OtaMike's Anime Primer
Version 0.95.* Last updated on 07/01/2003
2. What does anime look like? How can I tell anime apart from other cartoons or animation?
3. Where might I have seen anime before?
4. Misconceptions about anime. (Isn't anime just cartoons for kids? Isn't anime just animated porn?)
5. What's so great about anime?
6. Editing anime for American audiences: cutting scenes, dubbing, and subtitling.
8. What do anime fans call themselves?
10. Cosplay (Why are these people dressed in weird outfits?)
12. Where can I find out more about anime?
That's not an easy question to answer, because many people have different definitions of anime. Let's start with the basics. Anime is a Japanese word for animation. In Japan, anime refers to anything animated; however outside of Japan, anime usually specifically refers to animation created in Japan in the anime style. Other terms that you will hear include "Japanese Animation" or "Japanimation".
The word "anime" is usually pronounced like "an-nih-may." In Japanese, the romanized a is pronounced like the a in "taco," sort of like a short o, as in "on," and the romanized i is pronounced like a long e in English, as in "knee". So the word "anime" would really be pronounced like "ah-knee-may". In America, we're all lazy, so the vast majority of people pronounce it the first way so it sounds more like "animation".
2. What does anime look like? How can I tell anime apart from other cartoons or animation?
Anime is characterized by a very distinctive style of drawing. Most of the time you can just look at animation and tell if it's anime or not. The major characteristics of anime style are large eyes, small nose and mouth, and big hair in all kinds of crazy styles and colors (like purple, blue, green, etc.). Some of the older anime series don't necessarily have all of this, but it's still a distinctive style (e.g. Speed Racer). Also, many anime series and movies are brilliantly animated, rivaling or even surpassing Disney animation. Other distinctive features include super action sequences, where the characters are supposed to be moving at great speeds, and they are still on the picture with the background flying by in a blur of lines, and superdeformed (SD) characters, where, for comedic effect, characters are drawn very small with large heads, usually waving their arms and legs around frantically while yelling and screaming or running around.
3. Where might I have seen anime before?
Anime you may have seen on TV includes Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, Digimon, Monster Ranchers, Yu-Gi-Oh, and any of the Gundam series (e.g. Gundam Wing). For those of you who are older, you may remember seeing Voltron, Robotech (!), Transformers, and Battle of the Planets (a.k.a. G-Force), or even shows like Speed Racer, Astroboy, and Kimba the White Lion.
4. Misconceptions about anime. (Isn't anime just cartoons for kids? Isn't anime just animated porn?)
Before I get going too far, let me clear up a few misconceptions. First of all, anime is not the same thing as cartoons. Yes, they are both animated, but anime is of a whole different quality and is targeted to a different audience. In the U.S., cartoons are produced for children and are pretty much all rated G. There are a few exceptions to this rule (South Park, Beavis & Butthead, Daria, Ren & Stimpy, old unedited Warner Bros. stuff, not to mention Spike & Mike Sick & Twisted stuff or stuff like Fritz the Cat), but this statement generally applies to all the cartoons in the U.S. Cartoons are usually made with very simple plots and simple animation designed to appeal to kids and especially parents who worry about what their kids watch (as they should!). They are pretty much bland and inoffensive.
Anime (and manga, which is basically Japanese comic books, although many anime series come from manga and vice versa) is very popular in Japan with a wide variety of age groups, including adults. There are myriad anime genres, from stuff geared towards children (Pokémon, Dragon Ball) to action, romance, fantasy, science fiction, comedy, drama, etc. If the MPAA were to rate these, the ratings would range from G to R. Most of the popular series are very well written and animated, and in the opinion of many people, better than most of the regular programming on American TV. Some of the subject matter includes war, the environment, death, revenge, money, religion, and relationships, just to name a few.
The second misconception about anime is actually kind of the opposite of the first one, i.e. that all anime is porn. While it is true that there is some anime out there that is pornographic (it's called hentai, a Japanese word meaning something like "pervert", "perversion", or "perverted"), the vast majority is not. Many series do include some nudity and sexual innuendo (including Tenchi and Ranma ˝), but it's not pornographic. Also, you will notice that some series (well quite a few, actually) have women that are drawn with bodily proportions that a porn star would kill for. Many series also include things like flashes of women's panties, etc. All this stuff is referred to as etchi (I think I spelled that right — it's a Japanese word that I'll translate as "fresh" or "naughty"). This is the stuff that would get a lot of series a PG or PG-13 rating, or if there's enough of it, an R (see Agent Aika for an extreme example).
5. What's so great about anime?
What's so great about anime? Everything!!! Just kidding (well, not really). For someone who hasn't seen it before, it's hard to explain. Anime subject matter runs the gamut from romance to action to drama to comedy. Different anime series and movies appeal to different age groups and different people. Some like it because of the artwork and animation, some like it for the story lines, complex characters, and issues, and some like it because it's just different than anything out there. If all you are familiar with is what anime is on TV, then you can be in for a big surprise. Not all anime is silly comedies aimed at children. Movies like Akira, which some people consider the "Star Wars" of anime, are intense sci-fi thrillers, while Grave of the Fireflies (which I will see one day, I will, I will, I will!) is a tear-jerker of a story about the death of a young boy and his sister after WWII. Some of you may have seen Princess Mononoke in the theaters or on home video. This story deals with the debate over environment versus unchecked industrialization, among other things. Ninja Scroll is an ultra-violent martial arts anime, while Fist of the North Star is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/martial arts anime in the vein of Conan the Barbarian. This is just a few series. There are hundreds of series out there dealing with a wide variety of subject matter.
6. Editing anime for American audiences: cutting scenes, dubbing, and subtitling.
Because of some of the subject matter (not just nudity) included in many anime series, when they are brought to the U.S., they are edited for TV. This is one of the biggest controversies in the anime "community": editing series. The original versions of many of the series on TV now include some brief nudity and references to sexual and even homosexual relationships, all of which is, of course, edited out either by cutting the scene or in the dubbing process. Most people don't want their children (or themselves) exposed to this kind of material. You will see things like a "Cartoon Network" version of Tenchi Muyo! in stores. This is the edited version shown on TV. The problem with this is that the series are edited (some would say butchered) so much that they hardly resemble the original series. For example, Cardcaptors is an edited version of Card Captor Sakura. They changed the names of everyone and everything in the series to "de-Japan-ize" it. Also, they edited out the "inappropriate" content. Finally, they dropped entire parts of the episodes, most notably Kero's little "review session" at the end of each episode, where he reviews a character's outfit or some special item. Some would say that it drastically changes the look and feel of the series so much as to make it totally different from the original. The most notorious example of this is Robotech. Robotech is based on the original anime series, Super-Dimensional Fortress: Macross. In order for it to get aired on TV in the US, they had to have a lot more episodes (I'm grossly simplifying here so I don't go over my server's size limit). To do this, they spliced it together with two other series, Super-Dimensional Cavalry: Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospoeda, and came up with enough episodes to air it. Many otaku consider this akin to a crime against humanity, because they changed the story so much (renamed characters, invented relationships, changing what protoculture is, etc.) as to make it completely different and totally unrelated to the original subject matter. Others counter that it would have never made it on the air otherwise and is in a large part responsible for today's anime explosion in popularity.
The biggest controversy in the anime "community", however, is subbed vs. dubbed. Many anime fans (otaku) want only unedited, subtitled anime to watch. Others like anime dubbed in English because it's easier to watch. This has lead anime companies to release both subtitled (subbed) and dubbed versions of anime series, usually charging more for subbed versions because they don't sell as well. Usually, however, the dubs are not very good. The Japanese tracks are done by professional voice actors (seiyuu), while some dubs are done by untrained individuals who don't bring the same amount of (or any) emotion or drama to the character, and mispronounce names. Sometimes the English voice actors are so bad because their voice is just annoying or they aren't acting well, that it's almost impossible to watch the dubbed version. There is also the truly evil practice of "dubtitling". This involves putting the text of the dubbed version on the subtitle track, instead of a literal translation (or as close as possible) of the original Japanese audio. True otaku want unedited anime and most want it subbed. Recently, otaku made their power felt when Disney wanted to release the DVD of Princess Mononke with a dub only soundtrack, i.e. not including the original Japanese soundtrack with subtitles. People caused such an uproar that Disney delayed the release of Princess Mononoke until they included both the original Japanese and English audio tracks, and the subtitle of the Japanese soundtrack. Luckily, because of DVD's, the subbed vs. dubbed controversy is largely going away, as most anime DVD's include the original Japanese with or without subtitles and an English dubbed soundtrack, if one was done.
So, are you convinced that anime is great and you want to know how to get your hands on some? Besides those series shown on TV, mostly on Cartoon Network in their Toonami lineup, you can visit your local video store. Blockbuster and Hollywood video have some anime series, but they are almost always dubbed, and usually they only have one tape of a series, and it's almost always one in the middle! Some of the other local video stores carry a selection of anime that may be a little bit better. Sometimes comic book stores carry anime videos too, as well as a good selection of manga. Hopefully you live near a place that will let you rent anime videos. There's a bunch of places online to buy anime videos and related merchandise. Just check my Links section for more suggestions.
8. What do anime fans call themselves?
Like hardcore Star Trek fans who call themselves "Trekkies" or now "Trekkers," anime fans have a name for themselves. We call ourselves otaku (pronounced like "oh-tah-koo", with emphasis on the second syllable). The usage actually originated among Japanese anime fans who started referring to themselves as otaku. The word "otaku" has something to do with house or home in Japan, and is a way of saying "you" in Japanese. Japanese fans just started calling themselves otaku, and American anime fans have picked up on it.
In America, otaku refers exclusively to anime and manga fans (i.e. fans of Japanese animation and comics). In Japan, however, the term "otaku" is used more widely. You can be an otaku of anything. There are gun otaku, car otaku, etc. For a very humorous look at otakuness, see the video Otaku no Video, available directly from AnimEigo, or at your local anime dealer.
If you're ready for more, you can go to a local anime club or even a convention. I have been toAnime Expo, the largest anime convention in the U.S., many times, and it is great! Here's a newspaper article about the convention for more info. They have several rooms showing different anime series so you can get an idea if you like it or not, as well as dealer rooms to buy anime and related merchandise, autograph sessions, conferences about various topics, contests for fan-made videos, karaoke, video games, and costumes (cosplay). It's an otaku paradise!!! You can meet and talk to the people responsible for your favorite anime, find out the latest information and interact with people from the various companies that distribute anime, and see stuff that's not out yet.
10. Cosplay (Why are these people dressed in weird outfits?)
You've probably seen people dress up as their favorite Star Trek or Star Wars character (or at least heard of it). Well, anime has it's own version of this, where people dress up as a character from an anime or anime-like video game. This is termed "cosplay", and the people who do this are called "cosplayers". People cosplay at anime conventions to express their fandom.
Cosplay has a whole world until itself. There are even famous groups of cosplayers, Sera Myu being the most famous. (Sera Myu is a group of people in Japan who cosplay as the Sailor Scouts from Sailor Moon, and dance and lip synch routines. The group has been around for years, and people often "graduate" from Sera Myu and go on to become famous idol stars in Japan.) There is even something called crossplaying, which is when a guy dresses up as a female character, or a girl dresses up as a male character. There are tons of websites dedicated to cosplay, and even stores that specialize in making cosplay costumes.
Fansubs are videos that are imported from Japan, subtitled by amateurs, and distributed to fans. These are kind of a gray area legally speaking. The videos are distributed for free (or are supposed to be free, but often are distributed for a nominal fee to cover the distributor's costs of tapes, VCR maintenance, and shipping). Nowadays, there are things called "digisubs", which are basically fansubs encoded onto the computer. Digisubs are distributed like fansub VHS videos, but on CD or just downloadable off the internet.
Once a series is licensed, the fansubbers and distributors ("distros") cease distribution of that series. Anime companies tend to look the other way because fansubs generate more interest in anime. Often fansubs are the only way to see a series for years, until an American company licenses the series. Fansubs help expose American otaku to more series than what are available commercially in the U.S. Once exposed to other series, otaku can start asking anime companies (usually at conventions or on the internet) to bring a series to the U.S.
If you buy/get a fansub, please buy the anime when it is released commercially. Otherwise, anime sales will die off. Before that, the anime companies would probably go after the fansubbers and shut them down so no more anime series will be released in the U.S. We want more anime, not less!
12. Where can I find out more about anime?
There are several resources on the web and elsewhere, as well as several magazines devoted to the subject if you would like more information on the subject of anime. Just head to my Links section for some helpful links to information.
I have seen several anime series and movies, including most of the ones mentioned above, and have created a list of recommended anime that you can look at. For first-timers, I would recommend that you stick to a genre you like most for your first anime series. See my Beginner's Recommendations list. Then you can see what others recommend that you think you'd like.
* I wrote this whole thing from memory. It's not done yet, which is why it's version 0.95. I will be adding to it in the future and organizing it better. Please bare with me.
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