h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned this, as Japanese animation far outshines the efforts of both Britain and America, featuring mature themes, complex storylines, and less of a distinction between good and evil. As an example, take Neon Genesis Evangelion - this features more original thought and is simply higher quality in all respects than pretty much any non-Japanese shows I've seen. The idea is that angels are attacking Earth in accordance with the Dead Sea Scrolls (the inclusion of which prompted the Catholic Church to make it illegal), and the only people who can resist Armaggeddon are a few children who pilot EVAs, artificial angels bound in armour to prevent them getting out of control. If you ever get a chance, watch it - it is absolutely brilliant.

Unfortunately, most animé is degraded, americanized, and, in some unfortuante cases, even Disnified by American companies who cannot handle the fact that foreign stuff is of such high calibur and so must reduce it to the level of Saturday morning cartoons in order that some psychotic small-minded Bible-basher will not offended. This is the unfortuante case with Yu-Gi-Oh! It is superb in Japanese, but has been edited and censored so much that it is now, to all intents and purposes, and American cartoon. They even say it's in America, for Christ's sake! This is despite the fact that in one episode, Yugi is seen holding a pair of 100 yen coins. C'mon, if you're going to edit a foreign show, can you AT LEAST have it set in its country of origin?

If you think nobody had previously mentioned anime, look harder.

I broadly agree with your argument, though; not that I suffer much exposure to bowdlerised anime; thanks to DVD I no longer have to endure the whims of redubbers, and have only the accuracy of subtitling to worry about.

There is an ingrained view held by many in the West that animation is a juvenile medium, and consequently its artistic potential is not always grasped even when the evidence is there for all to see; although I did manage to silence one critic by persuading him to watch Voices of a Distant Star. (No amount of editing could turn that into anything resembling a children's programme.) Would that all the scornful would fall so easily...

Though not from the UK or the US, I agree that it is anime that has outshined tv imports from any other country.

Where else does a whole medium get it's own conventions? You don't see 'British TV Con' or 'American TV Con' around! (At least not here...) But you do see Japanese anime conventions around the world. ^_^

That's because animé is generally of a high quality, and there seems to be a certain standard to it, whereas increasing amouts of British and american TV is appealing to the lowest common denominator.

I don't know about you, but I've seen some awfully bad anime.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a recent addict, and words can't express the respect I have for the makers of masterpieces like FLCL, Princess Mononoke, and so forth. Even many of the "lesser" series/movies are still quite good. But there's always potential for terrible media in any format.

I suppose your point is that increasingly the percentage of bad TV in America and Britiain relative to all the media available has been rising. I can't be sure without knowing your actual location, but this may be simply because you have better access to this media? Most of the worst shows in any country never make it overseas at all, and most of the anime I can find/get in America has already been filtered somewhat.

I guess I just wanted to say everything has its good and bad moments. I wouldn't go so far as to say any stylistic genre was better or worse than any other.

Fair enough. I live in Ireland, and the airwaves are regularly saturated with sh*tty 'Reality TV' and so on, thoguh I suppose there is probably bad animé, it just never gets released outside Japan. Actually, very little of the good stuff makes it over here either.

Yeah, there is bad anime. And I'm not just talking about crap like Overfiend and the other violent stuff that Manga Video seemed to love to bring out for unknown reasons. (Well, I know the reasons - violence sells to a certain male age bracket - but I don't see how anyone could enjoy stuff like that. It was dead boring.)

I mean, I like DNA^2, but the animation quality is horrid, especially in certain parts, such as when Junta's gone into battle mode, and he's rushing in to fight someone.

(Then there's all the stuff that doesn't make it overseas...)

So on the whole, I guess it's because it's been imported into other countries that you get, in general, so much high quality anime (both plot-wise and animation-wise).

But, then, I haven't watched much anime in ages, and before that, all that I really watched were fan subs. So I'm sure others have more recent experience and can talk more on the subject of quality in commercially released anime these days.

Hopefully without continuing the already rather lengthy arguments from other parts of the 'Net about whether Noir is absorbing or dull and whether Excel Saga is actually funny.

I haven't watched either of them, so I don't add to those lengthy arguments. ^_~

That's what Neon Genosis was all about, I think a lost the plot and the will to live with it during the middle. The less said about the ending the better, I heard that ADC had to remake it!!!

'The less said about the ending the better, I heard that ADC had to remake it!!!'

What I was led to believe was that the ending presented in End of Evangelion was the one Gainax originally wanted to do, but the restrictions on what can be shown on mass-market Japanese television forced them to end the series differently. So the remake is in a sense the original.

I've never seen End of Evangelion, I persume it still had to solve the depression that seem to plague the characters all the way through which is why the series seemed to end badly!!!

Errrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmm...

Sort of. Possibly. It's a touch difficult to discuss End of Evangelion's plot even on the basis that everyone in the discussion has seen it. The end is optimistic in a sense, but bleak in a sense... I'm not making much sense, am I?

absolute nonsense!!!

Quite.

I'm afraid End of Evangelion doesn't really lend itself to analysis, except perhaps at academic level; and no, Gainax don't seem to have worried much about clarification.

Two different people won't necessarily agree about what it means anyway.

Sorry about not being helpful.

It's okay.

Martian successor Nadesico was pretty good!!!

Glad to hear it. Someday I must get beyond the first few episodes of that..

Haven't found Nadesico, but I plan to. The end of Evangelion makes very little sense. I have seen one ep of Excel Saga and though it was hilarious.

Be warned: a lot of people are of the opinion that Excel Saga runs out of steam rather quickly. I myself agree insofar as I think that, out of the five discs available in the U.K. at the time of writing, the second and third are the weakest, and the first the strongest (and I, apparently like many others, love Episode 4); but I thought the fourth and fifth were something of a return to form in places, if still hit-and-miss. At any rate, I liked the series enough to buy those five discs, and I look forward to the final disc and the infamous Episode 26 with baited breath...

My $0.02 about EVA... I thought the series was overall quite interesting, but like many others' opinions, the ending to the series just about killed my enjoyment retroactively for the entire series. At some point I really want to see the revised/extrended endings at some point, if for no other reason than so that I can see something that can be definitely construed as reality, rather than an overextended internal monologue about points that had already been made.

As another point of interest, what's everyone's opinion about the use of computer animation and effects in anime? IMO it's mostly a good thing--allowing for effects that previously could only be suggested at, and allowing many animation processes to be sped up, making allowing in turn for more time being spent on the art itself. I especially enjoy the use of CG in FLCL and Last Exile, the latter being about 50% fully rendered CG but sill integrated well with the traditional drawn animation. There are a few cases where CG is used gratuitously and it doesn't mesh well with the rest of the show (DNAngel has a few moments like this), but it seems like most of the productions that have access to these techniques also have the sense to use it well.