Sunday, April 27th, 2008...6:05 pm
US TV vs. anime vs. realism
It has been a few months since the last pulse of life on Nakama Britannica and while I’d love to say we have a compelling excuse for this hiatus, the truth is a tad more conventional. We needed a break to recharge (or, at least, I did) and since then, there have been a few changes too; little tweaks here and there (like avatars) to better suit our identity as a group blog. For us, it was always a matter of when (not if) we would return, but of course, you didn’t know that, so, if you did manage to stick with us through all this time, here is an honest ‘thank you’ on behalf of all at Nakama Britannica. Now, without any further rambling, the show must go on. With more rambling.
As an anime fan, it’s not often that I say this, but lately, I’ve been watching a lot of live action US TV. My current favourite is The Wire, and at the moment, I’d much rather watch that than, say, Macross Frontier, Soul Eater or Code Geass. The funny thing is, four, maybe even five, years ago; my opinion was almost polar opposite. I was absolutely sick of US TV and about ready to claim anime as God’s own genre. During that era, I’d watch almost anything; Gainax’s mind-numbingly average This Ugly Yet Beautiful World remains probably the worst anime I’ve actually sat through from beginning ’til end. What a waste of time.
When I said as much on my other blog earlier this week, Cameron (of In Search of Number Nine) responded with an interesting opinion. He seems to enjoy a lot of anime because it offers serial storytelling. More than anything else, that’s what attracted me too. Hell, that’s the only way I can justify dragging myself through all 276 episodes of Dragonball Z. After a few episodes, I had bonded with Goku et all and that was that; I was absolutely determined to follow them on their journeys across the universe. Even in that relatively simplistic story, seeing those characters grow old and change over time had such a profound effect on me; I really felt as if I knew them; as if I understood their feelings. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of anime (much of which is better than Dragonball Z) but my dearest favourites (like Berserk, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Honey and Clover) all share this intimate romance with time and the way that time shapes relationships and personality.
During this era, previously-lacking US TV schedules have undergone something of a renaissance. Lost, Heroes, The Sopranos, Battlestar Galactica and The Wire are all serial TV shows that regularly offer emotive character development and season-long story-arcs. It’s not that I don’t need anime any more, but rather than wasting brain -cells on a story that’s so offensively mediocre, like This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, I can enjoy an episode of something far superior, like Battlestar Galactica, instead. There’s a lot to be said for looking at real human characters too, as opposed to 2D animated ones.
At this point, escapism might become a problem. Cameron points out that he can’t really ‘get into’ a live action story, and more importantly, can’t feel much for the characters when their situations seem so fake. He doesn’t (or doesn’t want to) believe that Nathan Petrelli can fly, but he wouldn’t be feeling that way if Heroes had been “just a cartoon” instead. If you subvert this, could we better relate (on an emotional level) to an ultra-realistic anime movie like Grave of the Fireflies, or the creations of Satoshi Kon, if they were live action rather an anime? Why are they even animated in the first place?
8 Comments
April 27th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I’d say in the case of Kon it would take a large budget for a live action film to capture the same sense of merging of illusion and bending of reality that Kon can create through animation. My experience with Japanese live action films is that generally they seem to have a TV movie(lower budget) feel in comparison to US, UK and even a lot of Hong Kong films.
The thing with nearly all US TV shows though is that if it’s popular enough they will drag it out until it’s on it’s last legs rather than allowing it to come to a natural end and turning once fantastic shows into good shows that went on longer than they should have (The X-Files, Lost, 24). Sure, some anime do this as well but it doesn’t seem to be as frequent as many have a set story and space of episodes with which it is told in.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I still don’t watch American TV because most of it is still utter crap and not nearlly as good as some of the stuff I grew up with. This particular season of anime feels the same only it’s worse (it’s not even worth downloading for free - that’s really bad).
But the issue your friend has about not being able to get into live action stories I can empathize with because the answer is quite simple - reality is fake. We know that “characters” we are watching are just actors, they are people pretending to be something they are not. So when we see those people face to face, we know they are not that “character”. They don’t have super powers or a split personality or whatever.
But with animation, the characters are “real”, they are not actors playing something. They look and act as they do by design - there is nothing fake about them - they are absolute and pure. Being 2D or 3D still makes them an abstraction of reality but they are removed from the tactful world of the flesh, so we can relate to their emotions, actions and personalities more easily without the distraction of wondering what their real lives are like as with Hollywood actors.
April 27th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
I went through something similar and I believe it was tied with the rise of so-called reality TV, combined with the ending of several childhood favorites. It seemed that there just wasn’t anything good on live US TV. However, when I view shows such as Heroes, it’s not so much being able to believe the character is real but what could be. I suppose that’s from my former love of scifi.
I find that I can relate better to live stuff, in terms of facial emotions but I really enjoy both storytelling formats. There are times when the anime or cartoon is simply a better format and times when live would be. I wouldn’t mind seeing Heroes as an anime but I have a feeling they’d distort the body shapes so much that it would ruin the premise - ordinary looking people with superpowers.
April 27th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
As of lately, I have as well been really immersing myself in a number of shows, Some of which are entirely new and others I’ve been watching for a few years (Desperate Housewives, ;p). Whilst, I’ll always go back to anime - American storytelling offers something completely different. Some great pieces that are reletively new, To me, anyway have to be Dexter and Pushing Daisies - The latter of which I really like the Seuss-esque storytelling but I don’t find the characters -that- interesting.
Its much easier of the mind with watching something Live Action and generally based upon a culture (and language) we understand first hand. Heroes has some of the techniques that could be used within anime - But, The characters would lose its charm and I don’t think a set of characters similar to it would be fashionable for anime/manga… They are too.. normal.
US TV has risen from its graves in which I’m thankful, But, If it wasn’t for the downfall of it. The chances of me discovering anime would’ve been lessened; quite considerably.
April 28th, 2008 at 6:14 am
I abandoned American drama shows several years ago and picked up anime about three years ago. Out of curiosity I netflixed “Heroes” last year and watched season one. I thought much of it was great, at least at first. Then I grew irritated. I noticed that episodes were padded with scenes and dialogue that weren’t really necessary. They were filling up the hour, and thus filling out the season, until we could get to the climax, which wasn’t really a climax, because there was a season two … And so on and so on.
Two things struck me. I was so used to compact half-hour anime shows that a full hour ep seemed lazy. Second, the series didn’t end! As Sy pointed out, American TV will stretch out a show for as long as it remains profitable, at the cost of the show’s quality.
Then there is Robin’s comment about live-action vs animation. I don’t know if the anime characters are “pure” as he/she put it, but they are unique to the format. Which might be why actors playing animation characters (Death Note, Lovely Complex, or even the next Batman movie) so often disappoint. How can you expect the actors in the live-action to live up to the something intended for another format?
April 28th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
A valid point raised by most of you guys is that, quite clearly, US TV series are still stretched out way too much. Aside from the generally serial nature of anime, I really love that most of these stories actually conclude too. There’s something great about embarking on a story that you can rely on, for good or for bad, finishing in 26 episodes. Every good story should have an end, and I’ll have to concede that for all of the mooted class of this new wave of US TV series, anime still has a quite vital edge in that area. I’m thinking of Lost here, two seasons should have been enough.
As for not being able to “believe” in live action stories to the same degree that you can believe in the authenticity of animation, I guess it’s a fairly subjective thing. Though I might go into a, for example, Tom Cruise movie expecting to see Tom Cruise, once the theater dims and the movie starts rolling, I’m able to suspend my disbelief. I really liked War of the Worlds. Out of interest, did any of you see Cloverfield? The way it was filmed and set-up to use non-familiar actors was an effective way of avoiding that cliche “movie” feel.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Ive been watching a lot of US tv recently too.
Is battlestar actually any good?, Im a stargate fan but nevert really got into Battlestar.
Anyway I dont go in for the whole choose one or the other in terms of what I want to watch, the quality of the show and whether it entertains you is what matters whether its anime, us tv or anything else, no bias here.
Theres really no point in questioning each ones relevance is comparison to the other, all have equal merits and are subjective as hell, so its best to just watch what you want when you want and not feel you “have” to watch anime cause its been a while, if you dont feel like watching it dont, youknow?
April 30th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Sorry I haven’t replied sooner.
As to the realism of Peter Petrelli flying: I’m not sure if I disbelieve in it, as much as I have to work harder to believe in it. And the creators have to work harder to prove it. I mean they take some pretty great lengths to provide a “scientific” basis for what’s happening. (i.e. there’s a gene that has become unlocked that now allows people to have extraordinary powers.) I mean they provide characters to back it up. They have an entire arc designated to following the rogue scientist character. So yeah, I believe it. But not as much.
But if I compare that to say Dragonball Z, where the explanation is, “Oh he comes from another world. Of course he can fly.” It’s a pretty drastic departure from that.
Now I kind of avoided talking about movies, because I think they’re an entire different medium with an different type of expectation. But I do think movies can get away with less explanations mostly because they’re intended for a massive screen that dwarfs the viewer. And most viewers are trained to expect those kind of things. But I’m pretty sure people experience movies differently if they’re in the theater or if they’re watching them at home. (I mean I couldn’t even imagine watching a movie on my computer.)
As far as Satoshi Kon, I think his stuff is made for anime. I mean Paranoia Agent does some pretty reality-defying things towards the end. Also I’m not sure about a movie like Grave of the Fireflies. But I do know people tend to like the GTO movie better than they like the anime series.
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