A question I have continually asked myself is “What is anime?” You might think me foolish for asking this question, “The answer is obvious!” I hear you say. We all know that animation created in Japan by a Japanese crew is anime, however, where does that term end? Is a piece of animation made for outside of Japan by a Japanese crew also an anime? When I’ve spoken to people about this, they tend to fall in two camps. If anime is about storytelling then these productions are not anime, if anime is about art and animation then they are anime. Nonetheless, I think a discussion of anime made for and funded by the West is worth having.
When anime’s popularity began to skyrocket worldwide from the 90s to mid 2000s, we began to see the rise of anime-influenced animation. However, in addition to this, we also saw some Western companies fund animated productions of their properties with anime studios. While rarer today, it is still not completely unheard of for this to still happen.
Easily the most famous example of this is The Animatrix. The Wachowskis had been influenced by anime when producing The Matrix and decided to work with anime studios to produce a series of short films set in the Matrix universe. This production featured a surprising variety of talent including Takeshi Koike, Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoshiaki Kawajiri and while Studio 4°C did the lion share of the animation, anime studio Madhouse also contributed as well as a Korean animation studio DNA Productions and the now defunct Square Pictures.
One of the most interesting examples of Western interest in anime is one that I rarely see discussed. When Quentin Tarantino created Kill Bill Vol. 1, he chose to tell the backstory of O-Ren Ishii through an anime sequence animated by Production I.G. Having an anime segment in a predominantly live-action film is highly unusual but suits the style of the film perfectly and I would love to see more films implement this idea.
Of course, not all anime made for the West is as ambitious as these. Electronic Arts worked with several anime studios to release several tie-in films to their video game franchises, films such as Dead Space: Downfall, Dead Space: Aftermath, Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker and Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic. These films were, generally, considered to be mediocre at best and lacking the polish often seen in other anime productions.
Even after the anime boom, we still see anime tie-ins created to promote other media. Both Altered Carbon and Blade Runner 2049 had anime projects developed and released. The Blade Runner anime, in particular, proved successful enough that there will now be a Blade Runner anime TV series.
As anime grows globally, it makes sense that Western companies will be interested in hiring anime studios to produce content based on their properties. While some of these have been of poor quality, there are enough successful releases to give me hope that more of these productions will take place. Let me know what anime made for the West you have enjoyed, which you didn’t enjoy and what your thoughts are overall on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!