What even is anime?

Vashdaman

Vashdaman

Za Warudo
I've made a thread for us all to tie ourselves up in knots and get all metaphysical and Inception-esque (Indeed is Inception not partly anime?) over anime. Of course the simple answer is that anime is Japanese animation, but if we're honest that definition doesn't really capture what it means in ours heads, does it? Personally, if you looked inside my brain when I hear the word "anime" the first things that would flash up in the first milliseconds would still be very 90s stereotypical ideas of what it means, I'm talking ninjas, samurai, people splitting in half seconds after being sliced, school girls with green and pink hair, giant robots etc. But that's far from a real and full picture of the Japanese animation landscape even in the 90s let alone today. But it seems that really, anime is more a style than a geographic category of a medium. But are we limiting ourselves and our ideas about Japanese animation by even using this word at all and not just Japanese animation? What's more, it seems to me the word over the years, from a western perspective, is more and more burdened and loaded with negative associations usually to do with sexism. The word is almost a synonym for sexism for some people. I'm assuming it's not the case in Japan, but I'm not really sure, maybe it is the same. We know Miyazaki for some reason has always disliked the word and has been disparaging of that popular kind of Japanese animation.

So, what does "anime" mean to you all personally in 2023? Does it mean what it used to? Does it really mean anything at all? Did we make a mistake by calling ourselves anime fans or not just fans of Japanese animation?
 
I know this isnt the correct way

But I just think the following as "Anime"

- Japanese Animation in either Japanese or reluctantly English

Then will use the term less seriously to desribe the following:

- Chinese Animation in either Chinese, English or Japanese

- Korean Animation in either Korean, English or Japanese

Is there any more asian producing anime countries?

- English Animation dubbed in Japanese

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Doesnt make me think much else as the medium is too diverse to say its just about CGDCT, CGDEO or Girls with Guns
 
That's a pretty interesting answer to me, as I've never really thought of language of dub as having much bearing on this question. It makes sense in a way though, as I know voice acting in general is a much bigger deal in Japan than it is here. It's also kind of interesting that you loosely associate all East Asian animation with anime. I sometimes see people refer to Chinese anime and Korean anime etc, but I'm never sure if it's due to certain shared stylistic trends, or if we just sometimes subconsciously group East Asian animation together. I don't mean that that's bad thing necessarily though.

I know for most of us our thinking of something as anime or not comes down to an emotional and instinctual feeling more than anything hard and fast.
 
For grouping the SEA animation together under the Anime banner also goes back to the language for me. Mostly associating the Asian Dub with Anime (Be it Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and so on)

Also helped that a number of Chinese animation studio's work with Japanese Studio's to make "Japanese Anime".

So its kinda difficult to say Anime is ONLY Japanese... or that Chinese Animation cant be Anime, because you would be pretty much ignoring a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into Anime production

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But yeh

Main thing I mean when I say Anime - Japanese Anime

But I would be happy to refer to SEA Animation as Anime.

Example: I think Soul Land is a pretty good anime
 
The more I think about it though, anime, in the western context at least, is a strange word in that it both seems to mean so much and so little. I was curious about whether non-mainstream and experimental Japanese anime creators embrace or try to avoid the label, although I don't suppose there's really an alternative in Japan? I haven't found any answer to that question, but I did find a BFI article about experimental Japanese animation tellingly titled "beyond anime: Independent Japanese animation" suggesting that the author of that piece at least wants to separate independent Japanese animation from the word "anime". I wonder what's it like for those Japanese creators, because while the word animation over here is very neutral (unlike cartoon, I suppose, which suggests kids programs), anime isn't so neutral (even though it really ought to be), when you say that word you bring to mind people like us, loonies on anime forums! I'm guessing the word in Japan also isn't as neutral as the word animation is in the west.
 
I always thought in Japan ‘anime’ was a generic umbrella term for all animation, and only in the West was the meaning redefined as a more elegant way of saying ‘Japanimation’, as it was called back in the seventies and eighties.

For me, anime is that animation usually commissioned by the Japanese studio and committee system, with the occasional auteur thrown into the mix. Doesn’t matter so much where it’s put together or if it’s outsourced; most of the money and creative talent would be Japanese.

But then there’s stuff like Ujicha: Violence Voyager/Burning Buddha Man, which would fit that criteria, but I wouldn’t call anime.
 
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