Pardon me if I'm parroting someone who already posted in the 100+ messages in this thread, I've only read some of it.
Anime is directed at a teenage audience for the most part (with exceptions). There is little that is inherantly intellectual about it, though it does frequently touch on a level of science fiction themes and concepts that rarely see expression in the American media. It's not so much that the plots themselves are deep, or less rife with stereotypes, but a lot of the concepts involved behind those stories can be quite interesting. In general the Western media tends to stay away from things like demons and satanism, mysticism, explorations of addiction, or even handling things like virtual reality and nanotechnology well (both VR and Nanotech have appeared in western cartoons, but far more rarely, and typically not given the same treatment).
Also, like any genere Anime is full of a ton of crud. It's just that people are selective about what they take the time to translate or import for sale. Or rather they WERE selective about it as more and more garbage is released in comparison to the decent stuff from companies looking to make a quick buck on the "fad" (which is gradually losing steam for exactly this reason, the Anime section at some of my local stores like Best Buy has been gradually growing smaller as more and more people are driven away, and it seems that a lot of the consistantly 'best' titles even to the Western Audience when asked are 4-5 years old and even older than that in Japan).
The quality of Anime that makes it to the US is generally higher than most Western Animation, especially seeing as it pulls less punches to fear of offending anyone or invoking ultra-liberal "protect the children" censorship issues. Or at least it does when you can get the uncut stuff which is becoming harder to do, as it's no longer under the radar like it used to be (again leading to a reduction in quality).
People also underestimate the drivel that is American cartoons. At the best American cartoons are highly competitive with Anime despite less in the way of extreme content and involving concepts behind the plot. Comics based cartoons where the creators/liscence holders have an increasingly large involvement, are generally okay (X-men, some of the DC stuff, etc..). But let's not forget we live in a country that turned MC Hammer into a superhero for his own cartoon show, and has taken movies which were amusing in doses (Ace Ventura, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and turned them into ongoing cartoon series that could make you lose brain cells.
Shows like "He-Man" and "The Thundercats" with decent concepts behind them for their day, have not aged well despite nostolgia, especially on merits of their animation, and again due to attention 1980s cartoons (even without anyone dying which was prohibited) are viewed as examples of "too much violence for our children" and what pressue is trying to move the american animation industry away from. Making the super-hero cartoons among the few bastions of good animation left in the US in my opinion (not that I watch a lot of them, and even with what I see I'm probably myself somewhat biased due to a combination of uber-nerdom and nostolgia).
I guess ultimatly what I'm saying is that it evens out when you compare the best of both worlds. However there is more Animation in Japan so more "hits" and we generally get to see a lot of the better stuff. At the bottom it's all drivel, but truthfully it's probably a matter of ignorance, but I have not even heard of an anime that has hit the banality of say "Hammer Man" or "Ace Ventura: The Animated Series".
Despite the differances in style I'd probably put a lot of the Disney animated stuff (even if fairly kiddy), and some of the Marvel/DC animated stuff up against the best competitive TV animation from Japan and it would compare well. But then get into the number of episodes as well.
Does anyone think the new X-men show will produce as many episodes (despite the wealth of comic material) as say a Naruto or Bleach? I doubt even Ducktales, counting it's spinoffs (Darkwing Duck, etc..) even come close.
>>>----Therumancer--->
