Sunday May 27, 2012

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  • 0

    HonestDictator

    It depends on the studio, format, etc. Being an anime fan there are some studios like Ghibli and Kyoto Animation that can step up with quality animation. As for CGI animation on the other hand the US takes lead due to budgets allowed for the entertainment here. Pixar is a perfect example of whats possible with dedication and a large budget.

    I'm pretty sure if budgets were bigger for Japanese animation studios they could probably surpass in the animation department.

  • 0

    mareo2

    J, because US animated films is mostly CG for kids. Compare "Toy Story" or "Shreek" with something like "Ghost in the Shell" or "5 cms per second".

  • 0

    okapake

    Japan produced anything to the level of Avatar?

  • 0

    jinjapan

    okapake ,i don't think avatar would be considered animation.

    i like the fact that american animation is for kids, but they always throw in a bunch of gags & jokes which only the adults would understand. nice balance. in japan, the animation seems to be much more violent then the states. states always , for some odd reason, throws in a bit of violence though. & animation in japan seems much darker.

  • 0

    kibousha

    How can you compare apples to oranges ? Quality in term of story ? Artistic style ? Technical aspects ? I'd pick anime for story because of the varieties it offer, technical for American CG for obvious reasons. Artistic is cultural, you can't compare culture and judge which is better.

  • 0

    HonestDictator

    @kibousha true that. In terms of story and artistic style Japan comes out ahead in that aspect, and the only US animation I watch is whats aimed for more mature audiences anyways such as the Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy etc.

    Comparing that to Japanase animation titles like Eve no Jikan, Gin Tama, Samurai Champloo... which I watch a lot more of, well its a big difference.

  • 0

    nightvision

    In what terms of quality? Story/plot, technical advancement, character development, creativity, entertainment value?

    Western animation is far advanced when it comes to technology, since they release the films globally, and thus earn more and can allot more funding for increasingly advanced methods of filmmaking.

    However, most American storylines veer towards standard, run-of-the-mill plots. Few American cartoons can match the level of creativity and mature storytelling that is more prevalent in Japanese animation. This is true for both film and TV.

  • 0

    MrUSA

    Japan produced anything to the level of Avatar?

    No, but a Canadian did.

  • 0

    jianadaren

    Touche, eh!

  • 0

    borscht

    In terms of quality of what? Storyline? Characterisation? Technology? If you compare the quality of Ghibli with Bakshi or Ghibli with Pixar, you're going to get very different answers. Can anyone say the static 'Sailor Moon' is better than the much older and much more fluid 'Bugs Bunny?' The question needs to be narrowed down a whole lot more.

  • 0

    Hotbox08

    I agree that the scope of this question needs to be narrowed a bit. In terms of computer graphics quality, I would have to say Hollywood produces better movies, like "Shrek" and "Toy Story". However, I am a big fan of good old-fashioned hand-drawn films like Hayao Miyazaki's "Sen to Chihiro". I also love "Appleseed" and "Akira". For story alone, Japanese anime wins hands down. Anime series like "Monster" and "Deathnote" are top notch.

  • 0

    Antonios_M

    Not at all. The genre of the japanese animated films industry is huge and covers almost everything. On the other side, US animated films = cg for kids.

  • 0

    wawawasuremono

    One word: Bakemonogatari

  • 0

    Damien15

    J, because US animated films is mostly CG for kids. Compare "Toy Story" or "Shreek" with something like "Ghost in the Shell" or "5 cms per second".

    If we're talking about quality, US animations can't be beat. Frame rate is much higher in US animations as well as mouth movements must match. Japan anime is not mostly for children, but lack's smoothness or attention to detail.

  • 0

    nemoflow

    Damien15.

    Explain exactly what you mean by 'frame rate' (you are wrong, by the way...)

  • 0

    Monkeyz

    If you compare an animated motion picture in Japan and the US, it's apples and oranges. Animated movies in the US are mostly CG and in Japan, mostly 2D. If you compare apples to apples, they're about the same. A Disney 2D film looks about the same quality as Ghibli.

    If you compare the average kids show to the average kids show (or even mainstream adult animated show) they're about the same too. I mean, don't even talk about something like Scooby-Doo or the Adult Swim stuff which is pretty much crap, but if you compare The Simpsons to its Japanese equivalents, then yes, the quality is quite similar. (Come on, they're all animated in Korea anyway.)

    And Damien is right about mouth movements. In the US, matching is important. In Japan, not so much. And Japanese shows, especially of the Sailor Moon variety, reuse a lot of frames, hold on still frames, or reuse shots where mouths can't be seen in order to save money. I remember watching Evangelion as a kid and being annoyed with how often they recycled frames. Get a huge, big-budget movie and they won't do crap like that, but on TV they'll cut corners wherever they can.

  • 0

    mareo2

    Guys, I think that the question is very clear that is about "animated films". Avatar show real actors, so is not animated, in the best case is an hibrid. Scoby do, Salior Moon, Monster, Deathnote, Simpons, Family Guy and South Park are TV programs. In the best case they get adaptations to movies, that looks like a very long episode or a very compresed serie. If the question have to be more narrowed like some people said before on these thread, then expand it to hibrids and adaptations maybe is not a good idea.

    Damien15

    If we're talking about quality, US animations can't be beat. Frame rate is much higher in US animations as well as mouth movements must match. Japan anime is not mostly for children, but lack's smoothness or attention to detail.

    I agree with nemoflow that you need to elaborate what do you mean with frames rates, because I never saw a noticiceable differencein a movie theater. I want to bealive that you are not making comparations by downloading low quality copies and watching them on your computer.

    Also lipsinc is less important than voice acting, you can have a perfect lipsinc and a poor voice acting can destroy the emotion of an scence more than poor lipsinc. Some movies made me feel like I wasted my time and dont was worth my money, because it was just high tech but a mediocre artwork, for example Final Fantasy was forgetable. To be honest I am more interested in if the tale is inspiring and/or touching. If you measure quality by tech in place of art. Then obviusly we never are going to agree.

  • 0

    whiskeysour

    It depends-

    Lion King, Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Monokooke, Ghost in the shell, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the best movies I've seen.

    Some Japanese Anime was great but some are to childish and/or pornographic at times. But highly creative and interesting.

    American Anime Pixar is fun and enjoying for all ages. But lacking creativity

    The Best movies & series from both sides are: Robotech, Voltron, Thunderbirds, ThunderCats, He-Man, G.I.Joe cartoon,Transformers cartoon, G-Force cartoon, Toy Story series, G.I.Joe cartoon movie, Transformers cartoon movie,all pixar movies,

  • 0

    combinibento

    Speaking in solely in terms of quality, the finest animated films were Disney's early animated classics, such as Snow White and Cinderella. Japan's finest is probably Akira, and of course Miyazaki's recent ones. But since he works by hand, and modern American animation is generally computerized, it's comparing apples to oranges. But I'm a sucker for tradition and respect hand animation (even though I loved Ratatouille), so I believe current Japanese animated films are of higher quality than those being made in the US.

  • 0

    sabiwabi

    American Anime Pixar is fun and enjoying for all ages.

    Pixar is now in the US, but didn't Pixar start in Canada? Montreal perhaps?

  • 0

    Firripusan

    Pixar started in the US I believe. I think Japanese and American animation is equal. Japanese really took off of Disney early on, many of my Japanese friends are surprised to know how old many of the favorite Disney cartoons are.

  • 0

    kokorocloud

    Case by case! Though I'm really not really fond of all the 3D films being produced in the U.S.-- it just gets old, really quickly. Pixar does amazing work, but everything is starting to look the same now. I like that Japanese animated films and tv are still 2D. But a lot of the older American animated films are classics because of how beautiful they are, quality wise. They're trying to get back to that with films like the Frog Princess and Rapunzel (which I absolutey cannot wait to see!), and I hope they do more films like that in future. Otherwise... I like both I guess! Haha.

  • 0

    whiskeysour

    sabiwabi- **Pixar was founded as the Graphics Group, one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm that was launched in 1979 with the hiring of Dr. Ed Catmull from the New York Institute of Technology **

    It was founded in California.

  • 0

    kinniku

    As others have mentioned, Pixar was started in California. They are planning to open a new studio in Vancouver BC and their Pixar Canada site is already online.

    I think both have their own wonderful qualities and comparing US and Japanese animation styles is really like comparing apples and oranges. Just enjoy them for what they are. That's what I say.

  • 0

    mechadamuramu

    totally agree with borscht that JT needs to narrow their questions down more. I put about the same for a couple of reasons. There is no question that American animated movies are more graphically and technologically intensive. However 99% of animated movies in America have a childhood audience which severly limits the variety and "quality" of the characterizations, storyline, and depth of the work.

    While older era drawn animation films like Bakshi and Akira had extremely high quality, newer animated films in Japan are nearly motionless except for lip flaps while american films are full 3D CGI. However there is no way that American films could touch the adult content or impact that the best Japanese films have, such as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Paprika, Mononoke Hime etc.

  • 0

    Triple888

    I think when it comes to visual quality, the Americans are better. Japanese win by originality.

  • 0

    kujiranikusuki

    you have to consider that the with the shear amount of animated films that Japan puts out, only a small percentage are any good. Lets say America releases 5 major animated films a year. 4 if not 5 are a major success. They are also (now) 100% CGI. Akira is still one of the finest achievements in animation. Japan is always doing new things in animation technique, that isn't pure CGI. It is not really a yes or no question. If we are going to consider CGI animation as animation, then what about the animation in games? What about movies like Final Fantasy (either of them). I agree with some people. This needs to be narrowed down considerably.

  • 0

    thehedonist

    The question is quality of what? Overall? sound? picture? story line? acting? The list goes on... Internationally it seems that Pixar has the best quality picture and story line..the box office numbers pretty much prove that. However, it is all strictly ones opinion.

  • 0

    HonestDictator

    @Kujiranikusuki, thats not quite true considering that Disney just released the "Frog Prince" which relies on some of their old fashioned animation style. And they still keep producing some animated films for direct to DVD. But as usual most animation of this type from the US is of course directed at children.

    As for CGI, Square's FFVII advent children was well produced but one could actually see some of the errors due to lack of quality checking, they can match Pixar graphically but still need better attention to correct errors. Appleseed (Can't remember which studio produced it) was also well modeled but lacked attention to better integration of facial emotions and subtle movements in many ways and the characters came out stiffer than they should have been.

    Pixar pays more attention to such minor details and things and haves various teams working on different details. Square Enix seems to do this to a certain extent, but Square needs better quality checking teams or more dedicated teams to specific detail elements to make sure everything goes smoothly.

    Still, the drama found in Japanese anime can't be beat though. Lots of them have great more mature themes that keep the rest of the world entertained. Although the costs for buying a DVD is grossly overpriced in Japan.

  • 0

    Weasel

    Didn't realize people were busting their ***** over this subject.

  • 0

    borscht

    Weasel, if you google short animations you'll be able to see some amazing animations done by people from all over the world - some are superior in technique, some in storytelling. Animation is a passion for a lot of people. (some short animations are pure cr*p, of course)

  • 0

    ReikiZen

    I just commented on this with a previous JT post Disney animated film returns to studio's hand-drawn roots. I won't repeat that here as you can read for yourself. Although to say American animation films are better is a gross-overstatement. If that is the case then why has Disney bought the rights to almost every Hayao Miyazaki film out there. Not to mention you wouldn't have ever seen one win an academy award for that matter if that was the case. Major difference between animation in the west vs Japan is more perception then anything else. In Japan animation is seen as more an art-form or akin to what the motion picture industry is in the west.

    In contrast in the west it is still largely viewed as a venture for kids within which lies the problem. Although there are exceptions to this rule as many fans would argue as I would as well agree. I really don't see an inherent problem with CGI other then it not living up to it's full potential. Just about every CGI film that has come out still pushes the kid friendly stereotype which is preventing the technology from moving forward. There are a few rare exception like in the case with 9 but has mostly been a disappointment. Some of the latest CGI films have been down right ridiculous and it is becoming more of a joke every day. Network TV for the most part hasn't helped either in changing this viewpoint.

    Being an old school fan myself I am always amazing at the lack of knowledge fans today have outside of certain mega popular shows. In many cases many of you likely are basing your knowledge of US vs Japanese animation on this merit alone. I can name at least 30 or movies/Shows off the top of my head that would put most of what you see on network TV to shame, give or take one or two. Which brings us to the question which is better. In terms of production value and money then the west certainly wins that hands down. In contrast Japan really has something for everyone to offer. In not only in terms of originality, and diversity but in it's storytelling as well which is sadly lacking in western animation for the most part with a few exceptions.

    There has been some effort to try to bridge the gap which is a welcome sign. Dark Horse Comics which has the Witchblade comic released an animation series which was a joint US Japanese venture. This to my knowledge was the first time this has happened between the US and Japanese animators. I really hope to see more of this in the future as the only thing that Japan is really lacking is money. This is why some productions get cut short and end up falling short of expectations. I am certainly not taking away anything Disney/Pixar which on it technological merits alone deserve recognition. Although to say it is any better then it's Japanese counterpart is all left to interpretation. The traditional animation masters are becoming a dying breed and their knowledge needs to be passed onto the next generation before it disappears completely. It is because of this that others need to pick up where they have left off. It is about time that animation is given the respect it deserves which has been long overdue.

  • 0

    888naff

    making judgement....I think alot of people outside of Japan are clueless that Japanese animation is hand drawn.

  • 0

    888naff

    going from one to the other.. the dubbing though can be rubbish.. eg: japanese animation with american dubbing..completely changes the movie... but so many people seem against watching a movie with subtitles.

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