I watched all of the first season of “Digimon” and some of the later seasons. I even caught the patched together “movie” in theaters. I liked that it had more forward momentum than “Pokemon,” but it’s also become my favorite example of the growing acceptance of Japanese culture in TV animation. Early on in the series, two characters come across some Japanese kanji and while their backs are turned (so no mouth movements), one of them exclaim that it’s “the secret digi-code.” Obviously the writers of the dub hadn’t yet seen any of the later episodes where the characters return to Japan and everything is written in “the secret digi-code.” By the time those episodes aored, the issue had been dropped and kids were trusted to just accept that there was Japanese writing on signs and buildings without become hopelessly confused.

Due to Disney’s deal to distribute Studio Ghibli’s films in the U.S. and John Lasseter being a huge Miyazaki fan, all of Miyazaki’s feature films and many of the Ghibli films by other directors are available for purchase or rent. I think we’re due for another couple of movies getting a Blu-Ray release and possibly a new DVD release very soon, though I’m not sure about that. And “Tales From Earthsea,” directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro, is currently playing at a small number of U.S. theaters. So it’s a very good time to be a Studio Ghibli fan, or start familiarizing yourself with their movies.

I really appreciate you stopping by and I hope you’;; continue to comment.

Given my age, it was inevitable that my first exposure to anime would be dubs like Pokemon and Dragonball Z, which were generally so thoroughly Westernized that I didn’t even realize that they were from another country until I was several years into watching them. This was a few years before I really became quite discerning with what television animation I gave my time to viewing, and I watched many of these early wave animes voraciously.

Once I did become a little more cognizant of general quality, I dropped Pokemon for being excruciatingly boring and formulaic, while a select few others stuck with me (most notably Digimon, which unfortunately suffered what we might call “Gummi Bears syndrome” here in the U.S.; its well-developed characters and season-long story arcs were often ignored as it was largely dismissed as simply “just another Pokemon clone”).

In fact, apart from these select few I drew away from anime in the following years, to the point where the very low level that I watch now rather surprises me (the fact that my girlfriend is absolutely obsessed with anime, as are most of my friends, just makes it all the stranger). Never watched Neon Genesis, or Bleach, or Full Metal Alchemist, or Code Geass, or any of a multitude of others that I’m certain offer very high-quality stories. I’m honestly not sure why that is, other than that I’m generally resistant to picking up new shows wholesale because of my limited time for watching cartoons at the moment. Currently, the only anime that I’m consistently watching subbed is Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s, which is mostly out of force of habit than anything else (the first two seasons having been excellent, whereas the current one is…not so much).

As for anime movies, particularly Miyazaki’s, I really do wish I watched more. I try to watch Spirited Away at least once a year, and since I was too young to really appreciate Princess Mononoke when it first came out, I have a subbed version of Mononoke Hime that I’m saving for watching on Halloween. I was also recently introduced to Howl’s Moving Castle by my girlfriend and enjoyed it immensely. But I’ve never watched Kiki’s Delivery Service, or My Neighbor Totoro, or Ponyo, and I think that’s rather a shame. The problem of course is that tracking down such works takes time and money that I don’t generally have available; I buy very few films on DVD at the moment and don’t have the budget to increase the habit all-that-much. It’s something I certainly want to get to in the future…but precisely when, I really can’t say.

So in the end, the prolification of anime has, if anything, reduced my consumption of it. Whether this is merely correlation or there is some manner of causation involved is a mystery…but on the other hand the anime subculture has undeniably expanded around me, and placed a fair bit of pressure on me to expand my horizons with it. Is limited time and money something of an excuse for not trying the multitude of new experiences that the commonness of anime has opened up? Perhaps. But inertia is a powerful thing.

In any event, this article certainly has me thinking, and you have my thanks for that.

In light of that, I’m guessing the copy on the first season was some marketer’s way of trying to coax anime fans to give an American cartoon with mech suits a shot.

In Japanese, “anime” simply means “animation” and is location neutral. So that’s another definition of the word, if not one commonly used outside of Japan. I’ve seen it used to describe animation from other Asian countries as well, usually of a similar style to Japanese animation. But I agree that the urge to use the word to mean a particular type of story or animation containing any of numerous qualities not necessarily specific or exclusive to anime.

And I know who you are. I can see your e-mail address.

I like Avatar a lot, but to refer to it as “American anime” still is incorrect, because I consider that term an oxymoron: to me, anime is an animated work produced in Japan, for a Japanese audience first, full stop. Anime isn’t a “style” any more than it is a genre. Avatar is doing what epic fantasy novel series have done for ages: basing their fantasy cultures on real-world cultures beyond the standard fantasy-Europe pastiche. Furthermore, its tone and characterization are unmistakably Western.

Re: Other series (this is Incisivis from s8, BTW)

“Exosquad” and “Gargoyles”, both shows which I love, suffer from a slightly different problem. Billing or marketing these series as “anime” is done, not because either show is in “anime style”, but because to certain folk, “anime” means other things: it means action, drama, continuity, bright colours, and lots of futuristic machines. There are even rare types of animation fans who explicitly *want* to use the term “anime” as something location-neutral to refer to cartoons of just this type, for reasons I can’t fathom.

In a nutshell, there are a subset of marketers and animation fans who believe that “anime” is synonymous with “dark, edgy action cartoon”, a perception which is as damaging as believing that anime is all tentacle porn, even if the former reduction is done to praise anime.

As to Exosquad and Robotech, I recently watched Exosquad and am nursing a bizarre an untimely obsession with Robotech right now, and I’ll say that Playmates re-released many Robotech vehicle toys under the Exosquad banner, with their Robotech names, but it was not supposed to go any further than that. I can’t imagine where else it would go, since it would be even more of a legal nightmare than Robotech already is.

I find anime special in some context or another, personally, because it takes up so much of my DVD collection. Part of me feels that watching a lot of anime, both good and bad, allows me the flexibility to feel or to claim that some anime are more special to me than others. Whether that’s true or not is a bit hard to explain; but the bottom line is that keeping anime “special” means a constant respect of the medium, and always being open to something new… always willing to be surprised.