== My view of the future of western 'anime'

In [[Is RWBY Anime? http://bugfox.net/fun/2013/08/31/is-rbny-anime/]]
Jonathan Tappan says:

> Once (as recently as the 1960s) American animators dominated the world
> and even Japanese animators sought to emulate them. Now America is an
> animation backwater and Japan dominates the world. So it’s natural
> for people like Monty Oum to try to imitate anime and even call their
> own work “anime”. It’s natural but it’s a mistake.
>
> If America is ever to regain a respectable place in the world of
> animation, American animators need to develop a new style of their own,
> something distinctly American, [...]

In [[Anime and where it's made AnimeWhereMade]] I said
I didn't think this call was the right approach. Since
[[Author has specifically mentioned my bit about this
http://ani-nouto.animeblogger.net/2013/09/01/tappan-on-rwby/]] I want
to say more about it (possibly rewriting myself in the process).

I don't think that a new form of good American animation will arise out
of slavishly imitating Japanese anime, but then I don't think that
good animators can do this slavish imitation in the first place. Truly
good animators will inevitably evolve their own styles from all of the
influences that are at work around them, and an American animator is
inevitably going to be swimming in influences other than anime over the
long run.

Or in short: if America is going to produce good animation it's going
to be in a new style no matter what. You don't have to exhort people to
do this; it will happen all on its own. People will find their own voice
and after the fact it will be called 'distinctly American animation'.

(Although I don't know the history, I rather expect that this is what
happened to create Japanese anime. I suspect that Tezuka and other
early pioneers did not set out to deliberately create a non-American
form of animation; instead it just happened in response to everything
around them, including not being in America.)

But at the same time, animators start somewhere and they are influenced
by things. Today an obvious starting point and influence is anime,
especially if you think that anime has become better developed than
western animation (perhaps on the grounds that western animation has by
now been almost entirely confined to a few narrow styles and genres).
So I think it's a mistake to tell animators 'don't start from anime and
don't let yourself be influenced by it', especially if the reason why is
merely 'because this isn't Japan'.

Regardless of what we think Monty Oum should call what he's making,
I think it's sensible for him to consciously and deliberately model
it on anime. If he's a good artist, he and it will go in their own
way regardless of what the base was. And in the mean time I'd be a big
hypocrite if I didn't think that anime makes a good base to build from.