Enter Japan. When I was a kid I saw a movie on TV called "Robot Carnival". It was an attempt by that station to introduce what they called "Japanimation" to the US. It must've been 1994 or 1995. As a kid, I loved "Tailspin", "Batman", and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Those were great examples of animation and quality in my mind. But then I saw "Robot Carnival". Think about the shows I mentioned, then watch this clip:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gn4a_presence_shortfilms
The subtitles are horrible, but the dialogue actually doesn't impact the short. It's basically Pygmalion with a robot.
Having only been exposed to american kid cartoons, I remember having this reaction:
So, I saw that before the internet was available to me, so I only knew about Otomo Katsuhiro from Robot Carnival at that time, but I soon learned about Miyazaki Hayao as well, and saw Kiki's Delivery Service and Laputa. Compared to Disney movies, the Miyazaki films seemed far more interesting and they also tackled more down to earth concepts in their stories. I had heard about a movie by Otomo called "Akira" which was supposedly the greatest example of cel animation of all time, although I was never able to see it until well after it was finally released on DVD in the USA, in 2001. This was to be a common theme for Japanese animation when I was interested in it initially. Hear about something awesome from a friend, can't find out anything about it (no useful internet until about '97), and later on can't get it -- DVD wasn't really feasible until about 2003 and VHS releases were awful because they were dubbed (yuck) by the same tiny group of people who translated the material with zero budget. Being a talented voice actor and having a knack for Japanese usually don't go hand in hand.
So, I was met with the most fantastic looking animation I had ever seen in a film that contained almost no dialogue and was known as the Japanese Fantasia (Robot Carnival) in 1994. I was then unable to see any further animation from Japan without it being either highly edited by Disney (turning alchohol / blood into milk, covering up foreign writing, etc), or highly edited by whoever else (audio dubbed over) unless it was somebody's bootleg subtitled version until around 2003.
All the while, American animation was falling apart and we got movies like Hercules.
There was one or two exports from Japan that were heavily marketed to the US during this time period, and I actually think that these exports did not help animation in the US or help to create a respected image of Japanese animation here either. I'm talking about Pokemon. For nearly a decade, this episodic show that existed only to sell products was what 99% of Americans were exposed to and what they still think of as "Anime". It's really kind of sad.
During the late 80s, animated TV shows in Japan started taking on a mini series type format. You get 26 episodes, sometimes as few as 11, sometimes a lot more, and you tell a complete story from beginning to end with those episodes. That's right, most Japanese cartoons have an ending. This is still pretty much unheard of in the US. So, while Animaniacs was plugging along, studios in Japan were producing shows with feature film music, professional voice actors, and complete stories like "Escaflowne", "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Trigun". Not into action? Well, you could have seen "His and Her Circumstances" or "Great Teacher Onizuka". All of these shows looked great, sounded great, and told great stories.
DVDs finally opened up the potential for animation, and not just from Japan. Now the original audio with subtitles could be offered as an option along with English audio. People with an interest in animation could now be targeted specifically through the DVD format, rather than trying to put together a TV version that the stations would air. A lot of French animation is now available in the US, and Persepolis is an outstanding example of this.
It's ironic that as DVDs and the internet now made cel-style animation widely available from around the world, cel-style animation in the US has all but died and story driven cartoons have never caught on. The closest the US came was the attempt to copy Japan with "The Last Air Bender" (which was HUGELY popular with kids, and was sort of story driven).
So ... what gives? Am I a rare breed? Should cartoons just be low budget stuff to keep kids happy, or can it be art that is appreciated by adults too? Anyone else think France and Japan are doing something cool? Otomo? Miyazaki?
I loved every minute of it.
