Sunday, June 3, 2012

Anime, and Where It's Influence Stands (With Me)

I already have a style, and technically it's not anime. 

As a matter of fact, the only anime that actually influences my art is the older stuff that came out in America either anime around 1995 or manga that came out around 2001, and a few others.

None of the newer anime influences me really. AT ALL.

New anime isn't all that original. The most ORIGINAL anime was released years ago. 

There IS NO new and innovative Japanese anime and manga. It's all the same shit. Cute and simple. It USED TO be so detailed. Not so much recently. America and Korea are producing more detailed work nowadays, but Japan's reduced a lot of its detail in recent works. NOT impressive, compared to what Japan DID at one point. Oh well.

Anime looks pretty for the most part, but in terms of my current stance on anime, it's not so much the art of anime I have a problem with so much as the double standard ideology behind it. I guess I'm just old fashioned like that. I'm the type of geezer that "actually believes" that if someone wants to put one of your designs in their art website profile or TV show or movie, they can at least credit you for it, which is something some artists go out of their way to avoid doing when they "borrow" my work.

Maybe it's a cultural difference. My theory about this form of borrowing is that Japan isn't a literal society. Osamu Tezuka borrowed the aspect-to-aspect transition stylistic camera shot-angle element from Maya Deren's film, Meshes of the Afternoon (her and Salvador Dali), but do you ever see their names credited in anime and manga for inspiring Osamu Tezuka and many manga-ka and Japanese storyboard artists when they do close-up aspect-to-aspect transitions of hands, eyes, and feet? No. When the Japanese borrow elements from Western literature and filmmaking, they aren't always verbal about who they're borrowing from. Japanese taking influence from you is a highly coveted and valuable position to the Japanese. If the Japanese borrow stylistic elements from you or your designs (be they character, layout, costume or camera), your in a luxurious position. Just don't expect a shout out.

It's a cultural thing. Americans like giving other Americans shout outs. Japanese artists and American artists, not so much. A Japanese shoutout is a sacred thing to the Japanese. I'm more okay with it if I view it that way. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.