Does Anime Suck?

Yes

41 (41.4%)

No

20 (20.2%)

Sometimes

38 (38.4%)

Total Members Voted: 36

[Earthwormzim]

...
Stuff that I think is crap, and a waste of time: Love Hina, Dragonball, Gundam Anything, Ranma, almost anything that gains popularity stateside.
...

There are multiple Gundam series, and I agree about most of them, except for one series of Gundam called "Gundam Seed".  According to my brother (an anime buff...100x more than I am), Gundam Seed apparently had a different director than all the other Gundam series. 

Gundam Seed has much more emotion involved, instead of having just pointless battle after battle. 

[Earthwormzim]

And as far as the claim that anime is low budget...that depends on what you define to be as low budget.  Yes, in comparison to American budgets, they are low.  You decide.

Here is a quote taken from http://www.animenation.net/forums/showthread.php?t=193949 :

Compared to American animation, anime is very cheap to produce. In 2003, the Nikkei Business News reported that an average anime TV episode had a budget of 10 to 13 million yen ($85,000 - $111,000). For example, the Gunslinger Girl TV series cost 13 million yen per episode to produce. On the high end, Gonzo's Samurai 7, one of the most expensive anime TV series ever made, had a 700 million yen budget for 26, and the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex television series had an 800 million yen production budget. In 2003, 500 to 700 million yen ($4.3 - 6 million) was the typical production cost on a 52 episode "four kuru" show (series that air new episodes all year around) like One Piece or Detective Conan. Although I can't confirm it, I've heard that average anime TV series now cost roughly $150,000 per episode to produce. By comparison, according to TV.com, the high quality American animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender costs 1 million per episode to produce, and even production cost on SpongeBob SquarePants episodes is in the neighborhood of $500,000 per episode. It's stunning to realize that a single episode of SpongeBob SquarePants costs as much to make as three average anime TV episodes.

In 2003 an average theatrical anime film cost 100 to 300 million yen ($850,000 - $2.56 million), but big budget anime movies like Innocence, Steamboy and Studio Ghibli films have budgets as large as 2 billion yen (up to $17 million dollars). By comparison, the American Powerpuff Girls movie cost $25 million, and the SpongeBob SquarePants movie reportedly had a $30 million budget.

If Spirited Away cost roughly 16 million to produce, it should be easily believable that Makoto Shinkai's Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho cost only 1.5 million because Shinkai's film was produced with a small staff and the director himself doing much of the physical task of animating the film. But even the most expensive anime films are typically inexpensive compared to American animated movies. The Powerpuff Girls movie cost $25 million. The Spongebob Squarepants movie had a 30 million dollar budget.

The production costs on Japanese animation are kept low through a combination of factors. Bottom rung animators are paid very little. In fact, reportedly Japan's anime industry is shrinking because entry level animators aren't paid enough to support themselves. Many young animators leave the industry to look for better paying jobs because being an animator in Japan doesn't pay a living wage. Anime also doesn't typically employ "A list" celebrities as voice actors, so actor wages aren't as costly. And finally, Japan's anime industry has fifty years of experience in methods of keeping animation production cheap. Tricks like recycling frames and using limited animation all help reduce production costs. As a result, as many critics have explained, the budget limitations of Japanese animation have forced Japanese animators to become creative and find artistic, stylistic ways to make anime overcome its financial limitations.

[Earthwormzim]

Huge budgets and the US produces shit like Spongebob and Power Puff Girls, and considerably lower budgets in Japan produces animes like Evangelion, and Hikaru No Go, etc... lol, what a joke.  Heh...even with Avatar's huge budget, it still sucks ass.

[gandhi2]

And as far as the claim that anime is low budget...that depends on what you define to be as low budget.  Yes, in comparison to American budgets, they are low.  You decide.

Sure, I'll agree with what was posted.  However, I believe that low-budget movies that suck shouldn't have added value because they cost less.  If it sucks, it sucks.  Most the anime you mentioned with larger budgets are very enjoyable films.  Most the Western cartoons you mentioned with higher budgets are fabulous examples of great writing combined with great and innovative art.  The reason they can get away with paying tweeners almost nothing is that they don't have to relearn anything...they just mimic ageless and boring mediums which cannot be added to very much.  A tweener for Naruto is and should be paid less than a tweener for Dexter's Lab, simply because Dexter's Lab is a completely original art style.  It's part of what makes the show great.  In addition, much of the time, the writing for anime is not original, and many don't even have the original manga creator as the primary writing credit.  Fresh writers, paid much less than the manga creator would be, just copy and edit what has already been written, to the detriment of the plot.  In almost every area, the film is kept low-budget by skimping on defined and recognized talent to add value to the work.  Instead of hiring a good voice actor and allow his/her performance to shape the animation, the first focus is the visual aspect, and the voices can be inserted easily enough.  The animation quality for lip-sync is shit, not to mention that more often than not, there are a few archtypal voice which actors are specifically hired for(villain, thug, hero, heroine, love interest, schoolgirl, girly-boy, cutesy animal thing, etc), so it's not even necessary to record voice before starting production.

I agree that some anime is successful at forcing innovation, because of limited funds(I liked Blood: The Last Vampire), but that is not the norm..  The norm is shitty quality due to failure to properly allocate enough money to make the production great.  I'm not claiming that all productions that use lots of money are worthwhile...but it's generally very easy to tell which ones were to sissy to risk putting forth the right amount of cash.

Power Puff Girls is PERFECT for its audience, and by the way, that audience is HUGE, whereas Evangelion, in both US and Japan, is only popular amongst non-social nerds. which are shirked by most of society  They are cult-classics B-movies, most often not even worthy of being compared to their mainstream counterparts.  The medium consistently fails to make money because the producers of it are far too stubborn to properly capitalize on marketing and even invest in the right advertising and production tools.

[Taors]

Powerpuff Girls freaking owned. I miss those years.

[Earthwormzim]

I agree, some do suck, and usually they are the ultra-low budgeted ones.

However, I don't consider the animation style of Dexter's Laboratory or Power Puff Girls innovational or creative at all.  Instead, it just looks like, to me, sheer laziness.  Anime, on the other hand, I'd say at least 80%+ of the time, seem to have the cleanest and finest lines, and the best proportions (for human characters in the animes),   

The only American animation I've ever seen that has such flawless proportions is Snow White...but, from what I understand, they accomplished that by tracing live-action film.

[Earthwormzim]

More on the Dexter's Laboratory, Kim Possible, Power Puff Girls, and all those other animations that look just barely above retarded...unfortunately, this uninnovational style seems to have spread like wild fire in America (now there's that one about the monkey, and the called "Odd Parents", etc...who knows how many more of them there are).  It seems that these styles of animation are almost all you find on the Disney Channel and the Cartoon Network...besides for Japanese anime. 

I think Japanese Anime is innovational.  So much so that even Americans are trying to replicate it (keyword:  trying).  Take, for example, Avatar, or Totally Spies, or Teen Titans...all blatant imitations of anime.

[Taors]

More on the Dexter's Laboratory, Kim Possible, Power Puff Girls, and all those other animations that look just barely above retarded...unfortunately, this uninnovational style seems to have spread like wild fire in America (now there's that one about the monkey, and the called "Odd Parents", etc...who knows how many more of them there are).  It seems that these styles of animation are almost all you find on the Disney Channel and the Cartoon Network...besides for Japanese anime. 

I think Japanese Anime is innovational.  So much so that even Americans are trying to replicate it (keyword:  trying).  Take, for example, Avatar, or Totally Spies, or Teen Titans...all blatant imitations of anime.

I like the Dexter's Lab and Powerpuff Girls style way better than any anime I've seen. It's just personal taste.

[Earthwormzim]

More on the Dexter's Laboratory, Kim Possible, Power Puff Girls, and all those other animations that look just barely above retarded...unfortunately, this uninnovational style seems to have spread like wild fire in America (now there's that one about the monkey, and the called "Odd Parents", etc...who knows how many more of them there are).  It seems that these styles of animation are almost all you find on the Disney Channel and the Cartoon Network...besides for Japanese anime. 

I think Japanese Anime is innovational.  So much so that even Americans are trying to replicate it (keyword:  trying).  Take, for example, Avatar, or Totally Spies, or Teen Titans...all blatant imitations of anime.

I like the Dexter's Lab and Powerpuff Girls style way better than any anime I've seen. It's just personal taste.

Agreed.  Difference in personal taste is what it boils down to, indeed.

[Earthwormzim]

I don't know...I guess one of the things that amazes me about anime is their ability to maintain good proportions of the human characters and of all other things, in general (in most animes, that is...not all of them). 

When I was younger, I used to draw comic book characters all the time, and I must admit that proportionality was always the biggest challenge.  Even though I've gotten better at it over the years, I still recognize it as quite a challenge (actually, I think it is the toughest part of drawing, altogether).  And I can only imagine how challenging it would be to animate a figure, and maintain those good proportions (once you have them done well in a single drawing) over hundreds and hundreds of frames.  The fact that anime accomplishes this...just amazing.

But...when I watch American animations, it seems that I find flaws in proportions all over the place.  Take for example, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  I think everyone would agree that the first 5 or so episodes of TMNT are by far the best, as far as quality of artwork is concerned.  But even these first few episodes are riddled with disproportionate body parts on all of the characters (i.e., head is too big, eyes are out of place, torso is too big, arms seem to change size when they move, misshapen body parts in general , etc).  And as far as the rest of the episodes of TMNT...don't get me started!  I don't think they were even trying to begin to think about the possibility of maybe keeping decent proportionality in the rest of the episodes.

TMNT is just one example, but it is by no means the only one that does this.  In actuality, it seems that nearly all American animations that have human characters that are supposed to be drawn somewhat realistically screw it up all the time.  Yes, I know that TMNT can hardly be considered "realistic"...but body proportion-wise...they (the turtles) were supposed to be very similar to humans.  Actually, it is not only limited to human body-like proportions, but to all proportions.  Take, for example a sword coming towards the camera.  Keeping it proportionate with respect to depth is also a major challenge; one that anime often passes with flying colors.

Anywho...that, coupled with the thick lines that often seem to get thicker, or get thinner with each passing frame...yeah, I know, I may be knit-picking...but, hey...that's my personal tastes for ya.

[Earthwormzim]

Oh, and many anime have fantastic camera angles...angles that simply do not seem to exist in American cartoons...camera angles that you only expect to see in really artsy-fartsy-type, independent films. 

I could go on and on...

Example:

The only camera angles for a face drawn in American animations (in ascii art): 
1)       (  *>*)

2)       (*<*  )

3)       (      *)> 

4)      <(*     )

and sometimes....

5)        (       )

And that's it.

[Bill Brasky]

             <(*     )
 B===D    O

[Brian Wolf]

             <(*     )
 B===D    O

 

What kind of cartoons have you been watching?

[Bill Brasky]

             <(*     )
 B===D    O

 

What kind of cartoons have you been watching?

Sorayama.  They've got snake ass ! 

[OUND]

             <(*     )
 B===D    O

 

What kind of cartoons have you been watching?