Ask John: Are American Films Surreptitiously Copying Anime?

Question:
Why do people in America, specifically in the media business, copy from anime? Recently, this trend seems to be on the rise. Have you seen the Fox Kids’ show Big Guy and Rusty? That looks like a complete rip-off of Astro Boy; then there’s Disney’s Atlantis, which seems very similar to Nadia. Also, in my opinion, the trailer for Artificial Intelligence really smacks of Armitage III. Then last year, No Doubt’s video for “Ex-Girlfriend” was Kite inspired. Are they allowed to use anime to get ideas from without paying? You know they all say it’s a complete coincidence, but how far can they go before they give credit?

Answer:
The adage “nothing new under the sun” dates back to Biblical times, at least. Simply because of the nature of creative art, it’s almost impossible to cite true origins for virtually anything, and in most cases the sort of copying you’re questioning isn’t considered “plagiarism,” it’s “homage.” It’s true that the examples you’ve provided may have been intentionally or unconsciously inspired by anime, but anime itself has also been heavily influenced by Western entertainment media. Dating back to the origins of anime, Osamu Tezuka, the “godfather of manga” freely admitted being influenced by Disney, and in turn, Tezuka’s Jungle Emperor is usually cited as the inspiration for Disney’s Lion King film. In the same way, while No Doubt’s music video was certainly inspired by the Kite OAV series, it’s difficult to imagine that Kite creator Yasuomi Umetsu wasn’t inspired by Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita, and going further back, La Femme Nikita is merely a slight alteration of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Another example is the gunplay and fantastic action choreography of recent releases The Matrix, FLCL OAV 5 and Soul Taker episode 3. The martial arts of The Matrix are clearly inspired by Chinese “wuxia pian” films, especially ones of the mid 1980s including the Once Upon a Time in China, Swordsman, Chinese Ghost Story and Savior of the Soul film series. These live action kung-fu films draw a lot of inspiration from the hyperbolic action of anime from the early 1980s. The gunplay in The Matrix, Soul Taker and FLCL are obviously inspired by John Woo, who freely admits his influence by Italian and French directors Sergio Leone and Jean-Pierre Melville, who were influenced by Japanese film-makers including Akira Kurosawa. And Kurosawa was, no doubt, influenced by earlier American and European film-makers.

It’s natural for creative artists to digest and re-create art they’ve previously seen, because it’s a natural artistic instinct to enjoy something and want to re-create it oneself. So far, the influence of anime on American cinema has been unmentioned because it has so far been either legitimate homage or subtle influence rather than direct intellectual theft. Partially because the Japanese anime industry is focused on and in Japan, the influence of anime in America has been ignored by Japanese culture. Furthermore, because of the nature of the Japanese industry, such creative borrowing is tacitly approved of by the Japanese industry. The anime industry itself heavily borrows from itself, and fans commonly create and sell unlicensed doujinshi manga using copyrighted anime characters, but the spirit of artistic freedom, integrity and respect keep this in check. In America, the influence of anime is often uncredited because the influence is merely that- an influence rather than direct adoption. Numerous American directors, including Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and the Wachowski brothers, have acknowledged their respect for anime. In the case of Disney productions like The Lion King and Atlantis, the differences are significant enough to justify Disney admitting influence but not direct copying. In the case of No Doubt’s video, homage is considered more flattery than artistic theft. So far there has been no mainstream acknowledgement of or credit given to anime because we have yet to see an American production directly based on anime or manga.