I figured I’d bring up a topic my friend Metal Mike suggested (you all saw him in the Unscripted review we did.) See, I remember years ago, the manager of my local comic store also happened to be a huge Otaku. He was the one who got me on to watching ESCAFLOWNE and RECORD OF LODOSS WAR (although I never finished watching the later.) He also looked down on American-produced with a bit of disdain, calling it “faux manga.” At the time, I didn’t think too much about what he said. Now that I’ve got a greater context, however, I’m wondering if he had a minority opinion or if it reflected the majority.
What do you Anime Vice lunatics think of American cartoons and comics that clearly owe a big debt to anime and manga? I’m talking about stuff like SAMURAI JACK, AVATAR and SCOTT PILGRIM, just to name a few. Does it please you to see what you love having such demonstrable influence, or does it make you just roll your eyes? Who are these poseurs trying to jump into the sandbox that they’ve got no business being in?
Me, myself, I’m all for cultural exchange. That’s what art is all about. One artist influencing another artist, who in turn influences another, ad infinitum. Hell, isn’t there that whole apocryphal chestnut about anime's signature big eyes starting as an imitation of funny animals like Micky Mouse? The more I think about that old owner’s attitude, the more I see it as needlessly dismissive. How about you? Let’s our own exchange going here.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Studios and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. HYBRID BASTARDS! is available here and UNIMAGINABLE is available here for pre-order on Amazon.com.
Considering that the style associated with anime and manga came about because animators were influenced by the works of early Disney (Snow White, et al), and it evolved overtime from that base, I don't see a problem. That being said, there's a lot of crap on both sides of the ocean.
I think it's good to have exchange but many would rather have manga and comics stay separate. I never really got into comics but manga came after anime for me so it made sense to have the same themes and aspects. I really like the thought of collaborations like what Stan Lee is doing with Ultimo and Heroman. My focus is creating American-made anime. That is what i want to do but the process of writing is a difficult one. To go along with that it is hard to have someone come up with a pictoral version of the characters (as I'm no artist). Add on to those factors trying to pitch the idea to an anime company. While the road will be dire at times I hope it's something that can be done and be successful. Avatar is really the only one you listed that I like but the Scott Pilgrim movie looks cool.
He is in the truest tradition of manga artists. For his series, Gold Digger. He does all the writing, pencil work (though he draws on tablet now), coloring, and text work for his comic and releases it monthly. The only thing he doesn't do is the editing. He even made an animated movie based on his comic characters. He draw all the animation and did the color work. It looks beautiful.
This is a clip from his youtube channel of the opening credits for the movie he created.
Hell, even some bigger named manga-ka have staff that work with the lead creator to put series out.
Samurai Jack was an awesome series. It's too bad it never got to follow it's full course.
Yeah I love me some faux anime, at some point I'll add more of it to the site.
... MEGAS XLR!
That Fred Perry person has an art style that makes me think hes done a lot of furry art, i dont mean that as a negative thing but again his art style is really not my thing(my own personal fav's are Range Murata and X6suke but there are alot of westen artists i like too).
@Tom Pinchuk
When i think of american animations two word always comes straight to mind "endless fillers" and thats not saying they have NO story at all but more like, they introduce their characters and background story and then they just do endless fillers. Samurai Jack did this and even though i liked it i was always hoping for some more story. Avatar also had quite a few fillers that introduced characters that were never seen again, but overall Avatar was so much story driven(and the story was great too) and character driven that it still managed to rank atop with my other favorite anime's(some of the humor seemed way to forced at time and the little frying squirrel was outright annoying to me).
There has been a lot of cross-pollination between east and west long before now and I don't see any problem with it. I think the ones that seem like a direct rip-off are the ones that don't do as well. It's alright to be inspired by anime but you have to have a story or bring something original to the table as well.
I think it's like Quentin Tartantino. I feel like Quentin Tarantino obviously takes from things he's watched, but he takes the knowledge of these things and creates his own thing, rather than take the the actual work and regurgitate it.
That is what a sucessful Non-Japanese creator should do to stand out amongst all these other people who hope to be manga or Anime creators. Stop being also-rans. Embrace Japan, but bring your own heart to it!
BTW, I loved Teen Titans. It seems that the old die hard comics fans didn't dig its fusion.
lol Thanks for pointing that out. I changed it and added the link. I get the names mixed up someitmes for some reason.
Pretty much every series i meant to say lol Megas XLR was cool and that's only judging from the few episodes that made it here before CN went Digital (the Dutch dub was horrible though)
Avatar, however, is nothin' but anime. I never watched it, but I guess it's alright? I don't know!
Scott Pilgrim may be manga influenced, but unless it's a comic that is literally done in a manga-style or done backwards, it does not count as manga. Now, Megatokyo? That's a manga. It also sucks, but that's neither here nor there.
So I guess I don't really care about American anime or manga? If the story is interesting or the show is cool, I can deal, but mostly I want people to use their own style and not rip off the work of others.
Especially anime and manga. I mean Jesus, the reason most of it looks the way it does is because they don't have any money. Why are you copying a style that only came about because of a lack of budget and inbetween artists?