Greatest decade in film?

Just starting out with "Japanese anime" already is a sign to stop reading by the way. It's like saying American American film. Because Anime means Japanese animation, so it shows the person does not know what the term means. Also, the character design style associated with the name anime in the US (which I like to call the Contemporary Otaku Tezuka style) has nothing to do with the meaning of the term, that style is relatively more present in Computer Games, Light Novels and Graphic Novels than in Japanese animation itself (which is mostly pretty conservative if you dis-consider late night otaku aimed stuff).

the most watched Japanese animation of all time looks like this:



The most watched Japanese animated film of all time looks like this:



The extremely distorted drawing style is relatively more common in manga and computer games because they target a more niche demographics than daytime TV does, which targets the whole family so it is less extreme/more moderate in style.

By comparison, some items of Japanese popular culture.

Graphic novels:


Computer Games:


Novel covers:


Music albums:


I don't believe they will last that long though. Usually the true masterpieces take more time to reveal themselves.

And, since someone is so damn hung up on anime, the original anime were inspired by what Disney was doing. Blame Disney for big boobs and tentacle porn!

Also, watch Cowboy Bebop and shut up.

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Yeah I heard about that, Mickey Mouse is one of the biggest influences on anime.

Something else anime-related I always wondered. Why do so many anime characters look like Europeans when they're made by Japanese?

I just seen Big Eyes last night. Someone suggested online that the artwork from the late 1950s/early60s by Keane that was featured in this movie was responsible for influencing the big eye look of anime.

I have no idea if that's true. Guap do you know when amine first had the big eye look?

I'm no anime expert, but I think it was Astro Boy. Which I think came out around the same time.

Just looking at that picture that probably did have a profound impact on what modern anime would end up looking like.

I came across an interesting little article regarding this matter just a few days ago:
http://kotaku.com/5627268/why-do-jap...ers-look-white

I'm sorry but I disagree with that article completely.

The guy says: "It's only because Americans think anime characters look white." Uhh. What? When so many anime characters have all the characteristics of "White People" as the guy says (I prefer the term European) then how can you not think that?

The Simpsons reference is also kinda dumb, because no one in the world has the traits of a Simpsons character. Yet there are people that aren't Japanese that have the characteristics that many anime characters have.

So pretty much that article is trying to tell us, you see an anime character that has pale-white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes and you're suppose to just assume "Yeah that guy is Japanese."

That's about as odd as an anime character having ebony skin, very-curly black hair, and dark brown eyes and assuming, "Yeah that guy is European."

You get what I'm saying?

Are the Simpsons Asian?

Nah it's an American show.

The guy in the article mentions specifically that stereotypical anime characters have, as well:
-Bug eyes
-Small noses
-Variably colored hairstyles (yellow, purple, blue...)

All of these characteristics that are not close to European traits. And pale/white skin is neither necessarily a defining characteristic of Europeans nor that different to Japanese skin color to begin with.

Anyway, how many blonde, blue-eyed anime characters can you name, though? And how many of them are in comparison with blue-haired, dark-haired, whatever-eyed instances?

Disney has a movie with big boobs and tentacle porn? My god...

Well, that makes one

On topic (yep, it's been a while). According to what I watched, the decade I find more consistant is the 60s. European New Waves were at their peak, Japanese classics were still active, and what I watched from the US is generally solid as well. Directors like Buñuel, Wilder, Hitchcock, Ford or Polanski peaked during this decade. And the best Spanish movies I've seen are from the 60s as well. In short, I don't know if it's merely coincidental, but in proportion the 60s have brought more great stuff than the rest.

Can't really argue against the 60's. Have you seen Lawrence of Arabia? Quite possibly the best epic ever imo.

Wow that's great at dispelling the idea that Japanese animation exploits young girls, lolol

@ False Writer, look at this Westerner tourist in Japan:





He looks much more realistic than the flat faced round eye pointy haired character to the right, isn't it?

Well, big eyed is common but the characters of perhaps more than half of all anime don't have big eyes. I showed a couple of posts above that the most popular animated film and TV series in Japan don't have big eyes look.

Hyoge Mono:


Also, pink and blue hair are just as common as blond and red hair. Main cast from Aria:



More realistic anime set in Japan portray everybody with black or brown hair:



The more fantasy themed ones that tend to have people with many different hair colors. And notice that Asians have more flat faces with Caucasians have more "hilly" faces, manga and animated characters usually have flat faces when you look at it from the side perspective just like real life Asians:



Foreigners in Japan are usually extremely distorted as well in the sense that apparently every single British person has platinum blond hair:


Find the 2 girls who are supposed to be British above.

Ozamu Tezuka invented the basic design patterns of most manga in the 1950's. So it's around 1955, the first animation made in Japan which incorporated Tezuka's style was Astro Boy in 1963.

Tezuka manga from the 1950's:


Influences to Tezuka's style include Betty Boob:



Though it evolved significantly from that, character designs from manga made in 2012 look very different from manga from 1998, for instance. So it's a style in constant mutation and evolution.

However, Tezuka's style is the most common in Japanese comic books, animation and even many book and album covers it is not the only one and there is great variety in the designs used.

Lone Wolf and Cub manga, perhaps the greatest and most influential manga ever written used realistic character designs:



Mindgame, animated film:

Maybe the 50's though. Kurosawa, Ozu, Kubrick, Hitchcock, Bresson, Mizoguchi, etc. Really strong decade for live action movies.

Those are very exaggerated features on the westerner.

I also do notice that they will look mostly Asian but will also have a European feature, like how Chihiro in Spirited Away has brown hair.

I don't know, I guess it's not a huge deal, just something I always noticed. I know not all of them look like Europeans, and there are quite a few animes where the characters are suppose to be European (Hellsing, Attack on Titan, Berserk)

Dragon Ball Z is one show I can say where a lot of them pretty much look Asian with the exception of Bulma and Trunks, and maybe just a couple more I'm forgetting.

Well there is the anime classics collection though (http://www.funimation.com/shows/anime-classics/home). It contains a few dubious choices but that applies to any "best list", including some movies in that Criterion Collection.