Animes
I started watching anime since childhood and never stopped.
At the start there was a lot of shonen, but during the COVID pandemic, I started learning Japanese by watching anime fully in Japanese. So I gave preference to series which focus more on episodic nature than complex narratives.
This changed my taste, and now my favorite genres are drama and slice of life . Good character over good plot all day long!
Some personal recommendations are:
Ok, But what makes anime unique?
It is cheap
Kind of a weird thing to call positive, but it is true. The more money the project involves, the greater the necessary viewship to generate profit. So the creative team is restricted to doing series with more general public appeal. Anime, because of cost saving techniques (and questionable labour practices), are less costly. Meaning they can focus on niche audiences and execute weirder concepts.
- An ex-yakuza being a house-husband. Why not?
- Humanoid beings made of precious gems fighting Buddha aliens. Interesting!
- A sadist manager reincarnated as a little girl turned into a magical bio weapon in non-Germanic fascist regime. How about we stop here…
These techniques started as cost-saving, now are considered artistic choices . The less drawing needed for the illusion of life, the better for the pocket.
- Strong poses : In contrast to classical Disney which prioritizes fluid and expressive movement of characters, in anime, middle-of-action drawings are de-emphasized in favor of strong poses.
- Reutilization : You can reuse backgrounds, animations, and even whole scenes. The OP, ED and transformation sequences are not only iconic, but also reduce the number of minutes of animation needed to be produced every week.
- Sliding images : With clever sliding of layers of animation, you can convey convincingly the illusion of movement.
- Focus on audio : Clever use of audio can convey the existence of something without showing it visually. In the previous video, the pumping sound effect was played, so the viewer interpreted as air being pumped into the airbaloon, even without any visual indication.
- Blending of 3D and 2D : This is a controversial one, and with reason. But with some care, you can use 3D animation for multiple cases:
- Dynamic 3D camera
- Show very detailed animation, such as mechas fighting or characters playing musical instruments
- Crowds or other objects needed to show in multitudes
Media Mix Ecosystem
The anime ecosystem is really integrated with other mediums in a way called media mix. In this strategy, one franchise has multiple entries from different medias: manga, games, animes, plushies, music albums, candy wraps… Each one of them works not only to produce revenue, but also as advertisement for the others.
It generates a constant flow of new content, making the brand always relevant and adds new ways of being a fan.
Someone could only care about games, but after playing some titles, they will give more consideration to watching the animated series or buying the plush.
Anime, this way, is the ultimate gateway for other mediums; because of its ease of consumption, it funnels people into more niche parts.
For the viewer, this implies:
- Anime are based on multiple different sources, from web novels, books, manga, games, etc.
- You have stories from people of different backgrounds being adapted
- Some of these mediums are less labor intensive, so you can get pretty personal or niche stories that became popular. It is common for anime of the isekai genre to start as free web novels written by hobbyists.
- Unfortunately, original stories in anime are quite rare 😔
- The consumption of series is not only one and done, but a continuous cycle of different works
Take BanG Dream for example:
It started as a manga about a band; then a real band was formed with the members playing characters from the manga; then a light novel was published; then a mobile game; then a 4-season anime was created; singles and YouTube videos are constantly being uploaded.
The last 2 seasons of anime introduced each a new band, which in turn has a respective real live band and were later added to the game.
This pales in comparison with Pokémon, which is the most profitable franchise in the world.
Cultural sensibilities
It is really easy to consume media from only the United States, they have a lot of things with high quality. But watching series and movies from other places gives a fresher air, different ambiance with different character archetypes with different views of the world and different conventions.
When I watched animated features from around the globe, this aspect was one of the most interesting.
Japan is a supercharged example of that, because of its different history and self-sufficient cultural industry . For most of the time, it made works with only the Japanese market in mind.
My favorite for example, slice of life , literally don’t exists in the USA.
Well, That’s it. Here is the list of my favorite openings and endings . Stay tuned for the next episode.