Anime And Manga Rants The Asian Advantage I thought about this for a while, and I don't know any other way to put it that would technically not be racist, so please bear with me. People born in Asian are naturally better at drawing in anime and manga style. Of course, it owes a great deal to the fact that anime is a lot more popular than in the West, and thus, more related resources are available to general public, and the people naturally draw in the style, technique and learn through osmoses. Of course, you already knew that, so onto the more obscure fact that I am trying to present. The important factor that I am referring to specifically in this article, is whereas in North America, children are taught in school to draw the english alphabet with a pencil or ball point pen. For the most part, stroke technique with a dip or fountain pen is not taught anymore. Many western artists, particularly graphic novel artists (Remember when we could call them “Comics” without offending anyone?) learned the techniques on their own. Learning how to master a dip pen is no easy task, as a matter of fact, it's great way to motivate yourself to lose more hair through ripping it out. Having several years of your childhood dedicated to the practice is a great start. The difference in difficulty between drawing the letter “T” with a pencil, and then trying to draw just about any Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other language's character set realistically well with a dip pen character is fairly obvious, and with minor exceptions, is always much more challenging. As a result of this particular training, Asian students often leave their education with a much sturdier grasp on line quality and stroke technique with inking. Since it has been integrated into their minds since childhood, it becomes second nature, and they have much less difficulty plunging into the fray of manga and anime creation, where line quality is next to godliness. I’d however, like to add that many western artists and animators have been over to overcome this difficulty. Of course, some professionals still find it extremely painful at times, and many people, particularly clean up artists (Who redraw a polished version of a roughed drawing for the final viewing) have considered committing suicide trying to have perfect line quality that some people of Asian origin seem to completely excel at without having a clue why. On a somewhat lighter note, as computer technology and digital ink and become more utilized, things might become quite a bit more balanced. Not to conjure up the all too familiar generalization that asians can naturally start off better from the get go, as is often though when you see a six year old chinese kids whipping the crap out of a person ten times their age at the piano. I don't think I can say that it is genetics at all, more likely just cultural influence. I am an asian born in North America trained under the Canadian school system. I've had to learn my craft and pen technique from scratch, and I'm still not that good. Anime’s strong points are often story, cinematic direction and beautiful scene layout and character design and development, whereas western animation, particular by Disney has extremely fluid animation, style versatility and much larger production budgets and accurate lip-sync. You probably already knew that already, so I am not going to discuss stylistic differences from this point, but rather production. I personally was trained in the western animation system modeled after Disney’s techniques (Which have of course, been an industry standard), but at same time studied anime production techniques, and it’s actually quite funny what pops up. First of all, anime made for television most often runs on not ones, not twos, but threes! That’s three drawings held for 8 frames each on a 24 fps rate. Animating like this in the west on a regular basis is a good way to get fired. Of course, Japanese productions generally have smaller budgets than their western counterparts, so this technique saves money, unfortunately, Japanese animators are not as well paid either. The fact that each drawing is held for 8 frames is what gives Japanese television it’s somewhat jerky, static look. People used to Disney animation immediately notice this, but it seems that the more anime you watch, you more used to it you become. Anime Movies and OAVs usually have a higher drawing per frame rate, but it is quite rare to find an entire anime that runs entirely on ones. Held stills and long scenes were people just stare off into space with their mouths moving to deliver long philosophical analogies on the meaning of life is another technique exclusive to anime, either by choice or convenience. It is a very cheap thing to do, and saves a lot of money. Western animators wouldn't’t dare do something like that, unless they were really running low on money, it’s practically an animation taboo, for them, their characters have to be waving their hands and singing and dancing like a bunch of idiots to be delivering dialogue, figuratively speaking. Of course, whereas the former can be boring and extremely stupid looking at times, like when the animator forgets to make the characters blink, the later can be grating on the nerves and actually unrealistic. Even people in real life seldom move that much when talking, not to mention the total frequent lack of eye contact and exaggeration of thinking, which is something western animators are proud of..You always have to show that your characters are thinking. Of course, it's cartoon, might as well make use of what you have to the fullest, so it's not necessarily bad if it's for intended effect. Now then, as for lip-sync, the Japanese do the animation, and then have the voice actor/actress (Seiyuu actually) talk over the animation. This actually works very well for international imports, and whereas western animation can have mouths A-Z for different vowels, anime really in general, usually only has 4 or 5 mouths for dialogue scenes (Close, Open, Really Open, and Extremely Open), oh, and in a lot of not so realistic anime the jaw never moves either. This makes it easy to dub anime actually... and as much as otaku might hate horrible dubs, you got to wonder if there is some hardcore Disney fan in Japan who got the bad end of the bargain and has to listen to Japanese dubs on impossibly accurate mouth animation made specifically for English dialogue. It’s actually very ironic actually why Seiyuu have to talk over the animation as opposed to the other way around... seeing as how the Japanese Seiyuu is roughly, like a hundred times more popular in Japan when compared to the average none celebrity western voice actor in North America. Many people working on the western animation frontier I met have a really hard time comprehending how the Hell the Japanese manage to do it, it’s kind of of like trying to tape your favorite song off the radio with the volume off, and having no clue when the song starts or ends. Speaking of taking stabs in the dark, whereas the line test machine is as common in western 2D animation houses as water coolers (Probably more so actually), a good deal of Japanese production houses have actually never heard of them. Now then, personally having been trained the western way, let me just state that working without a line test machine, is like having to roll a giant bolder up Mount Fuji, then strap yourself to it, and have your very best friend push you down the little mountain. It’s often the animators equivalent of working with a blindfold, and although proper rolling/flipping technique will get you as far as six or twelve frames, depending on how many hands you are using, asking a normal western animator to work without a line test machine is like asking him to drive his car to work without brakes, and without life insurance to boot. By some miraculous practice, Japanese animators have gotten used to this scenario, and perhaps it’s because they're not as animation critical. They have managed to not depend on the safety net that is the line tester, which is often beside every other desk in a modern western 2D production house or so, which I find rather impressive. Now then, speaking of desks, the Japanese animation desk is generally very difference from the western custom light table. The western animation desk is most recognized with having a round frosted Plexiglas disc that light shines through that has animation pegs attached. This disc can be rotated and is proven to help animators draw better from a variety of angles and is common practice. Some discs are even "armored" and and come with heavy black plastic to shield off light, a measuring straight edge at the bottom and a reference point at the top for such things as perspective drawing. In contrast, the Japanese Animators more often than not, have a light lit drafting table and a separate peg that is movable and not attached to any particular disc. Also, whereas western animators have become accustom to drawing on bottom pegs due to Disney standards, the Japanese are quite comfortable animating on top pegs. I personally like drawing on top pegs, because it doesn't grate your hands into cheese or get in the way of straight edges and you can often make better use of the whole page, but bottom pegs are better for rolling (In my opinion, rolling is superior to flipping) and thus, is more suitable for animation. Just as well I guess, since that seems to play up the specialty of both camps as need be. Other than these differences, the production order between the two is very similar. Of course, when western studios need someone to do their grunt work for significantly cheaper, they often send their work to Singapore, Taiwan, Korea or Japan. There is still yet another difference, currently, western animators use more computers in their animation, kinda ironic, cause 2D is going down to hell in North America and even major productions studios like Disney and Dreamworks are shuffling their cards in favor of 3D. If the world revolved around the art style of cute anime girls and the obligatory cute animal mascot, then I would be set for life on one very stable career path... Case in point, it doesn't. Somewhere in between the mountains of fan art, the hoards of wannabes and the professionals, the general public of North America have come to a long well established conclusion that all anime/manga looks the same... And can you really blame them? Stack 10 pictures of anime girls with cat ears in a row and ask a person off the street if they can tell the difference in words and you will see what I mean. Words might be able to explain what a picture cannot, but if they still aren't enough to tell the difference, then something is definitely wrong. I will frequently use the bishoujo anime stereotype as an example in this write up, as it is the most prominent one to outside anime fans, but there are many more examples, such as bishounen, obligatory animal mascots and giant robots. You can always give the "a critical eye can tell the difference" argument, like I always have, but if everybody in the world had a critical eye, we artists would definitely be making a lot less money, cause nobody needs a talent that everybody has. A critical eye can tell the most obscure of details, but not everyone has one, so we have to resort to a more universal bag of tricks in order to convey the uniqueness of our style. You can also use the exception to every rule factor, and show them examples of vast differences in styles which clearly do exist. Ya' ain't gonna' get hard edges, graphic renditions and dynamic poses in Hello Kitty, folks. Unfortunately, if everybody knew better, than the world would really be a better place, but most don't, and most do not care, so we have to make due with what we have. To individual artists, different unique styles have been the only thing keeping them a float in the industry, and some animated shows thrive on it. Take a show like Simpsons for example, you can flip through a hundred animated shows in a hundred seconds, and chances are, you still would be able to recognize it when you see it, can you say the same for your favorite anime lined up next to 99 other ones? This unique visual characterization is the soul of the artist and the product, so when everything starts to look right about the same, it becomes worrisome. People cannot really add on characteristics and techniques to their style that they do not like. Actually, I suppose you can, but that's sometimes called selling out, which is okay if you are trying to actually make a living, but that's besides the point, it is best to avoid it if you aren't getting paid to do it. A lot of people love the look of a cute anime girl, and that becomes their style route toward their path of development. Whereas western cartoons are more abstract and exaggerated, anime in general, between it's genres, tends to be more realistic, and since humans really do start looking the same after a while in real life, they will start looking even more like each other in anime. You can only have so many different variations of hair styles and color and body types. Well, it is actually infinite most likely, but after a while, they start looking the same. It is difficult though... if you really like drawing in a style that looks like everyone else's, how are you suppose to express your uniqueness in style without taking on elements that you do not like? Characters with personality and distinctiveness play an important part in defining any story, but if the style is good, the characters will be better. There was an old lesson that I learned from a video game called Rise of Nations. At the beginning, all the races are very unique, the Japanese build houses that look like Japanese houses and farm rice and the English build english looking cottages and farm wheat. This is great, and really adds to the feel of the game, but when all of the technology and advancements in the game are refined and developed, everyone starts building things that look exactly the same, and the differences between the races starts to disappear. I like to call this the "Rise of Nations" rule. That is, the better you technically get at drawing semi-realistic things, the more uniqueness your work loses. Since the big eyed bishoujo is such a lovable sight, a lot of people try to draw them, and to a degree, there is a variation in style, but it is not as much as what western cartoon characters are able to portray. Sure the talking animals are annoying, the little kids in those school cartoons look like hot steamy dog crap, it's kiddy fare and intellectually idiotic, but in the end, you are still going be able to tell your Rockies apart from your Bullwinkles. Basically, in North American, people are used to telling characters by more obvious things than facial traits and hair color... like, oh, how many legs you have or if you come from Planet Mycron and have a microwave sticking out of your head. I'm not sure if the Japanese feel it as badly as we do, but North Americans really do think that all anime characters look the same, which is kind of a surprise, because we are used to watching live action, and if you think about it, humans of the same race and gender couldn't have really more than a 20% of a difference overall between us in appearance if you considered that most of us have two legs, two arms and a head somewhere on our shoulders. The irony with the new growing trends of North America accepting anime and manga as the rebirth of cartoons and comics is that many are unaware that anime and manga themselves have gone through much stagnation and might have actually almost run their full course in their current incarnation. With advances in 3D animation and Flash culture, it is more than likely for anime to have a full revolution of its own in the next few years. I like to believe that this will be a union between the East, and the West, not just the right hand tossing in ideas and possibilities while the left sorts through the trash bin, but both working in unison. Artists must take action and stop carelessly labeling everything that they can as novel, and start working with some solid art direction and intent. In many cases, humanoid anime characters have at least semi-accurate proportions and are a generally a mix of curvy and hard edges, most similar to their real life counterparts. This might be great on the eyes and a feast for still shots, but this is not all that animation potentially has to offer. The strongest point of animations, both 2D and 3D, is that it can do what no camera and cast can, it creates life upon it’s own... for that life to be a mere shadow of reality brings me nothing but disappointment. However, seldom does this occur, but it is often forgotten. As I speak now, North America has been adopting anime-inspired techniques and methods into it's entertainment works, and I think that's a good thing. Being a conservative artist is never a good idea, because someone will always do what you didn't, and you will regret it. Then again, as I mentioned in The Mega-Manga Americanime Madness Messay Essay, this can be viewed negatively as everyone trying to jump out onto the manga/anime buzzword bandwagon, weighing it down till it collapses into a former shadow of itself. Historically in art, being conservative has never paid off, but when it comes to marketing and making money, over saturation and medium integrity can make a lot of artists who do not adapt quite a bit poorer. When you really think about it though, anime may be beautiful, captivating and tell an actually good story, but western animation still utilization things that can only be done in animation better, such as exaggerated antics, wild takes, more fluid animation, and of course, a general lack of reality. Anime defies the laws of gravity and logic at regular intervals to, but doesn't normally push it the way that western animation has traditionally been able to. Powering up and launching a killer energy blast at a planet is believable, but having a ten ton anvil coincidentally land on a target with a coyote under it, who still manages to live before the cliff collapses and reappears a second later good as new, isn't. Perhaps this is because anime directors have traditionally had minds along the lines of a cinematic film maker, whereas classic western cartoons were just trying to have a good time with multiple quick gags Anime's cinematic quality is something to be appreciated, but it does seem to be a waste not to take advantage of the exclusive benefits of the medium. Unfortunately, the styles between anime and western animation completely clash. Imagine trying to get a serious story about civil revolution and two lovers facing execution when anvils fall from the sky and anybody that dies comes back to life three seconds later. Then again, since this isn't often done, it might just be the new style that people are looking for. Of course, the technical details clash as well. Anime has higher line mileage per frame than Western animation in general, but it is limited animation whereas it's western counterpart is fluid.You could make some real good stuff if you combined these two traits, but it would be costly, especially in this age of 3D where costs can be significantly reduced. Of course, I am using old western animation stereotypes in this document, but many of the recent trends in the last five years at the very least have been influenced by anime in some form or another, even if it is something as simple as having speed lines during action sequences like in Power Puff girls, Speaking of which, I would like to mention that I did a radio interview debunking it as being classified as anime in Vancouver during my film school days. I was a bit of an elitist otaku back then, but I thought it would be interesting to mention. To this day, I never heard the actual recording though, I had two friends with me contributing comments and ideas to the interviewer as well. I think that was sometime in the year 2002, but it seems like a lifetime ago. Those were the days when I thought that the difference between anime and western animation were a Grand Canyon apart. You eventually learn better. I think it is necessary, for North America to drop the animation labeling limiter in the interest of pursuing the entire spectrum of animation. That is, return the splitting connotations of anime, cartoon and animation back into one solid category to utilize a broader audience and a larger arsenal of techniques and methodologies. Still, it never is really that simple, is it? No, this will probably never happen, but that is okay, because labeling does not matter when artists have their own unique style. I am extremely happy to say that the Flash revolution is playing an extremely important part in this. Style should be a natural thing in the development of a show or an artist. The fact is, so many professional western comic and 2D animation artists are so worried about trying to save their potentially sinking ship from the shock of the 3D, anime and Flash revolutions at the same time, that they’re not exactly hesitating to throw everything that they had gained overboard. This is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, a more conservative way of describing it would be merely jumping on the bandwagon, but there is a very prominent truth that at all three revolutions are having a very strong effect on the traditional 2D industry, and there is a potential risk that many of the traditional skills and techniques invented in the early days of western animation may be made obscure and forgotten. Such examples are the various surreal “takes” and antics revolutionized by Tex Avery, or the experimental, almost abstract work of Marv Newland, who was also my favorite instructor when I attended the Vancouver Film School. Traditional 2D may be close to almost running it's full course in it's current incarnation, but the skills are transferable to 3D. In 3D, complex models can be created and rigged, and it is by far more cost effective and labor efficient. A lot of people like to say that computer generated graphics and cell shaded technology will never replaced 2D, but I feel that this is just conservative defense in the face of diversity. Technology and human evolution of the none giant wing popping out of your back variety are constantly accelerating. If the entire video game empire essentially evolved from Pong to almost movie quality in less than 30 years, imagine where we will be in another 30 years. Computers are not a replacements for talented artists, they are a tool, and any artist that is good with a pencil, can potentially become even better with a computer. Times are changing, and we need to as well.You can never really say that a style is better, especially in the face of technological advancements, but it does perform the much needed task of being an extension of the soul. Of course, you realize pretty soon that your soul ain 't gonna put food on your table, so whatever the river smacks you up against is what you get, I guess. |
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