#amerime

[amerimemedia]

Whoaaa man, Ed Boon has dropped the DD/Spawn bomb! Us here at Amerime are pretty flippin’ stoked, what are your thoughts?

[defiantdreamers-blog]

A little work in progress should be finished with it by tonight what do you think comment below #mangadraw #cartoon #amerime #flameking #defiantdreamers #chasingdreams https://www.instagram.com/p/BtTEUf1gFmt/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1sm169sc83ex1

[americananime-apc]

Interview #3

So the last interview I did was speaking to one of my animation professors, Josh. He’s always been pretty vocal about his love for anime, so I thought he might be another good and different voice (non-student) for my paper. We ended up talking in person for quite along time about these questions, much of the answers unable to get jotted down. Regardless, he had a lot of good and interesting things to say, and had a very passionate and fun conversation.

1) Do you think that American Anime is a thing? If not, how do you feel about the argument that there is American Anime/Anime is a "style" rather than something solely defined by where it was created? If you think American Anime is a thing, how would you define it?

Josh: Something I would deem as American anime is something that has happened to be mostly American produced and or American driven with kind of an anime aesthetic. But it’s difficult because it’s a very two-way street between America and Japan. so if there is a subgenre of American anime, the line is blurred, sometiems you can’t tell - sometimes it’s ambigious to if it was produced in america and japan. 

Josh: I wanna know if there’s an american production that is like anime that DOESN’T have heavy involvemnt from Japan. 

Josh: I mean possibly why there’s such associated styles is because Japanese animation has prodominately always kept in Japan. And interesting example of one of the first to break through this was Tekkonkinkreet, which was directed by an American. And how it sounds like Japan is beginning to outsource. And then ther’s also like Animatrix, which was prodominatley Japanese -directed with some exceptions like American director, Peter Chung, on the project. That’s where like a lot of anime-influence on American animation can be sourced from. American source material, with huge anime/Japanese production.

Josh: Spend more time on the grey areas, because it’s very much a back-and-force.  2) What are your opinions on how anime has influenced Western Animation, especially like series like Voltron: Legendary Defender and Steven Universe?

Josh: It’s hard to definitely say, also because I’m not the most familiar with these shows. But yeah there is definitely an influence but to say how much is hard to say. 

3) What do you see for the future of anime-inspired Western animation? Will we see more, or less? Why?

Josh: Its gonna get more so and lines are starting to blur. like looking at Castlevania and watching Americans taking Japanese source material. At some point you’re not going to be able to tell, and you’re going to have to look at the credits. And as you mentioned, already so much of the production is international to begin with. The international collaboration is fueling the remix, just by virtue of how it’s made. 

4) Please briefly describe your experience/interest in anime and animation in general.

Josh: I love anime. I used to consume a series a week. I used to watch 3 movies a day, one of them Japanese, one of them Korean, and one from somewhere else. In grad school I used to be subscribed to a 3-disc anime program. Of course I used to download, and consume fansubs. Nowadays I’m behind on everything, but if I had to choose between something I knew was produced in US and looked Wester vs anime, I would choose anime. Cause I dig the aesthetic, and the stories are just so unique and different. 

[americananime-apc]

Interviews #2

Here’s another brief interview I had with another friend and peer of mine, Greg. Unlike with Sasha’s interview, we just sat and talked while working.

1) Do you think that American Anime is a thing? If not, how do you feel about the argument that there is American Anime/Anime is a "style" rather than something solely defined by where it was created? If you think American Anime is a thing, how would you define it?

Greg: American anime is a thing. And it exists. And I would define it as...a project that does or tries to emulate a certain set of aesthetic style that is usually akin to Japanese animation.  2) What are your opinions on how anime has influenced Western Animation, especially like series like Voltron: Legendary Defender and Steven Universe?

Greg: What do you mean? Like specifically for Voltron and Steven or anime and animation in general?

Me: It can be for animation in general, but it’d be cool if you were more specific to Voltron and Steven.

Greg: I think anime has a huge influence especially after the move of the internet because of how we consume animation in general. There’s (anime) has more different ways to tell stories, direct, and tell story beats in general. And then there’s series like Voltron and Steven that take more directly from anime like Utena and how they’re animated. You can also see this in shows like Korra. 

3) What do you see for the future of anime-inspired Western animation? Will we see more, or less? Why?

Greg: I think we’ll see more. You look at a project like Shelter that has a French musician, American musician, and Japanese animation which question kind of what is anime from the way it emulates Japanese animation. 

Greg: I feel like that more...more animation studios want to expand and broaden as their audience broadens as we can see in the medium and in the movies their making. Like looking at Boku no Hero Academia we can see the Western animation. And the more anime there is, the more influence it will have on work internationally. Like it’s inevitable that someday someone on a project will say something like “I was inspired by Boku no Hero Academia” and we can see the direct influence.

4) Please briefly describe your experience/interest in anime and animation in general.

Greg: My experience with anime has been fairly more modern due to the surge of streaming services for anime. My interest in animation overall is that I want to work in animation and consume as much as I can before leaving this earth. Animation as a medium can bring so much to the table in terms of media and anime has been usually a place where animation can go beyond the "standards" that are set in Western animation.

[americananime-apc]

Found this little forum talking about American anime, the potential of it’s existence, and what qualifies a show. Very good and interesting compilation of shows that detail different amerime that exhibit the different types of amerime I talk about. I also particularly like the first post which talks about Shelter and Neo Yokio, both good examples of hybrid-amerime while also discussing the growing future of hybrids.

[americananime-apc]

Interviews #1

So for our paper we’re required to treat our topics like case studies, and interview people about our subject. As an animation major, since my topic is about anime, finding people who care or know about anime is not hard to find. While I have asked other before (and I’ll log those later) here’s a little interview I did with my friend and fellow animation major, Sasha, over online chat. WARNING (not sure if this is really needed) but this is a direct transcription, so there is text shorthand, grammatical errors and the like.

1) Do you think that American Anime is a thing? If it is, how do you define it as American Anime? If not, how do you feel about the idea of American Anime?

Sasha: uhhhhh idk really lol i'm not a Scholar but unless you count ATLA (which some people do? but i don't think i do?) not really until Neo Yokio? because doesn't anime refer to specifically Japanese animation? idk. 

 2) What are your opinions on how anime has influenced Western Animation? (think like Steven, & OKKO even) 

Sasha: LOVE IT! makes for an interesting variety of tv shows, anime uses a lot of rlly Good storytelling tropes/techniques that i think benefit western shows. 

 3) What do you see for the future of "American Anime"? Will we see more, or less? Why? more, probably?

Sasha: i think because our generation grew up with a higher exposure to anime because of the internet & we are becoming content creators. 

 4) Pls message me a brief description on your experience/interest in anime and animation in general.

Sasha: started watching Pokemon & Sailor moon (dubbed) at around 5/6? and then Digimon throughout elementary school.  my first "serious" anime was fma at like.... 13 after i read the manga. haven't seen/read like EVERYTHING but an ok amount i think? and animation in general, i grew up watching russian animated shorts and like the above mentioned anime

After this I also went on to talk to my friend in person, and as I assumed based on common opinions as well as the ones she had expressed, while she enjoys the influences anime has had on many different aspects of American animation, she would not go out of her way to call anything anime, nor consider we should create a whole other genre for anime-like Western shows.

[americananime-apc]

Hybrid-Amerime

Definition - the third term imagined by the author, this kind of Amerime refers to animation that was a collaboration between Western studios (American) and Japanese studios.

In researching different Western animated shows that could be considered American anime or Amerime, I began to notice the different ways shows could maybe be categorized by the ways and degrees a show is influenced by Japan. So, I categorized these in 3 different types - Classic, Soft, and Hybrid.

Hybrid-Amerime can be confusing - do english-dubbed anime count? Does it count if a majority of the anime (usually animation and production) were done in Japan? Usually I draw the line at dubs because while the nuances and things lost in translation can effect the audience’s understanding, I would like to focus more on the anime that had more collaboration in the ideas and creation of a project. It is also interesting to watch as hybrid-amerime is growing, especially thanks to the interest from online streaming services like Netflix who are trying to produce their own anime.

Examples:

- Voltron: Defender of the Universe (1994)

- Neo Yokio (2017)

- Bee and Puppycat (2013)

- RWBY (2013)

[americananime-apc]

Soft-Amerime

Definition - another term created by the author, “Soft-Amerime” is meant to categorize Western animation that is a little more subtle in referencing anime in their art, but includes more elements of anime in their writing, animation, jokes, themes, and direction. Most would regard such shows as not anime at all, but just shows influenced by anime. 

In researching different Western animated shows that could be considered American anime or Amerime, I began to notice the different ways shows could maybe be categorized by the ways and degrees a show is influenced by Japan. So, I categorized these in 3 different types - Classic, Soft, and Hybrid.

Soft-Amerime can be the hardest to discern since you do not always find such easy to-see anime characteristics like with classic-Amerime. Anime characteristics will surface over time, the common ways including gags from the show that reference or take on similar comedy from gag manga, direct references to manga or anime, theme similarities, and how a show is directed.

Examples - 

- Steven Universe (2013)

- OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes (2017)

- Bee and Puppycat (2013)

- The Powderpuff Girls (1998)

- Star vs. the Forces of Evil (2015)