Japanese Animation (or Anime if you're in the club) has always been a bit of a mixed bag, and I've always found the idea of declaring oneself to be a fan of Anime is about as silly as declaring yourself to be a fan of film, as the source material is simply too broad. When I say I adore watching films, I should clarify and say I adore watching good films. This is one of the reasons that genre as a study is a misleading topic. To like Westerns in general for example seems to imply that topic is more important than quality. To me, any topic is worth watching, so long as the film itself is good to watch, though it can't be denied that some topics are harder to produce quality with than others (I would watch a My Little Pony film if it was a great movie, but I find it quite unlikely that there will ever be a great My Little Pony film). The same applies to Anime. There are exceedingly good Anime that is up there with the finest of films (Neon Genesis, Cowboy Bebop, Teknoman, Ghost In the Shell), but there is also Anime that is badly written, poorly directed, and embarrasing to watch (Generally any anime film with a rating of 'R', you have to be seriously gruesome or explicit for a cartoon to reach these levels).
Anime has always been a niche market to Western audiences, and largely this is because there are certain stylistic differences between Anime and your stereotypical American/European movie. The first is the sense of humour. While there is definately humour that both cultures understand equally, we also have our own unique styles that each nation enjoys differently. The lines have been blurring between Australia, the UK, and the US, but Japan as a seperate nation with it's own language has remained a stronger sylistic identity.
The second, and slightly stranger difference is that the Japanese are a lot more comfortable with silence than we are. Music features far less prominently in Anime, and as a result many long, slightly uncomfortable silences are present in their films, lending a quiet, almost unearthly air to many of the anime I have seen (the big exception is Cowboy Bebop, which uses an abundance of music to amazing effect). From what I can work out, this isn't the case for Japanese audiences, this is simply how their films are made. English dubs have either preserved these silences as is or filled them with meaningless chatter, crickets, faint background music, general murmering, or unfortunately in the majority of occassions with loud breaths or odd little gasps from the main character, which if anything is more uncomfortable than actual silence.
But I must confess I do still enjoy many Anime, particularly the work of Hayao Miyazake and Studio Ghibli. Miyazake's most recent film Ponyo was released late last year onto dvd. It features all the usual Ghibli trademarks (Young protagonist, flying, general sense of wonder, strange giant floods and giant fish, you know), but where it lacks in originality it does make up for in charm and a general level of amusement. Visually the film is a treat, using an unusual watercolour effect producing a vibrant look that is sadly lacking from many other Anime films.
It does feature the usual long silences, and the humour is a little odd in places, but it still made me grin.
Rating: 5 out of 5 if you're an anime nut, 3.5 out of 5 for everyone else.
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