The other day I came across a site asking in all seriousness which country’s animation was better, the U.S. or Japan. I posted the question to my Twitter feed, and there was a spirited discussion about the benefits of each, with the general consensus that the two are so different that trying to compare them is useless. One thing I especially love about the animation from Japan is the huge range of creativity you find, like the closing credits of Sora no Otoshimono which shows a flock of girl’s panties flying through the sky as if they were birds. (We even have a pair you can fly yourself.) Last week I watched a gorgeous series called Eve no Jikan, or the Time of Eve, about a future in which humans are served by advanced androids. But even robots want to feel like people, and there’s a special coffee shop where humans and androids can interact without barriers. My favorite androids at Eve no Jikan are Rina and Koji, a couple who are always fawning over each other. Although they’re both androids, each believes the other to be human, an idea which caused my head to explode.
So what do you think? Obviously you have to qualify the question — are we comparing Pixar to Ghibli, CG based 3D animation to quality 2D? Or only 2D to 2D? I sometimes think that anime is fresher than, say, Disney animated films which closely follow an established pattern, but then I realize that Dragonball Z has its own pattern its following, too. Any thoughts?
“Are you enjoying the time of EVE?”
