Why the fixation on Anime?

[brassplyer]

It seems like I see a lot of posts in video forums about tweaking Anime cartoons. Curious why this is.

[redwudz]

Anime is very popular in most of the world. In the US it was also very popular during the early rein of Disney,...Micky Mouse, Donald Duck and other videos. It's still popular here on TV with the Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park and others. Generally Anime films are enjoyed by several age groups, from very young to fairly old.

[poisondeathray]

Note "Anime" is very specific genre and stylistic subset of "cartoons ", originally from Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime

Simpsons, Disney, South Park do no fall in this category of "Anime" .

[redwudz]

Sorry, I call all animation videos 'Anime'.

[sanlyn]

Yes, but ya see, "anime" is only one form of animation. Snow White and Dumbo are anime? Mmm....No. But call 'em whatever you like, I guess.

[julitomg]

Note "Anime" is very specific genre and stylistic subset of "cartoons ", originally from Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime

Simpsons, Disney, South Park do no fall in this category of "Anime" .

Correct, also you could say that anime is the motion picture version of manga (which also, is not the same as the occidental comic as in Marvel or DC comics)

[poisondeathray]

Sorry, I call all animation videos 'Anime'.

Claymation is a form of "animation video" too... but you'd be hard pressed to call that a cartoon or Anime

[jagabo]

Sorry, I call all animation videos 'Anime'.

Do you call decrypting DVDs and converting them to MP4 files "ripping"? LOL

[manono]

It seems like I see a lot of posts in video forums about tweaking Anime cartoons. Curious why this is.

One reason is that working with anime can be very demanding. Reencoding Hollywood's latest and greatest is a breeze; working with anime often isn't. And to do it right you need AviSynth skills.

[El Heggunte]

For the record, Avery Lee started creating VirtualDub because of anime

[Noahtuck]

Sorry, I call all animation videos 'Anime'.

Do you call decrypting DVDs and converting them to MP4 files "ripping"? LOL

To quote "That 70's Show"

BUUUURN!!!!!!!!!
LOL!!!

Sorry Red ol' buddy, but I have to side with everyone else against you on this one.


The most I have ever been into "anime" is from when I was growing up and watching Starblazers and "Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets"
My son, who is now 27, is into real "Anime" but I don't get the big attraction, must be a certain generation that is
He used to watch it and get into it when he was growing up and a teenager.

[hech54]

It seems like I see a lot of posts in video forums about tweaking Anime cartoons. Curious why this is.

Me too. Most anime I've seen is like an over-acted bad soap opera in cartoon form.

[Mephesto]

It seems like I see a lot of posts in video forums about tweaking Anime cartoons. Curious why this is.

Because they're courting rejection.

Japan may be the only country in the world where you're told to your face "We don't lent to foleigners, solly."
And geeks love rejection. It gets them off, just like the clean side of the pillow.

[deadmeow]

A good story is a good story, told in a film, video tv series, or anime or any other format. The first anime I ever saw was Speed Racer, in the 1970's as a child.

[sanlyn]

Me too. Most anime I've seen is like an over-acted bad soap opera in cartoon form.

Just as animation has many forms, anime has several styles and conventions. I know what you mean by overacting, but that's a characteristic of many art forms in the Orient and elsewhere. Japan has no monopoly on that style. Neither does anime. Look at Seven Samurai, supposed to be ultra-realistic compared to many Oriental films, or look at Indian cinema. Or, hey, you can't say that spaghetti westerns don't challenge credulity. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to be crazy about it.

[_Al_]

It seems like I see a lot of posts in video forums about tweaking Anime cartoons. Curious why this is.

Me too. Most anime I've seen is like an over-acted bad soap opera in cartoon form.

Me too, until I saw Ponyo with kids, exactly movie that they can watch, fantasy mixed with reality. Such a contrast to Disney.

[MaverickTse]

back to the topic, there are quite a lot of reason for tuning for "Anime".
1> Large fan base
2> Many of these fans not only just watch these video, they archive them and treasure them
(Unlike western production, Japanese anime have a high standard for artwork[usually], and the BGM/theme songs are often commercialized and sold as CD separately)
3> Anime have different art style.
Roughly speaking, the anime world is divided into two artwork styles--- realistic vs. simple
The realistic one use a lot of gradient, shadow, texture...in very detailed way, so encoding this will be similar to encoding a real-life drama.
The simple one, use line art and simple fills. No complex texture or light effects. So encoding may focus on getting optimum sharpness with minimum ringing at line boundary, optimizing color so that the image will not look blocky/uneven.

Example for "simple" style:
Transformer-series (cartoon), Simpson, Most anime-series from Disney, SouthPark, Atashinchi (あたしんち), Doraemon

Example for "realistic" style:
Air, Kanon, Clannad, Gundam series, Macross series, Haruhi series

There are of course many borderline cases. This is just to show that there are different encoding tuning for different art type.

//
Concerning the term "Anime", it is usually being referred to "Japanese animation" nowadays. Yet, this is merely a custom and both "Anime" and "Cartoon" means the same thing.
(Source: http://www.paradisearmy.com/doujin/pasok_anime.htm)

Further more, Japanese animation usually target an older audience (teenage an above), while western "cartoon" are more oriented for kids. So, while a kid will not be that fuzzy about a video's quality, it will not be the case for the older people. With the proliferation of Japanese animation, of course more people will care about encoding them properly.

[filmboss80]

My son, who is now 27, is into real "Anime" but I don't get the big attraction, must be a certain generation that is

Same with my kids. They're such purists, they insist on watching the original Japanese language versions with English subs. I tried sitting down with them to watch the anime programs (I never want to be clueless about anything), but the attraction seems to be a generational thing indeed. I do like American "Adult Swim" cartoons like Axe Cop, but the anime thing just ain't my cup of tea. To each his own.

[Moontrash]

dork pr0n

lol...just a joke. Obviously not all anime is that pr0n stuff but when I saw this thread pop up yesterday I wanted to chime in but decided to wait and see what would come of it. I myself have asked that question through my internet years. It's like any other fixation. Those who like Star Wars or Star Trek or anything similar. I got chastised once for commenting on a film called Trekkies. The Trekkies didn't like that at all lol.

I also grew up on the original stuff like Speed Racer in the 70's (I lived there). What about the live action anime...Ultraman?

Anime or Manga...just an animated hobby for enthusiasts...like gardening

[MaverickTse]

dork pr0n

lol...just a joke. Obviously not all anime is that pr0n stuff but when I saw this thread pop up yesterday I wanted to chime in but decided to wait and see what would come of it. I myself have asked that question through my internet years. It's like any other fixation. Those who like Star Wars or Star Trek or anything similar. I got chastised once for commenting on a film called Trekkies. The Trekkies didn't like that at all lol.

I also grew up on the original stuff like Speed Racer in the 70's (I lived there). What about the live action anime...Ultraman?

Anime or Manga...just an animated hobby for enthusiasts...like gardening

Ultraman falls into a category called "Tokusatsu " or "SFX" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokusatsu). Harray Potter movie, Transformer movie also falls into this category.

Anime/Cartoon actually means making a lifeless object looks alive. So that actually include those Pixer production like Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

Anime, is just a presentation method, not fixed in theme, art style or plot. So any anime can have very different review from different people. (Vividly illustrated in the anime "My younger sister can't be that cute" http://bakabt.me/details.php?id=161799&page=4). ACG Fans themselves are not a homogeneous community at all.

The western population and the older generation(pre-1980's) are not that found of JP anime, partly because of culture and experience disparity (notably the schooling environment changed a lot in recent decade), but even more important is that Japan production companies are not that keen on overseas promotion. A lot of classic works are not aired by major TV stations outside Japan. Hence, non-Japan ACG fans get hooked on this just by chance that they encounter a work that fit their taste.

In order to make an anime sells good, most of them nowadays included some form of "sex-appeal" or "cuteness", but most of them are NOT R-18 p0rn. Otherwise, they will have difficulty to be aired by TV stations.

Here are some representative anime, some may fit your taste:

Politics and battle
Code Geass
Gundam 00

Moving, Touching, Warming
Air
Kanon
Clannad

High-Action
JoJo
Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay night

Dailylife
Working!!
Atashinchi
Doraemon
Maruko

Sex appeal/Romance
Moetan
Hayate no godoku!
R-15
Da capo

Horror(R-18)
Mermaid's forest
School Days

[Noahtuck]

Oh my!!!!!!

How could I ever forget to mention Speed Racer!!!!!!!

I still have the Mach V with the Speed action figure sitting in it and the spridle and Chim Chim action figures with the picanic basket hiding in the trunk!!
Oh wait, Picanic Basket is from Yogi Bear!!!
LOL!!!
But the Mach V car is quite a many years old now.

[usually_quiet]

Heh, heh... Any of you old timers remember watching "Kimba the White Lion" or "8 Man" as kids in the late 1960s?

[El Heggunte]

Heh, heh... Any of you old timers remember watching "Kimba the White Lion" or "8 Man" as kids in the late 1960s?

Me, me, me, and me too ^__^

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Knight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsujin_28-go

http://sunblde.netai.net/Series/Enmascarado_Espacial/Series-Enmascarado_Espacial.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Planet

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agente_S-5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oraa_Guzura_Dado (ugh)

etc Etc ETC.

[lingyi]

brassplyer posted:

"It seems like I see a lot of posts in video forums about tweaking Anime cartoons. Curious why this is."

It's the nature of the creation. That is, animation forces the viewer to focus on what the animator wants you to focus on. If the primary image of focus is jagged, blurry or off-color, it's far more distracting than an imperfect live image. Any imperfection in the animation distracts from the "reality" of the image. Whereas an imperfect live action "real" image is still closer to reality than any animated image.

Our brain knows what the real world looks like and can easily fill in gaps of an imperfect live image. If an animation is imperfect, our imagination has to guess at what the animator intended.

PS: Who had a crush on Trixie in Speed Racer?

lingyi raises hand. <GRIN>

[hudsonf]

I grew up watching cartoons like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PgniqcgdFo