投稿類別英文寫作類

篇名: Japanese anime Vs American cartoons

作者: 林冬蓮。陳美芳。國立華僑高級中學。高三誠班

指導老師:

林佳樺 老師

I. INTRODUCTION Over the last few decades, there has been many studies done comparing anime and cartoon, especially Japanese anime and American cartoons. For some time, there has been evidence that Japanese anime and American cartoons has significant differences. The anime fans and cartoon fans have extensively discussed about how to provide excellent methods to figure out the differences between them. However, a few people have still debated on it. In this paper, we present the similarities and differences between Japanese anime and American cartoons. The purpose of this report is to present evidence that Japanese anime and American cartoons remain certain levels of discrepancies. This examination was guided by the following research questions:  What is it that makes anime so special?  Do you think anime and cartoons are the same thing?  What are the major differences between anime and cartoons?  Which is more popular Anime or Cartoons? The study will be conducted based on the perspectives of visual characteristics, background and stories. It is hoped that the results of this study may lead to a better understanding of Japanese anime and American cartoon.

II. THESIS Before we represent the answers of our research questions in conclusion, we will give a brief introduction about anime and cartoons. For the next chapter, the methods we use to tell the differences between anime and cartoons are making a comparison chart, but we’ll not only tell the differences between it but also tell the similarities between them. In order to make it more clearly, we also will give an example for each of them.

2.1 Brief Introduction “Anime” (pronounced AH-nee-may ) is the prevalent style in Japanese comic books or . Manga (漫画 Manga) are comics created in Japan, or by creators in Japanese language, conforming to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century. In Japan, the comic book is a popular form of entertainment for adults as well as for younger audiences. Story lines are often very sophisticated, complex and can be extened into episodic series. The term manga (kanji: 漫画; hiragana: まんが; katakana: マンガ) is a Japanese word referring to both comics and cartooning.

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Cartoon, on the other hand, was initially used as a model or study for a painting. Cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers it as a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, humor, or to the artistic style of such works. An artist who creates cartoons is called a cartoonist.

2.2 History

2.2.1 Anime

Japanese animation began in the early 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques, and it also pioneered in France, Germany, the United States and Russia. Anime dates back to the birth of Japan’s own film industry in the early 1900s, and has emerged as one of Japan’s major cultural forces over the past century. Much of the work done in these early years was not the cell animation technique that would come to be the dominant production technique, but a host of other methods: chalkboard drawings, painting directly on the film, paper cut-outs, and so on. One by one, many of the technologies used today were added to Japanese animated productions—sound (and eventually color), the multiplane camera system, and cel animation. But due to the rise of Japanese nationalism and the start of WWII, most of the animated productions created from the 1930s on were not popular entertainments, but instead were either commercially-oriented, or government propaganda of one type or another.

Speaking of anime history, Stevenny M.Gingeran (2010), Anime is more like comic book for teenager or adult and cartoon is more like child story book. In 1914, cartoonists were among the first Japanese artists to experiment with animated motion pictures. Japan's first world-wide success was Kitayama Seitaro's short film Momotaro(1918). Although the Japanese animation industry continued to grow slowly, its one, last pre-war milestone was Chikara To Onna No Yononaka. Appearing in 1932, the short film was the first animated "talkie" in Japanese. Being inspired, Jonathan Clements (2011) stated that anime is for adult and the picture in comic book more suitable for adult and there is no English book that contains the history of Japanese animation. So, he write the concept of anime succession. He also want to write about the meaning and definition of anime that can even cause major otaku to scratch their heads.

Long before anime being so popular, Hiroshi Okawa (1950), the president of the Japanese film company Toei was impressed by anime. To add the variety of children show, he wanted to make anime become a movie, not only a comic book. He also stated that it was his dream to create an Asian film 2 studio that would produce animated features similar to those put out by Walt Disney Studios in America. In 1956, Toei Animation was founded and, two years later, the company released its first full- length feature The Tale of the White Serpent. After watching the movie that Hiroshi made, Muhammad Hidayat (1999) indicated that the main character in most anime is a human (at least they have human body). On the other hand, the main character in cartoon can be animal, human, things, or plant. In 2005, one of student in University Indonesia said that after watched an anime movie, she had a conclusion that from the story perspectives, it is harder to guess what will happen in the next part in anime, because maybe the main character will successfully defeat the villain with 50:50 percentage. For example : there is a kind person have being bullied by a person who is jealous with her. The result may to fight for freedom or being bully for the rest of her life. So this story is kind of monotone.

2.2.2 Cartoons

Animated Films are ones in which individual drawings, paintings, or illustrations are photographed frame by frame (stop-frame cinematography). Usually, each frame differs slightly from the one preceding it, giving the illusion of movement when frames are projected in rapid succession at 24 frames per second. The earliest cinema animation was composed of frame-by-frame, hand-drawn images. When combined with movement, the illustrator's two-dimensional static art came alive and created pure and imaginative cinematic images - animals and other inanimate objects could become evil villains or heroes. Animations are not a strictly-defined genre category, but rather a film technique, although they often contain genre-like elements. Animation, fairy tales, and stop-motion films often appeal to children, but it would marginalize animations to view them only as "children's entertainment." Animated films are often directed to, or appeal most to children, but easily can be enjoyed by all. For example it was children’s family films, that can be enjoyed by all.

When it comes to cartoon history, Walter Disney (1925) said many cartoonists who work for him often use traditional way to make cartoon movie. He said the only way to fix it is by doing intensive practice with me as a tutor. Therefore, with practices it can make a good movie. Angeline (2014) said that cartoon comes from America, but anime comes from Japan. Cartoon is more like a 3D movie. Cathy (2001) leave a comment in yahoo questioners that said in cartoon things can walk, think or speak like a human being. For example in the movie Beauty and the Beast, there is a tea pot who can speak and walk like a human being. There is also many cartoons which have already made into 3D movie, one of them is UP. Angelina Robert (2006) recently said cartoon becomes so popular especially for children and adult. The animation pictures provided in cartoon is simpler than anime, but there sre some cartoons which have a better animation pictures than anime. Many children like to watch cartoon 3

because it has 3D movie. In addition, Davin Gliardo (2008) also said that animation is just a technique, with which you can express every possible emotion to every possible audience. The producers of the movies have a movie that suitable for kids and adults, books for kids and books for adults, as well as cartoons suitable for kids and adults. Because of the story and some 3D effects in cartoon many adults not only being entertained by it but they also continuously to watch it.

Many people think that cartoon is only to entertain yourself because the flow of the stories is funny and can make you laugh. Mike Pangestu (2011) one of comicus in Indonesisa said that a cartoon is not only a funny comic. Some cartoons have a secret meaning behind the story. For example, in my country if they didn’t like the government who rules the country, usually some cartoonists will make some funny pictures to tease them in the soft way and then put it in the newspaper. He also mention that some of cartoon drawings are very detailed, and master’s hand, can be very valuable. There is also some effect of cartoon makes it more clearly.

III. ANALYSIS In this chapter the methods used will be illustrated, before we reached the conclusion part. The method we used was to compare the data about Anime and Cartoons based on the perspective of visual characteristic, facial expression, background and stories.

3.1 The differences between Anime and Cartoons For following chapter, we will tell the differences between anime and cartoon from the perspectives of visual characteristic, backgrounds, stories, and then analyze it. Furthermore, we will provide more detail examples to make it more clearly.

3.1.1 Visual Characteristic  Physical features

Anime illustrations are known to be exaggerated as far as physical features are concerned. Usually, one can differentiate anime from a cartoon by observing the physical traits of the characters. Anime characters include "large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs" and — in the case of manga (anime comics) — "dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography."

Cartoons, however, approximate reality a little more and carry traces of day-to-day life in them. Striking resemblances to humans can be spotted in various cartoons. However, cartoon characters are still caricatures,

4 so they are often diverged from reality (e.g., Marge Simpson's large, blue hair or Brian, the talking dog, on Family Guy).

 Facial expression

Facial expressions for anime characters are often different in form than their counterparts in American animation. For example, embarrassed or stressed characters produce a massive sweat-drop (which has become one of the most widely recognized motifs of conventional anime). Characters that are shocked or surprised perform a "face fault", in which they display an extremely exaggerated expression. Angry characters may exhibit a "vein" or "stress mark" effect, where lines representing bulging veins will appear on their forehead.

3.2 Background Many anime environments are inspired by the real ones in the real life. For example, amine characters often go to Tokyo Tower to take a gaze at the city. When the criminal being caught, they will take them to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the transportation they take to go to the school was exactly the same as the reality. The followings are some examples of the environments in the anime and reality to give more vivid images:  Tokyo Tower  Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Tokyo Tower Detective Conan – Tokyo Tower Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department  Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle Detective Conan – Osaka Castle Detective Conan - Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

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If anime has an environment based on the reality, Cartoons has opposite environment from reality. Most of the cartoons environment was only an imagination. The environment in the cartoons was impossible for you to find it in the real life.

Spongebob Squarepants

3.3 Stories

Anime concentrates mostly on life issues or things tied closer to human emotion and sexual themes. Anime doesn't shy away from epic storylines, which can run for dozens (sometimes hundreds) of episodes. Most of anime can turn into reality actions. Cartoons are generally made to make people laugh and so are more comical. Most of cartoons can’t turn into real actions.

3.4 Example In this part we want to show you the differences between anime and cartoon from the story perspectives. For example of anime we’ll explain Dectective Conan, and for cartoon we’ll explain Spongebob Squarepants.

3.4.1 Detective Conan The story follows the adventures of Shinichi Kudo (also known as Jimmy Kudo in ), a young detective prodigy who was inadvertently shrunk into a child's body due to a poison he was force- fed by members of a criminal syndicate. Neighbor and family friend Professor Agasa strongly suggested Shinichi hide his identity to prevent them from killing him and the people he cares about, so Shinichi takes the name Conan Edogawa. He goes to live with his childhood friend Ran Mouri and her father, Kogoro, and tries to use Kogoro's detective agency as a way to find the people who shrank him—without letting Ran figure out who he really is.

This stories was adapted from the manga detective written and illustrated by . This serialized has been realized since January 19,1994. The anime resulted in animated feature films, audio disc releases, and live action episodes.

3.4.2 Spongebob Squarepants Relentlessly optimistic SpongeBob SquarePants lives in the undersea township of Bikini Bottom, along with an assortment of many supporting characters. Among them is his best friend, the lovable - but dim - sea star named Patrick; the irritable perfectionist neighbor named Squidward; and an athletic squirrel named Sandy who lives in an undersea treedome. SpongeBob is employed as a fry cook at the local burger place, The Krusty Krab, which is operated by a penny-pinching crustacean is named Mr. Krabs. After the first SpongeBob SquarePants episode aired on May 1, 1999. Pittenger Kenny later in Nov 9, 2004 when the SpongeBob’s new movie realized, he said that up until now this cartoon had never realized the live action episodes because its quite impossible to do that.

Anime Cartoon

Physical features of characters Characters usually have

Physical are, on the whole, closer to features that are not relative to reality than cartoons. Larger the rest of the body and Visual features eyes and smaller mouths therefore further from reality Characteristic make for a cuter style. than anime.

Facial Angry characters may exhibit Angry characters may exhibit expression a "vein" or "stress mark" a volcano erupted effect. effect.

Many anime got the same Almost all of cartoons environment as the reality. environment was only an

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Background Environment imagination.

 Anime concentrates mostly  Cartoons are generally

on life issues or things tied made to make people

closer to human emotion and laugh and so are more Plot sexual themes. comical. Stories  Most of anime can turn into  Most of cartoons can’t reality actions. turn into real actions.

Example Detective Conan SpongeBob SquarePants

table 3.4.2

IV. CONCLUSION In conclusion, anime and cartoon has many differences, such as visual characteristic, background and story. These data tend to support that ideas. As for “the things that make anime so special” is anime story and their visual characteristics which make anime so special. Because most of the characters in anime have perfect body, for the woman they have slender body with big boobs and for man they have a muscular body. Besides, anime can turn into real action. Many people think that anime and cartoon are the same things. Actually, they are different and most of anime fans can sum this up in two words: "It's different." Anime is as unlike most American cartoons as, say, Batman and Spider-Man are different from the comics that run in daily papers. The major differences between anime and cartoons are the background, the character, and the plot. Based on our research, we figured out that nowadays people more like anime than cartoon.

V. REFERENCES

1. Otakon program book. (1999). History of Anime, O'Connell, Michael.

2. British Film Institute. (2013). Anime a history, Jonathan Clements.

3. Globalization of Japanese Popular Media. (1999). Anime history and cartoon culture, John A. Lent

4. Anime cartoon. (2013). Cartoon Culture. Tracer, Johny. 5. Wikipedia Anime History. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime#History

6. About Entertainment, a brief history of anime. Retrieved from http://anime.about.com/od/animeprimer/a/Brief-History-Of-Anime.htm

http://anime.about.com/od/animeprimer/a/What-Is-Anime.htm 8

7. Digital Artist Daily, a brief history of manga. Retrieved from http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/blog/2012/03/a-brief-history-of-manga-part-1/

8. Amazon, History Cartoon in United States. Retrieved from

http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-History-United-States-Series/dp/0062730983

9. Movies about, Animated film and movies history. Retrieved from

http://movies.about.com/od/animatedmovies/a/history-animated-films.htm

10. Technology metro tv news. Why fans want to makes the difference about anime and cartoon. Retrieved from http://teknologi.metrotvnews.com/read/2015/09/21/172135/anime-dan-kartun-mengapa-fans-ingin- keduanya-dibedakan

11. Frame Headline News. The differences between anime and cartoon. Retrieved from http://www.bingkaiberitaterkini.blogspot.tw/2013/06/perbedaan-anime-dan-kartun.html

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