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« on: 2009-09-20 01:12:54 »
I don't see why there's an argument going on here, when you cut through the crap, that Japanese animation is somehow "deeper" than western animation or visa versa. Most Japanese animation has more complex themes, definitely, but complex does not equal deeper. I could argue that The Fox and The Hound, rife with childish songs and simplicity is just as deep because of that simplicity. We can connect with the idea of being best friends with someone, moving away, growing apart, then seeing each other later in life as opposites. That is deep because nearly all of us have had that happen to us, and it sucked. How many of us have gone through a post-apocalyptic setting dealing with child abuse by greedy superiors trying to meet their own goals at our expense?
I get it, I get that you have to think more and I've grossly skimmed an idea, but so what? You think about the stories more and more, but it still doesn't connect with you. The only thing you walk away with is gratification that you understand fully what the director was trying to convey, a vague philosophy about one thing or another. But does it apply to you on a mental or emotional level?
I guess what I'm getting at here is that Japanese animation intends to bond you to the characters in the film, make you experience their lives and connect with their actions. It's emotional, but mostly because you feel for the characters. Western animation - comedy aside - tries to connect with the viewer and create scenarios that parallel life experiences they can already relate to or will likely experience at some point in their life. It's simplistic emotion. It's no surprise that the two styles are so different, with Westerners (me included, I'm not ashamed to say) fueled by simple emotions and the Japanese being more philosophical.
Regardless, this is all a bit moot anyhow. Western culture is so different that anime is mostly viewed as "nerdy" and nobody wants to associate with it. This puts a serious cap on efforts to tell epic stories, and is a large reason why most epic stories make their way into live action and not anime here. Nobody can possibly say with a straight face that westerners have not created MANY live action stories with complex themes. If animating these ideas was more profitable without that "nerd" stigma attached to it, it would happen more often.
My two cents on the matter, agree to disagree if you see things differently cause I'm not slinging mud over it.
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Glad to see this is being done, I can only imagine how many total backgrounds there are in the game. You should skip ahead to where you fight the boss in Junon when you rescue Priscilla at some point just to look at it, I wonder how the background works since if I recall correctly, there's water with waves in it during the battle. Might be best to figure it out in advance so you know what to do later?