In the first few sentences of my previous journal entry, I mentioned that I try to draw in an anime influenced style, but yet I don't absolutely love all anime in general. Just particular shows and styles.

I actually think that it's something I never go into detail about, and might make me seem hypocritical at first glance, until I clear up what I mean by this.

I mean that anime in the US (and apparently from what friends from across the pond have told me, in the UK, too), and it's subculture of Japanese obsessed sycophants, is not at all the kind of viewpoint I subscribe to.

People call them various things, Weeaboos, Wapanese, and so on. And to be fair, they ARE a little pathetic, and I've been guilty of condemning them as annoying and stupid, as well. Cuz they iz.

Because, fact is, Japan is not automatically superior to anything else or anywhere else. Especially in any cultural sense.

Japan is not the single greatest place on earth were all your dreams will come true. It's certainly not worth obsessing over, and frankly, it's history of blatant xenophobia, dismal social values, and stuck-up superiority of the japanese, kind of get on MY nerves. I wouldn't want to live there. I'd visit for a day or two on business or for a good reason. But god knows I wouldn't live there, and I'm MORE than happy right where I am.

But to me, it's the height of ridiculousness to worship a country that you're not from soley because one's favorite cartoons or one other bit of interest comes from there, to the point where they desperately need to PRETEND to be Japanese, and adpot an elitist attitude towards everything else. While being content to obnoxiously butcher the language in random speech and dismiss anything western as automatically "bad", in some misguidedly pathetic attempt to be a cultural suck-up.

I absolutely cringe with sheer revulsion at every yaoi-fangirl that speaks entirely in broken romanized fakey-Japanese who squeal and base their lives on every androgynous J-rock singer they look at and listen to endlessly while pretending they can sing it, and every person that obsesses over anime, but yet always either pirates crappy fansubs, or switches the audio track away from "that horrible evil english", on some kind of miserably idiotic principle that they, themselves don't even understand.

This Weeaboo-japanobphile-fanboy crap is an epidemic of douchebaggery, and I... can't... stand it. I am 100% honest when i say that most of these people deserve a soul-crushing punch in the face.

But........ that has nothing to do with why I draw like this, does it??

Well, quite honestly, I don't even look at anime as purely a "japanese thing", anymore. It's not.

Anime as a style, and series of shows may originate from Japan and is created by and exported from there... but the fact of the matter is that whether anyone likes it or not...

ANIME HAS BECOME, AND IS, AN INTERNATIONAL THING.


It can't be denied anymore, by anyone. The industry has spread it's seed farther than it's mere originating country. Many shows are being, in fact, produced for international audiences as well, so that they can be sold to and made even more money in international territories. And frankly, that's why you see so much of it exported, in the first place.

Anime may have a "Made in Japan" sticker on it, but now it's an international product. That's a fact.

So, weeaboos and such can drop the act, now.

It's perfectly acceptable and fine to admit that anime is just as good when localized to english when done well by a company that puts in effort, and in many cases, can even be better than the "original".

No need to get up on some pro-japanese ass-kissing parade and say "oh the dub is awful stupid english sucks, japanese is sooooooo better always". You can drop the fucking act, because your paper thin elitist loyalty isn't earning you any goddamn brown-nosing points, anymore.

Anime is an international product.

And that, finally getting to my point... is why I tend to draw this way.

Because i'm taking influence from a particular style of internationally accepted art for my own because... it looks cool. And i'm talking specifically about the angular, stylized, sharp-edgy look. From a design standpoint, I fall in love with it. Regardless of what country came up with this style and sense of fashion, it looks appealing to me.

Not because it's from OMG JAPAN. Not for any other reason than "I see it, it looks good, it fits my intent, and it works for what I do." This style could have come from Romania, for all I care and I would have loved it. I wouldn't necessarily write Romania a love letter, either, but i'd appreciate the style for what it is.

And please also take notice that I don't draw or copy straight from anime, and I don't use "How to draw anime books", or even rip off established anime or manga artists.

You can see this by that Aydra drawing on the side of this main page.

I've always been trying to forge a particular style that is hardly realistic, and has many elements of simplistic western cartoon design mixed in, combined with the sharp, angular stylization of anime influence. Like hair, face shape, expression, and other design elements.

I consider my art inspired by anime, but drawn more stylized, simplistic and extremist. (But.... as for some self-critique, I seem to have trouble rendering volume in my drawings, and am still trying to make things not appear so flat and 1-D. But i'm working on that still)

This is because I don't view anime as just "that Japanese thing", and am absolutely in no way trying to BE Japanese. There's no need for it.

Anime has left japan, grown up and became an international thing, as i've said a few times already.

And if I take any inspiration, I do it because I see a tinge of something that looks appealing to me for style reasons, and not because I have a useless hard on for Japan.

And as I mentioned, I don't even like a lot of it.

Japan, has a serious problem with coherent narrative, and straightforward storytelling. Always has, always will. Sometimes they succeed, but I've always noticed that they struggle with it, immensely.

This is awesome and usually very good when it comes down to quirk, strangeness, weirdness, comedy, and/or humor. I give them every bit of credit, the Japanese are creative and hilariously weird.

They can't tell a serious story that's simple and direct, to save their lives. But they make good funny stuff, and fighting shows, when it's kept simple and not over-the-top convoluted and stupid.

I like a lot of humor aspects that comes from the anime culture, too. Catgirls, Maid outfits, giant robots, martial arts duels, strangely clothed badasses with impossibly funky weaponry....

Yeah, those are all cliches nowadays. But you know what? They are cool ones. And they come from a cool and imaginative place. No, not "Japan.". They come from a cool place in the imaginations of creative people that happen to COME from Japan.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that one of the only REAL things that I generally admire about anime is it's artwork, drawing, design, graphics, style and feel. Lord knows a lot of the stories and plots are overly pretentious and don't make a damn bit of sense. But that's sort of a digression.

Ever since I was young, when I first witnessed anime series beginning to creep into the American consciousness, I had ALWAYS envisioned a unique merging of this style with the rest of the world's style, and particularly the American nation it was coming popular in.

I always wanted that to happen.

Unlike the weeaboos that eventually surfaced who always cried "KEEP YOUR FILTHY WEST OUT OF MY BRILLIANT JAPAN.", I, from the very beginning at a young age, wanted more than anything for these things to come together, to combine and make something awesome. ........you know...... like a giant interconnecting mecha.

So... in summary:

* Localization is not a dirty word
* Dubs are fine.
* Japan isn't better than any other culture on earth
* Anime is an international thing
* there's no more reason to be an ignorant, culturally elitist superiority snob about it
* "Anime or Manga-style" is a smaller part of the broader form of cartooning and caricature.
* and therefore, it's more than fair game to claim elements of Anime as an international inspiration for art.

This is why, even though I do often knock a good deal of anime, heavily criticize aspects of it that I don't like from my own unique thoughts on taste, and sometimes have a pretty cold opinion on Japan as a nation, I still like some things anime does on it's own merits, and incorporate these into the way I draw.

Seriously. It's an international thing and that's how I view it. I simply grew up on video games, NES, SNES, and many animated shows of all types from all of the major animated works that i'e been exposed to.