Itsumô Wareware no Bentô wo Tabeyagateru

Yes, that means "Always fricking eating our lunch." In Japanese. No that's not an expression there.

So I was recently thinking that perhaps an American animation art-style, for instance that of this person's Harry Potter fanart, might be better for when I draw my characters—I don't draw much, and the manga/anime style I favor is very hard for me; it also tends to obscure what ethnicity characters are (the industry term is "mukokuseki" or "country-less style"). Anyway I came across a bunch of articles comparing anime and western animation. You probably know where this is going now.

There were a number of things people said, for or against one side or another. Guess what? They're all wrong. This is a thing I have; if you argue wrong, I'll say you're wrong even if I actually agree with you. Your opinion might be right, but you probably don't have a right to it.

Naturally, this brings us to an ordered list. Who the hell do you think I am?

1. Pro-anime: anime has strong female characters.
   
   It also has moe, the loveable pervert, and (most of) the bishôjô genre. So, as they say, there.


2. Anti-anime: anime's portrayal of women is sexist.
   
   Compared to the Disney Princess thing? The Disney thing is also simultaneously snobbish and ignorant of the concept of noblesse oblige (far from being the selfish brats in Disney movies, real princesses, like real princes, barely got private lives). Also, anime has at least managed to grasp that "strong" and "feminine" are not mutually exclusive, a concept most westerners struggle mightily with. So (again) there.
   
   Oddly enough, apparently not hitting girls is part of feminism, in Japan. Who knew?


3. Pro-anime: anime doesn't have superficial good vs. evil stories.
   
   One questions how the conflict of Being and Nonbeing is superficial, precisely, but then again, Western work doesn't involve self-righteousness from a largely-unrepentant Axis Power, either. So...yeah, there, really.


4. Pro-anime (yeah there's more of these): anime is critical of our treatment of the environment.
   
   Right, because there's never a Green message in American work.


5. Anti-anime: anime is more about high-tech stories without much depth.
   
   Yes, people've said that, I don't get it either—do they know there's more anime than Ghost in the Shell? Anime, like Japanese culture generally, is much better at coping with a highly technological civilization. And they're always as deep as comparable western work (that meaning, "most anime is as deep as Batman: TAS, because that's the only really comparable work").


6. Pro-anime: anime at least understands that animation isn't only for children, and that you can tell serious stories in it. While Western animation is just kids' shows or Family Guy.
   
   Yeah, well, pretty much, actually, but I don't see anyone who says this asking for Hollywood to make more serious stuff for grownups. Then again if they did, it'd probably suck; Hollywood's recent crap has been almost as stupid and politically myopic as the "we're the reason for half the world's war-crimes laws but we think we still get to criticize other people's foreign policy" thing. Look at comic books: do you want an animated Marvel Civil War? Yeah, thought not.