faint elements of beauty in one western children's cartoon and from Japan's animation industry that produces 150 seasons of beautiful animation aimed at adults every year. This is not a small difference and this cannot be easily ignored.
I know those two examples and they are very distinct from Made in Abyss. First, none of these two examples are trying to be beautiful while Made in Abyss is. Second, Happy Tree Friends is just very low brown comedy while When the Wind Blows is a bit more sophisticated but still heavily constrained by restrictions of western aesthetic sensibilities. I liked When the Wind Blows quite a lot actually. But you pointing out to stuff like that as being the western equivalent to Made in Abyss makes it even more obvious how remote Made in Abyss is from anything that exists in Western visual culture.
Of course. Which is something that doesn't exist in the west: highly concentrated slabs of pure cuteness aimed at adults like Is the Order a Rabbit and K-On! is something also very unique to Japan. While stuff like Madoka and Made in Abyss takes it a step further into uniquely Japanese aesthetic sensibilities by combining cuteness with horror, cruelty and sadism. That's highly subversive stuff and it goes directly against basic cultural principles of Western culture.
Wasn't the aesthetic differences between Bojack Horseman and Made in Abyss obvious? The latter is dignified aesthetic the former is not. How can you not see that? Again another example using an american cartoon you cited before: not dignified stylization: 
dignified: 
The Japanese mindset allows themselves to be fully engaged by stylized representations and so they see no problem with making manga and anime about daily life, characterized by high level of visual complexity and high degree of stylization simultaneously like Shirobako. In the west they use comics and animation to do stuff they cannot do with live action because they regard live action as being inherently superior to stylized animation and comics. And when they try to do serious animation and comics they usually try to make then as realistic as possible like the documentary movie Wazlts with Bashir. Well, perhaps the best example of the different attitudes toward stylization between Westerners and Japanese is the fact that Japanese have no problem being sexually aroused by highly stylized images while Western anime fans tend to act like they are castrated people around manga and anime and are often horrified by fan-service. You for instance is personally horrified by the though of highly stylized "moe" characters sexually arousing Japanese men calling it a "questionable fetish". That is because Western culture considers stylized images inferior to photographic realism and hence they regard as an absurdity and react horrified to the concept that people might be sexually aroused by highly stylized cartoons. Which explains why western cartoons have no fan-service. It's beyond the Western mindset to allow themselves to be aroused by cartoons. Hence, Western culture is still today severely sexually repressed in the aesthetic realm. A Japanese scholar even characterized Western comics and animation as castrated. Which is indeed the case: even you are now completely ignoring this dimension of comics and animation.
Those are not heavily stylized.
The older one is not heavily stylized while the new one is highly stylized but that's perhaps due to several decades of Japanese influence.
The US comic industry will never remotely attain the relative size of the manga industry in Japan. It's growth is still very slow: US comic book sales today corrected by inflation are only about 60% larger than 20 years ago, that is, a growth of 35% in per capita terms over the past 20 years and they still need to grow by 2,000% in per capita terms to achieve the same relative size as the Japanese comic book industry. Hence it will take about 250-300 years for the US comic book industry to become as developed as the Japanese if they maintain their rate of growth over the past 20 years. Of course that will never happen. US comic pages sales per capita were 0.2% of Japanese sales in the 90's and today the difference is smaller, as US sales increased to 0.4% of Japanese sales in pages per capita. To expect full convergence based on this tiny improvement is ludicrous.
I never claimed there doesn't exist Western comics diverse in content, style and audience. But there is a very clear difference between Japanese comics and their enormous diversity and popularity, since in Japan physical sales in the 1990's were about 15 times larger than movie ticket sales and comics in Western countries which are a very restricted niche. This enormous difference in popularity is due to intrinsic aesthetic differences between Japanese visual culture and Western visual culture. And it is not something that is going to change in the near future. It might take several generations for westerners to become accustomed to be notion that being sexually aroused to cartoons is normal. When that happens then we will see some real progress in Western comics and animation.
Your perception of majority of manga being shite is a consequence of your ethnocentrism and is also Eurocentric arrogance: Westerners are very quick to dismiss the artistic output of other cultures as garbage. There is nothing more ethnocentric than a Western calling the visual culture of a foreign civilization "shite". It is ludicrous and extremely ignorant. Manga is a very different and sophisticated visual language that doesn't really exist in the West. Even the more cinematic Western comics like Walking Dead look like manga from the 1950's in terms of panel layout and organization. The level of refinement, abstraction and sophistication in manga visual language as it exists today far exceeds anything so far produced in the West. As a result I have never read Western comics or watched Western cartoons that remotely approximate the level of beauty and emotional power of the greatest masterpieces in manga and anime. Or even the raw entertainment value of manga like One Punch Man. To me it is not even remotely comparable when I look at Western stuff it reminds me of manga from the 1950's in terms of panel layout and organization and they feel very restricted and limited both aesthetically and in terms of themes and writing. Look at walking dead: if is just an bunch of ugly rednecks and zombies killing each other, there is nothing interesting to see there: it is just crude proletarian escapism. While a manga like School Live although sharing some similarities with walking dead has more interesting characters that transgress social expectations and due to their fragility as cute little girls are able to communicate emotions that mainstream western culture regards as inappropriate for adult males, who dominate Western comics and are supposed to be stoic, to articulate. Besides having much better art as well as more interesting panel organizatin and it's easier to "read".
It is your mind that is connecting "superiority" with "undignified", "restricted". I never used the word and I will never will because it is not an accurate word when comparing cultures. An accurate characterization is that Japanese civilization has developed animation and comics to a much greater extent than Western civilization has. To say that one is "superior" than the other is subjective. The objective fact is that in Japan the field has been developed to a far greater degree than anywhere else. Outside of Japan, at the present moment comics are also more developed than in the West in other Asian countries: Mongolia, Thailand, Korea, China, Taiwan. Hence why most of the international manga award go to Asian artists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Manga_Award
I know Western comics and animation. It was after years of searching in vain for beautiful western comics and animation and deep study of academic work done on Japanese visual culture that I have reached my conclusions about the matter. You, on the other hand, likes to think that cultural differences doesn't exist and that westerners can do everything that the Japanese do. But the reality is far different: cultural environments condition and constrain individual minds and hence the Western cultural environment makes it impossible for Westerners to develop these artistic mediums like Japan does.
There are thousands of biographical mangas done in simplistic aesthetic style. Nothing unique to the West in here.
There are thousands of documentary mangas done in a more or less realistic style. Nothing unique to the West in here.
There are thousands of mangas featuring animals in a relatively realistic style and that have some violence. Nothing unique to the West in here. Actually I think I should comment further on why your examples prove my point. Watership Down for example illustrates the obsession that Western animators have with animals. Why they have that obsession? Because you cannot make animals act in live action and so animation is considered suited for it. Westerners regard photographic realism as inherently superior to stylization and hence think that animation should be restricted to depicting stuff you cannot depict in live action, such as talking animals. Waltz with Bashir is a serious Western documentary film about serious things. Hence, it is done in the most realistic style as possible because Westerners regard photographic realism as inherently superior to stylization and hence think that serious animation should look as realistic as possible. Masterpieces in animated film like Grave of the Fireflies or In this Corner of the World, being highly stylized depictions of super serious historical events done in a psychologically realistic and emotionally powerful fashion are alien to Western aesthetic sensibilities. Persepolis is stylized but it is not beautiful or emotionally very powerful and hence that is what differentiates it from an anime films like Grave of the Fireflies or In this Corner of the World, films whose emotional power does not exist in Western animation.
I never claimed I was looking for the exact same thing. Titles like Saikano, Lain and Evangelion are very different but they share a lot in common in terms of tone, storytelling and style. What Lain, Saikano and Evangelion share in common is unique to anime/manga and doesn't exist in the comics and animation made in the West. These elements are what make these titles masterpieces with great emotional power and extremely memorable style. So far I haven't been able to find anything produced by the comics and animation of Western civilization that approaches these titles' artistic heights.
Inspired yes, but they have not been yet fully able to reproduce the dynamism of manga. At least when I pick some western comics to read randomly they are not in general are characterized by this cinematic dynamism that is so common in manga. They feel more like picture books than proper comics in the Japanese sense of the term. I remember I read some of a Seven Soldiers of Victory comic from 2005, and it felt very much like a collation of pictures that were unrelated to each other rather than a harmonized sequence of panels that was articulating a continuous narrative like you see in manga. Other comics are a bit better but still they do not feel smooth like manga. I guess it is a difference in the degree of refinement of the comic art: in manga from the 50's they are also more clumsy.
I am not making any insults but describing my perspective to you. You shouldn't feel so easily insulted by a perspective different than your perspective which is essentially: "there is nothing special about Japanese visual culture, it has no unique styles and they produce lots of comics sure but most are garbage". Which to me is just ethnocentric arrogance. The fact is that Japanese artists CHOOSE to work for low wages. They could easily choose other jobs that pay higher but they don't because they are willing to work for low pay because they love what they do. This is normal for artists everywhere: because artists don't work for their art as a means to get money but as an end in themselves and so are willing to work for lower wages than in other professions. Western writers and musicians are also poor and do the same. If Pixar's employees are well paid that only means that they are not doing art but just making products like a sausage factory. Also, death by overwork is part of Japanese business culture and not restricted to manga/anime industries. Of course that doesn't mean it is something to be proud of or not. It is just a fact of life.
A human's basic biological needs can be meet with about 1,500 US dollars a year in purchasing power parity. That's more than enough to buy calories and nutrients for the body to survive and to feed one or two children (allowing the proletarian class to reproduce itself). The artist could sleep in a homeless shelter during the winter to not freeze to death or sleep in the studio. Hence, anything more than 1,500 dollars a year is effectively a luxury wage. Even manga and anime artists are paid significantly more than that. 
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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I'm trying really hard to not crack up.
Here's some background: 1. I happen to be the editor-in-chief of an anime and manga magazine entirely made by volunteers. We aren't paid a dime but have been around for over 15 years and you can actually find us in regular bookstores among all the professionally magazines. I know a lot of folks who take their passion very seriously even when they haven't gotten to the point (yet) where they can actually support themselves doing what they love. Claiming that this attitude is unique to Japan is really insulting. 2. You really, really want to watch out when you say stylisation is a Japanese thing. It's prevalent in art styles all over the world and has been seen the beginning of art. Look at some cave paintings and tell me those do not show a simplified version of reality. Or, if you want something a little more recent, there was a Dutch movement apply named [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Stijl[/url] De Stijl that was all about stylisation. And that just one dot in the massive painting that makes up European art history. You know what your problem is? Your taking one image and say 'this is an example of everything!'. Which does nothing but hurt your own arguments, because Made in Abyss is obviously not Akira or whatever other important anime or manga might come to mind. It, by itself, can not represent Japanese animation. It's just one example of what's currently happening within the industry. Similarly, you can't say Steven Universe or Bojack Horseman represent all of modern American cartoons, they're part of a (growing) spectrum. And that's what makes your point so confusing: you skip around trying to prove something by stacking examples that disprove earlier arguments. Now you bring of One-Punch Man? Yeah, that's a wonderful example of over-the-top cinematic action draw right. But I'm not entirely sure why you're trying to compare it to The Walking Dead. Sure, it has some action, but there's also a big emphasis on survival drama and the comic isn't aiming to look like a superhero movie. If you want to compare it to a manga, you'd be better off putting it next to I Am a Hero, which is (main character aside) much more similar in content, page layouts and pacing. I really have no idea what you're going for, other than that you obviously really like Made in Abyss and anime with cute girls. Oh, and that you have no clue what's available in west, but are eager to use words like 'restricted' and 'undignified', despite not being able to explain clearly what you mean by that. All I'm getting from you that if you like the style it's dignified, but if you don't like it, it's not. Not only that, you get on a high horse when you see me calling moe art a questionable fetish, which it also sort of is in Japan. Being into 2D school girls isn't exactly mainstream (and fortunately, Japan is finally starting to crack down on adults who are into actual school girls.) At worst, that statement is my personal opinion overlapping with that of a decent number of Japanese people. And then you put words in my mouth. I never said there are no cultural differences, what I said is that you are underestimating the impact of influences that cross cultures, not to mention other economic and political events that helped shape entertainment industries. I said these things because you seem to believe that the Japanese carry some gene that makes that super awesome at art or something. (And that's totally okay to exploit people because of it, because entertainment comes before creators earning living wages.) What also bothers me, is the bullshitting you do to try to prove your point.
You know Watership Down is based on a book, right? A popular book too. It made sense to make a movie out of it. (The newer television series looks a lot more cutesy by the way.) Japan adapts books into series and movies for the exact same reason. Some get live-action, some get animation, some get both. Just like elsewhere, whether animation is needed is taken into consideration. For instance, shojo/josei romance manga tend to get only live-action or both an anime and a live-action series/movies. Same goes for down-to-earth comedy and detective series. Shonen action series do get live-action adaptations sometimes, but usually only when there's atleast a decent CG budget available. But that's adaptations. Let's talk about original creations: if you know it's going to be an animation series for whatever, why not make most of it? And then there are parts where it just feels like you typed everything with one hand, the other being... you can guess where.
So, what are you into? I'm guessing, aside from cute girls, depressing sciencefiction...? Tell me what you like and I'll be happy to give you some suggestions. But just to be clear: I give no guarantee you'll be able to *bleep* to them. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I never claimed that Westerners are incapable of being passionate regarding comics. I re-read what I wrote and it looked pretty clear to me so I cannot see how you could get that impression. Anyway I am sorry if you got insulted from what I wrote but you should learn to read my posts correctly as to not make so many unfounded statements regarding my position (such as claiming that I was saying that the Japanese have the "art gene", no idea how where you got that from). I don't think you understood my point here. You should read some scholarly work on Japanese popular culture so you get a decent grasp of it and it's differences from Western culture (Tamaki Saito and Hiroki Azuma are good starting points as well as Schodt and Kinsella, her article Cuties in Japan explains Japan's fascination with cuteness).
I like artistically accomplished comics and entertaining comics. From realistic dramas like In This Corner of the World , from cute slice of life like Yotsuba, to historical manga like Vinland Saga and Vagabond and science fiction like Nausicaa and Gunnm. I liked comedy like Azumanga Daioh. I also read a pretty good Western comic called Watchmen. It's rather crude aesthetically but good and quite powerful. My favorite comic of all time is Ashita no Joe which is a boxing manga. I think have very broad tastes in comics, if it is considered very good I will like it.
I am asexual by the way. I was just bringing up the point that Western animation and comics are sexually repressed (though I am not interested in porn). Your prejudice against masturbation further proves my point. You think it is niche in Japan to be sexually aroused to manga? Then Shounen Jump is niche to you (or do you think it doesn't have any sexual content? About 95% of Japanese manga magazines would be shut down if they implemented American standards of sexual repression of comics and animation on the manga/anime industry). Also my argument before was unrelated to the degree in which porn manga and anime is mainstream or not in Japan. Also, before I delve into Anglo American comics I would delve into more developed comic worlds like the Korean and Chinese world's. In terms of relative international development Anglo American comics to me feel like Indian and Brazilian comics. The US and UK comics are 4th rate, behind France, and the rest of Asia and Japan, in that order and I am very ignorant in Chinese and Korean comics, whose comic cultures I should know before the US's. |
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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Hey, ever thought the other person might be reading your posts correctly but you're just not very good at expressing yourself and end up saying things you don't mean?
Like really, you can't use words like 'undignified' and then say you didn't mean it negatively, especially when you somehow make the connection to people being underpaid and draw the conclusion that it's somehow undignified to make a living wage as creator. Like... what? Not to mention that you're still pretending I said that there are no cultural differences. What I said is that you're underestimating how connected comics and creators from all over the world can be, and that you shouldn't act like the manga industry was created in a vacuum. And I do read books and essays on comics and animation, thank you very much. The books on my shelves vary from Understanding Comics to Boys Love Manga and Beyond. Perhaps you should do some more reading, though, because it's pretty obvious you don't know much outside of the manga you like.
Yeah, not impressed. That's all pretty basic reading and not particularly helpful. If you're so open-minded as you claim you are, why haven't you delved into non-Japanese comics? If you had, you would have tossed away your prejudice long ago. If you're really looking for things to read, I suggest just looking up some 'top somethingsomething non-superhero comic' lists. Because I know how the defence you just put up worked. You mention I a bunch of different titles to show how broad your tastes are, I give some suggestions, you'll be all like "I don't like those, but that's probably because they aren't very good. My tastes are very broad, you know?" Am I right?
1. Beign asexual doesn't mean you have no libido whatsoever. That varies from asexual person to asexual person. 2. Why/how exactly are western comics and animation sexually repressed? Have you seen how women are oftentimes drawn, especially in superhero comics? Even if you're not attracted to that, you should be able to see the intent is titillation.
To the point of having a strong like for 2D characters? Yep, that's pretty niche. There's a good reason why shows that rely heavily on fanservice air late at night and are basically commercials for character goods. Most moe shows aren't exactly mainstream either. And Shonen Jump is a bad example unless you want to pretend every reader is a fujoshi. Please, let's not pretend every reader of Shonen Jump is a fujoshi.
I like how you keep admitting you know very little about non-Japanese comics but remain eager to rank them in terms of quality anyway. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I am a professional economics researcher finishing my PHD and I have no problems expressing myself to other researchers using complex arguments. Of course, some people might have difficulty following a line of argument because the argumentation might be a bit too much for them to handle or the fact is that understanding the arguments made by another person requires some degree of intellectual background on the field.
I never said it wasn't "negatively". I said that you shouldn't feel personally insulted by the fact that comics are not a dignified art form in the West. If I say that the US suffers from a much higher murder rate than Japan that is a negative statement but it is not an insult to Americans to state that fact.
I never said the manga industry was created in a "vacuum". The manga/anime industry was created by the Japanese civilization thanks to the fact it's economy boomed from 1945 to 1990 as Japan became an economic superpower and hence it's population became rich enough to afford comics and animation. Since their culture is also not western, Japan being the first industrialized culture that is not part of the Jewish-Christian world, they are more open to the use of stylized drawings for expressing fictional narratives. Hence why they developed a massive comic/animation culture while the Western world did not. The fact that Japan were influenced by Western comics and animation while they developed an enormously larger comic and animation world is irrelevant for my argument. My argument is just that the Japanese culture values more the concept of being a "manga artist" than the Western culture values the concept of being a "cartoonist", this difference was very apparent for instance in 20th century boys (manga and movie) when some manga artists claimed to put their souls in the manga they were creating, a common statement in Japanese culture but alien to Western cartoonists. The reason is that Japanese culture lacks the ingrained prejudice the Western culture has regarding artistic stylization. Although it is true that there was in the past some stigma regarding manga/anime in Japan but this stigma has mostly melted away over the past 30 years as in 2014, about 40% of Japanese college students were not afraid to declare themselves otakus in a survey.
You should read these books: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/beautiful-fighting-girl https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/otaku https://books.google.com/books/about/Adult_Manga.html?id=OudYqWuAlSwC https://www.amazon.com/Dreamland-Japan-Writings-Modern-Manga/dp/188065623X/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=2X6JZPSKNRD945EZZ2WK https://www.amazon.com/Manga-World-Japanese-Comics/dp/1568364768/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=32VGDH512J32F629DRAZ https://www.amazon.com/Manga-Anthology-Global-Cultural-Perspectives/dp/0826429386/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GS9CEF80WM59RC2JFH7S After you read all of those you should get a decent grasp of my arguments here. The fact you read OTHER books is irrelevant because I am not talking about books that are not directly related to the subject: why Japanese visual culture is different from the Western visual culture. You should read specially the first book (Beautiful Fighting Girl), that one explains very clearly why Japanese visual culture is different. Its an excellent book by the way although I might disagree a little bit with the author's definition of otaku (he uses a definition of otaku that's different from the conventional definition of being an obsessive fan of pop culture).
You, who are so easily insulted by statements regarding broad Western culture, has no problem insulting my person saying that I am ignorant a million times over? That's inconsistent.
Helpful for what? You told me you wanted to know what I like so you could give me recommendations and then you tell me that listing some titles I like isn't helpful to give recommendations? My top 10 favorite comics are: Vinland Saga Gunnm Yotsuba Nausicaa Ashita no Joe Saikano Lone Wolf and Cub Kingdom 20th Century Boys A Girl by the Shore What is your top 10 comics?
It is not prejudice to know the fact that visual cultures differ across different cultures. Since Japanese culture has a much more developed comics and animation culture it makes sense to delve more deeply in Japanese stuff because it is, well, more sophisticated. This should be obvious to any anime fan.
You haven't given any suggestion and yet makes the claim I will dislike them all? I like some Anglo-American comics, specially the light comedic ones.
Libido is not the same as attraction. Asexuals are by definition not sexually attracted to people so they are not attracted to porn either. Asexuals usually have libido, they are not biologically different from heterosexuals.
You should know this by now. Or do you think that US TV cartoons are not sexually repressed? Really?
They are usually drawn realistically: 
While in manga they are not: 
This is from Shounen Jump by the way, a super mainstream manga, more mainstream than any US comics ever made. It's not from a super obscure "moe" manga. Although even late night anime is actually very popular in Japan: in a survey from 2014 about 40% of Japanese college students claim to be animation otakus, hence people who watch late night stuff. What proportion of US college students claim to be comic book otakus? I would guess less than .5%. Why do you think Attack on Titan sales exploded after the show aired, which was at late night? In fact, it's probably more common among North American college students to be late night anime fans than to be fans of North American comics. I teach at an US university and I often see students with late night anime stuff in their backpacks or wearing shirts from a late night show like Attack on Titan but I never saw a student reading an American comic book except inside the university's own anime club (hence already a fan of late night anime). Actually, the best comparison would be comparing images of sexualized characters in US blockbuster movies with manga. Since blockbuster movies are a more mainstream medium that reflects typical Western attitudes. It's not hard to find sexualized female depictions in US movies but only in live action movies (hence, photographic realist erotica), while mainstream Western animated movies like Pixar and Disney (and even "adult" movies like Simpsons movie and the hot dog one) are completely caste, without any erotic imagery (even if they talk about sex like the hot dog movie). That's the difference between Western and Japanese visual culture: In Japan stylization is dignified hence they can allow themselves to be sexually aroused by stylized images. In the west when they drawn stuff to be sexually arousing they usually do it in a much more realistic fashion. Stylized images are for light comedy only. Beauty, power and sexual arousal are denied to cartoons in Western popular culture. Of course if you search hard enough you can find some western comic that is stylized and designed to be arousing. I know that stuff as well. My point is that this is not the RULE for western comics. While it is the RULE for manga, which is itself about 100 times more mainstream in Japan than comics are in the west. The fact is that it is very common to find Japanese comics that depict characters that are very stylized and yet sexually attractive. This is not the case with Western comics and animation and this should be very obvious to you who claims to know more than I do about Western comics. I am not disputing that you might know a lot of super obscure western comics but that's irrelevant for the argument about general cultural differences.
Developing romantic emotional attachment to fictional characters is not remotely what I am talking about.
Have you ever read Shounen Jump? This is from a manga published on Shounen Jump: http://nightow.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/To-Love-Ru-Darkness-Harem-Gold.jpg And Shounen Jump is alone about 30 to 60 times the size of the North American comic book industry (measured in number of printed comic pages). Hence, much more mainstream than ANY north american comic ever made.
That's called using your head to understand the relative development of comic cultures. If most international prizes of manga are awarded to continental Asian comic artists then it's clear that it is in continental Asia that the best comics outside of Japan are. While everybody knows France has the most developed comic culture in the Western hemisphere. Therefore it is safe to say that continental Asian and French comics attain higher degree of sophistication than Anglo-American comics do. This is not regarded as controversial, I am just stating a well established fact of reality: comics and animation are not well developed mediums in the West. This is stated in numerous scholarly works written by both Japanese and Westerners as well as in many manga (such as 20th Century Boys or I am a Hero, are unapologetic about Japanese domination in the field). You feel offended by this fact because you think that your individual passion for comics is made less true if you admit being from a culture that doesn't share your individual passion. Well, that's your problem of not being able to separate your cultural environment from yourself as an individual. I am also a westerner and I am not personally offended when a manga I read claims that Japan completely dominates the field of comics (as I am a Hero explicitly stated). Why should I be? Even a cartoonist shouldn't feel offended by the statement of such fact of reality. You still disagree with that fact that is well established by scholars? Ok, you are entitled to your own opinion (no matter how ignorant it might be) so let's agree to disagree and end this pointless discussion. |
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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Charming. Still doesn't change your arguments have been all over the place and make no sense, because they all seem to be based on single examples.
Oh no you didn't. You said the "style" itself - and even the people making it - were undignified. If you meant to say the comic artist is seen as an undignified profession, you could easily have said that. Except you didn't. You said things like: "American animation is stylized but it is not dignified stylization. " And even if you were talking about the public opinion on the profession, that argument could also be easily refuted: mangaka or animator isn't high on the respected jobs list in Japan either. Has to do something with large parts of the industry being niche (and thus "weird"), little job or financial security etc.
There is so much wrong with that... First of all, the development of an entertainment medium is not purely thanks to economics. Money is important, but there needs to be a creative driving force behind it to make entertainment succeed. Secondly, one of the reasons comics were able to get such a foothold in post-war Japan was because they were affordable entertainment. This was actually see seem reason comics used to be a huge success in the US, where you could get comics books at news stands for ten cents a piece - even kids could afford several on their weekly allowance. In Japan, they had affordable magazines with hundreds of pages children with share with their friends, not to mention rental libraries, a distribution system entire publishers (and thus artists) earned their living with. And again, artstyles (and content as well) were influenced by entertainment from outside of Japan. Or do you wanna go about claiming the god of manga had nothing to do with manga?
Yeah, funny, that wasn't exactly your argument I don't know how many posts back. You were calling the artstyles undignified, not the profession. And again, you're an asshole for assuming non-Japanese comic artists can't be passionate about their work. Creative industries tend to be harsh places and passion is a powerful survival tool. That said, there are also artists who just consider drawing a job or lose that passion along the way when long workdays and nagging editors start to take their toll. Kia Asamiya is pretty notorious for latching onto whatever is popular because it sells better.
Funny, that's not the overall impression I got. Do you have a link to that survey? My impression is that while reading manga is not frowned upon by itself, 'otaku' doesn't have as many negative connotations as it used to have, and people don't think it's too weird to occassionally follow an anime, but declaring yourself an otaku is going to get you some weird looks. Beign really into moe or having a figure collection is considered pretty weird.
Been there, done that (and more), and your arguments are still disjointed and ill-informed.
You got me wrong. You are directly insulting people I care about by calling their work undignified, basically claiming they're in it for the money, could apparantly never amount to anything because they weren't born and raised in your precious Japan etc. Your ignorance itself is an insult. You've proving again and again that you have no interest in actually experiencing the things you have such strong opinions about. Do you honestly think you'll be able to convince me that way?
It's your attitude. It appears your main interest is flaunting what you assume is an impressive reading list. Perhaps this is just you not knowing how to express yourself again, but if you're really that intelligent as you claim you are, that shouldn't be the problem, now should it?
If I really had to recommend something based on that list, I'd say: Stand Still. Stay Silent. - It's set in a post-apocalyptic Scandinavia with a touch of magic and follows a group of misfits on a journey to explore the lands no human has set food upon in ages. I'll think you'll like the soft artstyle. Tokyo Ghost - Fairly new but reads like 90s 'cyber-everything' scifi. Not really my thing, but I've noticed animefans who like titles such as Ghost in the Shell and Battle Angel Alita often like this one. Might be the same for you.
I don't really have a top 10. I buy graphic novels on a regular basis and those just shuffle around depending on what I'm currently into. WE3 and We Stand on Guard were two one-shots I was impressed by recently. Some of the series I'm following are Saga, Descender, Wayward, The Walking Dead and Monstress. Older favourites include Y: The Last Man, Fables and Sandman.
It is prejucide to decide that because other things are different that they must be inferiour. That's exactly what you've been doing.
Might have something to do with your attitude, don't you think? I don't read comedy much aside from some web comics, so I doubt I'll be able to recommend much you aren't reading yet. But hey, if you have a list I could try.
Yeah, I know libido is not the same as attraction (and that there are differences between romantic attraction and sexual attraction). But we were talking about masturbation, weren't be? As far as I know there needs to be some sexual attraction or atleast stimulation to make the most of that. And well, you were pretty obvious about being into anime and manga with cute girls. Considering lots of people enjoy those for not entirely wholesome reasons... Also, I find it kind of funny you're implying 2D girls aren't people. Well, of course they aren't flesh and blood, but they are supposed to represent humans. So... are you saying you're (sexually) attracted to 2D girls but don't care for 3D ones? 
(No need to answer that one. That's just me trying to mess with you, in case that wasn't clear.)
Uh... no? Lots of sexual jokes in shows aimed at adults for one. Can't exactly have that in a sexually repressed medium. Not to mention that series aimed at children and young adults have also been more open about romance and love. (Not to mention to hidden dirty jokes in children's series. Watching the Animaniacs as an adult certainly was a different experience.) And sure, they aren't as full-on fanservicy as some anime out there, but you have to wonder if that's such a bad thing. Personally, watching manka make characters sexy by default without considering their personality, the setting and so on, just makes me want to punch them in the face. If you think you can tell a serious and dark sciencefiction story while sticking your characters in vacuum-sealed boob-socked pilot uniforms, you're delusional.
It's cute that you think that. Sadly, American superhero comics have a long history of drawing women with impossible anatomy in Escher-level poses. It was more than enough to spawn blogs like Escher Girls (lots of shitty manga art on there as well, because terible artists can be found all over the world) and the 'Sexy Hawkeye' meme. [quote]While in manga they are not:
It's less cute you assume women in manga can't have (somewhat) realistic proportions. I thought Vinland Saga was one of your favourite manga? That you read several series by Naoki Urasawa? Or how about, I don't know, the lovely women Kaoru Mori draws? You can't just say manga is like all awesome and shit and then pretend the fanservice stuff is not just the norm, but the definition of this assumed style that all Japanese comic artists supposedly follow. How deep are you planning to dig your own grave?
Shonen Jump has next to no moe. While the actual ages of readers gave shifted over the years, they do try to keep aiming for that late primary school to middle school demographic. And young boys usually have pretty uncomplicated preferences when it comes to sexy images: boobs. That image was a controversial one, by the way. Some parents and readers alike wondered if it didn't go too far for Shonen Jump. Moe appeals more to older readers and is rarely explicitly sexy. It's the innocence and need to be protected that many moe-readers find appealing. And because the series are so clean, they can assume that if anyone makes the characters do anything not wholesome it will be their own imagination. BTW Attack on Titan had like, what, a 10PM timeslot? That's hardly late night. It's nearly primetime. Late night is more like close to and after midnight, when the tv guide starts using weird times like '25:05'.
That is a weird comparision. Wearing merchandise and consuming media are two different things. They're closely related, of course, but they are different things. Look, clothes are something you wear. Once you put them on, it costs you no extra time during work/study. It is not an activity. Reading is an activity, and one you may want to get comfortable for, not to mention. If I were still a student, I wouldn't be reading my own comics in the library, especially not during a time I could be studying. When I'm done for the day, though? And there's a comfy chair/coach/bed nearby? Heck you, I'm going to read some comics in the comfort of my own home/room! And again, I'm a little confused about why you seem so obsessed with the size of the market. I never claimed the Japanese market wasn't huge. And I thought this discussion was supposed to be about style. Are you trying to prove that one style is superiour because it brings in more money? That is... a really strange way of looking at things.
Maybe it's just because you're asexual and haven't figured out how people tend to look at more cartoony looking naughtyness, but for your own sanity I recommend you do not do any googling on the subject. Once seen it can not be unseen. There's a reason why people 'joke' about the Looney Tunes inspiring a whole generation of furries.
It's kind of amazing that you're living in a hole so deep, you've never heard of Jessica Rabbit. She's probably the most iconic but far from the only sexy character to ever grace animation. Having a beautiful and sexy female character around is a pretty common trope in American cartoons.
Uh, you don't have to search hard (unless you need something very specific to get hard). The aforementioned Jessica Rabbit? Chances are you bumped into a few the past Halloween. Or, if you want something less mainstream, walk into a random comic book store. Many artists (sadly) still draw in a style that focuses on objectifying women. I'm starting to guess that this might just be a problem with you. You see anime and manga characters that are like 25% tits in obviously sexy poses, wearing nothing but some triangles and string, and think: "Ah, I understand this is meant to be sexy!" But you aren't getting the exact same obvious signals from western media and assume that people didn't intend it as sexy or don't find it sexy. Though that doesn't explain why you consider that level of fanservice a rule, especially when some of your favourite manga don't follow that rule.
It is obvious to me you're wrong because I know more about western comics than you do. And like I mentioned way earlier, much of the stuff I'm fond of is pretty mainstream. Series like Saga win awards and are put in the most visible places in comic book stores. Some series even get videogame or television adaptations. Manga takes up too much of my time to really dive into the more underground comics, and if I do pick up something really obscure, it's probably because someone recommend it to me.
But it goes hand in hand in Japan. Much of the appeal of the more popular characters isn't just in their design. Characters are written in ways to fit archetypes that do well with readers, and the aim is to create a connection with readers that's more than 'here's some tits, have fun petting your snake'. Series that aim for that connection and the actual connection - that's niche.
Uh, yes? This is from a manga published on Shounen Jump: http://nightow.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/To-Love-Ru-Darkness-Harem-Gold.jpg
You're really not getting it. Just plain sexy stuff? That's common in most western comic industries. Heck, some of the Dutch and Belgian stuff I read as a tween arguably went beyond what's currently available in Shonen Jump. What you don't see much outside of Japan is a niche part of the industry that revolves around directly feeding the the fantasies of fans with characters that neatly fit their preferences. The boyband set-up but to the 'please draw porn of this' level. That's something you don't see much in Shonen Jump aside from some hidden fujoshi bait you're likely to glance over if you aren't wearing your fujoshi goggles.
Holy shit, there's so much wrong with that... First of all, those awards aimed at foreigners? People who feel like they don't fit the style the judges are looking for don't enter or might not even have heard of these contests. Plus, Cool Japan is basically a marketing ploy to raise awareness of Japan's own entertainment industry. Secondly, you're making this grave mistake of judging industries by size again. Quantity doesn't always equal quality. Visability or popularity doesn't always mean quality. Making a sub-par work popular through great marketing is easier than letting a great work gain popularity with sub-par marketing. Instead of number crunching, actually go see what's available out there. Don't look at sales numbers, look at lists of good comics with similar themes/genres and see if there's anything that might suit your taste. And of course it doesn't hurt to try to read the 'biggest' comics out there. Some of those are evergreens like Maus and Sandman, but look at it this way: if someone new to manga were to ask you to recommend some series and you decide to just point at what's popular? You'll end up with things like Black Clover in that pile and possibly chase the poor person away from manga forever.
There's a differences between development and economic power. Japan certainly has more of the later when it comes to comics. However, that doesn't mean other countries are behind in quality of content. Also, If you're even a bit of an academic, you should know that fictional characters aren't the most reliable sources. Heck, I'd argue mangaka themselves aren't even the most reliable. Of course they'll promote their own field. Plus, most don't have enough free time to really delve into comics other people make, so there's that as well.
No, I'm upset because I appear to be arguing with someone who claims - knowingly or not - that the value of creative products depend solely on the economic power of said products. That's an insult to anyone in any creative field. Plus the whole thing where you basically claim artists aren't real artists unless they're struggling to provide from themselves? That's an dumb, insulting, and insultingly dumb stereotype.
I disagree with your utterly weird interpretation of the work of those established scholars. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I based my arguments on four things actually: 1) Statistics 2) Scholar's opinions 3) Artists opinions 4) Examples from my experience
So saying that comics and animation are undignified in the Western culture is insulting to people working in comics and animation in the West? I don't see why it can be insulting because it doesn't make the passion your comic artist friends have regarding comics less true. It just means that Western culture in general doesn't dignify your friends' passion. Just like saying that Western culture is homophobic doesn't mean that I am insulting gays. I am saying that Western culture is animation/comic phobic which obviously is not insulting to western anime/comic fans. It's just the statement of a fact of reality: Western culture doesn't regard comics and animation as serious artistic mediums hence few people interested in doing or consuming art more seriously get into comics and animation and hence these fields have not generated a substantial artistic output in the West. They are mostly restricted to kiddie movies and newspaper 3 panel comic strips. This is an obvious fact and you are in flat denial about it (which doesn't make sense: instead of you saying something sensible like "the poor state of our comics"): Japanese film critics have no problem in admiting that contemporary Japanese live action film is shitty. In other, non-western, cultures they do not have that attitude regarding comics and animation and hence managed to develop these fields to a far greater degree than in the west. Hence the reason why "anime fans" exist.
That's sexual repression, and no they are not lacking "full-on fanservicy ", they are completely CASTRATED. There is ZERO content that might be considered arousing in virtually ANY Western animation. If it is good or bad it is subjective: I am asexual so I don't care actually, it's just a fact I noticed and other people also noticed.
That's because you are manifesting your own sexual repression when you make these claims. Simoun for instance is an artistic masterpiece and yes it is about lesbian pilots who need to kiss to make their fighters take off. Maybe because I am asexual I can suspend disbelief more easily than heterosexual westerners in those cases but masterpieces with fan-service have many fans who are also not bothered by it.
Naoki Urasawa's style is far more stylized than anything you will typically see in an American comic book: 
The degree of stylization is the same as in the cute shoujo manga. The difference is that the proportions are closer to reality but the image itself is quite abstract, representing the human figure with few lines and on a apparently flat surface. In Anglo-American comic books the stylization takes a different approach. It's stylized yes but it's a more concrete image: it has "volume" and clear "shape". In manga the lines many times do not constitute a physical representation of an object but it's "subjective representation" like the faces of highly cartoony characters like Madoka.
Because you are sexually repressed? I don't know what you are talking about when you are saying "fanservice stuff" but there is a huge amount of masterpieces of manga and anime made in a very stylized/deformed fashion such as Saikano, Ghost in the Shell (manga), Nausicaa (her boobs are huge), Simoun, Madoka, etc. Actually the greatness of Japanese visual culture is the fact they are able to take seriously very stylized representations, which is something westerners often have difficulty understanding. Your are manifesting the Western mental block against stylization when you talk like that (thinking it's absurd for a manga to be "awesome" and simultaneously highly stylized and sexual) and hence you are proving Saito's thesis right: The Western mindset is fundamentally inconsistent with artistically accomplished comics and animation, since these fields can only fully develop through stylization, which is undignified in the Western mindset.
You are being quite immature, which is a quite accurate reproduction of the stereotype of the Western comic book fan: becomes desperately enraged if someone disrespects his precious comics. Why do you feel so strongly the need to "beat me" in a "debate" by ignoring everything I said and just making up nonsensical interpretations of what I said? Did I hurt you so deeply by pointing out to the fact that the North American comic scene is just insignificant on a global scale? That Anglo-American comics are just as poorly developed as Indian comics or Brazilian comics? That in some fields Western culture is not (remotely) among the world's most developed cultures? Why is that fact so hard for you to swallow? I guess some people are just too ethnocentric to tolerate any perspective that doesn't agree with their own perception of global ethnic superiority (or at least parity, relative to the entire rest of the world). To me that's just deeply unsettling and quite disgusting since they are unable to tolerate any evaluation of their own culture that doesn't paint it in completely positive light without being consumed by hatred against the person making the evaluation. Hence I feel like I cannot make any such evaluation witbout enraging someone who desperately wants revenge...
Actually it follows from economic logic. What is ART? Works of art are manifestations of individual self expression. While to make money you must be serving the interests of other people. When they make a generic Hollywood blockbuster movie that's not art because it is made as a product to be consumed by other people and do not reflect the expression of the people making it. When one makes a movie, comic or book for themselves, they are making art, when they make something for others, they are making a product. Why do Japanese comic and animation artists are badly paid and still work? Because they are making their art for themselves and that compensates the bad pay. Sometimes you get lucky and lots of people like what you are doing (exp. Oda with One Piece, Miyazaki with his movies, although in both cases they are making their stuff while also thinking about their public's entertainment) and you can get rich, most of the time that doesn't happen and you get to be poor. In all developed art forms in the West, most artists are badly paid. Novelists are almost always poor, musicians as well, painters, film makers, unless they are among the top 50 or so directors in Hollywood (who are typically not artists but mass entertainers) are also dirty poor. The reason is that they make art for themselves and that compensates the bad pay they get for it and allows them to continue making it even without decent pay. Same with manga/anime. Hence, the fact that people in the Western animation and comic fields make more money than artists in other fields is maybe because their art is perhaps not really art at all but just entertainment products.
Scholars that you haven't read. That's easy to see because they say exactly the same things I have said here. I am not posting my ideas but just paraphrasing the opinions of the specialists. Good bye: there is no reason to talk to you as there is no way this conversation will lead to anywhere. 
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