Anime Dedication

What the heck is it? Why are people so obsessed over it? Well, there are many reasons, some is for the story, others its the action, then there are those who watch for the artwork. In some cases people who see Anime assume that anime is just a kid show. This is entirelly not the case, Anime is not just for kids, its actually got some adult context that would fly over the kids' heads and parents would find extremely interesting.

In other cases there is a cultural type of understanding, if someone would read my Japanese Mythology that is my reason for watching, I love mythology, but while my counterparts are entirely more interested in Anime as a form of entertianment.

Just a little bit of information would go along ways.

Age Matters

Anime is not always for children, let's just put it this way, some anime will have rough language, Saiyuki is pretty rough around the edges. Parents won't see it that way until after there is a complaint. Back a few years ago an anime called Escaflowne was on Fox Kids during the teenagers' time, just before some of the sports stuff took over. Many kids who were teenagers from the ages of 13 and up were watching, then suddenly one day it was taken off. Why?

There are reasons why some networks have opted to censor anime for younger audiences, but that is only half of it. Anime is sort of a fine line between what is acceptable and what is considered bad. Naruto walks this fine line and soon faces a censorship hail storm with episodes having all blood removed. This could be called Extreme in the eyes of fans! There are those who champion the censorship with a sort of eye that animation is ALWAYS for kids. This is far from the truth.

Cultural Uncertainity

When parents decide that anime needs to be censored, some of it is for ethnocentric reasons and less for the content. There are parents who start to say that children in the United States shouldn't know about other cultures and the names from Japan are sort of annoying and hard to pronounce. This is when we get the Sailor Moon anime problem, censorship taken too far, the show was a flop from beginning to end.

The whole censorship issue will be heated until the day you die. And that's how it is has been for awhile. The problems that have come up with censoring is that it can rob someone of the joys of learning about other cultures.

A General Genera for all

There are many different type of anime, there are the action, adventure, mystery, fantasy, horror, mecha (robots), hentai (adult), and so on. If there are generas in movies and animation in the US, then there are genera for anime as well. Though my personal favorite is horror, lol.

Anime in general is pretty much like the cheapest way to make money in Japan at times, and usually its cheaper to pay an animation staff than actors. Japan has a strange set of rules to make movies, so usually directors will make a series of anime before making a live action feature. This is sort of strange considering that some anime even have live action counterparts.

Do you understand? If not, that's not really that bad, its confusing for the beginners who have never watched a show.

Manga

What is Manga? Well, this is pure and simple, its comic books, Japanese comicbooks are called Manga or stilled pictures. The stories are pretty much like anime, but the stylization is a little different and more refined at times when you look at it in the artists way of thinking.

There are generas just the same as there are types of books to be read by different people. The stories are different and are just as interesting. Characters are just like in novels, they are drawn out for peopel to see, but you get the same storyline at times too. There are manga versions of novels in the US too.

Do all Manga become anime?

No, not all become anime, simply because sometimes even the artists aren't interested in animating it. Manga like, "Dance in the Vampire Bund," or even "The Wanderer" could face that same type of consideration as the artist usually wants their reader more interested in the manga or story than in the anime version, because sometimes the anime will change the story around instead of working with the stories at hand in the manga.

"Hellsing" and many others are reworked so that the anime will be similiar if not a little more like the manga. This is not always demanded by the fans, but the fans were willing to work with that, it is not always the fans who wants this either.

Pros and Cons of Dubbing

Many people will opt to say that dubbing is horrible, sometimes even Japanese find that dubbing can be better. There are a few anime that have been over the years been considered on the list of the GOOD dubbing, these have included Cowboy Bepop, Hellsing, and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Dubbing is around for YOUR benefit, for good reasons too, some people cannot read subtitles and sometimes even dubbing helps. Though yes, there are moments that dubbing can cause a loss in the culture, which is a big con.

Subtitling is also good, but there are again the problems with seeing it, I have partial color blindness, I can't see green very well, so dubbing is sometimes good because some subtitles are not seen. Are subtitles bad? Well no, some anime will never dubbed or will never be seen in the states. I would say there are many ways you can watch that and not have a problem, I would suggest a computer and good internet.

Fansubbing

What the hell is this? Well before some anime is brought to the states, the fans will go in and subtitle it for you, but this again comes with problems. If you are a person who likes Japanese anime and will go to this, will discover issues with that, sometimes you won't be able to see the subtitles and will have numerous spelling errors.

Again, though, fan subbing is sometimes better than some of the dubbing.Just be a little careful at what you pick.

The easy way to tell the difference if the subbing was professionally done if you don't know, is that sometimes the subtitles used are sometimes uneven, but also the fonts are different, sometimes using Sans Comic or other types. The professionals will use something like Old Bookman or Times New Roman.