Why Is Anime So... Weird?

Comments · 4.7K

• FI

  @fireaza · 1 year ago (edited)

  I always find it odd that Americans call anime &quot;weird&quot;, when one of America&apos;s most popular cartoons is about an anthropomorphic kitchen sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea.<br><br><b>EDIT</b> I&apos;d like to thank all the English professors in the comments for setting me straight on the correct definition of &quot;weird&quot;. I always thought it meant &quot;of strange or extraordinary character&quot; but it seems the correct meaning is actually &quot;sexually perverted&quot;. This is why my use of Spongebob is an incorrect example, as it is NOT sexually perverted, while <i><b>every single anime ever made</b></i><b></b> is. <br><br>Again, my sincerest thanks to you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to apply your professional education and correct a lowly YouTube commenter like me on the proper use of the English language. Does the language department of the university you teach at accept donations? I&apos;d really like to make a donation, as I feel this comment is insufficient in expressing my gratitude.

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• SK

  @skelo11 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZDb3OSBylg&amp;t=27">0:27</a> jojo isnt weird its &quot;bizarre&quot;

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• SO

  @SomewhatBreedable · 1 year ago

  Another thing about hairstyles and their colors is that Japan created a template where personalities are related to them. So it serves as a quick way to tell the viewer what the character is like by simply looking at the hair.

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• SA

  @SAPAGO4166 · 1 year ago

  You didn&apos;t even mention all the weird gasping noises.

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• LU

  @LuisLopez-zh9kh · 1 year ago

  it&apos;s almost as if Japan has a different culture 🤔

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• MO

  @MoyaiRo · 1 year ago

  &gt;Show called Jojo&apos;s Bizarre Adventure<br>&gt;Look inside<br>&gt;Bizarre Adventures<br><br>Pure cinema

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• DU

  @Dustie4882 · 1 year ago

  ah yes, one of the most emotionally deep, &nbsp;Intellectuality stimulating, and beautiful things ever created, ghost stories American dub.

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• HO

  @hoot_645 · 1 year ago

  From what I&apos;ve experienced as an American watching anime on tv is the weirdness of anime is only weird if you&apos;re not invested in the characters or story. But if you are, then the sound effects, the music, the huge eyes and mouths, they actually serve the story instead of disengaging from it. If you&apos;re invested in a character, their emotions are shown in such a way that is undeniable. Their internal thoughts being spoken serves to elevate your investment. If you&apos;re invested in a narrative, you are more than happy to accept just about any visual and auditory stimulus on the screen in a final battle or otherwise big moment. I never really question the weirdness of anime unless I&apos;m just not interested in what I&apos;m seeing. Then it&apos;s just all noise and nonsense

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• SO

  @souljaboytellem. · 1 year ago

  &quot;Why is western animation so... weird?&quot; Some japanese guy, probably

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• TH

  @TheXylerz · 1 year ago

  I never found any of this stuff weird to be honest. I just accepted that it was a different medium from a different culture. The reason I don&apos;t tell people I watch anime is because of the massive amount of fanservice that I have to dredge through to get to something good.

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• PL

  @plasticflower · 1 year ago

  Some very plausible thoughts here. But I think there&apos;s more. For example, when we compare Japanese and US comics, usually in Japan the artist is also the writer, whereas in American comics those are often two distinct people. Both have their (dis)advantages I&apos;d say, but I get the feeling that a lot of the quirkiness of manga (and thus anime) is due to having &quot;artist types&quot; doing the writing, which they&apos;re often not very good at. Or, they&apos;ll be developing the story in a way so that things happen that they want to draw, whereas a pure writer is more concerned with plot development.<br><br>And then there is... well, uh, this is hard to put into words, but please bear with me: The video mentions Scott McClouds &quot;Understanding Comics&quot; &nbsp;and references some parts about drawing a simplified face. If I remember correctly, the book has some parts on how the simplified face is less about depicting what a face looks like visually, but what a face &quot;feels like&quot;. Like when you make an angry face, or a happy face, which parts of your face do you use and what shapes do you make? This is, of course, true for both American and Japanese comics to some extent, but I think it&apos;s more prevalent in Japanese media, and the video creator here seems to feel the same way.<br>And this is where the angle of language comes in. I&apos;m bilingual Japanese/English and while I&apos;m fairly confident in my English, I feel like it&apos;s often lacking in ways to express emotions, feelings or impressions. For example, you could (informally) say &quot;ぼーっとする&quot; (boohh to suru) which in English might mean someone has &quot;a blank stare&quot;, but it&apos;s not as *expressive*. More appropriate would be to say someone makes a &quot;duuuuh~ face&quot;. Not something you would say in English. My point being: The English language is describing what something LOOKS like, while Japanese (esp. informal language) has a tendency to express what something FEELS like. Likewise, American comics focus more on depicting what something looks like visually, while in Japan it&apos;s more about putting the feeling of that moment into an image, regardless of whether the depiction is realistic.<br>So yes... all in all, each respective comic style, to me, lines up with what that language of its origin is like to use.<br>Thus wrapping back to the original question, &quot;why is anime so weird?&quot;, my thesis is that a country&apos;s language can also inform how people of that country express themselves visually, and so it can feel weird if you&apos;re not acquainted to that way of expression. (Which is not to say that a lot of Japanese people don&apos;t also find anime weird and so on etc etc -- I&apos;ve already written more words than what&apos;s permissible for a YT comments section so I&apos;ll see myself out now. Thanks for reading, bye!)

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• PI

  @pizzasteve5825 · 1 year ago

  I think it&apos;s also relevant to this discussion to highlight how Japanese theater has influenced the development of anime into its current form. Kabuki theater, specifically, was made for performance in large performance halls and thus much of the aspects of these plays had to be exaggerated so that they would be perceivable by even the audience members in the way back. Traditional Japanese theater like Kabuki greatly the style of the Kamishibai story tellings that would give birth to anime.

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