Here's an idea: Avatar: The Last Airbender is an anime. Fuck you. Fight me. On October 18th, 2016, A1 Pictures and Crunchyroll released "Shelter", a short animated music video for Porter Robinson and Madeon's song of the same name. Shortly thereafter, it was posted to Reddit's r/anime community Where it would go on to become the third highest rated post in the history of the subreddit. It would also go on to be taken down because, as an r/anime mod stated, "The specific definition we use to determine 'Anime' is 'An animated series, produced and aired in Japan intended for a Japanese audience.' This is a music video by an artist that contracted out a studio that happens to also produce anime. If A1 Pictures had produced an episode of SpongeBob, we wouldn't allow that here, either." The internet flipped its collective shit at this because... of course it did. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous. And within an hour of it being removed, the post was back up and rapidly climbing the front page. Boy, I sure do wish that could happen for my videos once in a while. The takedown and reinstatement of "Shelter" was, in itself, a minor footnote in the success story of a popular and critically lauded ONA that was going to reach people with or without Reddit's help. But the flawed reasoning behind it speaks to something that is frequently a big problem for the anime community, especially for critics like myself. We don't really have a solid, workable definition of what "anime" is. We have a lot of different, competing definitions, some of which are technical, like, "'Anime' is a Japanese colloquialism which comes from shortening the word 'animation'", whereas others, like the one used by the reddit community, are unworkably broken. That might seem like a harsh indictment of something fairly innocuous, but consider the purpose of definitions. They don't really prescribe how we're supposed to use a word. They describe how a word that's already being used is being used. We knew what a "YouTuber" was long before Oxford added it to their lexicon. We didn't need them to tell us. And if your definition of a word is so narrow that it doesn't account for common or general uses of that word, or so broad that it encompasses things that the word never refers to in common usage, then it fails as a definition. The definition of "anime" offered up by "Dr. Nyanpasu" fails to hold up to scrutiny on multiple counts, to the point where I feel the need to sit down and explain patiently how words work. Let's go through it, point by point, and see all the ways it fails. Point 1: "An animated series". Okay, we're three words in and already the cracks are showing. "Series" precludes single shot OVAs, web shorts like "ME!ME!ME!", and movies. By this definition, Spirited Away and Your Name aren't anime. Obviously, that would be stupid, so the definition must be wrong. Point 2: "produced and aired in Japan". Well, firstly saying "aired" again cuts out theatrical and home video markets, as well as the internet, so that doesn't work at all. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they meant "distributed". I mean, the fact that they're this strict with a definition that they worded this loosely is worrying, in itself. But that's a different problem. And even making that concession, it's still awful. "Produced in Japan" means that we can't count shows like Bloodivores or To Be Hero which originated in China, or any show that was outsourced to Korea, which these days is most of them. As for requiring that an anime be distributed in Japan, well, that would actually include SpongeBob since it has a Japanese dub. And if you say "distributed first in Japan", then you end up excluding Space Dandy which is super wrong. So, yeah, nothing about this point works. And then there's that "intended for a Japanese audience" bit, which is murky enough when you consider that more and more studios are aiming anime at a global audience for business purposes, but, also explicitly excludes Stan Lee's Heroman, Afro Samurai, which was a passion project for Samuel L. Jackson, and The Big O - season two, which was only made because of Cartoon Network. All of those things are very clearly "anime" and it would be beyond idiotic to say that the second season of an anime isn't an anime because it targeted a new audience and was produced by a new network. So, with all of those clauses stricken down, the only part of the definition that remains is "animated", which happens to be what the word "anime" means in Japanese. "'Anime' is a Japanese colloquialism—" Yeah, Digi, we know. Although, that is an interesting facet of this argument. In Japanese, anime refers to all animation, SpongeBob included. And that's an argument often used in favor of saying, "Avatar: The Last Airbender and shows like it should be counted as anime." But it's a weak argument, and not just because it's pedantic. What this argument is really about is whether shows like Avatar should be discussed in communities like r/anime, or given the spotlight at anime cons. And, yes, by that definition, the discussion of Avatar should be allowed in anime communities, but that would also allow for discussion of SpongeBob and Mickey Mouse, which most people would agree are totally off-topic. And some would use that as a justification for disqualifying any American cartoon from ever being anime, which is equally pedantic and facetious. "Anime is Japanese animation, and that's that," they'll say, even though their acceptance of Chinese-made anime totally invalidates that position. But even if you are in the camp that says, "Western cartoons can never be anime", you can't pretend that there's no distinction. Because when I say the phrase "American anime", it describes a specific group of shows and you know exactly what shows I'm talking about. American anime is meaningfully distinct from what you'd call "cartoons". Now, you might say that the line is a little blurry, and you could make a good case with shorter series that use more American art styles and senses of humor like Steven Universe and Adventure Time, which, fun fact: had an episode directed by anime director, Masaaki Yuasa, but when you look at Japanese shows like Panty and Stocking or Kaiba, you realize that it's just as blurry over there. In fact, I would argue that there are animated series made in Japan for a Japanese audience that are not "anime", at least, not in the loose American sense of that word, which is largely shaped by what satisfies use when we sit down thinking, "I want to watch anime" and what we deem worthy of discussion in anime communities. And when was the last time you heard an American anime fan gushing over Hello Kitty, Hana Kappa, or Anpanman? If these kids' shows are discussed at all, it's never in the context of "Have you seen the latest episode of Sazae-san?" Those shows are only ever discussed academically in things like this video because while you may find it interesting that Sazae-san is the longest running cartoon in the world, I doubt that any of you are actually interested in watching it. Few anime fans are because it's not anime, it's a cartoon for children. And if the Japanese are capable of producing non-anime cartoons, and we're already allowing for shows out of Korea and China to be considered anime, then there is no good reason that anime can't be produced in North America or Europe, in the case of Wakfu and The Red Turtle. For a lot of people, when they get an urge to watch anime and they sit down and watch Avatar: The Last Airbender or Voltron, they end up satisfied with that decision. But if we can't define anime by region, how do we define it? It's tempting to say "by art style", but again, shows like Panty and Stocking and Kaiba render that invalid. And anime definitely isn't a genre. I mean, there are action anime and romance anime and comedy anime, and has genres within it, and there is very little that connects those genres. We could point to storytelling techniques; anime tends to have an ongoing narrative. But gag series like Osomatsu-san defy that constraint as well. No matter what aesthetic trappings or genre conventions you try to ascribe to anime, there is going to be a point of hard contradiction. I think that's because we've failed to recognize what anime really is. Some see it as a genre, others as a cultural artefact, and others as, almost a medium unto itself, but it's none of those things. It's something else entirely. Something that is only really possible to identify with a lot of hindsight. Which is why I find it hard to fault other anime critics and fans for using those terms instead. What anime is, is a movement: an artistic movement within the medium of animation, not unlike post-modernism or The French New Wave in film. Everything that makes "anime" anime, the big-eyed aesthetic, the over-the-top action, the mature themes, the overt sexuality, is a part of that movement, agreed upon, collectively, by animators across Japan. Well, it would probably be more accurate to say anime is a series of movements. Post-millennial anime is very different from 90s anime, which is, in turn, very different from 80s anime, and especially Shōwa Era anime. But, there are commonalities between all of them: the anime art style, the serialized storytelling techniques, the way that anime series and movies tend to approach action and romance, the way that anime has turned cost-cutting measures into stylistic flourishes. All of these things are elements of the broader movement, not necessarily parts of the definition. And that definition is murky because, well, all movements have murky definitions. You know a French New Wave film when you see it, but you can argue endlessly about what makes "French New Wave" French New Wave and where the movement began and ended. And you can argue that films influenced by that movement, like the work of Tarantino and the Movie Brats, should perhaps be considered part of it. And looking at it in that light, you can very easily make the argument that American anime deserves consideration within the broader anime movement. Specifically, the post-millennial anime movement, that presently dominates Crunchyroll and that so famously made Miyazaki declare that "anime was a mistake". Each movement within the greater movement of anime has its own defining factors. The animators and artists who birthed early anime were inspired by the possibilities of a new medium and the creations of Western contemporaries. But they were also shaken by the impact of the atomic bomb. The animators of the 70s and 80s grew up on a diet of that early anime along with imported Western film and television. Their work had a certain bravado to it, no doubt, energized by the unprecedented growth of the post-war economic miracle. They made a lot of cheerful anime and a lot of aggressive, angry work like Akira and Grave of the Fireflies. 90s anime were, in turn, inspired by those works and Japan's increasingly thriving otaku culture. They leaned even more heavily into Western and Japanese influences. Their work tended to be a bit more somber and philosophical, too. Probably a reaction to the economic stagnation of the so-called "Lost Decade" of the 90s. If you look at any of these movements, you will see that they are inextricably tied to Japan's culture, its economical healthy, and its place in the world. The same is not necessarily true of post-millennial anime because post-millennial anime is also post-internet anime. It's post-globalization anime and that changes the ball game. Whether certain segments of the populous like it or not, we are now living in a world with a growing global culture and economy. National borders still mean something, but not nearly as much as they used to. We can communicate easily on a daily basis with people around the world through borders and language barriers. I'm doing that right now, and you can help by subtitling this video for your country. As Miyazaki lamented in his famous quote, Japan's millennial animators are primarily influenced by having grown up watching older anime as well as popular Western fare. They are unabashed otaku making anime for other otaku. They communicate via message boards. They collect merchandise. They are, to be sure, influenced by Japanese phenomena like the falling birthrate, the chronic lack of social interaction that has created NEETs and hikikomori, and of course, the boom of light novels, but they have many influences outside of that. Because, like many people around the world, as much as they live in their nation, They also live on the Net and so do the Western animators making American anime like Avatar and Steven Universe. Animators who also grew up watching anime alongside Western media. Animators who collect anime merchandise. Animators who can't help being influenced by Japanese culture, and the history of the anime movement. They're influenced to the same extent that the likes of Hiroyuki Imaishi and KonoSuba's Kikuta Koichi are very clearly influenced by the likes of Ralph Bakshi and the American cartoon boom of the 90s. These animators are contemporaries. They are part of the same group, the same movement. And to talk about modern anime in an accurate and all-encompassing manner, it is necessary to acknowledge that all of them are part of it and that they have been for a long time now. To an extent, I can understand the impulse to reject these works. It can at times seem like Western animation studios are trying to manipulate anime fans. A decade ago, for every really great series like Titans or Megas XLR, we got two like Kappa Mikey or My Life Me. And even the really good ones didn't quite feel like anime. But American anime like Avatar, Voltron, and Steven Universe are different. They're made with the exact same intention as most great, modern Japanese anime: to tell a great story that the anime fans making them would want to watch. They may get greenlit by pointing to market trends that say, "Anime is hot right now", but they are clearly passion projects. They are the exact same kind of passion projects that we see being made in Japan, and China, and Korea, and broadcast on Crunchyroll. And we should be celebrating the best of them, alongside FMA, One-Punch Man, and Rakugo. We should be giving them pride of place at our conventions, analyzing them in our pretentious video essays, and discussing them in our communities, not just for the sake of our own enjoyment, but because the next movement of anime creators, both in Japan and abroad is watching these works, absorbing them, and beginning to build on them as we speak. Looking at today's anime, at all of today's anime, will give us a better idea of what tomorrow's anime will look like. That's why I think it's important to allow discussion of Avatar, Voltron, Steven Universe, and Wakfu in places like r/anime. Well, partially, I think it's equally important to facilitate debates about whether The Crystal Gems could beat up the Sailor Scouts or what rank Ang would achieve in The Hero Association because stuff like that is fun. And since those discussions are so fun, and since most anime communities don't really allow them, I'd like to see those arguments happen in the comments section of this video. I mean, they probably would, anyway. But I'm allowing it. Just, please, use my trust wisely, kids. No biting or hair pulling. Promise me that. Thanks for watching, commenting, subscribing, giving me cash on Patreon. And all of the other ways you guys help the channel. It means a lot. And special thanks to my editor and DJ, I guess, FlipAnime, for throwing this video together for me. Any compliments you guys have for the music should be directed his way. Also, I want to thank Daniel Floyd of Extra Credits for letting me record this on his microphone while I was busy moving. It really helped a lot. If you enjoyed this video and you want to see more like it then, I recommend watching my top 10 anime openings of all time. Or you could check out this mystery video that YouTube has recommended for you using kooky computer magic. The next time you see me, I'm going to be filming in a new apartment so, for the very last time, I'm Geoff Thew, professional shit bag, signing out from my mother's basement.
