OT: Anime (Was: Re: Picture Books)

[Dr M M]

No: HPFGUIDX 768

>From: Neil Ward <neilward at dircon.co.uk>
>
>Ooops! Terribly sorry, Dr MM.  Actually, I wasn't talking about
animation or
>anime, I was thinking about illustrated books in the same style, but I
>expect I still sinned by calling the artists 'cartoonists'.  You know, I
>should have learned my lesson by now, since one of my brothers lectures
on
>animation and gets rattled when I tell people that he "watches cartoons
for
>a living" (in my cheeky, big-brotherly way).  

Hehehe, no big deal :)  I just had to say something. . . and btw, I envy
your brother. . . What a fun job that would be :)

>So, fill me in: anime is the Japanese animation, but what is the comic
book
>equivalent called?  Is that also called anime?  Shouldn't it be called
>illustre? What are the artists called?  Animartists?  Anime
illustrators? 

The "comic book" equivalents are called "manga".  However, unlike U.S.
comic books they aren't short fifteen page things and are rarely (if
ever) in color.  They're basically graphic novels.  As for what the
creators are called. . . I'm not sure.  I usually call them manga artists
or illustrators or something like that.  They might have a term in
Japanese that I don't know though.

>Continuing this very large OT aside about anime, the Sci-Fi Channel here
>just had a whole week of anime features.  I only saw bits, but I loved
the
>style.  I've also watched the Pokemon cartoons, sorry, ahem - anime -
and
>they seemed like kids' stuff in comparison.  

Pokemon, IMO (and probably in most anime fans opinions), is an inferior
subset of anime, barely worthy to don the name.  But Pokemon *was*
intended for a children's audience in Japan, so in a way, you're right. 
One of the interesting things about anime is there are so many different
genre's of anime.  There's the traditional shonen (guys) / shoujo (girls)
anime distinction, but there's also anime aimed at different age groups. 
Card Captor Sakura (now airing as Cardcaptors -- edited of course -- on
Kids WB) is shoujo but it's also more for children than adults (although,
that doesn't stop adults like me from adoring it).  An anime series like
Marmalade Boy is shoujo, but as it's a high school romance (rather soap
opera-ish) it's more for teenagers than children.  Pokemon is probably
considered shonen, but it's for younger kids, whereas a shonen title like
Ninja Scroll (one of the few anime's I absolutely despised) is for adults
(or maybe older teenage boys).  And then there's the "creators on crack"
type of metaphysical questioning anime's like Evangelion, Serial
Experiments Lain and Ghost in the Shell. . . . 

And of course, I must mention the *master* of Japanese animation: Hayao
Miyazaki.  He's frequently called the Disney of Japan (and his plots are
*far* superior to Disney's IMO) and until recently his work held the
Japanese box office record (inexplicably, Titanic beat it -- although,
Titanic surpassed many far superior works in the US too. . .).  

Blech.  I'm getting terribly long-winded right now so I'll shut up :)  I
tend to go long when talking about my favorite hobby. . . .

*~*~*~*~*~*~*
DrMM can be reached at drmm at juno.com or #9689360 on ICQ
The Many Worlds of DrMM at http://drmm.simplenet.com/
Most Recent Anime: Irresponsible Captain Tyler
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