Ask John: How Did Japan Develop Such Skill in Animation?

Question:
How did the Japanese attain such a talent for animation? I’ve seen so many anime over the years and I’m rarely unimpressed. Their animation is so beautifully created, and to this day I have never seen anything in the west that has the storytelling power of anime. Compared to live action film, I feel more towards the characters of anime because they are created 100%. Live action films will always have an actor pretending to be another identity. Because of this, I believe anime to be superior to live Action. Would you agree?

Answer:
I don’t want to sound racist or propose racial stereotypes. My observations are intended to be objective, and hopefully neutral. Based on my personal experience and observations, I believe that Asians have more natural proclivity toward visual art and a bit more natural ability in graphic art than average Westerners. I’m absolutely not suggesting that Asians are better or more skillful artists than Westerners. I don’t want to imply that Asians are innately superior or inferior to occidentals. I think this is merely a cultural and genetic predisposition. If this observation is true, it may explain, in part, why Japanese society is more receptive to animation than Western countries.

Natural Asian talent in visual art may be a result of thousands of years of exposure to visual art. While Western culture has developed a concentration on science and technology, from Roman aqueducts to the age of exploration to the industrial revolution, Asian cultures including the Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Korean have developed pictographic written languages and refined exquisite visual aesthetics in performing arts, graphic arts, culinary arts, textiles, and architecture. A sense of visual design seems to have permeated the collective subconscious of Asia. While Westerners gravitate toward practicality, rigid, solid angularity and permanence, Asian cultures seem to gravitate toward a greater co-mingling with nature, soft smoothness and flow, and a sense of transience. Neither philosophy is inherently better; they’re just naturally different.

As an anime fan, I’m heartened to hear that you’re so impressed and amazed by Japanese animation. I’d like to say that same thing of myself, but with the amount and diversity of anime that I watch, I have to admit that not every anime I watch is brilliant or outstanding. I may love anime, but I’ve watched plenty of very bad anime. But I can still find some enjoyment even in bad anime because it’s still complete fantasy. Unlike live action, which is unavoidably tied to reality through the use of real human actors and real world locations and props, anime is entirely fiction. Whether or not this unreality makes animation superior depends on personal perspective. In practical terms, or at least with the limitations of current technology, fully artificial art cannot render a completely convincing sense of reality. No matter how photo realistic animation gets, the human eye can still tell that it’s not real. So in the sense of being believable and “realistic,” animation cannot equal live action. For that reason there are many viewers that can’t fully enjoy or appreciate animation. No matter how it looks, animation isn’t real, therefore it’s inferior to reality. But for viewers that want to be immersed in fantasy, viewers who want unreality, live action cannot compare to animation because live action is unavoidably always connected to reality.

I honestly don’t believe that Japanese animation is categorically better than Western/American animation. In many specific cases I do think that anime is superior to American animation because anime concentrates on different goals than American animation. Japanese animation frequently consciously tries to be cinematic and artistic while American animation typically concentrates on being widely marketable and adherent to conventional American expectations for animation. Since America typically considers animation a medium for children, American animation is rarely dramatic, rarely develops a progressive narrative, and rarely deals with themes deemed unsuitable for children. On the other hand, Japanese artists consider animation to be a viable alternative to live action cinema, so anime does have examples of dramatic, humorless stories, anime with linear story and character development, anime with classical narrative structure of introduction, rising action, climax, and conclusion, and stories that deal with adult themes including violence, sex, nudity, mortality, religion, philosophy, and ethics. American animation is fully capable of including this sort of content. American animation is fully capable of depicting “realistic” teen and adult characters dealing with believable motivations and conflicts. American animation is capable of rivaling Japanese animation, but it doesn’t try to rival Japanese animation because that’s not what the majority of American consumers want. If the majority of American consumers wanted to watch serious, dramatic 2D animation there would be more American animated films similar to Perfect Blue, Cowboy Bebop, and Evangelion. But instead, American animation is dominated by 3D family oriented comedies like Shrek, Chicken Little, Over the Hedge, and Flushed Away because Americans prefer these types of animated films.

Japan’s animation industry has developed a talent for creating immersive animation because Japan’s anime industry and Japanese society have a long history of interest in 2D animation that features believable human characters dealing with emotions, relationships, and conflicts that viewers can relate to and empathize with. Furthermore, I think that Japanese artists have an inherent proclivity to creating visual art that viewers can relate to and empathize with. When we look at anime, we know that it’s not real, but the art design allows for a sense of suspension of disbelief. In other words, anime is specifically designed to make viewers accept and believe that it’s an alternate reality. The majority of American animation, on the other hand, is specifically designed to be unrealistic. Talking animals and impressionistic backgrounds are designed to allow viewers to temporarily escape reality, not immerse in an alternate reality.

In summation, I honestly don’t think that Japanese animators are inherently more talented than Western animators, although they may be more experienced. Anime seems more mature, more developed, and more adult than American animation because anime has a different goal and a different audience than American animation has. I also don’t believe that anime is naturally more convincing and involving than live action film. Rather, I think that animation has the potential to be more immersive than live action for viewers who are particularly inclined toward suspension of disbelief and appreciation for animation.