Avatar is Anime. Fight Me?

Whoever says this: :clown_face:

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I agree with almost everything you say, though I strongly believe that Avatar is Anime in the Western sense of the word.

Why? Well, I believe that Japan is capable of producing cartoons that aren’t anime at all. I believe that over the years, anime has become an aesthetic rather than just a loan word from Japan. We ascribe to it things that have a certain visual appeal. And shows like Avatar and The Dragon Prince have that same aesthetic.

And then there’s the fact that there’s a lot more than a visual style that makes anime what it is. The over-the-top voice acting is another quality of anime – and one that shows like Avatar also have.

Back when I was a kid in the late 90s and 00s, dubs for Japanese shows were terrible! Because the voice acting was either too subdued and boring, or too ridiculous and almost mocking. As the West started to be more and more inspired by Japanese Anime, the voice acting has improved exponentially! And along with it, we have shows that take that melodramatic-but-realistic style.

And since Anime can’t be attributed to a single artist, I believe it is an artistic movement that anyone from any country can borrow from. If we disagree with this, we’d have to discount a lot of the things we consider to be Japanese Anime because much of it is made and produced in Korea. So I don’t think the line defining what anime is should be subject to geographical location. I believe anyone can produce anime, as long as they’re going by the conventions. And I believe that Japan does produce cartoons, too.

And Anime is cartoon, of course.

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And then there’s the fact that, genre-wise, I would put shows like Avatar in the Shōnen category. Avatar shares a lot with Naruto, Bleach and other shows like that – a lot more than it shares with Western genres – in terms of content and structure. And shōnen is an anime-specific genre. For the moment, anyway

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Honestly, in the West, it all comes down to whether your perceived notion of what the Anime art style should look like. Fits in with shows like Avatar, Korra and other animated media that are heavily-eastern inspired. I personally think the show is more inspired by than just straight up Anime looking.That however is more of a personal opinion that I have based on visual appeal and knowledge of the Japanese term.

Regarding the whole voice acting thing, it’s hard to entirely agree with you because I can see how more English shows have upped their voice-acting thanks to Anime getting more mainstream in the west. But I don’t think that there were no movies or shows that have used melodramatic voice acting in the past. Just look at the Batman animated show which had some stellar voice actors.

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All-in all, the lines what is considerd anime or not in the west is kind of blurry compared to Japan.Since it tends to be mostly style based. And when judging an artstyle, your opinion about is going to be subjective since even though there are characteristics we in the west associate with Anime. There is no official check-list.Becauseif there was shows like Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Rilakkuma and Kaoru might not be considerd Anime anymore. Or on the opposite side of the spectrum, mordern Disney movies could very well be considerd Anime.

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There’s also the weird way of going about it which would just be using the term ‘anime’ as a shorter version of ‘animated media’.

That would be way too large an umbrella though xD

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Closed due to inactivity :zombie: