You see, whether you can draw like this or not, being able to think up this kind of design, it depends on whether or not you can say to yourself, “Oh, yeah, girls like this exist in real life.” If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it.
Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!
:miyazaki-laugh:
To take things even further I think that the objectification, flanderization, comodification and "othering "of female characters in anime has resulted in it almost exclusively catering incels and otaku that see women (and disturbingly, underage girls) as dolls to fetishise.
Which is frustrating because there is good anime out there that isn't like this, but I can't really say I'm an anime fan without people thinking I'm into moe crap or otakus gatekeeping me because I don't like their moe crap.
I just wanna talk about how cool Full Metal Alchemist is...
"whoever creates this stuff has no idea about what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted."
Love that he immediately centers in on how dehumanizing and ableist what they created is by drawing from personal experience. Fucking amazing.
"I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all"
I can't fucking imagine how embarrassed I would be if I was the person who had asked Miyazaki to show up for that shitty tech demo.
He's great. It's a pity that the comments in that video are people calling Miyazaki childish and emotional for checks notes having human empathy.
One of those dorks was Rob Liefeld, who still has fans and shit, the studios loved him because he could pump out crap all day and it sold in the 90s at a time when the comic industry was imploding. Plus, he has an... aesthetic style... no one can draw like Liefeld (if only because no one else would even want to for as long as he has).
this is how he draws captain america. them pecs a shelf. you can stand on those motherfuckers
edit: someone else posted it too looooooooool
Japanese bara are unironically more realistic than this
"I think you take longer to sign your signature than draw a picture"
lmfao
Can't believe that this shit unironically was the meta in the 90s. Middle class white teens are uncultured troglodytes.
also known as 1000 teeth syndrome, ammo pouch disease or pointy foot ailment
It's a bit different than that, Stan Lee wanted to see the creative process of creating a character by giving them the name "Overkill". It was a bit too revealing, as Stan was asking questions like "Who is he under the suit", and getting answers like "What do you mean, he's Overkill, what else could he be?" Showing that Stan Lee still cared about the character, even with those grimdark stuff, while Liefeld did not.
Also when Stan Lee asks "How does he move?" Showing that he actually thought about those things.
ah, I had never gotten the broader context that he prompted them with the name, rather than it being something they came up with. Makes sense
"I strongly feel this is an insult to life itself" :gigachad-hd:
Based Chaddao Chaddazaki strikes again, great fucking analysis.
Although he's 100% right imo he's too bitter bloomer about it, attributing the cause of this phenomenon mostly to an "otakufication" of the anime industry. However the materialist view of shit would basically be to recognize the cope status of modern anime for a subsector of the population, ie. alienated young men, be they office workers or NEETs. Its a market-based solution which offers a synthetic simulacrum of a simulacrum of social interaction, friendship, community, romance, sexual fulfillment, agency, and belonging for citizens of an imperial core nation at the very end of the neoliberal capitalist development model, where lonliness, social angst, and mental anguish is rife due to a complete atomization and breakdown of any higher social structures or values beyond individualism. In practice this means that everyone is fucking alienated, overworked, lonely as all hell, and barely hanging on in the face of rising living costs, inadequate healthcare, time poverty, market bureaucracy, and other factors spurred on by full neoliberal dominion via a right wing government.
In these conditions, of course the band-aid for the bullet wound that the market will provide is modern anime, produced by individualist cucks who rose to the top, "spending their lives only interested themselves", unable to stand "looking at other humans", especially women, who are seen as the inferior binary gender by the Japanese conservative paradigm. It is thus no surprise that the cope they often produce is a shitty malformed smorgasbord of misogynist objectification fully detached from any sense of reality, a spiritual poison that temporarily fills the void inside yet corrodes into the sides of the pit to leave the void larger than before during evaporation.
Great point, also love the term time poverty when you realize how very little free time people in modern society have even just working a basic 9/5 job with weekends off.
Yeah its dystopian once it hits, another big reason why people in neoliberal economies near the "end stage" of the proposed "development" tree have less children, leading to aging populations. In essence, neoliberal capitalism slowly wipes out humanity even in its "best case" scenarios (which of course come courtesy of harsher physical exploitation and resource pillaging elsewhere).
100% this. The development of the Hikikomori and related subcultures in Japan are entirely understandable given the context of its economic base and subsequent societal relations. The production of these types of media is a reflection of the society in which they're created, and attributing it to a nebulous phenomenon like 'otakufication' really only obfuscates the real cause, which is, of course neoliberal capitalism.
You said it much better then I could comrade :rat-salute:
There's some genuinely great stuff coming out still and though I haven't really watched anime in the last year, I feel like the trend for leftist messages in anime has been growing stronger. Decadance was basically just a giant metaphor for capitalism that the creators even outlined in a reddit AMA. Almost everything Trigger has had a hand in has strong leftist messaging except Darling in the Franxx and they were basically just hired to do the animation which was fine, it was the homophobic, hyper procreation messaging that was terrible.
I also really enjoy seeing how the messaging in kids shows continues to evolve. Precure had some good representation of a guy that liked to be feminine and was able to transform into a precure without it being a joke, something that only a few years prior was treated as a joke. The shows generally have a bit of a girlboss vibe to them and while I won't watch every season, when the show gets it right, it works. You have things like Gegege no Kitarou which also are surprisingly aware of class struggle with an episode featuring an immigrant worker being exploited by the factory boss and being subjugated to near slave conditions, they don't let him punch the guy, but he still gets comeuppance. Nezumi Otoko almost always fucks shit up when his greed gets the better of him leading him to basically just become the corporate face of a lot of conflicts. You had a point where the show also outrights states that Japan was the bad guys in the Pacific War/WWII.
I do genuinely agree with Miyazaki that there is too much reliance on tropes and people using other anime as a reference point. The most memorable stuff in recent years has taken its own unique approach to stuff and I do hope that the medium can benefit from better ideas and new approaches.
in darling in the franxx the forced procreation with another asigned person was a theme, and it touches how it doesnt work for lots of reasons (dont know how how to spoil the text)
I personally detest Franxx and was pretty much worked up into a rage by the end of the later episodes as they came out. The show's messaging was based around Japan's declining birth rate and tied in with real world politics of them trying to get more people to have kids when in reality they're seeing a decline in birth rates based on a bunch of factors. You have parents not having two children for a variety of reasons which leads to a non-replacement amount, you have the entire social aspect which is just kinda messed up, and instead of looking at any real reasons the show goes into a weird dystopian angle.
I think these two writeups about Franxx go into much more detail than I could at this point since I've forgotten a bunch of detail about it.
CW: Homophobia: Childbirth and Politics in Darling in the Franxx
CW: homophobia
The reference in this one to the one politician that said they were fine with LGBT suicides because they didn't procreate and were thus a waste of taxpayer money is reflected in my reading of the end of the show where the gay character after being dragged through the series dies early in a dark room alone while the rest of the characters are happy with their children outside in bright environments clearly taking a stance similar to the politician in how they frame these events even.
I think one of the things I hate most is how many ostensibly strong female characters are completely undermined by the fact that their ultimate worth is only in how they can act as a tradwife. Like, having literally super powerful women suddenly reduced to learning how to cook so that they can prove that they can be wifey is so unbelievably lame. It feels nearly inescapable, too, like there's virtually no strong female leads who do not inevitably truly want to live in traditional gender roles.
This happened in Rebuild of Evangelion 2, where Asuka and Rei both start cooking for and looking after Shinji. Then Shinji literally can't imagine a world without Rei, not because the pair have such a deep human connection, but because she is the epitome of "that girl was nice to me once so now I am projecting all of my hopes and my need for happiness on to her". Then he destroys the world lol
Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know.
Which is why every single new season of anime has to have new isekais where the main character is a shut in otaku, like at this point GIVE ME A HIMBO ISEKAI, make the MC is the dumbest most charming person in the world like anything else
Have they done a reverse-isekai yet? Feels like that was common in fanfic, Inuyasha or whatever does a highschool AU.
There was a show where a bunch of manga and anime creators had their MCs isekai into their world.
Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World is this and it's pretty good
just did a double take when i saw a super sentai man on a cover and made the connection that red ranger as in a power ranger, i might check this out
i was aware of the yamcha one, not the baki one AND THE BAKI ONE IS ACTUALLY OFFICIAL STUFF I AM IN AWE
Hamefura is this minus the him. A gamer girl reincarnates as the villain of her favorite otome game and accidentally seduces all of the characters (male and female) by being super nice and helpful, while worrying about how they'll definitely kill her soon because that's how the game ended
after searching about this i gotta say that boy thicc, like i am down for this
It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans
fucking oof
i mean yeah he's being harsh, but still...
Here is a more nuanced take from Miyazaki that also acknowledges that he himself was obsessed with an anime girl at a young age and sees that as understandable
What I'm saying here is that when young people feel attracted to the heroes of a drama, whether in animation or other media, a type of narcissism is really involved. This attraction they feel is a surrogate emotion for something they have lost. From personal experience, I can say that I first fell in love with animation when i saw Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent), the animated feature produced by Toei Animation in 1958. Because i can still remember the pangs of emotion I felt at the sight of the incredibly beautiful, young female character, Bai-Niang, and how I went to see the film over and over as a result. It was like being in love, and Bai-Niang became a surrogat girlfriend for me at a time when I had none. I used to draw her over and over. It is in this sense that I think we can achieve a type of satisfactioin by substituting something for the unfulfilled portion of our lives. Th something can be a movie, music, or a novel, and it can include animation. Those in their teens, who are so passionate about anime today follow the same way
Miyazaki later on even kind of admits that later heroines of his had attempts to recreate her and his waifu feeling. Of course the take OP posted is more extreme cause he is trying to be edgy for a documentary and also talking specificaly about animators and creators in the industry and from the viewpoint of an animator and creator. Miyazaki himseld did have idealized anime waifus in the 50s, 60s and 70s both as a fan and as a creator but he also made a point of observing and engaging real life and real interactions to inform his creation philosophy so thats the main point he is making
But even on that point idk. Most animators and anime creators work 10 hours a day ,every day in small rooms with 15+ other staff members. They socialize and look at other humans as much as Miyazaki did or was able to do, beyond that they simply dont have the energy and time to have extended social interactions and circles .Its not a choice
I just wanna talk about how cool Full Metal Alchemist is…
I just finished watching FMA:Brotherhood for the first time. It was very good.
Over half of all anime only came out since 2009. (at least according to this guys accounting). If you have been really keen on anime and kept up with every yearly season and mixed in old stuff, you will have watched probably about half of all anime or more.
The creation of that amount of content in the last 13 years - if that guy is even sort of right, there has been more anime produced in the previous 12 years than in it's first 45 - cannot be managed in any sort of human way. It's going to be stripped down, xeroxed, meta-referential and it's going to have shitty themes because a) society was already sexist and already objectified women so the people that make culture will likely be as well and b) the "algorithm" (short-hand for capital directing production for profit but increasingly actually governed by literal computerized algorithms) optimizes for profit and not decency or the elevation of the human spirit.
It's a total industrialized ford-style process, it's like a weird mix of the YouTube Elsa-Spiderman algorithms inventing the weirdest CGI shit with actual humans still animating. The thing has a creepy mind of its own and all it cares about is getting eyeballs and watch time and repeat customers, not producing something worth watching and it doesn't care about "objectification" or "fetishization" - all it cares about is attention but especially profit. The humans at each level of power that are still able to direct the flow of this industrialization are increasingly lobotomized by the capital-profit machine (your soulless ghoul MBAs), so indebted they can only say "yes," or have lost touch with common humanity by the intense atomization of late stage capitalism - which arguably hit Japan first with its lost decade, so we're really only glimpsing into a dark mirror tinged ever-so slightly by the particularities of Japanese culture - and because of that atomization cannot recognize that what they're making isn't imitating life because they haven't lived one in a long time, it's all been the simulacra and signifiers without a signified.
b) the “algorithm” (short-hand for capital directing production for profit but increasingly actually governed by literal computerized algorithms) optimizes for profit and not decency or the elevation of the human spirit.
I always add to this that for most people here there's a second layer of algorithm at play, being that Western anime discussions are often dominated by a certain type of horny weeb who is disproportionately loud about their preferences for raunchy sexualized anime.
If you look at Japan anime movie box offices, or just general viewership and general cultural recognition, the most popular animes are either family friendly or not hyper-sexualized for no reason.
https://www.tvfandomlounge.com/2021/12/30/best-anime-movies-2021-japan-evangelion-gintama-jujutsu-kaisen/
These numbers aren't wholly accurate, because way more ovas used to get made, and should probably be counted, but the general point still stands.
Otaku: Japan's Database Animals by Hiroki Azuma is an excellent book on this subject. He's a postmodernist philosopher, so his analysis is more concerned with the processes of production rather than said productions relations to capital, but he bang on identifies what you're calling an "algorithm", and how it creates a feedback loop where consumers want familiar, easily identifiable characters in familiar stories- familiar enough for the nostalgia, but with just enough variation to feel "fresh"- but not actual challenging narratives that break free from familiar tropes. Consumers want databases, not stories.
Honestly, post Marvel Cinematic Universe all of us have basically been living in the database for a good long while now.
Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans.
The founder of Titmouse Chris P. was on suggested donation and he said that a lot of students (and current animators here in America) will just google “door” and draw the first top ten results, same with windows and stuff. It is a detriment, because you are designing by an already shitty and reductive algorithm instead of having a visual library in your head or sketchbook from having gone out and drawn from real life; as an aside, an animation class and sequential art class I started watching both suggest to always draw from life and take a sketchbook with you.
Anyways, I don’t doubt that Miyazaki has the best intentions when he brings that criticism but it is tinted by idealism. “Go out and draw from life, from real people” is expensive! Is not just money, but the time you gotta set aside to do that. Only big budget projects get the chance to bring in real references, or take the main animators out on trips: Turning Red had a business trip to the Zoo where they drew a bunch of red pandas; Aaron Blaise talks about his all-expenses-paid trip to Africa to go sketch and draw Lions and other animals during the production of Lion King. Big studios also have instructors and life drawing sessions occurring on a monthly basis for improvement and training.
With the working conditions of the Anime industry, you are asking people working 12-14 hrs of their day to go DRAW and Sketch and observe from life, as if they have the energy or passion to do that. It’s idealistic.
It’s truly the greatest fucking crime of all Capitalist exploitation. The stealing of time in all the ways it does.
George Orwell wrote about it in one of his novels. His conclusion was that if the working class were not kept busy all the time, they might get ideas about how they should be governed and then they would :vote:. Thus they must be kept in misery and poverty so that the good people in society can vacation in Spain.
Probably why the insurrection of 2020 popped off at the exact time it did. The proles had too much time on their hands during the lockdowns and it was an absolute shit show for the ruling class.
The whole thing was done by the FBI, just like the Tsarnev brothers
I personaly think way too many people easily identify with this meme because it is perfectly suited to reinforce all the negative associations people have about anime.
I never like discussing this meme because a two paragraph quote is far from enough to have a nuanced discussion about anything.
There is always this sort of doomposting about how anime is only either pedoshit or the same lazy tropes. These arguments hinge on taking the worst side of the industry and then ignoring anything good was ever made or is being made, and the few safe tittles/creators tend to be people like Miyazaki.
One of the examples of the lack of nuance is that it seems he is conflicting character design with story writing and animation all in one basket.
In the anime production process those 3 things are entirely separate.
1- The key animators/animation director is the one responsible for natural looking animations and this varies a lot. Go read about OPM dream team of animators, it is not just about budget but a certain small group of talented people having given the time and space(and direction) to do something great.
The thing is even with talented animators the industry demands terrible working conditions and hours, a lot are freelance and barely afford a living. Of course these people are alianated too. So obviously an animator is going to be someone who is working from home 12-14h a day and naturaly an otaku. This isn't pandering but the social economic reality.
Miyazaki isn't an angel I am pretty sure the working conditions on his productions follow the exact same standards as every other. This shit is one of the first google results.
2- Story writing is completely left to writers and directors, when it comes to adaptations it is also very little room for changes. If the issue is bad writing of woman then this is a general issue of society present in Japan but also extremely evident in the west.
Original anime are always risky to make and sometimes these shows end up relying on at least a few tropes to hedge their bets. Still I think the biggest offenders seem to be adaptations, so is anime realy the problem or does this include Japanese manga and light novel industries as well? As a reminder manga is extremely popular in Japan with all demographics.
If anime is a mistake because of misogynistic stories than so is 80-90% of western culture. I am fine with this conclusion and support it but people should understand that this is the argument they are making. I've seen way too many people who like this meme turn around and go watch their latest capeshit/disney shit/netflix copy paste garbage guilty free that they are somehow superior...
3- Character design is also a specialized job, but this decision involves like 3-4 people at most. The director and the production committee calls the shots, but in general visual styles tend to be very era dependent and usually certain studios/directors have a certain visual style they try to replicate.
So if he is complaining about design then is he complaining about literally character design? Because this is also something that is inherited from the source material most of the time. As I said the critique then would be that manga and light novel writers also can't "design" real people.
Seems like a very bold contrarian claim given how extremely popular both of those things are.
If anime is a mistake because of misogynistic stories than so is 80-90% of western culture. I am fine with this conclusion and support it but people should understand that this is the argument they are making.
Over the years, Miyazaki’s political stance about America’s involvement in global conflicts as well as the country’s contribution towards the globalisation of American culture has been unwavering. “Anti-jeans, Anti-bourbon, Anti-burgers, Anti-fried chicken, Anti-cola, Anti-American coffee, Anti-New York, Anti-West Coast,” Miyazaki once said while describing his beliefs.
As a former marxist who clearly still has materialism and communist beliefs rooted in his core Miyazaki knows exactly what he's saying, even if the wider anime community doesn't really get it or him because his marxism is always glossed over by reactionary western weebs.
You highlight exactly why I don't like this meme, as I said the two paragraph quote is not enough for the whole nuanced take on the subject.
Miyazaki is the western anime "mascot" like Kojima and the gaming industry. Both shit on the west many times in the past but critics keep coming back for more as if his criticism of anime invalidates the medium in support of their own favorite western based form of entertainment. Kojima didn't want to make MGS4 but when the game comes out every critic is circle jerking reviews about how great it was etc without being capable of understanding why MGS4 is a nostalgia trip.
Both Miyazaki and Kojima's critique is also not really totally damning. If it were they would leave the industries. They speak of its ills with extremely harsh critique and displays (Death Stranding) in their art but are also clearly hopeful to hold up that same industry to higher standards. It's a "do better" critique. Two marxists (not really sure I believe miyazaki dropped marxism as it still clearly influences him) at the absolute top of their industries and their political backgrounds are largely ignored in any and all analysis or review of their works.
For example, Kojima critiques america and imperialism relentlessly but it's pretty clear to me that he adores America and wants to believe it will one day live up to its own myth. He seems to view america as a lie but asks it to fight to achieve that lie for real.
Kojima critiques america and imperialism relentlessly but it’s pretty clear to me that he adores America and wants to believe it will one day live up to its own myth
This is definitely my reading as well. Kojima feels like a utopian at heart, but one who recognizes how far we are from it.
character design
This is also storytelling though. I don’t want to nitpick because everything you said was correct. But character design is part of telling the story through the “physical” looks of a character. Hence why the “main character hair” or “evil seductress” are such common tropes and their characteristics are often very obvious.
Sometimes the story subverts those tropes by having characters look but act a completely different way, but that’s not often.
This is also storytelling though. I don’t want to nitpick because everything you said was correct. But character design is part of telling the story through the “physical” looks of a character. Hence why the “main character hair” or “evil seductress” are such common tropes and their characteristics are often very obvious.
Yes and it is even more complicated than that because anime is inherently a stylized representation of reality, without defining what "realistic" means where do you draw the line?
Think about all the anime in high school setting. Is it ok to have all the crazy hair styles and eye colors? Is it ok to have all the extravagant clothing? Is it ok to speak completely differently to how real teenagers speak in Japanese?
You go down the rabbit hole of what it means to design realistic people and the conclusion is you need far more nuance than is allowed for this meme imo. Sometimes it is done for storytelling reasons, sometimes it is done for pandering, sometimes it is a very particular art style a studio/director is known for.
If someone just wants straight up realism go watch a live action drama, but even those are full of tropes, Japanese dramas are also big offenders of this. The issue of "designing real people" is far far deeper discussion than just anime and otakus.
This is a good take, but I will say that this trend doesn't really permeate in the best and most popular anime. Like of you look at a list of classics or anime that have stood the test of time, most of them won't be obsessed with making a waifu out of every character. Like if you look at the top anime ranked on my anime list, Code Geass is the only one that has a big problem with objectification of the ones I've seen there (although Gintama is there like 5 times and I haven't seen that so idk). My point is, the major stuff that breaks through to casual audiences isn't concerned with waifu-ism or whatever, so people who watch Attack on Titan in between episodes of whatever Netflix show is popular wouldn't even know what a waifu is.
nah gintama is a comedy and basically every character is an enormous buffoon. iirc there is little to no 'waifu' shit in it.
Yeah you're probably right, I guess my problem is with the sheer amount of garbage that is churned out because it's profitable and the small but loud portion of anime fans that want that to be the norm (you know, the kind with ahegao profile pics). Capitalism be capitalising I guess.
He just mad cuz he don't have one.
spoiler
Joking! No need for the torches!
why do americans stan bullshit though? most of the stuff i watch with women/teen girls from japan is pretty positive and wholesome and has them doing cool stuff with three dimensional characters.
but it's totally not odd that none of that content gets play in the states when you realize westerners don't like positive depictions of women or we'd have more in the domestic canon instead of so many hyper-masculine outings where they get treated like objects.
even very good films like linda linda linda never have much exposure in the west. everybody is watching niche tentacle anime tho. feels like total projection.
