Ask John: Is an American Equivalent to Anime Possible?

Question:
Being an aspiring artist, not only in media arts, from drawing, illustration, and crafting, but to literature, humanities, and aesthetics design, and wishing to pursue an independent career due to the current economical climate, I was curious, ever since at a young age, could there ever be an anime style focused animation studio or industry in the western world?

I have done my research; not only of knowing of the workings behind Macross, Robotech, and even Avatar: The Last Airbender, I was curious if there could ever be a sort of “Tezuka Inspiration” in the world again regarding a new wave of anime- Not from pure hardcore academics based upbringing, but from drawing from inspiration and understanding from the world you are given, as was Tezuka; not longing to go to Burbank, California to “truly pursue” being an animator, but using a medium you were inspired from and taking your own careful spin on it, while also adding your own cultural perspectives and upbringing, to create something truly unique.

Ever since I was young, I saw a world interacting on a global scale, and while anime is not the end-all-be-all of animation and artistic style, it certainly shines as a sort of proof of multi-national global interaction with the world. Yes, a majority of anime is centered around Japanese culture, but the musoseki characterization aspect of race, culture, and even nationality help fades it in other works disregarding nationality. In addition, specific works, like Dagger of Kamui, and including certain Japanese video games, help break down the barrier with their art styles and even story, bringing together a sort of multinational cast of varying degrees, with the best not resorting to ethnic and offensive stereotyping. In blatant disregard of the cynical backwash, stereotyping, and even the rise of pompous amounts of ultranationalism and jingoistic chauvinism in the geek communities of today in the US and abroad within the past decade, do you also believe that an audience exists for such an industry?

Answer:
I absolutely wish to believe that the absence of something does not preclude its possibility. The fact that an American parallel or equivalent to contemporary Japanese animation hasn’t emerged yet shouldn’t prohibit the development of such a medium in the future. I completely believe that an original American style of contemporary cult animation is possible and simply hasn’t emerged yet.

American and international anime fans have a tendency to idolize and emulate Japanese-style animation. Korea & China, in particular, have attempted to copy Japanese animaton aesthetics. But I want to believe that the willingness of American otaku to be receptive to Japanese animation represents a fundamental receptivity to art that isn’t traditional and characteristically American. Thus I think and hope that American otaku could be easily persuaded to engage with and support a new aesthetic variety of animation that’s not Japanese and doesn’t look like anime but still has a comparable artistic creativity, intelligence, and integrity as Japanese animation. In recent years Japan, which supports 2D animation much more than America does, has seen the emergence of visionary independent animators like Makoto Shinkai and Soubi Yamamoto. While America hasn’t seen a similar breakout, there’s no reason why a groundbreaking animator couldn’t come to prominence here in America. So far, the vast bulk of original contemporary American animation has either been big-budget commercial and studio work designed to evoke conventional American standards and appeal to mainstream American aesthetic tastes, or independent animation, much of it CG, that still evokes the design aesthetic and principles of conventional, traditional American animation design. I personally haven’t seen any evidence of any American animators who have seriously attempted to introduce an entirely new visual style of animation that evokes traditional American philosophical perspective while also paralleling but not mimicking the excitement, creativity, and kinetic style of Japanese animation.

Anime is popular because it is presently a unique, post-modern, provocative, intelligent, dynamic, kinetic and vital entertainment medium that is founded on Asian philosophical and social ideas yet appears multicultural and internationally accessible. American anime fans tend to respect Japanese animation and disparage imitations because such emulations are an obvious effort to copy the characteristics of Japanese animation instead of create an original alternate and equally dynamic art style. No American artists have seemingly yet made a conscious effort to invent or introduce an entirely new animation style that’s just as interesting and creative as anime but doesn’t try to copy the superficially defining characteristics of anime. The need would be for an American artist with the creative impulse and irrepressible desire to express a unique personal creative vision rather than pay homage to earlier, existing animation. America’s Walt Disney didn’t invent the characteristics of American pop-culture animation, but he applied his own, unique creative vision to earlier American animation in order to establish his own brand of distinctive animation. That individualistic style proved popular, became widely copied, and came to define contemporary American pop-culture animation. Likewise, Osamu Tezuka didn’t create the design of modern Japanese animation. He simply put his own artistic touches on the animation he was familiar with in an effort to create his own unique design rather than copy what had been done before. He, like Walt Disney, innovated instead of copied or emulated. Over the past twenty years, I personally haven’t seen another American animator genuinely try to innovate American animation; I’ve only seen American animators continue to pay homage to established styles of animation or transition existing styles of animation into CG. There’s certainly no harm in American animators continuing to work in established veins, and the fact that no one has yet seriously tried to break out of those veins and create an entirely new style of American animation doesn’t mean that doing so is impossible.