Anime (Japanese Animation)
Anime is the Japanese word for animation (derived from the
English word). Unlike animation in the USA, where it is considered to be
exclusively for children, in Japan animation covers every genre, from
Saturday morning drek to comedy to drama to erotic to pornographic,
although fantasy, adventure & SF seem to be the largest quantity. You
can find Anime that caters to almost any taste, although I haven't heard of
anything quite like an American musical (but there are anime music
videos!). Animation quality ranges from Saturday morning very limited
animation, to movies that that rival Disney for smoothness and exceed it
for detail (and in many fans opinion, much better plots).
The best anime is the equal of any "live action" medium. For more
information, check out one of the many Anime Home Page, and the
self-proclaimed Anime
Turnpike for links to ANime sites. And for synopses of many anime,
check out the Anime Web
Guide (was the Anime Pocket Guide).
In animation, there is always a tradeoff between smoothness and detail.
American animation (well, Disney, at least) tends to emphasize smoothness,
the Japanese tend to emphasize detail.
Much anime starts out as manga, or Japanese
comics. Like anime, manga covers every genre, including how-to manuals for
business relationships...
There is a large market for anime movies in Japan. As often as not, the
largest grossing domestic release or the biggest awards will go to an
animated film. Several have gone to movies by Hayao Miyazaki,
one of Japans most talented and respected film makers, animated or
otherwise. A lot of anime movies are based upon TV series, such as the 6
Urusei Yatsura movies.
This is an anime that goes directly to video sales and rental, without
being shown either on TV or in the theater first. OAV and OVA mean exactly
the same thing, which one people use is a matter of taste. In the US these
are known as Direct To Video (D2V).
There is an enormous amount of animation made for TV. At any given time,
there are usually two or three weekly animated series running in prime-time
each day. Unlike in the US, there is no real "TV season", shows tend to
run non-stop until they are either over or cancelled, though most are a
multiple of 13 episodes long. Many TV series have a running plot, with a
planned beginning, middle and end, where if you miss one episode, you might
be lost. One example is Fushigi no Umi no Nadia, which can be
thought of as a 39 part mini(?)-series. In the US, only Babylon 5 ("the best thing on
Television" in may people's opinion) can make the same claim.
My Favorite Anime
The following is a list of some of my favorite anime, in no particular
order (and with no particular commitment to make the links work). Because
many people independently create WWW pages, some shows will have multiple
links (and some will disappear over time):
Oh, and this image is of Lum, from the manga and TV series
Urusei Yatsura,
and is from the sketch that Rick Sternbach used to create the UY jacket.
And the picture in the background of this picture of me is the Life size poster of the goddess Belldandy
(from Aa! Megami-sama!).
A random collection of anime or manga (or Japanese) related WWW pages:
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Scott Henry
<scotth@sgi.com>
Last modified: Sun Feb 1 15:06:15 1998