Anime and Fantasy Writing

[Flaviosky]

Hello,

After diving a bit inside the forum, I haven't seen many quotes about anime in examples or other possible sources for themes while writing fantasy, and I was wondering if there's a straightforwardly lower appreciation for the genre against other more classical roots or authors, and if so, it would be quite interesting to know the "why not's" about anime and fantasy writing.

Thanks!

 

[AllanR]

I think of anime as a format/style, not a genre. You can have sci-fi anime, slice of life anime, fantasy anime....

 

[sknox]

I keep trying to like anime, but generally failing. Most of it is pretty weak, but probably falls within the parameters of Sturgeon's Law.

I did enjoy Cowboy Bebop, Aeon Flux, and at least some of The Last Airbender. But I also struggle to consider anime as a genre. To me, it's more a style of animation than a literary genre.

 

[Toby Frost]

With a few exceptions, anime does very little for me. I don't greatly warm to it, and I feel that a lot of it is written in a style that I don't really get. There certainly are some really good things, but most of it is pretty unappealing to me, and I don't know how to find the good stuff (except watching things by Ghibli).

 

[Flaviosky]

I think of anime as a format/style, not a genre. You can have sci-fi anime, slice of life anime, fantasy anime....

Well yeah, of course, but still the point remains: Despite its popularity, I haven't seen anyone using anime as a benchmark for something, even a small topic

 

[alexvss]

Well yeah, of course, but still the point remains: Despite its popularity, I haven't seen anyone using anime as a benchmark for something, even a small topic

We have many threads about anime and animation. There's a whole forum for them in General Film discussion. But they're much more focused on anime appreciation. We talk about the anime we like and are watching.

Apart from the thread about Asian story structure used in anime, I don't think we talked about anime writing or using anime as a means to write fiction here in SFF Chronicles. And there's a reason for that: anime is another media. Trying to "write anime" will lead to failure. Think about movie adaptations of anime: most of them are horrible because they're trying to replicate another kind of craft, anohter "language" so to speak.

Begginer writers often write stories that read as anime screenplays, and the result is very poor. Editors may see that or they may not, but will invariably hate the result. I been there myself (as both the writer and the editor).

I think my case is similar to many other people: we anime fans have absolutely no way to work in animation (and we don't want to, because it's a toxic, underpaid environment), we don't know how to draw nor do we know to speak Japanese, so we write. Our first pieces of art though, are horrible and only look good inside our heads. What beginner authors fail to realize (my past self included) is that prose only has the word as a tool. An anime, on the other hand, don't matter how bad it may be, still has cool animation, talented voice acting, appelative sexual stuff, etc.

What comes the closest to anime are light novels. I don't like reading them very much, but that's a way out for an otaku who's a writer.

However, I think that, as authors of prose, there's a lot we could learn with anime. How they handle themes, how they structure plot points (see link above), and how they build character seem to be the best takeaways.

 

[Flaviosky]

Begginer writers often write stories that read as anime screenplays, and the result is very poor. Editors may see that or they may not, but will invariably hate the result. I been there myself (as both the writer and the editor).

Here's a point, and partially my intention of the thread: There may be a structure in anime in terms of storytelling that falls flat when writing, and that may be a powerful reason on why anime isn't quoted in this forum.

We have many threads about anime and animation. There's a whole forum for them in General Film discussion. But they're much more focused on anime appreciation. We talk about the anime we like and are watching.

Of course! I wanted to drag anime into writing structure, inspiration, storytelling etc, if there's any useful link at all.

However, I think that, as authors of prose, there's a lot we could learn with anime. How they handle themes, how they structure plot points (see link above), and how they build character seem to be the best takeaways.

That's the thing! Different anime genres have some specific things that work in terms of themes, characters, action and drama, etc, that may (or may not) be worth noticing to add into certain situations when writing to solve specific issues.

For example, I've seen material from Timothy Hickson from his book "On Writing and Worldbuilding" (that has a youtube channel as well) that uses anime quite frequently to show different aspects about character arcs, pacing, etc

 

[sknox]

>There may be a structure in anime in terms of storytelling
Can you give examples? I'm curious if there's genuine structure there, as most anime strikes me as an endless series of overpowered crash bang. Sort of the animation version of a 70s movie with car chases and explosions and very little actual story.

There are exceptions, of course (I mentioned a couple, earlier). But those were ones that did have a story to tell and there was nothing in the storytelling that strikes me as unique. To put it another way, what would an anime *novel* be and how would an average (sff) reader encounter it and think oh, this is an anime novel?

 

[HareBrain]

To put it another way, what would an anime *novel* be and how would an average (sff) reader encounter it and think oh, this is an anime novel?

The test is: "Does the novel contain a teenager with strong psychic powers who loses control of them and turns into a monster?"

(I only kind of jest: I'm pretty sure this is why some people said one novel of mine has an anime flavour.)

 

[Flaviosky]

The test is: "Does the novel contain a teenager with strong psychic powers who loses control of them and turns into a monster?"

(I only kind of jest: I'm pretty sure this is why some people said one novel of mine has an anime flavour.)

Yeah, I mean...Overpowered MC (usually male), childish treatment of romance, very (I mean, very) simple characters and character arcs, vacuum characters (no siblings, no parents, no nothing), and so on...

Can you give examples? I'm curious if there's genuine structure there, as most anime strikes me as an endless series of overpowered crash bang. Sort of the animation version of a 70s movie with car chases and explosions and very little actual story.

I find Neon Genesis Evangelion quite interesting. The pacing of the series varies from frantic to even stagnant, and even so, those stagnant yet apparently boring moments have this oniric flavour where you can almost grasp the madness growing inside the characters. I ignore if this answers your question but I find it quite rich.

 

[.matthew.]

I find the storytelling of anime to be too basic to really enjoy. Most times I try to get into it I find I bounce off pretty hard - admittedly only with dubs because if I wanted to read, I'd pick up a book.

• Sometimes the short-run ones can be good enough to sit through, but the plots often seem to be nothing more than a way to justify the weirdly sexual.
• The dialogue seems to be pretty badly written a lot of the time as well, with the overly repetitive being the thing that stands out most to me.
• Long-run series have (from fans I know) so much filler that you can effectively skip a dozen episodes without missing anything of note.

I have enjoyed some over the years, but still, the majority have left me deeply dissatisfied. I suppose that means there are probably quite a few other good ones, but I wouldn't want to read a book based on them.

 

[Flaviosky]

I find the storytelling of anime to be too basic to really enjoy. Most times I try to get into it I find I bounce off pretty hard - admittedly only with dubs because if I wanted to read, I'd pick up a book.

• Sometimes the short-run ones can be good enough to sit through, but the plots often seem to be nothing more than a way to justify the weirdly sexual.
• The dialogue seems to be pretty badly written a lot of the time as well, with the overly repetitive being the thing that stands out most to me.
• Long-run series have (from fans I know) so much filler that you can effectively skip a dozen episodes without missing anything of note.

I have enjoyed some over the years, but still, the majority have left me deeply dissatisfied. I suppose that means there are probably quite a few other good ones, but I wouldn't want to read a book based on them.

Well, this is something I was hoping to bring into the discussion.

A perfectly reasonable outcome may be "Anime has few or no things to offer in terms of fantasy writing".

 

[Toby Frost]

most anime strikes me as an endless series of overpowered crash bang.

The problem I have with anime is that I don't speak it's visual language (if that's the phrase) and I don't really feel the need to learn it. All the robots, cartoonish violence and slightly creepy girl-women (and yes, that's a massive stereotype, but a lot of what a casual viewer sees is like that) pushes me away. One of the reasons I'm prepared to make that effort with the Studio Ghibli films is that they have a charm that a lot of anime (to me) lacks. I suspect some of it is very good, but I don't know where to start.

I remember being shown an anime show, which was apparently a good one, about a brother and sister who rescued a girl who had magic powers. It lurched between insane, crazed violence and sickly mawkishness: from my own point of view, there was nothing to latch on to (which means nothing I can learn writing-wise). Is that my problem? Probably. But there it is. I enjoyed Samurai Champloo because the episodes were short enough not to go crazy plot-wise, the setting was interesting and, most importantly, the characters made sense.

 

[HareBrain]

For me, the best anime I've seen for series-length storytelling is the original Fullmetal Alchemist (I'm not fond of the Brotherhood remake). Where this scores heavily is the relationship dynamics between the different characters and the different groups, both personal and political. The range here is incredibly rich, but easily mapped and comprehensible, and all works towards the whole. I've not come across anything really like it in any medium (and it influenced some aspects of my book The Goddess Project, which originated as an attempt to tell a story with a similar kind of cast list).

Is there anything particularly anime about that? Because it seems to be to be such a one-off (most anime leaves me cold) I'm not sure. The character interplay is possibly more distinctive in some cases (especially the humorous ones) because the characters are more simplified than might be satisfying in a novel. There might also be more scope for humour and little side-quest episodes than would fit well in a fantasy novel series.

 

[.matthew.]

I should have added that the premises of various animes are pretty cool and in my opinion, the one thing a lot of them do right - even if I'd prefer them to age up the characters in most cases.

 

[jjcomet]

For me, when I am writing my story I try and see the scene in anime - because until the L.O.T.R. movies, real life versions of dwarves and monsters there not good (might be a little bias). And I have never been able to 'day-dream' about fantasy, most of my mind movies are boring, real life thoughts.
So to envision what I am writing about I try and see things in the anime style, but even that is hard. It is seeing the words on paper which paint the picture most of the time for me.
Realize that might not be a good reference which Flaviosky is talking about, but that's my anime / fantasy writing style.

 

[The Big Peat]

Found this while looking to see if we had a Cowboy Bebop thread on the forum and found it interesting.

The first and simple answer to Flaviosky's question is demographics. Most people on this forum never took in anime at a formative year and therefore it's not going to be one of the things they bring up most. Just the way it is. For an example - some places and people I talk writing, we have Guy Gavriel Kay and Discworld as shared touchstones. Some places and people, those touchstones are people they don't know because they're too young. Some places and people, those authors came by post-formative phase and aren't quite touchstone. Same with anime.

I'm in the same boat. I know some Ghibli, Cowboy Bebop, gave Full Metal Alchemist a go and was unconvinced. Avatar I'd consider as Anime inspired rather than true anime. I know one worldbuilding author who uses AtLA as one of his touchstone examples, which makes sense to me.

To me, the most interesting thing about Anime as the way a lot of it takes Western genres and gives them big old twists. It's a lot easier for Japanese creatives to see them in a fresh light than it is for us Anglosphere natives (I wonder if the South Americans who've posted in this thread get the feeling they see genre in a different way too). Not every Anime does that, but there seems to be enough to make it worth picking at.

 

[Swank]

I'm not sure I understand the idea of anime as a source for fantasy writing. Quite a bit of anime comes from written material already - manga and light novels. Some anime, like Yukikaze, comes directly from adult SF novels. Anime is more the act of adapting written material and illustrations to animation, rather than a creative process all its own that produces unique thematic material. It is an aesthetic.

It may be illustrative to consider whether a non-illustrated novel about the combat of super powered people or transforming giant robots would be very interesting to read as original material. Some things are exciting to see, but not describe. Some things are powerful in description but hard to portray visually.

So it may not be a lack of love or interest, but just the gulf between a very dynamic visual medium and print.