CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

What things does anime not have? There's alot of things it does have like mecha, magical girls, battles in space and more. Can anyone come up with anything that isnt in anime?

Anime does not have real noses on peoples faces....they are more of a tryangal....then a nose.

Anime doesn't have GP in it, and that's nothing short of a travesty.

One thing that anime should have but doesn't have (at least, not enough of) is good use of words. Witty, natural dialogue is the exception rather than the norm. The language barrier doesn't help, but the wordplay of even the average WB drama puts most anime to shame.

I'd rather see spins on overused cliches.

For example, a giant robot series, and when the main character finds the robot, decides to go on a rampage with it or something.

I do agree with Cap'n about dialogue.

I'm sick of

anime wrote: Ryo, will you be going to the festival?

Instead of something more natural, like

natural wrote: Hey, you goin' to that festival thing, eh?

On a somewhat more serious note, if any of you own the Grave of the Fireflies Special Edition 2 disc DVD set, Roger Ebert makes some very interesting statement regarding anime vs. live action in his interview concerning the film. He mainly talks about how anime has an ability to portray certain things in a different light and sometimes in a more powerful way than live action, and also vice versa (honestly the LOTR films wouldn't have have been as moving for me if they were animated; mho though :-)) It's pretty cool to hear what he has to say considering he doesn't have much time to view alot of anime outside of theatrically released films like Miyazaki's.

Anime doesn't really have any superheroes of the caped, masked avenger American variety. Anime crime fighters tend to be either magic school children or color coded ninja teams.

Cap'n Crack wrote:One thing that anime should have but doesn't have (at least, not enough of) is good use of words. Witty, natural dialogue is the exception rather than the norm. The language barrier doesn't help, but the wordplay of even the average WB drama puts most anime to shame.

The language barrier is the ENTIRE problem... You have two choices:

1. Entirely accurate (well, almost) and entirely stale
2. Very Hip or colorful, and not an accurate representation of the original material.

Even take the Bible. Even the best of Bibles, at least the ones that attempt accuracy, are stale. NIV, CJB, NASB. Very stale. The further they go on the "hip" side (IE "The Message") , the less accurately they portray the original intent, but even in the more stale ones (NIV, NASB, KJV) some things are lost because of misunderstanding of cultural ideas...

Now, there is an advantage with anime because Modern Japanese is an active language, whereas Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic are not. In addition, modern Japanese culture is still dynamically observable, wheras ancient Jewish culture is not. Still, it is hard to nail every aspect of a culture not your own, but even harder to translate that purely into dialogue.

Therefore, you get accurate but stale and still missing details, or inaccurate and hip, but hip with a limited translation staff that isn't very widely appealing.

Still, no joke in any movie has ever beat Izumi Maki's first dub lines in Nadesico...

"As Schroedinger would say, the answer is in the box... I guess the cat is alive." Hahahahahahahahaha... I'm like the only one I know that got that line... ADV definately has the most natural sounding that don't sound so American that they are sickening...

THat's another thing... These characters are NOT American (well, most of them) so they shouldn't really sound it... It's ok for their dialogue to sound more internationally friendly. Limit the region specific stuff as much as possible...

As for a direct answer to the question, not a whole lot... I want to see christian anime along the lines of "To End All Wars" but that would be rather hard... Just need to start with a manga... I want to see realistic anime (like Grave of the Fireflies) with a Christian message that isn't overwhelming.

Oh, and the nose thing is mostly the tezuka style anime, which is the predominant style, but not all anime are that style. I've seen anime where the characters had very defined noses, I believe... I just can't think of any examples at the moment...

As for a direct answer to the question, not a whole lot... I want to see christian anime along the lines of "To End All Wars" but that would be rather hard... Just need to start with a manga... I want to see realistic anime (like Grave of the Fireflies) with a Christian message that isn't overwhelming.

Right on. I'd love to see one written by someone who actually IS a Christian, rather than taking some crosses and slapping them on top of some totally unrelated content.

I know what Anime doesn't have. Christians.

Nickychris3 wrote:I know what Anime doesn't have. Christians.

Real Christians, that is.

bigsleepj wrote:Real Christians, that is.

Here's a question does american stuff have real christians outside any bible stories and such? I certainly cant think of any so american stuff is just as bad as anime in that regard.

The language one is obvious but again that's true with every kind of media including american stuff when translated for an audience that speaks a different language.

Oh and in macross plus they actually have noses i think so anime does have noses. So far what isnt in anime is just what isnt in any popular media today.

For an example of the language barrier in an american to japanese context watch Sin the movie subbed. It's terrible. The animation and what they're saying doesnt match.

To answer my question though, there's not many sports in animes. Like darts, bowling and such. That's really the only thing i can think of.

I don't think it's all translation. You don't have to be an expert in Japanese to spot botched delivery and dialogue so corny it would be bad no matter what language it was in.

According to Full Moon wo Sagashite, only Americans are allowed to have noses.

In the style of the great and immortal STRONGBAD, the great email guru, two words: Coherent Plotlines. Modest Outfits. Good Dubs. Realistic Bodliyproportions. Small Weapons. Unstlyized Hair. Nano Technology (grrrrrr....stupid paper).

Regarding the noses issue, we can't forget Escaflowne! You could put someones eye out with the noses in that show!

Kura Ookami wrote:Here's a question does american stuff have real christians outside any bible stories and such? I certainly cant think of any so american stuff is just as bad as anime in that regard.

Interesting point, but I'd probably have to agree. I guess since this is mainly an anime forum, people tend to harp on the lack of "real Christians" in anime, but honestly in this day and age there seems to be a lack of "real Christians" anywhere in the media today.

I would like to point out that very few characters actually have their religious
background given in most tv shows these days,so anime isn't that different from
say Star Trek where you don't know the characters religious beliefs(i.e. the HUMAN
characters).
Yes,whenever an anime character's religion is known it's generally Buddhist or
Shintoist but that's because of the fact those are the dominant religions of Japan.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but anime does not have super ninja space monkeys.

A real good serious mafia anime. Like on the level of Godfather or Goodfellas, well I doubt any anime that tried could get to that level but ya never know.

Gungrave certainly deals with a mafia like organization.This is what rather
disturbs me since both Big Daddy and Brandon come across as really rather
nice people,and yet Brandon's a hitman and one has to wonder about
Big Daddy's early days. Even though Big Daddy is one of the nicest
people in the entire anime.

As far as Christians go,isn't Robin a Catholic?

I'd say anime generally lacks realism. Most series are very romanticized. That's what I don't like about it, they all try their hardest to be so enigmatic that they all wind up being the same.

Vash is a neat character, but if you were to boil him down, what would you have? Some guy who's confused and scared. Kenshin? A guilt-ridden killer. Char Anzable? . . . . . . . OK, he was cool. Inuyasha? A hormonal teenager.

Regular showtoons. I have yet to see them in an anime. *Kills Disney* ('Nuff wit' the sangin'!)

Practically speaking since Inuyasha was hanging in the God Tree for around 50 years he's actually around 68 years old.He only looks to be around 18 because
Kikyo's arrow put him in some type of stasis where he didn't age as he slept.
Btw:I believe the actual date for the first season would be some time around
1552.This means that Inuyasha was shot by Naraku disguised as Kikyo in
1502 giving him a birthdate of around 1484,same for Kikyo.If you add about
12 years that means that Kaede was born around 1496.
Meanwhile Sango and Miroku were both born about 1534 and Shippo around
1544.
Since the series was created around 1996 it would mean that Kagome herself was
born some time around 1981,probably around September.
Kagome's mother was probably born 1959-1961.

There's never enough fanservice. Because any fanservice is too much! Get it? Okay, lousy pun.

mitsuki lover wrote:Gungrave certainly deals with a mafia like organization.This is what rather
disturbs me since both Big Daddy and Brandon come across as really rather
nice people,and yet Brandon's a hitman and one has to wonder about
Big Daddy's early days. Even though Big Daddy is one of the nicest
people in the entire anime.

As far as Christians go,isn't Robin a Catholic?

I'm not saying anime doesn't have the mafia in them. But I'm talking about a real serious anime that's centered on the mafia. One where you can actually sympathize with them and they're not just the evil faceless organization trying to kill the main character.

And with what Michael said anime is just very romanticized and not very realistic. That's a big part of it's charm but the only anime to date that honestly does feel real to me is Jin-Roh. It takes place in the mid 1950's a familiar time, after a familiar war, with characters who actually look Japanese, and so on. Anyway the point is I could actually believe that it happened.

Yeah, where are the Roy Rogers & Lone Rangers?

Dialogue: In scriptwriting they call that "On the nose" meaing that the character is saying exactly what they mean. Which in real life, people rarely talk that way, especially about the true feelings.

Lack of Christian themed entertainment: There's lots of good true christians in the industry that are real pros. Problem is, the ones who have the talent & good stories aren't getting funding. (To produce a entertainment project one must have investors)

Unfortunatly it boils down to money.

Kura Ookami wrote: Can anyone come up with anything that isnt in anime?

Real people, mostly.

Starving children in Senegal.

American soldiers kicking butt and looking good while doing it.

Oh, and George Foreman.