Anime Ruined Western Animation

Do not get me wrong, anime is an amazing form of storytelling, and I am a huge fan but there are a lot of anime inspired showrunners whos’ shows either come to a poorly written end or are canceled and rushed to a conclusion. Given the state of the current animation industry, storytelling is slowly dying. Not in a sense that showrunners cannot write but more like, they have lost their voice to both corporate input and the desire to pay homage to the media that led them to the industry to begin with. It has become a running gag to guess which anime the showrunner was either inspired by or currently interested in. At first it was a few references that felt delightful to catch onto, but now entire characters have become a reference to entire series and the act alone takes me out of the story at times. This has become so prominent that most art teachers are starting to ask, “which anime made you want to be an artist?” I was asked this question, and I was taken aback. It was only the first day and this was the first thing I was asked. So many anime lovers had felt outcasted in their youth during the time when foreign media was deemed as ‘weird’ or ‘pretentious’ due to the lack of dubbing and content that differed from the American media pallet; passe and taboo at times. This is not to say that Western animation has not gotten a much-needed narrative and social pivot, there are so many progressive stories now because of it, but the problem lies in the way the stories are told.

Most anime has its narrative thread leading back to manga (Japanese graphic novels), and with Manga being so popular there would also be a pipeline of anime fans enjoying manga and vice versa. The issue that I have is that manga is very word driven while animation and film alike have the especially important rule of “show don’t tell,” when manga gets adapted into anime “show don’t tell” becomes quite an issue. Manga is visual, yes, but a lot of inner monologues, undefined silent exchanges, and tone, tends to need explaining in the book formatting as to not confuse the reader and corporations that simply adapt a manga for an easy or guaranteed payroll some of those narrative issues don’t get solved in the storyboarding or writing stage- if there were any, making a comic move most of the time only require a model and 3d sets to move them through; the story and visuals have already been given to them. Now there are companies who do take the extra step to add things or even flesh out scenes in the “Show don’t tell” format to allow it to play better on screen but there are a lot of works that simply do not do this and it shows. Most of the showrunners I have seen successes tend to be of an older generation- not boomers, but millennial and gen X. There are a lot of shows they could have watched and been inspired by did not follow the “Show don’t tell” form of storytelling. Therefore, giving us western works with delightful stories but hollow endings or pivotal scenes. There is always something left to be desired. Now that anime has become more mainstream, western animation just cannot keep up with the high demand for well-drawn, high intensity narratives that come with anime. Most American animation starts with an idea, that get sent to a writer’s room, then to the storyboards, then to rough drafts, and then on to voice actors and then- having done edits, rewrites, and other human bound setbacks does this work get animated and it’s still not a guarantee to make it to the box-office or streaming if no company wants to slap its name on it. On the other hand, if the anime were once a manga or book or even based of historical events- which Japan has a rich history to create great works with, all that would be left are voice actors, animators, and special effects artist. That cuts production in half, by allowing more time for the animators to trace and tween the stylish art style- Even allowing for the voice actors to get their lines in first so that the animators can match the intensity of the acting. There’s just more room for beauty when they are not trying to follow a storytelling formula that is followed up with a lot of creative clashing when it comes to cost vs. Creativity. Therefore, because of the rise of anime appreciation in the United States, western animation has slowly become superseded by Anime.