Comparison of Anime and Animation - Essay Example

?Anime and Animation Anime can be defined as Japanese animation that covers serious and topics, which are not seen in normal animation or western animation (University of Michigan, n.d). It is because of the differences and similarities between these two that it is relevant to compare and contrast the two for the purposes of coming up with features that distinguish them from one another. Anime as a film genre in the contemporary world varies widely from animations that have seen their better days starting from the development of the television. As such, the anime has a distinct quality that sets it apart from animation in that anime features and spots comprehensive and complete stories that cannot be found, or that are rarely found in animations. The storyline in anime starts from a well-developed plot and progresses with complexity that is rarely found in animations. As such, anime develops its storyline through numerous episodes or as many episodes as necessary to convey the entire story and develop the plot (Yumeka, 2009). In anime, the characters change periodically through the entire series and episodes to convey the storyline leading to a conclusion. The complications presented in the story and in anime tend to draw their viewers as the long progression, time spent connecting the dots between the characters, and activities are captivating. The episodes, which are continuous offer breaks in anime to consolidate the concepts presented, and even the storyline, as long as the integrity of the story is maintained. On the other hand, animation lacks this episodic representation of the storyline on a wide scale as it prevents animation from being a long running series. The presentation of characters as static beings in the animation creates a state of boredom following the high level of predictability affiliated with animation. This is as opposed to changes in character found in anime since the characters are dynamic, the influence the storyline to be dynamic, as well. It is through this that animation lacks or fails to generate a massive following for its storyline since it tends to be short and suffers from lack of progressive creativity. In addition, the storyline or plot in the case of anime goes much deeper than animation to offer a detailed representation of the themes and characters on offer. It is because of this that the complexity of the anime storyline beats the cliche line that animations offer, especially on being funny and eliciting humor cliche to viewers (colpolbear, 2012). Complexity in anime ensures that the audience is gripped by the story, and that as mentioned earlier, every move remains unpredictable, which is maintained and ensured by the length and dynamism of the characters. In addition, in animation, there is sustained simplicity in the plot, which is further defined to follow a conventional pattern (articlebase, 2006). This pattern is what is labeled as cliche and few animations attempt to go beyond it, which anime beats to pulp by running complex scripts and sustaining their unpredictable nature. Animations focus on heroism and concepts of good and evil, as well as humor, which is mean to set the audience to burst out laughing. The concept of good people and bad people is featured extensively in animation as part of the storyline promoting heroism. Abstract concepts and ideas are generated, in anime, to represent any possible situation that one can think of including the unthinkable for the audience. This can be seen through the integration of concepts such as politics, religion, humanity and even fantasy that are found in to father plot development and bring to light certain ideas in an educational light. This is just the opposite for animation as the main idea is fun, fun and more fun for the viewer and audience, which is directed at entertaining them. Concerning characters, anime and animation in film differ a lot as each has its own of presenting their characters and their roles. Animations tend to have three characters, and the rest only play supporting roles for the three: antagonist, protagonist and a damsel in distress, who in other films can be termed as the girl or person at the end of the film (Schwartz-Miller, n.d). The roles of the characters in animation are clearly cut and they rarely wander off course to engage in unexpected events as compared to anime. In anime, the characters vary in their roles and activities in which they engage, such that a protagonist can change to be an antagonist or even the damsel in distress can turn out to be the antagonist or protagonist (articlebase, 2006). This is to say that anime covers numerous angles concerning character presentation, which makes anime into an animated form of conventional and realistic film genres. In addition, anime creates and presents its characters as dynamic human beings in animated form, a concept that an animation is unable to present. The roles of anime characters are also complex and have a deep level of intimacy and interaction with members of the audience outside the film environment. However, in spite of all these differences in character representation, there are similarities in that recent times have seen the development of cliche characters in anime. These characters serve to play fetish-pleasing roles and are usually recycled from different storylines, but the roles are stuck up with predictability and commonness. The target audience is another area that shows the difference and similarity between the two-film genres anime and animation. Animation tends to focus on the younger age groups and demographics as it is tailored for their needs on an extensive and exclusive scale. This can be seen with the simplicity attached to its characters and storyline, which makes it easy to follow and comprehend (Schwartz-Miller, n.d). Children and teenagers are usually the targets as even the storyline is not episodic as is seen in the case of anime, which is episodic. Abstract concepts are unusable in animation because of the target demographic while anime does considerably well in availing its content across all divides. Anime handles the needs of children, youngsters and adults together in that the content of an anime film can be appealing across all age groups. In addition, anime produces films that are specific to a given age group such as adults, children and teenagers. This is done depending on the variation of content suitability based on the rating, where adult anime deals with explicit content that is of a sexual nature and other adult themes. On the other hand, children and teen anime focuses on violence, alcohol and smoking, which make it relevant as it does not face censorship but addresses reality. This is unlike animation that focuses only on the entertainment part for a young age group in the name of protecting children from the disturbing aspects of reality. Because of all these differences, a similarity is worth mentioning owing to its influence on the audience and existence of animation and anime films. This is the presence of subcategories in both, which are determined by the storyline of each film produced, and includes action, comedy, romance, mystery, adventure, drama and fantasy. In spite of this, only anime that spots explicit content and simulation of adult material concerning sex. The ability of animation to appeal more to the younger generation than the older generation can be disputed, as there also exists animations aimed for adults, which is a similarity. However, it should be noted that this genre only serves to deal with daily issues of adult lives and not sexual content as is seen in the Hentai subcategory of anime. Another aspect worth noting is the unique relationship that anime as a film genre has with culture and history of its origin, which is unmatched. With special consideration, that anime has strong roots in Japan and most of its content emanates from the place, anime bears a lot of cultural and historical information from Japan (colpolbear, 2012). This is unlike animation that has global appeal and with origins in Europe and America but does not carry any historical or cultural background in it, unless of course, it is dedicated to educational purposes. This can be seen in fairy tales of the west that are not of historical or cultural relevance but are instead fantasy animations created for a feel good theme. Animation also does not appear to embrace cultural and historical relevance as most of it does not seek to spread its culture to other nations, where it has appeal. However, there is a similarity between the two in that they can be used for educational purposes, where anime does so by default spreading cultural and historical aspects while animation can only do so through modification its content for educational purposes. In conclusion, anime and animation are two distinct film genres that share a number of aspects and features while at the same time-sharing differences. These include in matters of character presentation, target audience, content, storyline and the explicitness of content in the films. However, they should be recognized as different entities with similarities and differences, as well as their role in modern society. References Colpolbear. (2012). Japanese Anime vs. American Cartoons - A Comparison. HubPages. Retrieved from http://colpolbear.hubpages.com/hub/japaneseanimevsamericancartoons University of Michigan. (n.d). That Anime Project. Retrieved from http://www.umich.edu/~anime/intro.html Schwartz-Miller, T. (n.d). What Is the Difference Between Japanese Anime and American Cartoons? EzineArticles. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-the-Difference-Between-Japanese-Anime-and-American-Cartoons?&id=5621790 Articlebase. (2006). The Differences Between Anime and Cartoon. Retrieved from http://www.articlesbase.com/television-articles/the-differences-between-anime-and-cartoon-404798.html Yumeka. (2009). Nine reasons why anime is superior to Western animation. 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