I am no film critic, but I try...
Why watch anime?
It’s hard to defend anime without sounding defensive. It’s silly to say things like “Anime is not just kids’ cartoons”, though that is true. Anime is a combination of medium of animation and a culture that can sometimes do a fair job making use of this medium. So, ask, rather, “why watch animation?”
Why watch animation?
In this country, at least, animation is an underappreciated medium. Many web sites complain about that. In part, you have Disney to blame for making American animation a children’s medium. It is all the more ironic that anime as a style of animation was inspired by Disney’s early animated features. More on that can be read in the “A Brief History of Anime” by Michael O’Connel.
Frankly, I don’t like comparing animated and live-action film: it always comes out sounding defensive and doesn’t do justice to either medium. Still, until I can think of a better way to present this (suggestions welcome), here goes...
It is obvious that because every frame is synthesized rather than photographed, animation gives the maker of the film much more control over what the audience sees. Indeed, computer special effects, which also increase this control for live-action film, can be considered a form of animation, because they treat each frame individually. At the same time, because of technological and economic constraints, animation, and anime in particular, almost never look photorealistic, so rather than conveying images of reality, it conveys those elements of it that animator chooses to convey, along with other things that are not derived from that image.
Thus, photorealism is about as much a metric of quality of animation as it is a metric of quality of drawings and paintings—that is to say, not at all. By being inherently not photorealistic, animation loosens the boundaries of what we can perceive and understand. For example, seeing a two-headed man in a live-action film is seen as a grotesque and impressive special effect, while seeing a two-headed man drawn into an animated film is taken for granted and accepted. This reduces the power of animation to affect the audience through raw images, perhaps, but that is made up for by allowing more to be shown without looking absurd.
This makes animation a powerful tool of visual metaphor in film. In live-action film, seeing is believing—everything that is shown is really being perceived (at least as far as the perspective being used is concerned). Indeed, even in a film like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, an amazing blend of animation and live-action, the animated elements (the Toons) are assimilated into the live-action universe. Animation, on the other hand, can have visual metaphors regardless of perspective. For a somewhat exaggerated example, take a look at this screenshot:
Left to right: Tsubasa, Souichiro, Yukino.
Screenshot taken from His and Her Circumstances (also known as Kare-Kano) produced by Gainax, DVD translated and distributed in US by The Right Stuf International. Used for the purpose of criticism.
Shown here is the reaction of Tsubasa to Yukino's offering her hand to her. Tsubasa’s feelings towards Yukino are obvious. Watching animation, we think of the fictional characters of anime as drawings of humans, not of a species with ultra-flexible jaws, unknown to science. Thus, looking at this picture, we don’t think of Tsubasa as trying to bite off Yukino’s arm below the elbow. We think of it as Tsubasa somehow conveying a very negative sentiment towards Yukino, Yukino’s surprised reaction, and Soichiro’s angry reaction. This image, if rendered more photorealistically (involving a lot of special effects work) would look grotesque at best, and would convey something completely different. (Don’t worry, Yukino doesn’t lose her arm.)
The sound effect that accompanies this is a chomp, and it is very prominently displayed on top (in Japanese) and alongside (in English, translated) of the action. In this case, it is used to underscore the action, but it could be used to convey other information. Again, making the distasteful comparison to live-action, conveying something to the audience through on-screen text can take the form either of text that actually occurs in film’s reality (i.e. that a character can read) or something superimposed onto the picture, making the text something separate from it and on a different level. In animation, such dichotomy doesn’t have to exist—everything, text and non-text alike are drawn or rendered.
And so it is. There are things in live-action film that are not accessible to animation. There are things in animation that are not accessible to live-action film. Ultimately, it comes down to an individual movie or series—can it make a good use of its medium, or will it join the sea of noise that permeates all media? Maybe I am just trying to rationalize watching cartoons. Maybe there is something to this. Either way, my name is Pavel K. and I am an anime fan. And proud.