First things first. If you respond to this thread? Make sure you spell and grammar check your post. Please. It makes a much better impression, it really does. Admittedly, no one is perfect, but I detest !33+$p34|< and noobspeak. Unless English is your second language, you have no excuse to be unable to spell certain basic words.
Now, that being said, I've got something to say to all you wannabe elitist "otaku" out there who think America is "stealing" or "ruining" J-anime: get over it.
People THROUGHOUT HISTORY have been influenced by other artists. Look at works during the Renaissance era. Michealangelo's art didn't look EXACTLY like Da Vinci's, but they certainly shared enough similarites (as did other artists of that time) that their art is lumped together in an Era marked by a STYLE (altighough J-anime doesn't HAVE a single specific style). As I said, it's been that way through out history. Artists of each era followed a commonality. Hell, even the first cave paintings all looked similar.
Jack Kirby hits the comic book world, suddenly everyone is emulating his style. Did he take offense? I sincerely doubt it. The comic book world is FILLED with such influencing of other artists' work. That's the nature of the beast.
Animation is no different. Animation, if my memory serves, was INVENTED in America. Was it stealing for the Japanese to start doing their own? That's a resounding no. As time goes on, we are becoming an increasingly global culture. The internet makes it easier and easier with each passing day for countless artists to be exposed to more and radically varied styles of art. Some of those artists, like you, grew up watching J-anime and reading manga. Is it wrong for that to have an effect on their work? Of course not. If you think so, why do you watch J-anime or read manga in the first place?
I hate to be the one to tell you this but "Americans" don't make animation. ARTISTS make animation. Whether they're American, Canadian, Japanese, Mexican, British . . . ******** HUNGARIAN . . . they're
artists. Stop judging things by the country, and start judging things on their individual merit. To do otherwise is practically racism.
One thing I'd also like to point out, since I'm on my li'l soapbox.
The original American fans of Japanese animation had it a LOT harder than we do. We like to argue back and forth about whether subbed or dubbed is better. The originals didn't have EITHER. They made the effort to learn Japanese for themselves. They didn't have networks of other fans to make fansubs. They didn't even have companies like AnimEigo or AD Visions to import anime for them. It was an extremely expensive process to get ANY anime. If you were to ask some of these hardcore fans what THEY thought of subbing or dubbing, they'd probably tell you that NEITHER of them should be done. So stop beating the dead horse. Do things get censored on their way to America? Probably. But unless you have friends in Japan who can send the originals to you, you're not really in a position to complain are you? And if you HAD such friends, then you wouldn't BE complaining.
I think I'm done. Now. As I said when I started . . . don't respond to this with a bunch of "OMG! U R sew worgn!". Take the time and effort to spell things correctly. Present well thought points, if you disagree with me. In short . . . don't be an idiot.
Edit: Also, please don't comment until you've read the enough of the thread to get the point (that means at LEASt the entire first post) and you plan to come back to check for responses. It's not such a big deal on thius thread, but it always drives me nuts about other threads where someone will drop an inflamatory comment, and never come back to see the reactions.
Edit: Also. It is important to stress that "wannabe anime" doesn exist because anime in its Japanese definition refers to ALL animation, not just Japanese animation. Also, how many people who claim to hate "wannabe anime" also draw fan art, or want to go to Japan become a mangaka or animator? What's the difference between the "fans" doing it and professional artists doing it? Like I said before, the pros are fans, too.
Grendel
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