Ask John: Should CG Be Considered Anime?

Question:
Can an anime be computer graphics, or must it be cartoon?

Answer:
I think the determination of whether or not full CG can be considered “anime” is something that remains to be decided, although Japan’s animation industry seems to believe that the answer is yes. There have been quite a number of full CG rendered animation titles released in Japan including Galerians: Rion, A.Li.Ce, Malice Doll, Blue Remains, Archetypes Forces, and the Korean produced Cubix and Aqua Kids TV series. Square Enix is working on the Final Fantasy: Advent Children movie but has not promoted it as “anime.” In Japan, titles like A.Li.Ce, Blue Remains and Archetypes Forces are not called “anime.” They are referred to as “full CG animation.” However, Japanese trailers for the full CG Appleseed movie promote the film as Japan’s first full computer animated “anime.”

But the Japanese claim that the Appleseed movie is the world’s first CG anime may be questioned considering that Japanese society seems to have a double standard for what exactly constitutes “anime.” At times, in Japan the word “anime” refers exclusively to Japanese animation, and in other cases the word “anime” is used in Japan to refer to animation of any type, style and origin.

So I can’t really answer this question yet because I’m not entirely sure that this question has an answer yet. No full CG animation production that I’m aware of, prior to the new Appleseed movie, has been officially classified as “anime” in Japan. That would make the classification of the Appleseed movie as the “first CG anime” rather arbitrary and more than a little arguable, which suggests that the label of Appleseed as the world’s first “CG anime” is nothing more than a marketing tag-line created to capitalize on the popularity of “anime.”

But in another sense, if we define “anime” as merely Japanese animation, then Japanese produced full computer rendered animation would absolutely constitute “anime.” It’s simply not a traditional type or appearance of anime that we’re used to.