I love it when I find a random youtuber that is the first to go over things that seem obvious but no one else has tried to go more in depth. Thankyou for shining a light on why anime do certain things
an analysis of things that seem obvious to some but not to many is always nice. heck, it can even make people who are already familiar with the topic learn new things
I personally don't need a 20 minute essay telling me about the cultural idiosyncrasies of Japan. I gained a natural understanding of them over time through exposure and genuine curiosity. I keep finding more extremely long essays about topics people should be capable of understanding naturally. But we live in an era where we need everything overexplained to us because we can't analyze anything ourselves anymore
@@RedShirtGuy96 analysis of things that are acquired naturally is pretty common and it helps reinforce your understanding. an example is learning english grammar in school even though english is your first language. the language was already acquired by exposure so why do i need an analysis on it? conclusion: humans are dumb harr we cant analyse things ourselves rahh.
I always find it odd that Americans call anime "weird", when one of America's most popular cartoons is about an anthropomorphic kitchen sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea. *EDIT* I'd like to thank all the English professors in the comments for setting me straight on the correct definition of "weird". I always thought it meant "of strange or extraordinary character" but it seems the correct meaning is actually "sexually perverted". This is why my use of Spongebob is an incorrect example, as it is NOT sexually perverted, while *_every single anime ever made_* is. Again, my sincerest thanks to you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to apply your professional education and correct a lowly RUclips commenter like me on the proper use of the English language. Does the language department of the university you teach at accept donations? I'd really like to make a donation, as I feel this comment is insufficient in expressing my gratitude.
americans don’t call anime weird because of the concepts, because when you boil many stories down they sound silly. it’s often the execution/ moreso xenophobia due to differences they’re not used to and stereotypes because of that. that, or the aggressive fanservice.
??? Dude because one is about a sponge who works at an underwater fast food place thats pretty easy to not take seriously... like ungodly easy, there's basically no need to suspend disbelief because I'm nowhere near believing to begin with and I have a hard time thinking most aren't like me. On the other hand for anime we're only gonna have a dude in a "normal" world, just a dude who's probably meant to be "normal" but for some reason they have to be obsessed with their little sister or I inevitably have to watch one of the supporting/main female characters get diddy'd at some point for fanservice. these are weird and creepy concepts that are disturbingly much more grounded and don't come off as "wacky" or "odd" like western cartoons. They come off as perverse... because they are... I don't claim to have watched every anime under the sun I basically only watch the mainstream but from what I've seen (JJK and Black Clover have that weird sibling shit in it, Black Clover... wth. and SAO, Bleach, One Punch, etc. have some diddy scenes.) The base of my argument is as crazy as animes are they often mirror reality closer than something like spongebob, with characters that feel way more "human" so taking the concepts as 1:1 doesn't work. Watching spongebob shake his two square asscheeks singing about the crusty crab pizza is very weird but not weird in the same way as watching a oversexualized minor get groped by her classmates for comedic effect (bleach) [pasted in from further down for context]
There is a lot of stuff in anime that is cringe in America. Gratuitous fan service only there to hook young men/boys but doesn't improve the entertainment value of the show. The trope sexualizing a 300 year old woman who has the body of a child, so it's not pdo right?
As a Japanese , I would like to express my thoughts on the problems with lip syncing. First of all, Japanese people don't care about lip syncing. In reality, Japanese people's mouth movements are very monotonous and short. Because it is not a language that requires a lot of movement of the mouth and tongue, and it is a kanji-based language, sentences are short. Therefore, dubbing the English version would be very difficult, and the amount of text is very different. Conversely, Hollywood's Japanese dubs also do not match the mouth movements, but I don't remember seeing this being talked about. Even outside of the covid19 era, Japanese people often wear masks. To read the other person's intentions and conversations, they look more at the eyes than the mouth, and mouth movements are less important. Also, because there are many homonyms, even if the sound is the same, if the eyes are irritated, it will be perceived as sarcastic or insulting. These thoughts are my own, not those of an expert in linguistics or vocal mechanics.
外から失礼しますが ”Because it is not a language that requires a lot of movement of the mouth and tongue, and it is a kanji-based language, sentences are short.” そんなことないです。 よく言われるかもしれませんが、言語学のリーサーチによると、日本語の音韻は他言語の中にはかなり平均です。「口あんまり動かないで話す」ことはどの言語にもあります。そして、「漢字があるから文章が短い」ということもよく考えて見ると、話すことには関係がないんじゃないですか？漢字も、ひらがなも、口にすると発音の長さ変わりません。加えて、英語でも、話す時文章は普段短くなることが多いんです。 まぁ、「Japanese people don't care about lip syncing」のは間違っていないと思います。それだけでいいんじゃない？ （急にこの話に入って申し訳ございませんが、コロナの時期「英語では"This is a pen"などを強く空気出して言うからコロナがアメリカで流行っている。日本語は優雅な言語で全然ちがう(^_-)-☆」など、そういう馬鹿馬鹿しいのがめっちゃ聞いたから、気持ちはもう貯められなくて、こういうステレオタイプ つぶしたくなりました）
Looking into a person's eyes in Japan is actually very threatening. Generally, it's customary to look past a person you're speaking with if you're not on informal terms with them. Averting one's eyes is also common.
Another thing about hairstyles and their colors is that Japan created a template where personalities are related to them. So it serves as a quick way to tell the viewer what the character is like by simply looking at the hair.
I actually got in a whole discussion with another Wikipedia editor over this! I would be very interested if you could send me a primary source saying that. I’ve seen a number of anime fans say that but never anyone who actually makes anime/manga professionally
@@FractalPhilosophyHair is a factor in any character design, both Western and Eastern. I think with anime and such, Japanese culture has different associations with certain hairstyles. For instance, especially in previous decades, purple hair was often applied to Indian characters (see Revolutionary Girl Utena, for instance). I can't tell you why, don't have sources, but it's one thing you can look into. Unrelated but somewhat related TL;DR, if you're interested: Another association, Japanese media also tends to only depict African descent hair exclusively as afros, or basic dreadlocs. This is so much a thing, I've seen black models complain about being told to wear stereotypical afro wigs when working in Japan. I don't believe this association stems from racism (mostly) or malice, but more so just ignorance since there's not many black people in Japan. Not that afros are bad, but people don't tend to understand when we explain there's a difference between afro hair and an "afro" as a style. Two different things. Hardly anyone has worn "afros" as a style for decades. Japan tends to still have many fashion and music trends from previous decades, so I can understand. Similar issues happen in the West as well. At the moment nearly all games are getting the Killmonger brush-over dreads emo style, when literally no one's ever worn that style (I can only think of one guy who does, Richblackguy on YT, suits him well!). An example, Mile Morales Spiderman was given the same style in one of the games, but it doesn't fit his personality at all! I was so surprised when the second Spiderverse movie revealed his alternate style of two braided cornrows. I thought, that's exactly what I was thinking better suited him when I saw the emo dreads!! Most of the time when a black character is designed, the art department does not factor hair into their personality the same way they do for most other characters. This has been changing over the years thankfully, but we still have a long way to go. :)
Some very plausible thoughts here. But I think there's more. For example, when we compare Japanese and US comics, usually in Japan the artist is also the writer, whereas in American comics those are often two distinct people. Both have their (dis)advantages I'd say, but I get the feeling that a lot of the quirkiness of manga (and thus anime) is due to having "artist types" doing the writing, which they're often not very good at. Or, they'll be developing the story in a way so that things happen that they want to draw, whereas a pure writer is more concerned with plot development. And then there is... well, uh, this is hard to put into words, but please bear with me: The video mentions Scott McClouds "Understanding Comics" and references some parts about drawing a simplified face. If I remember correctly, the book has some parts on how the simplified face is less about depicting what a face looks like visually, but what a face "feels like". Like when you make an angry face, or a happy face, which parts of your face do you use and what shapes do you make? This is, of course, true for both American and Japanese comics to some extent, but I think it's more prevalent in Japanese media, and the video creator here seems to feel the same way. And this is where the angle of language comes in. I'm bilingual Japanese/English and while I'm fairly confident in my English, I feel like it's often lacking in ways to express emotions, feelings or impressions. For example, you could (informally) say "ぼーっとする" (boohh to suru) which in English might mean someone has "a blank stare", but it's not as *expressive*. More appropriate would be to say someone makes a "duuuuh~ face". Not something you would say in English. My point being: The English language is describing what something LOOKS like, while Japanese (esp. informal language) has a tendency to express what something FEELS like. Likewise, American comics focus more on depicting what something looks like visually, while in Japan it's more about putting the feeling of that moment into an image, regardless of whether the depiction is realistic. So yes... all in all, each respective comic style, to me, lines up with what that language of its origin is like to use. Thus wrapping back to the original question, "why is anime so weird?", my thesis is that a country's language can also inform how people of that country express themselves visually, and so it can feel weird if you're not acquainted to that way of expression. (Which is not to say that a lot of Japanese people don't also find anime weird and so on etc etc -- I've already written more words than what's permissible for a YT comments section so I'll see myself out now. Thanks for reading, bye!)
Excellent input! One of the old versions of this video had a whole section on ‘linguistic determinism’ which is the idea that the language you speak influences how you think. The theory is mostly debunked now (partly because it was used to justify stuff like cultural superiority of certain ethnic groups in the early 1900s) but there’s interesting thoughts to be had there still. I cut that section because it was kind of a tangent to the main point, and also I’m not super confident in my Japanese (もっと勉強しなければいけません)
The Japanese industry is just incomparable, really. In Japan, most anime are picked up from serialised manga or LN, which means almost every story told is just the work of some normal person who wrote something appealing. In America, new shows are pitched by teams, often who already have their own production companies. You have to have been a writer for numerous other shows before anyone will give you a chance to get your story made, and increasingly we're seeing new shows created by executives and forced onto writers who have no interest in the project - which is why so much of modern American media's "comedy" just amounts to a show criticising itself for its own lazy writing. The point about the inexpressiveness of English is interesting, because it didn't used to be that way. Up until the European renaissance, European art was functionally abstract. It was very much about portraying the feeling of things, not the appearance of things. A painting of a biblical scene would depict Mary as a giant not because she was actually tall, but because she was a figure of extreme importance and gravitas. Then Europe had its cultural revolution and the artistic fashion changed to realism. Art had to have realistic proportions and perspective, and what people considered good changed from religious scenes attempting to capture the feel of the biblical story to paintings of landscapes. European culture never really recovered from that.
My dad has mentioned a few times that his main grievances with anime are how everyone’s perverted, all the characters are socially incompetent, and of course the big eye thing.
Yeah I have no idea why the guy in this video decided to completely dodge the most prominent issue of sexual perversion that saturates the anime industry. This is the REAL gripe that most people I know have with it, and to an extent even myself. Heck, even Hayao Miyazaki himself is disappointed in this aspect of the anime industry.
@@sugarzblossom8168 well ye, but for Japan it sparked a cultural revolution away from rigid tradition in a way that either mirrors or outright follows american punk ideology of the 90s. . Tho I admit, I'm not aware of any other similar cultural shifts, and I imagine they're not that rare.
90% of time when people around me said anime was weird they werent talking about any of this stuff. Theyre talking about the fact that so many female characters look like their 12 and we have to see their panties constantly. Which like yeah that is weird. Theyre right to point it out lol
Yup, this video completely missed the point. These are fun observations but are oddities people might point out not the things people mean when declaring anime as weird
Lots of anime do that, but most anime don't. Why that's so common comes back to one of his earlier points about trying to stand out - if the anime/manga has nothing going for it, they can make up for that by catering to an audience that sexualises young women. I'd make two more points: It's not just anime/manga that has contact like this that would be illegal in my country - I witnessed a shop selling photo magazines with similar content - so disgusting - yet legal in Japan. Having said that, many Japanese people don't watch anime at all. Anime is huge outside of Japan - but it's not representative of Japanese culture, not it's the gross stuff that sticks out representative of anime
@@zeno9410 There's books and books on the subject, incest in stories has existed since time immemorial. Even Shakespeare's stories feature it. One theory is the Westermarck effect, which explains both why incest exists and why there is a biological taboo against it (it was proposed by a Finnish anthropologist who studied marriage throughout history).
@@zeno9410 That's definitely weird, and I avoid anime like that, but it is not exclusive to anime. Star Wars also has incest ships, and I'm sure you could find many others.
This video was very insightful, educational, cultural, exciting and incredibly informative. Very rare gem, and should standout among other competitive RUclips videos.
The insane importance of Shōnen Jump in how the medium of manga and anime has developed over the years is something I've never thought of and is soooooo interesting. What a wonderful discovery. THE PAPER used for THAT magazine has changed pop culture forever. That blows my mind.
It kinda reminds me how the Hulk was originally supposed to have grey skin but it doesn't look good because in printed comics so they changet it to green. Funny how technical limitations affect those stories.
@@DK-th5nt Its almost as if getting around those technical limitations is a story in of itself and that's what people at the time find interesting. It just looks more interesting cause its novel and that tends to stick with people for a while...
@@Zetact_ Just the cheap, phonebook-sized ones. There's plenty of magazines with much higher paper grade, but those tend to cost more. Shounen Jump, the magazine, is dirt cheap because its target audience are literal children with small allowances. Higher quality magazines for enthusiasts cost at least double and have a much smaller page-count (i.e. Dragon Magazine).
I never found any of this stuff weird to be honest. I just accepted that it was a different medium from a different culture. The reason I don't tell people I watch anime is because of the massive amount of fanservice that I have to dredge through to get to something good.
Fanservice is literally one of the only things that make anime unique though Without it you’re basically just seeing American cartoons with worse writing and a slightly different art style
@ all the things in the video were commenting on make anime unique. The other aspects of Japanese culture make anime unique. The fan service almost always just lowers the impact of anything it’s in.
@@TheXylerz That's true. The problem is the people who want to remove the fanservice will also remove the other non-sexual unique aspects of Japanese culture in anime that they view as unmarketable as well. This isn't just about jiggling cartoon boobs, this is also about the ethics of dictating what art an entire foreign country can and cannot make.
@@JacF6734 it’s true, I also tend to struggle when it comes to criticizing someone else’s culture. There are parts of it that I find repulsive, but I’m just one person from another country. It becomes a bigger philosophical question about wether morals can be objective or subjective. I think my main problem isn’t that it exists at all, but that it’s actively hard for me to navigate around.
19:13 A big reason for shift in art style is because they are animated by different more specialized artists, called key animators. Each artist having their own more distinct art style.
The thing I find most off putting is the sometimes offensive exposition that completely kills a moment or plot structure even, especially via monologue. Instead of hinting towards something, creating tension for a compelling story, you just get taught their agenda straight to the face for no good reason.
18:19 "sakuga" 作画 by itself just means the production of animation scenes/frames. The sakuga process is generally broken down into two key steps, "genga" 原画 and "douga" 動画, the former meaning the basic cut in which to base detailed animated movements, and the latter meaning the individual frames connecting the genga shots. In the credits you often see production staff called 作画監督 or "sakuga director", who generally oversees the quality/smoothness of the genga and douga shots being drawn. I guess "Sakuga" has been rolled over into English to mean some sort of fancy term for premium animation cuts lol
I loved your video! I do have one small correction to add that I think is important! Where sakuga is used in an anime is not dependent on budget, it is largely time and resource allocation. There is nuance to this yes, like you are correct that a big budget contributed to chainsaw man’s adaptation, but that is a very specific case and doesn’t apply to all projects. Even for chainsaw man, the quality of sakuga drastically went down past episode 7 because the team was feeling the effects of a brutal schedule. A different mappa project like Jigokuraku was a project that looked very bad yet one look at the amount of artists involved tells us that it must have been an expensive show to make. Additionally it was reported that one punch man had an average budget to work with. While budget is important, it’s not the end all be all when determining whether or not a show looks good
FYI if you edit your comment it resets if the video creator hearts it or not - so if you want to comment to be more promoted you have to not edit it after being hearted. (I have manually redone it here because I think your comment is worth highlighting)
@@FractalPhilosophy Ik I saw a typo and went to fix it only to see it removed the hearted comment lol. thank you for the nice words and thank you for hearting the comment again!
@@Papameme2711 Man of culture spotted! Researching Sonny Boy's production opened my eyes to how vital quality producing is for a show. Sonny Boy wouldn't be this good without the trust and artistic freedom that Motoki Mukaichi and the production committee had provided to Shingo Natsume, while still setting certain conditions (like ending episodes on cliffhangers).
Great video! Like some others, I'll mention an observation from Scott McCloud that I wish you included. It's the comparison of Superman flying vs. Kaneda (from Akira) on his bike. McCloud points out that shots of superheroes are often viewed "from the outside" by the observer. We're seeing Superman fly, so we see his full body, maybe with some speed lines or a dynamic angle to convey momentum. But in the Kaneda panel, there's a corona of speed lines of different thicknesses around Kaneda. We view him head on, rather than from the side, seeing the body language and face of someone grappling with intense speed. We experience the speed FROM HIS PERSPECTIVE. We're still lookin at him (it's not POV), but the idioms of comics (speed lines, posing) are used to get you to empathize with the character, whereas traditionally US comics don't have the same visual idioms.
The people who are saying this video fails because he's 'dancing around' the topic of eroticism fail to understand that every reviewer and analyst has an angle, that is, things they focus on and others they ignore to make a certain point . He wanted to explain anime's 'weirdness' in terms of semiotics and iconography, and how these may be unfamiliar and difficult to understand to foreign audiences. He is talking about the FORM of anime and not it's CONTENT. He sets the stage early on by listing a number questions he has been asked in his private life, (why so many internal monologues?) all of which have to do with form and how that affects the storytelling; not the content of the stories themselves. and yes, people call these aspects of form weird, there are a myriad of things, you can question about a medium, from form, to content, even to methods of distribution--and each of those are their own discussions. An analysis of how erotic content is handled would be entirely out of place and unnecessary here, because it handles the aspects of form that people find weird, not aspects of content (which are highly subjective, anyway).
11:45 the biggest culprit of this is Jojo, where it's overlooked in manga form when the character is monologuing his long thoughts that could be interpreted happening within a split second or it happens as the fight scene continues on. In the anime, the characters are awkwardly staying still while the internal thought is still ongoing. There's a lot to forgive Jojo on since the story is relatively entertaining, but that one aspect stands out to me so much.
A Jojo character could be the only one reacting to a glass of water floating in a restaurant, screaming their heads off before someone calmly asks if there's something wrong until the screaming person eventually clocks in that there's an enemy stand user nearby. Then they will be frantically looking around for a few minutes, monologuing out loud while there is a "uniquely-dressed" individual staring at them from another table. That would work fine on page, but doesn't translate well on screen. But that's why we love it.
It might be a good example but I think death note is a better example of it, action might not be happening in the background, just people sitting, but it's such a common part of the story I'd say almost all the exciting moments in the story happen during the hair thinking moments
@@KesenaiOsore I'm relying on my decade old memory here, but in Death Note there's visual clarity in telling the audience that the thought is currently happening in Light's brain in the span of a second or two by greying out the screen or even slowing down the movements. Jojo doesn't bother with that and makes it look like they're just standing there in real time, as if the opponent would rather listen to his opponent rather than take advantage of him monologuing like a tool.
the reason some people may think the eyes are big is because the body proportions of a lot of anime characters are more realistic and closer to human so the stylized and larger eyes stand out more.
Ok I’ve got a couple questions we have that you did NOT answer; 1. Why is there so much GD screaming? Characters are constantly freaking out and losing their minds over the most trivial nonsense. That not only pulls us out of the story, but makes an otherwise Interesting character unbearable. If I wanted to listen to annoying screaming, I would watch SpongeBob. 2. Why do so many shows randomly sexualize characters that look like children? “Slice of life“ for the local pedophile I guess. 3. Why is there random incest? Or allude to incest? I have never accidentally stumbled upon an incestuous relationship while watching a random animated show made in the USA, but it has happened to me more times than I can remember with random anime. 4. Why is there so much “fan service“? There is a time and place for sex and sexualized characters in any good work of art, but I don’t think it should be randomly thrust upon us during an otherwise uneventful sequence. These are the reasons we find anime weird. These are the reasons, brother.
anime isn't for people like you. watered down, sterile, inoffensive content that takes 0 risks and appeals to the lowest common denominator sounds like it's more your speed
I think what makes anime anime are these unique stylistic qualities that have formed from the limitations of the medium and Japanese culture. Like the whole long shot where people are just standing around and there is absolutely no animation other than mouths flapping or like eye expressions. This comes from how anime has alwas had way too low budget, and in the 60s they had to compromise on their own vision in TV shows in order to get them made. That's why things turned out differently to Disney in this period, like watch early films and they are completely Disney. But then going into the late 70s, new animators growing up on the studd in the 50s and 60s didn't just see it as a limitation (even though it still was) and embraced it as a stylistic choice. Nowadays anime can't really be separated from this type of scene, it is on one hand still done because of low budgets, but it is no longer a compromise, it is the artistic vision. And we get those really beautiful 1 minute long shots in Evangelion which are the peak of the series IMO.
Ppl really gotta learn about the Japanese cultural turn away from stoic traditionalism into wacky absurdism and a love for creative innovation. They had their own version of punk culture, and anime was its byproduct.
And once again its an instance of Japan benefiting from compressing cultural changes into short timespans, that in other countries moved much slower. UK punk moved slow enough for punk itself to become bland.
Hm, interesting that you tie Japanese punk culture into anime. It does seem like the two influenced each other, but Japanese punk was a vibrant, but pretty specific collection of music scenes and styles, VERY heavily based (and even straight up copied) from Western punk scenes. It was definitely not "their own version" and it thrived on standing out quite blatantly and defiantly from other aspects of Japanese culture. In fact, it had a lot more to do with Scandinavian (specifically Finnish) and English punk culture than any part of Japanese culture. Although it's true that the sense of humor, references, inside jokes, and absurdism of the Japanese punk scenes were EXTREMELY Japanese to the point that they're usually completely untranslatable to any other culture. While it definitely influenced anime, I wouldn't say anime was a byproduct of it. More like the influences were blended in pretty seamlessly into the "stew" that became anime styles.
I thought about this before, it's because unlike Hollywood it's all based on the internal reality - the internal perspective of a person. This is found in some new wave cinema but is mostly gone today. For example a person having a flash realisation, is followed by a literal lightening strike. This is not found in almost any other medium today (though it exists in some movies.) In addition internal monologues are absent, but seeing as how anime is from manga - The fruit of internal monologue - They contain a lot of internal monologue. This also, is not found in most movies today, maybe in a few art directors like Gaspar Noe who does it consistently, or a few rather popular hollywood movies here and there, but is generally absent. Third, anime is largely surrealist, again like new wave cinema - Which died in the 80's. The landscape, the visuals and the imagery follow the internal state of the character, this is not the case in real life representation.
right! i always thought the thing with the monologues in manga is that it's another way to supply exposition with an emotional delivery. on average manga chapters take at least 20 pages weekly so the mangakas need to cram a bit of info in there to make the chapter substantial in a way. and although I'm not a native Japanese speaker/reader/citizen, I'm made aware from documentaries and enough japanese media that their language isn't as direct as english, let's say. so that might also factor into the reliance/obsequious use of monologues. mostly it's all based on culture, just a different way of doing things compared to the rest of the world in order to achieve the same goal: effective storytelling.
I don't buy the 'cultural' difference stuff. Anime itself just means 'Animation', the word's origin is in the fact that originally it had less of a budget than the American counterpart. A producer said "This doesn't look like animation" and the director said "Correct, it's not animation, it is Anime" contracting the term to highlight the lower budget involved. Japanese new wave was inspired from the french New wave - which was Inspired from Surrealism (literary movement) - which was in turn inspired from Absurdists and the Avant-garde, Neo-Dada movement. Nobody mentioned any cultural specific stuff there, and I'm not seeing it here either. The Avant-garde/presurrealist art movement was on the other hand inspired by Japanese art (Japonisme -ex: Odilon Redon, van Gogh.) Now this original post of mine is in reference to what I watch. It makes about as much sense as talking about movies in general not noting the difference between an action movie, an art flick and a comedy. But there are generalities that anime shares in large strokes across genres, the fact that unlike movies, it's directly a port of not only a single author's plot and dialogue, the visuals are a direct product of their own pen as well.
I dunno, those internal reality things pop up quite a bit in Western culture. Stuff like a light bulb turning on to represent a person getting an idea, or a tea kettle going off to represent a person getting mad are really common tropes in Western media that fall into the same design philosophy of "lightning strike representing a flash of realization." And don't even get me started on classic rubberhose animation.
The inderectness argument is weird. I understand inderectness as subtelty. And a giant fire burning behind a girls back for expressing rage is not "subtle". Neither exaggerated movements are inderect. It is, like i said, exaggerated. It uses symbolism, but the symbolism that first comes to mind is indirect if only in the very technical sense of the word. Neither do flashbacks, as a concept at least, seem like an inderect way to tell a story. What is direct in that case? Literally saying "I'm sad because of this and that"? That's not a tool any media uses as a primary one, even books with their internal monologue.
its the culture difference. Something like Undead Unluck has suffered in the west because of its start, and its been hidden in the pages of jump so its been ignored even though its a god tier manga after the uma summer arc. Undead Unluck caught my attention because the first sentences are "now that my favorite manga is finished, its about time I unlive myself"
The nude guy bothered me. It was certainly not as stressful to watch as The Walking Dead. Western entertainment often has too much in fighting and tense confrontation. Especially that show was also very demoralizing. But I prefer School Live! over both.
Duuuuude Undead Unlock is so underappreciated. The concepts there are amazing. One of my favorite moment was finally getting the answer why there were no stars in the earlier chapters. I initially thought the artist just forgot it. I was 🤯 when they finally addressed it.
Yeah I'm torn about it. I only watched the anime, and the start wasn't very good, but I remember there was this episode where the opening is like so fucking cinematic. Just this sunset view, with cherry tree leaves flying across the street, as a really aesthetic "Undead Unluck" "title card" shows up in the middle of the screen, just creating suspanse for what you know is a tense moment. And I don't really know what it was now, but I had this crazy meta theory when they started talking about the manga "Undead Unluck" itself showing up, that I thought that if it went the way I thought it would go, it would've had a masterpiece plot. As it stands, I have watched it some time ago, but I don't think it is "satisfactory" enough to recommend.
I'm glad I soldiered through all the groping at the beginning, as it's one of the most unique shounens I've ever read (especially when one compares the beginning with the scope of the later part). Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to recommend - as in successfully - due to the aforementioned beginning. I've had a similar problem with Dandadan, especially since the anime so lovingly adapted the creepy early parts of the manga, though I guess it's a bit easier to get people into Dandadan since both the manga and the anime are so visually impressive while Undead Unluck isn't exactly among the prettiest series.
When I first got into anime, the one thing I found really weird about it was how characters never blinked. This was super jarring coming from Western Animation when blinking actually existed.
It's all the "mmmh... ehh? ngh! wah--oh... unnh?!" in between lines that does me in. Like they have zero confidence in their ability to convey emotion through context and visuals, and can't trust that I can fill it in myself. It just feels amateurish and slightly insulting, and a little creepy. I've always hated it.
Waou!..I did not intend to watch that 23mn video entirely but boy, that was one of the best videos I’ve seen in this platform. Simple yet efficient, great narration, in depth research, thinking and powerful graphics. Love it. Suscribed in the hope of seeing more of this quality !
After watching this video I went to check your other videos and I was absolutely astonished when I found out that you only have 93 subscribers?! Dude your editing is so great and the way you explain everything makes it really interesting to listen to. I love the use of the diagrams and everything. I hope your channel gets the recognition it deserves and don't forget about me when it does!
Thanks, it means a lot! Glad to see people are liking this one! This video had an embarrassing number of rewrites so definitely still a lot of refinement to come in the future hopefully haha
@@FractalPhilosophy I had the same reaction. The answer is simple. You provide quality and not quantity. Please don't change that! But maybe something every two months at least? I say this as an educated anime fan of decades who still found insights here.
There’s a difference between being weird in the sense that it’s artistically unique and bold, and it being weird in the sense that a lot of the characters can act in ways that go against social norms That’s the reason why people have made a lot of fun of weebs who act like anime characters, because very often anime characters act in perverse or unrealistic ways
But that's equally true of American media. Basically every popular American TV show is about a guy who never takes his job seriously, and people who behave like that in the real world are very cringe too. Take for example Rick and Morty fans.
oh c'mon now American! As if westerners didnt act in perverse or weird ways themselves. Have you ever watched an american music video? rap music for example? you definitly have. stop playing.
Thanks for covering this, I've never really considered this. I'd be interested to see your analysis on Frieren and what "weird tropes" are carried over or broken and how that impacts the show.
All these awkward tropes you mention were present from the early days of Japanese TV animation, but I think they're far more emphasized in modern anime. In the 80s they were seen as "workarounds" and demanded some degree of complicity from the viewer. Then came the 90s, and the reason people often say that anime peaked in this era was that series like Evangelion or SE Lain EMBRACED the limitations of the medium and developed them into this quite nuanced visual language that silently conveyed the "heaviness" of the subject, instead of resorting to contrived expository dialogue. But the nuance of the 90s fell out of favor, and now all these anime tropes and limitations seem to be everywhere, because there's now an audience that actively fetishizes them: they are forced, and that makes them twice as awkward. I have the theory that this is the way the anime industry responds to the way the Westerners "ironically" consume it, in this strange cultural feedback of supply and demand
Great video!! Having spent a large majority of my life watching anime, I never even thought about how these things could be weird to a layman. This helped me open my eyes and inspect the medium closer. Hell, it made me question the choices in my own art too!
One important thing is also the whole language of symbols that manga uses that many people find weird. Most people do know that the kinda x appearing on a face or a fist means a character is angry, or that vertical lines with blue tint means character is sad. But then there are weirder ones like the snot bubble when a character is asleep that many people find weird, or mushrooms growing on the head when they are gloomy, or the nose suddenly getting long and itchy when they are bragging. Or simply the sparkles that are used to show shiny, clean, new thing that got co-opted by ai companies recently. As someone who really struggles with reading emotions from real life actors, the whole symbolic language makes anime emotions way more readable to me. But I've seen people be confused the other way around because they just don't know all the more niche symbols. (e.g. I've seen people not get that a character is a show-off because they didn't know what the sudden long nose meant)
I think those symbols are intuitive. No one starts out knowing what they mean, but everyone who watches anime learns what they mean without ever having to be explicitly told.
I've never seen anyone find those effects weird or incomprehensible, they all make sense even without prior experience. What is weird is sudden art style and character design shifting, for instance, Apothecary Diaries having the protagonist randomly turn into a catgirl sometimes for purely expressive purposes. But sparkles for clean and blue forehead for sad are very understandable.
If anyones interested these are called manpu, there are some used in western comics (like zzz's for sleep or a lightbulb above the head). in manga because of budget/page real estate they can convey a ton of info very quickly. there are some pretty unique ones like the nose bleed for arousal that don't make sense outside of Japanese culture. @@EvilParagon4 the changing sizes is very interesting because in mcclouds book he looks at the simplified/realistic axis of depicting a character. Most western comics try to be as on model as possible so there's not much variation. In manga and anime the characters scale to show emotion and to get the reader to engage with a character in different ways ie you're more likely to read a panel as "yourself" if the character is simplified.
As an anime fan going on 32 years now (yeah, I'm getting old), you summarized all the elements of why I love anime in a nice, organized video. Also loved the visuals and intellectual discourse, so you've got a new fan. Despite watching my fair share of Saturday morning cartoons back in the day, I never actually sat down to compare eye size proportions in US cartoons vs anime eyes. Great point that the perception of larger eyes in anime is most likely due smaller mouth/nose proportions and shifted positioning. I've also read that there's a Japanese idiom that says, "Eyes speak more than the mouth," or the less literal translation is "Eyes are the window to the mind/soul", which is why anime has such a focus on the eyes One point that you didn't cover (perhaps it's a future topic?), is that anime isn't afraid to cover "mature" topics in show targeted towards kids or teens. For Americans who tend to think "cartoons" are only meant for kids, seeing more mature topics may come off as surprising or jarring. The fact that it's sometimes all packaged together with cute art, makes it all the more confusing to the uninitiated. For example, one of my favorite animes is Haibane Renmei "Grey Feather Alliance". Haibane Renmei starts out like a slice-of-life anime with cute girls, sporting cute little angel wings and halos, but the series explores heavy spiritual themes of sin, guilt, and redemption. Yeah, sure, when I watched Haibane Renmei the first time, I thought it was "different", but I loved every minute of it.
This helped me! I've been unable to get into most manga and anime primarily because of the over emotional 'freak out' nature of the characters. I hate those kind of people irl. Now that I know they do it to try and grab your attention and a marketshare in the main publication I will be alittle more accepting.
Exactly, is a storyboard from Miyazaki that is then animated, so the shots are more common and cinematic, also a lot less inner dialogue and more movement, even in still moments of characters the enviroment is moving with natural sound.
Come on, let's not be racist. Anime in the sense we mean it is its own style and subculture, a subculture consumed and produced by very strange people. Not all Japanese animation is anime, and not all anime is Japanese animation. Just like JRPGs
Mostly Davinci Resolve. The fusion page is quite handy for motion graphics. A couple of the shots (like the distribution of shonen jump series) were made in Unity with the plugin Shapes. My previous 2 videos were also made entirely in Unity. Honestly Unity isn't great software to do 3D animation, but I'm a game developer for my day job so I am pretty familiar with it.
music slowly fades in. “Yes… I think you will see me next time.” Music crescendos. The ground beneath me cracks as I clench my fist, eyes blazing with determination. The screen flashes, “SUBSCRIBED” glowing like a sacred sigil. In one swift, earth-shattering motion, I slam the button. A shockwave erupts, my blue and pink hair flying behind me.
Very good video! However, I can't believe you missed the opportunity to mention the classic anime face-often referred to as the "cat face"! This explains many of the design choices, like the eyes, the side profile with the distinct nose-to-chin straight line, and more.
This is it, the video that will propel your channel forward. Great content tbh, unexpected from a channel with 1.4k subs. On a side note whenever you talked about Western animation I was _so_ expecting to see Wakfu at some point, it has moments that fit exactly the examples you were giving. It's also a French production unlike the American animation you've showed. Would've added diversity.
I’ve heard Wakfu is good but haven’t watched it! I think the only French animation I’ve seen is Arcane. I did show a clip from Klaus which is a Spanish production I believe.
@@FractalPhilosophy There's some surprisingly good animation that comes out of France. But tbh that's expected from the country that consumes almost as much manga as Japan Wakfu's animation in particular is very unique in the way Ankama used Adobe Flash to animate most of it. Sure, this isn't unheard of, but the sheer animation quality they achieved with that software is mindblowing. The Nox vs Grougal fight from EP17 is insane. For Season 4 (which came out in February this year), Ankama hired a lot of freelance animators (notably Vincent Chansard and Chengxi Huang). They also focused on making more traditional animation and outsourced a lot of the Flash animation (Yep, Adobe Flash in 2024) to a studio in Quebec. Apart from Wakfu, Ankama did the 'Dofus Book 1: Julith' movie. It is in my opinion a masterpiece of Western animation. However it completely bombed at the box office, only making 600k euros, whereas the movie had a budget of 6 million euros. Ouch.
An old version of this video was literally titled "Why I Love Anime" but I figured this was a more compelling way to frame it. Glad that is still coming through.
this is a realllly good explanation i feel like. it helps me understand this genre(or rather these genres) better. i just wish the people asking me why i like some anime would speak english well enough to watch it
Other than the extra detail, anime eyes can a lot of times feel bigger because they're attached to realistically proportioned characters; the western designs aren't as realistic so there's less of an expectation for realistically proportioned eyes.
I think another reason is because anime art styles have a signature to them unlike cartoon art styles. That flat very pale V-shaped face , the small mouth, the almost nonexistent nose and the emphasis on the eyes and hairstyle is what it gives that anime signature while cartoon art styles are more diverse and unclear and lack certain signature. So because of that , it is a bit more weird to see that 97% of anime art styles look almost like they were drawn by the same creator/author but across different shows and genres
Great vid, answered many of my ponderances, and a *lot* more that I never considered. Also raised a few new ones.....Got me geared up to subject my SO to some anime tonight...(it's okay, she loves animation)...Great job, OP...Keep up the great content!!!
I know this is obvious from the framing but a lot of arguments are specific to shonen here. One thing I always forget I have grown to accept/ignore is all the weird tropes, sexism, character archetypes, etc. Like, I was trying to show my partner Spy X Family which they really enjoyed until Yuri came up and they just couldn't get over the siscon thing and I found myself saying "oh it's just an anime thing" which made me really think about how much I just ignore to enjoy the things I watch. Also see, obligatory lecherous kid/grandpa, beach episodes. panty shots, elevator shots of mostly women (or the men in shojo but less so), etc. And people say it's cultural, but a ton of japanese people don't like it either but they're just so common in anime.
huh. no wonder English dub sounds so weird on anime, same if you put in japanese dub in family guy or Simpsons. honestly i like because of its exaggerated nature, the way it unnatural makes it connect less to reality making it great for escapism. serious moments have some humanity in them, less exaggerated moments... eh maybe eyes are exaggerated but when the entire thing is exaggerated or then moves into a styled scene then it becomes less serious imo. for example you will have mash say he will fight to save his friend or something then follow it up with a stupid joke saying "after i eat my cream puff"
Interesting video! Thank you for pointing out the differences, and specifically taking it back to the publications. I think the history and the manga-to-anime pipeline of many of these stories really reveals more than most people realize!
I grew up loving Phineas and Ferb without question, so it’s no wonder I ended up loving anime so much… also without questioning the unusual character designs. Specifically because I watched a triangular and rectangular set of brothers without thinking it was odd (until someone pointed it out) 😅
The easiest way for me to answer the question “why is anime so weird?” is to say “it’s weird to you because it’s different and it’s different because it’s from japan. A Japanese person could ask the same question in reverse”. When you live in Japan, learn Japanese, and live like the Japanese it becomes a lot less “weird” and a lot more relatable
Incredible video explaining the motivations and techniques used in anime! It was super informative and entertaining. I immediately Subscribed and liked! Thank you for bringing this content to life, look forward to seeing your channel grow 🤩
Money baybee. It makes pedo gooners like your show more and buy merch, and once it becomes normalized the normies will not stop watching or dislike a show solely based on having pedobait. The whole model of the indsutry is very similar to the gacha model. You make a little money from sales of manga and anime DVDs, sure, but the real profit comes from merch sales, and from the "whales" who collect every figurine and body pillow you put out. Also: gooners make for good whales, since they by definition do not have a great deal of self control.
I don't think the aesthetic matters much to be honest. An orc wresting and a dwarf fighting each other with oversized weapons and wielding magic for instance is generally not perceived as "weird" What matters is that the inner worlds (thoughts,feelings,behavior) of the characters can intuitively be understood and/or be empathized with by the viewer. It is usually once this understanding breaks down that people tend to perceive things as "off".
All of these things mentioned in the video, I can usually get past. It is the fan service that is usually the gross/weird part that immediately kills an anime for me.
Don't people think anime is weird because of the over-sexualization of teen girls? And like the peverted stuff? I like anime but whenever a show does that kind of stuff it just takes me out of the experience at which point I totally get their view point. (Not saying that all anime are like this but this still plays a role I believe)
To me it doesn't bother me 99.9% of the time. It's just fiction. I know, I know, it sounds like I'm just parroting that popular counter-argument, so allow me to explain my thought process. If you saw some vicious and brutal murder happening, with exquisite agony being dealt, would you weep for that character? I wouldn't. At best the only negative reaction I would get would be something like "well, that character death was unsatisfying for the plot." When those "teen" girls are being sexualized, the same thing happens. I just don't care that much for it. I'm not thinking "hey! this is morally wrong!" Usually my suspension of disbelief extends even to the character's age despite whatever their canonical age is, because they're drawings. They don't look even CLOSE to an actual real person, so it's just too much of an abstract thing for me to register as actually that age. I can barely register them as any age at all. I say usually because, truth be told, I have witnessed SOME cases where I thought "okaaaaaaay this may be a little bit too much" because for the character was just TOO young-looking, too short, and with like such a high-pitched voice that the voiced sounds made even me uncomfortable. Because it was more blatant and thus less abstract it evoked that reaction even from me. But even then, after that scene goes away it's just... business as usual. I guess in the end, all I think is something like "well, this certainly decreases this anime's quality". But that sort of "strong" reaction, I don't think it has happened more than 5 times in the many years I have watched anime, and they were extreme cases which are nowhere near the norm as one may think judging from the comments I see so often. In the end, I truly watch them for the plot, and so I'm pretty comfortable about it. I love the crazy, unique, creative worlds that animes are about, that delve in more complex, psychological and dark topics than other media usually dare. Where usually the trope is all about "continuing to be determined and to put in hard work, and you'll succeed". I feel like in western media, the typical "hero story" is executed with the hero being an asshole for a while, but then he is sorry, and everything is okay. It's usually cheap, unfair and dumb. In anime the typical "hero story" is actually about the hero having been weak, but not giving up, continuing to believe in himself, and then overcoming the challenges. They either usually don't stoop to being assholes, or when they do, the story actually exposes the complex dynamics that lead them to act that way. THAT sort of thing is why I watch anime and why I love it. It's what I seek. And yes, sometimes you have to go through some scenes that may look cringey and make it harder for you to recommend that sort of medium to other people... But I don't think "oh my god, what a morally reprehensible act! I must stop these criminals and save these pieces of fiction from their artists!!!!" I just roll my eyes and continue watching if the anime was interesting so far. I've made my peace that that sort of thing will show up, and it's just the result of a different culture, and I don't let it spoil the rest of the anime. It is that "rest" that I care about after all.
@@ric6611 Yes it is fiction, but it also plays a real impact on our society and what becomes normalized in it. It shouldn't be so common and accepted for young girls to be sexualized. It shouldn't be something creepy writers can get away with because then creepy viewers just get more gross things to watch, and the rest of us have to have a perfectly good anime partly or completed ruined from the amount of creepiness in it. Normalizing this behavior in fiction contributes to the normalization of it in real life.
I can see both of your points. But iam on jjalexo6481 side. a few of my favorite shows are animes, dont have a problem to watch girly stuff and can give the homies good night lip kiss without problems. So i think iam not prude nor averse to the medium itself. But i couldnt watch some shows without getting extremly disrupted in the flow or simply disgusted. Examples: Flow: Kill la Kill Loved the first few episodes but after that it felt like the show was 30% panty shots and 20% boob jiggling. Could not watch a episode without nervous laughter or pure cringe at some point. Disgust: Made in Abyss I think i dont have so say anything to anyone who saw it.
@@ric6611 the issue is that it's still objectification of women even if they don't look like teens/real people. there's nothing wrong with liking women or enjoying content and characters that are designed to be sexual, but in anime "fan service" is often at the cost of dehumanizing women into sex objects, even worse when it's with young girls
Loved the video, it actually shined light on quite a few things I've never considered. To me however, the main obstacle to watching anime nowadays is its high focus on eroticism, especially when it doesn't supplement the story being told in any significant way. It's always so weird to try a popular anime, like chainsaw man or Dandadan and... the joke is sex. And it's a joke they tell every episode, over and over again, and it doesn't go anywhere. I imagine it also helps comics stand out and gain popularity, but at this point I just wish it was less prominent. But to me it just drowns a competent story with great visuals in meaningless fanservice. Also I know it's not in every anime, and sometimes fancervice is actually meaningful and tasteful, but there's definitely a significant portion of it not being the case.
oh my god literally. (okay chainsawman is slightly different cause the themes of not feeling fulfilled from sexual indulgence comes later but it's totally understandable from this point of the anime to group it in like that) but Dandandan i had to drop cause holy shit I'm not interested in seeing these high schoolers being naked for the 5th time. The grandma is hot that's so funny wow. I know it will never get any deeper and there's a million other shows that do the same thing. It's so weird that modern anime is still like this I thought it would totally be something left in the past
15:44 everything was ok with he video until this whole section. Animation production is not made in just a week, yes not even weekly shoes are made an episode per week. Those are still done with at least 2 months of production (still very little time to make 20 minutes of an aepisode) 17:08 another common mistake. The "budget" concept. The limited animation episodes and the "sakuga" episodes are both made with the same amount of budget. Heck, problaby a bad looking anime episode cost more money, because if it's melting it's becasue the schedule was so bad they needed help form other studio to finish it on time. Because yes, TIME is what makes the difference in the quality of an episode; along with the staff involved in the episode (but this also requires time for the animator to work properly)
that's what im saying! it feels like this entire video completely disregards what may or may not be true and makes a ton of assumptions based on observations rather than assumptions based on facts. it's really bothering me tbh
0:27 jojo isnt weird its "bizarre"
XDD
it's a Bizzare Adventure
That was so weird😭
@@JaydenWise-us7svIt’s not weird, it’s *“B I Z A R R E.”*
what is it? some kinda bizarre adventure?
I love it when I find a random youtuber that is the first to go over things that seem obvious but no one else has tried to go more in depth. Thankyou for shining a light on why anime do certain things
an analysis of things that seem obvious to some but not to many is always nice. heck, it can even make people who are already familiar with the topic learn new things
Could share the name of some of these random youtuber with us?that could interresing.
I personally don't need a 20 minute essay telling me about the cultural idiosyncrasies of Japan. I gained a natural understanding of them over time through exposure and genuine curiosity. I keep finding more extremely long essays about topics people should be capable of understanding naturally. But we live in an era where we need everything overexplained to us because we can't analyze anything ourselves anymore
@@RedShirtGuy96 analysis of things that are acquired naturally is pretty common and it helps reinforce your understanding.
an example is learning english grammar in school even though english is your first language. the language was already acquired by exposure so why do i need an analysis on it? conclusion: humans are dumb harr we cant analyse things ourselves rahh.
@@k_otey i dont disagree and might be acting a bit cynical tbh. But you make a valid point as well
I always find it odd that Americans call anime "weird", when one of America's most popular cartoons is about an anthropomorphic kitchen sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea.
*EDIT* I'd like to thank all the English professors in the comments for setting me straight on the correct definition of "weird". I always thought it meant "of strange or extraordinary character" but it seems the correct meaning is actually "sexually perverted". This is why my use of Spongebob is an incorrect example, as it is NOT sexually perverted, while *_every single anime ever made_* is.
Again, my sincerest thanks to you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to apply your professional education and correct a lowly RUclips commenter like me on the proper use of the English language. Does the language department of the university you teach at accept donations? I'd really like to make a donation, as I feel this comment is insufficient in expressing my gratitude.
americans don’t call anime weird because of the concepts, because when you boil many stories down they sound silly. it’s often the execution/ moreso xenophobia due to differences they’re not used to and stereotypes because of that.
that, or the aggressive fanservice.
??? Dude because one is about a sponge who works at an underwater fast food place thats pretty easy to not take seriously... like ungodly easy, there's basically no need to suspend disbelief because I'm nowhere near believing to begin with and I have a hard time thinking most aren't like me. On the other hand for anime we're only gonna have a dude in a "normal" world, just a dude who's probably meant to be "normal" but for some reason they have to be obsessed with their little sister or I inevitably have to watch one of the supporting/main female characters get diddy'd at some point for fanservice. these are weird and creepy concepts that are disturbingly much more grounded and don't come off as "wacky" or "odd" like western cartoons. They come off as perverse... because they are...
I don't claim to have watched every anime under the sun I basically only watch the mainstream but from what I've seen (JJK and Black Clover have that weird sibling shit in it, Black Clover... wth. and SAO, Bleach, One Punch, etc. have some diddy scenes.)
The base of my argument is as crazy as animes are they often mirror reality closer than something like spongebob, with characters that feel way more "human" so taking the concepts as 1:1 doesn't work. Watching spongebob shake his two square asscheeks singing about the crusty crab pizza is very weird but not weird in the same way as watching a oversexualized minor get groped by her classmates for comedic effect (bleach)
[pasted in from further down for context]
@@panzalinopanzultimate4796 nah you just nitpick
@@jorgemurilo6456And most people love to nitpick
There is a lot of stuff in anime that is cringe in America. Gratuitous fan service only there to hook young men/boys but doesn't improve the entertainment value of the show. The trope sexualizing a 300 year old woman who has the body of a child, so it's not pdo right?
>Show called Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
>Look inside
>Bizarre Adventures
Pure cinema
one of few anime that actually lived up to its title.
Nice
Prince of Egypt was mentioned, I can say for sure that this man has great taste
As a Japanese , I would like to express my thoughts on the problems with lip syncing.
First of all, Japanese people don't care about lip syncing.
In reality, Japanese people's mouth movements are very monotonous and short.
Because it is not a language that requires a lot of movement of the mouth and tongue, and it is a kanji-based language, sentences are short.
Therefore, dubbing the English version would be very difficult, and the amount of text is very different.
Conversely, Hollywood's Japanese dubs also do not match the mouth movements, but I don't remember seeing this being talked about.
Even outside of the covid19 era, Japanese people often wear masks.
To read the other person's intentions and conversations, they look more at the eyes than the mouth, and mouth movements are less important.
Also, because there are many homonyms, even if the sound is the same, if the eyes are irritated, it will be perceived as sarcastic or insulting.
These thoughts are my own, not those of an expert in linguistics or vocal mechanics.
コメント、ありがとう
外から失礼しますが
”Because it is not a language that requires a lot of movement of the mouth and tongue, and it is a kanji-based language, sentences are short.”
そんなことないです。
よく言われるかもしれませんが、言語学のリーサーチによると、日本語の音韻は他言語の中にはかなり平均です。「口あんまり動かないで話す」ことはどの言語にもあります。そして、「漢字があるから文章が短い」ということもよく考えて見ると、話すことには関係がないんじゃないですか？漢字も、ひらがなも、口にすると発音の長さ変わりません。加えて、英語でも、話す時文章は普段短くなることが多いんです。
まぁ、「Japanese people don't care about lip syncing」のは間違っていないと思います。それだけでいいんじゃない？
（急にこの話に入って申し訳ございませんが、コロナの時期「英語では"This is a pen"などを強く空気出して言うからコロナがアメリカで流行っている。日本語は優雅な言語で全然ちがう(^_-)-☆」など、そういう馬鹿馬鹿しいのがめっちゃ聞いたから、気持ちはもう貯められなくて、こういうステレオタイプ つぶしたくなりました）
Looking into a person's eyes in Japan is actually very threatening. Generally, it's customary to look past a person you're speaking with if you're not on informal terms with them. Averting one's eyes is also common.
私も「ペン発音」の動画を見ました！言語学を学んだアメリカ人として、少し心配でした。日本人も嫌いな人がいてよかったです。
(文法が悪かったらごめんなさい ＿|￣|○)
Tbf Japanese is a language where sentences are as long or as short as you want them to be, with keigo still being alive and well.
Another thing about hairstyles and their colors is that Japan created a template where personalities are related to them. So it serves as a quick way to tell the viewer what the character is like by simply looking at the hair.
I actually got in a whole discussion with another Wikipedia editor over this! I would be very interested if you could send me a primary source saying that.
I’ve seen a number of anime fans say that but never anyone who actually makes anime/manga professionally
@@FractalPhilosophyHair is a factor in any character design, both Western and Eastern.
I think with anime and such, Japanese culture has different associations with certain hairstyles. For instance, especially in previous decades, purple hair was often applied to Indian characters (see Revolutionary Girl Utena, for instance). I can't tell you why, don't have sources, but it's one thing you can look into.
Unrelated but somewhat related TL;DR, if you're interested:
Another association, Japanese media also tends to only depict African descent hair exclusively as afros, or basic dreadlocs. This is so much a thing, I've seen black models complain about being told to wear stereotypical afro wigs when working in Japan.
I don't believe this association stems from racism (mostly) or malice, but more so just ignorance since there's not many black people in Japan. Not that afros are bad, but people don't tend to understand when we explain there's a difference between afro hair and an "afro" as a style. Two different things. Hardly anyone has worn "afros" as a style for decades. Japan tends to still have many fashion and music trends from previous decades, so I can understand.
Similar issues happen in the West as well. At the moment nearly all games are getting the Killmonger brush-over dreads emo style, when literally no one's ever worn that style (I can only think of one guy who does, Richblackguy on YT, suits him well!). An example, Mile Morales Spiderman was given the same style in one of the games, but it doesn't fit his personality at all! I was so surprised when the second Spiderverse movie revealed his alternate style of two braided cornrows. I thought, that's exactly what I was thinking better suited him when I saw the emo dreads!!
Most of the time when a black character is designed, the art department does not factor hair into their personality the same way they do for most other characters. This has been changing over the years thankfully, but we still have a long way to go. :)
@@FractalPhilosophy
Hairstyles & hair color signifying character traits is also a thing in traditional Japanese stage plays.
not even remotely unique to Japan, that's just basic character design, which jp struggles with more than most lol
its because all anime girs are indistinguishable from each other
Some very plausible thoughts here. But I think there's more. For example, when we compare Japanese and US comics, usually in Japan the artist is also the writer, whereas in American comics those are often two distinct people. Both have their (dis)advantages I'd say, but I get the feeling that a lot of the quirkiness of manga (and thus anime) is due to having "artist types" doing the writing, which they're often not very good at. Or, they'll be developing the story in a way so that things happen that they want to draw, whereas a pure writer is more concerned with plot development.
And then there is... well, uh, this is hard to put into words, but please bear with me: The video mentions Scott McClouds "Understanding Comics" and references some parts about drawing a simplified face. If I remember correctly, the book has some parts on how the simplified face is less about depicting what a face looks like visually, but what a face "feels like". Like when you make an angry face, or a happy face, which parts of your face do you use and what shapes do you make? This is, of course, true for both American and Japanese comics to some extent, but I think it's more prevalent in Japanese media, and the video creator here seems to feel the same way.
And this is where the angle of language comes in. I'm bilingual Japanese/English and while I'm fairly confident in my English, I feel like it's often lacking in ways to express emotions, feelings or impressions. For example, you could (informally) say "ぼーっとする" (boohh to suru) which in English might mean someone has "a blank stare", but it's not as *expressive*. More appropriate would be to say someone makes a "duuuuh~ face". Not something you would say in English. My point being: The English language is describing what something LOOKS like, while Japanese (esp. informal language) has a tendency to express what something FEELS like. Likewise, American comics focus more on depicting what something looks like visually, while in Japan it's more about putting the feeling of that moment into an image, regardless of whether the depiction is realistic.
So yes... all in all, each respective comic style, to me, lines up with what that language of its origin is like to use.
Thus wrapping back to the original question, "why is anime so weird?", my thesis is that a country's language can also inform how people of that country express themselves visually, and so it can feel weird if you're not acquainted to that way of expression. (Which is not to say that a lot of Japanese people don't also find anime weird and so on etc etc -- I've already written more words than what's permissible for a YT comments section so I'll see myself out now. Thanks for reading, bye!)
Excellent input!
One of the old versions of this video had a whole section on ‘linguistic determinism’ which is the idea that the language you speak influences how you think.
The theory is mostly debunked now (partly because it was used to justify stuff like cultural superiority of certain ethnic groups in the early 1900s) but there’s interesting thoughts to be had there still.
I cut that section because it was kind of a tangent to the main point, and also I’m not super confident in my Japanese (もっと勉強しなければいけません)
The Japanese industry is just incomparable, really. In Japan, most anime are picked up from serialised manga or LN, which means almost every story told is just the work of some normal person who wrote something appealing. In America, new shows are pitched by teams, often who already have their own production companies. You have to have been a writer for numerous other shows before anyone will give you a chance to get your story made, and increasingly we're seeing new shows created by executives and forced onto writers who have no interest in the project - which is why so much of modern American media's "comedy" just amounts to a show criticising itself for its own lazy writing.
The point about the inexpressiveness of English is interesting, because it didn't used to be that way. Up until the European renaissance, European art was functionally abstract. It was very much about portraying the feeling of things, not the appearance of things. A painting of a biblical scene would depict Mary as a giant not because she was actually tall, but because she was a figure of extreme importance and gravitas. Then Europe had its cultural revolution and the artistic fashion changed to realism. Art had to have realistic proportions and perspective, and what people considered good changed from religious scenes attempting to capture the feel of the biblical story to paintings of landscapes. European culture never really recovered from that.
Yeah too bad american comcis sucka ll ass and are just super hero crap
@yurisei6732 you're right we have a much worse way of doing things in the US
Thanks, that was insightful.
"Why is western animation so... weird?" Some japanese guy, probably
Western animation sucks
I'm asking that, and I'm Danish 😂
they actually dont care all the much for anything foreign
@tsurugi5 as they should, japan is already top tier
@@tsurugi5 curiosity is human nature. very racist of . u to deny that japanese people does not have that trait
My dad has mentioned a few times that his main grievances with anime are how everyone’s perverted, all the characters are socially incompetent, and of course the big eye thing.
Yeah I have no idea why the guy in this video decided to completely dodge the most prominent issue of sexual perversion that saturates the anime industry. This is the REAL gripe that most people I know have with it, and to an extent even myself. Heck, even Hayao Miyazaki himself is disappointed in this aspect of the anime industry.
Subscribed purely on the power of the dynamic inforgraphics
I see the algorithm has located my people
Same, moe-fied Homer Simpson convinced me 🤣
@@alexprus7953 yeah lmao, that was a piece of art
clean af
@@alexprus7953it convinced me too, that there is no God
Wow so many Anime-isms I just got used to after a lot of watching make so much sense now. Now I got to watch Haikyu
Please do, not exaggerating when I say it's peak
One of the best sport manga/anime out there.
Shits omega boring
Just stay away from the community lol will scar you
it's almost as if Japan has a different culture 🤔
😂😂😂
Ironically, it's because they became less like who they were originally due to interaction with the west.
@@suruxstrawde8322 that's the same with most cultures including the cultures from countries colonised by Japan.
@@sugarzblossom8168 well ye, but for Japan it sparked a cultural revolution away from rigid tradition in a way that either mirrors or outright follows american punk ideology of the 90s.
.
Tho I admit, I'm not aware of any other similar cultural shifts, and I imagine they're not that rare.
haha dont be silly
90% of time when people around me said anime was weird they werent talking about any of this stuff. Theyre talking about the fact that so many female characters look like their 12 and we have to see their panties constantly. Which like yeah that is weird. Theyre right to point it out lol
Yup, this video completely missed the point.
These are fun observations but are oddities people might point out not the things people mean when declaring anime as weird
Lots of anime do that, but most anime don't. Why that's so common comes back to one of his earlier points about trying to stand out - if the anime/manga has nothing going for it, they can make up for that by catering to an audience that sexualises young women. I'd make two more points:
It's not just anime/manga that has contact like this that would be illegal in my country - I witnessed a shop selling photo magazines with similar content - so disgusting - yet legal in Japan.
Having said that, many Japanese people don't watch anime at all. Anime is huge outside of Japan - but it's not representative of Japanese culture, not it's the gross stuff that sticks out representative of anime
real, guy addressed none of the real weird stuff that cames to mind w anime. like why is there brother sister shipping???????
@@zeno9410 There's books and books on the subject, incest in stories has existed since time immemorial. Even Shakespeare's stories feature it. One theory is the Westermarck effect, which explains both why incest exists and why there is a biological taboo against it (it was proposed by a Finnish anthropologist who studied marriage throughout history).
@@zeno9410 That's definitely weird, and I avoid anime like that, but it is not exclusive to anime. Star Wars also has incest ships, and I'm sure you could find many others.
This video was very insightful, educational, cultural, exciting and incredibly informative. Very rare gem, and should standout among other competitive RUclips videos.
The insane importance of Shōnen Jump in how the medium of manga and anime has developed over the years is something I've never thought of and is soooooo interesting. What a wonderful discovery.
THE PAPER used for THAT magazine has changed pop culture forever. That blows my mind.
It's not just Jump, basically all manga magazines are pulps.
@@Zetact_ I am aware, now
It kinda reminds me how the Hulk was originally supposed to have grey skin but it doesn't look good because in printed comics so they changet it to green. Funny how technical limitations affect those stories.
@@DK-th5nt Its almost as if getting around those technical limitations is a story in of itself and that's what people at the time find interesting. It just looks more interesting cause its novel and that tends to stick with people for a while...
@@Zetact_ Just the cheap, phonebook-sized ones. There's plenty of magazines with much higher paper grade, but those tend to cost more. Shounen Jump, the magazine, is dirt cheap because its target audience are literal children with small allowances. Higher quality magazines for enthusiasts cost at least double and have a much smaller page-count (i.e. Dragon Magazine).
I wanna give props for the editing. It's not overedited like other channels do, but simple, artistic and satisfying.
I never found any of this stuff weird to be honest. I just accepted that it was a different medium from a different culture. The reason I don't tell people I watch anime is because of the massive amount of fanservice that I have to dredge through to get to something good.
Fanservice is literally one of the only things that make anime unique though
Without it you’re basically just seeing American cartoons with worse writing and a slightly different art style
@ all the things in the video were commenting on make anime unique. The other aspects of Japanese culture make anime unique. The fan service almost always just lowers the impact of anything it’s in.
@@TheXylerz That's true. The problem is the people who want to remove the fanservice will also remove the other non-sexual unique aspects of Japanese culture in anime that they view as unmarketable as well. This isn't just about jiggling cartoon boobs, this is also about the ethics of dictating what art an entire foreign country can and cannot make.
@@TheXylerz Yea look at Frieren, zero fanservice and one of the most loved anime ever. If only all anime were like that
@@JacF6734 it’s true, I also tend to struggle when it comes to criticizing someone else’s culture. There are parts of it that I find repulsive, but I’m just one person from another country. It becomes a bigger philosophical question about wether morals can be objective or subjective. I think my main problem isn’t that it exists at all, but that it’s actively hard for me to navigate around.
19:13 A big reason for shift in art style is because they are animated by different more specialized artists, called key animators.
Each artist having their own more distinct art style.
The thing I find most off putting is the sometimes offensive exposition that completely kills a moment or plot structure even, especially via monologue. Instead of hinting towards something, creating tension for a compelling story, you just get taught their agenda straight to the face for no good reason.
18:19 "sakuga" 作画 by itself just means the production of animation scenes/frames. The sakuga process is generally broken down into two key steps, "genga" 原画 and "douga" 動画, the former meaning the basic cut in which to base detailed animated movements, and the latter meaning the individual frames connecting the genga shots. In the credits you often see production staff called 作画監督 or "sakuga director", who generally oversees the quality/smoothness of the genga and douga shots being drawn.
I guess "Sakuga" has been rolled over into English to mean some sort of fancy term for premium animation cuts lol
Yeah you can type "Sakuga practice" on youtube and you can see alot of animator think its "High production action scene" or any fancy work.
7:00
that's absolutely cursed my dude
bravo
Homer as a Clannad character was not something I needed until now.
I loved your video! I do have one small correction to add that I think is important! Where sakuga is used in an anime is not dependent on budget, it is largely time and resource allocation. There is nuance to this yes, like you are correct that a big budget contributed to chainsaw man’s adaptation, but that is a very specific case and doesn’t apply to all projects. Even for chainsaw man, the quality of sakuga drastically went down past episode 7 because the team was feeling the effects of a brutal schedule. A different mappa project like Jigokuraku was a project that looked very bad yet one look at the amount of artists involved tells us that it must have been an expensive show to make. Additionally it was reported that one punch man had an average budget to work with. While budget is important, it’s not the end all be all when determining whether or not a show looks good
FYI if you edit your comment it resets if the video creator hearts it or not - so if you want to comment to be more promoted you have to not edit it after being hearted.
(I have manually redone it here because I think your comment is worth highlighting)
@@FractalPhilosophy Ik I saw a typo and went to fix it only to see it removed the hearted comment lol. thank you for the nice words and thank you for hearting the comment again!
Unrelated but sonny boy pfp holy based
@@mafukun Thank you! It’s one of my favorite anime’s and it’s one of the shows that got me interested in researching anime production.
@@Papameme2711 Man of culture spotted! Researching Sonny Boy's production opened my eyes to how vital quality producing is for a show. Sonny Boy wouldn't be this good without the trust and artistic freedom that Motoki Mukaichi and the production committee had provided to Shingo Natsume, while still setting certain conditions (like ending episodes on cliffhangers).
Great video! Like some others, I'll mention an observation from Scott McCloud that I wish you included. It's the comparison of Superman flying vs. Kaneda (from Akira) on his bike. McCloud points out that shots of superheroes are often viewed "from the outside" by the observer. We're seeing Superman fly, so we see his full body, maybe with some speed lines or a dynamic angle to convey momentum. But in the Kaneda panel, there's a corona of speed lines of different thicknesses around Kaneda. We view him head on, rather than from the side, seeing the body language and face of someone grappling with intense speed. We experience the speed FROM HIS PERSPECTIVE. We're still lookin at him (it's not POV), but the idioms of comics (speed lines, posing) are used to get you to empathize with the character, whereas traditionally US comics don't have the same visual idioms.
The people who are saying this video fails because he's 'dancing around' the topic of eroticism fail to understand that every reviewer and analyst has an angle, that is, things they focus on and others they ignore to make a certain point . He wanted to explain anime's 'weirdness' in terms of semiotics and iconography, and how these may be unfamiliar and difficult to understand to foreign audiences. He is talking about the FORM of anime and not it's CONTENT. He sets the stage early on by listing a number questions he has been asked in his private life, (why so many internal monologues?) all of which have to do with form and how that affects the storytelling; not the content of the stories themselves. and yes, people call these aspects of form weird, there are a myriad of things, you can question about a medium, from form, to content, even to methods of distribution--and each of those are their own discussions. An analysis of how erotic content is handled would be entirely out of place and unnecessary here, because it handles the aspects of form that people find weird, not aspects of content (which are highly subjective, anyway).
11:45 the biggest culprit of this is Jojo, where it's overlooked in manga form when the character is monologuing his long thoughts that could be interpreted happening within a split second or it happens as the fight scene continues on. In the anime, the characters are awkwardly staying still while the internal thought is still ongoing. There's a lot to forgive Jojo on since the story is relatively entertaining, but that one aspect stands out to me so much.
A Jojo character could be the only one reacting to a glass of water floating in a restaurant, screaming their heads off before someone calmly asks if there's something wrong until the screaming person eventually clocks in that there's an enemy stand user nearby. Then they will be frantically looking around for a few minutes, monologuing out loud while there is a "uniquely-dressed" individual staring at them from another table. That would work fine on page, but doesn't translate well on screen. But that's why we love it.
Stand?
yeah, it's pretty BIZARRE if you asked me
It might be a good example but I think death note is a better example of it, action might not be happening in the background, just people sitting, but it's such a common part of the story I'd say almost all the exciting moments in the story happen during the hair thinking moments
@@KesenaiOsore I'm relying on my decade old memory here, but in Death Note there's visual clarity in telling the audience that the thought is currently happening in Light's brain in the span of a second or two by greying out the screen or even slowing down the movements. Jojo doesn't bother with that and makes it look like they're just standing there in real time, as if the opponent would rather listen to his opponent rather than take advantage of him monologuing like a tool.
Came in with pretty low expectations with the intention of watching this later, but this video was so well-made that you got me hooked lol
the reason some people may think the eyes are big is because the body proportions of a lot of anime characters are more realistic and closer to human so the stylized and larger eyes stand out more.
yup
Ok I’ve got a couple questions we have that you did NOT answer;
1. Why is there so much GD screaming? Characters are constantly freaking out and losing their minds over the most trivial nonsense. That not only pulls us out of the story, but makes an otherwise Interesting character unbearable. If I wanted to listen to annoying screaming, I would watch SpongeBob.
2. Why do so many shows randomly sexualize characters that look like children? “Slice of life“ for the local pedophile I guess.
3. Why is there random incest? Or allude to incest? I have never accidentally stumbled upon an incestuous relationship while watching a random animated show made in the USA, but it has happened to me more times than I can remember with random anime.
4. Why is there so much “fan service“?
There is a time and place for sex and sexualized characters in any good work of art, but I don’t think it should be randomly thrust upon us during an otherwise uneventful sequence.
These are the reasons we find anime weird. These are the reasons, brother.
anime isn't for people like you. watered down, sterile, inoffensive content that takes 0 risks and appeals to the lowest common denominator sounds like it's more your speed
As a Brazillian who grew up watching mexican telenovelas with my aunts, I can say that Anime is pretty much the same thing, it is so weird...
I think what makes anime anime are these unique stylistic qualities that have formed from the limitations of the medium and Japanese culture. Like the whole long shot where people are just standing around and there is absolutely no animation other than mouths flapping or like eye expressions. This comes from how anime has alwas had way too low budget, and in the 60s they had to compromise on their own vision in TV shows in order to get them made. That's why things turned out differently to Disney in this period, like watch early films and they are completely Disney. But then going into the late 70s, new animators growing up on the studd in the 50s and 60s didn't just see it as a limitation (even though it still was) and embraced it as a stylistic choice. Nowadays anime can't really be separated from this type of scene, it is on one hand still done because of low budgets, but it is no longer a compromise, it is the artistic vision. And we get those really beautiful 1 minute long shots in Evangelion which are the peak of the series IMO.
hell yeah
I'm glad they did though, the amount of movement in expensive shows, especially American ones, is often distracting and ugly.
@@yurisei6732 Having very animated characters can be done in subtle ways that is still high budget and doesn't look like visual diarrhea.
@@genuscorvid Yeah, it just almost always isn't.
Ppl really gotta learn about the Japanese cultural turn away from stoic traditionalism into wacky absurdism and a love for creative innovation. They had their own version of punk culture, and anime was its byproduct.
And once again its an instance of Japan benefiting from compressing cultural changes into short timespans, that in other countries moved much slower. UK punk moved slow enough for punk itself to become bland.
not "people" but americans
because ameircan think the whole planet is their entire country
So friggin epic, anime for the win! My epic naruto really showed them freakin traditionalist BAKAS who's boss!
@@blizzari6168
This started decades before Naruto.
Hm, interesting that you tie Japanese punk culture into anime. It does seem like the two influenced each other, but Japanese punk was a vibrant, but pretty specific collection of music scenes and styles, VERY heavily based (and even straight up copied) from Western punk scenes. It was definitely not "their own version" and it thrived on standing out quite blatantly and defiantly from other aspects of Japanese culture. In fact, it had a lot more to do with Scandinavian (specifically Finnish) and English punk culture than any part of Japanese culture. Although it's true that the sense of humor, references, inside jokes, and absurdism of the Japanese punk scenes were EXTREMELY Japanese to the point that they're usually completely untranslatable to any other culture. While it definitely influenced anime, I wouldn't say anime was a byproduct of it. More like the influences were blended in pretty seamlessly into the "stew" that became anime styles.
I thought about this before, it's because unlike Hollywood it's all based on the internal reality - the internal perspective of a person. This is found in some new wave cinema but is mostly gone today. For example a person having a flash realisation, is followed by a literal lightening strike. This is not found in almost any other medium today (though it exists in some movies.) In addition internal monologues are absent, but seeing as how anime is from manga - The fruit of internal monologue - They contain a lot of internal monologue. This also, is not found in most movies today, maybe in a few art directors like Gaspar Noe who does it consistently, or a few rather popular hollywood movies here and there, but is generally absent. Third, anime is largely surrealist, again like new wave cinema - Which died in the 80's. The landscape, the visuals and the imagery follow the internal state of the character, this is not the case in real life representation.
right! i always thought the thing with the monologues in manga is that it's another way to supply exposition with an emotional delivery. on average manga chapters take at least 20 pages weekly so the mangakas need to cram a bit of info in there to make the chapter substantial in a way. and although I'm not a native Japanese speaker/reader/citizen, I'm made aware from documentaries and enough japanese media that their language isn't as direct as english, let's say. so that might also factor into the reliance/obsequious use of monologues. mostly it's all based on culture, just a different way of doing things compared to the rest of the world in order to achieve the same goal: effective storytelling.
Internal monologues also have the bonus of reducing the number of frames the artists have to draw as they don't need to animate the face for them.
I don't buy the 'cultural' difference stuff. Anime itself just means 'Animation', the word's origin is in the fact that originally it had less of a budget than the American counterpart. A producer said "This doesn't look like animation" and the director said "Correct, it's not animation, it is Anime" contracting the term to highlight the lower budget involved.
Japanese new wave was inspired from the french New wave - which was Inspired from Surrealism (literary movement) - which was in turn inspired from Absurdists and the Avant-garde, Neo-Dada movement. Nobody mentioned any cultural specific stuff there, and I'm not seeing it here either. The Avant-garde/presurrealist art movement was on the other hand inspired by Japanese art (Japonisme -ex: Odilon Redon, van Gogh.)
Now this original post of mine is in reference to what I watch. It makes about as much sense as talking about movies in general not noting the difference between an action movie, an art flick and a comedy. But there are generalities that anime shares in large strokes across genres, the fact that unlike movies, it's directly a port of not only a single author's plot and dialogue, the visuals are a direct product of their own pen as well.
I dunno, those internal reality things pop up quite a bit in Western culture. Stuff like a light bulb turning on to represent a person getting an idea, or a tea kettle going off to represent a person getting mad are really common tropes in Western media that fall into the same design philosophy of "lightning strike representing a flash of realization." And don't even get me started on classic rubberhose animation.
@@De_an donno and can't read evidently. He never claimed they were exclusive. And those don't exist in movies eitherway.
Anime-proportioned Homer Simpson made me laugh harder than I've done for a while. Well done.
The inderectness argument is weird. I understand inderectness as subtelty. And a giant fire burning behind a girls back for expressing rage is not "subtle". Neither exaggerated movements are inderect. It is, like i said, exaggerated. It uses symbolism, but the symbolism that first comes to mind is indirect if only in the very technical sense of the word.
Neither do flashbacks, as a concept at least, seem like an inderect way to tell a story. What is direct in that case? Literally saying "I'm sad because of this and that"? That's not a tool any media uses as a primary one, even books with their internal monologue.
its the culture difference. Something like Undead Unluck has suffered in the west because of its start, and its been hidden in the pages of jump so its been ignored even though its a god tier manga after the uma summer arc. Undead Unluck caught my attention because the first sentences are "now that my favorite manga is finished, its about time I unlive myself"
The nude guy bothered me. It was certainly not as stressful to watch as The Walking Dead. Western entertainment often has too much in fighting and tense confrontation. Especially that show was also very demoralizing. But I prefer School Live! over both.
Duuuuude Undead Unlock is so underappreciated. The concepts there are amazing. One of my favorite moment was finally getting the answer why there were no stars in the earlier chapters. I initially thought the artist just forgot it. I was 🤯 when they finally addressed it.
Yeah I'm torn about it. I only watched the anime, and the start wasn't very good, but I remember there was this episode where the opening is like so fucking cinematic. Just this sunset view, with cherry tree leaves flying across the street, as a really aesthetic "Undead Unluck" "title card" shows up in the middle of the screen, just creating suspanse for what you know is a tense moment. And I don't really know what it was now, but I had this crazy meta theory when they started talking about the manga "Undead Unluck" itself showing up, that I thought that if it went the way I thought it would go, it would've had a masterpiece plot. As it stands, I have watched it some time ago, but I don't think it is "satisfactory" enough to recommend.
i found undead unluck super mid tbh
I'm glad I soldiered through all the groping at the beginning, as it's one of the most unique shounens I've ever read (especially when one compares the beginning with the scope of the later part). Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to recommend - as in successfully - due to the aforementioned beginning. I've had a similar problem with Dandadan, especially since the anime so lovingly adapted the creepy early parts of the manga, though I guess it's a bit easier to get people into Dandadan since both the manga and the anime are so visually impressive while Undead Unluck isn't exactly among the prettiest series.
When I first got into anime, the one thing I found really weird about it was how characters never blinked. This was super jarring coming from Western Animation when blinking actually existed.
Cartoons rocked
Anime shocked
Kids touched
Hotel trivago
It's all the "mmmh... ehh? ngh! wah--oh... unnh?!" in between lines that does me in. Like they have zero confidence in their ability to convey emotion through context and visuals, and can't trust that I can fill it in myself. It just feels amateurish and slightly insulting, and a little creepy. I've always hated it.
Waou!..I did not intend to watch that 23mn video entirely but boy, that was one of the best videos I’ve seen in this platform. Simple yet efficient, great narration, in depth research, thinking and powerful graphics. Love it. Suscribed in the hope of seeing more of this quality !
After watching this video I went to check your other videos and I was absolutely astonished when I found out that you only have 93 subscribers?! Dude your editing is so great and the way you explain everything makes it really interesting to listen to. I love the use of the diagrams and everything. I hope your channel gets the recognition it deserves and don't forget about me when it does!
Thanks, it means a lot!
Glad to see people are liking this one! This video had an embarrassing number of rewrites so definitely still a lot of refinement to come in the future hopefully haha
@@FractalPhilosophy I had the same reaction. The answer is simple. You provide quality and not quantity. Please don't change that! But maybe something every two months at least? I say this as an educated anime fan of decades who still found insights here.
There’s a difference between being weird in the sense that it’s artistically unique and bold, and it being weird in the sense that a lot of the characters can act in ways that go against social norms
That’s the reason why people have made a lot of fun of weebs who act like anime characters, because very often anime characters act in perverse or unrealistic ways
But that's equally true of American media. Basically every popular American TV show is about a guy who never takes his job seriously, and people who behave like that in the real world are very cringe too. Take for example Rick and Morty fans.
You guys really like to be racists LMAO.
Remember, BIG MOUTH?
When you're definitely not a bully
@@Kaimax61 How is that racist? Japanese people will also make fun of you if you act like an anime character.
oh c'mon now American! As if westerners didnt act in perverse or weird ways themselves. Have you ever watched an american music video? rap music for example? you definitly have. stop playing.
Thanks for covering this, I've never really considered this. I'd be interested to see your analysis on Frieren and what "weird tropes" are carried over or broken and how that impacts the show.
One of the greatest works of fiction ever created imo idgaf what anybody say
Your editing styles with all the blue and white outlines look amazing OMG 😍😍
All these awkward tropes you mention were present from the early days of Japanese TV animation, but I think they're far more emphasized in modern anime. In the 80s they were seen as "workarounds" and demanded some degree of complicity from the viewer. Then came the 90s, and the reason people often say that anime peaked in this era was that series like Evangelion or SE Lain EMBRACED the limitations of the medium and developed them into this quite nuanced visual language that silently conveyed the "heaviness" of the subject, instead of resorting to contrived expository dialogue. But the nuance of the 90s fell out of favor, and now all these anime tropes and limitations seem to be everywhere, because there's now an audience that actively fetishizes them: they are forced, and that makes them twice as awkward. I have the theory that this is the way the anime industry responds to the way the Westerners "ironically" consume it, in this strange cultural feedback of supply and demand
Great video!! Having spent a large majority of my life watching anime, I never even thought about how these things could be weird to a layman. This helped me open my eyes and inspect the medium closer. Hell, it made me question the choices in my own art too!
One important thing is also the whole language of symbols that manga uses that many people find weird. Most people do know that the kinda x appearing on a face or a fist means a character is angry, or that vertical lines with blue tint means character is sad. But then there are weirder ones like the snot bubble when a character is asleep that many people find weird, or mushrooms growing on the head when they are gloomy, or the nose suddenly getting long and itchy when they are bragging. Or simply the sparkles that are used to show shiny, clean, new thing that got co-opted by ai companies recently.
As someone who really struggles with reading emotions from real life actors, the whole symbolic language makes anime emotions way more readable to me. But I've seen people be confused the other way around because they just don't know all the more niche symbols. (e.g. I've seen people not get that a character is a show-off because they didn't know what the sudden long nose meant)
I think those symbols are intuitive. No one starts out knowing what they mean, but everyone who watches anime learns what they mean without ever having to be explicitly told.
I've never seen anyone find those effects weird or incomprehensible, they all make sense even without prior experience.
What is weird is sudden art style and character design shifting, for instance, Apothecary Diaries having the protagonist randomly turn into a catgirl sometimes for purely expressive purposes. But sparkles for clean and blue forehead for sad are very understandable.
If anyones interested these are called manpu, there are some used in western comics (like zzz's for sleep or a lightbulb above the head). in manga because of budget/page real estate they can convey a ton of info very quickly. there are some pretty unique ones like the nose bleed for arousal that don't make sense outside of Japanese culture.
@@EvilParagon4 the changing sizes is very interesting because in mcclouds book he looks at the simplified/realistic axis of depicting a character. Most western comics try to be as on model as possible so there's not much variation. In manga and anime the characters scale to show emotion and to get the reader to engage with a character in different ways ie you're more likely to read a panel as "yourself" if the character is simplified.
Actual interesting comment, waow
As an anime fan going on 32 years now (yeah, I'm getting old), you summarized all the elements of why I love anime in a nice, organized video. Also loved the visuals and intellectual discourse, so you've got a new fan. Despite watching my fair share of Saturday morning cartoons back in the day, I never actually sat down to compare eye size proportions in US cartoons vs anime eyes. Great point that the perception of larger eyes in anime is most likely due smaller mouth/nose proportions and shifted positioning. I've also read that there's a Japanese idiom that says, "Eyes speak more than the mouth," or the less literal translation is "Eyes are the window to the mind/soul", which is why anime has such a focus on the eyes
One point that you didn't cover (perhaps it's a future topic?), is that anime isn't afraid to cover "mature" topics in show targeted towards kids or teens. For Americans who tend to think "cartoons" are only meant for kids, seeing more mature topics may come off as surprising or jarring. The fact that it's sometimes all packaged together with cute art, makes it all the more confusing to the uninitiated. For example, one of my favorite animes is Haibane Renmei "Grey Feather Alliance". Haibane Renmei starts out like a slice-of-life anime with cute girls, sporting cute little angel wings and halos, but the series explores heavy spiritual themes of sin, guilt, and redemption. Yeah, sure, when I watched Haibane Renmei the first time, I thought it was "different", but I loved every minute of it.
This helped me! I've been unable to get into most manga and anime primarily because of the over emotional 'freak out' nature of the characters. I hate those kind of people irl. Now that I know they do it to try and grab your attention and a marketshare in the main publication I will be alittle more accepting.
And the reason Studio Ghibli doesn't have most of this anime weirdness is that it isn't adapting manga, of course.
@Thegreatercheese good point
Exactly, is a storyboard from Miyazaki that is then animated, so the shots are more common and cinematic, also a lot less inner dialogue and more movement, even in still moments of characters the enviroment is moving with natural sound.
Come on, let's not be racist. Anime in the sense we mean it is its own style and subculture, a subculture consumed and produced by very strange people. Not all Japanese animation is anime, and not all anime is Japanese animation. Just like JRPGs
Miyazaki hates anime.
surprised to see how few subscribers you have tbh. very high quality video
Great script and presentation, subscribed and looking foward to see what comes next.
How was this animated? Top notch stuff. Forget anime, make courses on how to make videos like that.
Mostly Davinci Resolve. The fusion page is quite handy for motion graphics.
A couple of the shots (like the distribution of shonen jump series) were made in Unity with the plugin Shapes. My previous 2 videos were also made entirely in Unity.
Honestly Unity isn't great software to do 3D animation, but I'm a game developer for my day job so I am pretty familiar with it.
music slowly fades in. “Yes… I think you will see me next time.” Music crescendos. The ground beneath me cracks as I clench my fist, eyes blazing with determination. The screen flashes, “SUBSCRIBED” glowing like a sacred sigil. In one swift, earth-shattering motion, I slam the button. A shockwave erupts, my blue and pink hair flying behind me.
Very good video! However, I can't believe you missed the opportunity to mention the classic anime face-often referred to as the "cat face"! This explains many of the design choices, like the eyes, the side profile with the distinct nose-to-chin straight line, and more.
This is it, the video that will propel your channel forward. Great content tbh, unexpected from a channel with 1.4k subs.
On a side note whenever you talked about Western animation I was _so_ expecting to see Wakfu at some point, it has moments that fit exactly the examples you were giving. It's also a French production unlike the American animation you've showed. Would've added diversity.
I’ve heard Wakfu is good but haven’t watched it!
I think the only French animation I’ve seen is Arcane.
I did show a clip from Klaus which is a Spanish production I believe.
@@FractalPhilosophy There's some surprisingly good animation that comes out of France. But tbh that's expected from the country that consumes almost as much manga as Japan
Wakfu's animation in particular is very unique in the way Ankama used Adobe Flash to animate most of it. Sure, this isn't unheard of, but the sheer animation quality they achieved with that software is mindblowing. The Nox vs Grougal fight from EP17 is insane.
For Season 4 (which came out in February this year), Ankama hired a lot of freelance animators (notably Vincent Chansard and Chengxi Huang). They also focused on making more traditional animation and outsourced a lot of the Flash animation (Yep, Adobe Flash in 2024) to a studio in Quebec.
Apart from Wakfu, Ankama did the 'Dofus Book 1: Julith' movie. It is in my opinion a masterpiece of Western animation. However it completely bombed at the box office, only making 600k euros, whereas the movie had a budget of 6 million euros. Ouch.
This is not what most people mean when they say anime is weird they mean the fanservice lol
Very well made video my dude it’s hard to believe this is your third one
Ok but that English Akira clip was still like… really good.
wow the editing is so good on this video
Such a high quality video, can't wait for what's next.
This is the best love letter to anime I think I've ever seen. Thank you.
An old version of this video was literally titled "Why I Love Anime" but I figured this was a more compelling way to frame it. Glad that is still coming through.
you missed the question; why is anime so horny?
This was great, thank you! I hope you make more videos comparing Japanese and English storytelling.
this is a realllly good explanation i feel like. it helps me understand this genre(or rather these genres) better. i just wish the people asking me why i like some anime would speak english well enough to watch it
You kinda skip over the main reason why normies don't like anime: "The oversexualisation of (young) girls/women)"
As a Japanese,I’ve never cared about lip-sync when I watch anime.And I’ve never heard of opinions about lip-sync in Japan.I wonder why.🤔
Other than the extra detail, anime eyes can a lot of times feel bigger because they're attached to realistically proportioned characters; the western designs aren't as realistic so there's less of an expectation for realistically proportioned eyes.
i do agree with you, but maybe lets not go so far as to say "realistically proportioned".. *cough*
@@paniiziimaCompared to fisk, Simpsons Characters, Southpark Characters, Family guy etc it is absolutely significantly more realistic
@@SidPil especially the size of their tits and hips and the fact that they have no waist
I think another reason is because anime art styles have a signature to them unlike cartoon art styles. That flat very pale V-shaped face , the small mouth, the almost nonexistent nose and the emphasis on the eyes and hairstyle is what it gives that anime signature while cartoon art styles are more diverse and unclear and lack certain signature. So because of that , it is a bit more weird to see that 97% of anime art styles look almost like they were drawn by the same creator/author but across different shows and genres
Great vid, answered many of my ponderances, and a *lot* more that I never considered. Also raised a few new ones.....Got me geared up to subject my SO to some anime tonight...(it's okay, she loves animation)...Great job, OP...Keep up the great content!!!
I know this is obvious from the framing but a lot of arguments are specific to shonen here. One thing I always forget I have grown to accept/ignore is all the weird tropes, sexism, character archetypes, etc. Like, I was trying to show my partner Spy X Family which they really enjoyed until Yuri came up and they just couldn't get over the siscon thing and I found myself saying "oh it's just an anime thing" which made me really think about how much I just ignore to enjoy the things I watch. Also see, obligatory lecherous kid/grandpa, beach episodes. panty shots, elevator shots of mostly women (or the men in shojo but less so), etc. And people say it's cultural, but a ton of japanese people don't like it either but they're just so common in anime.
I'm sorry but if you're such a prudish weirdo that you call *Spy X Family* degenerate you have an actual problem
This video was astonishingly well made wtf 💀
You explained why it's exaggerated, not why it's weird. There are other things that make people consider anime weird.
This channel is actually amazing, please do more
As a long time anime fan, I really appreciate this video. It helped me better understand some of the quirks of this medium.
"Why are the eyes big" doesn't even mention Astroboy and the influence of Scrooge McDuck on the art style. SMH.
hot take: anime is not weird, its mainstream and making it popular has ruined it since mid 00s
13:15 Holy shit that example of bad lip sync is even WORSE in Japanese than in English.
14:00 omg i was not expecting that lmfao😭
I learnt so much through this video, please do a series of film/animation studies T___T I will be ever grateful!
huh. no wonder English dub sounds so weird on anime, same if you put in japanese dub in family guy or Simpsons.
honestly i like because of its exaggerated nature, the way it unnatural makes it connect less to reality making it great for escapism.
serious moments have some humanity in them, less exaggerated moments... eh maybe eyes are exaggerated but when the entire thing is exaggerated or then moves into a styled scene then it becomes less serious imo.
for example you will have mash say he will fight to save his friend or something then follow it up with a stupid joke saying "after i eat my cream puff"
Not so sure, I'm used to seeing the Simpsons in Japanese, and the english voices sound totally weird to me. :D
I watched anime for many years but this video taught me new things i had not thought of
Amazin
Interesting video! Thank you for pointing out the differences, and specifically taking it back to the publications. I think the history and the manga-to-anime pipeline of many of these stories really reveals more than most people realize!
did not expect to see you here chekhov i love your su au
That intro was absolutely perfect! I’ve been in those exact situations too many times to count and never have anything to say lol
I grew up loving Phineas and Ferb without question, so it’s no wonder I ended up loving anime so much… also without questioning the unusual character designs. Specifically because I watched a triangular and rectangular set of brothers without thinking it was odd (until someone pointed it out) 😅
6:58 this is so cursed
Haha I know!!!😂
😂😂😂
The algorithm molested me with this video since it came out and I'm too petty to openly say it is actually really good
Sakuga is an interesting concept. It is cool seeing animation all sudden become fast pace.
Funny thing is, it’s not even an anime thing. It started with old American cartoons
The easiest way for me to answer the question “why is anime so weird?” is to say “it’s weird to you because it’s different and it’s different because it’s from japan. A Japanese person could ask the same question in reverse”. When you live in Japan, learn Japanese, and live like the Japanese it becomes a lot less “weird” and a lot more relatable
mokoto kusanagi is ALWAYS intellectually stimulating yes
Is this the name of the anime that he calls intellectually stimulating?
Incredible video explaining the motivations and techniques used in anime! It was super informative and entertaining. I immediately Subscribed and liked! Thank you for bringing this content to life, look forward to seeing your channel grow 🤩
honestly i thought this video would also include why they put all that pervy stufff into almost every anime
Money baybee. It makes pedo gooners like your show more and buy merch, and once it becomes normalized the normies will not stop watching or dislike a show solely based on having pedobait. The whole model of the indsutry is very similar to the gacha model. You make a little money from sales of manga and anime DVDs, sure, but the real profit comes from merch sales, and from the "whales" who collect every figurine and body pillow you put out.
Also: gooners make for good whales, since they by definition do not have a great deal of self control.
I don't think the aesthetic matters much to be honest.
An orc wresting and a dwarf fighting each other with oversized weapons and wielding magic for instance is generally not perceived as "weird"
What matters is that the inner worlds (thoughts,feelings,behavior) of the characters can intuitively be understood and/or be empathized with by the viewer.
It is usually once this understanding breaks down that people tend to perceive things as "off".
All of these things mentioned in the video, I can usually get past. It is the fan service that is usually the gross/weird part that immediately kills an anime for me.
Don't people think anime is weird because of the over-sexualization of teen girls? And like the peverted stuff?
I like anime but whenever a show does that kind of stuff it just takes me out of the experience at which point I totally get their view point.
(Not saying that all anime are like this but this still plays a role I believe)
To me it doesn't bother me 99.9% of the time. It's just fiction. I know, I know, it sounds like I'm just parroting that popular counter-argument, so allow me to explain my thought process. If you saw some vicious and brutal murder happening, with exquisite agony being dealt, would you weep for that character? I wouldn't. At best the only negative reaction I would get would be something like "well, that character death was unsatisfying for the plot."
When those "teen" girls are being sexualized, the same thing happens. I just don't care that much for it. I'm not thinking "hey! this is morally wrong!" Usually my suspension of disbelief extends even to the character's age despite whatever their canonical age is, because they're drawings. They don't look even CLOSE to an actual real person, so it's just too much of an abstract thing for me to register as actually that age. I can barely register them as any age at all. I say usually because, truth be told, I have witnessed SOME cases where I thought "okaaaaaaay this may be a little bit too much" because for the character was just TOO young-looking, too short, and with like such a high-pitched voice that the voiced sounds made even me uncomfortable. Because it was more blatant and thus less abstract it evoked that reaction even from me. But even then, after that scene goes away it's just... business as usual. I guess in the end, all I think is something like "well, this certainly decreases this anime's quality". But that sort of "strong" reaction, I don't think it has happened more than 5 times in the many years I have watched anime, and they were extreme cases which are nowhere near the norm as one may think judging from the comments I see so often.
In the end, I truly watch them for the plot, and so I'm pretty comfortable about it. I love the crazy, unique, creative worlds that animes are about, that delve in more complex, psychological and dark topics than other media usually dare. Where usually the trope is all about "continuing to be determined and to put in hard work, and you'll succeed". I feel like in western media, the typical "hero story" is executed with the hero being an asshole for a while, but then he is sorry, and everything is okay. It's usually cheap, unfair and dumb. In anime the typical "hero story" is actually about the hero having been weak, but not giving up, continuing to believe in himself, and then overcoming the challenges. They either usually don't stoop to being assholes, or when they do, the story actually exposes the complex dynamics that lead them to act that way. THAT sort of thing is why I watch anime and why I love it. It's what I seek. And yes, sometimes you have to go through some scenes that may look cringey and make it harder for you to recommend that sort of medium to other people... But I don't think "oh my god, what a morally reprehensible act! I must stop these criminals and save these pieces of fiction from their artists!!!!" I just roll my eyes and continue watching if the anime was interesting so far. I've made my peace that that sort of thing will show up, and it's just the result of a different culture, and I don't let it spoil the rest of the anime. It is that "rest" that I care about after all.
@@ric6611 Yes it is fiction, but it also plays a real impact on our society and what becomes normalized in it. It shouldn't be so common and accepted for young girls to be sexualized. It shouldn't be something creepy writers can get away with because then creepy viewers just get more gross things to watch, and the rest of us have to have a perfectly good anime partly or completed ruined from the amount of creepiness in it. Normalizing this behavior in fiction contributes to the normalization of it in real life.
I can see both of your points.
But iam on jjalexo6481 side.
a few of my favorite shows are animes, dont have a problem to watch girly stuff and can give the homies good night lip kiss without problems.
So i think iam not prude nor averse to the medium itself.
But i couldnt watch some shows without getting extremly disrupted in the flow or simply disgusted.
Examples:
Flow: Kill la Kill
Loved the first few episodes but after that it felt like the show was 30% panty shots and 20% boob jiggling. Could not watch a episode without nervous laughter or pure cringe at some point.
Disgust: Made in Abyss
I think i dont have so say anything to anyone who saw it.
@@ric6611 the issue is that it's still objectification of women even if they don't look like teens/real people. there's nothing wrong with liking women or enjoying content and characters that are designed to be sexual, but in anime "fan service" is often at the cost of dehumanizing women into sex objects, even worse when it's with young girls
@@ric6611 i probably agree with you but i wouldnt know
Holy
Really great dissect video
14:40 Anime is more detailed, so western animation can do a lot more fluid movement and don't require as many shots of the characters not moving.
I agree. If American cartoons were as detailed as the comics, they would have had to use simaler time saving techniques
This is a great video about the different disciplines of design.
I love your videos so far. Amazing integration of different levels of explaining🙌🏽
Loved the video, it actually shined light on quite a few things I've never considered.
To me however, the main obstacle to watching anime nowadays is its high focus on eroticism, especially when it doesn't supplement the story being told in any significant way. It's always so weird to try a popular anime, like chainsaw man or Dandadan and... the joke is sex. And it's a joke they tell every episode, over and over again, and it doesn't go anywhere. I imagine it also helps comics stand out and gain popularity, but at this point I just wish it was less prominent. But to me it just drowns a competent story with great visuals in meaningless fanservice.
Also I know it's not in every anime, and sometimes fancervice is actually meaningful and tasteful, but there's definitely a significant portion of it not being the case.
oh my god literally.
(okay chainsawman is slightly different cause the themes of not feeling fulfilled from sexual indulgence comes later but it's totally understandable from this point of the anime to group it in like that)
but Dandandan i had to drop cause holy shit I'm not interested in seeing these high schoolers being naked for the 5th time. The grandma is hot that's so funny wow. I know it will never get any deeper and there's a million other shows that do the same thing. It's so weird that modern anime is still like this I thought it would totally be something left in the past
@@evandien9947 You should stop watching anime and get off the internet
15:44 everything was ok with he video until this whole section. Animation production is not made in just a week, yes not even weekly shoes are made an episode per week. Those are still done with at least 2 months of production (still very little time to make 20 minutes of an aepisode)
17:08 another common mistake. The "budget" concept. The limited animation episodes and the "sakuga" episodes are both made with the same amount of budget. Heck, problaby a bad looking anime episode cost more money, because if it's melting it's becasue the schedule was so bad they needed help form other studio to finish it on time. Because yes, TIME is what makes the difference in the quality of an episode; along with the staff involved in the episode (but this also requires time for the animator to work properly)
that's what im saying! it feels like this entire video completely disregards what may or may not be true and makes a ton of assumptions based on observations rather than assumptions based on facts. it's really bothering me tbh