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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.

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.

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.

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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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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He just mad cuz he don't have one.

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.